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Burke, Edmund, 1729-1797

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

Bristow,
although he had previously joined in the approbation of his conduct, and
in voting him a pecuniary reward. He is ordered by the Court of
Directors to restore that person, who desires, in a suppliant, decent,
proper tone, that the Company's orders should produce their effect, and
that the Council would have the goodness to restore him to his
situation.
My Lords, you have seen the audacious insolence, the tyrannical pride,
with which he dares to treat this order. You have seen the recorded
minute which he has dared to send to the Court of Directors; and in
this you see, that, when he cannot directly asperse a man's conduct, and
has nothing to say against it, he maliciously, I should perhaps rather
say enviously, insinuates that he had unjustly made his fortune. "You
are," says he, "to judge from the independence of his manner and style,
whether he could or no have got that without some unjust means." God
forbid I should ever be able to invent anything that can equal the
impudence of what this man dares to write to his superiors, or the
insolent style in which he dares to treat persons who are not his
servants!
Who made the servants of the Company the master of the servants of the
Company? The Court of Directors are their fellow-servants; they are all
the servants of this kingdom.


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