ABSTRACT
Apamphlet by George Grenville, accusing the Rockingham Whigs of ruining Britain by reversing his policy of taxing America, provoked Edmund Burke's reply, Observations on 'The Present State of the Nation'. Grenville asserted one of his most fundamental political principles. This is one of the grand themes in all his writings and speeches on the practical politics of the American colonies, Ireland, India, and France. Burke concluded that unless such speculative theories as Grenville's were abandoned, and "until the ideas of 1766 are resumed", and Rockingham's policies were once more followed, that Britain and the Colonies would become increasingly alienated. His Observations contains in summary the essential principles, policies, and arguments he was to advance concerning the American colonies from 1769 to their independence from Britain. The year after his attack on Grenville's American policy Burke wrote his first great pamphlet in the literature of politics, Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents.
