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
that he should obey the orders of the Company; and among other acts of
the obedience required was this, that Mahomed Reza Khan should be put
into his office.
You have heard how Mr. Hastings opposed the order of the Company, and on
what account he opposed it. On the 1st of September he sent an order to
the Nabob, now become his subject, to give up this office to Mahomed
Reza Khan: an act which he had before represented as a dethroning of the
Nabob. The order went on the 1st of September, and on the 3d this great
and mighty prince, whom all earth could not move from the assertion of
his rights, gives them all up, and Mahomed Reza Khan is invested with
them. So there all his pretences were gone. It is plain that what had
been done before was for Munny Begum, and that what he now gave up was
from necessity: and it shows that the Nabob was the meanest of his
servants; for in truth he ate his daily bread out of the hands of Mr.
Hastings, through Munny Begum.
Mahomed Reza Khan was now invested again with his office; but such was
the treachery of Mr. Hastings, that, though he wrote to the Nabob that
this was done in consequence of the orders of the Company, he did
clandestinely, according to his usual mode, assure the Nabob that
Mahomed Reza Khan should not hold the place longer than till he heard
from England. He then wrote him another letter, that he should hold it
no longer than while he submitted to his present necessity, (thus giving
up to his colleague what he refused to the Company,) and engaged,
privately, that he would dismiss Mahomed Reza Khan again. And
accordingly, the moment he thought Mr. Francis was not in a condition to
give him trouble any longer, that moment he again turned out Mahomed
Reza Khan from that general superintendence of affairs which the Company
gave him, and deposed him as a minister, leaving him only a very
confined authority as a magistrate.
All these changes, no less than four great revolutions, if I may so call
them, were made by Mr. Hastings for his own corrupt purposes. This is
the manner in which Mr. Hastings has played with the most sacred objects
that man ever had a dealing with: with the government, with the justice,
with the order, with the dignity, with the nobility of a great country:
he played with them to satisfy his own wicked and corrupt purposes
through the basest instrument.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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