Memoirs of the Life of Sir Samuel Romilly

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John Murray, 1840 - Lawyers

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Page 258 - ... which one must feel a satisfaction in discharging ; that, at least, my conscience will bear me the pleasing testimony of having intended well ; and that, after all, true happiness is much less likely to be found in the high walks of ambition than in the " secretum iter et fallentis semita vitae.
Page 248 - I have sacrificed every consideration of my own to the wishes and opinions of my people. I make it my humble and ardent prayer to Almighty God, that Great Britain may not feel the evils which might result from so great a dismemberment of the empire, and that America may be free from...
Page 348 - I have just received your letter, my dear Romilly, and I am delighted that a scruple of conscience should have procured me the interesting account of what took place in the House of Commons on the subject of the slave trade. I had forgotten to tell you that I had joined the Society of the Friends of the Negroes at Paris, that I might myself see the spirit which animated them, and what might be expected from them. se flatter. C'est un foible commencement ; elle...
Page 222 - This House is not a representative of the people of Great Britain. It is the representative of nominal boroughs, of ruined and exterminated towns, of noble families, of wealthy individuals, of foreign potentates.
Page 207 - February 27th, in the house of commons, that an humble address be presented to his majesty, that the farther prosecution of offensive war on the continent of North America, for the purpose of reducing the revolted, colonies to obedience by force...
Page 355 - I think of nothing else, and please myself with endeavouring to guess at some of the important consequences which must follow throughout all Europe. I think myself happy that it has happened when I am of an age at which I may reasonably hope to live to see some of those consequences produced. It will perhaps surprise you, but it is certainly true, that the Revolution has produced a very sincere and very general joy here. It is the subject of all conversations ; and even all the newspapers, without...
Page 142 - Americans not justified in continuing the war, after the offer of sue) favorable terms as the commissioners held out to them, why did he keep his command for two years afterwards ? . . . . " The arguments used by Clinton and Arnold in their letters to Washington, to prove that Andre...
Page 415 - He speaks of titles of nobility with true republican contempt, and says that "they afford no idea," that 1 Rights of Man. "no such animal as a Count or an "Earl can be found any where but in imagination." Bentham leads the same kind of life as usual at Hendon: seeing nobody, reading nothing, and writing books which nobody reads.
Page 45 - At a later season of my life, after a success at the bar which my wildest and most sanguine dreams had never painted to me ; when I was gaining an income of 8000/. or 9000/. a year ; I have often reflected how all that prosperity had arisen out of the pecuniary difficulties and confined circumstances of my father.
Page 185 - I should not," continues the speech, " answer the trust committed to the sovereign of a free people, nor make a suitable return to my subjects for their constant, zealous, and affectionate attachment to my person, family and government, if I consented to sacrifice, either to my own desire of peace, or to their temporary ease and relief, those essential rights and permanent interests, upon the maintenance and preservation of which, the future strength and security of this country must principally...

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