The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke

documents, and even in affidavits studiously collected and sworn before Sir Elijah Impey
during his short residence at Lucknow and Benares, did himself represent as persons
entirely disaffected to the English power in India,—as having been principal promoters, if
not original contrivers, of a general rebellion and revolt for the utter extirpation of the
English nation,—and as such, he, the said Warren Hastings, did compel the Nabob
reluctantly to take from them their landed estates; and yet the said Warren Hastings has had
the presumption to attempt to impose on the East India Company by pretending to place his
reliance on those three persons for a settlement favorable to the Company's interests, on his
renunciation of all their own power, authority, and influence, and on his leaving their army
to the sole and uncontrolled discretion of a stranger, meriting in his opinion the description
given by him as aforesaid, as well as by him frequently asserted to be politically incapable
of supporting his own power without the aid of the forces of the Company. And the offence
of the said Warren Hastings, in abandoning a considerable part of the British army in the
manner aforesaid, is much increased by the description which he has himself given of the
state of the said army, and particularly of that part thereof which is stationed in the Nabob
of Oude's dominions: for he did himself, on the 29th of November, 1781, transmit the
information following, on that subject, to the Court of Directors, namely,—"that the remote
stations of those troops, placing the commanding officers beyond the notice and control of
the board [the Council-General] at Calcutta, afforded too much of opportunity and
temptation for unwarrantable emoluments, and excited the contagion of peculation and
rapacity throughout the whole army. A most remarkable instance and uncontrovertible
proof of the prevalence of this spirit has been seen in the court-martial upon Captain
Erskine, where the court, composed of officers of rank, and respectable characters,
unanimously and honorably, (most honorably,) upon an acknowledged fact, acquitted him,
which in times of stricter discipline would have been deemed a crime deserving the severest

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