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
If the Company had a mind to inquire what is become of all the debts due
to them, and where is the cabooleat, he refers them to Gunga Govind
Sing. "Give us," say they, "an account of this balance that remains in
your hands." "I know," says he, "of no balance." "Why, is there not a
cabooleat?" "Where is it? What are the date and circumstances of it?
There is no such cabooleat existing." This is the case even where you
have the name of the person through whose hands the money passed. But
suppose the inquiry went to the payments of the Patna cabooleat. "Here,"
they say, "we find half the money due: out of forty thousand pounds
there is only twenty thousand received: give us some account of it." Who
is to give an account of it? Here there is no mention made of the name
of the person who had the cabooleat: whom can they call upon? Mr.
Hastings does not remember; Mr. Larkins does not tell; they can learn
nothing about it. If the Directors had a disposition, and were honest
enough to the Proprietors and the nation to inquire into it, there is
not a hint given, by either of those persons, who received the Nuddea,
who received the Patna, who received the Dinagepore peshcush.
But in what court can a suit be instituted, and against whom, for the
recovery of this balance of 40,000_l._ out of 95,000_l._? I wish your
Lordships to examine strictly this account,--to examine strictly every
part, both of the account itself, and Mr. Larkins's explanation: compare
them together, and divine, if you can, what remedy the Company could
have for their loss. Can your Lordships believe that this can be any
other than a systematical, deliberate fraud, grossly conducted? I will
not allow Mr. Hastings to be the man he represents himself to be: he was
supposed to be a man of parts; I will only suppose him to be a man of
mere common sense. Are these the accounts we should expect from such a
man? And yet he and Mr. Larkins are to be magnified to heaven for great
financiers; and this is to be called book-keeping! This is the Bengal
account saved so miraculously on the 22d of May.
Next comes the Persian account. You have heard of a present to which it
refers. It has been already stated, but it must be a good deal farther
explained. Mr. Larkins states that this account was taken from a paper,
of which three lines, and only three lines, were read to him by a
Persian moonshee; and it is not pretended that this was the whole of it.
The three lines read are as follows.
"From the Nabob" (meaning the Nabob
of Oude) "to the Governor-General,
six lac L60,000
From Hussein Reza Khan and Hyder Beg
Khan to ditto, three lac 30,000
And ditto to Mrs. Hastings, one lac 10,000."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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