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
XX. That the consequences which might be expected from such a plan of
administration did almost instantly flow from it. For the person
appointed to execute one of the offices which had been filled by Mahomed
Reza Khan did soon find that the eunuchs of Munny Begum began to employ
their power with great superiority and insolence in all the concerns of
government and the administration of justice, and did endeavor to
dispose of the offices relative to the same for their corrupt purposes,
and to rob the Nabob's servants of their due allowances; and in his
letter of the 1st September, 1778, he sent a complaint to the board,
stating, "that certain bad men had gained an ascendency over the Nabob's
temper, by whose instigation he acts"; and after complaining of the
slights he received from the Nabob, he adds: "Thus they cause the Nabob
to treat me, sometimes with indignity, at others with kindness, just as
they think proper to advise him; their view is, that, by compelling me
to displeasure at most unworthy treatment, they may force me either to
relinquish my station, or to join with them, and act by their advice,
and appoint creatures of their recommendation to the different offices,
from which they might draw profit to themselves."
XXI. That, in a subsequent letter to the Governor, the said
Superintendent of Justice did inform him, the said Warren Hastings, of
the audacious and corrupt manner in which, by violence, fraud, and
forgery, the eunuchs of Munny Begum had abused the Nabob's name, to
deprive the judicial and executory officers of justice of the salaries
which they ought to have drawn from the Company's treasury, in the
following words: "The Begum's ministers, before my arrival, with the
advice of their counsellors, caused the Nabob to sign a receipt, in
consequence of which they received, at two different times, near 50,000
rupees [5,000_l._], in the name of the officers of the Adawlut,
Phousdary, &c., from the Company's sircars; and having drawn up an
account-current _in the manner they wished_, they had got the Nabob to
sign it, and sent it to me." And in the same letter he asserts, "that
these people had the Nabob entirely in their power."
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