The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 10 (of 12)

The next article we proceed to is _Nuddea_. Here we have more light; but does Mr. Larkins anywhere tell you anything about Nuddea? No it appears as if the account had been paid...

I have shown the impossibility of the Company's having intended to authorize such a revenue, much less such a constitution of it as Mr. Hastings has drawn from the very prohibit...

My Lords, I will venture to say, if ever there was an accuser that appeared well and with weight before any court, it was this man. He does not shrink from his charge; he offere...

Let us now see what was Mr. Hastings's business during this long protracted visit. First, he tells you that he came there to reduce all the state and dignity of the Nabob. He te...

Your Lordships see what the opinion of the Council was of their own constitution. You see for what it was made. You see for what purposes the great revenue trust was taken from...

Mr. Hastings has now at length taken a ground, as you will see from all his writings, which makes all explanation of his conduct in this business absolutely impossible. For, in...

Your Lordships will have the goodness to suppose me now making my apology, and by no manner of means intending to persist either in this, or in anything which the House of Commo...

This man, besides his office of dewan to the Calcutta Committee, which gave him the whole management and power of the revenue, was, as I have stated, at the head of all the regi...

The table of the House of Commons groaned under complaints of the evils growing in India under this systematic connivance of Mr. Hastings. The Directors had set on foot prosecut...

Thus it remained from the 5th of January, 1781, till 16th December, 1782, when this business takes another turn, and in a letter of his to the Company these bonds become all the...

His accuser was supposed to be what men may be, and yet very competent for accusers, namely, one of his accomplices in guilty actions,--one of those persons who may have a great...

Your Lordships will observe that the virtuous majority, whose reign was but short, and two of whom died of grief and vexation under the impediments which they met with from the...

I have already remarked to you, that, though this letter is dated upon the 22d of May, it was not dispatched for Europe till December following; and he gets Mr. Larkins, who was...

When the ancient nobility, the great princes, (for such I may call them,) a nobility, perhaps, as ancient as that of your Lordships, (and a more truly noble body never existed i...

Thus your Lordships see what Mr. Hastings's opinion of Debi Sing was. We shall prove it at another time, by abundance of clear and demonstrative evidence, that, whether he was b...

The first thing I would remark on this (and I believe your Lordships have rather gone before me in the remark) is, that Mr. Hastings came down to Calcutta on the 5th of February...

The first order related to Mahomed Reza Khân, who was (as your Lordships remember I took, in the beginning of this affair, means of explaining) lord-deputy of the province under...

In that situation the accounts of the Company were left with regard to very great sums which passed through Mr. Hastings's hands, and for which he, instead of giving his masters...

Here is the man that has told us at the bar of the House of Commons that he never made up any contingent accounts; and yet, as a set-off against this bribe, which he received fo...

I have another fact to lay before your Lordships, which affords a further presumption of his guilt, and which will show the mischievous consequences of it; and I trust your Lord...

Debi Sing was one of those who in the early stages of the English power in Bengal attached himself to those natives who then stood high in office. He courted Mahomed Reza Khân,...

"This scene of corruption was first disclosed, at a visit the Nabob was paid, to Lord Clive and the gentlemen of the Committee, a few days after our arrival. He there delivered...

What did he do? Not satisfied with giving to this prostitute every favor that she could desire, (and money must be the natural object of such a person,) Mr. Hastings deposes the...

It is the nature of tyranny and rapacity never to learn moderation from the ill-success of first oppressions; on the contrary, all oppressors, all men thinking highly of the met...

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If Nundcomar was an enemy to Mr. Hastings, he was an enemy to Mahomed Reza Khân; and Mr. Hastings employed him, avowedly and professedly on the records of the Company, on accoun...

Persons even less informed than your Lordships are well apprised that all officers representing government, and making in that character an authorized inquiry, are entitled to a...

We are now going to bring before your Lordships the sixth article. It is an article of charge of bribery and corruption against Mr. Hastings; but yet we must confess that we fee...

Now we see, that, after hammering his brains for many years, he does find out his motive, which he could not verify at the time,--namely, that, if he let his colleagues know tha...

It has been necessary to lay these facts before you, (and I have stated them to your Lordships far short of their reality, partly through my infirmity, and partly on account of...

He accordingly formed, or pretended to form, a private bribe exchequer, collateral with and independent of the Company's public exchequer, though in some cases administered by t...

The three lines which were read out of a Persian paper are followed by a long account of the several species in which this present was received, and converted by exchange into o...

These are the material circumstances which will be submitted to your Lordships' sober consideration in the course of this inquiry. I have now stated them on these two accounts:...