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
Your Lordships have now a standard, not a visionary one, but a standard
verified by accurate calculation and authentic accounts. You may now
fairly estimate the avarice and rapacity of this man, who describes
countries to be enormously rich in order that he may be justified in
pillaging them. But however insatiable the prisoner's avarice may be, he
has other objects in view, other passions rankling in his heart, besides
the lust of money. He was not ignorant, and we have proved it by his own
confession, that his pretended expectation of benefit to the Company
could not be realized; but he well knew that by enforcing his demands he
should utterly and effectually ruin a man whom he mortally hated and
abhorred,--a man who could not, by any sacrifices offered to the
avarice, avert the cruelty of his implacable enemy. As long as truth
remains, as long as figures stand, as long as two and two are four, as
long as there is mathematical and arithmetical demonstration, so long
shall his cruelty, rage, ravage, and oppression remain evident to an
astonished posterity.
I shall undertake, my Lords, when this court meets again, to develop the
consequences of this wicked proceeding. I shall then show you that that
part of the Rajah's family which he left behind him, and which Mr.
Hastings pretended to take under his protection, was also ruined,
undone, and destroyed; and that the once beautiful country of Benares,
which he has had the impudence to represent as being still in a
prosperous condition, was left by him in such a state as would move pity
in any tyrant in the world except the one who now stands before you.
FOOTNOTES:
[98] Hedaya, Vol. II. p. 621.
SPEECH
IN
GENERAL REPLY.
THIRD DAY: TUESDAY, JUNE 3, 1794.
My Lords,--We are called, with an awful voice, to come forth and make
good our charge against the prisoner at your bar; but as a long time has
elapsed since your Lordships heard that charge, I shall take the liberty
of requesting my worthy fellow Manager near me to read that part to your
Lordships which I am just now going to observe upon, that you may be the
better able to apply my observations to the letter of the charge.
[_Mr. Wyndham reads._]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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