The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke

hands. Here he confessed he found a difficulty. For the giving this faith, if it were kept,
would defeat his ultimate view, which was, when the Prince had delivered himself into his
hands, in plain terms to murder him. This grand act could not be accomplished without the
English general. In the first place, the Prince, without the English security, would not
deliver himself into the Nabob's hands; and afterwards, without the English concurrence, he
could not be murdered. These were difficulties that pressed upon the mind of the Nabob.

The English commander heard this astonishing proposition without any apparent emotion.
Being a man habituated to great affairs, versed in revolutions, and with a mind fortified
against extraordinary events, he heard it and answered it without showing any signs of
abhorrence or detestation,—at the same time with a protestation that he would indeed serve
him, the Nabob, but it should be upon such terms as honor and justice could support:
informing him, that an assurance for the Prince's safety could not be given by him, until he
had consulted Mr. Holwell, who was Governor, and his superior.

This conversation passed in the morning. On that very morning, and whilst the transaction
was hot, Major Calliaud writes to Mr. Holwell an account of it. In his letter he informs him
that he made an inquiry, without stating from whom, but that he did inquire the probability
of the Nabob's getting possession of the Prince from some persons, who assured him that
there was no probability of the Prince's intention to deliver himself to the Nabob on any
terms. Be that as it may, it is impossible not to remark that the whole transaction of the
morning of the 15th of April was not very discouraging to the Nabob,—not such as would
induce him to consider this most detestable of all projects as a thing utterly unfeasible, and
as such to abandon it. The evening came on without anything to alter his opinion. Major
Calliaud that evening came to the Nabob's tent to arrange some matters relative to the

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