kind, it was treated by Colonel Hannay; and to one instance of the means
taken for suppressing it, as proved by evidence before your Lordships, I
will just beg leave to call your attention. One hundred and fifty of the
inhabitants had been shut up in one of the mud forts I have mentioned.
The people of the country, in their rage, attacked the fort, and
demanded the prisoners; they called for their brothers, their fathers,
their husbands, who were confined there. It was attacked by the joint
assault of men and women. The man who commanded in the fort immediately
cut off the heads of eighteen of the principal prisoners, and tossed
them over the battlements to the assailants. There happened to be a
prisoner in the fort, a man loved and respected in his country, and who,
whether justly or unjustly, was honored and much esteemed by all the
people. "Give us our Rajah, Mustapha Khân!" (that was the name of the
man confined,) cried out the assailants. We asked the witness at your
bar what he was confined for. He did not know; but he said that Colonel
Hannay had confined him, and added, that he was sentenced to death. We
desired to see the _fetwah_, or decree, of the judge who sentenced him.
No,--no such thing, nor any evidence of its having ever existed, could
be produced. We desired to know whether he could give any account of the
process, any account of the magistrate, any account of the accuser, any
account of the defence,--in short, whether he could give any account
whatever of this man's being condemned to death. He could give no
account of it, but the orders of Colonel Hannay, who seems to have
imprisoned and condemned him by his own arbitrary will. Upon the demand
of Rajah Mustapha by the insurgents being made known to Colonel Hannay,
he sends an order to the commander of the fort, a man already stained
with the blood of all the people who were murdered there, that, if he
had not executed Mustapha Khân, he should execute him immediately. The
man is staggered at the order, and refuses to execute it, as not being
directly addressed to him. Colonel Hannay then sends a Captain Williams,
who has appeared here as an evidence at your bar, and who, together with
Captain Gordon and Major Macdonald, both witnesses also here, were all
sub-farmers and actors under Colonel Hannay. This Captain Williams, I
say, goes there, and, without asking one of those questions which I put
to the witness at your bar, and desiring nothing but Colonel Hannay's
word, orders the man to be beheaded; and accordingly he was beheaded,
agreeably to the orders of Colonel Hannay. Upon this, the rebellion
blazed out with tenfold fury, and the people declared they would be
revenged for the destruction of their zemindar.
Your Lordships have now seen this Mustapha Khân imprisoned and sentenced
to death by Colonel Hannay, without judge and without accuser, without
any evidence, without the _fetwah_, or any sentence of the law. This man
is thus put to death by an arbitrary villain, by a more than cruel
tyrant, Colonel Hannay, the substitute of a ten thousand times more
cruel tyrant, Mr. Hastings.
In this situation was the country of Oude, under Colonel Hannay, when he
was removed from it. The knowledge of his misconduct had before induced
the miserable Nabob to make an effort to get rid of him; but Mr.
Hastings had repressed that effort by a civil reprimand,--telling him,
indeed, at the same time, "I do not force you to receive him." (Indeed,
the Nabob's situation had in it force enough.) The Nabob, I say, was
forced to receive him; and again he ravages and destroys that devoted
country, till the time of which I have been just speaking, when he was
driven out of it finally by the rebellion, and, as you may imagine,
departed like a leech full of blood.
It is stated in evidence upon your minutes that this bloated leech went
back to Calcutta; that he was supposed, from a state of debt, (in which
he was known to have been when he left that city,) to have returned from
Oude with the handsome sum of 300,000_l._, of which 80,000_l._ was in
gold mohurs. This is declared to be the universal opinion in India, and
no man has ever contradicted it. Ten persons have given evidence to that
effect; not one has contradicted it, from that hour to this, that I ever
heard of. The man is now no more. Whether his family have the whole of
the plunder or not,--what partnership there was in this business,--what
shares, what dividends were made, and who got them,--about all this
public opinion varied, and we can with certainty affirm nothing; but
there ended the life and exploits of Colonel Hannay, farmer-general,
civil officer, and military commander of Baraitch and Goruckpore. But
not so ended Mr. Hastings's proceedings.
Soon after the return of Colonel Hannay to Calcutta, this miserable
Nabob received intelligence, which concurrent public fame supported,
that Mr. Hastings meant to send him up into the country again, on a
second expedition, probably with some such order as this:--"You have
sucked blood enough for yourself, now try what you can do for your
neighbors." The Nabob was not likely to be misinformed. His friend and
agent, Gobind Ram, was at Calcutta, and had constant access to all Mr.
Hastings's people. Mr. Hastings himself tells you what instructions
these vakeels always have to search into and discover all his
transactions. This Gobind Ram, alarmed with strong apprehensions, and
struck with horror at the very idea of such an event, apprised his
master of his belief that Mr. Hastings meant to send Colonel Hannay
again into the country. Judge now, my lords, what Colonel Hannay must
have been, from the declaration which I will now read to you, extorted
from that miserable slave, the Nabob, who thus addresses Mr. Hastings.
"My country and house belong to you; there is no difference. I hope that
you desire in your heart the good of my concerns. Colonel Hannay is
inclined to request your permission to be employed in the affairs of
this quarter. If by any means any matter of this country dependent on me
should be intrusted to the Colonel, I swear by the Holy Prophet, that I
will not remain here, but will go from hence to you. From your kindness
let no concern dependent on me be intrusted to the Colonel, and oblige
me by a speedy answer which may set my mind at ease."
We know very well that the prisoner at your bar denied his having any
intention to send him up. We cannot prove them, but we maintain that
there were grounds for the strongest suspicions that he entertained such
intentions. He cannot deny the reality of this terror which existed in
the minds of the Nabob and his people, under the apprehension that he
was to be sent up, which plainly showed that they at least considered
there was ground enough for charging him with that intention. What
reason was there to think that he should not be sent a third time, who
had been sent twice before? Certainly, none; because every circumstance
of Mr. Hastings's proceedings was systematical, and perfectly well known
at Oude.
But suppose it to have been a false report; it shows all that the
Managers wish to show, the extreme terror which these creatures and
tools of Mr. Hastings struck into the people of that country. His denial
of any intention of again sending Colonel Hannay does not disprove
either the justness of their suspicions or the existence of the terror
which his very name excited.
My Lords, I shall now call your attention to a part of the evidence
which we have produced to prove the terrible effects of Colonel Hannay's
operations. Captain Edwards, an untainted man, who tells you that he had
passed through that country again and again, describes it as bearing all
the marks of savage desolation. Mr. Holt says it has fallen from its
former state,--that whole towns and villages were no longer peopled, and
that the country carried evident marks of famine. One would have thought
that Colonel Hannay's cruelty and depredations would have satiated Mr.
Hastings. No: he finds another military collector, a Major Osborne, who,
having suffered in his preferment by the sentence of a court-martial,
whether justly or unjustly I neither know nor care, was appointed to the
command of a thousand men in the provinces of Oude, but really to the
administration of the revenues of the country. He administered them much
in the same manner as Colonel Hannay had done. He, however, transmitted
to the government at Calcutta a partial representation of the state of
the provinces, the substance of which was, that the natives were exposed
to every kind of peculation, and that the country was in a horrible
state of confusion and disorder. This is upon the Company's records; and
although not produced in evidence, your Lordships may find it, for it
has been printed over and over again. This man went up to the Vizier; in
consequence of whose complaint, and the renewed cries of the people, Mr.
Hastings was soon obliged to recall him.
But, my Lords, let us go from Major Osborne to the rest of these
military purveyors of revenue. Your Lordships shall hear the Vizier's
own account of what he suffered from British officers, and into what a
state Mr. Hastings brought that country by the agency of officers who,
under the pretence of defending it, were invested with powers which
enabled them to commit most horrible abuses in the administration of the
revenue, the collection of customs, and the monopoly of the markets.
_Copy of a Letter from the Nabob Vizier to the Governor-General._
"All the officers stationed with the brigade at Cawnpore, Futtyghur,
Darunghur, and Furruckabad, and other places, write purwannahs, and
give positive orders to the aumils of these places, respecting the
grain, &c.; from which conduct the country will become depopulate. I
am hopeful from your friendship that you will write to all these
gentlemen not to issue orders, &c., to the aumils, and not to send
troops into the mahals of the sircar; and for whatever quantity of
grain, &c., they may want, they will inform me and the Resident, and
we will write it to the aumils, who shall cause it to be sent them
every month, and I will deduct the price of them from the tuncaws:
this will be agreeable both to me and to the ryots."
_A Copy of a subsequent Letter from the Vizier to Rajah Gobind Ram_.
"I some time ago wrote you the particulars of the conduct of the
officers, and now write them again. The officers and gentlemen who
are at Cawnpore, and Futtyghur, and Darunghur, and other places, by
different means act very tyrannically and oppressively towards the
aumils and ryots and inhabitants; and to whomsoever that requires a
dustuck they give it, with their own seal affixed, and send for the
aumils and punish them. If they say anything, the gentlemen make use
of but two words: one,--_That is for the brigade;_ and the
second,--_That is to administer justice_. The particulars of it is
this,--that the byparees will bring their grain from all quarters,
and sell for their livelihood. There is at present no war to
occasion a necessity for sending for it. If none comes, whatever
quantity will be necessary every month I will mention to the aumils,
that they may bring it for sale: but there is no deficiency of
grain. The gentlemen have established gunges for their own
advantage, called Colonel Gunge, at Darunghur, Futtyghur, &c. The
collection of the customs from all quarters they have stopped, and
collected them at their own gunges. Each gunge is rented out at
30,000-40,000 rupees, and their collections paid to the gentlemen.
They have established gunges where there never were any, and where
they were, those they have abolished; 30,000 or 40,000 rupees is the
sum they are rented at; the collections, to the amount of a lac of
rupees, are stopped. Major Briscoe, who is at Darunghur, has
established a gunge which rented out for 45,000 rupees, and has
stopped the ghauts round about the byparees; and merchants coming
from Cashmere, from Shahjehanabad, and bringing shawls and other
goods and spices, &c., from all quarters, he orders to his gunge,
and collects the duty from the aumils, gives them a chit, and a
guard, who conducts them about five hundred coss: the former duties
are not collected. From the conduct at Cawnpore, Futtyghur,
Furruckabad, &c., the duties from the lilla of Gora and Thlawa are
destroyed, and occasion a loss of three lacs of rupees to the
duties; and the losses that are sustained in Furruckabad may be
ascertained by the Nabob Muzuffer Jung, to whom every day complaints
are made: exclusive of the aumils and collectors, others lodge
complaints. Whatever I do, I desire no benefit from it; I am
remediless and silent; from what happens to me, I know that worse
will happen in other places; the second word, I know, is from their
mouths only. This is the case. In this country formerly, and even
now, whatever is to be received or paid among the zemindars, ryots,
and inhabitants of the cities, and poor people, neither those who
can pay or those who cannot pay ever make any excuse to the shroffs;
but when they could pay, they did. In old debts of fifty years,
whoever complain to the gentlemen, they agree that they shall pay
one fourth, and send dustucks and sepoys to all the aumils, the
chowdries, and canongoes, and inhabitants of all the towns; they
send for everybody, to do them justice, confine them, and say they
will settle the business. So many and numerous are these calamities,
that I know not how much room it will take up to mention them. Mr.
Briscoe is at Darunghur; and the complaints of the aumils arrive
daily. I am silent. Now Mr. Middleton is coming here, let the Nabob
appoint him for settling all these affairs, that whatever he shall
order those gentlemen they will do. From this everything will be
settled, and the particulars of this quarter will be made known to
the Nabob. I have written this, which you will deliver to the
Governor, that everything may be settled; and when he has understood
it, whatever is his inclination, he will favor me with it. The Nabob
is master in this country, and is my friend; there is no
distinction."
_Copy of another Letter, entered upon the Consultation of the 4th of
June, 1781._
"I have received your letter, requesting leave for a battalion to be
raised by Captain Clark on the same footing as Major Osborne's was,
agreeable to the requests and complaints of Ishmael Beg, the aumil
of Allahabad, &c., and in compliance with the directions of the
Council. You are well acquainted with the particulars and
negotiation of Ishmael Beg, and the nature of Mr. Osborne's
battalion. At the beginning of the year 1186 (1779) the affairs of
Allahabad were given on a lease of three years to Ishmael Beg,
together with the purgunnahs Arreel and Parra; and I gave orders for
troops to be stationed and raised, conformable to his request.
Ishmael Beg accordingly collected twelve hundred peons, which were
not allowed to the aumil of that place in the year 1185. The reason
why I gave permission for the additional expense of twelve hundred
peons was, that he might be enabled to manage the country with ease,
and pay the money to government regularly. I besides sent Mr.
Osborne there to command in the mahals belonging to Allahabad, which
were in the possession of Rajah Ajeet Sing; and he accordingly took
charge. Afterwards, in obedience to the orders of the
Governor-General, Mr. Hastings, Jelladut Jung, he was recalled, and
the mahals placed, as before, under Rajah Ajeet Sing. I never sent
Mr. Osborne to settle the concerns of Allahabad, for there was no
occasion for him; but Mr. Osborne, of himself, committed
depredations and rapines within Ishmael Beg's jurisdiction. Last
year, the battalion, which, by permission of General Sir Eyre Coote,
was sent, received orders to secure and defend Ishmael Beg against
the encroachments of Mr. Osborne; for the complaints of Ishmael Beg
against the violences of Mr. Osborne had reached the General and Mr.
Purling; and the Governor and gentlemen of Council, at my request,
recalled Mr. Osborne. This year, as before, the collections of
Arreel and Parra remain under Ishmael Beg. In those places, some of
the talookdars and zemindars, who had been oppressed and ill-treated
by Mr. Osborne, had conceived ideas of rebellion."
Here, my Lords, you have an account of the condition of Darunghur,
Futtyghur, Furruckabad, and of the whole line of our military stations
in the Nabob's dominions. You see the whole was one universal scene of
plunder and rapine. You see all this was known to Mr. Hastings, who
never inflicted any punishments for all this horrible outrage. You see
the utmost he has done is merely to recall one man, Major Osborne, who
was by no means the only person deeply involved in these charges. He
nominated all these people; he has never called any of them to an
account. Shall I not, then, call him their captain-general? Shall not
your Lordships call him so? And shall any man in the kingdom call him by
any other name? We see all the executive, all the civil and criminal
justice of the country seized on by him. We see the trade and all the
duties seized upon by his creatures. We see them destroying established
markets, and creating others at their pleasure. We see them, in the
country of an ally and in a time of peace, producing all the
consequences of rapine and of war. We see the country ruined and
depopulated by men who attempt to exculpate themselves by charging their
unhappy victims with rebellion.
And now, my Lords, who is it that has brought to light all these
outrages and complaints, the existence of which has never been denied,
and for which no redress was ever obtained, and no punishment ever
inflicted? Why, Mr. Hastings himself has brought them before you; they
are found in papers which he has transmitted. God, who inflicts
blindness upon great criminals, in order that they should meet with the
punishment they deserve, has made him the means of bringing forward this
scene, which we are maliciously said to have falsely and maliciously
devised. If any one of the ravages [charges?] contained in that long
catalogue of grievances is false, Warren Hastings is the person who must
answer for that individual falsehood. If they are generally false, he
is to answer for the false and calumniating accusation; and if they are
true, my Lords, he only is answerable, for he appointed those ministers
of outrage, and never called them to account for their misconduct.
Let me now show your Lordships the character that Mr. Hastings gives of
all the British officers. It is to be found in an extract from the
Appendix to that part of his Benares Narrative in which he comments upon
the treaty of Chunar. Mark, my Lords, what the man himself says of the
whole military service.
"Notwithstanding the great benefit which the Company would have derived
from such an augmentation of their military force as these troops
constituted, ready to act on any emergency, prepared and disciplined
without any charge on the Company, as the institution professed, until
their actual services should be required, I have observed some evils
growing out of the system, which, in my opinion, more than
counterbalanced those advantages, had they been realized in their
fullest effect. The remote stations of these troops, placing the
commanding officers beyond the notice and control of the board, afforded
too much opportunity and temptation for unwarrantable emoluments, and
excited the contagion of peculation and rapacity throughout the whole
army. A most remarkable and incontrovertible proof of the prevalence of
this spirit has been seen in the court-martial upon Captain Erskine,
where the court, composed of officers of rank and respectable
characters, unanimously and honorably, most honorably, acquitted him
upon an acknowledged fact which in times of stricter discipline would
have been deemed a crime deserving the severest punishment."
I will now call your Lordships' attention to another extract from the
same comment of Mr. Hastings, with respect to the removal of the
Company's servants, civil and military, from the court and service of
the Vizier.
"I was actuated solely by motives of justice to him and a regard to the
honor of our national character. In removing those gentlemen I diminish
my own influence, as well as that of my colleagues, by narrowing the
line of patronage; and I expose myself to obloquy and resentment from
those who are immediately affected by the arrangement, and the long
train of their friends and powerful patrons. But their numbers, their
influence, and the enormous amount of their salaries, pensions, and
emoluments, were an intolerable burden on the revenues and authority of
the Vizier, and exposed us to the envy and resentment of the whole
country, by excluding the native servants and adherents of the Vizier
from the rewards of their services and attachment."
My Lords, you have here Mr. Hastings's opinion of the whole military
service. You have here the authority and documents by which he supports
his opinion. He states that the contagion of peculation had tainted all
the frontier stations, which contain much the largest part of the
Company's army. He states that this contagion had tainted the whole
army, _everywhere:_ so that, according to him, there was, throughout the
Indian army, an universal taint of peculation. My Lords, peculation is
not a military vice. Insubordination, want of attention to duty, want of
order, want of obedience and regularity, are military vices; but who
ever before heard of peculation being a military vice? In the case
before you, it became so by employing military men as farmers of
revenue, as masters of markets and of gunges. This departure from the
military character and from military duties introduced that peculation
which tainted the army, and desolated the dominions of the Nabob Vizier.
I declare, when I first read the passage which has been just read to
your Lordships, in the infancy of this inquiry, it struck me with
astonishment that peculation should _at all_ exist as a military vice;
but I was still more astonished at finding Warren Hastings charging the
_whole_ British army with being corrupted by this base and depraved
spirit, to a degree which tainted even their judicial character. This,
my Lords, is a most serious matter. The judicial functions of military
men are of vast importance in themselves; and, generally speaking, there
is not any tribunal whose members are more honorable in their conduct
and more just in their decisions than those of a court-martial. Perhaps
there is not a tribunal in this country whose reputation is really more
untainted than that of a court-martial. It stands as fair, in the
opinion both of the army and of the public, as any tribunal, in a
country where _all_ tribunals stand fair. But in India, this unnatural
vice of peculation, which has no more to do with the vices of a military
character than with its virtues, this venomous spirit, has pervaded the
members of military tribunals to such an extent, that they acquit,
honorably acquit, _most_ honorably acquit a man, "upon an acknowledged
fact which in times of stricter discipline would have been deemed a
crime deserving the severest punishment."
Who says all this, my Lords? Do I say it? No: it is Warren Hastings who
says it. He records it. He gives you his vouchers and his evidence, and
he draws the conclusion. He is the criminal accuser of the British army.
He who sits in that box accuses the whole British army in India. He has
declared them to be so tainted with peculation, from head to foot, as to
have been induced to commit the most wicked perjuries, for the purpose
of bearing one another out in their abominable peculations. In this
unnatural state of things, and whilst there is not one military man on
these stations of whom Mr. Hastings does not give this abominably
flagitious character, yet every one of them have joined to give him the
benefit of their testimony for his honorable intentions and conduct.