The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 12 (of 12)Burke, Edmund
History
The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 12 (of 12)
Burke, Edmund
Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1760-1820; Political science -- Early works to 1800
This act of injustice, against which we have fulminated the thunder of
our resolutions as a heavy crime, as a crime that dishonored the nation,
and which measures ought to be taken to redress, this man has the
insolence to bring before your Lordships as a set-off against the crimes
we charge him with. This outrageous defiance of the House of Commons,
this outrageous defiance of all the laws of his country, I hope your
Lordships will not countenance. You will not let it pass for nothing: on
the contrary, you will consider it as aggravating heavily his crimes.
And, above all, you will not suffer him to set off this, which we have
declared to be injurious to our national honor and credit, and which he
himself does not deny to be a breach of the public faith, against other
breaches of the public faith with which we charge him,--or to justify
one class of public crimes by proving that he has committed others.
Your Lordships see that he justifies this crime upon the plea of its
being profitable to the Company; but he shall not march off even on this
ground with flying colors. My Lords, pray observe in what manner he
calculates these profits. Your Lordships will find that he makes up the
account of them much in the same manner as he made up the account of
Nobkissin's money. There is, indeed, no account which he has ever
brought forth that does not carry upon it not only ill faith and
national dishonor, but direct proofs of corruption. When Mr. Hastings
values himself upon this shocking and outrageous breach of faith, which
required nothing but a base and illiberal mind, without either talents,
courage, or skill, except that courage which defies all consequences,
which defies shame, which defies the judgment and opinion of his country
and of mankind, no other talents than may be displayed by the dash of a
pen, you will at least expect to see a clear and distinct account of
what was gained by it.
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