To this
the peasher urged, that, if Idid not write to his master, how could he know to whom he (the peasher) delivered the money, and what must his master think of it?
the peasher urged, that, if Idid not write to his master, how could he know to whom he (the peasher) delivered the money, and what must his master think of it?
Edmund Burke
?
?
1941 SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS.
dry,* let it out to him, in April last, for the inadequate rent of 50,000 pagodas per annum, diminishing,
in this district alone, near half the accustomed revenues. After this manner hath he exercised his powers over the countries, to suit his own purposes and designs; and this secret mode has he taken to reduce
the collections.
1st November, 1782. Copy of a Letter from the Nabob
of Arcot td the Court of Directors, &c. Received
7th April, 1783.
THE distresses which I have set forth in my former letters are now increased to such an alarming
pitch by the imprudent measures of your Governor,
and by the arbitrary and impolitic conduct pursued
with the merchants and importers of grain, that the
very existence of the Fort of Madras seems at stake,
and that of the inhabitants of the settlement appears
to have been totally overlooked: many thousands have
died, and continue hourly to perish of famine, though
the capacity of one of your youngest servants, with
diligence and attention, by doing justice, and giving
reasonable encouragement to the merchants, and by
drawing the supplies of grain which the northern
countries would have afforded, might have secured;us against all those dreadful calamities. I had with
much difficulty procured and purchased a small quantity of rice, for the use of myself, my family, and attendants, and with a view of sending off the greatest part of the latter to the northern countries, with a
little subsistence in their hands. But what must your,surprise be, when you learn that even this rice was
* See Tellinga letter, at the end of this correspondence.
? ? ? ? APPENDIX. 195
seazed by Lord Macartney, with a military force! and
thus am I unable to provide for the few people I have
about me, who are driven to such extremity and misery that it gives me pain to behold them. I have
desired permission to get a little rice from the northern countries for the subsistence of my people, without its being liable to seizure by your sepoys: this even has been refused me by Lord Macartney. What
must your feelings be, on such wanton cruelty exercised towards me, when you consider, that, of thousands of villages belonging to me, a single one would have sufficed for my subsistence!
22d March, 1783. Translation of a Letter from the
Nabob of Arcot to the Chairman and Directors of the
-East India Company. Received from Mr. James
Macpherson, 1st January, 1784.
I AM willing to attribute this continued usurpation to the fear of detection in Lord Macartney: he
dreads the awful day when the scene of his enormities will be laid open, at my restoration to my country, and when the tongues of my oppressed subjects will be unloosed, and proclaim aloud the cruel tyrannies they have sustained. These sentiments of his
Lordship's designs are corroborated by his sending, on
the 10th instant, two gentlemen to me and my son,
Amir-ul-Omrah; and these gentlemen from Lord Macartney especially set forth to me, and to my son, that
all dependence on the power of the superior government of Bengal to enforce the intentions of the Company to restore my country was vain and groundless, - that the Company confided in his Lordship's judgment and discretion, and upon his representations. and
? ? ? ? 196 SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS.
that if I, and my son, Amir-ul-Omrah, would enter into friendship with Lord Macartney, and sign a paper declaring all my charges and complaints against him
to be false, that his Lordship might be induced to write
to England that all his allegations against me and
my son were not well founded, and, notwithstanding
his declarations to withhold my country, yet, on these
considerations, it might be still restored to me.
What must be your feelings for your ancient and
faithful friend, on his receiving such insults to his
honor and understanding from your principal servant,
armed with your authority! From these manceuvres,
amongst thousands I have experienced, the truth must
evidently appear to you, that I have not been loaded
with those injuries and oppressions from motives of
public service, but to answer the private views and
interests of his Lordship and his secret agents: some
papers to this point are inclosed; others, almost without number, must be submitted to your justice, when time and circumstances shall enable me fully to investigate those transactions. This opportunity wili
not permit the full representation of my load of injuries and distresses: I beg leave to refer you to my minister, Mr. Macpherson, for the papers, according
to the inclosed list, which accompanied my last dispatches by the Rodney, which I fear have failed; and my correspondence with Lord Macartney subsequent
to that period, such as I have been able to prepare
for this opportunity, are inclosed.
Notwithstanding all the violent acts and declarations of Lord Macartney, yet a consciousness of his
own misconduct was the sole incentive to the menaces and overtures he has held out in various shapes. He has been insultingly lavish in his expressions of
? ? ? ? APPENDIX. 197
high respect for my person; has had the insolence to
say that all his measures flowed from his affectionate regard alone; has presumed to say that all his
enmity and oppression were levelled at my son, Amirul-Omrah, to whom he before acknowledged every aid
and assistance; and his Lordship being without any
just cause or foundation for complaint against us, or
a veil to cover his own violences, he has now had recourse to the meanness and has dared to intimate of
my son, in order to intimidate me and to strengthen
his own wicked purposes, to be in league with our
enemies the French. You must doubtless be astonished, no less at the assurance than at the absurdity
of such a wicked suggestion.
IN THE NABOB S OWN HAND.
P. S. In my own handwriting I acquainted Mr.
Hastings, as I now do my ancient friends the Company, with the insult offered to my honor and understanding, in the extraordinary propositions sent to me by Lord Macartney, through two gentlemen, on the
10th instant, so artfully veiled with menaces, hopes,
and promises. But how can Lord Macartney add to
his enormities, after his wicked and calumniating insinuations, so evidently directed against me and my
family, through my faithful, my dutiful, and beloved
son, Amir-ul-Omrah, who, you well know, has been
ever born and bred amongst the English, whom I have
studiously brought up in the warmest sentiments of
affection and attachment to them, -- sentiments that
in his maturity have been his highest ambition to improve, insomuch that he knows no happiness but in
the faithful support of our alliance and connection
with the English nation?
? ? ? ? 198 SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS.
12th August, and Postscript of the 16th August,
1783. Translation of a Letter to the Chairman
and. Directors of the East India Company. Received from Mr. James Macpherson, 14th January, 1784.
YOUR astonishment and indignation will be equally raised with mine, when you hear that your President has dared, contrary to your intention, to continue to usurp the privileges and hereditary powers of the Nabob of the Carnatic, your old and unshaken
friend, and the declared ally of the king of Great
Britain.
I will not take up your time by enumerating the
particular acts of Lord Macartney's violence, cruelty,
and injustice: they, indeed, occur too frequently, andfall
upon me and my devoted subjects and country too thick,
to be regularly related. I refer you to my minister,
Mr. James Macpherson, for a more circumstantial account of the oppressions and enormities by which he has brought both mine and the Company's affairs to the
brink of destruction. I trust that such flagrant violations of all justice, honor, and the faith of treaties
will receive the severest marks of your displeasure,
and that Lord Macartney's conduct, in making use
of your name and authority as a sanction for the
continuance of his usurpation, will be disclaimed
with the utmost indignation, and followed with the
severest punishment. I conceive that his Lordship's
arbitrary retention of my country and government
can only originate in his insatiable cravings, in his implacable malevolence against me, and through fear of detection, which must follow the surrender of the Carnatic into my hands, of those nefarious proceedings
? ? ? ? APPENDIX. 199
which are now suppressed by the arm of violence and
power.
I did not fail to represent to the supreme government of Bengal the deplorable situation to which I
was reduced, and the unmerited persecutions I have
unremittingly sustained from Lord Macartney; and
I earnestly implored them to stretch forth a saving
arm, and interpose that controlling power which was'
vested in them, to check rapacity and presumption,
and preserve the honor and faith of the Company
from violation. The Governor-General and Council
not only felt the cruelty and injustice I had suffered,
but were greatly alarmed for the fatal consequences
that might result from the distrust of the cbuntry
powers in the professions of the English, when they
saw the Nabob of the Carnatic, the friend of the Company, and the ally of Great Britain, thus stripped of
his rights, his dominions, and his dignity, by the most
fraudulent means, and under the mask of friendship.
The Bengal government had already heard both the
Mahrattas and the Nizam urge, as an objection to an
alliance with the English, the faithless behavior of
Lord Macartney to a prince whose life had been devoted and whose treasures had been exhausted in their
service and support; and they did not hesitate to give
positive orders to Lord Macartney for the restitution
of my government and authority, on such te'rms as
were not only strictly honorable, but equally advantageous to my friends the Company: for they justly thought that my honor and dignity and sovereign rights were the first olbjects of my wishes and ambition. But how can I paint my astonishment at Lord
Macartney's presumption in continuing his usurpation after their positive and reiterated mandates, and,
? ? ? ? 200 SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS.
as if nettled by their interference, which he disdained,
in redoubling the fury of his violence, and sacrificing
the public and myself to his malice and ungovernable
passions?
I am, Gentlemen, at a loss to conceive where his
usurpation will stop and have an end. Has he not
solemnly declared that the assignment was only made
-for the support of war? and if neither your instructions nor the orders of his superiors at Bengal were
to be considered as effectual, has not the treaty of
peace virtually determined the period of his tyrannical administration? But so far from surrendering
the Carnatic into my hands, he has, since that event,
affixed advertisements to the walls and gates of the
Black Town for letting to the best bidder the various
districts for the term of three years,- and has continued the Committee of Revenue, which you positively ordered to be abolished, to whom he has allowed
enormous salaries, from 6000 to 4000 pagodas per
annum, which each member has received from the
time of his appointment, though his Lordship well
knows that most of them are by your orders disqualified by being my principal creditors.
If those acts of violence and outrage had been
productive of public advantage, I conceive his Lordship might have held them forward in extenuation
of his conduct; but whilst he cloaks his justification
under the veil of your records, it is impossible to re
fute his assertions or to expose to you their fallacy;
and when he is no longer able to support his conduct
by argument, he refers to those records, where, I
understand, he has exercised all his sophistry and
malicious insinuations to render me and my family
obnoxious in the eyes of the Company and the Brit
? ? ? ? APPENDIX. 201
ish nation. And when the glorious victories of Sir
Eyre Coote have been rendered abortive by a constant deficiency of supplies, -and when, since the
departure of that excellent general to Bengal, whose
loss I must ever regret, a dreadful famine, at the
close of last year, occasioned by his Lordship's neglect to lay up a sufficient stock of grain at a proper
season, and from his prohibitory orders to private
merchants, -and when no exertion has been made,
nor advantage gained over the enemy, - when Hyder's death and Tippoo's return to his own dominions
operated in no degree for the benefit of our affairs,in short, when all has been a continued series of disappointment and disgrace under Lord Macartney's management, (and in him alone has the management been vested,) -I want words to convey those
ideas of his insufficiency, ignorance, and obstinacy
which I am convinced you would entertain, had
you been spectators of his ruinous and destructive
conduct.
But against me, and my son, Amir-ul-Omrah,
has his Lordship's vengeance chiefly been exerted:
even the Company's own subordinate zemindars have
found better treatment, probably because they were
more rich; those of Nizanagoram have been permitted, contrary to your pointed orders, to hold their rich
zemindaries at the old disproportionate rate of little
more. than a sixth part of the real revenue; and my
zemindar of Tanjore, though he should have regarded
himself equally concerned with us in the event of the
war, and from whose fertile country many valuable
harvests have been gathered in, which have sold at a
vast price, has, I understand, only contributed, last
year, towards the public exigencies, the very incon
? ? ? ? 202 SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS.
siderable sum of one lac of pagodas, and a few thou.
sand pagodas' worth of grain.
I am much concerned to acquaint you that ever
since the peace a dreadful famine has swept away
many thousands of the followers and sepoys' families
of the army, from Lord Macartney's neglect to send
down grain to the camp, though the roads are crowded
with vessels: but his Lordship has been too intent upon his own disgraceful schemes to attend to the wants of the army. - The negotiation with Tippoo, which he
has set on foot through the mediation of Monsieur
Bussy, has employed all his thoughts, and to the
attainment of that object he will sacrifice the dearest
interests of the Company to gratify his malevolence
against me, and for his own private advantages. The
endeavor to treat with Tippoo, through the means of
the French, must strike you, Gentlemen, as highly
improper and impolitic; but it must raise your utmost indignation to hear, that, by intercepted letters from Bussy to Tippoo, as well as from their respective
vakeels, and from various accounts from Cuddalore,
we have every reason to conclude that his Lordship's
secretary, Mr. Staunton, when at Cuddalore, as his
agent to settle the cessation of arms with the French,
was informed of all their operations and projects, and
consequently that Lord JMaartney has secretly connived
at Monsieur Bussy's recommendation to T~ppoo to return into the Carnatic, as the means of procuring the
most advantageous terms, andfurnishing Lord Macartney with the plea of necessity for concluding a peace after his own manner: and what further confirms the truth of this fact is, that repeated reports, as well as
the alarms of the inhabitants to the westward, leave us no reason to doubt that Tippoo is approaching to
? ? ? ? APPENDIX. 203
wards us. His Lordship has issued public orders
that the garrison store of rice, for which we are indebted to the exertions of the Bengal government, should be immediately disposed of, and has strictly
forbid all private grain to be sold; by which act he
effectually prohibits all private importation of grain,
and may eventually cause as horrid a famine as that
which we experienced at the close of last year from
the same shortsighted policy and destructive prohibitions of Lord Macartney.
But as he has the fabrication of the records in his
own hands, he trusts to those partial representations
of his character and conduct, because the signatures
of those members of government whom he seldom
consults are affixed, as a public sanction; but you
may form a just idea of their correctness and propriety, when you are informed that his Lordship, upon amy noticing the heavy disbursements made for secret
service money, ordered the sums to be struck off, and the
accounts to be erased from the cash-book of the CUompany; and I think I cannot give you a better proof of his management of my country and revenues than
by calling your attention to his conduct in the Ongole province, and by referring you to his Lordship's administration of your own jaghire, from whence he
has brought to the public account the sum of twelve
hundred pagodas for the last year's revenue, yet blazons forth his vast merits and exertions, and expects to receive the thanks of his Committee and Council.
I will beg leave to refer you to my minister, James
Macpherson, Esq. , for a more particular account of
my sufferings and miseries, to whom I have transmitted copies of all papers that passed with his Lordship.
? ? ? ? 204 SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS.
I cannot conclude without calling your attention
to the situation of my different creditors, whose claims
are the claims of justice, and whose demands I am
bound by honor and every moral obligation to discharge; it is not, therefore, without great concern I have heard insinuations tending to question the legality of their right to the payment of those just debts: they proceeded from advances made by them openly
and honorably for the support of my own and the
public affairs. But I hope the tongue of calumny
will never drown the voice of truth and justice; and
while that is heard, the wisdom of the English nation
cannot fail to accede to an effectual remedy for their
distresses, by any arrangement in which their claims
may be duly considered and equitably provided for:
and for this purpose, my minister, Mr. Macpherson,
will readily subscribe, in my name, to any agreement
you may think proper to adopt, founded on the same
principles with either of the engagements I entered
into with the supreme government of Bengal for our
mutual interest and advantage.
I always pray for, your happiness and prosperity.
6th September, and Postscript of 7th September,
1783. Translation of a Letter from the Nabob of
Arcot to the Chairman and Directors of the -East
India Company. Received from Mr. James Macpherson, 14th January, 1784.
I REFER you, Gentlemen, to my inclosed duplicate.
as well as to my minister, Mr. Macpherson, for the
particulars of my sufferings. There is no word or
action of mine that is not perverted; and though it
was my intention to have sent my son, Amir-ul-Om
? ? ? ? APPENDIX. 205
lahb, who is well versed in my affairs, to Bengal, to
impress those gentlemen with a full sense of my situation, yet I find myself obliged to lay it aside, from
the insinuations of the calumniating tongue of Lord
Macartney, that takes every license to traduce every
action of my life and that of my son. I am informed
that Lord Macartney, at this late moment, intends
to write a letter: I am ignorant of the subject, but
fully perceive, that, by delaying to send it till the
very eve of the dispatch, he means to deprive me of
all possibility of communicating my reply, and forwarding it for the information of my friends in England. Conscious of the weak ground on which he
stands, he is obliged to have recourse to these artifices to mislead the judgment, and support for a time
his unjustifiable measures by deceit and imposition.
I wish only to meet and combat his charges and allegations fairly and openly, and I have repeatedly and
urgently demanded to be furnished with copies of
those parts of his fabricated records relative to myself; but as he well knows I should refute his sophistry, I cannot be surprised at his refusal, though I
lament that it prevents you, Gentlemen, from a clear
investigation of his conduct towards me.
Inclosed you have a translation of an arzee from
the Killidar of Vellore. I have thousands of the same
kind; but this, just now received, will serve to give
you some idea of the miseries brought upon this- my
devoted country, and the wretched inhabitants:that;
remain in it, by the oppressive hand of Lord Macar:tney's management: nor will the embezzlements of collections thus obtained, when brought before you- in proof, appear less extraordinary, -- which shall certainly be done in due time.
? ? ? ? 206 SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS. Translation of an Arzee, in the Persian Language, from Uzzim-ul --Doen Cawn, the Killidar of Vellore, to the Nabob, dated 1st September, 1783. Inclosed in the Nabob's Letter to the Court of Directors, September, 1783.
I HAVE repeatedly represented to your Highness
the violences and oppressions exercised by the present aumildar [collector of revenue], of Lord Macartney's appointment, over the few remaining inllhabitants of the districts of Vellore, Amboor, Saulguda, &c.
The outrages and violences now committed are
of that astonishing nature as were never known or
heard of during the administration of the Circar.
iyder Naik, the cruellest of tyrants, used every kind
of oppression in the Circar countries; but even his
measures were not like those now pursued. Such of
the inhabitants as had escaped the sword and pillage
of Hyder Naik, by taking refuge in the woods, and
within the walls of Vellore, &c. , on the arrival of
Lord Macartney's aumildar to Vellore, and in consequence of his cowle of protection and support, most
cheerfully returned to the villages, set about the cultivation of the lands, and with great pains rebuilt
their cottages. -- But now the aumildar has imprisoned the wives and cJildren of the inhabitants, seized
the few jewels that were on the bodies of the women,
and then, before the faces of their husbands, flogged
them, in order to make them produce other jewels
and effects, which he said they had buried somewhere under ground, and to make the inhabitants
bring him money, notwithstanding there was yet no
cultivation in the country. Terrified with the flagel
? ? ? ? APPENDIX. 207
lations, some of them produced their jewels and
wearing-apparel of their women, to the amount of
ten or fifteen pagodas, which they had hidden; others, who declared they had none, the aumildar flogged
their women severely, tied cords around their breasts,
and tore the sucking children from their teats, and
exposed them to the scorching heat of the sun.
Those children died, as did the wife of Ramsoamy,
an inhabitant of Bringpoor. Even this could not stir
up compassion in the breast of the aumildar. Some
of the children that were somewhat large he exposed
to sale. In short, the violences of the aumildar are
so astonishing, that the people, on seeing the present
situation, remember the loss of Hyder with regret.
With whomsoever the aumildar finds a single measure
of natchinee or rice, he takes it away from him, and
appropriates it to the expenses of the sibindy that he
keeps up. No revenues are collected from the countries, but from the effects of the poor, wretched inhabitants. Those ryots [yeomen] who intended to return to their habitations, hearing of those violences, have
fled for refuge, with their wives and children, into
Hyder's country. Every day is ushered in and closed
with these violences and disturbances. I have no
power to do anything; and who will hear what I
have to say? My business is to inform your Highness, who are my master. The people bring their
complaints to me, and I tell them I will write to your
Highness. *
X The above-recited practices, or practices similar to them, have
prevailed in almost every part of the miserable countries on the coast
of Coromandel for near twenty years past. That they prevailed as
strongly and generally as they could prevail, under the administration of the Nabob, there can be no question, notwithstanding the as
? ? ? ? 208 SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS.
Translation of a Tellinga Letter from Veira Permaul,
Head Dubash to Lord Macartney, in his own Handwriting, to Rajah Ramchunda, the Renter of Ongole.
Dated 25th of the Hindoo month Mausay, in the
year Plavanamal, corresponding to 5th March,
1782.
I PRESENT my respects to you, and am very well
here, wishing to hear frequently of your welfare.
Your peasher Vancatroyloo has brought the Visseel Bakees, and delivered them to me, as also what
you sent him for me to deliver to my master, which 1
have done. My master at first refused to take it, because he is unacquainted with your disposition, or what
kind of a person you are. But after I made encomiums on your goodness and greatness of mind, and
took my oath to the same, and that it would not besertion in the beginning of the above petition; nor will it ever be
otherwise, whilst affairs are conducted upon the principles which influence the present system. Whether the particulars here asserted
are true or false neither the Court of Directors nor their ministry
have thought proper to inquire. If they are true, in order to bring
them to affect Lord Macartney, it ought to be proved that the conmplaint was made to him, and that he had refused redress. Instead of
this fair course, the complaint is carried to the Court of Directors. -
The above is one of the documents transmitted by the Nabob, in
proof of his charge of corruption against Lord Macartney. If genu
ine, it is, conclusive, at least against Lord Macartney's principal agent
and manager. If it be a forgery, (as in all likelihood it is,) it is conclusive against the Nabob and his evil counsellors, and fully demonstrates, if anything further were necessary to demonstrate, the necessity of the clause in Mr. Fox's bill prohibiting the residence of the native princes in the Company's principal settlements, -which clause
was, for obvious reasons, not admitted into Mr. Pitt's. It shows, too,
the absolute necessity of a severe and exemplary punishment on certain of his English evil counsellors and creditors, by whom such practices are carried on.
? ? ? ? APPENDIX. 209
come public, but be held as precious as our lives, my
master accepted it. You may remain satisfied that I
will get the Ongole business settled in your name;
I will cause the jamaubundee to be settled agreeable
to your desire. It was formerly the Nabob's intention
to give this business to you, as the Governor knows
full well, but did not at that time agree to it, which
you must be well acquainted with.
Your peasher Vancatroyloo is a very careful, good
man; he is well experienced in business; he has
bound me by an oath to keep all this business secret, and
that his own, yours, and my lives are responsible for it.
I write this letter to you with the greatest reluctance,
and I signified the same to your peasher, and declared
that I would not write to you by any means.
To this
the peasher urged, that, if Idid not write to his master, how could he know to whom he (the peasher) delivered the money, and what must his master think of it? Therefore I write you this letter, and send it by my
servant Ramanah, accompanied by the peasher's servant, and it will come safe to your hands. After perusal, you will send it back to me immediately: until
I receive it, I don't like to eat my victuals or take any
sleep. Your peasher took his oath, and urged me
to write this for your satisfaction, and has engaged to
me that I shall have this letter returned to me in the
space of twelve days.
The present Governor is not like the former Governors: he is a very great man in Europe; and all
the great men of Europe are much obliged to him for
his condescension in accepting the government of this
place. It is his custom, when he makes friendship with
any one, to continue it always; and if he is at enmity
with any one, he never will desist till he has worked
VOL. III. 14
? ? ? ? 2iL0 SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS.
his destruction. He is now exceedingly displeased with
the Nabob, and you will understand by-and-by that
the Nabob's business cannot be carried on; he (the Nabob) will have no power to do anything in his own affairs: you have, therefore, no room to fear him; you
may remain with a, contented mind. I desired the
Governor to write you a letter for your satisfaction:
the Governor said he would do so, when the business
was settled. This letter you must peruse as soon as
possible, and send it back with all speed by the bearer,
Ramadoo, accompanied by three or four of your people, to the end that no accident may happen on the road. These people must be ordered to march in thse
night only, and to arrive here with the greatest dispatch. You sent ten mangoes for my master and
two for me, all of which I have delivered to my master, thinking that ten was not sufficient to present him with. I write this for your information, and salute
you with ten thousand respects.
I, Muttu Kistnah, of Madras Patnam, dubash, declare that I
perfectly understand the Gentoo language, and do most sol-
emnly affirm that the foregoing Muttu Kistnah.
is a true translation of the annexed paper writing from the
Gentoo language.
(Signed)
? ? ? ? SUBSTANCE OF THE SPEECH
IN THE
DEBATE ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS,
ON TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1790: COMPREHENDING
A DISCUSSION OF THE PRESENT SITUATION OF AFFAIRS IN FRANCE.
? ? ? ? SPEECH.
M R. BURKE'S speech on the report of the army
estimates has not been correctly stated in some
of the public papers. It is of consequence to him
not to be misunderstood. The matter which incidentally came into discussion is of the most serious
importance. It is thought that the heads and substance of the speech will answer the purpose sufficiently. If, in making the abstract, through defect of memory in the person who now gives it, any difference at all should be perceived from the speech as
it was spoken, it will not, the editor imagines, be
found in anything which may amount to a retraction of the opinions he then maintained, or to any
softening in the expressions in which they were conveyed.
Mr. Burke spoke a considerable time in answer to
various arguments, which had been insisted upon by
Mr. Grenville and Mr. Pitt, for keeping an increased
peace establishment, and against an improper jealousy of the ministers, in whom a full confidence,
subject to responsibility, ought to be placed, on account of their knowledge of the real situation of
affairs, the exact state of which it frequently happened that they could not disclose without violating
the constitutional and political secrecy necessary to
the well-being of their country.
? ? ? ? 214 SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES.
Mr. Burke said in substance, That confidence
might become a vice, and jealousy a virtue, according to circumstances. That confidence, of all public virtues, was the most dangerous, and jealousy in an
House of Commons, of all public vices, the most tolerable, - especially where the number and the charge of standing armies in time of peace was the question.
That in the annual Mutiny Bill the annual army
was declared to be for the purpose of preserving the
balance of power in Europe. The propriety of its
being larger or smaller depended, therefore, upon
the true state of that balance. If the increase of
peace establishments demanded of Parliament agreed
with the manifest appearance of the balance, confidence in ministers as to the particulars would be
very proper. If the increase was not at all supported
by any such appearance, he thought great jealousy
might be, and ought to be, entertained on that subject.
That he did not find, on a review of all Europe,
that, politically, we stood in the smallest degree of
danger from any one state or kingdom it contained,
nor that any other foreign powers than our own allies
were likely to obtain a considerable preponderance in
the scale.
That France had hitherto been our first object in
all considerations concerning the balance of power.
The presence or absence of France totally varied
every sort of speculation relative to that balance.
That France is at this time, in a political light, to
be considered as expunged out of the system of Europe. Whether she could ever appear in it again,
as a leading power, was not easy to determine; but
at present le considered France as not politically ex
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES. 215
isting; and most assuredly it would take up much
time to restore her to her former active existence:
Gallos quoque in bellis floruisse audivimus might possibly be the language of the rising generation. He did not mean to deny that it was our duty to keep
our eye on that nation, and to regulate our preparation by the symptoms of her recovery.
That it was to her strength, not to her form of government, which we were to attend; because republics,
as well as monarchies, were susceptible of ambition,
jealousy, and anger, the usual causes of war.
But if, while France continued in this swoon, we
should go on increasing our expenses, we should certainly make ourselves less a match for her when it
became our concern to arm.
It was said, that, as she had speedily fallen, she
might speedily rise again. He doubted this. That
the fall from an height was with an accelerated velocity; but to lift a weight up to that height again was
difficult, and opposed by the laws of physical and political gravitation.
In a political view, France was low indeed. She
had lost everything, even to her name.
Jacet ingens littore truncus,
Avolsumque humeris caput, et sine nomine corpus. *
ie was astonished at it; he was alarmed at it; he
trembled at the uncertainty of all human greatness.
* Mr. Burke probably had in his mind the remainder of the passage, and was filled with some congenial apprehensions:Thec finis Priami fatorum; hice exitus illum Sorte tulit,'rrojam incensam et prolapsa videntem
Pergama, tot quondam populis terrisque superbum
Regnatorem Asiae. Jacet ingens littore truncus,
Arolsumque humeris caput, et sine nomine corpus. . t me tum primum ssevus circumstetit horror:
Obstupui: subiit chari genitoris imago.
? ? ? ? 216 SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES.
Since the House had been prorogued in the summer much work was done in France. The French
had shown themselves the ablest architects of ruin
that had hitherto existed in the world. In that very
short space of time they had completely pulled down
to the ground their monarchy, their church, their nobility, their law, their revenue, their army, their navy, their commerce, their arts, and their manufactures.
They had done their business for us as rivals in a way
in which twenty Ramillies or Blenheims could never
have done it. Were we absolute conquerors, and
France to lie prostrate at our feet,. we should be
ashamed to send a commission to settle their affairs
which could impose so hard a law upon the French,
and so destructive of all their consequence as a nations
as that they had imposed upon themselves.
France, by the mere circumstance of its vicinity,
had been, and in a degree always must be, an object
of our vigilance, either with regard to her actual
power or to her influence and example. As to the
former he had spoken; as to the latter (her example) he should say a few words: for by this example
our friendship and our intercourse with that nation
had once been, and might again become, more dangerous to us than their worst hostility.
In the last century, Louis the Fourteenth had es:
tablished a greater and better disciplined military
force than ever had been before seen in Europe, and
with it a perfect despotism. Though that despotism
was proudly arrayed in manners, gallantry, splendor,
magnificence, and even covered over with the imposing robes of science, literature, and arts, it was, in government, nothing better than a painted and gilded
tyranny, --in religion, a hard, stern intolerance, the
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES. 217
fit companion and auxiliary to the despotic tyranny
which prevailed in its government. The same character of despotism insinuated itself into every court of
Europe, - the same spirit of disproportioned magnificence, - the same love of standing armies, above the
ability of the people. In particular, our then sovereigns, King Charles and King James, fell in love
with the government of their neighbor, so flattering
to the pride of kings. A similarity of sentiments
brought on connections equally dangerous to the in-. terests and liberties of their country. It were well
that the infection had gone no farther than the
throne. The admiration of a government flourishing and successful, unchecked in its operations, and
seeming, therefore, to compass its objects more speedily and effectually, gained something upon all ranks
of people. The good patriots of that day, however,
struggled against it. They sought nothing more
anxiously than to break off all communication with
France, and to beget a total alienation from its councils and its example, - which, by the animosity prevalent between the abettors of their religious system and the assertors of ours, was in some degree effected.
This day the evil is totally changed in France: but
there is an evil there. The disease is altered; but
the vicinity of the two countries remains, and must
remain; and the natural mental habits of mankind
are such, that the present distemper of France is far
more likely to be contagious than the old one: for it
is not quite easy to spread a passion for servitude
among the people; but in all evils of the opposite
kind our natural inclinations are flattered. In the
case of despotism, there is the vfdum crimen servitutis:
? ? ? ? 218 SPEECH ON THE ARMIY ESTIMATES.
in the last, the falsa SPECIES libertatis; and accordingly, as the historian says, pronis auribus accipitur.
In the last age we were in danger of being entangled by the example of France in the net of a relentless despotism. It is not necessary to say anything upon that example. It exists no longer. Our present danger from the example of a people whose
character knows no medium is, with regard to government, a danger from anarchy: a danger of being
led, through an admiration of successful fraud and
violence, to an imitation of the excesses of an irra-,
tional, unprincipled, proscribing, confiscating, plundering, ferocious, bloody, and tyrannical democracy.
On the side of religion, the danger of their example is
no longer from intolerance, but from atheism: a foul,
unnatural vice, foe to all the dignity and consolation
of mankind; which seems in France, for a long time,
to have been embodied into a faction, accredited, and
almost avowed.
These are our present dangers from France. But,
in his opinion, the very worst part of the example
set is in the late assumption of citizenship by the
army, and the whole of the arrangement, or rather
disarrangement, of their military.
He was sorry that his right honorable friend (Mr.
Fox) had dropped even a word expressive of exultation on that circumstance, or that he seemed of
opinion that the objection from standing armies was
at all lessened by it. He attributed this opinion of
Mr. Fox entirely to his known zeal for the best of all
causes, liberty. That it was with a pain inexpressible
he was obliged to have even the shadow of a difference with his friend, whose authority would always
be great with him, and with all thinking people, --
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES 219
Quce maxima semper censetur nobis, et ERIT quce maxima
semper; -his confidence in Mr. Fox was such, and so
ample, as to be almost implicit. That he was not
ashamed to avow that degree of docility. That, when
the choice is well made, it strengthens, instead of oppressing our intellect. That he who calls in the aid of an equal understanding doubles his own. He who
profits of a superior understanding raises his powers to
a level with the height of the superior understanding
he unites with. He had found the benefit of such a
junction, and would not lightly depart from it. He
wished almost, on all occasions, that his sentiments
were understood to be conveyed in Mr. Fox's words.
And that he wished, as amongst the greatest benefits
he could wish the country, an eminent share of power
to that right honorable gentleman; because he knew
that to his great and masterly understanding he had
joined the greatest possible degree of that natural
moderation which is the best corrective of power:
that he was of the most artless, candid, open, and benevolent disposition; disinterested in the extreme; of a temper mild and placable even to a fault; without one drop of gall in his whole constitution.
That the House must perceive, from his coming
forward to mark an expression or two of his best
friend, how anxious he was to keep the distemper
of France from the least countenance in England,
where he was sure some wicked persons had shown
a strong disposition to recommend an imitation of
the French spirit of reform. He was so strongly
opposed to any the least tendency towards the means
of introducing a democracy like theirs, as well as to
the end itself, that, much as it would afflict him, if
such a thing could be attempted, and that any friend
? ? ? ? 220 SPEECH OrA'rH1E ARMY ESTIMA3TES.
of his could concur in such measures, (he was far,
very far, from believing they could,) he would abandon his best friends, and join with his worst enemies,
to oppose either the means or the end, -and to resist
all violent exertions of the spirit of innovation, so distant from all principles of true and safe reformation:
a spirit well calculated to overturn states, but perfectly unfit to amend them.
That he was no enemy to reformation. Almost
every business in which he was much concerned,
from the first day he sat in that House to that hour,
was a business of reformation; and when he had not
been employed in correcting, he had been employed
in resisting abuses. Some traces of this spirit in
him now stand on their statute-book. In his opinion,
anything which unnecessarily tore to pieces the contexture of the state not only prevented all real reformation, but introduced evils which would call, but perhaps call in vain, for new reformation.
That he thought the French nation very unwise.
What they valued themselves on was a disgrace to
them. They had gloried (and some people in England had thought fit to take share in that glory) in
making a Revolution, as if revolutions were good
things in themselves. All the horrors and all the
crimes of the anarchy which led to their Revolution,
which attend its progress, and which may virtually
attend it in its establishment, pass for nothing with
the lovers of revolutions. The French have made
their way, through the destruction of their country,
to a bad constitution, when they were absolutely in
possession of a good one. They were in possession
of it the day the states met in separate orders. Their
business, had they been either virtuous or wise, or had
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES. 221
been left to their own judgment, was to secure the
stability and independence of the states, according
to those orders, under the monarch on the throne.
It was then their duty to redress grievances.
Instead of redressing grievances, and improving the
fabric of their state, to which they were called by
their monarch and sent by their country, they were
made to take a very different course. They first destroyed all the balances and counterpoises which serve
to fix the state and to give it a steady direction, and
which furnish sure correctives to any violent spirit
which may prevail in any of the orders. These bal-.
ances existed in their oldest constitution, and in the
constitution of this country, and in the constitution,
of all the countries in Europe. These they rashly
destroyed, and then they melted down the whole into
one incongruous, ill-connected mass.
When they had done this, they instantly, and with
the most atrocious perfidy and breach of all faith
among men, laid the axe to the root of all property, and consequently of all national prosperity, by
the principles they established and the example they
set, in confiscating all the possessions of the Church.
They made and recorded a sort of institute and digest
of anarchy, called the Rights of Man, in such a pedantic abuse of elementary principles as would have disgraced boys at school: but this declaration of rights. was worse than trifling and pedantic in them; as
by their name and authority they systematically destroyed every hold of authority by opinion, religious
or civil, on the minds of the people. By this mad
declaration they subverted the state, and brought on
such calamities as no country, without a long war,
has ever been known to suffer, and which may in
? ? ? ? 222 SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES.
the end produce such a war, and perhaps many
such.
With them the question was not between despotism and liberty. The sacrifice they made of the
peace and power of their country was not made on
the altar of freedom. Freedom, and a better security
for freedom than that they have taken, they might
hlave had without any sacrifice at all. They brought
themselves into all the calamities they suffer, not
that through them they might obtain a British constitution; they plunged themselves headlong into those
calamities to prevent themselves from settling into
that constitution, or into anything resembling it.
That, if they should perfectly succeed in what they
propose, as they are likely enough to do, and establish a democracy, or a mob of democracies, in a country circumstanced like France, they will establish a very bad government, a very bad species of tyranny.
That the worst effect of all their proceeding was on
their military, which was rendered an army for every
purpose but that of defence. That, if the question
was, whether soldiers were to forget they were citizens, as an abstract proposition, he could have no
difference about it; though, as it is usual, when abstract principles are to be applied, much was to be
thought on the manner of uniting the character of
citizen and soldier. But as applied to the events
which had happened in France, where the abstract
principle was clothed with its circumstances, he
thought that his friend would agree with him, that
what was done there furnished no matter of exultation, either in the act or the example. These soldiers
were not citizens, but base, hireling mutineers, and
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES. 223
mercenary, sordid deserters, wholly destitute of any
honorable principle. Their conduct was one of the
fruits of that anarchic spirit from the evils of which
a democracy itself was to be resorted to, by those who
were the least disposed to that form, as a sort of refuge. It was not an army in corps and with discipline,
and embodied under the respectable patriot citizens of
the state in resisting tyranny. Nothing like it. It was
the case of common soldiers deserting from their officers, to join a furious, licentious populace. It was a
desertion to a cause the real object of which was to
level all those institutions, and to break all those connections, natural and civil, that regulate and hold together the community by a chain of subordination: to raise soldiers against their officers, servants against
their masters, tradesmen against their customers, artificers against their employers, tenants against their
landlords, curates against their bishops, and children
against their parents. That this cause of theirs was
not an enemy to servitude, but to society.
He wished the House to consider how the members would like to have their mansions pulled down
and pillaged, their persons abused, insulted, and
destroyed, their title-deeds brought out and burned
before their faces, and themselves and their families
driven to seek refuge in every nation throughout
Europe, for no other reason than this, that, without
any fault of theirs, they were born gentlemen and
men of property, and were suspected of a desire to
preserve their consideration and their estates. The
desertion in France was to aid an abominable sedition, the very professed principle of which was an implacable hostility to nobility and gentry, and whose savage war-whoop was, "A I'Aristocrate! "-by which
? ?
dry,* let it out to him, in April last, for the inadequate rent of 50,000 pagodas per annum, diminishing,
in this district alone, near half the accustomed revenues. After this manner hath he exercised his powers over the countries, to suit his own purposes and designs; and this secret mode has he taken to reduce
the collections.
1st November, 1782. Copy of a Letter from the Nabob
of Arcot td the Court of Directors, &c. Received
7th April, 1783.
THE distresses which I have set forth in my former letters are now increased to such an alarming
pitch by the imprudent measures of your Governor,
and by the arbitrary and impolitic conduct pursued
with the merchants and importers of grain, that the
very existence of the Fort of Madras seems at stake,
and that of the inhabitants of the settlement appears
to have been totally overlooked: many thousands have
died, and continue hourly to perish of famine, though
the capacity of one of your youngest servants, with
diligence and attention, by doing justice, and giving
reasonable encouragement to the merchants, and by
drawing the supplies of grain which the northern
countries would have afforded, might have secured;us against all those dreadful calamities. I had with
much difficulty procured and purchased a small quantity of rice, for the use of myself, my family, and attendants, and with a view of sending off the greatest part of the latter to the northern countries, with a
little subsistence in their hands. But what must your,surprise be, when you learn that even this rice was
* See Tellinga letter, at the end of this correspondence.
? ? ? ? APPENDIX. 195
seazed by Lord Macartney, with a military force! and
thus am I unable to provide for the few people I have
about me, who are driven to such extremity and misery that it gives me pain to behold them. I have
desired permission to get a little rice from the northern countries for the subsistence of my people, without its being liable to seizure by your sepoys: this even has been refused me by Lord Macartney. What
must your feelings be, on such wanton cruelty exercised towards me, when you consider, that, of thousands of villages belonging to me, a single one would have sufficed for my subsistence!
22d March, 1783. Translation of a Letter from the
Nabob of Arcot to the Chairman and Directors of the
-East India Company. Received from Mr. James
Macpherson, 1st January, 1784.
I AM willing to attribute this continued usurpation to the fear of detection in Lord Macartney: he
dreads the awful day when the scene of his enormities will be laid open, at my restoration to my country, and when the tongues of my oppressed subjects will be unloosed, and proclaim aloud the cruel tyrannies they have sustained. These sentiments of his
Lordship's designs are corroborated by his sending, on
the 10th instant, two gentlemen to me and my son,
Amir-ul-Omrah; and these gentlemen from Lord Macartney especially set forth to me, and to my son, that
all dependence on the power of the superior government of Bengal to enforce the intentions of the Company to restore my country was vain and groundless, - that the Company confided in his Lordship's judgment and discretion, and upon his representations. and
? ? ? ? 196 SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS.
that if I, and my son, Amir-ul-Omrah, would enter into friendship with Lord Macartney, and sign a paper declaring all my charges and complaints against him
to be false, that his Lordship might be induced to write
to England that all his allegations against me and
my son were not well founded, and, notwithstanding
his declarations to withhold my country, yet, on these
considerations, it might be still restored to me.
What must be your feelings for your ancient and
faithful friend, on his receiving such insults to his
honor and understanding from your principal servant,
armed with your authority! From these manceuvres,
amongst thousands I have experienced, the truth must
evidently appear to you, that I have not been loaded
with those injuries and oppressions from motives of
public service, but to answer the private views and
interests of his Lordship and his secret agents: some
papers to this point are inclosed; others, almost without number, must be submitted to your justice, when time and circumstances shall enable me fully to investigate those transactions. This opportunity wili
not permit the full representation of my load of injuries and distresses: I beg leave to refer you to my minister, Mr. Macpherson, for the papers, according
to the inclosed list, which accompanied my last dispatches by the Rodney, which I fear have failed; and my correspondence with Lord Macartney subsequent
to that period, such as I have been able to prepare
for this opportunity, are inclosed.
Notwithstanding all the violent acts and declarations of Lord Macartney, yet a consciousness of his
own misconduct was the sole incentive to the menaces and overtures he has held out in various shapes. He has been insultingly lavish in his expressions of
? ? ? ? APPENDIX. 197
high respect for my person; has had the insolence to
say that all his measures flowed from his affectionate regard alone; has presumed to say that all his
enmity and oppression were levelled at my son, Amirul-Omrah, to whom he before acknowledged every aid
and assistance; and his Lordship being without any
just cause or foundation for complaint against us, or
a veil to cover his own violences, he has now had recourse to the meanness and has dared to intimate of
my son, in order to intimidate me and to strengthen
his own wicked purposes, to be in league with our
enemies the French. You must doubtless be astonished, no less at the assurance than at the absurdity
of such a wicked suggestion.
IN THE NABOB S OWN HAND.
P. S. In my own handwriting I acquainted Mr.
Hastings, as I now do my ancient friends the Company, with the insult offered to my honor and understanding, in the extraordinary propositions sent to me by Lord Macartney, through two gentlemen, on the
10th instant, so artfully veiled with menaces, hopes,
and promises. But how can Lord Macartney add to
his enormities, after his wicked and calumniating insinuations, so evidently directed against me and my
family, through my faithful, my dutiful, and beloved
son, Amir-ul-Omrah, who, you well know, has been
ever born and bred amongst the English, whom I have
studiously brought up in the warmest sentiments of
affection and attachment to them, -- sentiments that
in his maturity have been his highest ambition to improve, insomuch that he knows no happiness but in
the faithful support of our alliance and connection
with the English nation?
? ? ? ? 198 SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS.
12th August, and Postscript of the 16th August,
1783. Translation of a Letter to the Chairman
and. Directors of the East India Company. Received from Mr. James Macpherson, 14th January, 1784.
YOUR astonishment and indignation will be equally raised with mine, when you hear that your President has dared, contrary to your intention, to continue to usurp the privileges and hereditary powers of the Nabob of the Carnatic, your old and unshaken
friend, and the declared ally of the king of Great
Britain.
I will not take up your time by enumerating the
particular acts of Lord Macartney's violence, cruelty,
and injustice: they, indeed, occur too frequently, andfall
upon me and my devoted subjects and country too thick,
to be regularly related. I refer you to my minister,
Mr. James Macpherson, for a more circumstantial account of the oppressions and enormities by which he has brought both mine and the Company's affairs to the
brink of destruction. I trust that such flagrant violations of all justice, honor, and the faith of treaties
will receive the severest marks of your displeasure,
and that Lord Macartney's conduct, in making use
of your name and authority as a sanction for the
continuance of his usurpation, will be disclaimed
with the utmost indignation, and followed with the
severest punishment. I conceive that his Lordship's
arbitrary retention of my country and government
can only originate in his insatiable cravings, in his implacable malevolence against me, and through fear of detection, which must follow the surrender of the Carnatic into my hands, of those nefarious proceedings
? ? ? ? APPENDIX. 199
which are now suppressed by the arm of violence and
power.
I did not fail to represent to the supreme government of Bengal the deplorable situation to which I
was reduced, and the unmerited persecutions I have
unremittingly sustained from Lord Macartney; and
I earnestly implored them to stretch forth a saving
arm, and interpose that controlling power which was'
vested in them, to check rapacity and presumption,
and preserve the honor and faith of the Company
from violation. The Governor-General and Council
not only felt the cruelty and injustice I had suffered,
but were greatly alarmed for the fatal consequences
that might result from the distrust of the cbuntry
powers in the professions of the English, when they
saw the Nabob of the Carnatic, the friend of the Company, and the ally of Great Britain, thus stripped of
his rights, his dominions, and his dignity, by the most
fraudulent means, and under the mask of friendship.
The Bengal government had already heard both the
Mahrattas and the Nizam urge, as an objection to an
alliance with the English, the faithless behavior of
Lord Macartney to a prince whose life had been devoted and whose treasures had been exhausted in their
service and support; and they did not hesitate to give
positive orders to Lord Macartney for the restitution
of my government and authority, on such te'rms as
were not only strictly honorable, but equally advantageous to my friends the Company: for they justly thought that my honor and dignity and sovereign rights were the first olbjects of my wishes and ambition. But how can I paint my astonishment at Lord
Macartney's presumption in continuing his usurpation after their positive and reiterated mandates, and,
? ? ? ? 200 SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS.
as if nettled by their interference, which he disdained,
in redoubling the fury of his violence, and sacrificing
the public and myself to his malice and ungovernable
passions?
I am, Gentlemen, at a loss to conceive where his
usurpation will stop and have an end. Has he not
solemnly declared that the assignment was only made
-for the support of war? and if neither your instructions nor the orders of his superiors at Bengal were
to be considered as effectual, has not the treaty of
peace virtually determined the period of his tyrannical administration? But so far from surrendering
the Carnatic into my hands, he has, since that event,
affixed advertisements to the walls and gates of the
Black Town for letting to the best bidder the various
districts for the term of three years,- and has continued the Committee of Revenue, which you positively ordered to be abolished, to whom he has allowed
enormous salaries, from 6000 to 4000 pagodas per
annum, which each member has received from the
time of his appointment, though his Lordship well
knows that most of them are by your orders disqualified by being my principal creditors.
If those acts of violence and outrage had been
productive of public advantage, I conceive his Lordship might have held them forward in extenuation
of his conduct; but whilst he cloaks his justification
under the veil of your records, it is impossible to re
fute his assertions or to expose to you their fallacy;
and when he is no longer able to support his conduct
by argument, he refers to those records, where, I
understand, he has exercised all his sophistry and
malicious insinuations to render me and my family
obnoxious in the eyes of the Company and the Brit
? ? ? ? APPENDIX. 201
ish nation. And when the glorious victories of Sir
Eyre Coote have been rendered abortive by a constant deficiency of supplies, -and when, since the
departure of that excellent general to Bengal, whose
loss I must ever regret, a dreadful famine, at the
close of last year, occasioned by his Lordship's neglect to lay up a sufficient stock of grain at a proper
season, and from his prohibitory orders to private
merchants, -and when no exertion has been made,
nor advantage gained over the enemy, - when Hyder's death and Tippoo's return to his own dominions
operated in no degree for the benefit of our affairs,in short, when all has been a continued series of disappointment and disgrace under Lord Macartney's management, (and in him alone has the management been vested,) -I want words to convey those
ideas of his insufficiency, ignorance, and obstinacy
which I am convinced you would entertain, had
you been spectators of his ruinous and destructive
conduct.
But against me, and my son, Amir-ul-Omrah,
has his Lordship's vengeance chiefly been exerted:
even the Company's own subordinate zemindars have
found better treatment, probably because they were
more rich; those of Nizanagoram have been permitted, contrary to your pointed orders, to hold their rich
zemindaries at the old disproportionate rate of little
more. than a sixth part of the real revenue; and my
zemindar of Tanjore, though he should have regarded
himself equally concerned with us in the event of the
war, and from whose fertile country many valuable
harvests have been gathered in, which have sold at a
vast price, has, I understand, only contributed, last
year, towards the public exigencies, the very incon
? ? ? ? 202 SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS.
siderable sum of one lac of pagodas, and a few thou.
sand pagodas' worth of grain.
I am much concerned to acquaint you that ever
since the peace a dreadful famine has swept away
many thousands of the followers and sepoys' families
of the army, from Lord Macartney's neglect to send
down grain to the camp, though the roads are crowded
with vessels: but his Lordship has been too intent upon his own disgraceful schemes to attend to the wants of the army. - The negotiation with Tippoo, which he
has set on foot through the mediation of Monsieur
Bussy, has employed all his thoughts, and to the
attainment of that object he will sacrifice the dearest
interests of the Company to gratify his malevolence
against me, and for his own private advantages. The
endeavor to treat with Tippoo, through the means of
the French, must strike you, Gentlemen, as highly
improper and impolitic; but it must raise your utmost indignation to hear, that, by intercepted letters from Bussy to Tippoo, as well as from their respective
vakeels, and from various accounts from Cuddalore,
we have every reason to conclude that his Lordship's
secretary, Mr. Staunton, when at Cuddalore, as his
agent to settle the cessation of arms with the French,
was informed of all their operations and projects, and
consequently that Lord JMaartney has secretly connived
at Monsieur Bussy's recommendation to T~ppoo to return into the Carnatic, as the means of procuring the
most advantageous terms, andfurnishing Lord Macartney with the plea of necessity for concluding a peace after his own manner: and what further confirms the truth of this fact is, that repeated reports, as well as
the alarms of the inhabitants to the westward, leave us no reason to doubt that Tippoo is approaching to
? ? ? ? APPENDIX. 203
wards us. His Lordship has issued public orders
that the garrison store of rice, for which we are indebted to the exertions of the Bengal government, should be immediately disposed of, and has strictly
forbid all private grain to be sold; by which act he
effectually prohibits all private importation of grain,
and may eventually cause as horrid a famine as that
which we experienced at the close of last year from
the same shortsighted policy and destructive prohibitions of Lord Macartney.
But as he has the fabrication of the records in his
own hands, he trusts to those partial representations
of his character and conduct, because the signatures
of those members of government whom he seldom
consults are affixed, as a public sanction; but you
may form a just idea of their correctness and propriety, when you are informed that his Lordship, upon amy noticing the heavy disbursements made for secret
service money, ordered the sums to be struck off, and the
accounts to be erased from the cash-book of the CUompany; and I think I cannot give you a better proof of his management of my country and revenues than
by calling your attention to his conduct in the Ongole province, and by referring you to his Lordship's administration of your own jaghire, from whence he
has brought to the public account the sum of twelve
hundred pagodas for the last year's revenue, yet blazons forth his vast merits and exertions, and expects to receive the thanks of his Committee and Council.
I will beg leave to refer you to my minister, James
Macpherson, Esq. , for a more particular account of
my sufferings and miseries, to whom I have transmitted copies of all papers that passed with his Lordship.
? ? ? ? 204 SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS.
I cannot conclude without calling your attention
to the situation of my different creditors, whose claims
are the claims of justice, and whose demands I am
bound by honor and every moral obligation to discharge; it is not, therefore, without great concern I have heard insinuations tending to question the legality of their right to the payment of those just debts: they proceeded from advances made by them openly
and honorably for the support of my own and the
public affairs. But I hope the tongue of calumny
will never drown the voice of truth and justice; and
while that is heard, the wisdom of the English nation
cannot fail to accede to an effectual remedy for their
distresses, by any arrangement in which their claims
may be duly considered and equitably provided for:
and for this purpose, my minister, Mr. Macpherson,
will readily subscribe, in my name, to any agreement
you may think proper to adopt, founded on the same
principles with either of the engagements I entered
into with the supreme government of Bengal for our
mutual interest and advantage.
I always pray for, your happiness and prosperity.
6th September, and Postscript of 7th September,
1783. Translation of a Letter from the Nabob of
Arcot to the Chairman and Directors of the -East
India Company. Received from Mr. James Macpherson, 14th January, 1784.
I REFER you, Gentlemen, to my inclosed duplicate.
as well as to my minister, Mr. Macpherson, for the
particulars of my sufferings. There is no word or
action of mine that is not perverted; and though it
was my intention to have sent my son, Amir-ul-Om
? ? ? ? APPENDIX. 205
lahb, who is well versed in my affairs, to Bengal, to
impress those gentlemen with a full sense of my situation, yet I find myself obliged to lay it aside, from
the insinuations of the calumniating tongue of Lord
Macartney, that takes every license to traduce every
action of my life and that of my son. I am informed
that Lord Macartney, at this late moment, intends
to write a letter: I am ignorant of the subject, but
fully perceive, that, by delaying to send it till the
very eve of the dispatch, he means to deprive me of
all possibility of communicating my reply, and forwarding it for the information of my friends in England. Conscious of the weak ground on which he
stands, he is obliged to have recourse to these artifices to mislead the judgment, and support for a time
his unjustifiable measures by deceit and imposition.
I wish only to meet and combat his charges and allegations fairly and openly, and I have repeatedly and
urgently demanded to be furnished with copies of
those parts of his fabricated records relative to myself; but as he well knows I should refute his sophistry, I cannot be surprised at his refusal, though I
lament that it prevents you, Gentlemen, from a clear
investigation of his conduct towards me.
Inclosed you have a translation of an arzee from
the Killidar of Vellore. I have thousands of the same
kind; but this, just now received, will serve to give
you some idea of the miseries brought upon this- my
devoted country, and the wretched inhabitants:that;
remain in it, by the oppressive hand of Lord Macar:tney's management: nor will the embezzlements of collections thus obtained, when brought before you- in proof, appear less extraordinary, -- which shall certainly be done in due time.
? ? ? ? 206 SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS. Translation of an Arzee, in the Persian Language, from Uzzim-ul --Doen Cawn, the Killidar of Vellore, to the Nabob, dated 1st September, 1783. Inclosed in the Nabob's Letter to the Court of Directors, September, 1783.
I HAVE repeatedly represented to your Highness
the violences and oppressions exercised by the present aumildar [collector of revenue], of Lord Macartney's appointment, over the few remaining inllhabitants of the districts of Vellore, Amboor, Saulguda, &c.
The outrages and violences now committed are
of that astonishing nature as were never known or
heard of during the administration of the Circar.
iyder Naik, the cruellest of tyrants, used every kind
of oppression in the Circar countries; but even his
measures were not like those now pursued. Such of
the inhabitants as had escaped the sword and pillage
of Hyder Naik, by taking refuge in the woods, and
within the walls of Vellore, &c. , on the arrival of
Lord Macartney's aumildar to Vellore, and in consequence of his cowle of protection and support, most
cheerfully returned to the villages, set about the cultivation of the lands, and with great pains rebuilt
their cottages. -- But now the aumildar has imprisoned the wives and cJildren of the inhabitants, seized
the few jewels that were on the bodies of the women,
and then, before the faces of their husbands, flogged
them, in order to make them produce other jewels
and effects, which he said they had buried somewhere under ground, and to make the inhabitants
bring him money, notwithstanding there was yet no
cultivation in the country. Terrified with the flagel
? ? ? ? APPENDIX. 207
lations, some of them produced their jewels and
wearing-apparel of their women, to the amount of
ten or fifteen pagodas, which they had hidden; others, who declared they had none, the aumildar flogged
their women severely, tied cords around their breasts,
and tore the sucking children from their teats, and
exposed them to the scorching heat of the sun.
Those children died, as did the wife of Ramsoamy,
an inhabitant of Bringpoor. Even this could not stir
up compassion in the breast of the aumildar. Some
of the children that were somewhat large he exposed
to sale. In short, the violences of the aumildar are
so astonishing, that the people, on seeing the present
situation, remember the loss of Hyder with regret.
With whomsoever the aumildar finds a single measure
of natchinee or rice, he takes it away from him, and
appropriates it to the expenses of the sibindy that he
keeps up. No revenues are collected from the countries, but from the effects of the poor, wretched inhabitants. Those ryots [yeomen] who intended to return to their habitations, hearing of those violences, have
fled for refuge, with their wives and children, into
Hyder's country. Every day is ushered in and closed
with these violences and disturbances. I have no
power to do anything; and who will hear what I
have to say? My business is to inform your Highness, who are my master. The people bring their
complaints to me, and I tell them I will write to your
Highness. *
X The above-recited practices, or practices similar to them, have
prevailed in almost every part of the miserable countries on the coast
of Coromandel for near twenty years past. That they prevailed as
strongly and generally as they could prevail, under the administration of the Nabob, there can be no question, notwithstanding the as
? ? ? ? 208 SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS.
Translation of a Tellinga Letter from Veira Permaul,
Head Dubash to Lord Macartney, in his own Handwriting, to Rajah Ramchunda, the Renter of Ongole.
Dated 25th of the Hindoo month Mausay, in the
year Plavanamal, corresponding to 5th March,
1782.
I PRESENT my respects to you, and am very well
here, wishing to hear frequently of your welfare.
Your peasher Vancatroyloo has brought the Visseel Bakees, and delivered them to me, as also what
you sent him for me to deliver to my master, which 1
have done. My master at first refused to take it, because he is unacquainted with your disposition, or what
kind of a person you are. But after I made encomiums on your goodness and greatness of mind, and
took my oath to the same, and that it would not besertion in the beginning of the above petition; nor will it ever be
otherwise, whilst affairs are conducted upon the principles which influence the present system. Whether the particulars here asserted
are true or false neither the Court of Directors nor their ministry
have thought proper to inquire. If they are true, in order to bring
them to affect Lord Macartney, it ought to be proved that the conmplaint was made to him, and that he had refused redress. Instead of
this fair course, the complaint is carried to the Court of Directors. -
The above is one of the documents transmitted by the Nabob, in
proof of his charge of corruption against Lord Macartney. If genu
ine, it is, conclusive, at least against Lord Macartney's principal agent
and manager. If it be a forgery, (as in all likelihood it is,) it is conclusive against the Nabob and his evil counsellors, and fully demonstrates, if anything further were necessary to demonstrate, the necessity of the clause in Mr. Fox's bill prohibiting the residence of the native princes in the Company's principal settlements, -which clause
was, for obvious reasons, not admitted into Mr. Pitt's. It shows, too,
the absolute necessity of a severe and exemplary punishment on certain of his English evil counsellors and creditors, by whom such practices are carried on.
? ? ? ? APPENDIX. 209
come public, but be held as precious as our lives, my
master accepted it. You may remain satisfied that I
will get the Ongole business settled in your name;
I will cause the jamaubundee to be settled agreeable
to your desire. It was formerly the Nabob's intention
to give this business to you, as the Governor knows
full well, but did not at that time agree to it, which
you must be well acquainted with.
Your peasher Vancatroyloo is a very careful, good
man; he is well experienced in business; he has
bound me by an oath to keep all this business secret, and
that his own, yours, and my lives are responsible for it.
I write this letter to you with the greatest reluctance,
and I signified the same to your peasher, and declared
that I would not write to you by any means.
To this
the peasher urged, that, if Idid not write to his master, how could he know to whom he (the peasher) delivered the money, and what must his master think of it? Therefore I write you this letter, and send it by my
servant Ramanah, accompanied by the peasher's servant, and it will come safe to your hands. After perusal, you will send it back to me immediately: until
I receive it, I don't like to eat my victuals or take any
sleep. Your peasher took his oath, and urged me
to write this for your satisfaction, and has engaged to
me that I shall have this letter returned to me in the
space of twelve days.
The present Governor is not like the former Governors: he is a very great man in Europe; and all
the great men of Europe are much obliged to him for
his condescension in accepting the government of this
place. It is his custom, when he makes friendship with
any one, to continue it always; and if he is at enmity
with any one, he never will desist till he has worked
VOL. III. 14
? ? ? ? 2iL0 SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS.
his destruction. He is now exceedingly displeased with
the Nabob, and you will understand by-and-by that
the Nabob's business cannot be carried on; he (the Nabob) will have no power to do anything in his own affairs: you have, therefore, no room to fear him; you
may remain with a, contented mind. I desired the
Governor to write you a letter for your satisfaction:
the Governor said he would do so, when the business
was settled. This letter you must peruse as soon as
possible, and send it back with all speed by the bearer,
Ramadoo, accompanied by three or four of your people, to the end that no accident may happen on the road. These people must be ordered to march in thse
night only, and to arrive here with the greatest dispatch. You sent ten mangoes for my master and
two for me, all of which I have delivered to my master, thinking that ten was not sufficient to present him with. I write this for your information, and salute
you with ten thousand respects.
I, Muttu Kistnah, of Madras Patnam, dubash, declare that I
perfectly understand the Gentoo language, and do most sol-
emnly affirm that the foregoing Muttu Kistnah.
is a true translation of the annexed paper writing from the
Gentoo language.
(Signed)
? ? ? ? SUBSTANCE OF THE SPEECH
IN THE
DEBATE ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS,
ON TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1790: COMPREHENDING
A DISCUSSION OF THE PRESENT SITUATION OF AFFAIRS IN FRANCE.
? ? ? ? SPEECH.
M R. BURKE'S speech on the report of the army
estimates has not been correctly stated in some
of the public papers. It is of consequence to him
not to be misunderstood. The matter which incidentally came into discussion is of the most serious
importance. It is thought that the heads and substance of the speech will answer the purpose sufficiently. If, in making the abstract, through defect of memory in the person who now gives it, any difference at all should be perceived from the speech as
it was spoken, it will not, the editor imagines, be
found in anything which may amount to a retraction of the opinions he then maintained, or to any
softening in the expressions in which they were conveyed.
Mr. Burke spoke a considerable time in answer to
various arguments, which had been insisted upon by
Mr. Grenville and Mr. Pitt, for keeping an increased
peace establishment, and against an improper jealousy of the ministers, in whom a full confidence,
subject to responsibility, ought to be placed, on account of their knowledge of the real situation of
affairs, the exact state of which it frequently happened that they could not disclose without violating
the constitutional and political secrecy necessary to
the well-being of their country.
? ? ? ? 214 SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES.
Mr. Burke said in substance, That confidence
might become a vice, and jealousy a virtue, according to circumstances. That confidence, of all public virtues, was the most dangerous, and jealousy in an
House of Commons, of all public vices, the most tolerable, - especially where the number and the charge of standing armies in time of peace was the question.
That in the annual Mutiny Bill the annual army
was declared to be for the purpose of preserving the
balance of power in Europe. The propriety of its
being larger or smaller depended, therefore, upon
the true state of that balance. If the increase of
peace establishments demanded of Parliament agreed
with the manifest appearance of the balance, confidence in ministers as to the particulars would be
very proper. If the increase was not at all supported
by any such appearance, he thought great jealousy
might be, and ought to be, entertained on that subject.
That he did not find, on a review of all Europe,
that, politically, we stood in the smallest degree of
danger from any one state or kingdom it contained,
nor that any other foreign powers than our own allies
were likely to obtain a considerable preponderance in
the scale.
That France had hitherto been our first object in
all considerations concerning the balance of power.
The presence or absence of France totally varied
every sort of speculation relative to that balance.
That France is at this time, in a political light, to
be considered as expunged out of the system of Europe. Whether she could ever appear in it again,
as a leading power, was not easy to determine; but
at present le considered France as not politically ex
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES. 215
isting; and most assuredly it would take up much
time to restore her to her former active existence:
Gallos quoque in bellis floruisse audivimus might possibly be the language of the rising generation. He did not mean to deny that it was our duty to keep
our eye on that nation, and to regulate our preparation by the symptoms of her recovery.
That it was to her strength, not to her form of government, which we were to attend; because republics,
as well as monarchies, were susceptible of ambition,
jealousy, and anger, the usual causes of war.
But if, while France continued in this swoon, we
should go on increasing our expenses, we should certainly make ourselves less a match for her when it
became our concern to arm.
It was said, that, as she had speedily fallen, she
might speedily rise again. He doubted this. That
the fall from an height was with an accelerated velocity; but to lift a weight up to that height again was
difficult, and opposed by the laws of physical and political gravitation.
In a political view, France was low indeed. She
had lost everything, even to her name.
Jacet ingens littore truncus,
Avolsumque humeris caput, et sine nomine corpus. *
ie was astonished at it; he was alarmed at it; he
trembled at the uncertainty of all human greatness.
* Mr. Burke probably had in his mind the remainder of the passage, and was filled with some congenial apprehensions:Thec finis Priami fatorum; hice exitus illum Sorte tulit,'rrojam incensam et prolapsa videntem
Pergama, tot quondam populis terrisque superbum
Regnatorem Asiae. Jacet ingens littore truncus,
Arolsumque humeris caput, et sine nomine corpus. . t me tum primum ssevus circumstetit horror:
Obstupui: subiit chari genitoris imago.
? ? ? ? 216 SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES.
Since the House had been prorogued in the summer much work was done in France. The French
had shown themselves the ablest architects of ruin
that had hitherto existed in the world. In that very
short space of time they had completely pulled down
to the ground their monarchy, their church, their nobility, their law, their revenue, their army, their navy, their commerce, their arts, and their manufactures.
They had done their business for us as rivals in a way
in which twenty Ramillies or Blenheims could never
have done it. Were we absolute conquerors, and
France to lie prostrate at our feet,. we should be
ashamed to send a commission to settle their affairs
which could impose so hard a law upon the French,
and so destructive of all their consequence as a nations
as that they had imposed upon themselves.
France, by the mere circumstance of its vicinity,
had been, and in a degree always must be, an object
of our vigilance, either with regard to her actual
power or to her influence and example. As to the
former he had spoken; as to the latter (her example) he should say a few words: for by this example
our friendship and our intercourse with that nation
had once been, and might again become, more dangerous to us than their worst hostility.
In the last century, Louis the Fourteenth had es:
tablished a greater and better disciplined military
force than ever had been before seen in Europe, and
with it a perfect despotism. Though that despotism
was proudly arrayed in manners, gallantry, splendor,
magnificence, and even covered over with the imposing robes of science, literature, and arts, it was, in government, nothing better than a painted and gilded
tyranny, --in religion, a hard, stern intolerance, the
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES. 217
fit companion and auxiliary to the despotic tyranny
which prevailed in its government. The same character of despotism insinuated itself into every court of
Europe, - the same spirit of disproportioned magnificence, - the same love of standing armies, above the
ability of the people. In particular, our then sovereigns, King Charles and King James, fell in love
with the government of their neighbor, so flattering
to the pride of kings. A similarity of sentiments
brought on connections equally dangerous to the in-. terests and liberties of their country. It were well
that the infection had gone no farther than the
throne. The admiration of a government flourishing and successful, unchecked in its operations, and
seeming, therefore, to compass its objects more speedily and effectually, gained something upon all ranks
of people. The good patriots of that day, however,
struggled against it. They sought nothing more
anxiously than to break off all communication with
France, and to beget a total alienation from its councils and its example, - which, by the animosity prevalent between the abettors of their religious system and the assertors of ours, was in some degree effected.
This day the evil is totally changed in France: but
there is an evil there. The disease is altered; but
the vicinity of the two countries remains, and must
remain; and the natural mental habits of mankind
are such, that the present distemper of France is far
more likely to be contagious than the old one: for it
is not quite easy to spread a passion for servitude
among the people; but in all evils of the opposite
kind our natural inclinations are flattered. In the
case of despotism, there is the vfdum crimen servitutis:
? ? ? ? 218 SPEECH ON THE ARMIY ESTIMATES.
in the last, the falsa SPECIES libertatis; and accordingly, as the historian says, pronis auribus accipitur.
In the last age we were in danger of being entangled by the example of France in the net of a relentless despotism. It is not necessary to say anything upon that example. It exists no longer. Our present danger from the example of a people whose
character knows no medium is, with regard to government, a danger from anarchy: a danger of being
led, through an admiration of successful fraud and
violence, to an imitation of the excesses of an irra-,
tional, unprincipled, proscribing, confiscating, plundering, ferocious, bloody, and tyrannical democracy.
On the side of religion, the danger of their example is
no longer from intolerance, but from atheism: a foul,
unnatural vice, foe to all the dignity and consolation
of mankind; which seems in France, for a long time,
to have been embodied into a faction, accredited, and
almost avowed.
These are our present dangers from France. But,
in his opinion, the very worst part of the example
set is in the late assumption of citizenship by the
army, and the whole of the arrangement, or rather
disarrangement, of their military.
He was sorry that his right honorable friend (Mr.
Fox) had dropped even a word expressive of exultation on that circumstance, or that he seemed of
opinion that the objection from standing armies was
at all lessened by it. He attributed this opinion of
Mr. Fox entirely to his known zeal for the best of all
causes, liberty. That it was with a pain inexpressible
he was obliged to have even the shadow of a difference with his friend, whose authority would always
be great with him, and with all thinking people, --
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES 219
Quce maxima semper censetur nobis, et ERIT quce maxima
semper; -his confidence in Mr. Fox was such, and so
ample, as to be almost implicit. That he was not
ashamed to avow that degree of docility. That, when
the choice is well made, it strengthens, instead of oppressing our intellect. That he who calls in the aid of an equal understanding doubles his own. He who
profits of a superior understanding raises his powers to
a level with the height of the superior understanding
he unites with. He had found the benefit of such a
junction, and would not lightly depart from it. He
wished almost, on all occasions, that his sentiments
were understood to be conveyed in Mr. Fox's words.
And that he wished, as amongst the greatest benefits
he could wish the country, an eminent share of power
to that right honorable gentleman; because he knew
that to his great and masterly understanding he had
joined the greatest possible degree of that natural
moderation which is the best corrective of power:
that he was of the most artless, candid, open, and benevolent disposition; disinterested in the extreme; of a temper mild and placable even to a fault; without one drop of gall in his whole constitution.
That the House must perceive, from his coming
forward to mark an expression or two of his best
friend, how anxious he was to keep the distemper
of France from the least countenance in England,
where he was sure some wicked persons had shown
a strong disposition to recommend an imitation of
the French spirit of reform. He was so strongly
opposed to any the least tendency towards the means
of introducing a democracy like theirs, as well as to
the end itself, that, much as it would afflict him, if
such a thing could be attempted, and that any friend
? ? ? ? 220 SPEECH OrA'rH1E ARMY ESTIMA3TES.
of his could concur in such measures, (he was far,
very far, from believing they could,) he would abandon his best friends, and join with his worst enemies,
to oppose either the means or the end, -and to resist
all violent exertions of the spirit of innovation, so distant from all principles of true and safe reformation:
a spirit well calculated to overturn states, but perfectly unfit to amend them.
That he was no enemy to reformation. Almost
every business in which he was much concerned,
from the first day he sat in that House to that hour,
was a business of reformation; and when he had not
been employed in correcting, he had been employed
in resisting abuses. Some traces of this spirit in
him now stand on their statute-book. In his opinion,
anything which unnecessarily tore to pieces the contexture of the state not only prevented all real reformation, but introduced evils which would call, but perhaps call in vain, for new reformation.
That he thought the French nation very unwise.
What they valued themselves on was a disgrace to
them. They had gloried (and some people in England had thought fit to take share in that glory) in
making a Revolution, as if revolutions were good
things in themselves. All the horrors and all the
crimes of the anarchy which led to their Revolution,
which attend its progress, and which may virtually
attend it in its establishment, pass for nothing with
the lovers of revolutions. The French have made
their way, through the destruction of their country,
to a bad constitution, when they were absolutely in
possession of a good one. They were in possession
of it the day the states met in separate orders. Their
business, had they been either virtuous or wise, or had
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES. 221
been left to their own judgment, was to secure the
stability and independence of the states, according
to those orders, under the monarch on the throne.
It was then their duty to redress grievances.
Instead of redressing grievances, and improving the
fabric of their state, to which they were called by
their monarch and sent by their country, they were
made to take a very different course. They first destroyed all the balances and counterpoises which serve
to fix the state and to give it a steady direction, and
which furnish sure correctives to any violent spirit
which may prevail in any of the orders. These bal-.
ances existed in their oldest constitution, and in the
constitution of this country, and in the constitution,
of all the countries in Europe. These they rashly
destroyed, and then they melted down the whole into
one incongruous, ill-connected mass.
When they had done this, they instantly, and with
the most atrocious perfidy and breach of all faith
among men, laid the axe to the root of all property, and consequently of all national prosperity, by
the principles they established and the example they
set, in confiscating all the possessions of the Church.
They made and recorded a sort of institute and digest
of anarchy, called the Rights of Man, in such a pedantic abuse of elementary principles as would have disgraced boys at school: but this declaration of rights. was worse than trifling and pedantic in them; as
by their name and authority they systematically destroyed every hold of authority by opinion, religious
or civil, on the minds of the people. By this mad
declaration they subverted the state, and brought on
such calamities as no country, without a long war,
has ever been known to suffer, and which may in
? ? ? ? 222 SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES.
the end produce such a war, and perhaps many
such.
With them the question was not between despotism and liberty. The sacrifice they made of the
peace and power of their country was not made on
the altar of freedom. Freedom, and a better security
for freedom than that they have taken, they might
hlave had without any sacrifice at all. They brought
themselves into all the calamities they suffer, not
that through them they might obtain a British constitution; they plunged themselves headlong into those
calamities to prevent themselves from settling into
that constitution, or into anything resembling it.
That, if they should perfectly succeed in what they
propose, as they are likely enough to do, and establish a democracy, or a mob of democracies, in a country circumstanced like France, they will establish a very bad government, a very bad species of tyranny.
That the worst effect of all their proceeding was on
their military, which was rendered an army for every
purpose but that of defence. That, if the question
was, whether soldiers were to forget they were citizens, as an abstract proposition, he could have no
difference about it; though, as it is usual, when abstract principles are to be applied, much was to be
thought on the manner of uniting the character of
citizen and soldier. But as applied to the events
which had happened in France, where the abstract
principle was clothed with its circumstances, he
thought that his friend would agree with him, that
what was done there furnished no matter of exultation, either in the act or the example. These soldiers
were not citizens, but base, hireling mutineers, and
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES. 223
mercenary, sordid deserters, wholly destitute of any
honorable principle. Their conduct was one of the
fruits of that anarchic spirit from the evils of which
a democracy itself was to be resorted to, by those who
were the least disposed to that form, as a sort of refuge. It was not an army in corps and with discipline,
and embodied under the respectable patriot citizens of
the state in resisting tyranny. Nothing like it. It was
the case of common soldiers deserting from their officers, to join a furious, licentious populace. It was a
desertion to a cause the real object of which was to
level all those institutions, and to break all those connections, natural and civil, that regulate and hold together the community by a chain of subordination: to raise soldiers against their officers, servants against
their masters, tradesmen against their customers, artificers against their employers, tenants against their
landlords, curates against their bishops, and children
against their parents. That this cause of theirs was
not an enemy to servitude, but to society.
He wished the House to consider how the members would like to have their mansions pulled down
and pillaged, their persons abused, insulted, and
destroyed, their title-deeds brought out and burned
before their faces, and themselves and their families
driven to seek refuge in every nation throughout
Europe, for no other reason than this, that, without
any fault of theirs, they were born gentlemen and
men of property, and were suspected of a desire to
preserve their consideration and their estates. The
desertion in France was to aid an abominable sedition, the very professed principle of which was an implacable hostility to nobility and gentry, and whose savage war-whoop was, "A I'Aristocrate! "-by which
? ?
