The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke

event, whereof the bare recital is shocking to humanity. About two months since, an
attempt was made to assassinate Rajah Ticket Roy, the acting minister's confidential agent;
but he happily escaped unhurt. Nabob Bahadur, his Highness's brother, has not been so
fortunate, as will appear from translations of two of his letters to me, No. 1, which I have
the honor to inclose for your information. Although my feelings are sensibly hurt and my
compassion strongly excited by the disgraceful and miserable state of poverty to which his
Excellency's brothers are reduced, yet, situated as I am, it is not in my power to interfere
with effect. My efforts on a former occasion failed of success, and my interposition now
would only excite the resentment of the minister towards the unhappy sufferers, in
consequence of their application to me, from whom ALONE, however, they hope for relief
from their present distress, which, their near connection with the Vizier considered, is both
shameful and unprecedented. That no regular courts of justice have been established in this
country is particularly pointed at in my instructions, as the most disreputable defect in his
Highness's government; yet the minister seems determined on abolishing even the shadow
of so necessary an institution. The office of Chief Justice, as held by Moulavy Morobine,
was ever nugatory, but now it is sunk into the lowest contempt. The original establishment,
inadequate as it was, is mouldering away, and the officers now attached to it are literally
starving, as no part of their allowance has been paid for above six months past. He himself
has proposed to resign his appointment, being every way precluded from a possibility of
exercising the duties of it."

XLVI. That it appears by the said letter, and the papers therewith transmitted, as well as
other documents in the said correspondence, that, in consequence of the distress brought
upon the Nabob's finances, certain of the princes, his brethren, the children of Sujah ul
Dowlah, the late sovereign of the country, were put upon pensions unsuitable to their birth

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