“Through a wise and salutary neglect [of the colonies], a generous nature has been suffered to take her own way to perfection; when I reflect upon these effects, when I see how profitable they have been to us, I feel all the pride of power sink and all presumption in the wisdom of human contrivances melt and die away within me. My vigour relents. I pardon something to the spirit of liberty.”

—  Edmund Burke

Works of Edmund Burke Volume ii, p. 117
Second Speech on Conciliation with America (1775)

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Edmund Burke 270
Anglo-Irish statesman 1729–1797

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