The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke

XLII. That the obstruction aforesaid, and the evil consequences thereof, were duly
represented to the said Hastings; and though the said Hastings had made it the fourth article
of a criminal charge against the Resident Middleton, "that he did not report to the Governor-
General, or to the board, the progress which he had made from time to time in his
endeavors to comply with his instructions, and that, if he met with any impediments in the
execution of them, he had omitted to state those impediments, and to apply for fresh orders
upon them," yet he, the said Hastings, did give no manner of support to the Resident
Bristow against the said Hyder Beg Khân, and did not even answer several of his letters, the
said Bristow's letters, stating the said impediments, or take any notice of his remonstrances,
but did at length revoke his own instructions, declaring that he, the said Resident, should
not presume to act upon the same, and yet did not furnish him with any others, upon which
he might act, but did uphold the said Hyder Beg Khân in the obstruction by him given to
the performance of the first and fundamental duty of all government,—namely, the
administration of justice, and the protection of the lives and property of the subject against
wrong and violence.

XLIII. That the said Hastings did afterwards proceed to the length of criminating the
Resident Bristow aforesaid for his endeavors to establish the said necessary court, as an
invasion of the rights of the Nabob's government,—when, if the Nabob in his own proper
person and character, and not the aforesaid Hyder Beg, (who was a creature of the said
Hastings,) had opposed the reëstablishment of justice in the said country, it was the duty of
the said Hastings to have pressed the same upon him by every exertion of his influence.
And the said Warren Hastings, in his pretended attention to the Nabob's authority, when
exercised by his, the said Hastings's, minister, to prevent the establishment of courts of

<<   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   >>

More intriguing information