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
"That the said Markham did bestow the said office of administrator of
the provinces of Benares upon a certain person named Jagher Deo Seo,
who, in order to gratify the arbitrary demands of the said Warren
Hastings, was obliged greatly to distress and harass the unfortunate
inhabitants of the said provinces.
"That the said Warren Hastings did, some time in the year 1784, remove
the said Jagher Deo Seo from the said office, under pretence of certain
irregularities and oppressions; which irregularities and oppressions are
solely imputable to him, the said Warren Hastings.
"That the consequences of all these violent changes and arbitrary acts
were the total ruin and desolation of the country, and the flight of the
inhabitants: the said Warren Hastings having found every place abandoned
at his approach, even by the officers of the very government which he
established, and seeing nothing but traces of devastation in every
village, the provinces in effect without a government, the
administration misconducted, the people oppressed, trade discouraged,
and the revenue in danger of a rapid decline.
"All which destruction, devastation, oppression, and ruin are solely
imputable to the abovementioned and other arbitrary, illegal, unjust,
and tyrannical acts of him, the said Warren Hastings, who, by all and
every one of the same, was and is guilty of high crimes and
misdemeanors."
[_Mr. Burke proceeded._]
My Lords, you have heard the charge; and you are now going to see the
prisoner at your bar in a new point of view. I will now endeavor to
display him in his character of a legislator in a foreign land, not
augmenting the territory, honor, and power of Great Britain, and
bringing the acquisition under the dominion of law and liberty, but
desolating a flourishing country, that to all intents and purposes was
our own,--a country which we had conquered from freedom, from
tranquillity, order, and prosperity, and submitted, through him, to
arbitrary power, misrule, anarchy, and ruin. We now see the object of
his corrupt vengeance utterly destroyed, his family driven from their
home, his people butchered, his wife and all the females of his family
robbed and dishonored in their persons, and the effects which husband
and parents had laid up in store for the subsistence of their families,
all the savings of provident economy, distributed amongst a rapacious
soldiery. His malice is victorious. He has well avenged, in the
destruction of this unfortunate family, the Rajah's intended visit to
General Clavering; he has well avenged the suspected discovery of his
bribe to Mr. Francis.
"Thou hast it now, King, Cawdor, Glamis, all!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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