Life and career

The third son of Ralph Broome (1714–1768) of the manor of Bushton, Wiltshire

Bushton, Wiltshire

Bushton is a hamlet about south of Wootton Bassett in Wiltshire.-History:Manor Farmhouse is Georgian house of five bays built of brick with stone trim in 1747....

, Broome was sent as a cadet to India

History of India

The history of India begins with evidence of human activity of Homo sapiens as long as 75,000 years ago, or with earlier hominids including Homo erectus from about 500,000 years ago. The Indus Valley Civilization, which spread and flourished in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent from...

, where he acquired Oriental languages, including Persian

Persian language

Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...

, and became a judge advocate with the rank of captain in the Bengal

Bengal

Bengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...

 Army. While there he fathered a daughter Miriam (c. 1781–1840) by an unknown Indian lady. The girl accompanied him back to England in about 1785 and married in 1803 Broome's lawyer nephew, also Ralph Broome (1781–1838).

In 1790, Broome himself married Lucy Jeffreys, a daughter of Richard Jeffreys of Penkelly, Brecknockshire

Brecknockshire

Brecknockshire , also known as the County of Brecknock, Breconshire, or the County of Brecon is one of thirteen historic counties of Wales, and a former administrative county.-Geography:...

, Wales

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

, but she died at Bristol

Bristol

Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...

 Hot Wells

Hotwells

Hotwells is a district of the English port city of Bristol. It is located to the south of and below the high ground of Clifton, and directly to the north of the Floating Harbour. The southern entrance to the Avon Gorge, which connects those docks to the sea, lies at the western end of Hotwells. The...

 in 1796. He then married the widowed Charlotte Ann Francis, née Burney (1761–1838), on 28 February 1798. Their only child was a son, Ralph (1801–1817). The marriage caused consternation in Charlotte's father Charles Burney

Charles Burney

Charles Burney FRS was an English music historian and father of authors Frances Burney and Sarah Burney.-Life and career:...

, her sister Frances Burney and other members of the family, mainly because of doubts about Broome's finances, although they became reconciled to it later.

Works

Broome was a prolific pamphleteer and versifier. Although he had not known Warren Hastings

Warren Hastings

Warren Hastings PC was the first Governor-General of India, from 1773 to 1785. He was famously accused of corruption in an impeachment in 1787, but was acquitted in 1795. He was made a Privy Councillor in 1814.-Early life:...

 personally in India, he attended the impeachment proceedings

Impeachment of Warren Hastings

The Impeachment of Warren Hastings was a failed attempt to impeach the former Governor-General of India Warren Hastings in the Parliament of Great Britain between 1788 and 1795. Hastings was accused of misconduct during his time in Calcutta particularly relating to mismanagement and personal...

 and argued in Hastings' defence in several works. Broome's published works include:

• Letters of Simkin the Second to his dear brother in Wales, containing a humble description of the trial of Warren Hastings, Esq. (1788)
• Letters of Simpkin the Second, Poetic Recorder, of all the proceedings upon the Trial of Warren Hastings (1789)
• An Elucidation of the Articles of Impeachment preferred by the last Parliament against Warren Hastings, Esq., later Governor of Bengal (1790)
• A Comparative Review of Mr. Hastings and Mr. Dundas
  Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville
  Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville PC and Baron Dunira was a Scottish lawyer and politician. He was the first Secretary of State for War and the last person to be impeached in the United Kingdom....
  
  , in War and Peace (1791)
• An Examination of the Expediency of continuing the Present Impeachment (1791)
• Observations on Mr. Paine's
  Thomas Paine
  Thomas "Tom" Paine was an English author, pamphleteer, radical, inventor, intellectual, revolutionary, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States...
  
   Pamphlet Entitled the Decline and Fall of the English System of Finance... (1796)
• Strictures on Mr. Burke's
  Edmund Burke
  Edmund Burke PC was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher who, after moving to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party....
  
  Two Letters, Addressed to a Member of the Present Parliament (1796)