I am unalterably persuaded, that the attempt to oppress, degrade, impoverish, confiscate, and extinguish the original gentlemen, and landed property … - Edmund Burke

He insisted that it was a travelling delusion, that nations were not to interfere with each other: for if any nation endeavoured to confuse, to trample upon, violate or despise the rights of others, the interests of human society required that all should join against them. If, by the subversion of all law and religion, a nation adopts a malignant spirit to produce anarchy and mischief in other countries, it is the right of nations to go to war with them. In support of this doctrine, he quoted the authority of Vattel, who lays it down, that if one nation adopt principles injurious to all government and order, such a nation is to be opposed from principles of common safety. This, he insisted, was the spirit of France; and what was to keep the effects of it from England? War, and nothing else. Until, therefore, we could find that security in their principles and practices which could alone make peace permanent, he would never agree to prostrate the throne of Great Britain at the foot of any National Convention or Jacobin club whatever.

The restraints on men, as well as their liberties, are to be reckoned among their rights.

No contrivance can prevent the effect of this distance in weakening government. Seas roll, and months pass, between the order and the execution, and the want of a speedy explanation of a single point is enough to defeat a whole system. You have, indeed, winged ministers of vengeance, 27 who carry your bolts in their pounces to the remotest verge of the sea. But there a power steps in that limits the arrogance of raging passions and furious elements, and says, SO FAR SHALL THOU GO, AND NO FARTHER. Who are you, that you should fret and rage, and bite the chains of nature? Nothing worse happens to you than does to all nations who have extensive empire; and it happens in all the forms into which empire can be thrown. In large bodies the circulation of power must be less vigorous at the extremities. Nature has said it.