Speeches in the Impeachment of Warren Hastings, Esquire, hate Governor General of Bengal [1788]

For about a decade before 1783 Edmund Burke had studied Indian affairs with growing concern over the ruthless power politics being practiced by certain officers of the East India Company. The company had its own military force and courts of law, and it levied and collected taxes and controlled the economic life of the whole of Bengal. From 1774 to 1783 Burke gradually became convinced that British misrule in India was largely the personal responsibility of Warren Hastings, the Governor General of Bengal and India. Beginning in 1781, as a member of the Select Committee of the House, Burke continued to investigate Hastings' rule in India. As evidence of serious, systematic, and repeated abuses of power accumulated, he drew up the proceedings for Hastings' impeachment. Most historians have agreed that Burke allowed his passion and his prejudice against Hastings to seriously impair his sense of justice during portions of the trial.