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The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 09 (of 12) by Edmund Burke
page 62 of 440 (14%)
offering, and the price of which_, he said, _it was but natural to
suppose would fall_.

That the said Warren Hastings, having, by his own act, loaded the
Company with a commodity for which, either in the ordinary and regular
course of public auction, or even by private contract, there was, as he
affirmed, no sale, did, under pretence of finding a market for the same,
engage the Company in an enterprise of great and certain expense,
subject to a manifest risk, and full of disgrace to the East India
Company, not only in their political character, as a great sovereign
power in India, but in their commercial character, as an eminent and
respectable body of merchants; and that the execution of this enterprise
was accompanied with sundry other engagements with other persons, in all
of which the Company's interest was constantly sacrificed to that of
individuals favored by the said Warren Hastings.

That the said Warren Hastings first engaged in a scheme to export one
thousand four hundred and sixty chests of opium, on the Company's
account, on board a ship belonging to Cudbert Thornhill, half of which
was to be disposed of in a coasting voyage, and the remainder in Canton.
That, besides the freight and commission payable to the said Thornhill
on this adventure, twelve pieces of cannon belonging to the Company were
lent for arming the ship; though his original proposal was, that the
ship should be armed at his expense. That this part of the adventure,
depending for its success on a prudent and fortunate management of
various sales and resales in the course of a circuitous voyage, and
being exposed to such risk both of sea and enemy that all private
traders had declined to be concerned in it, was particularly unfit for a
great trading company, and could not be undertaken on their account with
any rational prospect of advantage.
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