The Impeachment of Warren Hastings
Delivered in the House of Lords,
February 13, 1788
by Edmund Burke
My Lords, I do not mean to go further than just to remind your Lordships of this,--that Mr. Hastings's government was one whole system of oppression, of robbery of individuals, of spoliation of the public, and of suppression of the whole system of the English government, in order to vest in the worst of the natives all the power that could possibly exist in any government; in order to defeat the ends which all governments ought, in common, to have in view. In the name of the Commons of England, I charge all this villainy upon Warren Hastings, in this last moment of my application to you.
Therefore, it is with confidence that, ordered by the Commons of Great Britain, I impeach Warren Hastings of high crimes and misdemeanors.
I impeach him in the name of the Commons of Great Britain in Parliament assembled, whose parliamentary trust he has abused.
I impeach him in the name of the Commons of Great Britain, whose national character he has dishonored.
I impeach him in the name of the people of India, whose laws, rights, and liberties he has subverted. I impeach him in the name of the people of India, whose property he has destroyed, whose country he has laid waste and desolate.
I impeach him in the name of human nature itself, which he has cruelly outraged, injured, and oppressed, in both sexes.
And I impeach him in the name and by the virtue of those eternal laws of justice, which ought equally to pervade every age, condition, rank, and situation, in the world.