which tends wholly to disqualify men for the functions of government, but that by which the power of exercising those functions is very frequently obtained, I mean a spirit and habits of low cabal and intrigue, which I have never, in one instance, seen united with a capacity for sound and manly policy. To justify us in taking the administration of their affairs out of the hands of the East What abe procation. Population siderably larger than England; and the whole of Justises a India Company, on my principles, I ments. Magnitude of Extent. (1.) With very few, and those inconsiderable intervals, the British dominion, either tet af in the Company's name, or in the names of princes absolutely dependent upon the Company, extends from the mountains that separate India from Tartary to Cape Comoin, that is, one-and-twenty degrees of latitude! In the northern parts it is a solid mass of land, about eight hundred miles in length, and four or five hundred broad. As you go southward, it becomes narrower for a space. It afterward dilates; but, narrower or broader, you possess the whole eastern and northeastern coast of that vast country, quite from the borders of Pegu. Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa, with Benares (now unfortunately in our immediate possession), measure 161,978 square English miles; a territory considerably larger than the whole kingdom of France. Oude, with its dependent provinces, is 53,286 square miles, not a great deal less than England. The Carnatic, with Tanjore and the Circars, is 65,948 square miles, very con'France has since been materially enlarged, its extent being at present two hundred and four thou sand square miles. of tribes and nations. There is to be found an ancient and venerable priesthood, the depository of their laws, learning, and history, the guides of the people while living, and their consolation in death; a nobility of great antiquity and renown; a multitude of cities not exceeded in population and trade by those of the first class in Europe; merchants and bankers, individual houses of whom have once vied in capital with the Bank of Eng land, whose credit had often supported a tottering state, and preserved their governments in the midst of war and desolation; millions of inge nious manufacturers and mechanics; millions of the most diligent, and not the least intelligent, tillers of the earth. Here are to be found almost all the religions professed by men; the Brainical, the Mussulmen, the Eastern and the Western Christians. If I were to take the whole aggregate of our possessions there, I should compare it, as the nearest parallel I can find, with the empire of Germany. Our immediate possessions I should compare with the Austrian dominions, and they would not suffer in the comparison. The Nabob of Oude might stand for the King of Prussia; the Nabob of Arcot I would compare, as superior in territory and equal in revenue, to the Elector Now cne hundred and fifty millions, great addi tions having been made to the territory of Saxony. Cheyte Sing, the Rajah of Benares, might well rank with the Prince of Hesse, at least; and the Rajah of Tanjore (though hardly equal in extent of dominion, superior in revenue) to the Elector of Bavaria. The Polygars, and the northern Zemindars, and other great chiefs, might well class with the rest of the princes, dukes, counts, marquesses, and bishops in the empire, all of whom I mention to honor, and surely without disparagement to any or all of those most respectable princes and grandees.9 All this vast mass, composed of so many orders and classes of men, is again infinitely diversified by manners, by religion, by hereditary employment, through all their possible combinations. This renders the handling of India a matter in a high degree critical and delicate. But oh! it has been handled rudely indeed. Even some of the reformers seem to have forgot that they had any thing to do but to regulate the tenants of a manor, or the shop-keepers of the next county town. It is an empire of this extent, of this complicated nature, of this dignity and importance, that I have compared to Germany and the German government; not for an exact resemblance, but as a sort of a middle term, by which India might be approximated to our understandings, and, if possible, to our feelings, in order to awaken something of sympathy for the unfortunate natives, of which I am afraid we are not perfectly susceptible while we look at this very remote object through a false and cloudy medium. (2.) My second condition, necessary to justify Greatres of me in touching the charter, is, whether the abuse. the Company's abuse of their trust, with regard to this great object, be an abuse of great atrocity. I shall beg your permission to consider their conduct in two lights: first, the political, and then the commercial. Their political conduct (for distinctness) I divide again into two heads: the external, in which I mean to comprehend their conduct in their federal capacity, as it relates to powers and states independent, or that not long since were such; the other internal, namely, their conduct to the countries either immediately subject to the Company, or to those who, under the apparent government of native sovereigns, are in a state much lower, and much more miserable, than common subjection. tion, out of the infinite mass of materials which have passed under my eye, or can keep my mind steady to the great leading points I have in view. With regard, therefore, to the abuse of the external federal trust, I engage myself to Political you to make good these three positions. abuses. First, I say, that from Mount Imaus (or what. ever else you call that large range of mountains that walls the northern frontier of India), where it touches us in the latitude of twenty-nine, to Cape Comorin, in the latitude of eight, there is not a single prince, state, or potentate, great or small, in India, with whom they have come into contact, whom they have not sold. I say sold, though sometimes they have not been able to deliver according to their bargain. Secondly, I say, that there is not a single treaty they have ever made which they have not broken. Thirdly, I say, that there is not a single prince or state, who ever put any trust in the Company, who is not utterly ruined; and that none are in any degree secure or flourishing, but in the exact proportion to their settled distrust and irreconcilable enmity to this nation. These assertions are universal. I say, in the full sense, universal. They regard the external and political trust only; but I shall produce others fully equivalent in the internal. For the present, I shall content myself with explaining my meaning; and if I am called on for proof while these bills are depending (which I believe I shall not), I will put my finger on the appendices to the reports, or on papers of record in the House, or the committees, which I have distinctly present to my memory, and which I think I can lay before you at half an hour's warning. The first potentate sold by the Company for money was the Great Mogul, the de- Sale of princes scendant of Tamerlane. This high and states. personage, as high as human veneration can look at, is, by every account, amiable in his manners, respectable for his piety according to his mode, and accomplished in all the Oriental literature. All this, and the title derived under his charter to all that we hold in India, could not save him from the general sale. Money is coined in his name; in his name justice is administered; he is prayed for in every temple through the countries we possess-but he was sold! The attention, sir, which I wish to preserve It is impossible, Mr. Speaker, not to pause to method will not be considered as unnecessary here for a moment, to reflect on the inconstancy or affected.10 Nothing else can help me to selec- of human greatness, and the stupendous revoluThis attempt to illustrate the relation of the tions that have happened in our age of wonders. states of India, by comparing them with those of Could it be believed, when I entered into existGermany, is highly characteristic of Mr. Burke, ence, or when you, a younger man, were born, whose mind was ever full of correspondences; but that on this day, in this House, we should be em. there is something rather fanciful in it, especially ployed in discussing the conduct of those British when carried out to so great a length. Indeed, Mr. subjects who had disposed of the power and perBurke himself seems to have felt that the comparison of the Grand Mogul? This is no idle spec son might appear a little ludicrous, for he adds, with a slight sneer at the counts, marquesses, and bishops, "all of whom I mention to honor." 10 This apology for the exactness of his method reminds us of the extraordinary care bestowed by Mr. Burke on the orderly arrangement of his ideas. He sometimes takes pains to conceal it, lest his speeches should seem too formal but every where ulation. Awful lessons are taught by it, and by other events, of which it is not yet too late tc profit. [Mr. Burke here goes on to state the terms on which the Great Mogul was betrayed we see traces of elaborate forecast in the disposition of his materials. into the hands of his chief minister Sujah Dowlah, and adds:] The descendant of Tamerlane now stands in need almost of the common necessaries of life, and in this situation we do not allow him, as bounty, the smallest portion of what | we owe him in justice. The next sale was that of the whole nation of the Rohillas, which the grand salesman, without a pretense of quarrel, and contrary to his own declared sense of duty and rectitude, sold to the same Sujah ul Dowlah. He sold the people to utter extirpation for the sum of four hundred thousand pounds. Faithfully was the bargain performed on our side. Hafiz Rhamet, the most eminent of their chiefs, one of the bravest men of his time, and as famous throughout the East for the elegance of his literature, and the spirit of his poetical compositions (by which he supported the name of Hafiz), as for his courage, was inraded with an army of a hundred thousand men and an English brigade. This man, at the head of inferior forces, was slain, valiantly fighting for his country. His head was cut off, and delivered, for money, to a barbarian. His wife and children, persons of that rank, were seen begging a handful of rice through the English camp. The whole nation, with inconsiderable exceptions, was slaughtered or banished. The country was laid waste with fire and sword; and that land, distinguished above most others by the cheerful face of paternal government and protected labor, the chosen seat of cultivation and plenty, is now almost throughout a dreary desert, covered with rushes and briers, and jungles full of wild beasts. **** [Mr. Burke next speaks of numerous other instances in which chiefs and countries had been sold by the Company's agents, and adds :] All these bargains and sales were regularly attended with the waste and havoc of the country, always by the buyer, and sometimes by the object of the sale. This was explained to you by the honorable mover when he stated the mode of paying debts due from the country powers to the Company. An honorable gentleman, who is not now in his place, objected to his jumping near two thousand miles for an example; but the southern example is perfectly applicable to the northern claim, as the northern is to the southern; for, throughout the whole space of these two thousand miles, take your stand where you will, the proceeding is perfectly uniform, and what is done in one part will apply exactly to the other. Volation My second assertion is, that the Company never has made a treaty which they of treaties have not broken. This position is so connected with that of the sales of provinces and kingdoms, with the negotiation of universal distraction in every part of India, that a very miauto detail may well be spared on this point. [The details given by Mr. Burke under this head abundantly support his position, but are here omitted, as of no present interest to the reader.] My third assertion relative to the abuse made | of the right of war and peace, is, that Al there are none who have ever confid- un the Com ed in us who have not been utterly ruine ined. There is proof more than enough in the condition of the Mogul; in the slavery and indi. gence of the Nabob of Oude; the exile of the Rajah of Benares; the beggary of the Nabob of Bengal; the undone and captive condition of the Ra jah and kingdom of Tanjore; the destruction of the Polygars; and, lastly, in the destruction of the Nabob of Arcot himself, who, when his dominions were invaded, was found entirely destitute of troops, provisions, stores, and (as he asserts) money, being a million in debt to the Company, and four millions to others; the many millions which he had extorted from so many extirpated princes and their desolated countries having, as he has frequently hinted, been expended for the ground-rent of his mansion-house in an alley in the suburbs of Madras. Compare the condition of all these princes with the power and authority of all the Mahratta states; with the independence and dignity of the Soubah [Prince] of the Deccan; and the mighty strength, the resources, and the manly struggle of Hyder Ali; and then the House will discover the effects, on every power in India, of an easy confidence, or of a rooted distrust in the faith of the Company. These are some of my reasons, grounded on the abuse of the external political trust of that body, for thinking myself not only justified, but bound to declare against those chartered rights which produce so many wrongs. I should deem myself the wickedest of men if any vote of mine could contribute to the continuance of so great an evil. Abuses in the ernment Now, sir, according to the plan 1 proposed, I shall take notice of the Company's internal government, as it is exercised internal gov first on the dependent provinces, and then as it affects those under the direct and immediate authority of that body. And here, sir, before I enter into the spirit of their interior government, permit me to observe to you upon a few of the many lines of difference which arc to be found between the vices of the Company's government, and those of the conquerors who preceded us in India, that we may be enabled a little the better to see our way in an attempt to the necessary reformation. Early mvadere of India compared with th The several irruptions of Arabs, Tartars, and Persians into India were, for the greater part, ferocious, bloody, and wasteful in the extreme." Our en- English. trance into the dominion of that country was, as generally, with small comparative effusion of blood, being introduced by various frauds and delusions, and by taking advantage of the incu rable, blind, and senseless animosity which the several country powers bear toward each other rather than by open force. But the difference in favor of the first conquerors is this: the "This comparison is in Mr. Burke's finest style, exhibiting not only admirable powers of description, but of philosophical observation as to the sources of national prosperity. Asiatic conquerors very soon abated of their fe- | Every rupee of profit made by an Englishman u rocity, because they made the conquered coun- lost forever to India. With us are no retributo try their own. They rose or fell with the rise ry superstitions, by which a foundation of charity or fall of the territory they lived in. Fathers compensates, through ages, to the poor, for the there deposited the hopes of their posterity; and rapine and injustice of a day. With us, no pride children there beheld the monuments of their erects stately monuments which repair the misfathers. Here their lot was finally cast; and it chiefs which pride had produced, and which is the natural wish of all that their lot should adorn a country out of its own spoils. England not be cast in a bad land. Poverty, sterility, has erected no churches, no hospitals,13 no pala. and desolation are not a recreating prospect to ces, no schools; England has built no bridges, the eye of man; and there are very few who made no high-roads, cut no navigations, dug out can bear to grow old among the curses of a no reservoirs. Every other conqueror of ever? whole people. If their passion or their avarice other description has left some monument, either drove the Tartar hordes to acts of rapacity or of state or beneficence, behind him. Were we tyranny, there was time enough, even in the short to be driven out of India this day, nothing would life of man, to bring round the ill effects of an remain to tell that it had been possessed, during abuse of power upon the power itself. If hoards the inglorious period of our dominion, by any were made by violence and tyranny, they were thing better than the orang-outang or the tiger. still domestic hoards; and domestic profusion, or the rapine of a more powerful and prodigal hand, restored them to the people. With many disorders, and with few political checks upon power, nature had still fair play; the sources of acquisition were not dried up; and therefore the trade, the manufactures, and the commerce of the country flourished. Even avarice and usury itself operated, both for the preservation and the employment of national weath. The husbandman and manufacturer paid heavy interest, but then they augmented the fund from whence they were again to borrow. Their resources were dearly bought, but they were sure; and the general stock of the community grew by the general effort. There is nothing in the boys we send to India worse than the boys whom we are whipping at school, or that we see trailing a pike or bending over a desk at home. But as English youth in India drink the intoxicating draught of authority and dominion before their heads are able to bear it, and as they are full grown in fortune long be fore they are ripe in principle, neither nature nor reason have any opportunity to exert themselves for remedy of the excesses of their premature power. The consequences of their conduct, which in good minds (and many of theirs are probably such) might produce penitence or amendment, are unable to pursue the rapidity of their flight. Their prey is lodged in En gland; and the cries of India are given to seas and winds, to be blown about, in every breaking up of the monsoon, over a remote and unhearing ocean. In India, all the vices operate by which sudden fortune is acquired; in England are often displayed, by the same persons, the virtues which dispense hereditary wealth. Arrived in Infec England, the destroyers of the nobility on England and gentry of a whole kingdom will find the best company of this nation at a board of elegance and hospitality. Here the manufacturer and husbandman will bless the just and punctual hand that in India has torn the cloth from the But, under the English government, all this order is reversed. The Tartar invasion was mischievous, but it is our protection that destroys India. It was their enmity, but it is our friendship. Our conquest there, after twenty years, is as crude as it was the first day. The natives scarcely know what it is to see the gray head of an Englishman. Young men (boys almost) govern there, without society, and without sympathy with the natives. They have no more social habits with the people than if they still resided in England, nor, indeed, any species of intercourse but that which is necessary to mak-loom, or wrested the scanty portion of rice and ing a sudden fortune, with a view to a remote settlement. Animated with all the avarice of age, and all the impetuosity of youth, they roll in one after another, wave after wave; and there is nothing before the eyes of the natives but an endless, hopeless prospect of new flights of birds of prey and passage, with appetites continually renewing for a food that is continually wasting. 12 There is here a mixture of incongruous images, which is not common with Mr. Burke. The English adventurers are in the same sentence waves of the sea, and yet birds of prey! But, passing by this, we have at the close of the sentence a fault into which Mr. Burke does very often fall, that of running out his images into too many particulars. "New flights of birds of prey" was a striking metaphor to represent the successive arrivals of English adventurers. The extension of the idea to birds of passage" was perhaps unfortunate, because it salt from the peasant of Bengal, or wrung from him the very opium in which he forgot his op pressions and his oppressor. They marry into your families; they enter into your senate; they ease your estates by loans; they raise their value draws off the mind from the main object, to mark the difference between the two classes of birds But Mr. Burke goes much farther. He introduces the image by speaking of "an endless, hopeless pros pect" of these flights; and then represents them as having "appetites"-these are "continually renew ing"-the "food" of these "appetites" is next re ferred to, and this food is then described as "con tinually wasting." By these details, the mind is drawn off from the principal object to a mere pic ture. Such images may dazzle, but they do not illustrate or enforce the leading thought, which is the appropriate object of figurative language. 13 The paltry foundation at Calcutta is scarceiv worth naming as an exception. by demand; they cherish and protect your relations which lie heavy on your patronage; and there is scarcely a house in the kingdom that does not feel some concern and interest that makes all reform of our Eastern government appear officious and disgusting, and, on the whole, a most discouraging attempt. In such an attempt, you hurt those who are able to return kindness or to resent injury. If you succeed, you save those who can not so much as give you thanks. All these things show the difficulty of the work we have on hand, but they show its necessity too. Our Indian government is, in its best state, a grievance. It is necessary that the correctives should be uncommonly vigorous, and the work of men sanguine, warm, and even impassioned in the cause. But it is an arduous thing to plead against abuses of a power which originates from your own country, and affects those whom we are used to consider as strangers. I shall certainly endeavor to modulate myself to this temper, though I am sensible that a cold style of describing actions which appear to me in a very affecting light, is equally contrary to the justice due to the people, and to all genuine human feelings about them. I ask pardon of truth and nature for this compliance; but I shall be very sparing of epithets either to persons or things. It has been said (and, with regard to one of them, with truth) that Tacitus and Machiavel, by their cold way of relating enormous crimes, have in some sort appeared not to disapprove them; that they seem a sort of professors of the art of tyranny, and that they corrupt the minds of their readers by not expressing the detestation and horror that naturally belong to horrible and detestable proceedings. But we are in general, sir, so little acquainted with Indian details; the instruments of oppression under which the people suffer are so hard to be understood; and even the very names of the sufferers are so uncouth and strange to our ears, that it is very difficult for our sympathy to fix upon these objects. I am sure that some of us have come down stairs from the committee-room with impressions on our minds which to us were the inevitable results of our discoveries; yet, if we should venture to express ourselves in the proper language of our sentiments to other gentlemen not at all prepared to enter into the cause of them, nothing could appear more harsh and dissonant, more violent and unaccountable, than our language and behavior. All these circumstances are not, I confess, very favorable to the idea of our attempting to govern India at all; but there we are; there we are placed by the Sovereign Disposer; and we must do the best we can in our situation. The situation of man is the preceptor of his duty. Upon the plan which I laid down, and to which I beg leave to return, I was considering the conduct of the Company to those nations which are indirectly subject to their authority. [Mr. Burke here goes into very ample details of the injuries inflicted on states and monarchs connected with the East India Company. Some of these will come up again in his speech on the Nabob of Arcot's debts, and in Mr. Sheridan's speech on the treatment of the Begums or Princesses of Oude. Having made out his case by the enumeration of these atrocities, he proceeds to his conclusion as follows:] As the Company has made this use of thei trust, I should ill discharge mine if I refused to give my most cheerful vote for the redress of these abuses, by putting the affairs of so large and valuable a part of the interests of this na tion, and of mankind, into some steady hands, possessing the confidence and assured of the support of this House, until they can be restored to regularity, order, and consistency. I have touched the heads of some of the griev ances of the people and the abuses of government, but I hope and trust you will give me credit when I faithfully assure you that I have not mentioned one fourth part of what has come to my knowledge in your committee; and, farther, I have full reason to believe that not one fourth part of the abuses are come to my knowl edge, by that or by any other means. Pray consider what I have said only as an index to direct you in your inquiries. management If this, then, sir, has been the use made of the trust of political powers, internal and commercial external, given by you in the charter, of the Com the next thing to be seen is the con- pay. duct of the Company with regard to the commercial trust. And here I will make a fair offer: If it can be proved that they have acted wisely, prudently, and frugally, as merchants, I shall pass by the whole mass of their enormities as statesmen. That they have not done this, their present condition is proof sufficient. Their distresses are said to be owing to their wars. This is not wholly true; but if it were, is not that readiness to engage in war which distinguishes them, and for which the Committee of Secrecy has so branded their politics, founded on the falsest principles of mercantile speculation? The principle of buying cheap and selling dear |