Edmund Burke's seminal speech is fully reproduced here. It was made at a time of dissent and unrest in the what were American colonies at the time of his speech. The colonies were rebellious and angry about the imposition of taxes by the British. He argues that conciliation would be a wise course in order to avoid worse trouble.

BCC: With extensive knowledge of political affairs, Edmund Burke possessed a glowing imagination and passionate sympathies expressed in his landmark speeches, which continue to captivate contemporary readers. The best of Burke's writings and speeches uphold his position on the need for rigorous constitutional statesmanship against widespread abuse of authority in government. He remains one of the foremost political thinkers of eighteenth-century England.AUTHOR BIO: British political writer and statesman EDMUND BURKE (1729-1797) was educated at a Quaker boarding school and at Trinity College in Dublin. His eloquence gained him a high position in Britain's Whig party, and although he never held public office, his public activity never ceased.His works include Observations on the Present State of the Nation (1769) and On the Causes of the Present Discontents (1770). Perhaps the finest of his many efforts are the speech on American taxation (1774) and the letter to the sheriffs of Bristol (1777), which advocated astute and moderate measures to impending public crises.

The great British statesman Edmund Burke had a genius for political argument, and his impassioned speeches and writings shaped English public life in the second half of the eighteenth century. This anthology of Burke's speeches, letters, and pamphlets, selected, introduced, and annotated by David Bromwich, shows Burke to be concerned with not only preserving but also reforming the British empire. Bromwich includes eighteen works of Burke, all but one in its complete form. These writings, among them the "Speech on Conciliation with the American Colonies," A Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol, the "Speech at Guildhall Previous to the Election" of 1780, the "Speech on Fox's India Bill," A Letter to a Noble Lord, and several private letters, demonstrate the depth of Burke's efforts to reform the empire in India, America, and Ireland. On these various fronts he defended the human rights of native peoples, the respect owed to partners in trade, and the civil liberties that the empire was losing at home while extending its power abroad.

Excerpt from Speech of Edmund Burke, Esq., On American Taxation, April 19, 1774 This piece has been for fome months ready for the prefs. But a delicacy, pofiibly over fcrupulous, has delayed the publication to this time. The friends of adminifiration have been ufed to attribute a great deal of the oppofition to their meafures in America to the writings publifhed in England. The Editor of this Speech 'kept it Shack, until all the meafures of government have had their full operation, and can be no longer affected, if ever they cbuld have been affeé'ted, by any publication. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.