clearness, the connection of the ministers with Mr. Atkinson at the
general election; I have laid open to you the connection of Atkinson
with Benfield; I have shown Benfield's employment of his wealth in
creating a Parliamentary interest to procure a ministerial protection; I
have set before your eyes his large concern in the debt, his practices
to hide that concern from the public eye, and the liberal protection
which he has received from the minister. If this chain of circumstances
does not lead you necessarily to conclude that the minister has paid to
the avarice of Benfield the services done by Benfield's connections to
his ambition, I do not know anything short of the confession of the
party that can persuade you of his guilt. Clandestine and collusive
practice can only be traced by combination and comparison of
circumstances. To reject such combination and comparison is to reject
the only means of detecting fraud; it is, indeed, to give it a patent
and free license to cheat with impunity.
I confine myself to the connection of ministers, mediately or
immediately, with only two persons concerned in this debt. How many
others, who support their power and greatness within and without doors,
are concerned originally, or by transfers of these debts, must be left
to general opinion. I refer to the reports of the Select Committee for
the proceedings of some of the agents in these affairs, and their
attempts, at least, to furnish ministers with the means of buying
General Courts, and even whole Parliaments, in the gross.[65]
I know that the ministers will think it little less than acquittal, that
they are not charged with having taken to themselves some part of the
money of which they have made so liberal a donation to their partisans,
though the charge may be indisputably fixed upon the corruption of their
politics. For my part, I follow their crimes to that point to which
legal presumptions and natural indications lead me, without considering
what species of evil motive tends most to aggravate or to extenuate the
guilt of their conduct. But if I am to speak my private sentiments, I
think that in a thousand cases for one it would be far less mischievous
to the public, and full as little dishonorable to themselves, to be
polluted with direct bribery, than thus to become a standing auxiliary
to the oppression, usury, and peculation of multitudes, in order to
obtain a corrupt support to their power. It is by bribing, not so often
by being bribed, that wicked politicians bring rum on mankind. Avarice
is a rival to the pursuits of many. It finds a multitude of checks, and
many opposers, in every walk of life. But the objects of ambition are
for the few; and every person who aims at indirect profit, and therefore
wants other protection than innocence and law, instead of its rival,
becomes its instrument. There is a natural allegiance and fealty due to
this domineering, paramount evil, from all the vassal vices, which
acknowledge its superiority, and readily militate under its banners; and
it is under that discipline alone that avarice is able to spread to any
considerable extent, or to render itself a general, public mischief. It
is therefore no apology for ministers, that they have not been bought by
the East India delinquents, but that they have only formed an alliance
with them for screening each other from justice, according to the
exigence of their several necessities. That they have done so is
evident; and the junction of the power of office in England with the
abuse of authority in the East has not only prevented even the
appearance of redress to the grievances of India, but I wish it may not
be found to have dulled, if not extinguished, the honor, the candor, the
generosity, the good-nature, which used formerly to characterize the
people of England. I confess, I wish that some more feeling than I have
yet observed for the sufferings of our fellow-creatures and
fellow-subjects in that oppressed part of the world had manifested
itself in any one quarter of the kingdom, or in any one large
description of men.
That these oppressions exist is a fact no more denied than it is
resented as it ought to be. Much evil has been done in India under the
British authority. What has been done to redress it? We are no longer
surprised at anything. We are above the unlearned and vulgar passion of
admiration. But it will astonish posterity, when they read our opinions
in our actions, that, after years of inquiry, we have found out that the
sole grievance of India consisted in this, that the servants of the
Company there had not profited enough of their opportunities, nor
drained it sufficiently of its treasures,--when they shall hear that the
very first and only important act of a commission specially named by act
of Parliament is, to charge upon an undone country, in favor of a
handful of men in the humblest ranks of the public service, the enormous
sum of perhaps four millions of sterling money.
It is difficult for the most wise and upright government to correct the
abuses of remote, delegated power, productive of unmeasured wealth, and
protected by the boldness and strength of the same ill-got riches. These
abuses, full of their own wild native vigor, will grow and flourish
under mere neglect. But where the supreme authority, not content with
winking at the rapacity of its inferior instruments, is so shameless and
corrupt as openly to give bounties and premiums for disobedience to its
laws,--when it will not trust to the activity of avarice in the pursuit
of its own gains,--when it secures public robbery by all the careful
jealousy and attention with which it ought to protect property from such
violence,--the commonwealth then is become totally perverted from its
purposes; neither God nor man will long endure it; nor will it long
endure itself. In that case, there is an unnatural infection, a
pestilential taint, fermenting in the constitution of society, which
fever and convulsions of some kind or other must throw off, or in which
the vital powers, worsted in an unequal struggle, are pushed back upon
themselves, and, by a reversal of their whole functions, fester to
gangrene, to death,--and instead of what was but just now the delight
and boast of the creation, there will be cast out in the face of the sun
a bloated, putrid, noisome carcass, full of stench and poison, an
offence, a horror, a lesson to the world.
In my opinion, we ought not to wait for the fruitless instruction of
calamity to inquire into the abuses which bring upon us ruin in the
worst of its forms, in the loss of our fame and virtue. But the right
honorable gentleman[66] says, in answer to all the powerful arguments of
my honorable friend, "that this inquiry is of a delicate nature, and
that the state will suffer detriment by the exposure of this
transaction." But it is exposed; it is perfectly known in every member,
in every particle, and in every way, except that which may lead to a
remedy. He knows that the papers of correspondence are printed, and that
they are in every hand.
He and delicacy are a rare and a singular coalition. He thinks that to
divulge our Indian politics may be highly dangerous. He! the mover, the
chairman, the reporter of the Committee of Secrecy! he, that brought
forth in the utmost detail, in several vast, printed folios, the most
recondite parts of the politics, the military, the revenues of the
British empire in India! With six great chopping bastards,[67] each as
lusty as an infant Hercules, this delicate creature blushes at the sight
of his new bridegroom, assumes a virgin delicacy; or, to use a more fit,
as well as a more poetic comparison, the person so squeamish, so timid,
so trembling lest the winds of heaven should visit too roughly, is
expanded to broad sunshine, exposed like the sow of imperial augury,
lying in the mud with all the prodigies of her fertility about her, as
evidence of her delicate amours,--
Triginta capitum fœtus enixa jacebat,
Alba, solo recubans, albi circum ubera nati.
Whilst discovery of the misgovernment of others led to his own power, it
was wise to inquire, it was safe to publish: there was then no
delicacy; there was then no danger. But when his object is obtained, and
in his imitation he has outdone the crimes that he had reprobated in
volumes of reports and in sheets of bills of pains and penalties, then
concealment becomes prudence, and it concerns the safety of the state
that we should not know, in a mode of Parliamentary cognizance, what all
the world knows but too well, that is, in what manner he chooses to
dispose of the public revenues to the creatures of his politics.
The debate has been long, and as much so on my part, at least, as on the
part of those who have spoken before me. But long as it is, the more
material half of the subject has hardly been touched on: that is, the
corrupt and destructive system to which this debt has been rendered
subservient, and which seems to be pursued with at least as much vigor
and regularity as ever. If I considered your ease or my own, rather than
the weight and importance of this question, I ought to make some apology
to you, perhaps some apology to myself, for having detained your
attention so long. I know on what ground I tread. This subject, at one
time taken up with so much fervor and zeal, is no longer a favorite in
this House. The House itself has undergone a great and signal
revolution. To some the subject is strange and uncouth; to several,
harsh and distasteful; to the relics of the last Parliament it is a
matter of fear and apprehension. It is natural for those who have seen
their friends sink in the tornado which raged during the late shift of
the monsoon, and have hardly escaped on the planks of the general wreck,
it is but too natural for them, as soon as they make the rocks and
quicksands of their former disasters, to put about their new-built
barks, and, as much as possible, to keep aloof from this perilous lee
shore.
But let us do what we please to put India from our thoughts, we can do
nothing to separate it from our public interest and our national
reputation. Our attempts to banish this importunate duty will only make
it return upon us again and again, and every time in a shape more
unpleasant than the former. A government has been fabricated for that
great province; the right honorable gentleman says that therefore you
ought not to examine into its conduct. Heavens! what an argument is
this! We are not to examine into the conduct of the Direction, because
it is an old government; we are not to examine into this Board of
Control, because it is a new one. Then we are only to examine into the
conduct of those who have no conduct to account for. Unfortunately, the
basis of this new government has been laid on old, condemned
delinquents, and its superstructure is raised out of prosecutors turned
into protectors. The event has been such as might be expected. But if it
had been otherwise constituted, had it been constituted even as I
wished, and as the mover of this question had planned, the better part
of the proposed establishment was in the publicity of its proceedings,
in its perpetual responsibility to Parliament. Without this check, what
is our government at home, even awed, as every European government is,
by an audience formed of the other states of Europe, by the applause or
condemnation of the discerning and critical company before which it
acts? But if the scene on the other side of the globe, which tempts,
invites, almost compels, to tyranny and rapine, be not inspected with
the eye of a severe and unremitting vigilance, shame and destruction
must ensue. For one, the worst event of this day, though it may deject,
shall not break or subdue me. The call upon us is authoritative. Let who
will shrink back, I shall be found at my post. Baffled, discountenanced,
subdued, discredited, as the cause of justice and humanity is, it will
be only the dearer to me. Whoever, therefore, shall at any time bring
before you anything towards the relief of our distressed fellow-citizens
in India, and towards a subversion of the present most corrupt and
oppressive system for its government, in me shall find a weak, I am
afraid, but a steady, earnest, and faithful assistant.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Right Honorable Henry Dundas.
[2] Sir Thomas Rumbold, late Governor of Madras.
[3] Appendix, No. 1.
[4] The whole of the net Irish hereditary revenue is, on a medium of the
last seven years, about 330,000_l._ yearly. The revenues of all
denominations fall short more than 150,000_l._ yearly of the charges. On
the _present_ produce, if Mr. Pitt's scheme was to take place, he might
gain from seven to ten thousand pounds a year.
[5] Mr. Smith's Examination before the Select Committee. Appendix, No.
2.
[6] Appendix, No. 2.
[7] Fourth Report, Mr. Dundas's Committee, p. 4.
[8] A witness examined before the Committee of Secrecy says that
eighteen per cent was the usual interest, but he had heard that more had
been given. The above is the account which Mr. B. received.
[9] Mr. Dundas.
[10] For the threats of the creditors, and total subversion of the
authority of the Company in favor of the Nabob's power and the increase
thereby of his evil dispositions, and the great derangement of all
public concerns, see Select Committee Fort St. George's letters, 21st
November, 1769, and January 31st, 1770; September 11, 1772; and Governor
Bourchier's letters to the Nabob of Arcot, 21st November, 1769, and
December 9th, 1769.
[11] "He [the Nabob] is in a great degree the cause of our present
inability, by diverting the revenues of the Carnatic through _private
channels_." "Even this peshcush [the Tanjore tribute], circumstanced as
he and we are, he has assigned over to others, _who now set themselves
in opposition to the Company_."--Consultations, October 11, 1769, on the
12th communicated to the Nabob.
[12] Nabob's letter to Governor Palk. Papers published by the Directors
in 1775; and papers printed by the same authority, 1781.
[13] See papers printed by order of a General Court in 1780, pp. 222 and
224; as also Nabob's letter to Governor Dupré, 19th July, 1771: "I have
taken up loans by which I have suffered a loss of _upwards of a crore of
pagodas_ [four millions sterling] _by interest on an heavy interest_."
Letter 15th January, 1772: "Notwithstanding I have taken much trouble,
and have made many payments to my creditors, yet the load of my debt,
_which became so great by interest and compound interest_, is not
cleared."
[14] The Nabob of Arcot.
[15] Appendix, No. 3.
[16] See Mr. Dundas's 1st, 2d, and 3d Reports.
[17] See further Consultations, 3d February, 1778.
[18] Mr. Dundas's 1st Report, pp. 26, 29, and Appendix, No. 2, 10, 18,
for the mutinous state and desertion of the Nabob's troops for want of
pay. See also Report IV. of the same committee.
[19] Memorial from the creditors to the Governor and Council, 22d
January, 1770.
[20] In the year 1778, Mr. James Call, one of the proprietors of this
specific debt, was actually mayor. (Appendix to 2d Report of Mr.
Dundas's committee, No. 65.) The only proof which appeared on the
inquiry instituted in the General Court of 1781 was an affidavit of _the
lenders themselves_, deposing (what nobody ever denied) that they had
_engaged_ and _agreed_ to pay--not that they _had_ paid--the sum of
160,000_l._ This was two years after the transaction; and the affidavit
is made before George Proctor, mayor, an attorney for certain of the old
creditors.--Proceedings of the President and Council of Fort St. George,
22d February, 1779.
[21] Right Honorable Henry Dundas.
[22] Appendix to the 4th Report of Mr. Dundas's committee, No 15.
[23] "No sense of the common danger, in case of a war, can prevail on
him [the Nabob of Arcot] to furnish the Company with what is absolutely
necessary to assemble an army, though it is beyond a doubt that money to
a large amount is now hoarded up in his coffers at Chepauk; and tunkaws
are granted to _individuals_, upon some of his most _valuable
countries_, for payment of part of those debts which he has contracted,
and _which certainly will not bear inspection, as neither debtor nor
creditors have ever had the confidence to submit the accounts to our
examination_, though they expressed a wish to consolidate the debts
under the auspices of this government, agreeably to a plan they had
formed."--Madras Consultations, 20th July, 1778. Mr. Dundas's Appendix
to 2nd Report, 143. See also last Appendix to ditto Report, No. 376, B.
[24] Transcriber's note: Footnote missing in original text.
[25] Lord Pigot
[26] In Sir Thomas Rumbold's letter to the Court of Directors, March
15th, 1778, he represents it as higher, in the following manner:--"How
shall I paint to you my astonishment, on my arrival here, when I was
informed, that, independent of this four lacs of pagodas [the Cavalry
Loan], independent of the Nabob's debt to his old creditors, and the
money due to the Company, he had contracted a debt to the enormous
amount of sixty-three lacs of pagodas [2,520,000_l._]. I mention this
circumstance to you _with horror_; for the creditors being in general
_servants of the Company_ renders my task, on the part of the Company,
_difficult and invidious_." "I have freed the sanction of this
government from so _corrupt_ a transaction. It is in my mind the most
venal of all proceedings to give the Company's protection to debts that
cannot bear the light; and though it appears exceedingly alarming, that
a country on which you are to depend for resources should be so involved
as to be nearly three years' revenue in debt,--in a country, too, where
one year's revenue can never be called _secure_, by men who know
anything of the politics of this part of India." "I think it proper to
mention to you, that, although _the Nabob reports his private debt to
amount to upwards of sixty lacs_, yet I understand that it is not quite
so much." Afterwards Sir Thomas Rumbold recommended this debt to the
favorable attention of the Company, but without any sufficient reason
for his change of disposition. However, he went no further.
[27] Nabob's proposals, November 25th, 1778; and memorial of the
creditors, March 1st, 1779.
[28] Nabob's proposals to his new consolidated creditors, November 25th,
1778.
[29] Paper signed by the Nabob, 6th January, 1780.
[30] Kistbundi to July 31, 1780.
[31] Governor's letter to the Nabob, 25th July, 1779.
[32] Report of the Select Committee, Madras Consultations, January 7,
1771. See also papers published by the order of the Court of Directors
in 1776; and Lord Macartney's correspondence with Mr. Hastings and the
Nabob of Arcot. See also Mr. Dundas's Appendix, No 376, B. Nabob's
propositions through Mr. Sulivan and Assam Khân, Art. 6, and indeed the
whole.
[33] "The principal object of the expedition is, to get money from
Tanjore to pay the Nabob's debt: if a surplus, to be applied in
discharge of the Nabob's debts to his private creditors."
(Consultations, March 20, 1771; and for further lights, Consultations,
12th June, 1771.) "We are alarmed lest this debt to _individuals_ should
have been the _real_ motive for the aggrandizement of Mahomed Ali [the
Nabob of Arcot], and that _we are plunged into a war_ to put him in
possession of the Mysore revenues _for the discharge of the
debt_."--Letter from the Directors, March 17, 1769.
[34] Letter from the Nabob, May 1st, 1768; and ditto, 24th April, 1770,
1st October; ditto, 16th September, 1772, 16th March, 1773.
[35] Letter from the Presidency at Madras to the Court of Directors,
27th June, 1769.
[36] Mr. Dundas's committee. Report L, Appendix, No. 29.
[37] Appendix, No. 4, Report of the Committee of Assigned Revenue.
[38] Mr. Barnard's map of the Jaghire
[39] See Report IV., Mr. Dundas's committee, p. 46.
[40] Interest is rated in India by the month.
[41] Mr. Dundas's committee. Rep. I. p. 9, and ditto, Rep. IV. 69, where
the revenue of 1777 stated only at 22 lacs,--30 lacs stated as the
revenue, "_supposing_ the Carnatic to be _properly_ managed."
[42] See Appendix, No. 4, statement in the Report of the Committee of
Assigned Revenue.
[43] The province of Tinnevelly.
[44] Appendix, No. 5.
[45] See extract of their letter in the Appendix, No. 9.
[46] "It is certain that the incursion of a _few_ of Hyder's horse into
the Jaghire, in 1767, cost the Company upwards of pagodas 27,000, _in
allowances for damages_."--Consultations, February 11th, 1771.
[47] Proceeding at Madras, 11th February, 1769, and throughout the
correspondence on this subject; particularly Consultations, October 4th,
1769, and the creditors' memorial, 20th January, 1770.
[48] Appendix, No. 7.
[49] For some part of these usurious transactions, see Consultation,
28th January, 1781; and for the Nabob's excusing his oppressions on
account of these debts, Consultation, 26th November, 1770. "Still I
undertook, first, the payment of the money belonging to the Company, who
are my kind friends, and by borrowing, and _mortgaging my jewels, &c._,
by _taking from every one of my servants_, in proportion to their
circumstances, by _fresh severities_ also on my country,
_notwithstanding its distressed state_, as you know."--The Board's
remark is as follows: after controverting some of the facts, they say,
"That his countries are oppressed is most certain, but not from real
necessity; _his debts, indeed, have afforded him a constant pretence_
for using severities and cruel oppressions."
[50] See Consultation, 28th January, 1781, where it is asserted, and not
denied, that the Nabob's farmers of revenue seldom continue for three
months together. From this the state of the country may be easily judged
of.
[51] In Mr. Fox's speech.
[52] The amended letter, Appendix, No. 9.
[53] Appendix, No. 8.
[54] Mr. Petrie's evidence before the Select Committee, Appendix, No. 7.
[55] Appendix, No. 7.
[56] Mr. Dundas.
[57] See Report IV., Committee of Secrecy, pp. 73 and 74; and Appendix,
in sundry places.
[58] Mr. Smith's protest.
[59] Madras correspondence on this subject.
[60] Appendix, No 6.
[61] Right Honorable William Pitt.
[62] Appendix, No. 10.
[63] Dated 13th October. For further illustration of the style in which
these letters were written, and the principles on which they proceed,
see letters from the Nabob to the Court of Directors, dated August 16th
and September 7th, 1783, delivered by Mr. James Macpherson, minister to
the Nabob, January 14, 1784. Appendix, No. 10.
[64] Appendix, No. 6.
[65] Second Report of Select (General Smith's) Committee.
[66] Mr. Dundas.
[67] Six Reports of the Committee of Secrecy.
APPENDIX.
* * * * *
No. 1.
CLAUSES OF MR PITT'S BILL.
Referred to from p. 17.
_Appointing Commissioners to inquire into the Fees, Gratuities,
Perquisites, Emoluments, which are, or have been lately, received in the
several Public Offices therein mentioned; to examine into any Abuses
which may exist in the same, &c._
And be it further enacted, that it shall and may be lawful to and for
the said commissioners, or any two of them, and they are hereby
empowered, authorized, and required, _to examine upon oath_ (which oath
they, or any two of them, are hereby authorized to administer) the
several persons, of _all_ descriptions, belonging to any of the offices
or departments before mentioned, and _all other persons_ whom the said
commissioners, or any two of them, shall think fit to examine, touching
_the business_ of each office or department, and _the fees, gratuities,
perquisites, and emoluments taken therein_, and touching all other
matters and things necessary for the execution of the powers vested in
the said commissioners by this act; _all which persons_ are hereby
required and directed punctually to attend the said commissioners, _at
such time and place as they, or any two of them, shall appoint, and also
to observe and execute such orders and directions_ as the said
commissioners, or any two of them, shall make or give for the purposes
before mentioned.