SPEECH ON THE MOTION MADE FOR PAPERS RELATIVE TO THE DIRECTIONS FOR CHARGING THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S PRIVATE DEBTS TO EUROPEANS ON THE REVENUES OF THE CARNATIC. FEBRUARY 28, 1785. Ενταῦθα τί πράττειν ἐχρῆν ἄνδρα τῶν Πλάτωνος καὶ ̓Αριστοτέλους ζηλωτὴν δογμάτων; ἆρα περιορᾶν ἀνθρώπους ἀθλίους τοῖς κλέπταις ἐκδιδομένους, ἢ κατὰ δύναμιν αὐτοῖς ἀμύνειν, οἶμαι, ὡς ἤδη τὸ κύκνειον ἐξᾴδουσι διὰ τὸ θεομισὲς ἐργαστήριον τῶν τοιούτων; Ἐμοὶ μὲν οὖν αἰσχρὸν εἶναι δοκεῖ τοὺς μὲν χιλιάρχους, ὅταν λείπωσι τὴν τάξιν, καταδικάζειν· . .. τὴν δὲ ὑπὲρ ἀθλίων ἀνθρώπων ὑπολείπειν τάξιν, ὅταν δέῃ πρὸς κλέπτας ἀγωνίζεσθαι τοιούτους· καὶ ταῦτα τοῦ Θεοῦ συμμαχοῦντος ἡμῖν, ὥσπερ οὖν ἔταξεν.—JULIANI Epist. 17. ADVERTISEMENT THAT the least informed reader of this speech may be enabled to enter fully into the spirit of the transaction, on occasion of which it was delivered, it may be proper to acquaint him, that among the princes dependent on this nation in the southern parts of India, the most considerable at present is commonly known by the title of the nabob of Arcot. This prince owed the establishment of his government, against the claims of his elder brother, as well as those of other competitors, to the arms and influence of the British East India Company. Being thus established in a considerable part of the dominions he now possesses, he began, about the year 1765, to form, at the instigation (as he asserts) of the servants of the East India Company, a variety of designs for the further extension of his territories. Some years after he carried his views to certain objects of interior arrangement of a very pernicious nature. None of these designs could be compassed without the aid of the company's arms; nor could those arms be employed consistently with an obedience to the company's orders. He was therefore advised to form a more secret, but an equally powerful interest among the servants of that company, and among others both at home and abroad. By engaging them in his interests, the use of the company's power might be obtained without their ostensible authority: the power might even be employed in defiance of the authority; if the case should require, as in truth it often did require, a proceeding of that degree of boldness. The company had put him into possession of several great cities and magnificent castles. The good order of his affairs, his sense of personal dignity, his ideas of oriental splendour, and the habits of an Asiatic life (to which, being a native of India and a Mahometan, he had from his infancy been inured) would naturally have led him to fix the seat of his government within his own dominions. Instead of this, he totally sequestered himself from his country; and, abandoning all appearance of state, he took up his residence in an ordinary house, which he purchased in the suburbs of the company's factory at Madras. In that place he has lived, without removing one day from thence, for several years past. He has there continued a constant cabal with the company's servants from the highest to the lowest; creating, out of the ruins of the country, brilliant fortunes for those who will, and entirely destroying those who will not, be subservient to his purposes. An opinion prevailed, strongly confirmed by several passages in his own letters, as well as by a combination of circumstances forming a body of evidence which cannot be resisted, that very great sums have been by him distributed, through a long course of years, to some of the company's servants. Besides these presumed payments in ready money (of which, from the nature of the thing, the direct proof is very difficult), debts have at several periods been acknowledged to those gentlemen to an immense amount; that is, to some millions of sterling money. There is strong reason to suspect, that the body of these debts is wholly fictitious, and was never created by money bona fide lent. even on a supposition that this vast sum was really advanced, it was impossible that the very reality of such an astonishing transaction should not cause some degree of alarm, and incite to some sort of inquiry. But It was not at all seemly, at a moment when the company itself was so distressed, as to require a suspension, by act of parliament, of the payment of bills drawn on them from India-and also a direct tax upon every house in England, in order to facilitate the vent of their goods, and to avoid instant insolvency-at that very moment that their servants should appear in so 1 |