The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 08 (of 12) eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 475 pages of information about The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 08 (of 12).

The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 08 (of 12) eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 475 pages of information about The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 08 (of 12).
and sovereign, and the utter extirpation of the English nation:  and neither the said charge against persons whose dependence was principally, if not wholly, on the good faith of this nation, and highly affecting the honor, property, and even lives, of women of the highest condition, nor the affidavits intended to support the same, extra-judicially taken, ex parte, and without notice, by the said Sir Elijah Impey and others, were at any time communicated to the parties charged, or to any agent for them; nor were they called upon to answer, nor any explanation demanded of them.

XI.  That the article affecting private property secured by public acts, in the said pretended treaty, contains nothing more than a general permission, given by the said Warren Hastings, for confiscating such jaghires, or landed estates, with the modifications therein contained, “as he [the Nabob] may find necessary,” but does not directly point at, or express by name, any of the landed possessions of the Nabob’s mother.  But soon after the signing of the said pretended treaty, (that is, on the 29th November, 1781,) it did appear that a principal object thereof was to enable the Nabob to seize upon the estates of his female parents aforesaid, which had been guarantied to them by the East India Company.  And although in the treaty, or pretended treaty, aforesaid, nothing more is purported than to give a simple permission to the Nabob to seize upon and confiscate the estates, leaving the execution or non-execution of the same wholly to his discretion, yet it appears, by several letters from Nathaniel Middleton, Esquire, the Resident at the Court of Oude, of the 6th, 7th, and 9th of December, 1781, that no such discretion as expressed in the treaty was left, or intended to be left, with him, the said Nabob, but that the said article ought practically to have a construction of a directly contrary tendency:  that, instead of considering the article as originating from the Nabob, and containing a power provided in his favor which he did not possess before, the confiscation of the jaghires aforesaid was to be considered as a measure originating from the English, and to be intended for their benefit, and, as such, that the execution was to be forced upon him; and the execution thereof was accordingly forced upon him.  And the Resident, Middleton, on the Nabob’s refusal to act in contradiction to his sworn engagement guarantied by the East India Company, and in the undutiful and unnatural manner required, did totally supersede his authority in his own dominions, considering himself as empowered so to act by the instructions of the said Hastings, although he had reason to apprehend a general insurrection in consequence thereof, and that he found it necessary to remove his family, “which he did not wish to retain there, in case of a rupture with the Nabob, or the necessity of employing the British forces in the reduction of his aumils and troops”; and he did accordingly, as sovereign,

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The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 08 (of 12) from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.