debts, you see that this assertion of that knowledge is utterly
unfounded. But did the Directors approve of it, and ratify the
transaction, when it was known? The very reverse. On the same 3d of
March, the Directors declare, "upon an _impartial examination_ of the
whole conduct of our late Governor and Council of Fort George [Madras],
and on the fullest consideration, that the said Governor and Council
have, _in notorious violation of the trust_ reposed in them, manifestly
_preferred the interest of private individuals to that of the Company_,
in permitting the assignment of the revenues of certain valuable
districts, to a very large amount, from the Nabob to individuals"; and
then, highly aggravating their crimes, they add,--"We order and direct
that you do examine, in the most impartial manner, all the
above-mentioned transactions, and that you _punish_, by suspension,
degradation, dismission, or otherwise, as to you shall seem meet, all
and every such servant or servants of the Company who may by you be
found guilty of any of the above offences." "We had" (say the
Directors) "the mortification to find that the servants of the Company,
who had been _raised, supported, and owed their present opulence to the
advantages_ gained in such service, have in this instance most
_unfaithfully betrayed_ their trust, _abandoned_ the Company's interest,
and _prostituted_ its influence to accomplish the _purposes of
individuals, whilst the interest of the Company is almost wholly
neglected_, and payment to us rendered extremely precarious." Here,
then, is the rock of approbation of the Court of Directors, on which the
right honorable gentleman says this debt was founded. Any member, Mr.
Speaker, who should come into the House, on my reading this sentence of
condemnation of the Court of Directors against their unfaithful
servants, might well imagine that he had heard an harsh, severe,
unqualified invective against the present ministerial Board of Control.
So exactly do the proceedings of the patrons of this abuse tally with
those of the actors in it, that the expressions used in the condemnation
of the one may serve for the reprobation of the other, without the
change of a word.
To read you all the expressions of wrath and indignation fulminated in
this dispatch against the meritorious creditors of the right honorable
gentleman, who according to him have been so fully approved by the
Company, would be to read the whole.
The right honorable gentleman, with an address peculiar to himself,
every now and then slides in the Presidency of Madras, as synonymous to
the Company. That the Presidency did approve the debt is certain. But
the right honorable gentleman, as prudent in suppressing as skilful in
bringing forward his matter, has not chosen to tell you that the
Presidency were the very persons guilty of contracting this
loan,--creditors themselves, and agents and trustees for all the other
creditors. For this the Court of Directors accuse them of breach of
trust; and for this the right honorable gentleman considers them as
perfectly good authority for those claims. It is pleasant to hear a
gentleman of the law quote the approbation of creditors as an authority
for their own debt.
How they came to contract the debt to themselves, how they came to act
as agents for those whom they ought to have controlled, is for your
inquiry. The policy of this debt was announced to the Court of Directors
by the very persons concerned in creating it. "Till very lately," say
the Presidency, "the Nabob placed his dependence on the Company. Now he
has been taught by ill advisers that an interest out of doors may stand
him in good stead. He has been made to believe that _his private
creditors have power and interest to overrule the Court of
Directors_."[10] The Nabob was not misinformed. The private creditors
instantly qualified a vast number of votes; and having made themselves
masters of the Court of Proprietors, as well as extending a powerful
cabal in other places as important, they so completely overturned the
authority of the Court of Directors at home and abroad, that this poor,
baffled government was soon obliged to lower its tone. It was glad to be
admitted into partnership with its own servants. The Court of
Directors, establishing the debt which they had reprobated as a breach
of trust, and which was planned for the subversion of their authority,
settled its payments on a par with those of the public; and even so were
not able to obtain peace, or even equality in their demands. All the
consequences lay in a regular and irresistible train. By employing their
influence for the recovery of this debt, their orders, issued in the
same breath, against creating new debts, only animated the strong
desires of their servants to this prohibited prolific sport, and it soon
produced a swarm of sons and daughters, not in the least degenerated
from the virtue of their parents.
From that moment the authority of the Court of Directors expired in the
Carnatic, and everywhere else. "Every man," says the Presidency, "who
opposes the government and its measures, finds an immediate countenance
from the Nabob; even our discarded officers, however unworthy, are
received into the Nabob's service."[11] It was, indeed, a matter of no
wonderful sagacity to determine whether the Court of Directors, with
their miserable salaries to their servants, of four or five hundred
pounds a year, or the distributor of millions, was most likely to be
obeyed. It was an invention beyond the imagination of all the
speculatists of our speculating age, to see a government quietly settled
in one and the same town, composed of two distinct members: one to pay
scantily for obedience, and the other to bribe high for rebellion and
revolt.
The next thing which recommends this particular debt to the right
honorable gentleman is, it seems, the moderate interest of ten per cent.
It would be lost labor to observe on this assertion. The Nabob, in a
long apologetic letter[12] for the transaction between him and the body
of the creditors, states the fact as I shall state it to you. In the
accumulation of this debt, the first interest paid was from thirty to
thirty-six per cent; it was then brought down to twenty-five per cent;
at length it was reduced to twenty; and there it found its rest. During
the whole process, as often as any of these monstrous interests fell
into an arrear, (into which they were continually falling,) the arrear,
formed into a new capital,[13] was added to the old, and the same
interest of twenty per cent accrued upon both. The Company, having got
some scent of the enormous usury which prevailed at Madras, thought it
necessary to interfere, and to order all interests to be lowered to ten
per cent. This order, which contained no exception, though it by no
means pointed particularly to this class of debts, came like a
thunderclap on the Nabob. He considered his political credit as ruined;
but to find a remedy to this unexpected evil, he again added to the old
principal twenty per cent interest accruing for the last year. Thus a
new fund was formed; and it was on that accumulation of various
principals, and interests heaped upon interests, not on the sum
originally lent, as the right honorable gentleman would make you
believe, that ten per cent was settled on the whole.
When you consider the enormity of the interest at which these debts were
contracted, and the several interests added to the principal, I believe
you will not think me so skeptical, if I should doubt whether for this
debt of 880,000_l._ the Nabob ever saw 100,000_l._ in real money. The
right honorable gentleman suspecting, with all his absolute dominion
over fact, that he never will be able to defend even this venerable
patriarchal job, though sanctified by its numerous issue, and hoary with
prescriptive years, has recourse to recrimination, the last resource of
guilt. He says that this loan of 1767 was provided for in Mr. Fox's
India bill; and judging of others by his own nature and principles, he
more than insinuates that this provision was made, not from any sense of
merit in the claim, but from partiality to General Smith, a proprietor,
and an agent for that debt. If partiality could have had any weight
against justice and policy with the then ministers and their friends,
General Smith had titles to it. But the right honorable gentleman knows
as well as I do, that General Smith was very far from looking on himself
as partially treated in the arrangements of that time; indeed, what man
dared to hope for private partiality in that sacred plan for relief to
nations?
It is not necessary that the right honorable gentleman should
sarcastically call that time to our recollection. Well do I remember
every circumstance of that memorable period. God forbid I should forget
it! O illustrious disgrace! O victorious defeat! May your memorial be
fresh and new to the latest generations! May the day of that generous
conflict be stamped in characters never to be cancelled or worn out from
the records of time! Let no man hear of us, who shall not hear, that, in
a struggle against the intrigues of courts and the perfidious levity of
the multitude, we fell in the cause of honor, in the cause of our
country, in the cause of human nature itself! But if fortune should be
as powerful over fame as she has been prevalent over virtue, at least
our conscience is beyond her jurisdiction. My poor share in the support
of that great measure no man shall ravish from me. It shall be safely
lodged in the sanctuary of my heart,--never, never to be torn from
thence, but with those holds that grapple it to life.
I say, I well remember that bill, and every one of its honest and its
wise provisions. It is not true that this debt was ever protected or
enforced, or any revenue whatsoever set apart for it. It was left in
that bill just where it stood: to be paid or not to be paid out of the
Nabob's private treasures, according to his own discretion. The Company
had actually given it their sanction, though always relying for its
validity on the sole security of the faith of him[14] who without their
knowledge or consent entered into the original obligation. It had no
other sanction; it ought to have had no other. So far was Mr. Fox's bill
from providing _funds_ for it, as this ministry have wickedly done for
this, and for ten times worse transactions, out of the public estate,
that an express clause immediately preceded, positively forbidding any
British subject from receiving assignments upon any part of the
territorial revenue, on any pretence whatsoever.[15]
You recollect, Mr. Speaker, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer
strongly professed to retain every part of Mr. Fox's bill which was
intended to prevent abuse; but in _his_ India bill, which (let me do
justice) is as able and skilful a performance, for its own purposes, as
ever issued from the wit of man, premeditating this iniquity,--
Hoc ipsum ut strueret, Trojamque aperiret Achivis,--
expunged this essential clause, broke down the fence which was raised to
cover the public property against the rapacity of his partisans, and
thus levelling every obstruction, he made a firm, broad highway for sin
and death, for usury and oppression, to renew their ravages throughout
the devoted revenues of the Carnatic.
The tenor, the policy, and the consequences of this debt of 1767 are in
the eyes of ministry so excellent, that its merits are irresistible; and
it takes the lead to give credit and countenance to all the rest. Along
with this chosen body of heavy-armed infantry, and to support it in the
line, the right honorable gentleman has stationed his corps of black
cavalry. If there be any advantage between this debt and that of 1769,
according to him the cavalry debt has it. It is not a subject of
defence: it is a theme of panegyric. Listen to the right honorable
gentleman, and you will find it was contracted to save the country,--to
prevent mutiny in armies,--to introduce economy in revenues; and for
all these honorable purposes, it originated at the express desire and by
the representative authority of the Company itself.
First let me say a word to the authority. This debt was contracted, not
by the authority of the Company, not by its representatives, (as the
right honorable gentleman has the unparalleled confidence to assert,)
but in the ever-memorable period of 1777, by the usurped power of those
who rebelliously, in conjunction with the Nabob of Arcot, had overturned
the lawful government of Madras. For that rebellion this House
unanimously directed a public prosecution. The delinquents, after they
had subverted government, in order to make to themselves a party to
support them in their power, are universally known to have dealt jobs
about to the right and to the left, and to any who were willing to
receive them. This usurpation, which the right honorable gentleman well
knows was brought about by and for the great mass of these pretended
debts, is the authority which is set up by him to represent the
Company,--to represent that Company which, from the first moment of
their hearing of this corrupt and fraudulent transaction to this hour,
have uniformly disowned and disavowed it.
So much for the authority. As to the facts, partly true, and partly
colorable, as they stand recorded, they are in substance these. The
Nabob of Arcot, as soon as he had thrown off the superiority of this
country by means of these creditors, kept up a great army which he never
paid. Of course his soldiers were generally in a state of mutiny.[16]
The usurping Council say that they labored hard with their master, the
Nabob, to persuade him to reduce these mutinous and useless troops. He
consented; but, as usual, pleaded inability to pay them their arrears.
Here was a difficulty. The Nabob had no money; the Company had no money;
every public supply was empty. But there was one resource which no
season has ever yet dried up in that climate. The _soucars_ were at
hand: that is, private English money-jobbers offered their assistance.
Messieurs Taylor, Majendie, and Call proposed to advance the small sum
of 160,000_l._ to pay off the Nabob's black cavalry, provided the
Company's authority was given for their loan. This was the great point
of policy always aimed at, and pursued through a hundred devices by the
servants at Madras. The Presidency, who themselves had no authority for
the functions they presumed to exercise, very readily gave the sanction
of the Company to those servants who knew that the Company, whose
sanction was demanded, had positively prohibited all such transactions.
However, so far as the reality of the dealing goes, all is hitherto fair
and plausible; and here the right honorable gentleman concludes, with
commendable prudence, his account of the business. But here it is I
shall beg leave to commence my supplement: for the gentleman's discreet
modesty has led him to cut the thread of the story somewhat abruptly.
One of the most essential parties is quite forgotten. Why should the
episode of the poor Nabob be omitted? When that prince chooses it,
nobody can tell his story better. Excuse me, if I apply again to my
book, and give it you from the first hand: from the Nabob himself.
"Mr. Stratton became acquainted with this, and got Mr. Taylor and
others to lend me four lacs of pagodas towards discharging the arrears
of pay of my troops. Upon this, I wrote a letter of thanks to Mr.
Stratton; and upon the faith of this money being paid immediately, I
ordered many of my troops to be discharged by a certain day, and
lessened the number of my servants. Mr. Taylor, &c., some time after
acquainted me, that they had no ready money, but they would grant teeps
payable in four months. This astonished me; for I did not know what
might happen, when the sepoys were dismissed from my service. I begged
of Mr. Taylor and the others to pay this sum to the officers of my
regiments at the time they mentioned; and desired the officers, at the
same time, to pacify and persuade the men belonging to them that their
pay would be given to them _at the end of four months_, and that, till
those arrears were discharged, their pay should be continued to them.
_Two years_ are nearly expired since that time, but Mr. Taylor has not
yet entirely discharged the arrears of those troops, and I am obliged to
continue their pay from that time till this. I hoped to have been able,
by this expedient, to have lessened the number of my troops, and
discharged the arrears due to them, considering the trifle of interest
to Mr. Taylor and the others as no great matter; but instead of this, _I
am oppressed with the burden of pay due to those troops, and the
interest, which is going on to Mr. Taylor from the day the teeps were
granted to him_." What I have read to you is an extract of a letter from
the Nabob of the Carnatic to Governor Rumbold, dated the 22d, and
received the 24th of March, 1779.[17]
Suppose his Highness not to be well broken in to things of this kind,
it must, indeed, surprise so known and established a bond-vender as the
Nabob of Arcot, one who keeps himself the largest bond-warehouse in the
world, to find that he was now to receive in kind: not to take money for
his obligations, but to give his bond in exchange for the bond of
Messieurs Taylor, Majendie, and Call, and to pay, besides, a good, smart
interest, legally twelve per cent, (in reality, perhaps, twenty or
twenty-four per cent,) for this exchange of paper. But his troops were
not to be so paid, or so disbanded. They wanted bread, and could not
live by cutting and shuffling of bonds. The Nabob still kept the troops
in service, and was obliged to continue, as you have seen, the whole
expense to exonerate himself from which he became indebted to the
soucars.
Had it stood here, the transaction would have been of the most audacious
strain of fraud and usury perhaps ever before discovered, whatever might
have been practised and concealed. But the same authority (I mean the
Nabob's) brings before you something, if possible, more striking. He
states, that, for this their paper, he immediately handed over to these
gentlemen something very different from paper,--that is, the receipt of
a territorial revenue, of which, it seems, they continued as long in
possession as the Nabob himself continued in possession of anything.
Their payments, therefore, not being to commence before the end of four
months, and not being completed in two years, it must be presumed
(unless they prove the contrary) that their payments to the Nabob were
made out of the revenues they had received from his assignment. Thus
they condescended to accumulate a debt of 160,000_l._ with an interest
of twelve per cent, in compensation for a lingering payment to the
Nabob of 160,000_l._ of his own money.
Still we have not the whole. About two years after the assignment of
those territorial revenues to these gentlemen, the Nabob receives a
remonstrance from his chief manager in a principal province, of which
this is the tenor. "The _entire_ revenue of those districts is by your
Highness's order set apart to discharge the tunkaws [assignments]
granted to the Europeans. The gomastahs [agents] of Mr. Taylor to Mr. De
Fries are there in order to collect those tunkaws; and as they receive
_all_ the revenue that is collected, your Highness's troops have _seven
or eight months' pay due_, which they cannot receive, and are thereby
reduced to the greatest _distress_. _In such times_ it is highly
necessary to provide for the sustenance of the troops, that they may be
ready to exert themselves in the service of your Highness."
Here, Sir, you see how these causes and effects act upon one another.
One body of troops mutinies for want of pay; a debt is contracted to pay
them; and they still remain unpaid. A territory destined to pay other
troops is assigned for this debt; and these other troops fall into the
same state of indigence and mutiny with the first. Bond is paid by bond;
arrear is turned into new arrear; usury engenders new usury; mutiny,
suspended in one quarter, starts up in another; until all the revenues
and all the establishments are entangled into one inextricable knot of
confusion, from which they are only disengaged by being entirely
destroyed. In that state of confusion, in a very few months after the
date of the memorial I have just read to you, things were found, when
the Nabob's troops, famished to feed English soucars, instead of
defending the country, joined the invaders, and deserted in entire
bodies to Hyder Ali.[18]
The manner in which this transaction was carried on shows that good
examples are not easily forgot, especially by those who are bred in a
great school. One of those splendid examples give me leave to mention,
at a somewhat more early period; because one fraud furnishes light to
the discovery of another, and so on, until the whole secret of
mysterious iniquity bursts upon you in a blaze of detection. The paper I
shall read you is not on record. If you please, you may take it on my
word. It is a letter written from one of undoubted information in Madras
to Sir John Clavering, describing the practice that prevailed there,
whilst the Company's allies were under sale, during the time of Governor
Winch's administration.
"One mode," says Clavering's correspondent, "of amassing money at the
Nabob's cost is curious. He is generally in arrears to the Company. Here
the Governor, being cash-keeper, is generally on good terms with the
banker, who manages matters thus. The Governor presses the Nabob for the
balance due from him; the Nabob flies to his banker for relief; the
banker engages to pay the money, and grants his notes accordingly, which
he puts in the cash-book as ready money; the Nabob pays him an interest
for it at two and three per cent _per mensem_, till the tunkaws he
grants on the particular districts for it are paid. Matters in the mean
time are so managed that there is no call for this money for the
Company's service till the tunkaws become due. By this means not a cash
is advanced by the banker, though he receives a heavy interest from the
Nabob, which is divided as lawful spoil."
Here, Mr. Speaker, you have the whole art and mystery, the true
free-mason secret, of the profession of _soucaring_; by which a few
innocent, inexperienced young Englishmen, such as Mr. Paul Benfield, for
instance, without property upon which any one would lend to themselves a
single shilling, are enabled at once to take provinces in mortgage, to
make princes their debtors, and to become creditors for millions.
But it seems the right honorable gentleman's favorite soucar cavalry
have proved the payment before the Mayor's Court at Madras! Have they
so? Why, then, defraud our anxiety and their characters of that proof?
Is it not enough that the charges which I have laid before you have
stood on record against these poor injured gentlemen for eight years? Is
it not enough that they are in print by the orders of the East India
Company for five years? After these gentlemen have borne all the odium
of this publication and all the indignation of the Directors with such
unexampled equanimity, now that they are at length stimulated into
feeling are you to deny them their just relief? But will the right
honorable gentleman be pleased to tell us how they came not to give this
satisfaction to the Court of Directors, their lawful masters, during all
the eight years of this litigated claim? Were they not bound, by every
tie that can bind man, to give them this satisfaction? This day, for the
first time, we hear of the proofs. But when were these proofs offered?
In what cause? Who were the parties? Who inspected, who contested this
belated account? Let us see something to oppose to the body of record
which appears against them. The Mayor's Court! the Mayor's Court!
Pleasant! Does not the honorable gentleman know that the first corps of
creditors (the creditors of 1767) stated it as a sort of hardship to
them, that they could not have justice at Madras, from the impossibility
of their supporting their claims in the Mayor's Court? Why? Because, say
they, the members of that court were themselves creditors, and therefore
could not sit as judges.[19] Are we ripe to say that no creditor under
similar circumstances was member of the court, when the payment which is
the ground of this cavalry debt was put in proof?[20] Nay, are we not in
a manner compelled to conclude that the court was so constituted, when
we know there is scarcely a man in Madras who has not some participation
in these transactions? It is a shame to hear such proofs mentioned,
instead of the honest, vigorous scrutiny which the circumstances of such
an affair so indispensably call for.