the morning. "I am this instant favored with yours of yesterday; mine to
you of the same date has before this time acquainted you with my
resolutions and sentiments respecting the Ranny. I think every demand
she has made to you, except that of safety and respect for her person,
is unreasonable. If the reports brought to me are true, your rejecting
her offers, or any negotiation with her, would soon obtain you
possession of the fort upon your own terms. I apprehend that she will
contrive to defraud the captors of a considerable part of the booty by
being suffered to retire without examination; but this is your
consideration, and not mine. I should be sorry that your officers and
soldiers lost any part of the reward to which they are so well entitled;
but I cannot make any objection, as you must be the best judge of the
expediency of the promised indulgence to the Ranny. What you have
engaged for I will certainly ratify; but as to permitting the Ranny to
hold the purgunnah of Hurluk, or any other in the zemindary, without
being subject to the authority of the zemindar, or any lands whatever,
or indeed making any conditions with her for a provision, I will never
consent to it."
My Lords, you have seen the principles upon which this man justifies his
conduct. Here his real nature, character, and disposition break out.
These women had been guilty of no rebellion; he never charged them with
any crime but that of having wealth; and yet you see with what ferocity
he pursues everything that belonged to the destined object of his cruel,
inhuman, and more than tragic revenge. "If," says he, "you have made an
agreement with them, and will insist upon it, I will keep it; but if you
have not, I beseech you not to make any. Don't give them anything;
suffer no stipulations whatever of a provision for them. The
capitulation I will ratify, provided it contains no article of future
provision for them." This he positively forbade; so that his
bloodthirsty vengeance would have sent out these two hundred innocent
women to starve naked in the world.
But he not only declares that the money found in the fort is the
soldiers', he adds, that he should be sorry, if they lost a shilling of
it. So that you have here a man not only declaring that the money was
theirs, directly contrary to the Company's positive orders upon other
similar occasions, and after he had himself declared that prize-money
was poison to soldiers, but directly inciting them to insist upon their
right to it.
A month had been allowed by proclamation for the submission of all
persons who had been in rebellion, which submission was to entitle them
to indemnity. But, my Lords, he endeavored to break the public faith
with these women, by inciting the soldiers to make no capitulation with
them, and thus depriving them of the benefit of the proclamation, by
preventing their voluntary surrender.
[_Mr. Burke here read the proclamation._]
From the date of this proclamation it appears that the surrender of the
fort was clearly within the time given to those who had been guilty of
the most atrocious acts of rebellion to repair to their homes and enjoy
an indemnity. These women had never quitted their homes, nor had they
been charged with rebellion, and yet they were cruelly excluded from the
general indemnity; and after the army had taken unconditional possession
of the fort, they were turned out of it, and ordered to the quarters of
the commanding officer, Major Popham. This officer had received from Mr.
Hastings a power to rob them, a power to plunder them, a power to
distribute the plunder, but no power to give them any allowance, nor any
authority even to receive them.
In this disgraceful affair the soldiers showed a generosity which Mr.
Hastings neither showed nor would have suffered, if he could have
prevented it. They agreed amongst themselves to give to these women
three lacs of rupees, and some trifle more; and the rest was divided as
a prey among the army. The sum found in the fort was about 238,000_l._,
not the smallest part of which was in any way proved to be Cheyt Sing's
property, or the property of any person but the unfortunate women who
were found in the possession of it.
The plunder of the fort being thus given to the soldiers, what does Mr.
Hastings next do? He is astonished and stupefied to find so much
unprofitable violence, so much tyranny, and so little pecuniary
advantage,--so much bloodshed, without any profit to the Company. He
therefore breaks his faith with the soldiers; declares, that, having no
right to the money, they must refund it to the Company; and on their
refusal, he instituted a suit against them. With respect to the three
lacs of rupees, or 30,000_l._, which was to be given to these women,
have we a scrap of paper to prove its payment? is there a single receipt
or voucher to verify their having received one sixpence of it? I am
rather inclined to think that they did receive it, or some part of it;
but I don't know a greater crime in public officers than to have no kind
of vouchers for the disposal of any large sums of money which pass
through their hands: but this, my Lords, is the great vice of Mr.
Hastings's government.
I have briefly taken notice of the claim which Mr. Hastings thought
proper to make, on the part of the Company, to the treasure found in the
fort of Bidjegur, after he had instigated the army to claim it as the
right of the captors. Your Lordships will not be at a loss to account
for this strange and barefaced inconsistency. This excellent Governor
foresaw that he would have a bad account of this business to give to the
contractors in Leadenhall Street, who consider laws, religion, morality,
and the principles of state policy of empires as mere questions of
profit and loss. Finding that he had dismal accounts to give of great
sums expended without any returns, he had recourse to the only expedient
that was left him. He had broken his faith with the ladies in the fort,
by not suffering his officers to grant them that indemnity which his
proclamation offered. Then, finding that the soldiers had taken him at
his word, and appropriated the treasure to their own use, he next broke
his faith with them. A constant breach of faith is a maxim with him. He
claims the treasure for the Company, and institutes a suit before Sir
Elijah Impey, who gives the money to the Company, and not to the
soldiers. The soldiers appeal; and since the beginning of this trial, I
believe even very lately, it has been decided by the Council that the
letter of Mr. Hastings was not, as Sir Elijah Impey pretended, a mere
private letter, because it had "Dear Sir," in it, but a public order,
authorizing the soldiers to divide the money among themselves.
Thus 200,000_l._ was distributed among the soldiers; 400,000_l._ was
taken away by Cheyt Sing, to be pillaged by all the Company's enemies
through whose countries he passed; and so ended one of the great
sources from which this great financier intended to supply the
exigencies of the Company, and recruit their exhausted finances.
By this proceeding, my Lords, the national honor is disgraced, all the
rules of justice are violated, and every sanction, human and divine,
trampled upon. We have, on one side, a country ruined, a noble family
destroyed, a rebellion raised by outrage and quelled by bloodshed, the
national faith pledged to indemnity, and that indemnity faithlessly
withheld from helpless, defenceless women; while the other side of the
picture is equally unfavorable. The East India Company have had their
treasure wasted, their credit weakened, their honor polluted, and their
troops employed against their own subjects, when their services were
required against foreign enemies.
My Lords, it only remains for me, at this time, to make a few
observations upon some proceedings of the prisoner respecting the
revenue of Benares. I must first state to your Lordships that in the
year 1780 he made a demand upon that country, which, by his own account,
if it had been complied with, would only have left 23,000_l._ a year for
the maintenance of the Rajah and his family. I wish to have this account
read, for the purpose of verifying the observations which I shall have
to make to your Lordships.
[_Here the account was read._]
I must now observe to your Lordships, that Mr. Markham and Mr. Hastings
have stated the Rajah's net revenue at forty-six lacs: but the accounts
before you state it at forty lacs only. Mr. Hastings had himself
declared that he did not think the country could safely yield more, and
that any attempt to extract more would be ruinous.
Your Lordships will observe that the first of these estimates is
unaccompanied with any document whatever, and that it is contradicted by
the papers of receipt and the articles of account, from all of which it
appears that the country never yielded more than forty lacs during the
time that Mr. Hastings had it in his possession; and you may be sure he
squeezed as much out of it as he could. He had his own Residents,--first
Mr. Markham, then Mr. Fowke, then Mr. Grant; they all went up with a
design to make the most of it. They endeavored to do so; but they never
could screw it up to more than forty lacs by all the violent means which
they employed. The ordinary subsidy, as paid at Calcutta by the Rajah,
amounted to twenty-two lacs; and it is therefore clearly proved by this
paper, that Mr. Hastings's demand of fifty lacs (500,000_l._), joined to
the subsidies, was more than the whole revenue which the country could
yield. What hoarded treasure the Rajah possessed, and which Mr. Hastings
says he carried off with him, does not appear. That it was any
considerable sum is more than Mr. Hastings knows, more than can be
proved, more than is probable. He had not, in his precipitate flight,
any means, I think, of carrying away a great sum. It further appears
from these accounts, that, after the payment of the subsidy, there would
only have been left 18,000_l._ a year for the support of the Rajah's
family and establishments.
Your Lordships have now a standard, not a visionary one, but a standard
verified by accurate calculation and authentic accounts. You may now
fairly estimate the avarice and rapacity of this man, who describes
countries to be enormously rich in order that he may be justified in
pillaging them. But however insatiable the prisoner's avarice may be, he
has other objects in view, other passions rankling in his heart, besides
the lust of money. He was not ignorant, and we have proved it by his own
confession, that his pretended expectation of benefit to the Company
could not be realized; but he well knew that by enforcing his demands he
should utterly and effectually ruin a man whom he mortally hated and
abhorred,--a man who could not, by any sacrifices offered to the
avarice, avert the cruelty of his implacable enemy. As long as truth
remains, as long as figures stand, as long as two and two are four, as
long as there is mathematical and arithmetical demonstration, so long
shall his cruelty, rage, ravage, and oppression remain evident to an
astonished posterity.
I shall undertake, my Lords, when this court meets again, to develop the
consequences of this wicked proceeding. I shall then show you that that
part of the Rajah's family which he left behind him, and which Mr.
Hastings pretended to take under his protection, was also ruined,
undone, and destroyed; and that the once beautiful country of Benares,
which he has had the impudence to represent as being still in a
prosperous condition, was left by him in such a state as would move pity
in any tyrant in the world except the one who now stands before you.
FOOTNOTES:
[98] Hedaya, Vol. II. p. 621.
SPEECH
IN
GENERAL REPLY.
THIRD DAY: TUESDAY, JUNE 3, 1794.
My Lords,--We are called, with an awful voice, to come forth and make
good our charge against the prisoner at your bar; but as a long time has
elapsed since your Lordships heard that charge, I shall take the liberty
of requesting my worthy fellow Manager near me to read that part to your
Lordships which I am just now going to observe upon, that you may be the
better able to apply my observations to the letter of the charge.
[_Mr. Wyndham reads._]
"That the said Warren Hastings, having, as aforesaid, expelled the said
Cheyt Sing from his dominions, did, of his own usurped authority, and
without any communication with or any approbation given by the other
members of the Council, nominate and appoint Rajah Mehip Narrain to the
government of the provinces of Benares, and did appoint his father,
Durbege Sing, as administrator of his authority, and did give to the
British Resident, William Markham, a controlling authority over both;
and did farther abrogate and set aside all treaties and agreements which
subsisted between the state of Benares and the British nation; and did
arbitrarily and tyrannically, of his mere authority, raise the tribute
to the sum of four hundred thousand pounds sterling, or thereabouts; did
further wantonly and illegally impose certain oppressive duties upon
goods and merchandise, to the great injury of trade and ruin of the
provinces; and did farther dispose of, as his own, the property within
the said provinces, by granting the same, or parts, thereof, in pensions
to such persons as he thought fit.
"That the said Warren Hastings did, some time in the year 1782, enter
into a clandestine correspondence with William Markham, Esquire, the
then Resident at Benares, which said Markham had been by him, the said
Warren Hastings, obtruded into the said office, contrary to the positive
orders of the Court of Directors; and, in consequence of the
representations of the said Markham, did, under pretence that the new
excessive rent or tribute was in arrear, and that the affairs of the
provinces were likely to fall into confusion, authorize and impower him,
by his own private authority, to remove the said Durbege Sing from his
office and deprive him of his estate.
"That the said Durbege Sing was, by the private orders and authorities
given by the said Warren Hastings, and in consequence of the
representations aforesaid, violently thrown into prison, and cruelly
confined therein, under pretence of the non-payment of the arrears of
the tribute aforesaid.
"That the widow of Bulwant Sing, and the Rajah Mehip Narrain, did
pointedly accuse the said Markham of being the sole cause of any delay
in the payment of the tribute aforesaid, and did offer to prove the
innocence of the said Durbege Sing, and also to prove that the faults
ascribed to him were solely the faults of the said Markham; yet the said
Warren Hastings did pay no regard whatever to the said representations,
nor make any inquiry into the truth of the same, but did accuse the said
widow of Bulwant Sing and the Rajah aforesaid of gross presumption for
the same; and, listening to the representations of the person accused,
(viz., the Resident Markham,) did continue to confine the said Durbege
Sing in prison, and did invest the Resident Markham with authority to
bestow his office upon whomsoever he pleased.
"That the said Markham did bestow the said office of administrator of
the provinces of Benares upon a certain person named Jagher Deo Seo,
who, in order to gratify the arbitrary demands of the said Warren
Hastings, was obliged greatly to distress and harass the unfortunate
inhabitants of the said provinces.
"That the said Warren Hastings did, some time in the year 1784, remove
the said Jagher Deo Seo from the said office, under pretence of certain
irregularities and oppressions; which irregularities and oppressions are
solely imputable to him, the said Warren Hastings.
"That the consequences of all these violent changes and arbitrary acts
were the total ruin and desolation of the country, and the flight of the
inhabitants: the said Warren Hastings having found every place abandoned
at his approach, even by the officers of the very government which he
established, and seeing nothing but traces of devastation in every
village, the provinces in effect without a government, the
administration misconducted, the people oppressed, trade discouraged,
and the revenue in danger of a rapid decline.
"All which destruction, devastation, oppression, and ruin are solely
imputable to the abovementioned and other arbitrary, illegal, unjust,
and tyrannical acts of him, the said Warren Hastings, who, by all and
every one of the same, was and is guilty of high crimes and
misdemeanors."
[_Mr. Burke proceeded._]
My Lords, you have heard the charge; and you are now going to see the
prisoner at your bar in a new point of view. I will now endeavor to
display him in his character of a legislator in a foreign land, not
augmenting the territory, honor, and power of Great Britain, and
bringing the acquisition under the dominion of law and liberty, but
desolating a flourishing country, that to all intents and purposes was
our own,--a country which we had conquered from freedom, from
tranquillity, order, and prosperity, and submitted, through him, to
arbitrary power, misrule, anarchy, and ruin. We now see the object of
his corrupt vengeance utterly destroyed, his family driven from their
home, his people butchered, his wife and all the females of his family
robbed and dishonored in their persons, and the effects which husband
and parents had laid up in store for the subsistence of their families,
all the savings of provident economy, distributed amongst a rapacious
soldiery. His malice is victorious. He has well avenged, in the
destruction of this unfortunate family, the Rajah's intended visit to
General Clavering; he has well avenged the suspected discovery of his
bribe to Mr. Francis.
"Thou hast it now, King, Cawdor, Glamis, all!"
Let us see, my Lords, what use he makes of this power,--how he justifies
the bounty of Fortune, bestowing on him this strange and anomalous
conquest. Anomalous I call it, my Lords, because it was the result of no
plan in the cabinet, no operation in the field. No act or direction
proceeded from him, the responsible chief, except the merciless orders,
and the grant to the soldiery. He lay skulking and trembling in the fort
of Chunar, while the British soldiery entitled themselves to the plunder
which he held out to them. Nevertheless, my Lords, he conquers; the
country is his own; he treats it as his own. Let us, therefore, see how
this successor of Tamerlane, this emulator of Genghis Khân, governs a
country conquered by the talents and courage of others, without
assistance, guide, direction, or counsel given by himself.
My Lords, I will introduce his first act to your Lordships' notice in
the words of the charge.
"The said Warren Hastings did, some time in the year 1782, enter into a
clandestine correspondence with William Markham, Esquire, the then
Resident at Benares; which said Markham had been by him, the said Warren
Hastings, obtruded into the said office, contrary to the positive orders
of the Court of Directors."
This unjustifiable obtrusion, this illegal appointment, shows you at the
very outset that he defies the laws of his country,--most positively and
pointedly defies them. In attempting to give a reason for this defiance,
he has chosen to tell a branch of the legislature from which originated
the act which wisely and prudently ordered him to pay implicit obedience
to the Court of Directors, that he removed Mr. Fowke from Benares,
contrary to the orders of the Court, on political grounds; because, says
he, "I thought it necessary the Resident there should be a man of my own
nomination and confidence. I avow the principle, and think no government
can subsist without it. The punishment of the Rajah made no part of my
design in Mr. Fowke's removal or Mr. Markham's appointment, nor was his
punishment an object of my contemplation at the time I removed Mr. Fowke
to appoint Mr. Markham: an appointment of my own choice, and a signal to
notify the restoration of my own authority; as I had before removed Mr.
Fowke and appointed Mr. Graham for the same purpose."
Here, my Lords, he does not even pretend that he had any view whatever,
in this appointment of Mr. Markham, but to defy the laws of his country.
"I must," says he, "have a man of my own nomination, because it is a
signal to notify the restoration of my own authority, as I had before
removed Mr. Fowke for the same purpose."
I must beg your Lordships to keep in mind that the greater part of the
observations with which I shall trouble you have a reference to the
_principles_ upon which this man acts; and I beseech you to remember
always that you have before you a question and an issue of law; I
beseech you to consider what it is that you are disposing of,--that you
are not merely disposing of this man and his cause, but that you are
disposing of the laws of your country.
You, my Lords, have made, and we have made, an act of Parliament in
which the Council at Calcutta is vested with a special power, distinctly
limited and defined. He says, "My authority is absolute. I defy the
orders of the Court of Directors, because it is necessary for me to show
that I can disregard them, as a signal of my own authority." He supposes
his authority gone while he obeys the laws; but, says he, "the moment I
got rid of the bonds and barriers of the laws," (as if there had been
some act of violence and usurpation that had deprived him of his
rightful powers,) "I was restored to my own authority." What is this
authority to which he is restored? Not an authority vested in him by the
East India Company; not an authority sanctioned by the laws of this
kingdom. It is neither of these, but the authority of Warren Hastings;
an inherent divine right, I suppose, which he has thought proper to
claim as belonging to himself; something independent of the laws,
something independent of the Court of Directors, something independent
of his brethren of the Council. It is "my own authority."
And what is the signal by which you are to know when this authority is
restored? By his obedience to the Court of Directors?--by his attention
to the laws of his country?--by his regard to the rights of the people?
No, my Lords, no: the notification of the restoration of this authority
is a formal disobedience of the orders of the Court of Directors. When
you find the laws of the land trampled upon, and their appointed
authority despised, then you may be sure that the authority of the
prisoner is reëstablished.
There is, my Lords, always a close connection between vices of every
description. The man who is a tyrant would, under some other
circumstances, be a rebel; and he that is a rebel would become a tyrant.
They are things which originally proceed from the same source. They owe
their birth to the wild, unbridled lewdness of arbitrary power. They
arise from a contempt of public order, and of the laws and institutions
which curb mankind. They arise from a harsh, cruel, and ferocious
disposition, impatient of the rules of law, order, and morality: and
accordingly, as their relation varies, the man is a tyrant, if a
superior, a rebel, if an inferior. But this man, standing in a middle
point between the two relations, the superior and inferior, declares
himself at once both a rebel and a tyrant. We therefore naturally
expect, that, when he has thrown off the laws of his country, he will
throw off all other authority. Accordingly, in defiance of that
authority to which he owes his situation, he nominates Mr. Markham to
the Residency at Benares, and therefore every act of Mr. Markham is his.
He is responsible,--doubly responsible to what he would have been, if in
the ordinary course of office he had named this agent. Every governor is
responsible for the misdemeanors committed under his legal authority for
which he does not punish the delinquent; but the prisoner is doubly
responsible in this case, because he assumed an illegal authority, which
can be justified only, if at all, by the good resulting from the
assumption.