All this, in itself, is unexceptionable; and it shows Burke's admirable grasp of the practical application of attractive theories to the event.
But it is to be read in conjunction with a general hostility to basic constitutional change which is more dubious.

He had no sympathy with the Radicals.

"The bane of the Whigs," he said, "has been the admission among them of the corps of schemers ...

who do us infinite mischief by persuading many sober and well-meaning people that we have designs inconsistent with the Constitution left us by our forefathers." "If the nation at large," he wrote in another letter, "has disposition enough to oppose all bad principles and all bad men, its form of government is, in my opinion, fully sufficient for it; but if the general disposition be against a virtuous and manly line of public conduct, there is no form into which it can be thrown that will improve its nature or add to its energy"; and in the same letter he foreshadows a possible retirement from the House of Commons as a protest against the growth of radical opinion in his party.

He resisted every effort to reduce the suffrage qualification.