The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III | Page 2

Company's servants. Besides these presumed payments in ready money,
(of which, from the nature of the thing, the direct proof is very difficult,)
debts have at several periods been acknowledged to those gentlemen, to
an immense amount,--that is, to some millions of sterling money. There
is strong reason to suspect that the body of these debts is wholly
fictitious, and was never created by money _bonâ fide_ lent. But even
on a supposition that this vast sum was really advanced, it was
impossible that the very reality of such an astonishing transaction
should not cause some degree of alarm and incite to some sort of
inquiry.
It was not at all seemly, at a moment when the Company itself was so
distressed as to require a suspension, by act of Parliament, of the
payment of bills drawn on them from India,--and also a direct tax upon
every house in England, in order to facilitate the vent of their goods,
and to avoid instant insolvency,--at that very moment, that their
servants should appear in so flourishing a condition, as, besides ten
millions of other demands on their masters, to be entitled to claim a
debt of three or four millions more from the territorial revenue of one
of their dependent princes.
The ostensible pecuniary transactions of the Nabob of Arcot with very
private persons are so enormous, that they evidently set aside every
pretence of policy which might induce a prudent government in some
instances to wink at ordinary loose practice in ill-managed departments.
No caution could be too great in handling this matter, no scrutiny too
exact. It was evidently the interest, and as evidently at least in the
power, of the creditors, by admitting secret participation in this dark
and undefined concern, to spread corruption to the greatest and the
most alarming extent.
These facts relative to the debts were so notorious, the opinion of their
being a principal source of the disorders of the British government in
India was so undisputed and universal, that there was no party, no

description of men in Parliament, who did not think themselves bound,
if not in honor and conscience, at least in common decency, to institute
a vigorous inquiry into the very bottom of the business, before they
admitted any part of that vast and suspicious charge to be laid upon an
exhausted country. Every plan concurred in directing such an inquiry,
in order that whatever was discovered to be corrupt, fraudulent, or
oppressive should lead to a due animadversion on the offenders, and, if
anything fair and equitable in its origin should be found, (nobody
suspected that much, comparatively speaking, would be so found,) it
might be provided for,--in due subordination, however, to the ease of
the subject and the service of the state.
These were the alleged grounds for an inquiry, settled in all the bills
brought into Parliament relative to India,--and there were, I think, no
less than four of them. By the bill commonly called Mr. Pitt's bill, the
inquiry was specially, and by express words, committed to the Court of
Directors, without any reserve for the interference of any other person
or persons whatsoever. It was ordered that they should make the inquiry
into the origin and justice of these debts, as far as the materials in their
possession enabled them to proceed; and where they found those
materials deficient, they should order the Presidency of Fort St. George
(Madras) to complete the inquiry.
The Court of Directors applied themselves to the execution of the trust
reposed in them. They first examined into the amount of the debt,
which they computed, at compound interest, to be 2,945,600_l._
sterling. Whether their mode of computation, either of the original
sums or the amount on compound interest, was exact, that is, whether
they took the interest too high or the several capitals too low, is not
material. On whatever principle any of the calculations were made up,
none of them found the debt to differ from the recital of the act, which
asserted that the sums claimed were "very large." The last head of these
debts the Directors compute at 2,465,680_l._ sterling. Of the existence
of this debt the Directors heard nothing until 1776, and they say, that,
"although they had repeatedly written to the Nabob of Arcot, and to
their servants, respecting the debt, yet they _had never been able to
trace the origin thereof, or to obtain any satisfactory information on the
subject_."
The Court of Directors, after stating the circumstances under which the

debts appeared to them to have been contracted, add as follows:--"For
these reasons we should have thought it our duty to inquire very
minutely into those debts, even if the act of Parliament had been silent
on the subject, before we concurred in any measure