Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke (1729-97), British Whig statesman. He entered Parliament in 1765, where he soon became a powerful and eloquent speaker. He advocated reconciliation with the American colonies and, as an opponent of democracy; he was hostile to the French Revolution. He instigated the impeachment of Warren Hastings, the leading British administrator in India, a procedure that took eight years and ended in Hastings’s acquittal. The death of Burke’s only son shortly after his retirement in 1794 shattered the remaining years of his life.
