Note 856 — Chapter VII · (continued 2)

‘I am not here going into the distinction of rights, nor attempting to mark their boundaries. I do not enter into these metaphysical distinctions; I hate the very sound of them.’ Speech on American taxation in 1774, in Burke's Works, vol. i. p. 173. In 1775 (vol. i. p. 192): ‘But my consideration is narrow, confined, and wholly limited to the policy of the question.’ At p. 183: we should act in regard to America, not ‘according to abstract ideas of right, by no means according to mere general theories of government; the resort to which appears to me, in our present situation, no better than arrant trifling.’ In one of his earliest political pamphlets, written in 1769, he says, that the arguments of the opponents of America ‘are conclusive; conclusive as to right; but the very reverse as to policy and practice,’ vol. i. p. 112. Compare a letter, written in 1775, in Burke's Correspond. vol. ii. p. 12.