of Mr. Bristow to Lucknow was lest the people of Lucknow should think he
had obtained his appointment in consequence of orders from Europe, and
contrary to the Governor's inclination. You see, my Lords, he would have
the people of the country believe that they are to receive the person
appointed Resident not as appointed by the Company, but in consequence
of his being under Mr. Hastings's particular patronage; and to remove
from them any suspicion that the Resident would obey the orders of the
Court of Directors, or any orders but his own, he proceeds in the manner
I have read to your Lordships.
You here see the whole machinery of the business. He removes Mr.
Bristow, contrary to the orders of the Court of Directors. Why? Because,
says he to the Court of Directors, the Nabob complained of him, and
desired it. He here says, that he knew the Nabob did not desire it, but
that the letter of complaint really and substantially was Mr.
Middleton's. Lastly, as he recalls Mr. Bristow, so he wishes him to be
called back in the same fictitious and fraudulent manner. This system of
fraud proves that there is not one letter from that country, not one act
of this Vizier, not one act of his ministers, not one act of his
ambassadors, but what is false and fraudulent. And now think, my Lords,
first, of the slavery of the Company's servants, subjected in this
manner to the arbitrary will and corrupt frauds of Mr. Hastings! Next
think of the situation of the princes of the country, obliged to
complain without matter of complaint, to approve without [ground?] of
satisfaction, and to have all their correspondence fabricated by Mr.
Hastings at Calcutta!
But, my Lords, it was not indignities of this kind alone that the native
princes suffered from this system of fraud and duplicity. Their more
essential interests, and those of the people, were involved in it; it
pervaded and poisoned the whole mass of their internal government.
Who was the instrument employed in all this double-dealing? Gobind Ram,
the Vizier's diplomatic minister at Calcutta. Suspicions perpetually
arise in his mind whether he is not cheated and imposed upon. He could
never tell when he had Mr. Hastings fixed upon any point. He now finds
him recommending Mr. Middleton, and then declaring that Mr. Middleton
neglects the duty of his office, and gives him, Gobind Ram, information
that is fraudulent and directly contrary to the truth. He is let into
various contradictory secrets, and becomes acquainted with innumerable
frauds, falsehoods, and prevarications. He knew that the whole pretended
government of Oude was from beginning to end a deception; that it was an
imposture for the purpose of corruption and peculation. Such was the
situation of the Nabob's vakeel. The Nabob himself was really at a loss
to know who had and who had not the Governor's confidence; whether he
was acting in obedience to the orders of the Court of Directors, or
whether their orders were not always to be disobeyed. He thus writes to
Gobind Ram, who was exactly in the same uncertainty.
"As to the commands of Mr. Hastings which you write on the subject of
the distraction of the country and the want of information from me, and
his wishes, that, as Mr. John Bristow has shown sincere wishes and
attachment to Mr. Hastings, I should write for him to send Mr. John
Bristow, it would have been proper and necessary for you privately to
have understood what were Mr. Hastings's real intentions, whether the
choice of sending Mr. John Bristow was his own desire, or whether it was
in compliance with Mr. Macpherson's, that I might then have written
conformably thereto. Writings are now sent to you for both cases; having
privately understood the wishes of Mr. Hastings, deliver whichever of
the writings he should order you; for I study Mr. Hastings's
satisfaction; whoever is his friend is mine, and whoever is his enemy is
mine. But in both these cases, my wishes are the same; that having
consented to the paper of questions which Major Davy carried with him,
and having given me the authority of the country, whomever he may
afterwards appoint, I am satisfied. I am now brought to great distress
by these gentlemen, who ruin me; in case of consent, I am contented with
Majors Davy and Palmer. Hereafter, whatever may be Mr. Hastings's
desire, it is best."
Here is a poor, miserable instrument, confessing himself to be such,
ruined by Mr. Hastings's public agents, Mr. Middleton and Mr. Johnson;
ruined by his private agents, Major Davy and Major Palmer; ruined
equally by them all; and at last declaring in a tone of despair, "If you
have a mind really to keep Major Davy and Major Palmer here, why, I must
consent to it. Do what you please with me, I am your creature; for God's
sake, let me have a little rest."
Your Lordships shall next hear what account Hyder Beg Khân, the Vizier's
prime-minister, gives of the situation in which he and his master were
placed.
_Extract of a Letter from Hyder Beg Khân, received 21st April,
1785._
"I hope that such orders and commands as relate to the friendship
between his Highness and the Company's governments and to your will
may be sent through Major Palmer, in your own private letters, or in
your letters to the Major, who is appointed from you at the presence
of his Highness, that, in obedience to your orders, he may properly
explain your commands, and, whatever affair may be settled, he may
first secretly inform you of it, and afterwards his Highness may,
conformably thereto, write an answer, and I also may represent it.
By this system, your pleasure will always be fully made known to his
Highness; and his Highness and we will execute whatever may be your
orders, without deviating a hair's-breadth: and let not the
representations of interested persons be approved of, because his
Highness makes no opposition to your will; and I, your servant, am
ready in obedience and service, and I make no excuses."
Now, my Lords, was there ever such a discovery made of the arcana of any
public theatre? You see here, behind the ostensible scenery, all the
crooked working of the machinery developed and laid open to the world.
You now see by what secret movement the master of the mechanism has
conducted the great Indian opera,--an opera of fraud, deceptions, and
harlequin tricks. You have it all laid open before you. The ostensible
scene is drawn aside; it has vanished from your sight. All the strutting
signors, and all the soft signoras are gone; and instead of a brilliant
spectacle of descending chariots, gods, goddesses, sun, moon, and stars,
you have nothing to gaze on but sticks, wire, ropes, and machinery. You
find the appearance all false and fraudulent; and you see the whole
trick at once. All this, my Lords, we owe to Major Scott's trunk, which,
by admitting us behind the scene, has enabled us to discover the real
state of Mr. Hastings's government in India. And can your Lordships
believe that all this mechanism of fraud, prevarication, and falsehood
could have been intended for any purpose but to forward that robbery,
corruption, and peculation by which Mr. Hastings has destroyed one of
the finest countries upon earth? Is it necessary, after this, for me to
tell you that you are not to believe one word of the correspondence
stated by him to have been received from India? This discovery goes to
the whole matter of the whole government of the country. You have seen
what that government was, and by-and-by you shall see the effects of it.
Your Lordships have now seen this trunk of Mr. Scott's producing the
effects of Aladdin's lamp,--of which your Lordships may read in books
much more worthy of credit than Mr. Hastings's correspondence. I have
given all the credit of this precious discovery to Mr. Scott's trunk;
but, my Lords, I find that I have to ask pardon for a mistake in
supposing the letter of Hyder Beg Khân to be a part of Mr. Hastings's
correspondence. It comes from another quarter, not much less singular,
and equally authentic and unimpeachable. But though it is not from the
trunk, it smells of the trunk, it smells of the leather. I was as proud
of my imaginary discovery as Sancho Panza was that one of his ancestors
had discovered a taste of iron in some wine, and another a taste of
leather in the same wine, and that afterwards there was found in the
cask a little key tied to a thong of leather, which had given to the
wine a taste of both. Now, whether this letter tasted of the leather of
the trunk or of the iron of Mr. Macpherson, I confess I was a little
out in my suggestion and my taste. The letter in question was written by
Hyder Beg Khân, after Mr. Hastings's departure, to Mr. Macpherson, when
he succeeded to the government. That gentleman thus got possession of a
key to the trunk; and it appears to have been his intentions to follow
the steps of his predecessor, to act exactly in the same manner, and in
the same manner to make the Nabob the instrument of his own ruin. This
letter was written by the Nabob's minister to Sir John Macpherson, newly
inaugurated into his government, and who might be supposed not to be
acquainted with all the best of Mr. Hastings's secrets, nor to have had
all the trunk correspondence put into his hands. However, here is a
trunk extraordinary, and its contents are much in the manner of the
other. The Nabob's minister acquaints him with the whole secret of the
system. It is plain that the Nabob considered it as a system not to be
altered: that there was to be nothing true, nothing aboveboard, nothing
open in the government of his affairs. When you thus see that there can
be little doubt of the true nature of the government, I am sure that
hereafter, when we come to consider the effects of that government, it
will clear up and bring home to the prisoner at your bar all we shall
have to say upon this subject.
Mr. Hastings, having thrown off completely the authority of the Company,
as you have seen,--having trampled upon those of their servants who had
manifested any symptom of independence, or who considered the orders of
the Directors as a rule of their conduct,--having brought every
Englishman under his yoke, and made them supple and fit instruments for
all his designs,--then gave it to be understood that such alone were
fit persons to be employed in important affairs of state. Consider, my
Lords, the effect of this upon the whole service. Not one man that
appears to pay any regard to the authority of the Directors is to expect
that any regard will be paid to himself. So that this man not only
rebels himself, in his own person, against the authority of the Company,
but he makes all their servants join him in this very rebellion. Think,
my Lords, of this state of things,--and I wish it never to pass from
your minds that I have called him the captain-general of the whole host
of actors in Indian iniquity, under whom that host was arrayed,
disciplined, and paid. This language which I used was not, as fools have
thought proper to call it, offensive and abusive; it is in a proper
criminatory tone, justified by the facts that I have stated to you, and
in every step we take it is justified more and more. I take it as a text
upon which I mean to preach; I take it as a text which I wish to have in
your Lordships' memory from the beginning to the end of this proceeding.
He is not only guilty of iniquity himself, but is at the head of a
system of iniquity and rebellion, and will not suffer with impunity any
one honest man to exist in India, if he can help it. Every mark of
obedience to the legal authority of the Company is by him condemned; and
if there is any virtue remaining in India, as I think there is, it is
not his fault that it still exists there.
We have shown you the servile obedience of the natives of the country;
we have shown you the miserable situation to which a great prince, at
least a person who was the other day a great prince, was reduced by Mr.
Hastings's system. We shall next show you that this prince, who,
unfortunately for himself, became a dependant on the Company, and
thereby subjected to the will of an arbitrary government, is made by him
the instrument of his own degradation, the instrument of his (the
Governor's) falsehoods, the instrument of his peculations; and that he
had been subjected to all this degradation for the purposes of the most
odious tyranny, violence, and corruption.
Mr. Hastings, having assumed the government to himself, soon made Oude a
private domain. It had, to be sure, a public name, but it was to all
practical intents and purposes his park, or his warren,--a place, as it
were, for game, whence he drew out or killed, at an earlier or later
season, as he thought fit, anything he liked, and brought it to his
table according as it served his purpose. Before I proceed, it will not
be improper for me to remind your Lordships of the legitimate ends to
which all controlling and superintending power ought to be directed.
Whether a man acquires this power by law or by usurpation, there are
certain duties attached to his station. Let us now see what these duties
are.
The first is, to take care of that vital principle of every state, its
revenue. The next is, to preserve the magistracy and legal authorities
in honor, respect, and force. And the third, to preserve the property,
movable and immovable, of all the people committed to his charge.
In regard to his first duty, the protection of the revenue, your
Lordships will find, that, from three millions and upwards which I
stated to be the revenue of Oude, and which Mr. Hastings, I believe, or
anybody for him, has never thought proper to deny, it sunk under his
management to about one million four hundred and forty thousand pounds:
and even this, Mr. Middleton says, (as you may see in your minutes,) was
not completely realized. Thus, my Lords, you see that one half of the
whole revenue of the country was lost after it came into Mr. Hastings's
management. Well, but it may perhaps be said this was owing to the
Nabob's own imprudence. No such thing, my Lords; it could not be so; for
the whole _real_ administration and government of the country was in the
hands of Mr. Hastings's agents, public or private.
To let you see how provident Mr. Hastings's management of it was, I
shall produce to your Lordships one of the principal manoeuvres that he
adopted for the improvement of the revenue, and for the happiness and
prosperity of the country, the latter of which will always go along,
more or less, with the first.
The Nabob, whose acts your Lordships have now learned to appreciate as
no other than the acts of Mr. Hastings, writes to the Council to have a
body of British officers, for the purposes of improving the discipline
of his troops, collecting his revenues, and repressing disorder and
outrage among his subjects. This proposal was ostensibly fair and
proper; and if I had been in the Council at that time, and the Nabob had
really and _bonâ fide_ made such a request, I should have said he had
taken a very reasonable and judicious step, and that the Company ought
to aid him in his design.
Among the officers sent to Oude, in consequence of this requisition, was
the well-known Colonel Hannay: a man whose name will be bitterly and
long remembered in India. This person, we understand, had been
recommended to Mr. Hastings by Sir Elijah Impey: and his appointment was
the natural consequence of such patronage. I say the natural
consequence, because Sir Elijah Impey appears on your minutes to have
been Mr. Hastings's private agent and negotiator in Oude. In that light,
and in that light only, I consider Colonel Hannay in this business. We
cannot prove that he was not of Mr. Hastings's own nomination originally
and primarily; but whether we take him in this way, or as recommended by
Sir Elijah Impey, or anybody else, Mr. Hastings is equally responsible.
Colonel Hannay is sent up by Mr. Hastings, and has the command of a
brigade, of two regiments I think, given to him. Thus far all is
apparently fair and easily understood. But in this country we find
everything in masquerade and disguise. We find this man, instead of
being an officer, farmed the revenue of the country, as is proved by
Colonel Lumsden and other gentlemen, who were his sub-farmers and his
assistants. Here, my Lords, we have a man who appeared to have been sent
up the country as a commander of troops, agreeably to the Nabob's
request, and who, upon our inquiry, we discover to have been
farmer-general of the country! We discover this with surprise; and I
believe, till our inquiries began, it was unknown in Europe. We have,
however, proved upon your Lordships' minutes, by an evidence produced by
Mr. Hastings himself, that Colonel Hannay was actually farmer-general of
the countries of Baraitch and Goruckpore. We have proved upon your
minutes that Colonel Hannay was the only person possessed of power in
the country; that there was no magistrate in it, nor any administration
of the law whatever. We have proved to your Lordships that in his
character of farmer-general he availed himself of the influence derived
from commanding a battalion of soldiers. In short, we have proved that
the whole power, civil, military, municipal, and financial, resided in
him; and we further refer your Lordships to Mr. Lumsden and Mr. Halhed
for the authority which he possessed in that country. Your Lordships, I
am sure, will supply with your diligence what is defective in my
statement; I have therefore taken the liberty of indicating to you where
you are to find the evidence to which I refer. You will there, my Lords,
find this Colonel Hannay in a false character: he is ostensibly given to
the Nabob as a commander of his troops, while in reality he is forced
upon that prince as his farmer-general. He is invested with the whole
command of the country, while the sovereign is unable to control him, or
to prevent his extorting from the people whatever he pleases.
If we are asked what the terms of his farm were, we cannot discover that
he farmed the country at any certain sum. We cannot discover that he was
subjected to any terms, or confined by any limitations. Armed with
arbitrary power, and exercising that power under a false title, his
exactions from the poor natives were only limited by his own pleasure.
Under these circumstances, we are now to ask what there was to prevent
him from robbing and ruining the people, and what security against his
robbing the exchequer of the person whose revenue he farmed.
You are told by the witnesses in the clearest manner, (and, after what
you have heard of the state of Oude, you cannot doubt the fact,) that
nobody, not even the Nabob, dared to complain against him,--that he was
considered as a man authorized and supported by the power of the British
government; and it is proved in the evidence before you that he vexed
and harassed the country to the utmost extent which we have stated in
our article of charge, and which you would naturally expect from a man
acting under such false names with such real powers. We have proved that
from some of the principal zemindars in that country, who held farms let
to them for twenty-seven thousand rupees a year, a rent of sixty
thousand was demanded, and in some cases enforced,--and that upon the
refusal of one of them to comply with this demand, he was driven out of
the country.
Your Lordships will find in the evidence before you that the inhabitants
of the country were not only harassed in their fortunes, but cruelly
treated in their persons. You have it upon Mr. Halhed's evidence, and it
is not attempted, that I know of, to be contradicted, that the people
were confined in open cages, exposed to the scorching heat of the sun,
for pretended or real arrears of rent: it is indifferent which, because
I consider all confinement of the person to support an arbitrary
exaction to be an abomination not to be tolerated. They have endeavored,
indeed, to weaken this evidence by an attempt to prove that a man day
and night in confinement in an open cage suffers no inconvenience. And
here I must beg your Lordships to observe the extreme unwillingness that
appears in these witnesses. Their testimony is drawn from them drop by
drop, their answers to our questions are never more than yes or no; but
when they are examined by the counsel on the other side, it flows as
freely as if drawn from a perennial spring: and such a spring we have in
Indian corruption. We have, however, proved that in these cages the
renters were confined till they could be lodged in the dungeons or mud
forts. We have proved that some of them were obliged to sell their
children, that others fled the country, and that these practices were
carried to such an awful extent that Colonel Hannay was under the
necessity of issuing orders against the unnatural sale and flight which
his rapacity had occasioned.
The prisoner's counsel have attempted to prove that this had been a
common practice in that country. And though possibly some person as
wicked as Colonel Hannay might have been there before at some time or
other, no man ever sold his children but under the pressure of some
cruel exaction. Nature calls out against it. The love that God has
implanted in the heart of parents towards their children is the first
germ of that second conjunction which He has ordered to subsist between
them and the rest of mankind. It is the first formation and first bond
of society. It is stronger than all laws; for it is the law of Nature,
which is the law of God. Never did a man sell his children who was able
to maintain them. It is, therefore, not only a proof of his exactions,
but a decisive proof that these exactions were intolerable.
Next to the love of parents for their children, the strongest instinct,
both natural and moral, that exists in man, is the love of his country:
an instinct, indeed, which extends even to the brute creation. All
creatures love their offspring; next to that they love their homes: they
have a fondness for the place where they have been bred, for the
habitations they have dwelt in, for the stalls in which they have been
fed, the pastures they have browsed in, and the wilds in which they have
roamed. We all know that the natal soil has a sweetness in it beyond the
harmony of verse. This instinct, I say, that binds all creatures to
their country, never becomes inert in us, nor ever suffers us to want a
memory of it. Those, therefore, who seek to fly their country can only
wish to fly from oppression: and what other proof can you want of this
oppression, when, as a witness has told you, Colonel Hannay was obliged
to put bars and guards to confine the inhabitants within the country?
We have seen, therefore, Nature violated in its strongest principles. We
have seen unlimited and arbitrary exaction avowed, on no pretence of any
law, rule, or any fixed mode by which these people were to be dealt
with. All these facts have been proved before your Lordships by costive
and unwilling witnesses. In consequence of these violent and cruel
oppressions, a general rebellion breaks out in the country, as was
naturally to be expected. The inhabitants rise as if by common consent;
every farmer, every proprietor of land, every man who loved his family
and his country, and had not fled for refuge, rose in rebellion, as they
call it. My Lords, they did rebel; it was a just rebellion. Insurrection
was there just and legal, inasmuch as Colonel Hannay, in defiance of the
laws and rights of the people, exercised a clandestine, illegal
authority, against which there can be no rebellion in its proper sense.