The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 08 (of 12)Burke, Edmund
History
The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 08 (of 12)
Burke, Edmund
Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1760-1820; Political science -- Early works to 1800
X. That a further order was given, that every servant of the Rajah's
should be disarmed, and a certain number only left to attend him under a
strict watch. In a quarter of an hour after this conversation, two
companies of grenadier sepoys were sent to the Rajah's palace by the
said Hastings; and the Rajah, being dismayed by this unexpected and
unprovoked treatment, wrote two short letters or petitions to the said
Hastings, under the greatest apparent dejection at the outrage and
dishonor he had suffered in the eyes of his subjects, (all imprisonment
of persons of rank being held in that country as a mark of indelible
infamy, and he also, in all probability, considering his imprisonment as
a prelude to the taking away his life,) and in the first of the said
petitions he did express himself in this manner: "Whatever may be your
pleasure, do it with your own hands; I am your slave. What occasion can
there be for a guard?" And in the other: "My honor was bestowed upon me
by your Highness. It depends on you alone to take away or not to take
away the country out of my hands. In case my honor is not left to me,
how shall I be equal to the business of the government? Whoever, with
his hands in a supplicating posture, is ready with his life and
property, what necessity can there be for him to be dealt with in this
way?"
XI. That, according to the said Hastings's narrative of this
transaction, he, the said Hastings, on account of the apparent
despondency in which these letters were written, "thought it _necessary_
to give him _some_ encouragement," and therefore wrote him a note of a
few lines, carelessly and haughtily expressed, and little calculated to
relieve him from his uneasiness, promising to send to him a person to
explain particulars, and desiring him "to set his mind at rest, and not
to conceive any terror or apprehension." To which an answer of great
humility and dejection was received.
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