The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 03 (of 12) — John Shaqi
The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 03 (of 12)Burke, Edmund
History
The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 03 (of 12)
Burke, Edmund
Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1760-1820; Political science -- Early works to 1800
By another section of the same act, the same Court of Directors were
ordered to take into consideration and to decide on the indeterminate
rights of the Rajah of Tanjore and the Nabob of Arcot; and in this, as
in the former case, no power of appeal, revision, or alteration was
reserved to any other. It was a jurisdiction, in a cause between party
and party, given to the Court of Directors specifically. It was known
that the territories of the former of these princes had been twice
invaded and pillaged, and the prince deposed and imprisoned, by the
Company's servants, influenced by the intrigues of the latter, and for
the purpose of paying his pretended debts. The Company had, in the year
1775, ordered a restoration of the Rajah to his government, under
certain conditions. The Rajah complained, that his territories had not
been completely restored to him, and that no part of his goods, money,
revenues, or records, unjustly taken and withheld from him, were ever
returned. The Nabob, on the other hand, never ceased to claim the
country itself, and carried on a continued train of negotiation, that it
should again be given up to him, in violation of the Company's public
faith.
The Directors, in obedience to this part of the act, ordered an inquiry,
and came to a determination to restore certain of his territories to the
Rajah. The ministers, proceeding as in the former case, without hearing
any party, rescinded the decision of the Directors, refused the
restitution of the territory, and, without regard to the condition of
the country of Tanjore, which had been within a few years four times
plundered, (twice by the Nabob of Arcot, and twice by enemies brought
upon it solely by the politics of the same Nabob, the declared enemy of
that people,) and without discounting a shilling for their sufferings,
they accumulate an arrear of about four hundred thousand pounds of
pretended tribute to this enemy; and then they order the Directors to
put their hands to a new adjudication, directly contrary to a judgment
in a judicial character and trust solemnly given by them and entered on
their records.
These proceedings naturally called for some inquiry. On the 28th of
February, 1785, Mr. Fox made the following motion in the House of
Commons, after moving that the clauses of the act should be read:--"That
the proper officer do lay before this House copies or extracts of all
letters and orders of the Court of Directors of the United East India
Company, in pursuance of the injunctions contained in the 37th and 38th
clauses of the said act"; and the question being put, it passed in the
negative by a very great majority.
The last speech in the debate was the following; which is given to the
public, not as being more worthy of its attention than others, (some of
which were of consummate ability,) but as entering more into the detail
of the subject.
SPEECH.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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