ought to have, a judicial patience. Mr. Hastings has none of any kind. I
hold that patience is one of the great virtues of a governor; it was
said of Moses, that he governed by patience, and that he was the meekest
man upon earth. Patience is also the distinguishing character of a
judge; and I think your Lordships, both with regard to us and with
regard to him, have shown a great deal of it: we shall ever honor the
quality, and if we pretend to say that we have had great patience in
going through this trial, so your Lordships must have had great patience
in hearing it. But this man's patience, as he himself tells you, was
soon exhausted. "I considered," he says, "the light in which such
behavior would have been viewed by his native sovereign, and I resolved
he should feel the power he had so long insulted. Forty or fifty lacs of
rupees would have been a moderate fine for Sujah ul Dowlah to exact,--he
who had demanded twenty-five lacs for the mere fine of succession, and
received twenty in hand, and an increased rent tantamount to
considerably above thirty lacs more; and therefore I rejected the offer
of twenty, with which the Rajah would have compromised for his guilt
when it was too late."
Now, my Lords, observe who his models were, when he intended to punish
this man for an insult on himself. Did he consult the laws? Did he look
to the Institutes of Timour, or to those of Genghis Khân? Did he look to
the Hedaya, or to any of the approved authorities in this country? No,
my Lords, he exactly followed the advice which Longinus gives to a great
writer:--"Whenever you have a mind to elevate your mind, to raise it to
its highest pitch, and even to exceed yourself, upon any subject, think
how Homer would have described it, how Plato would have imagined it, and
how Demosthenes would have expressed it; and when you have so done, you
will then, no doubt, have a standard which will raise you up to the
dignity of anything that human genius can aspire to." Mr. Hastings was
calling upon himself, and raising his mind to the dignity of what
tyranny could do, what unrighteous exaction could perform. He
considered, he says, how much Sujah Dowlah would have exacted, and that
he thinks would not be too much for him to exact. He boldly avows,--"I
raised my mind to the elevation of Sujah Dowlah; I considered what
Cossim Ali Khân would have done, or Aliverdy Khân, who murdered and
robbed so many, I had all this line of great examples before me, and I
asked myself what fine they would have exacted upon such an occasion.
But," says he, "Sujah Dowlah levied a fine of twenty lacs for a right of
succession."
Good God! my Lords, if you are not appalled with the violent injustice
of arbitrary proceedings, you must feel something humiliating at the
gross ignorance of men who are in this manner playing with the rights of
mankind. This man confounds a fine upon succession with a fine of
penalty. He takes advantage of a defect in the technical language of our
law, which, I am sorry to say, is not, in many parts, as correct in its
distinctions and as wise in its provisions as the Mahometan law. We use
the word _fine_ in three senses: first, as a punishment and penalty;
secondly, as a formal means of cutting off by one form the ties of
another form, which we call levying a fine; and, thirdly, we use the
word to signify a sum of money payable upon renewal of a lease or
copyhold. The word has in each case a totally different sense; but such
is the stupidity and barbarism of the prisoner, that he confounds these
senses, and tells you Sujah Dowlah took twenty-five lacs as a fine from
Cheyt Sing for the renewal of his zemindary, and therefore, as a
punishment for his offences, he shall take fifty. Suppose any one of
your Lordships, or of us, were to be fined for assault and battery, or
for anything else, and it should be said, "You paid such a fine for a
bishop's lease, you paid such a fine on the purchase of an estate, and
therefore, now that you are going to be fined for a punishment, we will
take the measure of the fine, not from the nature and quality of your
offence, not from the law upon the subject, or from your ability to
pay, but the amount of a fine you paid some years ago for an estate
shall be the measure of your punishment." My Lords, what should we say
of such brutish ignorance, and such shocking confusion of ideas?
When this man had elevated his mind according to the rules of art, and
stimulated himself to great things by great examples, he goes on to tell
you that he rejected the offer of twenty lacs with which the Rajah would
have compounded for his guilt when it was too late.
Permit me, my Lords, to say a few words here, by way of referring back
all this monstrous heap of violence and absurdity to some degree of
principle. Mr. Hastings having completely acquitted the Rajah of any
other fault than contumacy, and having supposed even that to be only
personal to himself, he thought a fine of 500,000_l._ would be a proper
punishment. Now, when any man goes to exact a fine, it presupposes
inquiry, charge, defence, and judgment. It does so in the Mahometan law;
it does so in the Gentoo law; it does so in the law of England, in the
Roman law, and in the law, I believe, of every nation under heaven,
except in that law which resides in the arbitrary breast of Mr.
Hastings, poisoned by the principles and stimulated by the examples of
those wicked traitors and rebels whom I have before described. He
mentions his intention of levying a fine; but does he make any mention
of having charged the Rajah with his offences? It appears that he held
an incredible quantity of private correspondence through the various
Residents, through Mr. Graham, Mr. Fowke, Mr. Markham, Mr. Benn,
concerning the affairs of that country. Did he ever, upon this alleged
contumacy, (for at present I put the rebellion out of the question,)
inquire the progress of this personal affront offered to the
Governor-General of Bengal? Did he ever state it to the Rajah, or did he
call his vakeel before the Council to answer the charge? Did he examine
any one person, or particularize a single fact, in any manner whatever?
No. What, then, did he do? Why, my Lords, he declared himself the person
injured, stood forward as the accuser, assumed the office of judge, and
proceeded to judgment without a party before him, without trial, without
examination, without proof. He thus directly reversed the order of
justice. He determined to fine the Rajah when his own patience, as he
says, was exhausted, not when justice demanded the punishment. He
resolved to fine him in the enormous sum of 500,000_l._ Does he inform
the Council of this determination? No. The Court of Directors? No. Any
one of his confidants? No, not one of them,--not Mr. Palmer, not Mr.
Middleton, nor any of that legion of secretaries that he had; nor did he
even inform Mr. Malcolm [Markham?] of his intentions, until he met him
at Boglipore.
In regard to the object of his malice, we only know that many letters
came from Cheyt Sing to Mr. Hastings, in which the unfortunate man
endeavored to appease his wrath, and to none of which he ever gave an
answer. He is an accuser preferring a charge and receiving apologies,
without giving the party an answer, although he had a crowd of
secretaries about him, maintained at the expense of the miserable people
of Benares, and paid by sums of money drawn fraudulently from their
pockets. Still not one word of answer was given, till he had formed the
resolution of exacting a fine, and had actually by torture made his
victim's servant discover where his master's treasures lay, in order
that he might rob him of all his family possessed. Are these the
proceedings of a British judge? or are they not rather such as are
described by Lord Coke (and these learned gentlemen, I dare say, will
remember the passage; it is too striking not to be remembered) as _"the
damned and damnable proceedings of a judge in hell_"? Such a judge has
the prisoner at your bar proved himself to be. First he determines upon
the punishment, then he prepares the accusation, and then by torture and
violence endeavors to extort the fine.
My Lords, I must again beg leave to call your attention to his mode of
proceeding in this business. He never entered any charge. He never
answered any letter. Not that he was idle. He was carrying on a wicked
and clandestine plot for the destruction of the Rajah, under the
pretence of this fine; although the plot was not known, I verily
believe, to any European at the time. He does not pretend that he told
any one of the Company's servants of his intentions of fining the Rajah;
but that some hostile project against him had been formed by Mr.
Hastings was perfectly well known to the natives. Mr. Hastings tells
you, that Cheyt Sing had a vakeel at Calcutta, whose business it was to
learn the general transactions of our government, and the most minute
particulars which could in any manner affect the interest of his
employer.
I must here tell your Lordships, that there is no court in Asia, from
the highest to the lowest, no petty sovereign, that does not both employ
and receive what they call _hircarrahs_, or, in other words, persons to
collect and to communicate political intelligence. These men are
received with the state and in the rank of ambassadors; they have their
place in the durbar; and their business, as authorized spies, is as well
known there as that of ambassadors extraordinary and ordinary in the
courts of Europe. Mr. Hastings had a public spy, in the person of the
Resident, at Benares, and he had a private spy there in another person.
The spies employed by the native powers had by some means come to the
knowledge of Mr. Hastings's clandestine and wicked intentions towards
this unhappy man, Cheyt Sing, and his unhappy country, and of his
designs for the destruction and the utter ruin of both. He has himself
told you, and he has got Mr. Anderson to vouch it, that he had received
proposals for the sale of this miserable man and his country. And from
whom did he receive these proposals, my Lords? Why, from the Nabob Asoph
ul Dowlah, to whom he threatened to transfer both the person of the
Rajah and his zemindary, if he did not redeem himself by some pecuniary
sacrifice. Now Asoph ul Dowlah, as appears by the minutes on your
Lordships' table, was at that time a bankrupt. He was in debt to the
Company tenfold more than he could pay, and all his revenues were
sequestered for that debt. He was a person of the last degree of
indolence with the last degree of rapacity,--a man of whom Mr. Hastings
declared, that he had wasted and destroyed by his misgovernment the
fairest provinces upon earth, that not a person in his dominions was
secure from his violence, and that even his own father could not enjoy
his life and honor in safety under him. This avaricious bankrupt tyrant,
who had beggared and destroyed his own subjects, and could not pay his
debts to the English government, was the man with whom Mr. Hastings was
in treaty to deliver up Cheyt Sing and his country, under pretence of
his not having paid regularly to the Company those customary payments
which the tyrant would probably have never paid at all, if he had been
put in possession of the country. This I mention to illustrate Mr.
Hastings's plans of economy and finance, without considering the
injustice and cruelty of delivering up a man to the hereditary enemy of
his family.
It is known, my Lords, that Mr. Hastings, besides having received
proposals for delivering up the beautiful country of Benares, that
garden of God, as it is styled in India, to that monster, that rapacious
tyrant, Asoph ul Dowlah, who with his gang of mercenary troops had
desolated his own country like a swarm of locusts, had purposed likewise
to seize Cheyt Sing's own patrimonial forts, which was nothing less than
to take from him the residence of his women and his children, the seat
of his honor, the place in which the remaining treasures and last hopes
of his family were centred. By the Gentoo law, every lord or supreme
magistrate is bound to construct and to live in such a fort. It is the
usage of India, and is a matter of state and dignity, as well as of
propriety, reason, and defence. It was probably an apprehension of being
injured in this tender point, as well as a knowledge of the proposal
made by the Nabob, which induced Cheyt Sing to offer to buy himself off;
although it does not appear from any part of the evidence that he
assigned any other reason than that of Mr. Hastings intending to exact
from him six lacs of rupees over and above his other exactions.
Mr. Hastings, indeed, almost acknowledges the existence of this plot
against the Rajah, and his being the author of it. He says, without any
denial of the fact, that the Rajah suspected some strong acts to be
intended against him, and therefore asked Mr. Markham whether he could
not buy them off and obtain Mr. Hastings's favor by the payment of
200,000_l._ Mr. Markham gave as his opinion, that 200,000_l._ was not
sufficient; and the next day the Rajah offered 20,000_l._ more, in all
220,000_l._ The negotiation, however, broke off; and why? Not, as Mr.
Markham says he conjectured, because the Rajah had learned that Mr.
Hastings had no longer an intention of imposing these six lacs, or
something to that effect, and therefore retracted his offer, but because
that offer had been rejected by Mr. Hastings.
Let us hear what reason the man who was in the true secret gives for not
accepting the Rajah's offer. "I rejected," says Mr. Hastings, "the offer
of twenty lacs, with which the Rajah would have compromised for his
guilt when it was too late." My Lords, he best knows what the motives of
his own actions were. He says, the offer was made "when it was too
late." Had he previously told the Rajah what sum of money he would be
required to pay in order to buy himself off, or had he required him to
name any sum which he was willing to pay? Did he, after having refused
the offer made by the Rajah, say, "Come and make me a better offer, or
upon such a day I shall declare that your offers are inadmissible"? No
such thing appears. Your Lordships will further remark, that Mr.
Hastings refused the 200,000_l._ at a time when the exigencies of the
Company were so pressing that he was obliged to rob, pilfer, and steal
upon every side,--at a time when he was borrowing 40,000_l._ from Mr.
Sulivan in one morning, and raising by other under-jobs 27,000_l._ more.
In the distress [in?] which his own extravagance and prodigality had
involved him, 200,000_l._ would have been a weighty benefit, although
derived from his villany; but this relief he positively refused,
because, says he, "the offer came too late." From these words, my Lords,
we may infer that there was a time when the offer would not have been
"too late,"--a period at which it would have been readily accepted. No
such thing appears. There is not a trace upon your minutes, not a trace
in the correspondence of the Company, to prove that the Rajah would at
any time have been permitted to buy himself off from this complicated
tyranny.
I have already stated a curious circumstance in this proceeding, to
which I must again beg leave to direct your Lordships' attention. Does
it anywhere appear in that correspondence, or in the testimony of Mr.
Benn, of Mr. Markham, or of any human being, that Mr. Hastings had ever
told Cheyt Sing with what sum he should be satisfied? There is evidence
before you directly in proof that they did not know the amount. Not one
person knew what his intention was, when he refused this 200,000_l._ For
when he met Mr. Markham at Boglipore, and for the first time mentioned
the sum of 500,000_l._ as the fine he meant to exact, Mr. Markham was
astonished and confounded at its magnitude. He tells you this himself.
It appears, then, that neither Cheyt Sing nor the Resident at Benares
(who ought to have been in the secret, if upon such an occasion secrecy
is allowable) ever knew what the terms were. The Rajah was in the dark;
he was left to feel, blindfold, how much money could relieve him from
the iniquitous intentions of Mr. Hastings; and at last he is told that
his offer comes too late, without having ever been told the period at
which it would have been well-timed, or the amount it was proposed to
take from him. Is this, my Lords, the proper way to adjudge a fine?
Your Lordships will now be pleased to advert to the manner in which he
defends himself and these proceedings. He says, "I rejected this offer
of twenty lacs, with which the Rajah would have compromised for his
guilt when it was too late." If by these words he means too late to
answer the purpose for which he has said the fine was designed, namely,
the relief of the Company, the ground of his defence is absolutely
false; for it is notorious that at the time referred to the Company's
affairs were in the greatest distress.
I will next call your Lordships' attention to the projected sale of
Benares to the Nabob of Oude. "If," says Mr. Hastings, "I ever talked of
selling the Company's sovereignty over Benares to the Nabob of Oude, it
was but _in terrorem_; and no subsequent act of mine warrants the
supposition of my having seriously intended it." And in another place he
says, "If I ever threatened" (your Lordships will remark, that he puts
hypothetically a matter the reality of which he has got to be solemnly
declared on an affidavit, and in a narrative to the truth of which he
has deposed upon oath)--"if I ever threatened," says he, "to dispossess
the Rajah of his territories, it is no more than what my predecessors,
without rebuke from their superiors, or notice taken of the expression,
had wished and intended to have done to his father, even when the
Company had no pretensions to the sovereignty of the country. It is no
more than such a legal act of sovereignty as his behavior justified, and
as I was justified in by the intentions of my predecessors. If I
pretended to seize upon his forts, it was in full conviction that a
dependant on the Company, guarantied, maintained, and protected in his
country by the Company's arms, had no occasion for forts, had no right
to them, and could hold them for no other than suspected and rebellious
purposes. None of the Company's other zemindars are permitted to
maintain them; and even our ally, the Nabob of the Carnatic, has the
Company's troops in all his garrisons. Policy and public safety
absolutely require it. What state could exist that allowed its inferior
members to hold forts and garrisons independent of the superior
administration? It is a solecism in government to suppose it."
Here, then, my Lords, he first declares that this was merely done _in
terrorem_; that he never intended to execute the abominable act. And
will your Lordships patiently endure that such terrific threats as these
shall be hung by your Governor in India over the unhappy people that are
subject to him and protected by British faith? Will you permit, that,
for the purpose of extorting money, a Governor shall hold out the
terrible threat of delivering a tributary prince and his people, bound
hand and foot, into the power of their perfidious enemies?
The terror occasioned by threatening to take from him his forts can only
be estimated by considering, that, agreeably to the religion and
prejudices of Hindoos, the forts are the places in which their women are
lodged, in which, according to their notions, their honor is deposited,
and in which is lodged all the wealth that they can save against an evil
day to purchase off the vengeance of an enemy. These forts Mr. Hastings
says he intended to take, because the Rajah could hold them for no other
than rebellious and suspected purposes. Now I will show your Lordships
that the man who has the horrible audacity to make this declaration did
himself assign to the Rajah these very forts. He put him in possession
of them, and, when there was a dispute about the Nabob's rights to them
on the one side and the Company's on the other, did confirm them to this
man. The paper shall be produced, that you may have before your eyes the
gross contradictions into which his rapacity and acts of arbitrary power
have betrayed him. Thank God, my Lords, men that are greatly guilty are
never wise. I repeat it, men that are greatly guilty are never wise. In
their defence of one crime they are sure to meet the ghost of some
former defence, which, like the spectre in Virgil, drives them back. The
prisoner at your bar, like the hero of the poet, when he attempts to
make his escape by one evasion, is stopped by the appearance of some
former contradictory averment. If he attempts to escape by one door,
there his criminal allegations of one kind stop him; if he attempts to
escape at another, the facts and allegations intended for some other
wicked purpose stare him full in the face.
Quacunque viam sibi fraude petivit,
Successum Dea dira negat.
The paper I hold in my hand contains Nundcomar's accusation of Mr.
Hastings. It consists of a variety of charges; and I will first read to
you what is said by Nundcomar of these forts, which it is pretended
could be held for none but suspicious and rebellious purposes.
"At the time Mr. Hastings was going to Benares, he desired me to give
him an account in writing of any lands which, though properly belonging
to the Subah of Bahar, might have come under the dominion of Bulwant
Sing, that they might be recovered from his son, Rajah Cheyt Sing. The
purgunnahs of Kera, Mungrora, and Bidjegur were exactly in this
situation, having been usurped by Bulwant Sing from the Subah of Bahar.
I accordingly delivered to Mr. Hastings the accounts of them, from the
entrance of the Company upon the dewanny to the year 1179 of the Fusseli
era, stated at twenty-four lacs. Mr. Hastings said, 'Give a copy of this
to Roy Rada Churn, that, if Cheyt Sing is backward in acknowledging this
claim, Rada Churn may answer and confute him.' Why Mr. Hastings, when he
arrived at Benares, and had called Rajah Cheyt Sing before him, left
these countries still in the Rajah's usurpations it remains with Mr.
Hastings to explain."
This is Nundcomar's charge. Here follows Mr. Hastings's reply.
"I recollect an information given me by Nundcomar concerning the
pretended usurpations made by the Rajah of Benares, of the purgunnahs of
Kera, Mungrora, and Bidjegur." (Your Lordships will recollect that
Bidjegur is one of those very forts which he declares could not be held
but for suspicious and rebellious purposes.) "I do not recollect his
mentioning it again, when I set out for Benares; neither did I ever
intimate the subject, either to Cheyt Sing or his ministers, because I
knew I could not support the claim; and to have made it and dropped it
would have been in every sense dishonorable. Not that I passed by it
with indifference or inattention. I took pains to investigate the
foundation of this title, and recommended it to the particular inquiry
of Mr. Vansittart, who was the Chief of Patna, at the time in which I
received the first intimation. The following letter and voucher, which I
received from him, contain a complete statement of this pretended
usurpation."
These vouchers will answer our purpose, fully to establish that in his
opinion the claim of the English government upon those forts was at that
time totally unfounded, and so absurd that he did not even dare to
mention it. This fort of Bidjegur, the most considerable in the country,
and of which we shall have much to say hereafter, is the place in which
Cheyt Sing had deposited his women and family. That fortress did Mr.
Hastings himself give to this very man, deciding in his favor as a
judge, upon an examination and after an inquiry: and yet he now declares
that he had no right to it, and that he could not hold it but for wicked
and rebellious purposes. But, my Lords, when he changed this language,
he had resolved to take away these forts,--to destroy them,--to root the
Rajah out of every place of refuge, out of every secure place in which
he could hide his head, or screen himself from the rancor, revenge,
avarice, and malice of his ruthless foe. He was resolved to have them,
although he had, upon the fullest conviction of the Rajah's right, given
them to this very man, and put him into the absolute possession of them.