ity to shun, these oppressive calamities; since not even severe
experience can make them feel, nor the imminent ruin of their country
awaken them from their stupefaction, the guardian care of Parliament
must interpose. I shall, therefore, my lords, propose an amendment to
the address to his Majesty, to recommend an immediate cessation of
hostilities and the commencement of a treaty to restore peace and
liberty to America, strength and happiness to England, security and
permanent prosperity to both countries.

VI. EDMUND BURKE

I. IMPEACHMENT OF HASTINGS[29]

My lords, you have now heard the principles on which Mr. Hastings
governs the part of Asia subjected to the British empire. Here he has
declared his opinion, that he is a despotic prince; that he is to use
arbitrary power; and, of course, all his acts are covered with that
shield. "I know," says he, "the Constitution of Asia only from its
practice." Will your lordships submit to hear the corrupt practices of
mankind made the principles of Government?

He have arbitrary power! My lords, the East India Company have not
arbitrary power to give him; the King has no arbitrary power to give
him; your lordships have not; nor the Commons; nor the whole
Legislature. We have no arbitrary power to give, because arbitrary power
is a thing which neither any man can hold nor any man can give. No man
can lawfully govern himself according to his own will, much less can one
person be governed by the will of another. We are all born in
subjection, all born equally, high and low, governors and governed, in
subjection to one great, immutable, preexistent law, prior to all our
devices, and prior to all our contrivances, paramount to all our ideas,
and all our sensations, antecedent to our very existence, by which we
are knit and connected in the eternal frame of the universe, out of
which we cannot stir.

This great law does not arise from our conventions or compacts; on the
contrary, it gives to our conventions and compacts all the force and
sanction they can have;--it does not arise from our vain institutions.
Every good gift is of God; all power is of God;--and He, who has given
the power, and from whom alone it originates, will never suffer the
exercise of it to be practiced upon any less solid foundation than the
power itself. If then all dominion of man over man is the effect of the
divine disposition, it is bound by the eternal laws of Him that gave it,
with which no