The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 09 (of 12)Burke, Edmund
History
The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 09 (of 12)
Burke, Edmund
Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1760-1820; Political science -- Early works to 1800
LXXI. That the next person whom the said Hastings did invest with power
in the said country was a certain opulent and powerful native manager of
revenue, called Almas Ali Khan, closely connected with the said Hyder
Beg Khan, and to whom the said Hyder Beg Khan, as the said Hastings has
admitted, "had intrusted the _greatest_ part of his revenues, without
any pledge or security for his fidelity." And afterwards the said
Hastings charges the said Almas Ali with an intention of removing from
the Nabob's dominions: he states, "as taking with him," and therefore
being possessed of, "an immense treasure, the fruits of his
embezzlements and oppressions, and an army raised for its protection."
LXXII. That the said Warren Hastings was, or pretended to be, impressed
with the evil character, dangerous designs, and immoderate power of the
said Almas Ali; that he did insert among his instructions to the
Resident Bristow an order of a dangerous and unwarrantable nature, in
which, upon his, the said Hastings's, simple allegation of offences, not
accurately described or specified, with regard either to the fact, the
nature of the offence, or the proof, he was required to urge the Nabob
to put him to death, with many qualifications in the said instructions,
full of fraud and duplicity, calculated to insnare the said Resident
Bristow, and to throw upon him the responsibility of the conduct of the
said Almas Ali Khan, if he should continue at large contrary to his
orders, or to subject him, the said Resident, to the shame and scandal
of apprehending and putting him to death by means which, in the
circumstances, must necessarily be such as would be construed into
treachery, and he, the said Almas Ali Khan, being from nature and
situation suspicious and watchful, and being at that very time in the
collection, or farmer of the most important part of the revenues, with
an extensive jurisdiction annexed, and at the head of fourteen thousand
of his own troops, and having been recently accepted by the Resident
Middleton as security for large sums of money advanced by the bankers of
Benares to the use of the East India Company; which orders (if the said
Resident would or could have executed them) must have raised an
universal alarm among all the considerable men of the country concerned
in the government, and would have been a means of subverting the public
credit of the Company, by the murder of a person engaged for very great
sums of money that had been advanced for their use. And the said
instruction is as followeth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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