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
Nothing now remains to be pressed by me upon your Lordships'
consideration, but the account given by the late Governor-General, Earl
Cornwallis, of the state in which he found the country left by his
predecessor, Mr. Hastings, the prisoner at your bar. But, patient as I
know your Lordships to be, I also know that your strength is not
inexhaustible; and though what I have farther to add will not consume
much of your Lordships' time, yet I conceive that there is a necessity
for deferring it to another day.
SPEECH
IN
GENERAL REPLY.
NINTH DAY: MONDAY, JUNE 16, 1794.
My Lords,--I should think it necessary to make an apology to your
Lordships for appearing before you one day more, if I were inclined to
measure this business either by the standard of my own ability, or by my
own impatience, or by any supposed impatience of yours. I know no
measure, in such a case, but the nature of the subject, and the duty
which we owe to it. You will therefore, my Lords, permit me, in a few
words, to lead you back to what we did yesterday, that you may the
better comprehend the manner in which I mean to conclude the business
to-day.
My Lords, we took the liberty of stating to you the condition of Bengal
before our taking possession of it, and of the several classes of its
inhabitants. We first brought before you the Mahometan inhabitants, who
had the judicial authority of the country in their hands; and we proved
to you the utter ruin of that body of people, and with them of the
justice of the country, by their being, both one and the other, sold to
an infamous woman called Munny Begum. We next showed you, that the whole
landed interest, the zemindars, or Hindoo gentry of the country, was
likewise ruined by its being given over, by letting it on a five years'
lease, to infamous farmers, and giving it up to their merciless
exactions,--and afterwards by subjecting the rank of those zemindars,
their title-deeds, and all their pecuniary affairs, to the minutest
scrutiny, under pain of criminal punishment, by a commission granted to
a nefarious villain called Gunga Govind Sing. We lastly showed you that
the remaining third class, that of the English, was partly corrupted, or
had its authority dissolved, and that the whole superintending English
control was subverted or subdued,--that the products of the country were
diminished, and that the revenues of the Company were dilapidated, by an
overcharge of expenses, in four years, to the amount of 500,000_l._, in
consequence of these corrupt, dangerous, and mischievous projects.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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