The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke

support. In the mean time the gentlemen did not trouble their heads upon that subject, but
meant to exact and get their 500,000l. as they could.

Here was a third revolution, bought at this amazing sum, and this poor, miserable prince
first dragged from Moorshedabad to Calcutta, then dragged back from Calcutta to
Moorshedabad, the sport of fortune and the plaything of avarice. This poor man is again set
up, but is left with no authority: his troops limited,—his person, everything about him, in a
manner subjugated,—a British Resident the master of his court: he is set up as a pageant on
this throne, with no other authority but what would be sufficient to give a countenance to
presents, gifts, and donations. That authority was always left, when all the rest was taken
away. One would have thought that this revolution might have satisfied these gentlemen,
and that the money gained by it would have been sufficient. No. The partisans of Cossim
Ali wanted another revolution. The partisans of the other side wished to have something
more done in the present. They now began to think that to depose Cossim instantly, and to
sell him to another, was too much at one time,—especially as Cossim Ali was a man of
vigor and resolution, carrying on a fierce war against them. But what do you think they did?
They began to see, from the example of Cossim Ali, that the lieutenancy, the ministry of the
king, was a good thing to be sold, and the sale of that might turn out as good a thing as the
sale of the prince.

For this office there were two rival candidates, persons of great consideration, in Bengal:
one, a principal Mahomedan, called Mahomed Reza Khân, a man of high authority, great
piety in his own religion, great learning in the law, of the very first class of Mahomedan
nobility; but at the same time, on all these accounts, he was abhorred and dreaded by the
Nabob, who necessarily feared that a man of Mahomed Reza Khân's description would be

<<   359   360   361   362   363   364   365   >>

More intriguing information