The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 11 (of 12)

But, my Lords, we all know that there has been arbitrary power in India,--that tyrants have usurped it,--and that, in some instances, princes otherwise meritorious have violated...

Let us now hear what the prisoner says. "The sovereignty which they [the subahdars, or viceroys of the Mogul empire] assumed, it fell to my lot, very unexpectedly, to exert; and...

Permit me, my Lords, to say a few words here, by way of referring back all this monstrous heap of violence and absurdity to some degree of principle. Mr. Hastings having complet...

He set out by disposing of all the property of the country as if it was his own. He first confiscated the whole estates of the _Baboos_, the great nobility of the country, to th...

The prisoner at your bar admits that the crimes which we charge him with are of that atrocity, that, if brought home to him, he merits death. Yet, when, in pursuance of our duty...

In order to bind himself to a strict fulfilment of this resolution, he has laid down another very extraordinary doctrine. He has laid it down as a sort of canon, (in injustice a...

My Lords,--This business, which has so long employed the public councils of this kingdom, so long employed the greatest and most august of its tribunals, now approaches to a clo...

From the date of this proclamation it appears that the surrender of the fort was clearly within the time given to those who had been guilty of the most atrocious acts of rebelli...

Mr. Hastings, having thrown off completely the authority of the Company, as you have seen,--having trampled upon those of their servants who had manifested any symptom of indepe...

It was at this crisis of aggravated insult and brutality that the indignation which these proceedings had occasioned in the breasts of the Rajah's subjects burst out into an ope...

By an express order of the Court of Directors, (to which, by the express words of the act of Parliament under which he held his office, he was ordered to yield obedience,) Mr. H...

Your Lordships have seen how he attempted to slander the ancestors of Cheyt Sing, to deny that they were zemindars; and yet he must have known from printed books, taken from the...

Every proceeding in the House of Peers, acting in its judicial capacity, whether upon writ of error, impeachment, or indictment, removed thither by _Certiorari_, is in judgment...

It appears to your Committee, that, from the 30th year of King Charles II. until the trial of Warren Hastings, Esquire, in all trials in Parliament, as well upon impeachments of...

I do not mean to trouble your Lordships with more extracts from this book. I recommend it to your Lordships' reading,--when you will find, that, so far from the magistrate havin...

Whatever was done, during that period of time to which I have alluded, by the majority of the Council, Mr. Hastings considered himself as having nothing to do with, on the plea...

"After this, the Lord Steward adjourned this House to Westminster Hall; and the Peers being all set there in their places, the Lord Steward commanded the Lieutenant of the Tower...

"All the officers stationed with the brigade at Cawnpore, Futtyghur, Darunghur, and Furruckabad, and other places, write purwannahs, and give positive orders to the aumils of th...

"_All evidence is according to the subject-matter to which it is applied._ There is a great deal of difference between length of time that operates as a bar to a claim and that...

I observe that the Lord Chancellor did not ask these lords what they had to say why execution should not be awarded. There was, it is probable, some little delicacy as to that p...

In bringing before you his arbitrary mode of imposing duties, I beg to remind your Lordships, that, when I examined Mr. Markham concerning the imposing of a duty of five per cen...

But, my Lords, why did he choose to have Mr. Middleton appointed Resident? Your Lordships have not seen Mr. Bristow: you have only heard of him as a humble suppliant to have the...

The modern writers on the Civil Law have likewise much matter on this subject, and have introduced a strictness with regard to personal testimony which our particular jurisprude...

But admitting the Rajah to have been guilty of delay and unwillingness, what is the nature of the offence? If you strip it of the epithets by which it has been disguised, it mer...

At length the question of their being obliged to conform to any of the rules below came to a formal judgment. In the trial of Dr. Sacheverell, March 10th, 1709, the Lord Notting...

Your Committee apprehends that very serious inconveniencies and mischiefs may hereafter arise from a practice in the House of Lords of considering itself as unable to act withou...

"From the confines of Buxar to Benares I was followed and fatigued by the clamors of the discontented inhabitants. It was what I expected in a degree, because it is rare that th...

Reports, though of a kind less authentic than the Year Books, to which Coke alludes, have continued without interruption to the time in which we live. It is well known that the...

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Mr. Barlow was sent, in the years 1786 and 1787, to examine into the state of the country. He has stated the effect of all those regulations, which Mr. Hastings has had the assu...

There is, my Lords, another case, which was noticed by my honorable fellow Manager yesterday. Mr. Belli, the confidential secretary of the prisoner, was agent and contractor for...

But there are some aggravating circumstances in these crimes, which I have not yet stated. It appears that this unhappy and injured man was, without any solicitation of his own,...

I think so, too; and your Lordships will think so with me; but Mr. Hastings, who says that he himself thought thus in September, 1781, and engaged to recall these gentlemen, was...