The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 11 (of 12)Burke, Edmund
History
The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 11 (of 12)
Burke, Edmund
Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1760-1820; Political science -- Early works to 1800
He thus writes from Benares, the 22d of October, 1781, ten o'clock in
the morning. "I am this instant favored with yours of yesterday; mine to
you of the same date has before this time acquainted you with my
resolutions and sentiments respecting the Ranny. I think every demand
she has made to you, except that of safety and respect for her person,
is unreasonable. If the reports brought to me are true, your rejecting
her offers, or any negotiation with her, would soon obtain you
possession of the fort upon your own terms. I apprehend that she will
contrive to defraud the captors of a considerable part of the booty by
being suffered to retire without examination; but this is your
consideration, and not mine. I should be sorry that your officers and
soldiers lost any part of the reward to which they are so well entitled;
but I cannot make any objection, as you must be the best judge of the
expediency of the promised indulgence to the Ranny. What you have
engaged for I will certainly ratify; but as to permitting the Ranny to
hold the purgunnah of Hurluk, or any other in the zemindary, without
being subject to the authority of the zemindar, or any lands whatever,
or indeed making any conditions with her for a provision, I will never
consent to it."
My Lords, you have seen the principles upon which this man justifies his
conduct. Here his real nature, character, and disposition break out.
These women had been guilty of no rebellion; he never charged them with
any crime but that of having wealth; and yet you see with what ferocity
he pursues everything that belonged to the destined object of his cruel,
inhuman, and more than tragic revenge. "If," says he, "you have made an
agreement with them, and will insist upon it, I will keep it; but if you
have not, I beseech you not to make any. Don't give them anything;
suffer no stipulations whatever of a provision for them. The
capitulation I will ratify, provided it contains no article of future
provision for them." This he positively forbade; so that his
bloodthirsty vengeance would have sent out these two hundred innocent
women to starve naked in the world.
But he not only declares that the money found in the fort is the
soldiers', he adds, that he should be sorry, if they lost a shilling of
it. So that you have here a man not only declaring that the money was
theirs, directly contrary to the Company's positive orders upon other
similar occasions, and after he had himself declared that prize-money
was poison to soldiers, but directly inciting them to insist upon their
right to it.
A month had been allowed by proclamation for the submission of all
persons who had been in rebellion, which submission was to entitle them
to indemnity. But, my Lords, he endeavored to break the public faith
with these women, by inciting the soldiers to make no capitulation with
them, and thus depriving them of the benefit of the proclamation, by
preventing their voluntary surrender.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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