During his cpposition to the American war, Burke was cert. ele „don of just favour, sufficient, perhaps, to :)e to the fame of any man but him self. A pacific adjustment of the differences between the mother country and America, when affairs had gone so far, might I at c admitted of principles more perma nently decisive than his, but they admitted of none more –daptcd to save th- dignity or prejudices of Britain. For a lasting reconciliation, the abandonment of the right of taxation might have been advisable ; but for immediate truce, which ought to have led to reconcilement, the abandonment of the question of right was better suited ; or, perhaps, even an indistinct recognizance of it. But the blundering hands which succeeded the short Rock ingham administration did not do justice to the mildly temporizing policy of that amiable cabinet. The Ame rican \val• at last became popular.—Now it is fashionable •o lay the blame of it c•i Grenville and North—A mur derer might, with equal justice, blame the sword, with t hich he has killed an innocent man, as the British peo ple accuse their ministers—their seryants—with the cri minality of a war, in the events of which they not only partook, but sy mpathized in every fibre of their hearts. if we do not recollect from our own memories, our fath ers have told t s, that Washington was burnt in effigy in England, and w 11-.ve been hanged in reality aniidst .he applauses of millions, if lie could have been laid hold In Mardi 1 z n end was put to the ministry of Lord \:orth ; and on the r_tnrn of the Marquis of Rocking ham to pow er, Burke became paymaster or the forces, and had a scat at the councii-board. The death of Lord Rocking-h:un cd etileiv dissolved the ministry, and on I he appointment of Lord Shelburne, Air Burke, with .nan \ of the Dnke Po•th,nd's fr'ends, resigned. Alter the p wee, he had a .ng ;hare in the formation of the coalition. v Inch 12.•Lx e a hoc k to the public ideas of poli consi-tchcy (old w hat either the enlarged mind of Fox, or the um cat commodating ideas of Burke, had room to anticil „te. Mr Pitt, by seizing on the happy mom( nt w ,en Loth kli•• and people were on had terms with the minist..y. t ut d them vat, and withstood mino rities in the lb use of Commons till that house presented him with majorities. In 17b5, Burke seems to have ta ken a sufficiertly punch it ground, in differing at once with the mihister ann w ith the leaders of the opposition respecting- the Count bill of Mr l'itt. Such a conduct was consistent c nough with his ideas of ruling by great families, and preserving flu borough influence in the hands of a few nobles. His impeachment of Warren IIastings, was one of the next and most important events of his life. For even the outline of so complex a trial. we have not limits. On this subject, the majority or commonly enlightened readers are as completely unde cided, or at least incompetent to be decided in their opi nion,as on the most abstruse problem in science ; for in fact, the Principia of Newton might be studied in less time than the real substance of the trial of Hastings. Many men, however, as we believe, unbiassed in the question, have, after laborious attention to it, made up their opinion, that whatever were the oppressions perpe trated in India, Britain, and not Hastings, was responsi ble for them. All the conduct of Burke, which form;:, the external avenues to the question, gives, as far as that goes, a sanction to this opinion. He was violent, hitter, and full of ostentation. In the moment of Hast ing's hesitation about the ceremony of kneeling at ay. bar, an hesitation proceeding from accident, he corn manckd him to kneel, with a ferocity in his countenance which no painting could express. He marched at the head of the managers of the indictment, with an air of pompous elatement ; and, in fine, it is evident, that he had Cicero against Verres incessantly in his eye during all his rhetorical appearances on this subject.
In the settling of the regency, on the king's illness in 1788, he took a active part. His appearances on this subject always gave more alarm to the opposition than the minister. In the short period that elapsed be tween this question and the French revolution, there were no party circumstances of which we know that could alienate him from the opposition (for his jealousy of Sheridan is not an idea consistent with the bulk or frame of his mind,) so that his sentiments on the French revo lution could not be supposed to be connected with per sonal pique, and the general tone of his character for bids the suspicion of his having been corrupted. his
principles had been before more than suspiciously aristo cratic on very important occasions, and there was nothing in the French revolution, as it proceeded, to conciliate the affections of a mind imbued with such a bias, unless the observer had lived to read the court calendar of Bo naparte.
His abhorrence to the French revolution preceded the worst acts of that event ; and though, like every evil wisher to change, Mr Burke predicted as many atroci ties as took place, yet we must hesitate in pronouncing those warnings to have been uttered in the spirit of pro phetic wisdom ; for he foretold many things directly the reverse of what happened. Among these was his predic tion, that France would be blotted out from the map of Europe." As early as the beginning of the year 1790, he spoke his sentiments with plainness and warmth iu the House of Commons, in which he renounced friend t-hip with Mr Fox, and all who cherished sentiments like his on the same principles and subject. From that tint(' he busied himself in his memorable work on the French Revolution, a work which commenced a war of the on the great principles of got eminent, evoking greats r polemical talents in writing than had been displayed sine( the pamphlets of 'Milton and Salmasius. It was answer ed at home by Alackintosh and others, and abroad by Paine. The coarse, but popular, eloquence of the last writer could not indeed he compared with the philosophi cal spirit of the British writers ; hut it struck lower at. the loot of opinion, and produced effects we all remember how serious. By his encitics, the work of Burke was described 'as a blaze of rhetoric around a nucletts of false principles and sophistry. The maimitt' of the nation, of that punt at least %vilese prop( ply gay c induenee in the country, did not think so ; and his opi nions certainly gate it decided bias to the warlike luta sure.s of the cabinet. I lis second attack on the revolution, in a letter to a morale r of the French National 1ssent bl•, was made in when affairs were yet assuming a deeper horror to the revolution, and gave an air of seem' • triumph to Ins exposition of principles not essentially connected with its errors. His Appeal from the New 11'lligs to the Old ; his Letter to a noble Lord on the subject in discussion with the Duke of IledlOrd ; and his Thoughts on a Regicide Peace, attested his enflamed and increasing zeal on the subject of his great political passion.
It was objected by his enemies, that his zeal was not uninvigorated by royal bounty. His hospitality and per sonal generosity, had always made him a needy man. Ile entertained an aristocratical opinion, long and frequently expressed before he depended for his main support on the pensions of his sovereign, that a man of first-rate abilities had a right to be supported at the public expellee. Confined to such genius as Burke's, this doctrine might be safely admitted by the austerest republican ; and hew, we believe, of his political enemies, would rest it as a serious charge against his memory-, that he supported the close of so illustrious a life on the kindness of royal patronage. He %vim could grudge the pension of Burke, is surely unworthy to he his reader or his countryman.
The close of his political career was marked by an honourable attachment to the cause of the emancipation of the Irish Catholics, which he expressed and enforced in a letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe, written in 1792.
ry itInh.ew from parliament in I 79.t, and his seat for New Mahon was occupied by his only son, whom he viewed with all the partiality of paternal adinh•ation. The death of that son precipitated the decline of nature, which he was already beginning to feel. After his death, Burke lit ed only to die ; such was the expression used in describing the effect of this event on his mind, by the Irish orator Grattan, in the hearing of the writer of this article, when the great subject of this biography hap pened to be the topic of conversation in company. Ile expired in his 68th year, on the 8th of July, 1797.
Ile was amiable and exemplary in his domestic rela tions, elegant in his taste, and benevolent in his inten tions. Few men have performed greater services to the public, and none have filled, during- their lives, a greater space in the public eye. (n)