I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against an whole people.

Burke’s remark comes from his parliamentary speech urging conciliation with the American colonies during the imperial crisis preceding the American Revolution. Speaking in the House of Commons, he argues that Britain’s policy of coercion and punitive legislation is misguided because it treats “America” as a single criminal entity rather than addressing specific grievances and political realities in particular colonies. The line is part of Burke’s broader case that effective statesmanship requires prudence, proportionality, and an understanding of a people’s character and circumstances, not sweeping condemnation. In this setting, the phrase functions as a rebuke to proposals that would punish the colonies collectively for resistance to parliamentary taxation and regulation.

The sentence rejects the logic of collective guilt. Burke frames “an whole people” as an improper object of legal or moral prosecution: an indictment requires specific acts, evidence, and accountable persons, not a generalized charge against a population. The point is both ethical and political. Ethically, it refuses to treat a people as a single criminal body; politically, it warns that blaming an entire nation or culture becomes a pretext for oppression, conquest, or indiscriminate punishment. In Burke’s hands, the line also implies a constitutional principle: justice proceeds by particularized accusation and due process, not by sweeping denunciation.

1) “I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people.”
2) “I know not the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people.”