cases, when he had been urged to preserve what he had spoken, did he write out his speeches after their delivery-relying on his notes, his memory, and his friends' memories. Yet we know that these written forms were very closely like what he had said; this Conciliation, for example, sounds like the natural flow of talking rather than like his systematic essays.

For thirty years he was an ardent force in Parliament, becoming the leader and manager of the Whigs who insistently opposed the influence of the court; he outlined policies, spurred his colleagues to their duty, furnished arguments, and delivered speeches that gave him the rank of the greatest orator that England ever produced. Nevertheless, this long career of diligent patriotism was a series of disappointments and hardships. Only twice could he feel the pleasure of direct victory; after that auspicious beginning he was always (except for a few months) "voting with a dispirited minority"; because he had no aristocratic family connections and because he was a difficult man to collaborate with, he was never given any prominent office; he was always looking in vain for the reward of his useful genius; he was always poor and in debt; he was forever persecuted by scandalous stories that he was a Jesuit plotter, a dishonest speculator; during a period of eight years, late in life, he was so disappointed and bitter and imprudent that he was frequently jeered when he rose to speak.

This portion of failure, however, is no more than the share that enters many great lives, even of such men as Washington and Lincoln. From year to year

they seem to be hacking at various foes in an arena, they do not live to see the outcome of the whole battle. In the case of Burke the trial of Warren Hastings is typical of his whole life. For fourteen years Burke planned and conducted that most spectacular and long-drawn-out impeachment in history. With passionate energy he dramatized the wrongs and brutalities committed by Hastings in gaining the empire of India; with all his art and all his vast knowledge he pressed the indictment. Yet Hastings was acquitted. So Burke had labored in vain? He may have felt so. But the indirect result of all his zeal was to make colonial brutality impossible for England in the future; he set up a standard of generous dealing with dependencies, and so added incalculably to the strength of the great fabric of the British empire and to the world's conception of justice. So in other respects his career, when seen in the perspective of history, appears like a solid monument of usefulness and success.

Burke's achievements are not so attractive to American eyes as the splendor of Pitt's fame. They shine less brightly because Burke was a conservative. Brilliant schemes and hopes of reform do not glitter in his record, nor does he ever dazzle us with projects for revolutionizing society. He was too wise for that. His sure instinct taught him that mankind can be improved only by slow experience, by careful adjustment to each necessity as it arises. He wisely mistrusted mere experiment, for he knew that English freedom had never been advanced by experiment. His wisdom clearly saw the danger of tampering with the Consti

tution on the basis of mere theory; he knew that the chances of doing harm in that way were very great. In this he was like Washington, who wrote in the year before Burke died these solemn' words about preserving liberty: "Resist the spirit of innovation upon the authority of government. Remember that time and habit are necessary to fix the true forms of government. Experience is the surest standard." Burke's wisdom was of a piece with Washington's. His sagacity, just like Washington's, foresaw the evils of the French Revolution. When Englishmen and Americans alike were hailing with joy the fall of the Bastille in 1789, Burke and Washington suspected the evils that were to follow-the butchery and the rise of a despotism. If we wish that he had been more of a prophet of the liberty that was having such a terrible birth, we must remember that thirty years after he was dead our own Daniel Webster was still lamenting at Bunker Hill "the conflagration and terror" which the French Revolution spread in the world.

It was unfailing sagacity that ennobled Burke's oratory. All his structures were built on the enduring foundations of a true knowledge of how social forces act. Every resolution that he opposed was at the time unwise; every measure that he fought for has been shown by history to be wise. He was right in his idea of treating Catholics and non-conformists more leniently, of reforming Parliament, of giving the demagogue Wilkes his seat, of abolishing brutal punishments for crime, of stopping the slave trade, of being humane in India. And he was unfailingly wise in his

ideas about the colonies. With breadth of vision and warmth of deep feeling he foresaw the truth about empire that was hidden from most of his contemporaries: "My trust is in their interest in the British Constitution." This faith for which he pleaded so vainly in 1775 was richly verified by Canada and New Zealand and Australia and South Africa and India in 1914, when England began the struggle against the world's latest and greatest autocracy.

THE TRIUMPH OF GERMAN INTRIGUE IN 1775

In 1756 England began the Seven Years' War-a fight for life against the autocracy of France and Austria. The colonial Englishmen went into the war heart and soul, contributing men and money beyond their means, fighting under the leadership of generals from England. At this time Washington, Gates, and Putnam got their training. By 1759, when Quebec was taken, the power of autocracy was dead in the western hemisphere. The result among the colonists was to make them feel more independent, for they no longer needed the protection of the mother country. England was victorious in 1763. But she had spent such vast sums of money that she was in financial straits and needed revenue. A very natural way of adding to her income was to tax the colonies.

This was an entirely new policy. Up to that year all income from the colonies had been obtained in an entirely different way-by trade laws. The nature of these was to "restrain" (i. e., to limit) colonial commerce to English ports: most exports had to be

shipped to England, most imports had to come from England, and the demand for English goods was maintained by forbidding much manufacture in the colonies. Thus the trade laws were not a form of taxation, but they increased England's wealth by increasing her commerce. With this "restraint" the colonies had always been familiar. Although they had chafed and grumbled at times, had smuggled on a grand scale, and were resentful when trade laws were stringently enforced, their resentment was never serious. The Congress of 1774 formally pledged obedience to “such acts as are bona fide restrained to the regulation of our external commerce.

But taxation by revenue laws was an entirely different matter. The instant a revenue tax was proposed the colonies "snuffed the approach of tyranny." And their nostrils did not deceive them. If they could have looked into the King's mind, they would have seen that he cared less about an income than about his royal prerogative. He and his creature Bute devised a scheme of taxing Americans. They secured the assistance of Grenville, an honest and industrious man, but a Tory and a fool, despised by Pitt, who nicknamed him the "gentle shepherd." His small equipment of common-sense may be gauged by his announcement that he entered the ministry "to secure the King from falling into the hands of the Whigs!" It is easy to guess how such a person was manipulated by a crafty king until he believed in all honesty that the colonies should be taxed. Shrewd, practical statesmen like Walpole and Pitt had declined to engage in