The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 12 (of 12) by Edmund Burke
page 58 of 473 (12%)
page 58 of 473 (12%)
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in the prisoners part of the Nabob's army, or were they any British
troops?--_A._ To the best of my recollection, they were detached from a regiment then stationed at Fyzabad.--_Q._ In whose service was that regiment?--_A._ In the Company's.--_Q._ Were they imprisoned in any house near that in which you resided?--_A._ They were imprisoned immediately under the window of the house in which I resided, close to it.--_Q._ Did you or did you not ever see any preparations made for any corporal punishment?--_A._ I saw something of a scaffolding.--_Q._ For what purpose?--_A._ I heard it was for the purpose of tying them up.--_Q._ Whose prisoners did you consider these men to be?--_A._ I considered them as prisoners of the Resident; they were close to his house, and under an European officer." Your Lordships have now seen the whole process, except one dreadful part of it, which was the threatening to send the Begum to the castle at Chunar. After all these cruelties, after all these menaces of further cruelties, after erecting a scaffold for actually exercising the last degree of criminal punishment, namely, by whipping these miserable persons in public,--after everything has been done but execution, our inability to prove by evidence this part of their proceedings has secured to your Lordships a circumstance of decorum observed on the stage where murders, executions, whippings, and cruelties are performed behind the scenes. I know as certainly as a man can know such a thing, from a document which I cannot produce in evidence here, but I have it in the handwriting of the Resident, Mr. Bristow, that Behar Ali Khân was actually scourged in the manner that we speak of. I had it in writing in the man's hand; I put the question to him, but he refused to answer it, because he thought it might criminate himself, and criminate us all; but if your Lordships saw the scaffold erected for the purpose, (and of |
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