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Edmund Burke tore into the directors of the East India Company, accusing them of doing less for the country than India’s mediaeval conquerors.
In 1783, Edmund Burke urged the House of Commons to strip the East India Company of its administration of India, arguing that the Mughal Emperors and other foreign conquerors had done more for the people than the Company seemed likely to do. His blistering attack on the Company’s record repays reading, as it applies just as well to modern aid programmes, interventions and regime changes.
Picture: By Percy Carpenter (1820-1895), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.
Posted February 6 2022
314
After the East India Company quieted the Maratha Confederacy in 1805, Harsukh Rai looked forward to a new era of good government.
After the Second Maratha War (1803-1805), the East India Company had complete control over the Maratha Confederacy, an alliance of kingdoms in modern-day Maharashtra. Much has since been written in criticism of the English in India, but little of it cuts to the heart, or (as he might put it) mantles the English cheek with the blush of shame, quite like Harsukh Rai’s guileless optimism.
Picture: 3.0.. Source.
Posted February 5 2022
315
After its prime minister signed the Maratha Confederacy over to the East India Company, the member states rose up in a body.
In 1796, Baji Rao II became Peshwa (prime Minister) of the Maratha Confederacy. When Holkar, Maharajah of Indore, one of the Confederacy’s four kingdoms, learnt that Baji Rao was behind the murder of a relative, he thrashed him at the Battle of Poona in 1802; but Baji Rao exacted spectacular retribution by signing the whole Maratha territory over to the East India Company. Holkar did not leave it there.
Picture: By Henry Alken, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.
Posted February 5 2022
316
A ‘slight and delicate’ Canadian woman defied twenty miles of rugged terrain in sweltering heat to warn of an impending attack by American invaders.
In 1813, US President James Madison seized the opportunity afforded by Napoleon’s rampage across Europe to order his troops into the British colony of Upper Canada, where they sacked York (Toronto). Monday 21st June found US General Henry Dearborn in Queenston readying a nasty surprise for Lieutenant James Fitzgibbon, garrisoned in a country home at Beaver Dams near Thorold, Ontario.
Picture: By Lorne Kidd Smith (1880-1966), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.
Posted February 2 2022
317
While on tour in Austria, Irish tenor Michael Kelly was introduced to Mozart, and discovered a man of many talents and much kindness.
In 1783, young Irish tenor Michael Kelly embarked upon a tour of Austria. One of his early engagements was a piano recital and supper-party also attended by none other than Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, now twenty-seven, and the two became friendly. Mozart spoke touchingly of his English friend Thomas Linley, a gifted violist who had drowned in a boating accident some five years earlier, aged just twenty-two.
Picture: By an anonymous artist, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.
Posted January 31 2022
318
Man had proved spiritually unprepared for the discovery of coal, said Robert Bruère, and was poised to squander the next energy revolution too.
In 1922, Robert W. Bruère gave thanks for the enormous social and economic benefits brought by the Coal Age. Yet the benefits could have been far greater. Despite so much plenty, mankind went on living as if life were still a desperate scramble for survival in which might is right and the weakest go to the wall. When we finally realise our dream of solar energy, will we be any better prepared?
Picture: © Paul Sidwell, Geograph. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.. Source.
Posted January 30 2022