The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke

mean and depraved a tenure. Aliverdy Khân and Cossim Ali fined all their zemindars on the
necessities of war, and on every pretence either of court necessity or court extravagance."

My Lords, you have now heard the principles on which Mr. Hastings governs the part of
Asia subjected to the British empire. You have heard his opinion of the mean and depraved
state of those who are subject to it. You have heard his lecture upon arbitrary power, which
he states to be the constitution of Asia. You hear the application he makes of it; and you
hear the practices which he employs to justify it, and who the persons were on whose
authority he relies, and whose example he professes to follow. In the first place, your
Lordships will be astonished at the audacity with which he speaks of his own
administration, as if he was reading a speculative lecture on the evils attendant upon some
vicious system of foreign government in which he had no sort of concern whatsoever. And
then, when in this speculative way he has established, or thinks he has, the vices of the
government, he conceives he has found a sufficient apology for his own crimes. And if he
violates the most solemn engagements, if he oppresses, extorts, and robs, if he imprisons,
confiscates, banishes at his sole will and pleasure, when we accuse him for his ill-treatment
of the people committed to him as a sacred trust, his defence is,—"To be robbed, violated,
oppressed, is their privilege. Let the constitution of their country answer for it. I did not
make it for them. Slaves I found them, and as slaves I have treated them. I was a despotic
prince. Despotic governments are jealous, and the subjects prone to rebellion. This very
proneness of the subject to shake off his allegiance exposes him to continual danger from
his sovereign's jealousy, and this is consequent on the political state of Hindostanic
governments." He lays it down as a rule, that despotism is the genuine constitution of India,
that a disposition to rebellion in the subject or dependent prince is the necessary effect of
this despotism, and that jealousy and its consequences naturally arise on the part of the

<<   376   377   378   379   380   381   382   >>

More intriguing information