The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Editor’s Foreword
• Editor’s Note
• Speech to the Electors of Bristol
• Speech On the Reform of the Representation of the Commons In Parliament
• Two Letters to Gentlemen In Bristol On the Trade of Ireland
• To Samuel Span, Esq; Master of the Society of Merchants Adventurers of Bristol
• Copy of a Letter to Mess. ******* ****** and Co. Bristol
• Thoughts and Details On Scarcity
• Speech On Fox’s East India Bill
• A Letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe On the Catholics of Ireland
• Sketch of the Negro Code
• Select Bibliography On Edmund Burke

Editor’s Note

The texts used in this volume have been chosen from their original publication in accordance with William B. Todd’s Bibliography of Edmund Burke (Godalming, Surrey: St. Paul’s Bibliographies, 1982). Burke’s Speech on the Reform of the Representation of the Commons in Parliament and Sketch of the Negro Code, however, were not published in Burke’s lifetime and were included by his literary executors in their New Edition of The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke (London: F. C. and J. Rivington, 16 vols., 1808–27), from vols. 10 and 9 of which, respectively, they are taken here. Thoughts and Details on Scarcity also did not appear in print in Burke’s lifetime, but is taken here from the pamphlet under that title published by his executors prior to their publication of his Works (in vol. 7 of which it is reprinted).

Burke’s speech at Bristol on November 3, 1774, is taken from Mr. Burke’s Speeches at His Arrival at Bristol and at The Conclusion of the Poll (London: J. Dodsley, 2nd edition, 1775).

Two Letters from Mr. Edmund Burke to Gentlemen in the City of Bristol on the Bills Depending in Parliament Relative to the Trade of Ireland, 1st edition, was published in London by J. Dodsley in 1778.

Burke’s speech on Fox’s East India Bill is taken from Mr. Burke’s Speech on the 1st December 1783, upon the question for the Speaker’s leaving the chair in order for the House to resolve itself into a committee on Mr. Fox’s East India Bill (London: J. Dodsley, 1st edition, 1784).

Burke’s Letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe is taken from A Letter from the Right Hon. Edmund Burke, M.P. in the Kingdom of Great Britain, to Sir Hercules Langrishe, Bart. M.P. on the subject of Roman Catholics of Ireland, and the Propriety of Admitting Them to the Elective Franchise, consistently with the Principles of the Constitution as Established at the Revolution (London: J. Debrett, 2nd edition, corrected, 1792).

Thoughts and Details on Scarcity, originally presented to the Right Hon. William Pitt, in the month of November, 1795, by the late Right Honourable Edmund Burke was first published in London in 1800 by F. and C. Rivington and J. Hatchard.

Burke’s spellings (including in particular Indian and other foreign names), capitalizations, and use of italics have been retained, strange as they may seem to modern eyes.

I take this occasion to express my thanks to the staff of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University for providing the text of Burke’s speech at Bristol, and to the staff of the Boston Athenaeum for providing the text of the two letters to gentlemen in Bristol. I owe special thanks to Ms. Carol Rosato of the Duane Library at Fordham University for her help in providing the texts of the speech on Fox’s East India Bill, the letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe, and Thoughts and Details on Scarcity.

I also thank my friends and fellow Burke scholars Professors Peter J. Stanlis of Rockford College and Daniel E. Ritchie of Bethel College for their very helpful comments on my work for these Liberty Fund volumes.

Short Titles

• The Annual RegisterThe Annual Register (began publication by J. Dodsley in London in 1758, under Burke’s editorship, and continues publication to the present day).
• Corr. 1844 Burke, Edmund, Correspondence of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke between the Year 1744, and the Period of his Decease, in 1797, eds. Charles William Wentworth-Fitzwilliam, 5th Earl Fitzwilliam, and Sir Richard Bourke. 4 vols. (London: Francis and John Rivington, 1844).
• Corr. Copeland, Thomas W., gen. ed., The Correspondence of Edmund Burke. 10 vols. (Chicago and Cambridge: University of Chicago Press and Cambridge University Press, 1958–78).
• Parliamentary HistoryThe Parliamentary History of England from the Norman Conquest in 1066 to the year 1803, ed. W. Cobbett. 36 vols. London: T. C. Hansard, 1806–20).
• WorksThe Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke. A New Edition. 16 vols. (London: F. C. and J. Rivington, 1808–27).
• W&S Langford, Paul, gen. ed., The Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke. 12 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981–).