The Public and Domestic Life of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1854 edition. Excerpt: ...of France. Oude, with its dependent provinces, is 53,286 square miles, not a great deal less than England. The Carnatic, with Tanjore and the Circars, is 65,948 square miles, very considerably larger than England; and the whole of the Company's dominions, comprehending Bombay and Salsette, amount to 281,412 square miles; which forms a territory larger than any European dominion, Russia and Turkey excepted. Through all that vast extent of country there is not a man who eats a mouthful of rice but by permission of the East India Company. "So far with regard to the extent. The population of this great empire is not easily to be calculated. When the countries of which it is composed came into our possession, they were all eminently peopled and eminently productive, though at that time considerably declined from their ancient prosperity. But, since they are come into our hands!! However, if we make the period of our estimate immediately before the utter desolation of the Carnatic, and if we allow for the havoc which our government had even then made in these regions, we cannot, in my opinion, rate the population at much less than thirty millions of souls--more than four times the number of persons in the island of Great Britain. SPEECH ON THE EAST INDIA BILLS. 161 "My next inquiry to that of the number, is the quality and description of the inhabitants. This multitude of men does not consist of an abject and barbarous populace; much less of gangs of savages, like the Guaranies and Chiquitos, who wander on the waste borders of the river of Amazons or the Plate; but a people for ages civilised and cultivated--cultivated by all the arts of polished life whilst we were yet in the woods. There have been (and still the skeletons remain)...