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204
LORD CLIVE

of the State is illegal'; (3) 'that very great sums of money, and other valuable property, had been acquired in Bengal from princes and others of that country by persons entrusted with the civil and military powers of the State by means of such powers; which sums of money and valuable property have been appropriated to the private use of such persons.'

These resolutions named nobody. But in the speech in which they were introduced Burgoyne took care that there should be no doubt as to the person against whom they were directed. He dwelt, with a bitterness not to be surpassed, on all the delinquencies, real and imaginary, of the conqueror of Bengal. He traced all the misfortunes which had subsequently happened to the Company to the treasonable compact which had dethroned Siráj-ud-daulá and placed Mír Jafar on his seat, and denounced the conduct of the authors of that transaction as 'black perfidy.' He denounced, also, in terms equally severe, the treatment of Aminchand; the forging of the name of Admiral Watson; the agreement, which, he said, had extorted from Mír Jafar enormous sums, under the guise of presents, to the leading servants of the Company in Bengal. On the second administration of Clive, which was really a long struggle against the corruption by which he was surrounded, Burgoyne railed as bitterly and as unsparingly. Nor was he content with merely railing. Before he sat down he declared that if the House should pass his resolutions he would not stop there, but would proceed to follow them up with others, his