The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 12 (of 12)Burke, Edmund
History
The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 12 (of 12)
Burke, Edmund
Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1760-1820; Political science -- Early works to 1800
Now does the history of tyranny furnish, does the history of popular
violence deposing kings furnish, anything like the dreadful deposition
of this prince, and the cruel and abominable tyranny that has been
exercised over him? Consider, too, my Lords, for what object all this
was done. Was Mr. Hastings endeavoring, by his arbitrary interference
and the use of his superior power, to screen a people from the
usurpation and power of a tyrant,--from any strong and violent acts
against property, against dignity, against nobility, against the freedom
of his people? No: you see here a monarch deposed, in effect, by persons
pretending to be his allies, and assigning what are pretended to be his
wishes as the motive for using his usurped authority in the execution of
these acts of violence against his own family and his subjects. You see
him struggling against this violent prostitution of his authority. He
refuses the sanction of his name, which before he had given up to Mr.
Hastings to be used as he pleased, and only begs not to be made an
instrument of wrong which his soul abhors, and which would make him
infamous throughout the world. Mr. Middleton, however, assumes the
sovereignty of the country. "I," he says, "am Nabob of Oude: the
jaghires shall be confiscated: I have given my orders, and they shall be
supported by a military force."
I am ashamed to have so far distrusted your Lordships' honorable and
generous feelings as to have offered you, upon this occasion, any
remarks which you must have run before me in making. Those feelings
which you have, and ought to have, feelings born in the breasts of all
men, and much more in men of your Lordships' elevated rank, render my
remarks unnecessary. I need not, therefore, ask what you feel, when a
foreign resident at a prince's court takes upon himself to force that
prince to act the part of a tyrant, and, upon his resistance, openly and
avowedly assumes the sovereignty of the country. You have it in proof
that Mr. Middleton did this. He not only put his own name to the orders
for this horrible confiscation, but he actually proceeded to dispossess
the jaghiredars of their lands, and to send them out of the country. And
whom does he send, in the place of this plundered body of nobility, to
take possession of the country? Why, the usurers of Benares. Yes, my
Lords, he immediately mortgages the whole country to the usurers of
Benares, for the purpose of raising money upon it: giving it up to those
bloodsuckers, dispossessed of that nobility, whose interest, whose duty,
whose feelings, and whose habits made them the natural protectors of the
people.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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