EDMUND BURKE

ON MOVING HIS RESOLUTIONS FOR CONCILIATION WITH THE COLONIES. HOUSE OF COMMONS,
MARCH 22, 1775


I hope, Sir, that notwithstanding the austerity of the Chair, your good nature
will incline you to some degree of indulgence towards human frailty. You will
not think it unnatural that those who have an object depending, which strongly
engages their hopes and fears, should be somewhat inclined to superstition. As I
came into the House full of anxiety about the event of my motion, I found, to my
infinite surprise, that the grand penal bill, [Footnote: 1] by which we had
passed sentence on the trade and sustenance of America, is to be returned to us
from the other House. I do confess I could not help looking on this event as a
fortunate omen. I look upon it as a sort of providential favor, by which we are
put once more in possession of our deliberative capacity upon a business so very
questionable in its nature, so very uncertain in its issue. By the return of
this bill, which seemed to have taken its flight forever, we are at this very
instant nearly as free to choose a plan for our American Government as we were
on the first day of the session. If, Sir, we incline to the side of
conciliation, we are not at all embarrassed (unless we please to make ourselves
so) by any incongruous mixture of coercion and restraint. We are therefore
called upon, as it were by a superior warning voice, again to attend to America;
to attend to the whole of it together; and to review the subject with an unusual
degree of care and calmness.

Surely it is an awful subject, or there is none so on this side of the grave.
When I first had the honor [Footnote: 2] of a seat in this House, the affairs of
that continent pressed themselves upon us as the most important and most
delicate object of Parliamentary attention. My little share in this great