The whole of this history will serve to demonstrate that all attempts, which in their original system or in their necessary consequences tend to the distress of India, must, and in a very short time will, make themselves felt even by those in whose favor such attempts have been made.
Burke argues that detrimental policies towards India will eventually impact those who benefit from them.
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More from Edmund Burke
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.
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…
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?
This idea of a liberal descent inspires us with a sense of habitual native dignity, which prevents that upstart insolence almost inevitably adhering to and disgracing those who are the first acquirers of any distinction.
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