Hastings has invented upon this occasion, and by which he thinks out of the vices of mankind to draw a better revenue than out of any legal source whatever; and therefore he has resolved to become the most corrupt of all Governors-General, in order to be the most useful servant to the finances of the Company.
Burke condemns the idea of using corruption as a means to achieve financial goals, emphasizing the ethical decay in governance.
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When such an unwarrantable maxim is once established, that no throne is lawful but the elective, no one act of the princes who preceded this era of fictitious election can be valid.
Who could flatter himself that these men, suddenly, and as it were by enchantment, snatched from the humblest rank of subordination, would not be intoxicated with their unprepared greatness?
If all the absurd theories of lawyers and divines were to vitiate the objects in which they are conversant, we should have no law and no religion left in the world.
All your sophisters cannot produce anything better adapted to preserve a rational and manly freedom than the course that we have pursued, who have chosen our nature rather than our speculations, our breasts rather than our inventions, for…
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