of Council by which he dismissed Mr. Bristow upon a former occasion, (it
is in page 507 of the printed Minutes,) that your Lordships may see his
audacious defiance of the laws of the country. We wish, I say, before we
show you the horrible and fatal effects of this his defiance, to impress
continually upon your Lordships' minds that this man is to be tried by
the laws of the country, and that it is not in his power to annihilate
their authority and the authority of his masters. We insist upon it,
that every man under the authority of this country is bound to obey its
laws. This minute relates to his first removal of Mr. Bristow: I read it
in order to show that he dared to defy the Court of Directors so early
as the year 1776.
"Resolved, That Mr. John Bristow be recalled to the Presidency from the
court of the Nabob of Oude, and that Mr. Nathaniel Middleton be restored
to the appointment of Resident at that court, subject to the orders and
authority of the Governor-General and Council, conformably to the motion
of the Governor-General."
I will next read to your Lordships the orders of the Directors for his
reinstatement, on the 4th of July, 1777.
"Upon the most careful perusal of your proceedings upon the 2d of
December, 1776, relative to the recall of Mr. Bristow from the court of
the Nabob of Oude, and the appointment of Mr. Nathaniel Middleton to
that station, we must declare our strongest disapprobation of the whole
of that transaction. We observe that the Governor-General's motion for
the recall of Mr. Bristow includes that for the restoration of Mr.
Nathaniel Middleton; but as neither of those measures appear to us
necessary, or even justifiable, they cannot receive our approbation.
With respect to Mr. Bristow, we find no shadow of charge against him. It
appears that he has executed his trust to the entire satisfaction even
of those members of the Council who did not concur in his appointment.
You have unanimously recommended him to our notice; attention to your
recommendation has induced us to afford him marks of our favor, and to
reannex the emoluments affixed by you to his appointment, which had been
discontinued by our order; and as we must be of opinion that a person of
acknowledged abilities, whose conduct has thus gained him the esteem of
his superiors, ought not to be degraded without just cause, we do not
hesitate to interpose in his behalf, and therefore direct that Mr.
Bristow do forthwith return to his station of Resident at Oude, from
which he has been so improperly removed."
Upon the receipt of these orders by the Council, Mr. Francis, then a
member of the Council, moves, "That, in obedience to the Company's
orders, Mr. Bristow be forthwith appointed and directed to return to his
station of Resident at Oude, and that Mr. Purling be ordered to deliver
over charge of the office to Mr. Bristow immediately on his arrival, and
return himself forthwith to the Presidency; also that the
Governor-General be requested to furnish Mr. Bristow with the usual
letter of credence to the Nabob Vizier."
Upon this motion being made, Mr. Hastings entered the following minute.
"I will ask, who is Mr. Bristow, that a member of the administration
should at such a time hold him forth as an instrument for the
degradation of the first executive member of this government? What are
the professed objects of his appointment? What are the merits and
services, or what the qualifications, which entitle him to such an
uncommon distinction? Is it for his superior integrity, or from his
eminent abilities, that he is to be dignified, at such hazards of every
consideration that ought to influence members of this administration? Of
the former I know no proofs; I am sure that it is not an evidence of it,
that he has been enabled to make himself the principal in such a
competition; and for the test of his abilities, I appeal to the letter
which he has dared to write to this board, and which, I am ashamed to
say, we have suffered. I desire that a copy of it may be inserted in
this day's proceedings, that it may stand before the eyes of every
member of the board, when he shall give his vote upon a question for
giving their confidence to a man, their servant, who has publicly
insulted them, his masters, and the members of the government, to whom
he owes his obedience; who, assuming an association with the Court of
Directors, and erecting himself into a tribunal, has arraigned them for
disobedience of orders, passed judgment upon them, and condemned or
acquitted them as their magistrate and superior. Let the board consider
whether a man possessed of so independent a spirit, who has already
shown such a contempt of their authority, who has shown himself so
wretched an advocate for his own cause and negotiator for his own
interest, is fit to be trusted with the guardianship of their honor, the
execution of their measures, and as their confidential manager and
negotiator with the princes of India."
My Lords, you here see an instance of what I have before stated to your
Lordships, and what I shall take the liberty of recommending to your
constant consideration. You see that a tyrant and a rebel is one and the
same thing. You see this man, at the very time that he is a direct rebel
to the Company, arbitrarily and tyrannically displacing Mr. Bristow,
although he had previously joined in the approbation of his conduct, and
in voting him a pecuniary reward. He is ordered by the Court of
Directors to restore that person, who desires, in a suppliant, decent,
proper tone, that the Company's orders should produce their effect, and
that the Council would have the goodness to restore him to his
situation.
My Lords, you have seen the audacious insolence, the tyrannical pride,
with which he dares to treat this order. You have seen the recorded
minute which he has dared to send to the Court of Directors; and in
this you see, that, when he cannot directly asperse a man's conduct, and
has nothing to say against it, he maliciously, I should perhaps rather
say enviously, insinuates that he had unjustly made his fortune. "You
are," says he, "to judge from the independence of his manner and style,
whether he could or no have got that without some unjust means." God
forbid I should ever be able to invent anything that can equal the
impudence of what this man dares to write to his superiors, or the
insolent style in which he dares to treat persons who are not his
servants!
Who made the servants of the Company the master of the servants of the
Company? The Court of Directors are their fellow-servants; they are all
the servants of this kingdom. Still the claim of a fellow-servant to
hold an office which the Court of Directors had legally appointed him to
is considered by this audacious tyrant as an insult to him. By this you
may judge how he treats not only the servants of the Company, but the
natives of the country, and by what means he has brought them into that
abject state of servitude in which they are ready to do anything he
wishes and to sign anything he dictates. I must again beg your Lordships
to remark what this man has had the folly and impudence to place upon
the records of the Council of which he was President; and I will venture
to assert that so extraordinary a performance never before appeared on
the records of any court, Eastern or European. Because Mr. Bristow
claims an office which is his right and his freehold as long as the
Company chooses, Mr. Hastings accuses him of being an accomplice with
the Court of Directors in a conspiracy against him; and because, after
long delays, he had presented an humble petition to have the Court of
Directors' orders in his favor carried into execution, he says "he has
erected himself into a tribunal of justice; that he has arraigned the
Council for disobedience of orders, passed judgment upon them, and
condemned or acquitted them as their magistrate and superior."
Let us suppose his Majesty to have been pleased to appoint any one to an
office in the gift of the crown, what should we think of the person
whose business it was to execute the King's commands, if he should say
to the person appointed, when he claimed his office, "You shall not have
it, you assume to be my superior, and you disgrace and dishonor me"?
Good God! my Lords, where was this language learned? in what country,
and in what barbarous nation of Hottentots was this jargon picked up?
For there is no Eastern court that I ever heard of (and I believe I have
been as conversant with the manners and customs of the East as most
persons whose business has not directly led them into that country)
where such conduct would have been tolerated. A bashaw, if he should be
ordered by the Grand Seignior to invest another with his office, puts
the letter upon his head, and obedience immediately follows.
But the obedience of a barbarous magistrate should not be compared to
the obedience which a British subject owes to the laws of his country.
Mr. Hastings receives an order which he should have instantly obeyed. He
is reminded of this by the person who suffers from his disobedience; and
this proves that person to be possessed of too independent a spirit. Ay,
my Lords, here is the grievance;--no man can dare show in India an
independent spirit. It is this, and not his having shown such a
contempt of their authority, not his having shown himself so wretched an
advocate for his own cause and so had a negotiator for his own interest,
that makes him unfit to be trusted with the guardianship of their honor,
the execution of their measures, and to be their confidential manager
and negotiator with the princes of India.
But, my Lords, what is this want of skill which Mr. Bristow has shown in
negotiating his own affairs? Mr. Hastings will inform us. "He should
have pocketed the letter of the Court of Directors; he should never have
made the least mention of it. He should have come to my banian, Cantoo
Baboo; he should have offered him a bribe upon the occasion. That would
have been the way to succeed with me, who am a public-spirited taker of
bribes and nuzzers. But this base fool, this man, who is but a vile
negotiator for his own interest, has dared to accept the patronage of
the Court of Directors. He should have secured the protection of Cantoo
Baboo, their more efficient rival. This would have been the skilful mode
of doing the business." But this man, it seems, had not only shown
himself an unskilful negotiator, he had likewise afforded evidence of
his want of integrity. And what is this evidence? His having "enabled
himself to become the _principal_ in such a competition." That is to
say, he had, by his meritorious conduct in the service of his masters,
the Directors, obtained their approbation and favor. Mr. Hastings then
contemptuously adds, "And for the test of his abilities, I appeal to the
letter which he has dared to write to the board, and which I am ashamed
to say we have suffered." Whatever that letter may be, I will venture to
say there is not a word or syllable in it that tastes of such insolence
and arbitrariness with regard to the servants of the Company, his
fellow-servants, of such audacious rebellion with regard to the laws of
his country, as are contained in this minute of Mr. Hastings.
But, my Lords, why did he choose to have Mr. Middleton appointed
Resident? Your Lordships have not seen Mr. Bristow: you have only heard
of him as a humble suppliant to have the orders of the Company obeyed.
But you have seen Mr. Middleton. You know that Mr. Middleton is a good
man to keep a secret: I describe him no further. You know what
qualifications Mr. Hastings requires in a favorite. You also know why he
was turned out of his employment, with the approbation of the Court of
Directors: that it was principally because, when Resident in Oude, he
positively, audaciously, and rebelliously refused to lay before the
Council the correspondence with the country powers. He says he gave it
up to Mr. Hastings. Whether he has or has not destroyed it we know not;
all we know of it is, that it is not found to this hour. We cannot even
find Mr. Middleton's trunk, though Mr. Jonathan Scott did at last
produce his. The whole of the Persian correspondence, during Mr.
Middleton's Residence, was refused, as I have said, to the board at
Calcutta and to the Court of Directors,--was refused to the legal
authorities; and Mr. Middleton, for that very refusal, was again
appointed by Mr. Hastings to supersede Mr. Bristow, removed without a
pretence of offence; he received, I say, this appointment from Mr.
Hastings, as a reward for that servile compliance by which he dissolved
every tie between himself and his legal masters.
The matter being now brought to a simple issue, whether the
Governor-General is or is not bound to obey his superiors, I shall here
leave it with your Lordships; and I have only to beg your Lordships will
remark the course of events as they follow each other,--keeping in mind
that the prisoner at your bar declared Mr. Bristow to be a man of
suspected integrity, on account of his independence, and deficient in
ability, because he did not know how best to promote his own interest.
I must here state to your Lordships, that it was the duty of the
Resident to transact the money concerns of the Company, as well as its
political negotiations. You will now see how Mr. Hastings divided that
duty, after he became apprehensive that the Court of Directors might be
inclined to assert their own authority, and to assert it in a proper
manner, which they so rarely did. When, therefore, his passion had
cooled, when his resentment of those violent indignities which had been
offered to him, namely, the indignity of being put in mind that he had
any superior under heaven, (for I know of no other,) he adopts the
expedient of dividing the Residency into two offices; he makes a fair
compromise between himself and the Directors; he appoints Mr. Middleton
to the management of the money concerns, and Mr. Bristow to that of the
political affairs. Your Lordships see that Mr. Bristow, upon whom he had
fixed the disqualification for political affairs, was the very person
appointed to that department; and to Mr. Middleton, the man of his
confidence, he gives the management of the money transactions. He
discovers plainly where his heart was: for where your treasure is, there
will your heart be also. This private agent, this stifler of
correspondence, a man whose costive retention discovers no secret
committed to him, and whose slippery memory is subject to a diarrhoea
which permits everything he did know to escape,--this very man he places
in a situation where his talents could only be useful for concealment,
and where concealment could only be used to cover fraud; while Mr.
Bristow, who was by his official engagement responsible to the Company
for fair and clear accounts, was appointed superintendent of political
affairs, an office for which Mr. Hastings declared he was totally unfit.
My Lords, you will judge of the designs which the prisoner had in
contemplation, when he dared to commit this act of rebellion against the
Company; you will see that it could not have been any other than getting
the money transactions of Oude into his own hands. The presumption of a
corrupt motive is here as strong as, I believe, it possibly can be.
The next point to which I have to direct your Lordships' attention is
that part of the prisoner's conduct, in this matter, by which he exposed
the nakedness of the Company's authority to the native powers. You would
imagine, that, after the first dismissal of Mr. Bristow, Mr. Hastings
would have done with him forever; that nothing could have induced him
again to bring forward a man who had dared to insult him, a man who had
shown an independent spirit, a man who had dishonored the Council and
insulted his masters, a man of doubtful integrity and convicted
unfitness for office. But, my Lords, in the face of all this, he
afterwards sends this very man, with undivided authority, into the
country as sole Resident. And now your Lordships shall hear in what
manner he accounts for this appointment to Gobind Ram, the _vakeel_, or
ambassador, of the Nabob Asoph ul Dowlah at Calcutta. It is in page 795
of the printed Minutes.
_Extract of an Arzee sent by Rajah Gobind Ram to the Vizier, by the
Governor-General's directions, and written the 27th of August,
1782._
"This day the Governor-General sent for me in private. After
recapitulating the various informations he had received respecting
the anarchy and confusion said to reign throughout your Highness's
country, and complains that neither your Highness, or Hyder Beg
Khân, or Mr. Middleton, or Mr. Johnson, ever wrote to him on the
state of your affairs, or, if he ever received a letter from your
presence, it always contained assertions contrary to the above
informations, the Governor-General proceeded as follows.
"That it was his intention to have appointed Mr. David Anderson to
attend upon your Highness, but that he was still with Sindia, and
there was no prospect of his speedy return from his camp; therefore
it was now his wish to appoint Mr. John Bristow, who was well
experienced in business, to Lucknow. That, when Mr. Bristow formerly
held the office of Resident there, he was not appointed by him; and
that, notwithstanding he had not shown any instances of
disobedience, yet he had deemed it necessary to recall him, because
he had been patronized and appointed by gentlemen who were in
opposition to him, and had counteracted and thwarted all his
measures; that this had been his reason for recalling Mr. Bristow.
That, since Mr. Francis's return to Europe, and the arrival of
information there of the deaths of the other gentlemen, the King and
the Company had declared their approbation of his, the
Governor-General's, conduct, and had conferred upon him the most
ample powers; that they had sent out Mr. Macpherson, who was his
old and particular friend; and that Mr. Stables, that was on his way
here as a member of the Supreme Council, was also his particular
friend; that Mr. Wheler had received letters from Europe, informing
him that the members of the Council were enjoined all of them to
coöperate and act in conjunction with him, in every measure which
should be agreeable to him; and that there was no one in Council now
who was not united with him, and consequently that his authority was
perfect and complete. That Mr. Bristow, as it was known to me, had
returned to Europe; but that during his stay there he had never said
anything disrespectful of him or endeavored to injure him; on the
contrary, he had received accounts from Europe that Mr. Bristow had
spoken much in his praise, so that Mr. Bristow's friends had become
his friends; that Mr. Bristow had lately been introduced to him by
Mr. Macpherson, had explained his past conduct perfectly to his
satisfaction, and had requested from him the appointment to Lucknow,
and had declared, in the event of his obtaining the appointment,
that he should show every mark of attention and obedience to the
pleasure of your Highness, and his, the Governor's, saying, that
your Highness was well pleased with him, and that he knew what you
had written formerly was at the instigation of Mr. Middleton. That,
in consequence of the foregoing, he, the Governor, had determined to
have appointed Mr. Bristow to Lucknow, but had postponed his
dismission to his office for the following reasons, _videlicet_,
people at Lucknow might think that Mr. Bristow had obtained his
appointment in consequence of orders from Europe, and contrary to
the Governor's inclination; but as the contrary was the case, and
as he now considered Mr. Bristow as the object of his own particular
patronage, therefore he directed me to forward Mr. Bristow's arzee
to the presence; and that it was the Governor's wish that your
Highness, on the receipt thereof, would write a letter to him, and,
as from yourself, request of him that Mr. Bristow may be appointed
to Lucknow, and that you would write an answer to this arzee,
expressive of your personal satisfaction, on the subject. The
Governor concluded with injunctions, that, until the arrival of your
Highness's letter requesting the appointment of Mr. Bristow, and
your answer to this arzee, that I should keep the particulars of
this conversation a profound secret; for that the communication of
it to any person whatever would not only cause his displeasure, but
would throw affairs at Lucknow into great confusion.
"The preceding is the substance of the Governor's directions to me.
He afterwards went to Mr. Macpherson's, and I attended him. Mr.
Bristow was there; the Governor took Mr. Bristow's arzee from his
hand and delivered it into mine, and thence proceeded to Council.
Mr. Bristow's arzee, and the following particulars, I transmit and
communicate by the Governor's directions; and I request that I may
be favored with the answer to the arzee and the letter to the
Governor as soon as possible, as his injunctions to me were very
particular on the subject."
My Lords, I have to observe upon this very extraordinary transaction,
that you will see many things in this letter that are curious, and
worthy of being taken out of that abyss of secrets, Mr. Scott's trunk,
in which this arzee was found. It contains, as far as the prisoner
thinks proper to reveal it, the true secret of the transaction.
He confesses, first, the state of the Vizier's country, as communicated
to him in various accounts of the anarchy and confusion said to reign
throughout his territories. This was in the year 1782, during the time
that the Oude correspondence was not communicated to the Council.
He next stated, that neither the Vizier, nor his minister, nor Mr.
Middleton, nor Mr. Johnson, ever wrote to him on the state of affairs.
Here, then, are three or four persons, all nominated by himself, every
one of them supposed to be in his strictest confidence,--the Nabob and
his vassal, Hyder Beg Khân, being, as we shall show afterwards, entirely
his dependants,--and yet Mr. Hastings declares, that not one of them had
done their duty, or had written him one word concerning the state of the
country, and the anarchy and confusion that prevailed in it, and that,
when the Nabob did write, his assertions were contrary to the real state
of things. Now this irregular correspondence, which he carried on at
Lucknow, and which gave him, as he pretends, this contradictory
information, was, as your Lordships will see, nothing more or less than
a complete fraud.
Your Lordships will next observe, that he tells the vakeel his reason
for turning him out was, that he had been patronized by other gentlemen.
This was true: but they had a right to patronize him; and they did not
patronize him from private motives, but in direct obedience to the order
of the Court of Directors. He then adds the assurance which he had
received from Mr. Bristow, that he would be perfectly obedient to him,
Mr. Hastings, in future; and he goes on to tell the vakeel that he knew
the Vizier was once well pleased with him, (Mr. Bristow,) and that his
formal complaints against him were written at the instigation of Mr.
Middleton.
Here is another discovery, my Lords. When he recalled Mr. Bristow, he
did it under the pretence of its being desired by the Nabob of Oude; and
that, consequently, he would not keep at the Nabob's court a man that
was disagreeable to him. Yet, when the thing comes to be opened, it
appears that Mr. Middleton had made the Nabob, unwillingly, write a
false letter. This subornation of falsehood appears also to have been
known to Mr. Hastings. Did he, either as the natural guardian and
protector of the reputation of his fellow-servants, or as the official
administrator of the laws of his country, or as a faithful servant of
the Company, ever call Mr. Middleton to an account for it? No, never. To
everybody, therefore, acquainted with the characters and circumstances
of the parties concerned, the conclusion will appear evident that he was
himself the author of it. But your Lordships will find there is no end
of his insolence and duplicity.