Every mark of obedience to the legal authority of the Company is by him condemned; and if there is any virtue remaining in India, as I think there is, it is not his fault that it still exists there.
Burke asserts that the British official's actions undermine any remaining virtue in India, emphasizing the moral implications of colonial rule.
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They look upon the legal hereditary succession of their crown as among their rights, not as among their wrongs,--as a benefit, not as a grievance,--as a security for their liberty, not as a badge of servitude.
But supposing they had ranked as they ought to do, and as with us they do actually, the sides of sick-beds are not the academies for forming statesmen and legislators.
They threw a politic, well-wrought veil over every circumstance tending to weaken the rights which in the meliorated order of succession they meant to perpetuate, or which might furnish a precedent for any future departure from what they…
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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