The opportunity of acquiring immense fortunes was too inviting to be neglected, and the temptation too powerful to be resisted.
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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Bribery and extortion have been covered by the name of presents, and the authority and practice of the East has been adduced as a palliation of the crime.
My Lords, no authority of the East will be a palliation of the breach of laws enacted in the West: and to those laws of the West, and not the vicious customs of the East, we insist upon making Mr.
Hastings has made use of a perversion of the names of authorized gifts to cover the most abominable and prostituted bribery.
I know that positive prohibitions, that acts of Parliament, that covenants, are things of very little validity indeed, as long as all the means of corruption are left in power, and all the temptations to corrupt profit are left in poverty.
I should really think that the Company deserved to be ill served, if they had not annexed such appointments to great trusts as might secure the persons intrusted from the temptations of unlawful emolument, and, what in all cases is the…
Matrimony is to be used, as a true remedy against a vicious course of profligate manners; fair and lawful emoluments, and the just profits of office, are opposed to the unlawful means which might be made use of to supply them.
For, in truth, I am ready to agree, that for any man to expect a series of sacrifices without a return in blessings, to expect labor without a prospect of reward, and fatigue without any means of securing rest, is an unreasonable demand in…
Those who trust that they shall find in men uncommon and heroic virtues are themselves endeavoring to have nothing paid them but the common returns of the worst parts of human infirmity.
A very few years' possession of the government would undoubtedly enable me to retire with a fortune amply fitted to the measure of my desires, were I to consult only my ease: but in my present situation I feel my mind expand to something…
This, my Lords, is to be unfortunate: but there are some misfortunes that never do or ever can arrive but through crimes.
But what shall we say to the deserter of that cause, who, having glory and honor before him, has chosen to plunge himself into the downward road to sordid riches?
And thus we shall think ourselves bound to show your Lordships, in every step of this proceeding, that there is an inherent presumption of corruption in every act.
Hastings, because we could otherwise make no inquiry into his conduct, should we not be justified by his own example in insisting upon the removal of every creature of the reigning power before we could inquire into his conduct?
Do you want more proof than this violent transgression of the Company's orders upon that occasion that some corrupt motive must have influenced him?
If you heard no more, do your Lordships want anything further to convince you that this must be a violent, atrocious, and corrupt act,--suppose it had gone no further than the seraglio?
But when I call this woman a dancing-girl, I state something lower than Europeans have an idea of respecting that situation.
He not only did this, but he put her, this woman, in the very place of Mahomed Reza Khân: he made her guardian, he made her regent, he made her viceroy, he made her the representative of the native government of the country in the eyes of…
There was not a trust, not a dignity in the country, which he did not put, during the minority of this unhappy person, her step-son, into the hands of this woman.
These are circumstances that leave no doubt of the grossest and most flagrant corruption.
Hastings was at that very time conscious of the wicked and corrupt act he was doing.
The moment he had appointed her, he overturns the very principle upon which he had appointed her, and gives the 30,000l. to her, and the officers under her, saving not one shilling to the Company by this infamous measure, which he…
Thus your Lordships see that he appointed an improper person to the trust without any control, and that the very accounts which were to be the guardians of his purity, and which were to remove suspicion from him, he never so much as…
If any one can doubt that that transaction was in itself corrupt, I can only say that his mind must be constituted in a manner totally different from that which prevails in any of the higher or lower branches of judicature in any country…
The suppression of an account is a proof of corruption.
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