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
obedience in the following authoritative style: "I shall think myself
obliged to interfere _in another manner_, if you neglect it."
XXX. That he, the said Warren Hastings, did insult the captive condition
of the said Nabob by informing him, in his imperious instructions
aforesaid, that this total, blind, and implicit obedience, in every
respect whatsoever, to Sir John D'Oyly and himself personally, and
without any reference to the board, "was the very _conditions_ of the
compliance of the Governor-General and Council with his late
requisition"; which requisition was, that he should enjoy _the free and
uncontrolled_ management of his own affairs. And though the said captive
did offer, as he, the said Hastings, himself admits, _four lacs_ of his
stipend, at that time reduced to sixteen lac, for _the free use of the
remainder_, yet he did place him, the said Nabob, in the state of
servitude in the said instructions laid down but a very short time after
he had assumed and used the said Nabob's independent rights as a ground
for refusing to obey the Company's orders,--and although he has
declared, or pretended, on another occasion, which he would have thought
similar, that any attempt to limit the household expenses of the Nabob
of Oude was an indignity, "which no man living, however mean his rank in
life, or dependent his condition in it, would permit to be exercised by
any other, without the want or forfeiture of every manly principle."
XXXI. That the said Warren Hastings did order the said stipend (which
was to be distributed, in the minutest particular, according to the said
Hastings's personal directions) to be paid monthly, not to any officer
of the Nabob, but to the said Resident, Sir John D'Oyly. And whereas the
Governor-General and Council did, on the appointment of Mahomed Reza
Khan, according to their duty, instruct him, that "he do conform to the
_orders_ of the Company, which direct that an annual account of the
Nabob's expenses be transmitted through the Resident at the Durbar, for
the inspection of this _board_" the said Hastings, in making his new
establishment in favor of his Resident, did wholly omit the said
instruction, and did confine the said communication to _himself_,
privately. And in fact it does not appear that any account whatsoever of
the disposition of the said large sum, exceeding 160,000_l._ sterling a
year, has been laid before the board, or at least that any such account
has been transmitted to the Court of Directors; and it is not fitting
that any British servant of the Company should have the management of
any public money, much less of so great a sum, without a public
well-vouched account of the specific expenditure thereof.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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