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Burke, Edmund, 1729-1797

"The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 08 (of 12)"

_ per annum, and over and above the 50,000_l._ extraordinary,
to provide a body of cavalry for the service of the Bengal government.
IX. The demand, as expressed in the Minute of Consultation, and in the
public instructions of the board to the Resident to make the
requisition, is "for such part of the cavalry entertained in his service
as he can spare"; and the demand is in this and in no other manner
described by the Governor-General and Council in their letter to the
Court of Directors. But in a Narrative of the said Warren Hastings's,
addressed to Edward Wheler, Esquire, it appears, that, upon the Rajah's
making difficulties, according to the representation of the said
Hastings, relative to the said requisition, the correspondence
concerning which the said Hastings hath fraudulently suppressed, he, the
said Hastings, instead of adhering to the requisition of such cavalry
_as the Rajah could spare_, and which was all that by the order of
Council he was authorized to make, did, of his own private and arbitrary
authority, in some letter which he hath suppressed, instruct the
Resident, Markham, to make a peremptory demand for two thousand cavalry,
which he well knew to be more than the Rajah's finances could support,
estimating the provision for the same at 96,000_l.


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