It is plain that they have wholly forgotten who they are, and what the nature of their office is.
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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If that had been his opinion, he ought to have resigned, and not disobeyed: because it was not necessary that he should hold his office; but it was necessary, that, whilst he hold it, he should obey his superiors, and submit to the law.
Is it for his superior integrity, or from his eminent abilities, that he is to be dignified at such hazard of every consideration that ought to influence the members of this administration?
Had the language and opinions which prevail throughout this part of the minute, as well as in all the others to which your Committee refer, been uttered suddenly and in a passion, however unprovoked, some sort of apology might be made for…
Hastings, by his confidence in the support derived from this source, or from the habits of independent power, is carried to such a length as to consider a motion to obey the Court of Directors as a degradation of the executive government…
He looks upon a claim under that authority, and a complaint that it has produced no effect, as a piece of daring insolence which he is ashamed that the board has suffered.
The behavior which your Committee consider as so intemperate and despotic he regards as a culpable degree of patience and forbearance.
Hastings stood to his principles in their full extent, and seemed resolved upon unqualified disobedience.
Matters of account cannot be made too public; and it is not the most confidential agent, but the most responsible, who is the fittest for the management of pecuniary trusts.
Yet the preservation of such a power in such a degree of subordination, with the criminal jurisdiction, and the care of the public order annexed to it, was a wise and laudable policy.
It preserved a portion of the government in the hands of the natives; it kept them in respect; it rendered them quiet on the change; and it prevented that vast kingdom from wearing the dangerous appearance, and still more from sinking into…
In this manner the authority of the British legislature was at that time treated with every mark of reprobation and contempt.
Where that authority recommends any person, his confidence in him vanishes; but to show that it is the authority, and not the person, he opposes, when that is out of sight, there is no rule so sacred which is not to be violated to manifest…
These are principles directly leading to the destruction of the Company's government.
In such society it is not likely that either the Nabob's morals or his understanding could have been much improved; nor could it be deemed prudent to leave him without any check upon his conduct.
It is a gross instance of repeated disobedience to repeated orders; and it is rendered particularly offensive to the authority of the Court of Directors by the frivolous and contradictory reasons assigned for it.
When they clash, their opposition serves only to degrade the authority that ought to predominate, and to exalt the power that ought to be dependent.
These pretended free gifts from the natives to the Company's servants in power had never been authorized by law; they are contrary to the covenants formerly entered into by the President and Council, they are strictly forbidden by the act…
Before the Regulating Act of 1773, the allowances made by the Company to the Presidents of Bengal were abundantly sufficient to guaranty them against anything like a necessity for giving into that pernicious practice.
On the contrary, the course he has taken in his letter to the Court of Directors is calculated to excite doubts and suspicions in minds the most favorably disposed to him.
Some degree of ostentation is not extremely blamable at a time when a man advances largely from his private fortune towards the public service.
It is human infirmity at the worst, and only detracts something from the lustre of an action in itself meritorious.
The kind of ostentation which is criminal, and criminal only because it is fraudulent, is where a person makes a show of giving when in reality he does not give.
Clearing himself of vanity, he convicts himself of deceit, and of injustice.
Hastings from the Rajah of Benares gave rise in their minds to serious reflections on the condition of the princes of India subjected to the British authority.
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