The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke

palliative offer made by the Nabob Fyzoola Khân," and inserted in the protest:—"That he
would, in compliance with the demand, and in conformity to the treaty, which specified no
definite number of cavalry or infantry, only expressing troops, furnish three thousand men:
viz., he would, in addition to the one thousand cavalry already granted, give one thousand
more, when and wheresoever required, and one thousand foot,"—together with one year's
pay in advance, and funds for the regular payment of them in future.

And this, the said Richard Johnson observes, "I put down at his [the Nabob Fyzoola Khân's]
particular desire, but otherwise useless; as my orders" (which orders do not appear) "were,
not to receive any palliation, but a negative or affirmative": though such palliation, as it is
called by the said Johnson, might be, as it was, in the strictest conformity to the treaty.

X. That in the said offer the Nabob Fyzoola Khân, instead of palliating, did at once admit
the extreme right of the Vizier under the treaty, by agreeing to furnish three thousand men,
when he, Fyzoola Khân, would have been justified in pleading his inability to send more
than two thousand; that such inability would not (as appears) have been a false and evasive
plea, but perfectly true and valid,—as the three thousand foot maintained by Fyzoola Khân
were for the purposes of his internal government, for which the whole three thousand must
have been demonstrably necessary; and that the Nabob Fyzoola Khân, by declining to avail
himself of a plea so fair, so well founded, and so consonant to the indulgence expressly
acknowledged in the treaty, and by thus meeting the specific demand of the Vizier as fully
as, according to his own military establishment, he could, did for the said offer deserve
rather the thanks of the said Vizier and the Company than the protest which the aforesaid
Johnson, under the orders of Warren Hastings, did deliver.

XI. That the report of the said protest, as well as the former letter of the said Johnson, were

<<   245   246   247   248   249   250   251   >>

More intriguing information