Page:Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America.djvu/35

Rh days he was busy with his reply. The "Letter to a Noble Lord," though written little more than a year before his death, is considered one of the most perfect of his papers. Saddened by the loss of his son, and broken in spirits, there is yet left him enough old−time energy and fire to answer his detractors. But his wonderful career was near its close. His last months were spent in writing about the French Revolution, and the third letter on a Regicide Peace&mdash;a fragment&mdash;was doubtless composed just before his death. On the 9th of July, 1797, he passed away. His friends claimed for him a place in Westminster, but his last wish was respected, and he was buried at Beaconsfield.

There is hardly a political tract or pamphlet of Burke's in which he does not state, in terms more or less clear, the fundamental principle in his theory of government. "Circumstances," he says in one place, "give, in reality, to every political principle, its distinguishing color and discriminating effect. The circumstances are what renders every civil and political scheme beneficial or obnoxious to mankind." At another time he exclaims: "This is the true touchstone of all theories which regard man and the affairs