The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke

troops aforesaid from the territories and pay of the Nabob of Oude, did further declare, "that
he had been too much accustomed to the tales of hostile preparation and impending
invasions, against all the evidence of political probability, to regard them as any other than
phantoms raised for the purpose of perpetuating or multiplying commands," and he did trust
"all ideas of danger from the neighboring powers were altogether visionary; and that, even
if they had been better founded, this mode of anticipating possible evils would be more
mischievous than anything they had reason to apprehend," and that the internal state of the
Nabob's dominions did not require the continuance of the said troops; and that the Nabob,
"whose concern it was, and not ours" did affirm the same,—notwithstanding he, the said
Hastings, had before, in answer to the humble supplications of the Nabob, asserted, that "it
was our part, and not his, to judge and determine in what manner and at what time they
should be reduced or withdrawn."

XXIV. That the said Warren Hastings, in support of his measure of withdrawing the said
brigade and other troops, did also represent, that "the remote stations of those troops,
placing the commanding officers beyond the notice and control of the board, afforded too
much opportunity and temptation for unwarrantable emoluments, and excited the contagion
of peculation and rapacity throughout the whole army, and, as an instance thereof, that a
court-martial, composed of officers of rank and respectable characters, unanimously and
honorably, 'most honorably,' acquitted an officer upon an acknowledged fact which in times
of stricter discipline would have been deemed a crime deserving the severest punishment."

XXV. That the said Warren Hastings, having in the letter aforesaid contradicted all the
grounds and reasons by him assigned for keeping up the aforesaid establishment, and
having declared his own conviction that the whole was a fallacy and imposition, and a

<<   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   >>

More intriguing information