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
VI. That the said third article of the treaty of Chunar, as it thus
stands explained by the said Hastings himself, doth on the whole appear
designed to hold the protection of the Company in suspense; that it
acknowledges all right of interference to cease, but leaves it to our
discretion to determine when it will suit our conveniency to give the
Vizier the liberty of acting on the principles by us already admitted;
that it is dexterously constructed to balance the desires of one man,
rapacious and profuse, against the fears of another, described as "of
extreme pusillanimity and wealthy," but that, whatever may have been the
secret objects of the artifice and intrigue confessed to form its very
essence, it must on the very face of it necessarily implicate the
Company in a breach of faith, whichever might be the event, as they must
equally break their faith either by withdrawing their guaranty unjustly
or by continuing that guaranty in contradiction to this treaty of
Chunar; that it thus tends to hold out to India, and to the whole world,
that the public principle of the English government is a deliberate
system of injustice joined with falsehood, of impolicy, of bad faith,
and treachery; and that the said article is therefore in the highest
degree derogatory to the honor, and injurious to the interests of this
nation.
PART VII.
CONSEQUENCES OF THE TREATY OF CHUNAR.
I. That, in consequence of the treaty of Chunar, the Governor-General,
Warren Hastings, did send official instructions respecting the various
articles of the said treaty to the said Resident, Middleton; and that,
in a postscript, the said Hastings did forbid the resumption of the
Nabob Fyzoola Khan's jaghire, "until circumstances may render it more
expedient and easy to be attempted than the present more material
pursuits of government make it appear": thereby intimating a positive
limitation of the indefinite term in the explanatory minute above
recited, and confining the suspension of the article to the pressure of
the war.
II. That, soon after the date of the said instructions, and within two
months of the signature of the treaty of Chunar, the said Hastings did
cause Sir Elijah Impey, Knight, his Majesty's chief-justice at Fort
William, to discredit the justice of the crown of Great Britain by
making him the channel of unwarrantable communication, and did, through
the said Sir Elijah, signify to the Resident, Middleton, his, the said
Hastings's, "approbation of a _subsidy_ from Fyzoola Khan."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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