The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 03 (of 12). Edmund Burke

of Madras.

3

Appendix, No. 1.

4

The whole of the net Irish hereditary revenue is, on a medium of the last seven years, about 330,000l. yearly. The revenues of all denominations fall short more than 150,000l. yearly of the charges. On the present produce, if Mr. Pitt's scheme was to take place, he might gain from seven to ten thousand pounds a year.

5

Mr. Smith's Examination before the Select Committee. Appendix, No. 2.

6

Appendix, No. 2.

7

Fourth Report, Mr. Dundas's Committee, p. 4.

8

A witness examined before the Committee of Secrecy says that eighteen per cent was the usual interest, but he had heard that more had been given. The above is the account which Mr. B. received.

9

Mr. Dundas.

10

For the threats of the creditors, and total subversion of the authority of the Company in favor of the Nabob's power and the increase thereby of his evil dispositions, and the great derangement of all public concerns, see Select Committee Fort St. George's letters, 21st November, 1769, and January 31st, 1770; September 11, 1772; and Governor Bourchier's letters to the Nabob of Arcot, 21st November, 1769, and December 9th, 1769.

11

"He [the Nabob] is in a great degree the cause of our present inability, by diverting the revenues of the Carnatic through private channels." "Even this peshcush [the Tanjore tribute], circumstanced as he and we are, he has assigned over to others, who now set themselves in opposition to the Company."—Consultations, October 11, 1769, on the 12th communicated to the Nabob.

12

Nabob's letter to Governor Palk. Papers published by the Directors in 1775; and papers printed by the same authority, 1781.

13

See papers printed by order of a General Court in 1780, pp. 222 and 224; as also Nabob's letter to Governor Dupré, 19th July, 1771: "I have taken up loans by which I have suffered a loss of upwards of a crore of pagodas [four millions sterling] by interest on an heavy interest." Letter 15th January, 1772: "Notwithstanding I have taken much trouble, and have made many payments to my creditors, yet the load of my debt, which became so great by interest and compound interest, is not cleared."

14

The Nabob of Arcot.

15

Appendix, No. 3.

16

See Mr. Dundas's 1st, 2d, and 3d Reports.

17

See further Consultations, 3d February, 1778.

18

Mr. Dundas's 1st Report, pp. 26, 29, and Appendix, No. 2, 10, 18, for the mutinous state and desertion of the Nabob's troops for want of pay. See also Report IV. of the same committee.

19

Memorial from the creditors to the Governor and Council, 22d January, 1770.

20

In the year 1778, Mr. James Call, one of the proprietors of this specific debt, was actually mayor. (Appendix to 2d Report of Mr. Dundas's committee, No. 65.) The only proof which appeared on the inquiry instituted in the General Court of 1781 was an affidavit of the lenders themselves, deposing (what nobody ever denied) that they had engaged and agreed to pay—not that they had paid—the sum of 160,000l. This was two years after the transaction; and the affidavit is made before George Proctor, mayor, an attorney for certain of the old creditors.—Proceedings of the President and Council of Fort St. George, 22d February, 1779.

21

Right Honorable Henry Dundas.

22

Appendix to the 4th Report of Mr. Dundas's committee, No 15.

23

"No sense of the common danger, in case of a war, can prevail on him [the Nabob of Arcot] to furnish the Company with what is absolutely necessary to assemble an army, though it is beyond a doubt that money to a large amount is now hoarded up in his coffers at Chepauk; and tunkaws are granted to individuals, upon some of his most valuable countries, for payment of part of those debts which he has contracted, and which certainly will not bear inspection, as neither debtor nor creditors have ever had the confidence to submit the accounts to our examination, though they expressed a wish to consolidate the debts under the auspices of this government, agreeably to a plan they had formed."—Madras Consultations, 20th July, 1778. Mr. Dundas's Appendix to 2nd Report, 143. See also last Appendix to ditto Report, No. 376, B.

24

Transcriber's note: Footnote missing in original text.

25

Lord Pigot

26

In Sir Thomas Rumbold's letter to the Court of Directors, March 15th, 1778, he represents it as higher, in the following manner:—"How shall I paint to you my astonishment, on my arrival here, when I was informed, that, independent of this four lacs of pagodas [the Cavalry Loan], independent of the Nabob's debt to his old creditors, and the money due to the Company, he had contracted a debt to the enormous amount of sixty-three lacs of pagodas [2,520,000l.]. I mention this circumstance to you with horror; for the creditors being in general servants of the Company renders my task, on the part of the Company, difficult and invidious." "I have freed the sanction of this government from so corrupt a transaction. It is in my mind the most venal of all proceedings to give the Company's protection to debts that cannot bear the light; and though it appears exceedingly alarming, that a country on which you are to depend for resources should be so involved as to be nearly three years' revenue in debt,—in a country, too, where one year's revenue can never be called secure, by men who know anything of the politics of this part of India." "I think it proper to mention to you, that, although the Nabob reports his private debt to amount to upwards of sixty lacs, yet I understand that it is not quite so much." Afterwards Sir Thomas Rumbold recommended this debt to the favorable attention of the Company, but without any sufficient reason for his change of disposition. However, he went no further.

27

Nabob's proposals, November 25th, 1778; and memorial of the creditors, March 1st, 1779.

28

Nabob's proposals to his new consolidated creditors, November 25th, 1778.

29

Paper signed by the Nabob, 6th January, 1780.

30

Kistbundi to July 31, 1780.

31

Governor's letter to the Nabob, 25th July, 1779.

32

Report of the Select Committee, Madras Consultations, January 7, 1771. See also papers published by the order of the Court of Directors in 1776; and Lord Macartney's correspondence with Mr. Hastings and the Nabob of Arcot. See also Mr. Dundas's Appendix, No 376, B. Nabob's propositions through Mr. Sulivan and Assam Khân, Art. 6, and indeed the whole.

33

"The principal object of the expedition is, to get money from Tanjore to pay the Nabob's debt: if a surplus, to be applied in discharge of the Nabob's debts to his private creditors." (Consultations, March 20, 1771; and for further lights, Consultations, 12th June, 1771.) "We are alarmed lest this debt to individuals should have been the real motive for the aggrandizement of Mahomed Ali [the Nabob of Arcot], and that we are plunged into a war to put him in possession of the Mysore revenues for the discharge of the debt."—Letter from the Directors, March 17, 1769.

34

Letter from the Nabob, May 1st, 1768; and ditto, 24th April, 1770, 1st October; ditto, 16th September, 1772, 16th March, 1773.

35

Letter from the Presidency at Madras to the Court of Directors, 27th June, 1769.