Instead of carrying on wars in their own name, they contrived an authority, at once irresistible and irresponsible, in whose name they might ravage at pleasure; and being thus freed from all restraint, they indulged themselves in the most extravagant speculations of plunder.
Burke reveals how the Company found ways to engage in warfare without direct accountability, leading to exploitation.
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Do they mean to attaint and disable backwards all the kings that have reigned before the Revolution, and consequently to stain the throne of England with the blot of a continual usurpation?
This is the spirit of our Constitution, not only in its settled course, but in all its revolutions.
A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.
Who could doubt but that, at any expense to the state, of which they understood nothing, they must pursue their private interests, which they understood but too well?
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