In reading this, the first of his invectives, it is important, for the sake of clearness of judgment, to put from our minds the practical policy which Burke afterwards so untiringly urged upon his countrymen.
As yet there is no exhortation to England to interfere.

We still listen to the voice of the statesman, and are not deafened by the passionate cries of the preacher of a crusade.

When Burke wrote the _Reflections_ he was justified in criticising the Revolution as an extraordinary movement, but still a movement professing to be conducted on the principles of rational and practicable politics.

They were the principles to which competent onlookers like Jefferson and Morris had expected the Assembly to conform, but to which the Assembly never conformed for an instant.

It was on the principles of rational politics that Fox and Sheridan admired it.