The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke

lodged in the hands of the superintendent. I therefore request that your Excellency will give
the strictest injunctions to all your dependants not to interfere in any manner with any
matter relative to the affairs of the Adawlut and Phousdary, and that you will yourself
relinquish all interference therein, and leave them entirely to the management of Sudder ul
Hock Khân: this is absolutely necessary to restore the country to a state of tranquillity."
And he concluded by again recommending the Nabob to withdraw all interference with the
administrator aforesaid: "otherwise a measure which I adopted at your Excellency's request,
and with a view to your satisfaction and the benefit of the country, will be attended with
quite contrary effects, and bring discredit on me."

XXIV. That the said Hastings, in the letter aforesaid, in which he so strongly condemns the
acts and so clearly marks out the mischievous effects of the corrupt influence under which
alone the Nabob acted, and under which alone, from his known incapacity, and his
dependence on the person supported by the said Hastings, he could act, did propose to put
all the offices of justice (which on another occasion he had requested him to permit to
remain in the hands which then held them) into his own disposal,—telling him, or rather the
woman and eunuchs who governed him, "that, if his Excellency has any plan for the
management of the affairs in future, be pleased to communicate it to me, and every
attention shall be paid to give your Excellency satisfaction": by which means not only
particular parts, as before, but the whole system of justice was to be afloat, and to be subject
to the purposes of the aforesaid corrupt cabal of women and eunuchs.

XXV. That the Court of Directors, on receiving an account of the above arrangements, and
being well apprised of the spirit, intention, and probable effect of the same, did, in a clear,
firm, and decisive manner, express their condemnation of the measure, and their rejection

<<   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   >>

More intriguing information