"If notwithstanding, a Rebellion of the same Kind now afflicts this Country, we should not infer that this Institution is useless, or should be laid aside; but just the Reverse"
About this Quote
Inglis is selling continuity in a moment when continuity looks like complicity. Writing as an Anglican clergyman during the revolutionary upheavals of the late 18th century, he frames rebellion not as a verdict on the legitimacy of the political order, but as a stress test the order is expected to survive. The key move is in the legalistic throat-clearing of "If notwithstanding": he grants the fact of rebellion while stripping it of interpretive power. Yes, unrest exists; no, it does not get to rewrite the rules.
The sentence is a piece of institutional self-defense dressed up as prudence. "This Institution" is left conveniently vague, a rhetorical fog that lets monarchy, empire, and the established church shelter under the same umbrella. By refusing to name the institution, Inglis also refuses to let the argument be pinned down to any one failing. Rebellion becomes a kind of weather system, an affliction that happens to countries, not a political response to policy, inequality, or representation.
The subtext is pastoral and partisan at once: remain loyal, do not treat upheaval as moral revelation, do not mistake noise for judgment. His crisp inversion - "but just the Reverse" - is the homiletic punchline, the cleric's cadence repurposed for counterrevolutionary messaging. If disorder is the symptom, Inglis implies, stronger institutions are the cure; reform is framed as surrender, not adaptation. In a colonial context where authority was being contested from below, that logic functions less like comfort than like a preemptive scolding: the problem isn't the system; it's the people testing it.
The sentence is a piece of institutional self-defense dressed up as prudence. "This Institution" is left conveniently vague, a rhetorical fog that lets monarchy, empire, and the established church shelter under the same umbrella. By refusing to name the institution, Inglis also refuses to let the argument be pinned down to any one failing. Rebellion becomes a kind of weather system, an affliction that happens to countries, not a political response to policy, inequality, or representation.
The subtext is pastoral and partisan at once: remain loyal, do not treat upheaval as moral revelation, do not mistake noise for judgment. His crisp inversion - "but just the Reverse" - is the homiletic punchline, the cleric's cadence repurposed for counterrevolutionary messaging. If disorder is the symptom, Inglis implies, stronger institutions are the cure; reform is framed as surrender, not adaptation. In a colonial context where authority was being contested from below, that logic functions less like comfort than like a preemptive scolding: the problem isn't the system; it's the people testing it.
Quote Details
| Topic | War |
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