DISCONTENTS***




Transcribed from the 1886 Cassell & Company edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org and proofing by David, Terry L. Jeffress, Edgar A.
Howard.





THOUGHTS
ON THE
PRESENT DISCONTENTS,
AND
SPEECHES


BY
EDMUND BURKE.

CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED:
_LONDON_, _PARIS_, _NEW YORK & MELBOURNE_.
1886.

Contents

Introduction
Thoughts on the Present Discontents
Speech on the Middlesex Election.
Speech on the Powers of Juries in Prosecutions for Libels.
Speech on a Bill for Shortening the Duration of Parliaments
Speech on Reform of Representation in the House of Commons




INTRODUCTION


Edmund Burke was born at Dublin on the first of January, 1730.  His
father was an attorney, who had fifteen children, of whom all but four
died in their youth.  Edmund, the second son, being of delicate health in
his childhood, was taught at home and at his grandfather's house in the
country before he was sent with his two brothers Garrett and Richard to a
school at Ballitore, under Abraham Shackleton, a member of the Society of
Friends.  For nearly forty years afterwards Burke paid an annual visit to
Ballitore.

In 1744, after leaving school, Burke entered Trinity College, Dublin.  He
graduated B.A. in 1748; M.A., 1751.  In 1750 he came to London, to the
Middle Temple.  In 1756 Burke became known as a writer, by two pieces.
One was a pamphlet called "A Vindication of Natural Society."  This was
an ironical piece, reducing to absurdity those theories of the excellence
of uncivilised humanity which were gathering strength in France, and had
been favoured in the philosophical works of Bolingbroke, then lately
published.  Burke's other work published in 1756, was his "Essay on the
Sublime and Beautiful."

At this time Burke's health broke down.  He was cared for in the house of
a kindly physician, Dr. Nugent, and the result was that in the spring of
1757 he married Dr. Nugent's daughter.  In the following year Burke made
Samuel Johnson's acquaintance, and acquaintance ripened fast into close
friendship.  In 1758, also, a son was born; and, as a way of adding to
his income, Burke suggested the plan of "The Annual Register."

In 1761 Burke became private secretary to William Gerard Hamilton, who
was then appointed Chief Secretary to Ireland.  In April, 1763, Burke's
services were recognised by a pension of 300 pounds a year; but he threw
this up in April, 1765, when he found that his services were considered
to have been not only recognised, but also bought.  On the 10th of July
in that year (1765) Lord Rockingham became Premier, and a week later
Burke, through the good offices of an admiring friend who had come to
know him in the newly-founded Turk's Head Club, became Rockingham's
private secretary.  He was now the mainstay, if not the inspirer, of
Rockingham's policy of pacific compromise in the vexed questions between
England and the American colonies.  Burke's elder brother, who had lately
succeeded to his father's property, died also in 1765, and Burke sold the
estate in Cork for 4,000 pounds.

Having become private secretary to Lord Rockingham, Burke entered
Parliament as member for Wendover, and promptly took his place among the
leading speakers in the House.

On the 30th of July, 1766, the Rockingham Ministry went out, and Burke
wrote a defence of its policy in "A Short Account of a late Short
Administration."  In 1768 Burke bought for 23,000 pounds an estate called
Gregories or Butler's Court, about a mile from Beaconsfield.  He called
it by the more territorial name of Beaconsfield, and made it his home.
Burke's endeavours to stay the policy that was driving the American
colonies to revolution, caused the State of New York, in 1771, to
nominate him as its agent.  About May, 1769, Edmund Burke began the
pamphlet here given, _Thoughts on the Present Discontents_.  It was
published in 177