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
power by his lowest servants,--by which one hundred and twenty or more
of our countrymen perished miserably in a dungeon, by a fate too
tragical for me to be desirous to relate, and too well known to stand in
need of it.
At the time that this event happened, there was at the same time a
concurrence of other events, which, from this partial and momentary
weakness, displayed the strength of Great Britain in Asia. For some
years before, the French and English troops began, on the coast of
Coromandel, to exhibit the power, force, and efficacy of European
discipline. As we daily looked for a war with France, our settlements on
that coast were in some degree armed. Lord Pigot, then Governor of
Madras,--Lord Pigot, the preserver and the victim of the British
dominion in Asia,--detached such of the Company's force as could he
collected and spared, and such of his Majesty's ships as were on that
station, to the assistance of Calcutta. And--to hasten this history to
its conclusion--the daring and commanding genius of Clive, the patient
and firm ability of Watson, the treachery of Mir Jaffier, and the battle
of Plassey gave us at once the patronage of a kingdom and the command of
all its treasures. We negotiated with Mir Jaffier for the viceroyal
throne of his master. On that throne we seated him. And we obtained, on
our part, immense sums of money. We obtained a million sterling for the
Company, upwards of a million for individuals, in the whole a sum of
about two millions two hundred and thirty thousand pounds for various
purposes, from the prince whom we had set up. We obtained, too, the town
of Calcutta more completely than we had before possessed it, and the
twenty-four districts adjoining. This was the first small seminal
principle of the immense territorial acquisitions we have since made in
India.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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