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
LXV. That there is just ground to violently presume that not only the
letters in the name of the Nabob aforesaid were dictated to him by his
minister, Hyder Beg Khan, in whose hands the said Hastings has described
his master to be "a mere cipher," &c., but which Hyder Beg was the known
instrument of the said Hastings, but that the conduct and letters of
complaint of the said Hyder Beg were in effect and substance prescribed
and dictated to him by the said Warren Hastings, or his secret agent,
Palmer, by his direction: because it is notorious that the powers of the
said Hyder Beg were solely supported by him, the said Hastings, who,
according to the state of favor or displeasure in which he stood, hath
frequently promised him support or threatened him with dismission and
punishment, and therefore it is not to be thought that he would take so
material a step as to oppose the Company's Resident, acting under the
instructions of the Governor-General and Council, and to accuse him with
so much confidence, and in a manner so different from the usual style of
supplication on all other occasions employed by that court, if he had
not been previously well assured that his writing in that manner would
be pleasing to the person upon whom he solely depended for his power,
his fortune, and perhaps for his life;--secondly, because, when it
suited the purposes of the said Hastings on a former occasion, that is,
in the year 1784 [1781?], to remove the Resident Bristow aforesaid from
his office, a letter from the Nabob was laid before the Council Board at
Calcutta, proposing, that, in order to prevent the effects of the said
Bristow's application to Europe for redress, the said Hastings should
send him drafts of letters which he, the said Nabob, would write in his
own name and character to the King, to his Majesty's ministers, and to
the Court of Directors, expressing himself, in the letter aforesaid, in
the words following, viz., "To prevent his [Bristow's] applying to
Europe, send me, if _you_ think proper, the drafts of letters which _I_
may write to the King, the Vizier, and the chiefs of the
Company";--thirdly, that, though the said Hastings, and his secret
agent, Palmer, did pretend and positively assert that they had no share
in the letters aforesaid from the Nabob and his minister, there was an
original note to the Nabob's letters of accusation, referring to
distinct parts and specified numbers of the agent Palmer's secret
correspondence with the said Warren Hastings, and the said letter, with
the said reference, was, through inadvertence, laid before the board.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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