aware of the design of suspending him, and of placing his government in
the hands of a Naib whom he greatly dreaded. This person was called
Ussaun Sing; he was a remote relation of the family, and an object of
their peculiar suspicion and terror. The moment Cheyt Sing was arrested,
he found that his prophetic soul spoke truly; for Mr. Hastings actually
appointed this very man to be his master. And who was this man? We are
told by Mr. Markham, in his evidence here, that he was a man who had
dishonored his family,--he was the disgrace of his house,--that he was a
person who could not be trusted; and Mr. Hastings, in giving Mr. Markham
full power afterwards to appoint Naibs, expressly excepted this Ussaun
Sing from all trust whatever, as a person totally unworthy of it. Yet
this Ussaun Sing, the disgrace and calamity of his family, an incestuous
adulterer, and a supposed issue of a guilty connection, was declared
Naib. Yes, my Lords, this degraded, this wicked and flagitious
character, the Rajah's avowed enemy, was, in order to heighten the
Rajah's disgrace, to embitter his ruin, to make destruction itself
dishonorable as well as destructive, appointed this [his?] Naib. Thus,
when Mr. Hastings had imprisoned the Rajah, in the face of his subjects,
and in the face of all India, without fixing any term for the duration
of his imprisonment, he delivered up the country to a man whom he knew
to be utterly undeserving, a man whom he kept in view for the purpose of
frightening the Rajah, and whom he was obliged to depose on account of
his misconduct almost as soon as he had named him, and to exclude
specially from all kind of trust. We have heard of much tyranny,
avarice, and insult in the world; but such an instance of tyranny,
avarice, and insult combined has never before been exhibited.
We are now come to the last scene of this flagitious transaction. When
Mr. Hastings imprisoned the Rajah, he did not renew his demand for the
500,000_l._, but he exhibited a regular charge of various pretended
delinquencies against him, digested into heads, and he called on him, in
a dilatory, irregular way of proceeding, for an answer. The man, under
every difficulty and every distress, gave an answer to every particular
of the charge, as exact and punctilious as could have been made to
articles of impeachment in this House.
I must here request your Lordships to consider the order of these
proceedings. Mr. Hastings, having determined upon the utter ruin and
destruction of this unfortunate prince, endeavored, by the arrest of his
person, by a contemptuous disregard to his submissive applications, by
the appointment of a deputy who was personally odious to him, and by the
terror of still greater insults, he endeavored, I say, to goad him on to
the commission of some acts of resistance sufficient to give a color of
justice to that last dreadful extremity to which he had resolved to
carry his malignant rapacity. Failing in this wicked project, and
studiously avoiding the declaration of any terms upon which the Rajah
might redeem himself from these violent proceedings, he next declared
his intention of seizing his forts, the depository of his victim's
honor, and of the means of his subsistence. He required him to deliver
up his accounts and accountants, together with all persons who were
acquainted with the particulars of his effects and treasures, for the
purpose of transferring those effects to such persons as he (Mr.
Hastings) chose to nominate.
It was at this crisis of aggravated insult and brutality that the
indignation which these proceedings had occasioned in the breasts of the
Rajah's subjects burst out into an open flame. The Rajah had retired to
the last refuge of the afflicted, to offer up prayers to his God and our
God, when a vile _chubdar_, or tipstaff, came to interrupt and insult
him. His alarmed and loyal subjects felt for a beloved sovereign that
deep interest which we should all feel, if our sovereign were so
treated. What man with a spark of loyalty in his breast, what man
regardful of the honor of his country, when he saw his sovereign
imprisoned, and so notorious a wretch appointed his deputy, could be a
patient witness of such wrongs? The subjects of this unfortunate prince
did what we should have done,--what all who love their country, who love
their liberty, who love their laws, who love their property, who love
their sovereign, would have done on such an occasion. They looked upon
him as their sovereign, although degraded. They were unacquainted with
any authority superior to his, and the phantom of tyranny which
performed these oppressive acts was unaccompanied by that force which
justifies submission by affording the plea of necessity. An unseen
tyrant and four miserable companies of sepoys executed all the horrible
things that we have mentioned. The spirit of the Rajah's subjects was
roused by their wrongs, and encouraged by the contemptible weakness of
their oppressors. The whole country rose up in rebellion, and surely in
justifiable rebellion. Every writer on the Law of Nations, every man
that has written, thought, or felt upon the affairs of government, must
write, know, think, and feel, that a people so cruelly scourged and
oppressed, both in the person of their chief and in their own persons,
were justified in their resistance. They were roused to vengeance, and a
short, but most bloody war followed.
We charge the prisoner at your bar with all the consequences of this
war. We charge him with the murder of our sepoys, whom he sent unarmed
to such a dangerous enterprise. We charge him with the blood of every
man that was shed in that place; and we call him, as we have called him,
a tyrant, an oppressor, and a murderer. We call him murderer in the
largest and fullest sense of the word; because he was the cause of the
murder of our English officers and sepoys, whom he kept unarmed, and
unacquainted with the danger to which they would be exposed by the
violence of his transactions. He sacrificed to his own nefarious views
every one of those lives, as well as the lives of the innocent natives
of Benares, whom he designedly drove to resistance by the weakness of
the force opposed to them, after inciting them by tyranny and insult to
that display of affection towards their sovereign which is the duty of
all good subjects.
My Lords, these are the iniquities which we have charged upon the
prisoner at your bar; and I will next call your Lordships' attention to
the manner in which these iniquities have been pretended to be
justified. You will perceive a great difference in the manner in which
this prisoner is tried, and of which he so much complains, and the
manner in which he dealt with the unfortunate object of his oppression.
The latter thus openly appeals to his accuser. "You are," says he, "upon
the spot. It is happy for me that you are so. You can now inquire into
my conduct." Did Mr. Hastings so inquire? No, my Lords, we have not a
word of any inquiry; he even found fresh matter of charge in the answer
of the Rajah, although, if there is any fault in this answer, it is its
extremely humble and submissive tone. If there was anything faulty in
his manner, it was his extreme humility and submission. It is plain he
would have almost submitted to anything. He offered, in fact,
220,000_l._ to redeem himself from greater suffering. Surely no man
going into rebellion would offer 220,000_l._ of the treasure which would
be so essential to his success; nor would any government that was really
apprehensive of rebellion call upon the suspected person to arm and
discipline two thousand horse. My Lords, it is evident no such
apprehensions were entertained; nor was any such charge made until
punishment had commenced. A vague accusation was then brought forward,
which was answered by a clear and a natural defence, denying some parts
of the charge, evading and apologizing for others, and desiring the
whole to be inquired into. To this request the answer of the
Governor-General was, "That won't do; you shall have no inquiries." And
why? "Because I have arbitrary power, you have no rights, and I can and
will punish you without inquiry." I admit, that, if his will is the law,
he may take [make?] the charge before punishment or the punishment
before the charge, or he may punish without making any charge. If his
will is the law, all I have been saying amounts to nothing. But I have
endeavored to let your Lordships see that in no country upon the earth
is the will of a despot law. It may produce wicked, flagitious,
tyrannical acts; but in no country is it law.
The duty of a sovereign in cases of rebellion, as laid down in the
Hedaya, agrees with the general practice in India. It was usual, except
in cases of notorious injustice and oppression, whenever a rebellion or
a suspicion of a rebellion existed, to admonish the rebellious party and
persuade him to return to his duty. Causes of complaint were removed
and misunderstandings explained, and, to save the effusion of blood,
severe measures were not adopted until they were rendered indispensable.
This wise and provident law is or ought to be the law in all countries:
it was in fact the law in that country, but Mr. Hastings did not attend
to it. His unfortunate victim was goaded to revolt and driven from his
subjects, although he endeavored by message after message to reconcile
this cruel tyrant to him. He is told in reply, "You have shed the blood
of Englishmen, and I will never be reconciled to you." Your Lordships
will observe that the reason he gives for such an infernal determination
(for it cannot be justly qualified by any other word) is of a nature to
make tyranny the very foundation of our government. I do not say here
upon what occasion people may or may not resist; but surely, if ever
there was an occasion on which people, from love to their sovereign and
regard to their country, might take up arms, it was this. They saw a
tyrant violent in his demands and weak in his power. They saw their
prince imprisoned and insulted, after he had made every offer of
submission, and had laid his turban three times in the lap of his
oppressor. They saw him, instead of availing himself of the means he
possessed of cutting off his adversary, (for the life of Mr. Hastings
was entirely in his power,) betaking himself to flight. They then
thronged round him, took up arms in his defence, and shed the blood of
some of his insulters. Is this resistance, so excited, so provoked, a
plea for irreconcilable vengeance?
I must beg pardon for having omitted to lay before your Lordships in its
proper place a most extraordinary paper, which will show you in what
manner judicial inquiries are conducted, upon what grounds charges are
made, by what sort of evidence they are supported, and, in short, to
what perils the lives and fortunes of men are subjected in that country.
This paper is in the printed Minutes, page 1608. It was given in
agreeably to the retrograde order which they have established in their
judicial proceedings. It was produced to prove the truth of a charge of
rebellion which was made some months before the paper in evidence was
known to the accuser.
"_To the Honorable Warren Hastings._
"Sir,--About the month of November last, I communicated to Mr.
Markham the substance of a conversation said to have passed between
Rajah Cheyt Sing and Saadut Ali, and which was reported to me by a
person in whom I had some confidence. The mode of communicating this
intelligence to you I left entirely to Mr. Markham. In this
conversation, which was private, the Rajah and Saadut Ali were said
to have talked of Hyder Ali's victory over Colonel Baillie's
detachment, to have agreed that they ought to seize this opportunity
of consulting their own interest, and to have determined to watch
the success of Hyder's arms. Some days after this conversation was
said to have happened, I was informed by the same person that the
Rajah had received a message from one of the Begums at Fyzabad, (I
think it was from Sujah ul Dowlah's widow,) advising him not to
comply with the demands of government, and encouraging him to expect
support in case of his resisting. This also, I believe, I
communicated to Mr. Markham; but not being perfectly certain, I now
think it my duty to remove the possibility of your remaining
unacquainted with a circumstance which may not be unconnected with
the present conduct of the Rajah."
Here, then, is evidence of evidence given to Mr. Markham by Mr. Balfour,
from Lucknow, in the month of November, 1781, long after the transaction
at Benares. But what was this evidence? "I communicated," he says, "the
substance of a conversation said to have passed." Observe, _said_: not a
conversation that had passed to his knowledge or recollection, but what
his informant said had passed. He adds, this conversation was reported
to him by a person whom he won't name, but in whom, he says, he had some
confidence. This anonymous person, in whom he had put some confidence,
was not himself present at the conversation; he only reports to him that
it was _said_ by somebody else that such a conversation had taken place.
This conversation, which somebody told Colonel Balfour he had heard was
said by somebody to have taken place, if true, related to matters of
great importance; still the mode of its communication was left to Mr.
Markham, and that gentleman did not bring it forward till some months
after. Colonel Balfour proceeds to say,--"Some days after this
conversation was said to have happened," (your Lordships will observe it
is always, "was said to have happened,") "I was informed by the same
person that the Rajah had received a message from one of the Begums at
Fyzabad, (I think it was from Sujah ul Dowlah's widow,) advising him not
to comply with the demands of government, and encouraging him to expect
support in case of his resisting." He next adds,--"This also, I
believe," (observe, he says he is not quite sure of it,) "I communicated
to Mr. Markham; but not being perfectly certain," (of a matter the
immediate knowledge of which, if true, was of the highest importance to
his country,) "I now think it my duty to remove the possibility of your
remaining unacquainted with, a circumstance which may not be unconnected
with the present conduct of the Rajah."
Here is a man that comes with information long after the fact deposed
to, and, after having left to another the communication of his
intelligence to the proper authority, that other neglects the matter. No
letter of Mr. Markham's appears, communicating any such conversation to
Mr. Hastings: and, indeed, why he did not do so must appear very obvious
to your Lordships; for a more contemptible, ridiculous, and absurd story
never was invented. Does Mr. Balfour come forward and tell him who his
informant was? No. Does he say, "He was an informant whom I dare not
name, upon account of his great consequence, and the great confidence I
had in him"? No. He only says slightly, "I have some confidence in him."
It is upon this evidence of a reporter of what another is _said_ to have
_said_, that Mr. Hastings and his Council rely for proof, and have
thought proper to charge the Rajah, with having conceived rebellious
designs soon after the time when Mr. Hastings had declared his belief
that no such designs had been formed.
Mr. Hastings has done with his charge of rebellion what he did with his
declaration of arbitrary power: after he had vomited it up in one place,
he returns to it in another. He here declares (after he had recorded
his belief that no rebellion was ever intended) that Mr. Markham was in
possession of information which he might have believed, if it had been
communicated to him. Good heavens! when you review all these
circumstances, and consider the principles upon which this man was tried
and punished, what must you think of the miserable situation of persons
of the highest rank in that country, under the government of men who are
disposed to disgrace and ruin them in this iniquitous manner!
Mr. Balfour is in Europe, I believe. How comes it that he is not
produced here to tell your Lordships who was his informer, and what he
knows of the transaction? They have not produced him, but have thought
fit to rely upon this miserable, beggarly semblance of evidence, the
very production of which was a crime, when brought forward for the
purpose of giving color to acts of injustice and oppression. If you ask,
Who is this Mr. Balfour? He is a person who was a military collector of
revenue in the province of Rohilcund: a country now ruined and
desolated, but once the garden of the world. It was from the depth of
that horrible devastating system that he gave this ridiculous,
contemptible evidence, which if it can be equalled, I shall admit that
there is not one word we have said that you ought to attend to.
Your Lordships are now enabled to sum up the amount and estimate the
result of all this iniquity. The Rajah himself is punished, he is ruined
and undone; but the 500,000_l._ is not gained. He has fled his country;
but he carried his treasures with him. His forts are taken possession
of; but there was nothing found in them. It is the report of the
country, and is so stated by Mr. Hastings, that he carried away with him
in gold and silver to the value of about 400,000_l._; and thus that sum
was totally lost, even as an object of plunder, to the Company. The
author of the mischief lost his favorite object by his cruelty and
violence. If Mr. Hastings had listened to Cheyt Sing at first,--if he
had answered his letters, and dealt civilly with him,--if he had
endeavored afterwards to compromise matters,--if he had _told_ him what
his demands were,--if, even after the rebellion had broken out, he had
demanded and exacted a fine,--the Company would have gained 220,000_l._
at least, and perhaps a much larger sum, without difficulty. They would
not then have had 400,000_l._ carried out of the country by a tributary
chief, to become, as we know that sum has become, the plunder of the
Mahrattas and our other enemies. I state to you the account of the
profit and loss of tyranny: take it as an account of profit and loss;
forget the morality, forget the law, forget the policy; take it, I say,
as a matter of profit and loss. Mr. Hastings lost the subsidy; Mr.
Hastings lost the 220,000_l._ which was offered him, and more that he
might have got. Mr. Hastings lost it all; and the Company lost the
400,000_l._ which he meant to exact. It was carried from the British
dominions to enrich its enemies forever.
This man, my Lords, has not only acted thus vindictively himself, but he
has avowed the principle of revenge as a general rule of policy,
connected with the security of the British government in India. He has
dared to declare, that, if a native once draws his sword, he is not to
be pardoned; that you never are to forgive any man who has killed an
English soldier. You are to be implacable and resentful; and there is
no maxim of tyrants, which, upon account of the supposed weakness of
your government, you are not to pursue. Was this the conduct of the
Mogul conquerors of India? and must this _necessarily_ be the policy of
their Christian successors? I pledge myself, if called upon, to prove
the contrary. I pledge myself to produce, in the history of the Mogul
empire, a series of pardons and amnesties for rebellions, from its
earliest establishments, and in its most distant provinces.
I need not state to your Lordships what you know to be the true
principles of British policy in matters of this nature. When there has
been provocation, you ought to be ready to listen to terms of
reconciliation, even after war has been made. This you ought to do, to
show that you are placable; such policy as this would doubtless be of
the greatest benefit and advantage to you. Look to the case of Sujah
Dowlah. You had, in the course of a war with him, driven him from his
country; you had not left him in possession of a foot of earth in the
world. The Mogul was his sovereign, and, by his authority, it was in
your power to dispose of the vizierate, and of every office of state
which Sujah Dowlah held under the emperor: for he hated him mortally,
and was desirous of dispossessing him of everything. What did you do?
Though he had shed much English blood, you reëstablished him in all his
power, you gave him more than he before possessed; and you had no reason
to repent your generosity. Your magnanimity and justice proved to be the
best policy, and was the subject of admiration from one end of India to
the other. But Mr. Hastings had other maxims and other principles. You
are weak, he says, and therefore you ought never to forgive. Indeed, Mr.
Hastings never does forgive. The Rajah was weak, and he persecuted him;
Mr. Hastings was weak, and he lost his prey. He went up the country with
the rapacity, but not with the talons and beak, of a vulture. He went to
look for plunder; but he was himself plundered, the country was ravaged,
and the prey escaped.
After the escape of Cheyt Sing, there still existed in one corner of the
country some further food for Mr. Hastings's rapacity. There was a place
called Bidjegur, one of those forts which Mr. Hastings declared could
not be safely left in the possession of the Rajah; measures were
therefore taken to obtain possession of this place, soon after the
flight of its unfortunate proprietor. And what did he find in it? A
great and powerful garrison? No, my Lords: he found in it the wives and
family of the Rajah; he found it inhabited by two hundred women, and
defended by a garrison of eunuchs and a few feeble militia-men. This
fortress was supposed by him to contain some money, which he hoped to
lay hold of when all other means of rapacity had escaped him. He first
sends (and you have it on your minutes) a most cruel, most atrocious,
and most insulting message to these unfortunate women; one of whom, a
principal personage of the family, we find him in the subsequent
negotiation scandalizing in one minute, and declaring to be a woman of
respectable character in the next,--treating her by turns as a
prostitute and as an amiable woman, as best suited the purposes of the
hour. This woman, with two hundred of her sex, he found in Bidjegur.
Whatever money they had was their own property; and as such Cheyt Sing,
who had visited the place before his flight, had left it for their
support, thinking that it would be secure to them as their property,
because they were persons wholly void of guilt, as they must needs have
been. This money the Rajah might have carried off with him; but he left
it them, and we must presume that it was their property; and no attempt
was ever made by Mr. Hastings to prove otherwise. They had no other
property that could be found. It was the only means of subsistence for
themselves, their children, their domestics, and dependants, and for the
whole female part of that once illustrious and next to royal family.
But to proceed. A detachment of soldiers was sent to seize the forts
[fort?]. Soldiers are habitually men of some generosity; even when they
are acting in a bad cause, they do not wholly lose the military spirit.
But Mr. Hastings, fearing that they might not be animated with the same
lust of plunder as himself, stimulated them to demand the plunder of the
place, and expresses his hopes that no composition would be made with
these women, and that not one shilling of the booty would be allowed
them. He does not trust to their acting as soldiers who have their
fortunes to make; but he stimulates and urges them not to give way to
the generous passions and feelings of men.