But if
the right honorable gentleman will have no regard to fact in his
insinuations or to reason in his opinions, I wish him at least to
consider, that, if taking an earnest part with regard to the oppressions
exercised in India, and with regard to this most oppressive case of
Tanjore in particular, can ground a presumption of interested motives,
he is himself the most mercenary man I know. His conduct, indeed, is
such that he is on all occasions the standing testimony against himself.
He it was that first called to that case the attention of the House; the
reports of his own committee are ample and affecting upon that
subject;[57] and as many of us as have escaped his massacre must
remember the very pathetic picture he made of the sufferings of the
Tanjore country, on the day when he moved the unwieldy code of his
Indian resolutions. Has he not stated over and over again, in his
reports, the ill treatment of the Rajah of Tanjore (a branch of the
royal house of the Mahrattas, every injury to whom the Mahrattas felt as
offered to themselves) as a main cause of the alienation of that people
from the British power? And does he now think that to betray his
principles, to contradict his declarations, and to become himself an
active instrument in those oppressions which he had so tragically
lamented, is the way to clear himself of having been actuated by a
pecuniary interest at the time when he chose to appear full of
tenderness to that ruined nation?
The right honorable gentleman is fond of parading on the motives of
others, and on his own.
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