Edmund Burke - Wikipedia

On July 9, 1797 Edmund Burke, British author and parliament leader (Reflections), died at age 68. From the article:

"Burke was a proponent of underpinning virtues with manners in society and of the importance of religion in moral life.[6][page needed] These views were expressed in his A Vindication of Natural Society. Burke criticized British treatment of the American colonies, including through its taxation policies. He also supported the rights of the colonists to resist metropolitan authority, though he opposed the attempt to achieve independence. Burke is remembered for his support for Catholic emancipation, the impeachment of Warren Hastings from the East India Company and for his staunch opposition to the French Revolution. In his Reflections on the Revolution in France, Burke asserted that the revolution was destroying the fabric of good society, traditional institutions of state and society and condemned the persecution of the Catholic Church that resulted from it. This led to his becoming the leading figure within the conservative faction of the Whig Party, which he dubbed the "Old Whigs", as opposed to the pro-French Revolution "New Whigs", led by Charles James Fox.[7]

In the nineteenth century, Burke was praised by both conservatives and liberals.[8] Subsequently, in the twentieth century he became widely regarded as the philosophical founder of modern conservatism."