Khan, Mr. Speaker, is less than the County
of Norfolk. It is an inland country, full seven hundred miles from any
seaport, and not distinguished for any one considerable branch of
manufacture whatsoever. From this territory several very considerable
sums had at several times been paid to the British resident. The demand
of cavalry, without a shadow or decent pretext of right, amounted to
three hundred thousand a year more, at the lowest computation; and it is
stated, by the last person sent to negotiate, as a demand of little use,
if it could be complied with,--but that the compliance was impossible,
as it amounted to more than his territories could supply, if there had
been no other demand upon him. Three hundred thousand pounds a year from
an inland country not so large as Norfolk!

The thing most extraordinary was to hear the culprit defend himself from
the imputation of his virtues, as if they had been the blackest
offences. He extenuated the superior cultivation of his country. He
denied its population. He endeavored to prove that he had often sent
back the poor peasant that sought shelter with him.--I can make no
observation on this.

After a variety of extortions and vexations, too fatiguing to you, too
disgusting to me, to go through with, they found "that they ought to be
in a better state to warrant forcible means"; they therefore contented
themselves with a gross sum of one hundred and fifty thousand pounds for
their present demand. They offered him, indeed, an indemnity from their
exactions in future for three hundred thousand pounds more. But he
refused to buy their securities,--pleading (probably with truth) his
poverty; but if the plea were not founded, in my opinion very wisely:
not choosing to deal any more in that dangerous commodity of the
Company's faith; and thinking it better to oppose distress and unarmed
obstinacy to uncolored exaction than to subject himself to be considered
as a cheat, if he should make a treaty in the least beneficial to
himself.

Thus they executed an exemplary punishment on Fizulla Khan for the
culture of his country. But, conscious that the prevention of evils is
the great object of all good regulation, they deprived him of the means
of increasing that criminal cultivation in future, by exhausting his
coffers; and that the population of his country should no more be a
standing reproach and libel on the Company's government, they bound him
by a positive engagement not to