The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 09 (of 12)

This volume contains Burke's devastating indictment of Warren Hastings, the Governor-General of Bengal whose tenure in India became synonymous with colonial excess and institutional corruption. The speeches collected here formed the backbone of one of history's most consequential political trials, where Burke, withering in moral outrage and forensic precision, accused Hastings of systematic violation of trust, acceptance of bribes, and the subjugation of an entire people to mercenary exploitation. These are not dry legal documents but impassioned oratory that helped forge modern concepts of imperial responsibility and the principle that power must answer for its exercise. Reading Burke's charges against Hastings feels less like 18th-century parliamentary record and more like an urgent, unfinished conversation about the ethics of empire, the seductions of unchecked authority, and the small, vital acts of resistance against systemic injustice.