Prev | Current Page 335 | Next

Burke, Edmund, 1729-1797

"The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 11 (of 12)"

Yet
this Ussaun Sing, the disgrace and calamity of his family, an incestuous
adulterer, and a supposed issue of a guilty connection, was declared
Naib. Yes, my Lords, this degraded, this wicked and flagitious
character, the Rajah's avowed enemy, was, in order to heighten the
Rajah's disgrace, to embitter his ruin, to make destruction itself
dishonorable as well as destructive, appointed this [his?] Naib. Thus,
when Mr. Hastings had imprisoned the Rajah, in the face of his subjects,
and in the face of all India, without fixing any term for the duration
of his imprisonment, he delivered up the country to a man whom he knew
to be utterly undeserving, a man whom he kept in view for the purpose of
frightening the Rajah, and whom he was obliged to depose on account of
his misconduct almost as soon as he had named him, and to exclude
specially from all kind of trust. We have heard of much tyranny,
avarice, and insult in the world; but such an instance of tyranny,
avarice, and insult combined has never before been exhibited.
We are now come to the last scene of this flagitious transaction. When
Mr. Hastings imprisoned the Rajah, he did not renew his demand for the
500,000_l._, but he exhibited a regular charge of various pretended
delinquencies against him, digested into heads, and he called on him, in
a dilatory, irregular way of proceeding, for an answer.


Pages:
323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347