Edmund_Burke

context: Burke was born in Dublin, Ireland. His mother Mary née Nagle (c. 1702 – 1770) was a Roman Catholic who hailed from a déclassé County Cork family (and a cousin of Nano Nagle), whereas his father, a successful solicitor, Richard (died 1761), was a member of the Church of Ireland; it remains unclear whether this is the same Richard Burke who converted from Catholicism. The Burke dynasty descends from an Anglo-Norman knight surnamed de Burgh (latinised as de Burgo) who arrived in Ireland in 1185 following Henry II of England's 1171 invasion of Ireland.
qas: answers: text: Dublin, Ireland
question: Where was Burke born?

answers: text: Nagle
question: What was Burke's mother's maiden name?

answers: text: 1770
question: When did Burke's mother die?

answers: text: 1761
question: When did Burke's father die?

answers: text: 1185
question: When did Burke's ancestors arrive in Ireland?

context: In 1744, Burke started at Trinity College Dublin, a Protestant establishment, which up until 1793, did not permit Catholics to take degrees. In 1747, he set up a debating society, "Edmund Burke's Club", which, in 1770, merged with TCD's Historical Club to form the College Historical Society; it is the oldest undergraduate society in the world. The minutes of the meetings of Burke's Club remain in the collection of the Historical Society. Burke graduated from Trinity in 1748. Burke's father wanted him to read Law, and with this in mind he went to London in 1750, where he entered the Middle Temple, before soon giving up legal study to travel in Continental Europe. After eschewing the Law, he pursued a livelihood through writing.
qas: answers: text: 1744
question: When did Burke begin attending Trinity College Dublin?

answers: text: Catholics
question: What type of people did Trinity College Dublin not allow to earn degrees there?

answers: text: 1747
question: When did Edmund Burke start a debate club?

answers: text: TCD's Historical Club
question: What club did Edmund Burke's debate club merge with in 1770?

answers: text: 1748
question: When did Edmund Burke graduate?

context: Burke claimed that Bolingbroke's arguments against revealed religion could apply to all social and civil institutions as well. Lord Chesterfield and Bishop Warburton (and others) initially thought that the work was genuinely by Bolingbroke rather than a satire. All the reviews of the work were positive, with critics especially appreciative of Burke's quality of writing. Some reviewers failed to notice the ironic nature of the book, which led to Burke stating in the preface to the second edition (1757) that it was a satire.
qas: answers: text: Bishop Warburton
question: Which bishop didn't realize the satirical nature of Burke's book?

answers: text: Lord Chesterfield
question: Which lord didn't realize the satirical nature of Burke's book?

answers: text: 1757
question: When was the 2nd edition of Burke's book published?

answers: text: in the preface to the second edition
question: Where did Burke make it clear that his book was a satire?

context: Richard Hurd believed that Burke's imitation was near-perfect and that this defeated his purpose: an ironist "should take care by a constant exaggeration to make the ridicule shine through the Imitation. Whereas this Vindication is everywhere enforc'd, not only in the language, and on the principles of L. Bol., but with so apparent, or rather so real an earnestness, that half his purpose is sacrificed to the other". A minority of scholars have taken the position that, in fact, Burke did write the Vindication in earnest, later disowning it only for political reasons.
qas: answers: text: Richard Hurd
question: Who thought that Burke's imitation was too perfect to be effective ridicule?

answers: text: political reasons
question: Why did a few scholars think Burke hadn't intended his book as a satire yet later claimed it was a satire?

answers: text: L. Bol.
question: Whose principles did Burke imitate?

context: On 25 February 1757, Burke signed a contract with Robert Dodsley to write a "history of England from the time of Julius Caesar to the end of the reign of Queen Anne", its length being eighty quarto sheets (640 pages), nearly 400,000 words. It was to be submitted for publication by Christmas 1758. Burke completed the work to the year 1216 and stopped; it was not published until after Burke's death, being included in an 1812 collection of his works, entitled An Essay Towards an Abridgement of the English History. G. M. Young did not value Burke's history and claimed that it was "demonstrably a translation from the French". Lord Acton, on commenting on the story that Burke stopped his history because David Hume published his, said "it is ever to be regretted that the reverse did not occur".
qas: answers: text: 25 February 1757
question: When did Burke sign a contract for a history of England?

answers: text: nearly 400,000
question: How many words long was Burke's history of England contracted to be?

answers: text: 640 pages
question: How many pages long was Burke's history of England contracted to be?

answers: text: 1812
question: When was Burke's history of England published?

answers: text: David Hume
question: Which author's history of England being published before Burke's might have dissuaded Burke from continuing his?

context: During the year following that contract, with Dodsley, Burke founded the influential Annual Register, a publication in which various authors evaluated the international political events of the previous year. The extent to which Burke contributed to the Annual Register is unclear: in his biography of Burke, Robert Murray quotes the Register as evidence of Burke's opinions, yet Philip Magnus in his biography does not cite it directly as a reference. Burke remained the chief editor of the publication until at least 1789 and there is no evidence that any other writer contributed to it before 1766.
qas: answers: text: Annual Register
question: What publication did Burke found?

answers: text: political
question: The Annual Register covered international events of what type?

answers: text: 1766
question: Burke was the only known writer for the Register until what year?

answers: text: 1789
question: Burke was the chief editor for the Register until at least what year?

answers: text: Philip Magnus
question: Who wrote a biography of Burke?

context: At about this same time, Burke was introduced to William Gerard Hamilton (known as "Single-speech Hamilton"). When Hamilton was appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland, Burke accompanied him to Dublin as his private secretary, a position he held for three years. In 1765 Burke became private secretary to the liberal Whig statesman, Charles, Marquess of Rockingham, then Prime Minister of Great Britain, who remained Burke's close friend and associate until his untimely death in 1782. Rockingham also introduced Burke as a Freemason.
qas: answers: text: Single-speech Hamilton
question: What was William Gerard Hamilton's nickname?

answers: text: Burke
question: Who was William Gerard Hamilton's private secretary?

answers: text: 1765
question: When did Burke become the Prime Minister's private secretary?

answers: text: Charles, Marquess of Rockingham
question: Who invited Burke to join the Freemasons?

answers: text: Whig
question: What political party was Charles, Marquess of Rockingham in?

context: Burke took a leading role in the debate regarding the constitutional limits to the executive authority of the king. He argued strongly against unrestrained royal power and for the role of political parties in maintaining a principled opposition capable of preventing abuses, either by the monarch, or by specific factions within the government. His most important publication in this regard was his Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents of 23 April 1770. Burke identified the "discontents" as stemming from the "secret influence" of a neo-Tory group he labelled as, the "king's friends", whose system "comprehending the exterior and interior administrations, is commonly called, in the technical language of the Court, Double Cabinet". Britain needed a party with "an unshaken adherence to principle, and attachment to connexion, against every allurement of interest". Party divisions "whether operating for good or evil, are things inseparable from free government".
qas: answers: text: the king
question: Who did Burke want constitutional limits on the power of?

answers: text: political parties
question: What type of institution did Burke think could offer opposition to abuses of power?

answers: text: neo-Tory
question: What type of group were the "king's friends"?

answers: text: Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents of 23 April 1770
question: What was Burke's most important publication about limiting royal power?

context: In May 1778, Burke supported a parliamentary motion revising restrictions on Irish trade. His constituents, citizens of the great trading city of Bristol, however urged Burke to oppose free trade with Ireland. Burke resisted their protestations and said: "If, from this conduct, I shall forfeit their suffrages at an ensuing election, it will stand on record an example to future representatives of the Commons of England, that one man at least had dared to resist the desires of his constituents when his judgment assured him they were wrong".
qas: answers: text: Ireland
question: What country did Burke propose restricting trade with?

answers: text: Bristol
question: What city did Burke represent in parliament?

answers: text: May 1778
question: When did Burke make a motion to restrict Irish trade?

answers: text: trading
question: What was Bristol's most important industry?

context: Burke was not merely presenting a peace agreement to Parliament; rather, he stepped forward with four reasons against using force, carefully reasoned. He laid out his objections in an orderly manner, focusing on one before moving to the next. His first concern was that the use of force would have to be temporary, and that the uprisings and objections to British governance in America would not be. Second, Burke worried about the uncertainty surrounding whether Britain would win a conflict in America. "An armament", Burke said, "is not a victory". Third, Burke brought up the issue of impairment; it would do the British Government no good to engage in a scorched earth war and have the object they desired (America) become damaged or even useless. The American colonists could always retreat into the mountains, but the land they left behind would most likely be unusable, whether by accident or design. The fourth and final reason to avoid the use of force was experience; the British had never attempted to rein in an unruly colony by force, and they did not know if it could be done, let alone accomplished thousands of miles away from home. Not only were all of these concerns reasonable, but some turned out to be prophetic – the American colonists did not surrender, even when things looked extremely bleak, and the British were ultimately unsuccessful in their attempts to win a war fought on American soil.
qas: answers: text: America
question: Where was Burke worried Britain might not win a war?

answers: text: four
question: How many reasons against violence did Burke present?

answers: text: thousands of miles
question: How far away was the potential conflict Burke argued against?

answers: text: the mountains
question: What area could the American colonists retreat to?

context: Among the reasons this speech was so greatly admired was its passage on Lord Bathurst (1684–1775); Burke describes an angel in 1704 prophesying to Bathurst the future greatness of England and also of America: "Young man, There is America – which at this day serves little more than to amuse you with stories of savage men, and uncouth manners; yet shall, before you taste of death, shew itself equal to the whole of that commerce which now attracts the envy of the world". Samuel Johnson was so irritated at hearing it continually praised, that he made a parody of it, where the devil appears to a young Whig and predicts that in short time, Whiggism will poison even the paradise of America!
qas: answers: text: 1775
question: When did Lord Bathurst die?

answers: text: 1704
question: When did an angel supposedly speak to Bathurst?

answers: text: Whiggism
question: What political position did Samuel Johnson say would soon poison America?

answers: text: 1684
question: When was Lord Bathurst born?

answers: text: the devil
question: In Samuel Johnson's writing, who appeared to a Whig?

context: The administration of Lord North (1770–1782) tried to defeat the colonist rebellion by military force. British and American forces clashed in 1775 and, in 1776, came the American Declaration of Independence. Burke was appalled by celebrations in Britain of the defeat of the Americans at New York and Pennsylvania. He claimed the English national character was being changed by this authoritarianism. Burke wrote: "As to the good people of England, they seem to partake every day more and more of the Character of that administration which they have been induced to tolerate. I am satisfied, that within a few years there has been a great Change in the National Character. We seem no longer that eager, inquisitive, jealous, fiery people, which we have been formerly".
qas: answers: text: 1770
question: When did Lord North take office?

answers: text: 1782
question: When did Lord North leave office?

answers: text: New York and Pennsylvania
question: Which victories against the Americans did the British celebrate?

answers: text: appalled
question: How did Burke feel about the British celebrating victories against the Americans?

answers: text: 1776
question: When was the American Declaration of Independence issued?

context: The Paymaster General Act 1782 ended the post as a lucrative sinecure. Previously, Paymasters had been able to draw on money from HM Treasury at their discretion. Now they were required to put the money they had requested to withdraw from the Treasury into the Bank of England, from where it was to be withdrawn for specific purposes. The Treasury would receive monthly statements of the Paymaster's balance at the Bank. This act was repealed by Shelburne's administration, but the act that replaced it repeated verbatim almost the whole text of the Burke Act.
qas: answers: text: HM Treasury
question: Where had Paymasters been able to get money from directly until 1782?

answers: text: the Bank of England
question: After 1782, where would money from Paymasters' withdrawal requests go?

answers: text: Shelburne
question: Whose administration repealed the Paymaster General Act?

answers: text: 1782
question: When was the Paymaster General Act passed?

context: Burke was a leading sceptic with respect to democracy. While admitting that theoretically, in some cases it might be desirable, he insisted a democratic government in Britain in his day would not only be inept, but also oppressive. He opposed democracy for three basic reasons. First, government required a degree of intelligence and breadth of knowledge of the sort that occurred rarely among the common people. Second, he thought that if they had the vote, common people had dangerous and angry passions that could be aroused easily by demagogues; he feared that the authoritarian impulses that could be empowered by these passions would undermine cherished traditions and established religion, leading to violence and confiscation of property. Third, Burke warned that democracy would create a tyranny over unpopular minorities, who needed the protection of the upper classes.
qas: answers: text: democratic
question: What type of government did Burke think would be inept?

answers: text: three
question: For how many reasons did Burke oppose democracy?

answers: text: demagogues
question: What did Burke think could arouse common people's dangerous passions?

answers: text: authoritarian
question: What type of impulses did Burke think could gain power through commoners' passions?

answers: text: the upper classes
question: Who did Burke think protected unpopular minorities?

context: For years Burke pursued impeachment efforts against Warren Hastings, formerly Governor-General of Bengal, that resulted in the trial during 1786. His interaction with the British dominion of India began well before Hastings' impeachment trial. For two decades prior to the impeachment, Parliament had dealt with the Indian issue. This trial was the pinnacle of years of unrest and deliberation. In 1781 Burke was first able to delve into the issues surrounding the East India Company when he was appointed Chairman of the Commons Select Committee on East Indian Affairs—from that point until the end of the trial; India was Burke's primary concern. This committee was charged "to investigate alleged injustices in Bengal, the war with Hyder Ali, and other Indian difficulties". While Burke and the committee focused their attention on these matters, a second 'secret' committee was formed to assess the same issues. Both committee reports were written by Burke. Among other purposes, the reports conveyed to the Indian princes that Britain would not wage war on them, along with demanding that the HEIC recall Hastings. This was Burke's first call for substantive change regarding imperial practices. When addressing the whole House of Commons regarding the committee report, Burke described the Indian issue as one that "began 'in commerce' but 'ended in empire.'"
qas: answers: text: 1786
question: When was Warren Hastings impeached?

answers: text: Bengal
question: Where was Hastings formerly the governor?

answers: text: two decades
question: How long before Hastings's trial had Britain been dealing with Indian unrest?

answers: text: the Commons Select Committee on East Indian Affairs
question: What was Burke made chairman of in 1781?

answers: text: empire
question: When Burke said the Indian problems 'began in commerce', where did he say the problems ended in?

context: On 4 April 1786, Burke presented the Commons with the Article of Charge of High Crimes and Misdemeanors against Hastings. The impeachment in Westminster Hall, which did not begin until 14 February 1788, would be the "first major public discursive event of its kind in England", bringing the morality and duty of imperialism to the forefront of public perception. Burke already was known for his eloquent rhetorical skills and his involvement in the trial only enhanced its popularity and significance. Burke's indictment, fuelled by emotional indignation, branded Hastings a 'captain-general of iniquity'; who never dined without 'creating a famine'; whose heart was 'gangrened to the core', and who resembled both a 'spider of Hell' and a 'ravenous vulture devouring the carcasses of the dead'. The House of Commons eventually impeached Hastings, but subsequently, the House of Lords acquitted him of all charges.
qas: answers: text: 4 April 1786
question: When did Burke charge Hastings for impeachment?

answers: text: Article of Charge of High Crimes and Misdemeanors
question: What was the impeachment formally called?

answers: text: House of Lords
question: Which house acquitted Hastings?

answers: text: House of Commons
question: Which house impeached Hastings?

answers: text: ravenous vulture
question: Like what creature did Burke say Hastings was 'devouring the dead'?

context: Initially, Burke did not condemn the French Revolution. In a letter of 9 August 1789, Burke wrote: "England gazing with astonishment at a French struggle for Liberty and not knowing whether to blame or to applaud! The thing indeed, though I thought I saw something like it in progress for several years, has still something in it paradoxical and Mysterious. The spirit it is impossible not to admire; but the old Parisian ferocity has broken out in a shocking manner". The events of 5–6 October 1789, when a crowd of Parisian women marched on Versailles to compel King Louis XVI to return to Paris, turned Burke against it. In a letter to his son, Richard Burke, dated 10 October he said: "This day I heard from Laurence who has sent me papers confirming the portentous state of France—where the Elements which compose Human Society seem all to be dissolved, and a world of Monsters to be produced in the place of it—where Mirabeau presides as the Grand Anarch; and the late Grand Monarch makes a figure as ridiculous as pitiable". On 4 November Charles-Jean-François Depont wrote to Burke, requesting that he endorse the Revolution. Burke replied that any critical language of it by him should be taken "as no more than the expression of doubt" but he added: "You may have subverted Monarchy, but not recover'd freedom". In the same month he described France as "a country undone". Burke's first public condemnation of the Revolution occurred on the debate in Parliament on the army estimates on 9 February 1790, provoked by praise of the Revolution by Pitt and Fox:
qas: answers: text: King Louis XVI
question: Who did Parisian women want to return to Paris?

answers: text: Richard Burke
question: What was Burke's son's name?

answers: text: Charles-Jean-François Depont
question: Who requested that Burke support the French Revolution?

answers: text: 9 February 1790
question: When did Burke first publicly condemn the French Revolution?

context: In January 1790, Burke read Dr. Richard Price's sermon of 4 November 1789 entitled, A Discourse on the Love of our Country, to the Revolution Society. That society had been founded to commemorate the Glorious Revolution of 1688. In this sermon Price espoused the philosophy of universal "Rights of Men". Price argued that love of our country "does not imply any conviction of the superior value of it to other countries, or any particular preference of its laws and constitution of government". Instead, Price asserted that Englishmen should see themselves "more as citizens of the world than as members of any particular community".
qas: answers: text: 4 November 1789
question: When did Richard Price give a sermon to the Revolution Society?

answers: text: the Glorious Revolution of 1688
question: What was the Revolution Society commemorating?

answers: text: Englishmen
question: Who did Price think should see themselves as citizens of the world?

answers: text: universal "Rights of Men"
question: What philosophy did Price support?

context: Immediately after reading Price's sermon, Burke wrote a draft of what eventually became, Reflections on the Revolution in France. On 13 February 1790, a notice in the press said that shortly, Burke would publish a pamphlet on the Revolution and its British supporters, however he spent the year revising and expanding it. On 1 November he finally published the Reflections and it was an immediate best-seller. Priced at five shillings, it was more expensive than most political pamphlets, but by the end of 1790, it had gone through ten printings and sold approximately 17,500 copies. A French translation appeared on 29 November and on 30 November the translator, Pierre-Gaëton Dupont, wrote to Burke saying 2,500 copies had already been sold. The French translation ran to ten printings by June 1791.
qas: answers: text: Reflections on the Revolution in France
question: Which of Burke's writings was inspired by Price's sermon?

answers: text: 1790
question: When did Burke publish his Reflections on the Revolution in France?

answers: text: 17,500
question: How many copies did Reflections on the Revolution in France sell in 2 months?

answers: text: Pierre-Gaëton Dupont
question: Who translated 'Reflections on the Revolution in France' into French?

answers: text: June 1791
question: When was the tenth printing of the French translation of 'Reflections on the Revolution in France'?

context: Burke put forward that "We fear God, we look up with awe to kings; with affection to parliaments; with duty to magistrates; with reverence to priests; and with respect to nobility. Why? Because when such ideas are brought before our minds, it is natural to be so affected". Burke defended this prejudice on the grounds that it is "the general bank and capital of nations, and of ages" and superior to individual reason, which is small in comparison. "Prejudice", Burke claimed, "is of ready application in the emergency; it previously engages the mind in a steady course of wisdom and virtue, and does not leave the man hesitating in the moment of decision, skeptical, puzzled, and unresolved. Prejudice renders a man's virtue his habit". Burke criticised social contract theory by claiming that society is indeed, a contract, but "a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born".
qas: answers: text: kings
question: Who did Burke say we look up to with awe?

answers: text: parliaments
question: Who did Burke say we look to with affection?

answers: text: priests
question: Who did Burke say we look to with reverence?

answers: text: with respect
question: How did Burke say we look towards nobility?

answers: text: duty
question: How did Burke say we look towards magistrates?

context: The most famous passage in Burke's Reflections was his description of the events of 5–6 October 1789 and the part of Marie-Antoinette in them. Burke's account differs little from modern historians who have used primary sources. His use of flowery language to describe it, however, provoked both praise and criticism. Philip Francis wrote to Burke saying that what he wrote of Marie-Antoinette was "pure foppery". Edward Gibbon, however, reacted differently: "I adore his chivalry". Burke was informed by an Englishman who had talked with the Duchesse de Biron, that when Marie-Antoinette was reading the passage, she burst into tears and took considerable time to finish reading it. Price had rejoiced that the French king had been "led in triumph" during the October Days, but to Burke this symbolised the opposing revolutionary sentiment of the Jacobins and the natural sentiments of those who shared his own view with horror—that the ungallant assault on Marie-Antoinette—was a cowardly attack on a defenceless woman.
qas: answers: text: Marie-Antoinette
question: Who was featured in the most well-known part of Burke's Reflections?

answers: text: Philip Francis
question: Who said Burke wrote 'pure foppery' about Marie-Antoinette?

answers: text: Edward Gibbon
question: Who adored Burke's chivalry?

answers: text: she burst into tears
question: How did Marie-Antoinette react to Burke's writing about her?

context: Louis XVI translated the Reflections "from end to end" into French. Fellow Whig MPs Richard Sheridan and Charles James Fox, disagreed with Burke and split with him. Fox thought the Reflections to be "in very bad taste" and "favouring Tory principles". Other Whigs such as the Duke of Portland and Earl Fitzwilliam privately agreed with Burke, but did not wish for a public breach with their Whig colleagues. Burke wrote on 29 November 1790: "I have received from the Duke of Portland, Lord Fitzwilliam, the Duke of Devonshire, Lord John Cavendish, Montagu (Frederick Montagu MP), and a long et cetera of the old Stamina of the Whiggs a most full approbation of the principles of that work and a kind indulgence to the execution". The Duke of Portland said in 1791 that when anyone criticised the Reflections to him, he informed them that he had recommended the book to his sons as containing the true Whig creed.
qas: answers: text: Louis XVI
question: Who re-translated the Reflections into French?

answers: text: Richard Sheridan and Charles James Fox
question: Which British ministers disagreed with Burke's Reflections?

answers: text: Whig
question: What political party was Charles James Fox?

answers: text: Whigs
question: What political party was Earl Fitzwilliam?

answers: text: Whig
question: What political party was Richard Sheridan?

context: Burke's Reflections sparked a pamphlet war. Thomas Paine penned the Rights of Man in 1791 as a response to Burke; Mary Wollstonecraft published A Vindication of the Rights of Men and James Mackintosh wrote Vindiciae Gallicae. Mackintosh was the first to see the Reflections as "the manifesto of a Counter Revolution". Mackintosh later agreed with Burke's views, remarking in December 1796 after meeting him, that Burke was "minutely and accurately informed, to a wonderful exactness, with respect to every fact relating to the French Revolution". Mackintosh later said: "Burke was one of the first thinkers as well as one of the greatest orators of his time. He is without parallel in any age, excepting perhaps Lord Bacon and Cicero; and his works contain an ampler store of political and moral wisdom than can be found in any other writer whatever".
qas: answers: text: Thomas Paine
question: Who wrote 'The Rights of Man'?

answers: text: Mary Wollstonecraft
question: Who wrote 'A Vindication of the Rights of Men'?

answers: text: James Mackintosh
question: Who said the Reflections were "the manifesto of a Counter Revolution"?

answers: text: Lord Bacon and Cicero
question: Who did Mackintosh compare Burke to?

answers: text: political and moral
question: What types of wisdom did Mackintosh say Burke had?

context: In November 1790, François-Louis-Thibault de Menonville, a member of the National Assembly of France, wrote to Burke, praising Reflections and requesting more "very refreshing mental food" that he could publish. This Burke did in April 1791 when he published A Letter to a Member of the National Assembly. Burke called for external forces to reverse the revolution and included an attack on the late French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, as being the subject of a personality cult that had developed in revolutionary France. Although Burke conceded that Rousseau sometimes showed "a considerable insight into human nature" he mostly was critical. Although he did not meet Rousseau on his visit to Britain in 1766–7 Burke was a friend of David Hume, with whom Rousseau had stayed. Burke said Rousseau "entertained no principle either to influence of his heart, or to guide his understanding—but vanity"—which he "was possessed to a degree little short of madness". He also cited Rousseau's Confessions as evidence that Rousseau had a life of "obscure and vulgar vices" that was not "chequered, or spotted here and there, with virtues, or even distinguished by a single good action". Burke contrasted Rousseau's theory of universal benevolence and his having sent his children to a foundling hospital: "a lover of his kind, but a hater of his kindred".
qas: answers: text: François-Louis-Thibault de Menonville
question: Who asked Burke for more "very refreshing mental food"?

answers: text: April 1791
question: When did Burke release 'A Letter to a Member of the National Assembly'?

answers: text: Jean-Jacques Rousseau
question: Which French philosopher did Burke attack?

answers: text: 1766–7
question: When did Rousseau visit Britain?

answers: text: David Hume
question: Who did Rousseau stay with when visiting Britain?

context: These events and the disagreements that arose from them within the Whig Party, led to its break-up and to the rupture of Burke's friendship with Fox. In debate in Parliament on Britain's relations with Russia, Fox praised the principles of the revolution, although Burke was not able to reply at this time as he was "overpowered by continued cries of question from his own side of the House". When Parliament was debating the Quebec Bill for a constitution for Canada, Fox praised the revolution and criticised some of Burke's arguments, such as hereditary power. On 6 May 1791, during another debate in Parliament on the Quebec Bill, Burke used the opportunity to answer Fox, and to condemn the new French Constitution and "the horrible consequences flowing from the French idea of the Rights of Man". Burke asserted that those ideas were the antithesis of both the British and the American constitutions. Burke was interrupted, and Fox intervened, saying that Burke should be allowed to carry on with his speech. A vote of censure was moved against Burke, however, for noticing the affairs of France, which was moved by Lord Sheffield and seconded by Fox. Pitt made a speech praising Burke, and Fox made a speech—both rebuking and complimenting Burke. He questioned the sincerity of Burke, who seemed to have forgotten the lessons he had learned from him, quoting from Burke's own speeches of fourteen and fifteen years before.
qas: answers: text: Russia
question: Fox praised revolutionary principles in a debate about which country?

answers: text: hereditary
question: What type of power did Fox think Burke was wrong about?

answers: text: French
question: Which constitution did Burke condemn on May 6, 1791?

answers: text: fourteen and fifteen years
question: Fox quoted Burke's speeches from how long ago?

context: At this point, Fox whispered that there was "no loss of friendship". "I regret to say there is", Burke replied, "I have indeed made a great sacrifice; I have done my duty though I have lost my friend. There is something in the detested French constitution that envenoms every thing it touches". This provoked a reply from Fox, yet he was unable to give his speech for some time since he was overcome with tears and emotion, he appealed to Burke to remember their inalienable friendship, but also repeated his criticisms of Burke and uttered "unusually bitter sarcasms". This only aggravated the rupture between the two men. Burke demonstrated his separation from the party on 5 June 1791 by writing to Fitzwilliam, declining money from him.
qas: answers: text: 5 June 1791
question: When did Burke leave the Whig party?

answers: text: Fitzwilliam
question: Who did Burke turn down money from?

answers: text: French constitution
question: What did Burke say 'envenoms everything it touches'?

answers: text: Fox
question: Who thought that Fox and Burke could still be friends?

answers: text: Burke
question: Who thought that Fox and Burke's friendship was lost?

context: Burke knew that many members of the Whig Party did not share Fox's views and he wanted to provoke them into condemning the French Revolution. Burke wrote that he wanted to represent the whole Whig party "as tolerating, and by a toleration, countenancing those proceedings" so that he could "stimulate them to a public declaration of what every one of their acquaintance privately knows to be...their sentiments". Therefore, on 3 August 1791 Burke published his Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs, in which he renewed his criticism of the radical revolutionary programmes inspired by the French Revolution and attacked the Whigs who supported them, as holding principles contrary to those traditionally held by the Whig party.
qas: answers: text: the French Revolution
question: What did Burke want the Whigs to condemn?

answers: text: Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs
question: What did Burke publish on Aug 3, 1791?

answers: text: the Whig party
question: Burke thought the French Revolution was against whose principles?

answers: text: the French Revolution
question: Burke attacked Whigs who supported what?

context: Although Whig grandees such as Portland and Fitzwilliam privately agreed with Burke's Appeal, they wished he had used more moderate language. Fitzwilliam saw the Appeal as containing "the doctrines I have sworn by, long and long since". Francis Basset, a backbench Whig MP, wrote to Burke: "...though for reasons which I will not now detail I did not then deliver my sentiments, I most perfectly differ from Mr. Fox & from the great Body of opposition on the French Revolution". Burke sent a copy of the Appeal to the king and the king requested a friend to communicate to Burke that he had read it "with great Satisfaction". Burke wrote of its reception: "Not one word from one of our party. They are secretly galled. They agree with me to a title; but they dare not speak out for fear of hurting Fox. ... They leave me to myself; they see that I can do myself justice". Charles Burney viewed it as "a most admirable book—the best & most useful on political subjects that I have ever seen" but believed the differences in the Whig Party between Burke and Fox should not be aired publicly.
qas: answers: text: Portland and Fitzwilliam
question: Who thought Burke should have written in a more moderate tone?

answers: text: Francis Basset
question: Who said he 'perfectly differed from Mr. Fox'?

answers: text: Whig
question: What was Francis Basset's political party?

answers: text: galled
question: How did Burke think the Whigs secretly felt?

answers: text: Charles Burney
question: Who thought Burke and Fox shouldn't have made their argument public?

context: Burke supported the war against revolutionary France, seeing Britain as fighting on the side of the royalists and émigres in a civil war, rather than fighting against the whole nation of France. Burke also supported the royalist uprising in La Vendée, describing it on 4 November 1793 in a letter to William Windham, as "the sole affair I have much heart in". Burke wrote to Henry Dundas on 7 October urging him to send reinforcements there, as he viewed it as the only theatre in the war that might lead to a march on Paris. Dundas did not follow Burke's advice, however.
qas: answers: text: William Windham
question: Who did Burke write to on Nov 4, 1793?

answers: text: royalist
question: Which faction's uprising in La Vendee did Burke support?

answers: text: Henry Dundas
question: Who did Burke urge to send reinforcements to La Vendee?

answers: text: Paris
question: Where did Burke think La Vendee might lead to a march on?

answers: text: revolutionary France
question: What did Burke support Britain fighting against?

context: Burke believed the Government was not taking the uprising seriously enough, a view reinforced by a letter he had received from the Prince Charles of France (S.A.R. le comte d'Artois), dated 23 October, requesting that he intercede on behalf of the royalists to the Government. Burke was forced to reply on 6 November: "I am not in His Majesty's Service; or at all consulted in his Affairs". Burke published his Remarks on the Policy of the Allies with Respect to France, begun in October, where he said: "I am sure every thing has shewn us that in this war with France, one Frenchman is worth twenty foreigners. La Vendée is a proof of this".
qas: answers: text: 23 October
question: When did Prince Charles write to Burke?

answers: text: twenty
question: How many foreign supporters did Burke think a French royalist was worth?

answers: text: La Vendée
question: What did Burke see as proof of the importance of French royalists?

answers: text: France
question: What country was Prince Charles part of the ruling family of?

answers: text: Remarks on the Policy of the Allies with Respect to France
question: In what writing did Burke comment about the importance of La Vendee?

context: On 20 June 1794, Burke received a vote of thanks from the Commons for his services in the Hastings Trial and he immediately resigned his seat, being replaced by his son Richard. A tragic blow fell upon Burke with the loss of Richard in August 1794, to whom he was tenderly attached, and in whom he saw signs of promise, which were not patent to others and which, in fact, appear to have been non-existent (though this view may have rather reflected the fact that Richard Burke had worked successfully in the early battle for Catholic emancipation). King George III, whose favour he had gained by his attitude on the French Revolution, wished to create him Earl of Beaconsfield, but the death of his son deprived the opportunity of such an honour and all its attractions, so the only award he would accept was a pension of £2,500. Even this modest reward was attacked by the Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Lauderdale, to whom Burke replied in his Letter to a Noble Lord (1796): "It cannot at this time be too often repeated; line upon line; precept upon precept; until it comes into the currency of a proverb, To innovate is not to reform". He argued that he was rewarded on merit, but the Duke of Bedford received his rewards from inheritance alone, his ancestor being the original pensioner: "Mine was from a mild and benevolent sovereign; his from Henry the Eighth". Burke also hinted at what would happen to such people if their revolutionary ideas were implemented, and included a description of the British constitution:
qas: answers: text: 20 June 1794
question: When did Burke receive a vote of thanks?

answers: text: August 1794
question: When did Burke's son die?

answers: text: Beaconsfield
question: What did King George III want to make Burke an Earl of?

answers: text: £2,500
question: How much money did Burke accept instead of the Earlship?

answers: text: Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Lauderdale
question: Who attacked Burke for receiving recognition from King George III?

context: Burke's last publications were the Letters on a Regicide Peace (October 1796), called forth by negotiations for peace with France by the Pitt government. Burke regarded this as appeasement, injurious to national dignity and honour. In his Second Letter, Burke wrote of the French Revolutionary Government: "Individuality is left out of their scheme of government. The State is all in all. Everything is referred to the production of force; afterwards, everything is trusted to the use of it. It is military in its principle, in its maxims, in its spirit, and in all its movements. The State has dominion and conquest for its sole objects—dominion over minds by proselytism, over bodies by arms".
qas: answers: text: Letters on a Regicide Peace
question: What was Burke's final publication?

answers: text: October 1796
question: When was Burke's final publication?

answers: text: Individuality
question: What did Burke think was missing from the French Revolutionary Government?

answers: text: dominion and conquest
question: What did Burke think were the French Revolutionary Government's only goals?

answers: text: negotiations for peace with France by the Pitt government
question: What negotiations did Burke think were appeasement?

context: This is held to be the first explanation of the modern concept of totalitarian state. Burke regarded the war with France as ideological, against an "armed doctrine". He wished that France would not be partitioned due to the effect this would have on the balance of power in Europe, and that the war was not against France, but against the revolutionaries governing her. Burke said: "It is not France extending a foreign empire over other nations: it is a sect aiming at universal empire, and beginning with the conquest of France".
qas: answers: text: an "armed doctrine"
question: What did Burke think the war with France was against?

answers: text: France
question: Burke hoped which country wouldn't be partitioned?

answers: text: universal
question: What kind of empire did Burke think the French revolutionaries wanted?

answers: text: the revolutionaries governing her
question: Who did Burke think the war was against, rather than France as a whole?

context: In November 1795, there was a debate in Parliament on the high price of corn and Burke wrote a memorandum to Pitt on the subject. In December Samuel Whitbread MP introduced a bill giving magistrates the power to fix minimum wages and Fox said he would vote for it. This debate probably led Burke to editing his memorandum, as there appeared a notice that Burke would soon publish a letter on the subject to the Secretary of the Board of Agriculture, Arthur Young; but he failed to complete it. These fragments were inserted into the memorandum after his death and published posthumously in 1800 as, Thoughts and Details on Scarcity. In it, Burke expounded "some of the doctrines of political economists bearing upon agriculture as a trade". Burke criticised policies such as maximum prices and state regulation of wages, and set out what the limits of government should be:
qas: answers: text: Pitt
question: Who did Burke write to about the price of corn?

answers: text: Samuel Whitbread
question: Who introduced a bill in 1795 about minimum wage?

answers: text: Arthur Young
question: Who was the Secretary of the Board of Agriculture?

answers: text: Thoughts and Details on Scarcity
question: Burke's unfinished letter to Arthur Young became part of what publication?

answers: text: 1800
question: When was 'Thoughts and Details on Scarcity' published?

context: Writing to a friend in May 1795, Burke surveyed the causes of discontent: "I think I can hardly overrate the malignity of the principles of Protestant ascendency, as they affect Ireland; or of Indianism [i.e. corporate tyranny, as practiced by the British East Indies Company], as they affect these countries, and as they affect Asia; or of Jacobinism, as they affect all Europe, and the state of human society itself. The last is the greatest evil". By March 1796, however Burke had changed his mind: "Our Government and our Laws are beset by two different Enemies, which are sapping its foundations, Indianism, and Jacobinism. In some Cases they act separately, in some they act in conjunction: But of this I am sure; that the first is the worst by far, and the hardest to deal with; and for this amongst other reasons, that it weakens discredits, and ruins that force, which ought to be employed with the greatest Credit and Energy against the other; and that it furnishes Jacobinism with its strongest arms against all formal Government".
qas: answers: text: Protestant
question: Whose ascendancy did Burke think was malignant?

answers: text: Indianism
question: What did Burke call corporate tyranny in India?

answers: text: Europe
question: Which continent did Jacobinism affect?

answers: text: March 1796
question: When did Burke decide Indianism was the worst threat?

answers: text: Jacobinism
question: What did Burke think was the worst threat in 1795?

context: Burke believed that property was essential to human life. Because of his conviction that people desire to be ruled and controlled, the division of property formed the basis for social structure, helping develop control within a property-based hierarchy. He viewed the social changes brought on by property as the natural order of events, which should be taking place as the human race progressed. With the division of property and the class system, he also believed that it kept the monarch in check to the needs of the classes beneath the monarch. Since property largely aligned or defined divisions of social class, class too, was seen as natural—part of a social agreement that the setting of persons into different classes, is the mutual benefit of all subjects. Concern for property is not Burke's only influence. As Christopher Hitchens summarises, "If modern conservatism can be held to derive from Burke, it is not just because he appealed to property owners in behalf of stability but also because he appealed to an everyday interest in the preservation of the ancestral and the immemorial."
qas: answers: text: property
question: What did Burke think was crucial for human life?

answers: text: property
question: What did Burke think a social hierarchy should be based on?

answers: text: all subjects
question: Who did Burke think a social class structure benefited?

answers: text: Christopher Hitchens
question: Who wrote that Burke "appealed to property owners"?

answers: text: the ancestral and the immemorial
question: What did Hitchens think Burke supported preserving?

context: In the nineteenth century Burke was praised by both liberals and conservatives. Burke's friend Philip Francis wrote that Burke "was a man who truly & prophetically foresaw all the consequences which would rise from the adoption of the French principles" but because Burke wrote with so much passion, people were doubtful of his arguments. William Windham spoke from the same bench in the House of Commons as Burke had, when he had separated from Fox, and an observer said Windham spoke "like the ghost of Burke" when he made a speech against peace with France in 1801. William Hazlitt, a political opponent of Burke, regarded him as amongst his three favourite writers (the others being Junius and Rousseau), and made it "a test of the sense and candour of any one belonging to the opposite party, whether he allowed Burke to be a great man". William Wordsworth was originally a supporter of the French Revolution and attacked Burke in 'A Letter to the Bishop of Llandaff' (1793), but by the early nineteenth century he had changed his mind and came to admire Burke. In his Two Addresses to the Freeholders of Westmorland Wordsworth called Burke "the most sagacious Politician of his age" whose predictions "time has verified". He later revised his poem The Prelude to include praise of Burke ("Genius of Burke! forgive the pen seduced/By specious wonders") and portrayed him as an old oak. Samuel Taylor Coleridge came to have a similar conversion: he had criticised Burke in The Watchman, but in his Friend (1809–10) Coleridge defended Burke from charges of inconsistency. Later, in his Biographia Literaria (1817) Coleridge hails Burke as a prophet and praises Burke for referring "habitually to principles. He was a scientific statesman; and therefore a seer". Henry Brougham wrote of Burke: "... all his predictions, save one momentary expression, had been more than fulfilled: anarchy and bloodshed had borne sway in France; conquest and convulsion had desolated Europe...the providence of mortals is not often able to penetrate so far as this into futurity". George Canning believed that Burke's Reflections "has been justified by the course of subsequent events; and almost every prophecy has been strictly fulfilled". In 1823 Canning wrote that he took Burke's "last works and words [as] the manual of my politics". The Conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli "was deeply penetrated with the spirit and sentiment of Burke's later writings".
qas: answers: text: Philip Francis
question: Who thought Burke was prophetic about the French revolution's consequences?

answers: text: passion
question: What did Francis think Burke's writing had too much of?

answers: text: William Windham
question: Who made speeches very similar to Burke's in Parliament?

answers: text: 1801
question: When did Windham speak against peace with France?

answers: text: 1793
question: When did Wordsworth initially attack Burke?

context: The 19th-century Liberal Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone considered Burke "a magazine of wisdom on Ireland and America" and in his diary recorded: "Made many extracts from Burke—sometimes almost divine". The Radical MP and anti-Corn Law activist Richard Cobden often praised Burke's Thoughts and Details on Scarcity. The Liberal historian Lord Acton considered Burke one of the three greatest Liberals, along with William Gladstone and Thomas Babington Macaulay. Lord Macaulay recorded in his diary: "I have now finished reading again most of Burke's works. Admirable! The greatest man since Milton". The Gladstonian Liberal MP John Morley published two books on Burke (including a biography) and was influenced by Burke, including his views on prejudice. The Cobdenite Radical Francis Hirst thought Burke deserved "a place among English libertarians, even though of all lovers of liberty and of all reformers he was the most conservative, the least abstract, always anxious to preserve and renovate rather than to innovate. In politics he resembled the modern architect who would restore an old house instead of pulling it down to construct a new one on the site". Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France was controversial at the time of its publication, but after his death, it was to become his best known and most influential work, and a manifesto for Conservative thinking.
qas: answers: text: Liberal
question: What political party was Gladstone in?

answers: text: Ireland and America
question: What countries did Gladstone think Burke was wise about?

answers: text: Corn Law
question: What was Cobden an activist against?

answers: text: Milton
question: Lord Macaulay thought Burke was the best author since whom?

answers: text: Francis Hirst
question: Who thought Burke was like an architect remodeling an old house instead of tearing it down?

context: The historian Piers Brendon asserts that Burke laid the moral foundations for the British Empire, epitomised in the trial of Warren Hastings, that was ultimately to be its undoing: when Burke stated that "The British Empire must be governed on a plan of freedom, for it will be governed by no other", this was "...an ideological bacillus that would prove fatal. This was Edmund Burke's paternalistic doctrine that colonial government was a trust. It was to be so exercised for the benefit of subject people that they would eventually attain their birthright—freedom". As a consequence of this opinion, Burke objected to the opium trade, which he called a "smuggling adventure" and condemned "the great Disgrace of the British character in India".
qas: answers: text: Piers Brendon
question: Who thought Burke's trial of Hastings was a moral foundation of the British Empire?

answers: text: a plan of freedom
question: What did Burke think the British Empire should be governed based on?

answers: text: opium trade
question: What did Burke call 'a smuggling adventure'?

answers: text: opium trade
question: What did Burke think had disgraced Britain in India?

context: Burke's religious writing comprises published works and commentary on the subject of religion. Burke's religious thought was grounded in the belief that religion is the foundation of civil society. He sharply criticised deism and atheism, and emphasised Christianity as a vehicle of social progress. Born in Ireland to a Catholic mother and a Protestant father, Burke vigorously defended the Anglican Church, but also demonstrated sensitivity to Catholic concerns. He linked the conservation of a state (established) religion with the preservation of citizens' constitutional liberties and highlighted Christianity's benefit not only to the believer's soul, but also to political arrangements.
qas: answers: text: Anglican
question: Which church did Burke most defend?

answers: text: religion
question: What did Burke think was the foundation of society?

answers: text: Catholic
question: What religion was Burke's mother?

answers: text: Protestant
question: What religion was Burke's father?

answers: text: political arrangements
question: Burke thought religion was beneficial to what besides souls?