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
[This is the person whom the English instruments of the Nabob of Arcot
have had the audacity to charge with a corrupt transaction with Lord
Macartney, and, in support of that charge, to produce a forged letter
from his Lordship's steward. The charge and letter the reader may see in
this Appendix, under the proper head. It is asserted by the unfortunate
prince above mentioned, that the Company first settled on the coast of
Coromandel under the protection of one of his ancestors. If this be
true, (and it is far from unlikely,) the world must judge of the return
the descendant has met with. The case of another of the victims given up
by the ministry, though not altogether so striking as the former, is
worthy of attention. It is that of the renter of the Province of
Nellore.]
It is, with a wantonness of falsehood, and indifference to detection,
asserted to you, in proof of the validity of the Nabob's objections,
that this man's failures had already forced us to remove him: though in
fact he has continued invariably in office; though our _greatest
supplies have been received from him_; and that, in the disappointment
of your remittances [the remittances from Bengal] and of other
resources, the specie sent us _from Nellore alone_ has sometimes enabled
us to carry on the public business; and that the _present expedition
against the French_ must, without _this_ assistance from the assignment,
have been laid aside, or delayed until it might have become too late.
[This man is by the ministry given over to the mercy of persons capable
of making charges on him "_with a wantonness of falsehood, and
indifference to detection_." What is likely to happen to him and the
rest of the victims may appear by the following.]
* * * * *
_Letter to the Governor-General and Council, March 13th, 1782._
The speedy termination, to which the people were taught to look, of the
Company's interference in the revenues, and the vengeance denounced
against those who, contrary to the mandate of the Durbar, should be
connected with them, as reported by Mr. Sullivan, may, as much as the
former exactions and oppressions of the Nabob in the revenue, as
reported by the commander-in-chief, have deterred some of the fittest
men from offering to be concerned in it.
The timid disposition of the Hindoo natives of this country was not
likely to be insensible to the specimen of that vengeance given by his
Excellency the Amir, who, upon the mere rumor, that a Bramin, of the
name of Appagee Row, had given proposals to the Company for the
rentership of Vellore, had the temerity to send for him, and to put him
in confinement.
A man thus seized by the Nabob's sepoys within the walls of Madras gave
a general alarm, and government found it necessary to promise the
protection of the Company, in order to calm the apprehensions of the
people.
* * * * *
No. 6.
Referred to from pp. 101 and 105.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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