We know associates in dark and evil actions are not generally the best of men; but be that as it will, it generally happens that they are the best of all discoverers.
Edmund Burke
The Public Record
Edmund Burke was an Anglo-Irish writer, philosopher, and politician who is widely credited as the founder of the cultural and political philosophy of conservatism. Regarded as one of the most influential conservative thinkers and political writers of the 18th century, Burke spent the majority of his career in Great Britain and was elected as a member of Parliament (MP) from 1766 to 1794 in the House of Commons of Great Britain with the Whig Party. His writings played a significant role in influencing public views and opinions in both Great Britain and France following the French Revolution in 1789, and he remains a major figure in modern conservative circles.
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And I will venture to say that those three gentlemen did so execute their duty in India, in all the substantial parts of it, that they will serve as a shield to cover the honor of England, whenever this country is upbraided in India.
They have never happened excusably; but we are acquainted sufficiently with the weakness of human nature to know that a domestic who has served you in a near office long, and in your opinion faithfully, does become a kind of relation; it…
This order did not include the Governor-General in the words of it, but more than included him in the spirit of it; because his power to protect a farmer-general in the person of his own servant was infinitely greater than that of any…
You would have imagined that he would at least have kept him out of these farms, in order to give the measure a color at least of disinterestedness, and to show that this whole system of corruption and pecuniary oppression was carried on…
They have been made, first by a tyrannous exaction from the people who were suffered to remain in possession of their own land as farmers,--then by selling the rest to farmers at rents and under hopes which could never be realized, and…
This will account for the manner in which those stupendous fortunes which astonish the world have been made.
So that it is almost impossible to make up a complete body of all his bribery: you may find the scattered limbs, some here and others there; and while you are employed in picking them up, he may escape entirely in a prosecution for the…
Governors, we know very well, cannot with their own hands be continually receiving bribes,--for then they must have as many hands as one of the idols in an Indian temple, in order to receive all the bribes which a Governor-General may…
If the persons he names should be of notorious evil character and evil principles, and if this should be perfectly known to himself, and of public notoriety to the rest of the world, then another strong responsibility attaches on him for…
But when a Governor presumes to remove from their situations those persons whom the public authority and sanction of the Company have appointed, and obtrudes upon them by violence other persons, superseding the orders of his masters, he…
All those who enjoy a great superintending trust, which is to regulate the whole affairs of an empire, are responsible for the acts and conduct of other men, so far as they had anything to do with appointing them, or holding them in their…
It is perhaps a much more dangerous way; because it adds to the crime a false, prevaricating mode of concealing it, and makes it much more mischievous by admitting others into the participation of it.
These three, the great and only obligations that bind mankind, all united in the focus of this single point,--that they should take no presents.
Now, my Lords, every office of trust, in its very nature, forbids the receipt of bribes.
He is not like a careful man bred in a counting-house, and by the Directors put into an office of the highest trust on account of the regularity of his affairs; he is like one buried in the contemplation of the stars, and knows nothing of…
But in his defence we have him quite in another character,--no longer the frugal, attentive servant, bred to business, bred to book-keeping, as all the Company's servants are; he now knows nothing of his own affairs, knows not whether he…
They declared at that time, that the whole of their service was totally corrupted by bribes and presents, and by extravagance and luxury, which partly gave rise to them, and these, in their turn, enabled them to pursue those excesses.
This is the substance, the principle, and the spirit of the covenants, and will show your Lordships how radicated an evil this of bribery and presents was judged to be.
In short, money is the beginning, the middle, and the end of every kind of act done by Mr.
Our desire of acquiring sovereignty in India undoubtedly originated first in ideas of safety and necessity; its next step was a step of ambition.
But his pretensions to merit are, that he squeezed more money out of the inhabitants of the country than other persons could have done,--money got by oppression, violence, extortion from the poor, or the heavy hand of power upon the rich…
There are here none of those specious delusions that look like virtues, to veil either the governed or the governor.
Conquest may cover its baldness with its own laurels, and the ambition of the conqueror may be hid in the secrets of his own heart under a veil of benevolence, and make him imagine he is bringing temporary desolation upon a country only to…
Religious persecution may shield itself under the guise of a mistaken and over-zealous piety.
Politicians like Edmund Burke
