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
I. That the reigning Nabob of Oude, commonly called Asoph ul Dowlah,
(son and successor to Sujah ul Dowlah,) by taking into or continuing in
his pay certain bodies of regular British troops, and by having
afterwards admitted the British Resident at his court into the
management of all his affairs, foreign and domestic, and particularly
into the administration of his finances, did gradually become in
substance and effect, as well as in general repute and estimation, a
dependant on, or vassal of, the East India Company, and was, and is, so
much under the control of the Governor-General and Council of Bengal,
that, in the opinion of all the native powers, the English name and
character is concerned in every act of his government.
II. That Warren Hastings, Esquire, contrary to law and to his duty, and
in disobedience to the orders of the East India Company, arrogating to
himself the nomination of the Resident at the court of Oude, as his
particular agent and representative, and rejecting the Resident
appointed by the Company, and obtruding upon them a person of his own
choice, did from that time render himself in a particular manner
responsible for the good government of the provinces composing the
dominions of the Nabob of Oude.
III. That the provinces aforesaid, having been at the time of their
first connection with the Company in an improved and flourishing
condition, and yielding a revenue of more than three millions of pounds
sterling, or thereabouts, did soon after that period begin sensibly to
decline, and the subsidy of the British troops stationed in that
province, as well as other sums of money due to the Company by treaty,
ran considerably in arrear; although the prince of the country, during
the time these arrears accrued, was otherwise in distress, and had been
obliged to reduce all his establishments.
IV. That the prince aforesaid, or Nabob of Oude, did, in humble and
submissive terms, supplicate the said Warren Hastings to be relieved
from a body of troops whose licentious behavior he complained of, and
who were stationed in his country without any obligation by treaty to
maintain them,--pleading the failure of harvest and the prevalence of
famine in his country: a compliance with which request by the said
Warren Hastings was refused in unbecoming, offensive, and insulting
language.
V. That the said Nabob, laboring under the aforesaid and other burdens,
and being continually urged for payment, was advised to extort, and did
extort, from his mother and grandmother, under the pretext of loans,
(and sometimes without that appearance,) various great sums of money,
amounting in the whole to six hundred and thirty thousand pounds
sterling, or thereabouts: alleging in excuse the rigorous demands of the
East India Company, for whose use the said extorted money had been
demanded, and to which a considerable part of it had been applied.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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