When Edmund Burke, who sympathized with the American colonists, delivered his argument against the Stamp Act, he countered the position of Lord North, the Tory prime minister:
"Lord North asserts, that retrospect is not wise; and the proper, the only proper subject of inquiry, is 'not how we got into this difficulty, but how we are to get out of it.' In other words, we are, according to him, to consult our invention, and reject our experience. The mode of deliberation he recommends is diametrically opposite to every rule of reason and every principle of good sense established amongst mankind."
- From Edmund Burke: The First Conservative by Jesse Norman
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