The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke, Volume 10Little, Brown,, 1869 - Great Britain |
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Common terms and phrases
accusation act of Parliament affairs agent appear appointed authority banian believe Bengal bonds bribery cabooleat Calcutta called Cantoo Baboo character charge circumstances Clavering Committee Company Company's concealment conduct consequence consider corruption Council Court of Directors covenants crimes Debi Sing declared defence dewan Dinagepore discovery duty endeavored evidence evil explanation extortion favor forgery fraud give given Governor Governor-General guilt Gunga Govind Sing hands Hastings's honor House of Commons India ings inquiry knew lac of rupees Larkins letter Lords Mahomed Reza Khân manner means ment mind Munny Begum Nabob nature never Nundcomar occasion opinion oppression paid Patna peculation person presumption pretended principle proceedings proof prosecution prove province Rajah receiving bribes regard revenue sent servants Sir John Clavering situation suffer sum of money taken tell thing thought tion transactions trust Warren Hastings whole zemindary
Popular passages
Page 91 - ... witness, most probably the abettor and accomplice, of all these horrors. He called in first irregular, and then regular, troops, who by dreadful and universal military execution got the better of the impotent resistance of unarmed and undisciplined despair. I am tired with the detail of the cruelties of peace. I spare you those of a cruel and inhuman war, and of the executions which without law or process, or even the shadow of authority, were ordered by the English revenue chief in that province....
Page 140 - I therefore charge Mr. Hastings with having destroyed, for private purposes, the whole system of government by the six provincial councils, which he had no right to destroy. I charge him with having delegated to others that power which the act of Parliament had directed him to preserve unalienably in himself. I charge him with having formed a committee to be mere instruments and tools, at the enormous expense of £62,000 per annum. I charge him with having appointed a person their dewan, to whom...
Page 144 - My Lords, you have here also the lights of our religion, you have the bishops of England. My Lords, you have that true image of the primitive Church, in its ancient form, in its ancient ordinances, purified from the superstitions and the vices which a long suecession of ages will bring upon the best institutions.
Page 251 - quia tanti quantum habeas sis' : quid facias illi? iubeas miserum esse, libenter quatenus id facit: ut quidam memoratur Athenis sordidus ac dives, populi contemnere voces 65 sic solitus : 'populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo ipse domi, simul ac nummos contemplor in arca.
Page 144 - I impeach Warren Hastings of high crimes and misdemeanors. I impeach him in the name of the Commons' House of Parliament, whose trust he has betrayed.
Page 49 - His conduct upon these occasions may be thought irrational. But, thank God, guilt was never a rational thing, it distorts all the faculties of the mind, it perverts them, it leaves a man no longer in the free use of his reason ; it puts him into confusion.
Page 142 - I believe, my lords, that the sun, in his beneficent progress round the world, does not behold a more glorious sight than that of men, separated from a remote people by the material bounds and barriers of nature, united by the bond of a social and moral community ; — all the Commons of England resenting, as their own, the indignities and cruelties, that are offered to all the people of India.
Page 85 - But there is a place where these crippled and disabled hands will act with resistless power. What is it, that they will not pull down, when they are lifted to heaven against their oppressors ? Then what can withstand such hands ? Can the power, that crushed and destroyed them ? Powerful in prayer, let us at least deprecate, and thus endeavor to secure ourselves from, the vengeance, which these mashed and disabled hands may pull down upon us. My lords, it is an awful consideration. Let us think of...
Page 136 - Hastings' government was one whole system of oppression, of robbery of individuals, of spoliation of the public, and of supersession of the whole system of the English Government, in order to vest in the worst of the natives all the power that could possibly exist in any government ; in order to defeat the ends which all governments ought in common to have in view. In the name of the Commons of England, I charge all this villainy upon Warren Hastings in this last moment of my application to you.
Page 84 - Rungpore and Dinagepore, for nonpayment, were in many instances of such a nature, that I would rather wish to draw a veil over them, than shock your feelings by the detail. But that, however disagreeable the task may be to myself, it is absolutely necessary for the sake of justice, humanity, and the honour of government, that they should be exposed, to be prevented in future.