Do you make your laws, do you make your covenants, for the very purpose of their being evaded?
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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We plunge into a dark gulf with all the rash precipitation of fear.
He here confesses himself to be the author of the whole mischief.
There is but one exception to his abhorrence of accounts: he always contrives to make up a good account for himself.
The lion, having sucked the blood of his prey, threw the offal carcass to the jackal in waiting.
The government of that once happy country has been in the utmost confusion ever since such good order was taken about it.
But it really appears to me that the means which this act employs are at least as exceptionable as the end.
Can it be believed that any man could be so absurd as to attack a man's birth, when he is accusing his actions?
Judge you of the bribery, rapine, and peculation which here stare you in the face.
They shake the public security; they menace private enjoyment.
Hastings, though thus defeated, was only waiting for what he considered to be the fortunate moment for returning again to his corrupt, vicious, tyrannical, and disobedient habits.
The Company never had (and it is a thing that we can never too often repeat to your Lordships)--the Company never had of right despotic power in that country, to overturn any of these establishments.
The reformation of this evil system is in a manner impracticable.
These are not forms; they are parts of substantial and eternal justice.
The zemindars, thus left at the mercy of the aumils, are often driven to rebellion.
My Lords, the maintenance of these women had been guarantied by the Company; but it was doubly guarantied under the great seal of humanity.
As the wisdom of men mates such institutions, the folly of men destroys them.
With respect to the Begums, they have been charged with rebellion; but who has accused the miserable inhabitants of the Khord Mohul of rebellion, or rebellious designs?
If, instead of the mass of crimes that we have brought before you, this singly had been charged upon the prisoner, I will say that it is a greater crime than any man has ever been impeached for before the House of Lords, from the first…
A council of mercy ought therefore to be appointed, with powers to report on each case, to soften the penalty, or entirely to remit it, according to circumstances.
Swift somewhere says, that he who could make two blades of grass grow where but one grew before was a greater benefactor to the human race than all the politicians that ever existed.
It is as opposite to reason and prudence as it is to humanity and justice.
It is necessary to coerce the negligent, to restrain the violent, and to aid the weak and deficient, by the overruling plenitude of her power.
There is no book in the world, I believe, which contains nobler, more just, more manly, more pious principles of government than this book, called the Institutions of Tamerlane.
It is now left for us to repair our former errors.
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