1812.
J. MOYES, PRINTER,
Greville Street
[PREFACE.]
I have hitherto abstained from controversy regarding the late unhappy proceedings at Madras. The part which I had taken in these proceedings had placed me in possession of much information, and I had given a shape to my sentiments upon the subject; but the knowledge of these was limited to a few intimate friends, and to them only under the strictest injunctions of secrecy. I have been applied to more than once for papers and information upon this subject, but have invariably refused; as I deemed it improper to give publicity in any mode to communications, whether verbal or in writing, which had been, at the moment at which they were made, considered as private, or confidential. Nothing could have led me to a departure from this principle but a perusal of the dispatch under date the 10th of September, 1809, from the Government of Fort St. George to the Secret Committee of the Court of Directors, printed by order of the House of Commons. That dispatch contains an implied censure upon my conduct, which nothing but a conviction of its justice could induce me to pass over in silence.
Injustice is aggravated by the power of the individual or body by whom it is committed, and by the want of ability or opportunity in the person who suffers to repel the attack. Had not this dispatch been printed by order of the House of Commons, my character would have secretly received a deep and incurable wound: for as it is not likely the Honourable the Court of Directors could have ever thought it possible that so deliberate and grave an authority as the Government of Fort St. George, could (without adequate grounds) have pronounced censure on the character of an officer who stood at the moment as high in rank and trust as the local Government of India had power to raise him[1], it becomes probable, that most of those who read this dispatch would be satisfied, without a minute examination of the documents by which it was accompanied: and if any readers went into this detail, and were struck with the remarkable difference between the apparent premises and the conclusions drawn from them, it is more likely they would conclude, that grounds, not yet brought before them, existed, which would warrant the assertions made by Government, than that they should ever suppose the latter had committed such an injustice towards any individual in their service.