In 1908 Bal Gangadhar Tilak was tried for sedition in the Bombay High Court over articles in his Marathi newspaper, Kesari, that discussed the bombs thrown at Muzaffarpur that April. He conducted his own defence and addressed the jury over several days. On the night of 22 July the jury found him guilty by seven votes to two. Before passing sentence, the judge asked whether he had anything more to say, and Tilak answered with these two sentences. He was sentenced to six years' transportation, which he served in Mandalay, Burma.
Tilak maintains his innocence and turns the verdict into a statement about the cause he stood for: "There are higher Powers that rule the destiny of things," and the cause "may prosper more by my suffering than by my remaining free." The text is from the authorised verbatim report of the trial, which keeps the court's speaker label.
[p. 18] Accused :—All I wish to say is that in spite of the verdict of the Jury I maintain that I am innocent. There are higher Powers that rule the destiny of things and it may be the will of the Providence that the cause which I represent may prosper more by my suffering than by my remaining free.
Full & Authentic Report of the Tilak Trial (1908), being the only authorised verbatim account of the whole proceedings (Bombay: Indu-Prakash Steam Press, 1908), p. 18.