Mr. Hastings comes before your Lordships not as a British governor answering to a British tribunal, but as a subahdar, as a bashaw of three tails. He says, “I had an arbitrary power to exercise: I exercised it. Slaves I found the people: slaves they are,—they are so by their constitution; and if they are, I did not make it for them. I was unfortunately bound to exercise this arbitrary power, and accordingly I did exercise it. It was disagreeable to me, but I did exercise it; and no other power can be exercised in that country (Burke 449).”
Burke, Edmund. “Speeches in the Impeachment of Warren Hastings, Esquire, Late Governor-General of Bengal.” The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, vol. 9, John C. Nimmo, 1887, pp. 327-493.