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Burke, Edmund, 1729-1797

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


Did Mr. Francis, whom I saw here a little while ago, send these people
into that country? Did General Clavering, or Colonel Monson, whom he
charges with this system, send them there? No, they were sent by
himself; and if one was sent by anybody else for a time, he was soon
recalled: so that he is himself answerable for all the peculation which
he attributes to the civil service. You see the character given of that
service; you there see their accuser, you there see their defender, who,
after having defamed both services, military and civil, never punished
the guilty in either, and now receives the prodigal praises of both.
I defy the ingenuity of man to show that Mr. Hastings is not the defamer
of the service. I defy the ingenuity of man to show that the honor of
Great Britain has not been tarnished under his patronage. He engaged to
remove all these bloodsuckers by the treaty of Chunar; but he never
executed that treaty. He proposed to take away the temporary brigade;
but he again established it. He redressed no grievance; he formed no
improvements in the government; he never attempted to provide a remedy
without increasing the evil tenfold. He was the primary and sole cause
of all the grievances, civil and military, to which the unhappy natives
of that country were exposed; and he was the accuser of all the
immediate authors of those grievances, without having punished any one
of them.


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