The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI | Page 3

on the Approaching Executions.
It may not, perhaps, now be generally known that Mr. Burke was a
marked object of the rioters in this disgraceful commotion, from whose
fury he narrowly escaped. The Reflections will be found to contain
maxims of the soundest judicial policy, and do equal honor to the head
and heart of their illustrious writer.
XII. Letter to the Right Honorable Henry Dundas; with the Sketch of a
Negro Code.
Mr. Burke, in the Letter to Mr. Dundas, has entered fully into his own
views of the Slave Trade, and has thereby rendered any further
explanation on that subject at present unnecessary. With respect to the
Code itself, an unsuccessful attempt was made to procure the copy of it
transmitted to Mr. Dundas. It was not to be found amongst his papers.
The Editor has therefore been obliged to have recourse to a rough draft
of it in Mr. Burke's own handwriting; from which he hopes he has
succeeded in making a pretty correct transcript of it, as well as in the
attempt he has made to supply the marginal references alluded to in Mr.
Burke's Letter to Mr. Dundas.
XIII. Letter to the Chairman of the Buckinghamshire Meeting.
Of the occasion of this Letter an account is given in the note subjoined
[prefixed] to it.
XIV. Tracts and Letters relative to the Laws against Popery in Ireland.
These pieces consist of,--
1. An unfinished Tract on the Popery Laws. Of this Tract the reader
will find an account in the note prefixed to it.
2. A Letter to William Smith, Esq. Several copies of this letter having
got abroad, it was printed and published in Dublin without the
permission of Mr. Burke, or of the gentleman to whom it was
addressed.
3. Second Letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe. This may be considered as
supplementary to the first letter, addressed to the same person in
January, 1792, which was published in the third volume.[5]

4. Letter to Richard Burke, Esq. Of this letter it will be necessary to
observe, that the first part of it appears to have been originally
addressed by Mr. Burke to his son in the manner in which it is now
printed, but to have been left unfinished; after whose death he probably
designed to have given the substance of it, with additional observations,
to the public in some other form, but never found leisure or inclination
to finish it.
5. A Letter on the Affairs of Ireland, written in the year 1797. The
name of the person to whom this letter was addressed does not appear
on the manuscript; nor has the letter been found to which it was written
as an answer. And as the gentleman whom he employed as an
amanuensis is not now living, no discovery of it can be made, unless
this publication of the letter should produce some information
respecting it, that may enable us in a future volume to gratify, on this
point, the curiosity of the reader. The letter was dictated, as he himself
tells us, from his couch at Bath; to which place he had gone, by the
advice of his physicians, in March, 1797. His health was now rapidly
declining; the vigor of his mind remained unimpaired. This, my dear
friend, was, I believe, the last letter dictated by him on public
affairs:--here ended his political labors.
XV. Fragments and Notes of Speeches in Parliament.
1. Speech on the Acts of Uniformity.
2. Speech on a Bill for the Relief of Protestant Dissenters.
3. Speech on the Petition of the Unitarians.
4. Speech on the Middlesex Election.
5. Speech on a Bill for shortening the Duration of Parliaments.
6. Speech on the Reform of the Representation in Parliament.
7. Speech on a Bill for explaining the Powers of Juries in Prosecutions
for Libels.
*7. Letter relative to the same subject.
8. Speech on a Bill for repealing the Marriage Act.
9. Speech on a Bill to quiet the Possessions of the Subject against
Dormant Claims of the Church.
With respect to these fragments, I have already stated the reasons by
which we were influenced in our determination to publish them. An
account of the state in which these manuscripts were found is given in
the note prefixed to this article.

XVI. Hints for an Essay on the Drama.
This fragment was perused in manuscript by a learned and judicious
critic, our late lamented friend, Mr. Malone; and under the protection of
his opinion we can feel no hesitation in submitting it to the judgment of
the public.
XVII. We are now come to the concluding article of this volume,--the
Essay on the History of England.
At what time of the author's life it was written cannot now be exactly
ascertained; but it was certainly begun