To let you see how provident Mr. Hastings's management of it was, I
shall produce to your Lordships one of the principal manoeuvres that he
adopted for the improvement of the revenue, and for the happiness and
prosperity of the country, the latter of which will always go along,
more or less, with the first.
The Nabob, whose acts your Lordships have now learned to appreciate as
no other than the acts of Mr. Hastings, writes to the Council to have a
body of British officers, for the purposes of improving the discipline
of his troops, collecting his revenues, and repressing disorder and
outrage among his subjects. This proposal was ostensibly fair and
proper; and if I had been in the Council at that time, and the Nabob had
really and _bona fide_ made such a request, I should have said he had
taken a very reasonable and judicious step, and that the Company ought
to aid him in his design.
Among the officers sent to Oude, in consequence of this requisition, was
the well-known Colonel Hannay: a man whose name will be bitterly and
long remembered in India. This person, we understand, had been
recommended to Mr. Hastings by Sir Elijah Impey: and his appointment was
the natural consequence of such patronage. I say the natural
consequence, because Sir Elijah Impey appears on your minutes to have
been Mr.
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