The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 10 (of 12)Burke, Edmund
History
The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 10 (of 12)
Burke, Edmund
Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1760-1820; Political science -- Early works to 1800
The Company, seeing that this nuzzer, though small in each sum, might
amount at last to a large tax upon the country, (and it did so in fact,)
thought proper to prohibit any sum of money to be taken upon any pretext
whatever; and the Company in the year 1775 did expressly explode the
whole doctrine of peshcush, nuzzer, and every other private lucrative
emolument, under whatever name, to be taken by the Governor-General, and
did expressly send out an order that that was the construction of the
act, and that he was not even to take a nuzzer. Thus we shall show that
that act had totally cut up the whole system of bribery and corruption,
and that Mr. Hastings had no sort of color whatever for taking the money
which we shall prove he has taken.
I know that positive prohibitions, that acts of Parliament, that
covenants, are things of very little validity indeed, as long as all the
means of corruption are left in power, and all the temptations to
corrupt profit are left in poverty. I should really think that the
Company deserved to be ill served, if they had not annexed such
appointments to great trusts as might secure the persons intrusted from
the temptations of unlawful emolument, and, what in all cases is the
greatest security, given a lawful gratification to the natural passions
of men. Matrimony is to be used, as a true remedy against a vicious
course of profligate manners; fair and lawful emoluments, and the just
profits of office, are opposed to the unlawful means which might be made
use of to supply them. For, in truth, I am ready to agree, that for any
man to expect a series of sacrifices without a return in blessings, to
expect labor without a prospect of reward, and fatigue without any means
of securing rest, is an unreasonable demand in any human creature from
another. Those who trust that they shall find in men uncommon and heroic
virtues are themselves endeavoring to have nothing paid them but the
common returns of the worst parts of human infirmity. And therefore I
shall show your Lordships that the Company did provide large, ample,
abundant means for supporting the Governor-General,--that Lord Clive, in
the year 1765, and the Council with him, of which Mr. Sumner, I am glad
and proud to say, was one, did fix such an allowance as they thought a
sufficient security to the Governor-General against the temptations
attendant upon his situation; and therefore, after they had fixed this
sum, they say, "that, although by this means the Governor will not be
able to amass a million or half a million in the space of two or three
years, yet he will acquire a very handsome independency, and be in that
very situation which a man of honor and true zeal for the service would
wish to possess. Thus situated, he may defy all opposition in Council;
he will have nothing to ask, nothing to propose, but what he wishes for
the advantage of his employers; he may defy the law, because there can
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