With 23,000_l._ of the Rajah's money in his pocket, he persecutes him to
his destruction,--assigning for a reason, that his reliance on the
Rajah's faith, and his breach of it, were the principal causes that _no
other_ provision was made for the detachment on the specific expedition
to which the Rajah's specific money was to be applied. The Rajah had
given it to be disposed of by Mr. Hastings; and if it was not disposed
of in the best manner for the accomplishing his objects, the accuser
himself is the criminal.
To take money for the forbearance of a just demand would have been
corrupt only; but to urge unjust public demands,--to accept private
pecuniary favors in the course of those demands,--and, on the pretence
of delay or refusal, without mercy to persecute a benefactor,--to refuse
to hear his remonstrances,--to arrest him in his capital, in his palace,
in the face of all the people,--thus to give occasion to an
insurrection, and, on pretext of that insurrection, to refuse all treaty
or explanation,--to drive him from his government and his country,--to
proscribe him in a general amnesty,--and to send him all over India a
fugitive, to publish the shame of British government in all the nations
to whom he successively fled for refuge,--these are proceedings to
which, for the honor of human nature, it is hoped few parallels are to
be found in history, and in which the illegality and corruption of the
acts form the smallest part of the mischief.
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