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
Let us see, my Lords, what use he makes of this power,--how he justifies
the bounty of Fortune, bestowing on him this strange and anomalous
conquest. Anomalous I call it, my Lords, because it was the result of no
plan in the cabinet, no operation in the field. No act or direction
proceeded from him, the responsible chief, except the merciless orders,
and the grant to the soldiery. He lay skulking and trembling in the fort
of Chunar, while the British soldiery entitled themselves to the plunder
which he held out to them. Nevertheless, my Lords, he conquers; the
country is his own; he treats it as his own. Let us, therefore, see how
this successor of Tamerlane, this emulator of Genghis Khan, governs a
country conquered by the talents and courage of others, without
assistance, guide, direction, or counsel given by himself.
My Lords, I will introduce his first act to your Lordships' notice in
the words of the charge.
"The said Warren Hastings did, some time in the year 1782, enter into a
clandestine correspondence with William Markham, Esquire, the then
Resident at Benares; which said Markham had been by him, the said Warren
Hastings, obtruded into the said office, contrary to the positive orders
of the Court of Directors."
This unjustifiable obtrusion, this illegal appointment, shows you at the
very outset that he defies the laws of his country,--most positively and
pointedly defies them. In attempting to give a reason for this defiance,
he has chosen to tell a branch of the legislature from which originated
the act which wisely and prudently ordered him to pay implicit obedience
to the Court of Directors, that he removed Mr. Fowke from Benares,
contrary to the orders of the Court, on political grounds; because, says
he, "I thought it necessary the Resident there should be a man of my own
nomination and confidence. I avow the principle, and think no government
can subsist without it. The punishment of the Rajah made no part of my
design in Mr. Fowke's removal or Mr. Markham's appointment, nor was his
punishment an object of my contemplation at the time I removed Mr. Fowke
to appoint Mr. Markham: an appointment of my own choice, and a signal to
notify the restoration of my own authority; as I had before removed Mr.
Fowke and appointed Mr. Graham for the same purpose."
Here, my Lords, he does not even pretend that he had any view whatever,
in this appointment of Mr. Markham, but to defy the laws of his country.
"I must," says he, "have a man of my own nomination, because it is a
signal to notify the restoration of my own authority, as I had before
removed Mr. Fowke for the same purpose."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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