Letters from Simkin the Second to his Dear Brother in Wales, for the..
The Trial of Warren Hastings, Satirized in Verse [Broome, Ralph (d. 1805)]. [Hastings, Warren (1732-1818)]. Letters from Simkin the Second to his Dear Brother in Wales, For the Year 1792; Giving a Full and Circumstantial Account of All the Most Material Points Both in the Speeches of the Honourable Managers, And in the Written and Oral Evidence Brought before the High Court of Justice, In Westminster Hall, During the Trial of Warren Hastings, Esq. In the Three Last Sessions of the Last Parliament. London: Printed for John Stockdale, 1790. [iv], 124, [8] pp. With a half-title and an eight-page publisher catalogue. Octavo (8-1/4" x 5"). Later marbled boards, paper label to spine, endpapers renewed. Light rubbing to boards, which are slightly bowed. Light toning to interior, occasional light foxing, light soiling and spotting in a few places. $500. * First edition. A mock-heroic verse satire of perhaps the most sensational English trial of the eighteenth century. Published under the pseudonym "Simkin the Second," it was originally printed in installments in the London World while the trial was underway. Hastings was impeached by the House of Commons in 1788 for alleged improprieties and abuses by his administration as the first Governor-General of India. The trial, which took seven years due to adjournments of Parliament, became a flashpoint for debate about the future of the British Empire and the rights of the colonized. Edmund Burke led the prosecution. In the end, Hastings was overwhelmingly acquitted and his vision of absolute control in service of British nationalism would become the legacy of the Empire in India. Broome, who had himself served in India as a cadet in the Bengal Army, published several works in defense of Hastings, many of these in verse. OCLC locates 9 copies of this title in North America, none in law libraries. English Short-Title Catalogue T149067.
Price: $500.00
Book number 72917