"We have been twenty years engaged in the two most expensive wars that Europe ever saw. The whole burthen of this charge has lain upon the landed interest during the whole time. The men of estates have, generally speaking, neither served in the fleets nor armies, nor meddled in the public funds, and management of the treasure. A new interest has been created out of their fortunes, and a sort of property, which was not known twenty years ago, is now encreased to be almost equal to the terra firma of our island. The consequences of all this is, that the landed men are become poor and dispirited. They either abandon all thoughts of the publick, turn arrant farmers, and improve the estates they have left: or else they seek to repair their shattered fortunes by listing at court, or under the heads of partys. In the mean while those men are become their masters, who formerly would with joy have been their servants."
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Philosophers from EnglandCritics of religionAcademics from the United KingdomPeople from LondonTory (British political party) politicians
Original Language: English
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Letter to Lord Orrery (9 July 1709), quoted in 'The Letters of Henry St. John to the Earl of Orrery, 1709–1711', ed. H. T. Dickinson, Camden Miscellany, Vol. XXVI (1975), p. 146
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henry_St_John%2C_1st_Viscount_Bolingbroke
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Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke
1678 – 1751
Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke (September 16, 1678 – December 12, 1751) was an English statesman and philosopher.
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