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
Think, my Lords, of what he says respecting the military. He says there
is no restraining them,--that they pillage the country wherever they go.
But had not Mr. Hastings himself just before encouraged the military to
pillage the country? Did he not make the people's resistance, when the
soldiers attempted to pillage them, one of the crimes of Cheyt Sing? And
who would dare to obstruct the military in their abominable ravages,
when they knew that one of the articles of Cheyt Sing's impeachment was
his having suffered the people of the country, when plundered by these
wicked soldiers, to return injury for injury and blow for blow? When
they saw, I say, that these were the things for which Cheyt Sing was
sacrificed, there was manifestly nothing left for them but
flight.--What! fly from a Governor-General? You would expect he was
bearing to the country, upon his balmy and healing wings, the cure of
all its disorders and of all its distress. No: they knew him too well;
they knew him to be the destroyer of the country; they knew him to be
the destroyer of their sovereign, the destroyer of the persons whom he
had appointed to govern under him; they knew that neither governor,
sub-governor, nor subject could enjoy a moment's security while he
possessed supreme power. This was the state of the country; and this the
Commons of England call upon your Lordships to avenge.
Let us now see what is next done by the prisoner at your bar. He is
satisfied with simply removing from his office Jagher Deo Seo, who is
accused by him of all these corruptions and oppressions. The other poor,
unfortunate man, who was not even accused of malversations in such a
degree, and against whom not one of the accusations of oppression was
regularly proved, but who had, in Mr. Hastings's eye, the one
unpardonable fault of not having been made richer by his crimes, was
twice imprisoned, and finally perished in prison. But we have never
heard one word of the imprisonment of Jagher Deo Seo, who, I believe,
after some mock inquiry, was acquitted.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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