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Burke, Edmund, 1729-1797

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

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 [2,520,000_l._]. 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.


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