| George M. Trevelyan, History of England (1st ed. 1926; Illustrated ed., 1956)
Remarks on Edmund Burke: .. an undue admiration of things as they were .. [475] .. denounced the whole policy of the war and called for concession to save the unity of the Empire before it was too late. [555] The short ministry of Rockingham Whigs that summer left a deep impression for good on our public life, because it passed Burke's Economic Reform Bill, which greatly reduced the patronage of government in sinecures and places, and rendered it impossible for anyone ever again to bribe Parliament wholesale, as Walpole, Newcastle, and George III had done. The Augean stables were swept out. [557] .. Burke had scotched the snake of Parliamentary corruption with his Economic Reform Bill, but neither he nor his Tory adversaries wished to kill it by reducing the number of rotten boroughs. [558] ..traffic in sinecures .. less flagrant [560] .. Burke's Economic Reform Bill of 1782, by reducing the power of corruption in Parliament, had acted in some measure as a substitute for electoral redistribution and reform. [562] .. the extremism of Burke's thoughts on the French Revolution and Paine's Rights of Man certainly did not make for mutual understanding [563] In these circumstances [Fox's move for abolition of rotten boroughs] the quarrel of the Reforming Whigs with Burke and half the members of their own party was bitter and complete. But wheras the Whigs who followed Burke were merged among the other supporters of the Tory Ministry, the Whigs who followed Fox remained the nucleus of the party, and the keepers of its traditions. [568] [Pitt] never satisfied Burke by regarding the war [against France] as a crusade, nor did he consider it our business to dictate a form of government to France [574] [On the Union:] So the Catholic Celts were again thrust down, this time with the whole weight of England on top of them, and with their fellow-Irish of the North waxing in Orange enthusiasm. The two Irelands were once more face to face, fighting th Boyne battle again daily with their mouths. Moreover, the land question was beginning to take a foremost place in politics in that over-populated, potato-fed island of oppressed tenant-farmers [ftn. .. Britain held only about twice as many inhabitants at the corresponding dates]. In these circumstances, a new and formidable amalagam of clericalism, nationalism and uneducated democracy began to be organised by the popular oratory of the Catholic lawyer, Daniel O'Connell. [591] Burke had scotched the snake of Parliamentary corruption with his Economic Reform Bill, but neither he nor his Tory adversaries wished to kill it by reducing the number of rotten boroughs. [558] [Hastings] saved British rule in India in spite of all, but not without making the kind of mistakes which a strong man is likely to make in difficult emergencies. For these acts, much exaggerated and misconstrued by the malignity of Francis and the imagination of Burke, Fox, and Sheridan, he was impeached in Westminster Hall. .. his acquittal .. Burke preached the right ideal of our obligations to the Indians, but misunderstood the relation of Hastings' governorship to the problem. [594] .. the whig seceders who followed Burke into the anti-Jacobin camp [632]
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