I gave you all; and you have rewarded me with confiscation, disgrace, and a life of impeachment.
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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In that situation, not a timid, not an abject, but undoubtedly a modest behavior, would become a person even of the most exalted dignity and of the firmest fortitude.
His innocence, indeed, may at length shine out like the sun, yet for a moment it is under a cloud; his honor is in abeyance, his estimation is suspended, and he stands, as it were, a doubtful person in the eyes of all human society.
There is, my Lords, a nobleness in modesty, while insolence is always base and servile.
This behavior does not indicate the spirit of injured innocence, but the audacity of hardened, habitual, shameless guilt,--affording legitimate grounds for inferring a very defective education, very evil society, or very vicious habits of…
But, my Lords, there is a behavior which broadly displays a want of sense, a want of feeling, a want of decorum,--a behavior which indicates an habitual depravity of mind, that has no sentiments of propriety, no feeling for the relations…
God forbid that the authority either of the prosecutor or of the judge should dishearten the prisoner so as to circumscribe the means or enervate the vigor of his defence!
They gave me this office, not from any confidence in my ability, but from a confidence in the abilities of those who were to assist me, and from a confidence in my zeal,--a quality, my Lords, which oftentimes supplies the want of great…
We should fear that the faction which he has thus formed by the oppression of the people of India would be too strong for the House of Commons itself, with all its power and reputation, did we not know that we have brought before you a…
My Lords, great and powerful as the House of Commons is, (and great and powerful I hope it always will remain,) yet we cannot be insensible to the effects produced by the introduction of forty millions of money into this country from India.
No: it is either the fair result of twenty-two years' deliberation that we bring before you, or what the prisoner says is just and true,--that nothing but malice in the Commons of Great Britain could possibly produce such an accusation as…
If, therefore, we are defeated here, we cannot plead for ourselves that we have done this from a sudden gust of passion, which sometimes agitates and sometimes misleads the most grave popular assemblies.
We came hither to call for justice, not to solve a problem; and if justice be denied us, the accused is not acquitted, but the tribunal is condemned.
No, we never shall (nor can we conceive that we ever should) pass from this bar, without indignation, without rage and despair, if the House of Commons should, upon such a defence as has here been made against such a charge as they have…
My Lords, far from us, I will add, be that false and affected candor that is eternally in treaty with crime,--that half virtue, which, like the ambiguous animal that flies about in the twilight of a compromise between day and night, is to…
These are the things which are ten times more at war with real virtue, these are the things which are ten times more at war with real duty, than any vice known by its name and distinguished by its proper character.
Far, far from the Commons of Great Britain be all manner of real vice; but ten thousand times further from them, as far as from pole to pole, be the whole tribe of false, spurious, affected, counterfeit, hypocritical virtues!
We may all part, my Lords, with the most perfect complacency and entire good humor towards one another, while nations, whole suffering nations, are left to beat the empty air with cries of misery and anguish, and to cast forth to an…
It is not that culprit who is upon trial; it is the House of Commons that is upon its trial, it is the House of Lords that is upon its trial, it is the British nation that is upon its trial before all other nations, before the present…
I confess I tremble, when I consider that your judgment is now going to be passed, not on the culprit at your bar, but upon the House of Commons itself, and upon the public justice of this kingdom, as represented in this great tribunal.
You, my Lords, are now to determine, not only whether all these labors have been vain and fruitless, but whether we have abused so long the public patience of our country, and so long oppressed merit, instead of avenging crime.
This is the issue upon which he has put this cause, and the issue upon which we are obliged to take it now, and to provide for it hereafter.
It is not enough for him to be acquitted: the Commons of Great Britain must be condemned; and your Lordships must be the instruments of his glory and of our disgrace.
And yet, my Lords, the prisoner, by the plan of his defence, demands not only an escape, but a triumph.
Enough, however, of the matter is left to call for the most exemplary punishment that any tribunal ever inflicted upon any criminal.
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