rection.

In a word, he was ready to show that those who could, after such a full
and fair exposure, continue to countenance the French insanity were not
mistaken politicians, but bad men; but he thought that in this case, as
in many others, ignorance had been the cause of admiration.

These are strong assertions. They required strong proofs. The member who
laid down these positions was and is ready to give, in his place, to
each position decisive evidence, correspondent to the nature and quality
of the several allegations.

In order to judge on the propriety of the interruption given to Mr.
Burke, in his speech in the committee of the Quebec Bill, it is
necessary to inquire, First, whether, on general principles, he ought to
have been suffered to prove his allegations? Secondly, whether the time
he had chosen was so very unseasonable as to make his exercise of a
parliamentary right productive of ill effects on his friends or his
country? Thirdly, whether the opinions delivered in his book, and which
he had begun to expatiate upon that day, were in contradiction to his
former principles, and inconsistent with the general tenor of his public
conduct?

They who have made eloquent panegyrics on the French Revolution, and who
think a free discussion so very advantageous in every case and under
every circumstance, ought not, in my opinion, to have prevented their
eulogies from being tried on the test of facts. If their panegyric had
been answered with an invective, (bating the difference in point of
eloquence,) the one would have been as good as the other: that is, they
would both of them have been good for nothing. The panegyric and the
satire ought to be suffered to go to trial; and that which shrinks from
if must be contented to stand, at best, as a mere declamation.

I do not think Mr. Burke was wrong in the course he took. That which
seemed to be recommended to him by Mr. Pitt was rather to extol the
English Constitution than to attack the French. I do not determine what
would be best for Mr. Pitt to do in his situation. I do not deny that
_he_ may have good reasons for his reserve. Perhaps they might have been
as good for a similar reserve on the part of Mr. Fox, if his zeal had
suffered him to listen to them. But there were no motives of ministerial
prudence, or of that prudence which ought to guide a man perhaps on the
eve of being minister, to restrain the author of the Reflections. He is
in no office under the