Siyar al-mutaʾakhkhirin 42.28.6

42.28.6

The same man in the year 1776, had a considerable difference with the Provincial Council of Moorshood-abad, who were guilty towards him of a glaring injustice and this was the expression used by Governor Hastings himself in full Council. In the sequel the man who saw that the public and even the Supreme Council itself swayed by the name and authority of Provincial Council, had greatly mistaken his case, thought it incumbent upon him to set the public to rights; and he distributed ten copies of a long letter of twenty pages written on the subject. All that I can say about it is, that it turned the tide of popular favor, and produced the gain of his cause. But as it represented the glaring injustice in such a manner as rendered the Provincial Council, both odious and ridiculous, and even threw a slur upon some operations of Government itself, the Supreme Council wrote to their substitutes at Moorshood-abad to let the man alone henceforward. This letter was read by Sir Elijah Impey; and the man happening once to be at breakfast with that Magistrate, but at the other end of the table, a Captain of an East Indiaman, who was close to Sir E., asked him whether the man could speak some English? Speak some English! answered the Magistrate in a low voice, but which I overheard; he writes it as they do in London, without having ever been in England, and he is a formidable writer in polemics. The latter phrase was pronounced with a sneer.