My distresses are so great that I have not been able to pay a daum to the surgeons for the cure of my wounds; and they, too, are discouraged from affording me their assistance or furnishing me with medicines.
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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My situation has for years past been increasing in wretchedness to a degree that I am in want of daily bread, and my servants and animals are dying of hunger.
The original establishment, inadequate as it was, is mouldering away, and the officers now attached to it are literally starving, as no part of their allowance has been paid for above six months past.
That no regular courts of justice have been established in this country is particularly pointed at in my instructions, as the most disreputable defect in his Highness's government; yet the minister seems determined on abolishing even the…
From the total want of police, hardly a day elapses but I am informed of some tragical event, whereof the bare recital is shocking to humanity.
That the said commission, delegating to him, the said Warren Hastings, the whole functions of the Council, is destructive to the constitution thereof, and is contrary to the Company's standing orders, and is illegal.
That about the year 1770 the provinces of Bengal and Bahar were visited with a dreadful famine and mortality, by which at least one third of the inhabitants perished.
That the said natives are Hindoos, and that their rights and privileges are grounded upon the possession of regular grants, a long series of family succession, and fair purchase.
In the hands of the Ranna it can be of no prejudice to us; and notwithstanding the present prospect of a permanent peace betwixt us and the Mahrattas, it seems highly expedient that there should always remain some strong barrier to…
That the terms of his letter are ambiguous and obscure, such as a guilty man might have recourse to in order to cover his guilt, but such as no innocent man, from whom nothing was required but to clear his innocence by giving plain answers…
Politicians like Edmund Burke
