has occasioned the public papers to teem with scurrility and abuse
against me, ever since my return to England. It was that conduct which
occasioned these charges. It was that conduct which enables me now
to lay my hand upon my heart, and most solemnly to declare to this
House, to the gallery, and to the whole world at large, that I never,
in a single instance, lost sight of what I thought the honour and
true interest of my country and the Company; that I was never guilty
of any acts of violence or oppression, unless the bringing offenders
to justice can be deemed so; that as to extortion, such an idea never
entered into my mind; that I did not suffer those under me to commit
acts of violence, oppression, or extortion; that my influence was never
employed for the advantage of any man, contrary to the strictest
principles of honour and justice; and that, so far from reaping any
benefit myself from the expedition, I returned to England many thousand
pounds out of pocket,--a fact of which this House will presently be
convinced."
He then entered into a detail of the charges themselves, and of
the strange way in which they had been communicated to him by the
Directors. The charges, it appears, were four. The first was, a
monopoly of cotton. "Trade," says he, "was not my profession. My line
has been military and political. I owe all I have in the world to my
having been at the head of an army; and as to cotton, I know no more
about it than the Pope of Rome."
The second charge was for a monopoly of diamonds. He observes, that at
that period there were only two ways by which a servant of the Company
could, with propriety, remit his fortune to England; by bills on the
Company, or by diamonds: that, in consequence of his own successful
endeavours, the Company's treasury was so rich, that it did not receive
money for such bills: that he, therefore, sent an agent into a distant
and independent country to purchase diamonds, that he might be able to
remit the amount of his jaghire. "These diamonds," says he, "were not
sent home clandestinely. I caused them to be registered; I paid the
duties upon them; and these remittances, upon the whole, turned out 3
per cent. worse than bills of exchange upon the Company. This is all I
know of a monopoly of diamonds."
The third charge was, frauds in the exchange, and in the gold coinage.
This, he said, was a subject very much out of his sphere, as he was
totally unacquainted with the proportion of alloy and the mixture of
metals. That the Select Committee was apprehensive of the country being
drained of silver, and, knowing that there was much gold in different
quarters, hoped to make it circulate as coin. "Hence the establishment
of the gold currency," he continues. "Whether it answered our purpose
or not, I cannot say, as I did not remain in Bengal long enough to
experience the effect of it; but this I know, that the assay and
mint-master, by whose judgment we were guided, was a very able and a
very honest man, and has, I understand, given a full and satisfactory
explanation of his plan to the Court of Directors. With regard to
myself, I shall only assert, that I did not receive a farthing
advantage from it, and that I never sent a single rupee or gold mohur
to be coined in my life.
"The fourth charge has this extraordinary title, 'A monopoly of salt,
betle-nut, and tobacco, and other commodities, which occasioned the
late famine.' How a monopoly of salt, betle-nut, and tobacco, in the
years 1765 and 1766 could occasion a want of rain and scarcity of
rice in the year 1770, is past my comprehension. I confess I cannot
answer that part of this article; and as to the _other commodities_,
as they have not been specified, I cannot say any thing to them." He
then entered into an explanation regarding the monopoly of salt, its
origin, objects, and effects, and defended his conduct and that of the
Select Committee in every circumstance, ascribing the opposition which
their measures met with to ignorance, prejudice, and mistaken views.
He contended that, in the circumstances of the country, it was the
only fund left for adequately paying the higher servants; that it was
faithfully and judiciously applied to that purpose; and that it was
attended with no injury or increase of taxation to the people, who,
by the plan of the society, were to receive it at as moderate a rate
as they had ever done in former times. Finally, he showed that he had
strictly conformed to a resolution made before leaving England,--not
to return in any degree enriched by his expedition to India; and
for that purpose had exhibited the state of his whole receipts as
Governor, including his share in the Society of Trade, as well as his
expenditure; by which it appeared, that of the proceeds one portion
was divided among Mr. Maskelyne, Mr. Strachey, and Mr. Ingham, three
gentlemen who had accompanied him to India, the two latter his private
secretary and family surgeon; and all the residue applied in part
payment of his necessary expenses as Governor; and that, so far from
returning home with any pecuniary benefits, he had really incurred a
loss of 5,816_l._ 16_s._ 9_d._
As insinuations had been used regarding his conduct in acquiring the
property which he had devoted to establish a fund for relief of the
Company's disabled officers and soldiers, and their widows,--a subject
which, he remarks, he would have been ashamed to touch on, as carrying
with it an appearance of vanity, were not his honour and reputation
so much at stake,--he proceeded to show, that, by the opinions of the
first lawyers in England, and, among others, of the Speaker of the
House, his acceptance of the legacy of Meer Jaffier in no respect
interfered with any of his covenants or engagements; that the amount
was his own sole and indisputable property; and that the Court of
Directors acknowledged, confirmed, and acted upon that right: in
short, that the donation which he had made for improving the Company's
military service, so far from being an object of blame, was a free gift
of upwards of 70,000_l._ out of his private purse.
Having thus triumphantly concluded his defence against the charges
that referred more immediately to himself, he expressed a fear of
encroaching on the patience of the House, in what he had to say on
the important business more immediately before them; but was loudly
called upon to go on. He then took a view of the general accusations
brought against the Company's servants; accusations in which the Court
of Directors had loudly joined. The justice of many of these he did
not deny, but argued that the offences arose in general less from the
characters of the individuals, to which they had been ascribed, than
from the unfortunate circumstances of their situation, which exposed
them to temptations that it was nearly impossible for human nature to
resist: that a change of system was the remedy, and that that must
proceed from the Court of Directors and the Government: that in the
richest country in the world, where the power of the English had become
absolute, where no inferior approached his superior but with a present
in his hand, where there was not an officer commanding his Majesty's
fleet, nor an officer commanding his Majesty's army, nor a Governor,
nor a member of Council, nor any other person, civil or military, in
such a station as to have connection with the country Government, who
had not received presents, it was not to be expected that the inferior
officers should be more scrupulous. The abuses to which, in a country
containing fifteen millions of inhabitants, a revenue of 4,000,000_l._,
and trade in proportion, such a practice gave rise, he described in
the liveliest terms; as well as the artifices by which the wily native
gradually draws on the inexperienced and unthinking youth, on his
first arrival in the country, till he gets him in his power: and to
the natives, protected by such men, he ascribes the acts of violence
and oppression that had been committed; not to the masters, who were
for the most part ignorant of them. He reminded the House that as to
the conduct of these young men, on whom the Directors were desirous of
shifting the blame, neither their parents nor the Directors themselves
were guiltless. "The advantages arising from the Company's service,"
said he, "are now very generally known, and the great object of every
man is to get his son appointed a writer to Bengal, which is usually
at the age of sixteen. His parents and relations represent to him how
certain he is of making a fortune; that my Lord Such-a-one and my Lord
Such-a-one acquired so much money in such a time, and Mr. Such-a-one
and Mr. Such-a-one so much in such a time. Thus are their principles
corrupted at their very setting out; and, as they generally go a good
many together, they inflame one another's expectations to such a
degree, in the course of the voyage, that they fix upon a period for
their return, before their arrival." After describing the career of
luxury and extravagance into which they are seduced by their artful
banyan[176], who takes advantage of the influence he acquires to commit
acts of violence and oppression, he adds, "Hence Sir, arises the
clamour against the English gentlemen in India. But look at them in a
retired situation, when returned to England, when they are no longer
nabobs and sovereigns of the East: see if there be any thing tyrannical
in their dispositions towards their inferiors; see if they are not good
and humane masters. Are they not charitable? Are they not benevolent?
Are they not generous? Are they not hospitable? If they are, thus far,
not contemptible members of society, and if in all their dealings
between man and man their conduct is strictly honourable, ... may we
not conclude, that if they have erred, it has been because they were
men placed in situations subject to little or no control?...
"But if the servants of the Company are to be loaded with the demerit
of every misfortune in India, let them also have the merit they are
entitled to. The Court of Directors, surely, will not claim the merit
of those advantages which the nation and the Company are at present in
possession of. The officers of the navy and army have had great share
in the execution; but the Company's servants were the Cabinet Council
who planned every thing, and to them also may be ascribed some part of
the merit of our great acquisitions."
After having shown that the system was more to blame than the men, that
much of the defect of regulation and control which rendered abuses
inevitable in India was owing to the very persons who were loudest in
their complaints, he next turned the attention of the House to the
state of India itself; a country which, he affirmed, yielded a clear
produce to the public and to individuals of between two and three
millions sterling per annum. He asked what could be substituted for
this, were it lost; and pointed to the dangers it actually ran, during
a recent difference with the French Court. But it was certain, that our
affairs in Bengal were in a very deplorable condition. This he ascribed
to mismanagement. The public trade he showed, from official returns,
to have more than doubled since the acquisition of the dewannee; while
the inland trade, upon which the happiness and prosperity of the people
must chiefly depend, had, by a change of system, and under pretence of
freedom of trade, been thrown into total confusion, as the Company's
servants and their agents had in reality taken it into their own hands,
and, by trading not only as merchants but as sovereigns, had taken
the bread out of the mouth of thousands of native merchants, whom
they reduced to beggary. By official returns he proved that, since
the acquisition of the dewannee, the revenues had suffered but a very
inconsiderable decrease; while in every year since he left Bengal
there had been a rapid increase in the military and civil charges,
which threatened to consume the whole of the collections, and leave
no surplus whatever. "Here," says he truly, "lies the danger. The
evil is not so much in the revenues falling short, as in the expenses
increasing. The best means of raising the revenues is to reduce the
civil and military charges.... It is not the simple pay of officers
and men upon the civil and military establishment which occasions
our enormous expense, but the contingent bills of contractors,
commissaries, engineers, &c., out of which, I am sure, great savings
might be made.... Every man now, who is permitted to make a bill, makes
a fortune. These intolerable expenses have alarmed the Directors, and
persuaded them to come to Parliament for assistance. And, if I mistake
not, they will soon go to the Administration and tell them they cannot
pay the 400,000_l._, and that they must lower the dividends to the
Proprietors."
The distressed state of the Company's affairs he attributed to four
causes:--a relaxation of Government in his successors; great neglect on
the part of his Majesty's Administration; notorious misconduct on the
part of the Directors; and the violent and outrageous proceedings of
General Courts, including contested elections.
While he bestowed the highest and most merited praise on Mr. Verelst's
honour, worth, and disinterestedness, he asserts that the too great
tenderness of his disposition had made him govern with too lenient a
hand; that he himself, by his farewell letter to the Select Committee,
had done all in his power to guard him against this error, and to
prompt him to vigorous measures. But he adds, that had his successor
kept the tightest rein, he could not have done much service to the
Company, as neither he nor any man could have long guarded against the
mischiefs occasioned by the Directors themselves, when they took away
the powers of the Select Committee.
Nor was the Administration itself free from blame. When the Company had
acquired an empire more extensive than any kingdom in Europe, France
and Russia excepted, with 4,000,000_l._ of gross revenue, and trade in
proportion, it might have been expected that such acquisitions would
have invited the most serious attention of Ministers, and that some
plan would have been devised, in concert with the Court of Directors,
adequate to the occasion. Did they take it into consideration? "No,
they did not."--"They thought of nothing but the present time,
regardless of the future; they said, 'Let us get what we can to-day;
let to-morrow take care for itself:' they thought of nothing but the
immediate division of the loaves and fishes: nay, so anxious were they
to lay their hands upon some immediate advantage, that they actually
went so far as to influence a parcel of temporary proprietors to bully
the Directors into their terms. It was their duty, Sir, to have called
upon the Directors for a plan; and if a plan in consequence had not
been laid before them, it would then have become their duty, with
the aid and assistance of Parliament, to have formed one themselves.
If Administration had done their duty, we should not now have had
a speech from the throne intimating the necessity of Parliamentary
interposition, to save our possessions in India from impending ruin."
He next proceeded to animadvert on the misconduct of the Directors, who
after having, in the highest terms, applauded the conduct of the Select
Committee, who had extricated their affairs from anarchy and confusion,
and raised them to a degree of prosperity never before enjoyed nor
anticipated, had counteracted the beneficial effects of their exertions
by dropping the prosecutions against those gentlemen whose conduct the
Committee had censured: that from that instant they destroyed their
own power; their servants abroad looked upon all covenants as so many
sheets of blank paper; and then began that relaxation of Government
so much complained of, and so much to be dreaded. That this step they
followed up by destroying the powers of the Committee, by dividing
them between the Committee and Council. The natural consequence was
an uninterrupted series of disputes, to the detriment of the service.
That not content with this, the Court restored almost every civil and
military transgressor who had been dismissed. "And now," continued
his Lordship, "as a condemnation of their own conduct, and a tacit
confession of their own weakness, they come to Parliament with a bill
of regulations, in which is inserted a clause to put such practices as
much as possible out of their power for the future."
He lastly censured the violent proceedings of General Courts, as
concurring with the acts of the Directors, in removing all dread of
responsibility from their servants abroad. He argued, that the whole of
these evils were aggravated by the system of annual elections; that one
half of the year was employed by the Directors in freeing themselves
from the obligations contracted by their last election; and the second
half wasted in incurring new obligations, and securing their election
for the next year, by daily sacrifices of some interest of the Company.
The orders sent out had, in consequence of the unsettled state of the
Direction, been so fluctuating, that the servants (who say the truth
have generally understood the interest of the Company much better
than the Directors,) in many instances followed their own opinion, in
opposition to theirs.
He concluded a speech of singular power and intelligence by observing,
that it was not his intention to trouble the House, at that time, with
the remedies for these evils. He chose rather to defer them till the
bill came into the House.[177]
He was followed by Governor Johnstone, who opposed the bill on
the reasonable ground that an examination of facts should precede
legislation, and that it was necessary to hear evidence before forming
any conclusion on subjects so important. He entered into an examination
of the defence which Lord Clive had just made of his conduct. In
regard to the two first charges, he acknowledged that they originated
in the clumsy manner in which business was done at the India House;
that the first was meant to be confined to particular members of
the Council; and that the second was not meant as a charge, but as
illustrating another point. He contended, however, in vehement terms,
that in regard to the fourth charge, that of the Salt Company, his
Lordship had violated his duty, and disobeyed the strong and repeated
orders of the Court of Directors, and that the monopoly had been
attended with the most injurious consequences to the country; that
as to the proportion of the profits which came to him as Governor,
it was no excuse for receiving them to allege, that they had been
distributed among his friends and dependants. In regard to the gold
coinage, he urged that it was not enough that Lord Clive had derived
no benefit from it (though indeed, as Governor, he had received a per
centage on the coinage); that it was a duty of his station to become
acquainted with principles so important to the prosperity of those he
governed; that his receipt of the per centage of one and an eighth on
the revenues, in lieu of the advantages resulting from his share in the
Society of Trade, however sanctioned by the Directors, was illegal. He
next attacked the legacy of Meer Jaffier, the basis of the celebrated
bounty, and declared his opinion that the foundation of the large
establishments and increased expenditure which, since Lord Clive left
India, had brought the Company's affairs to the verge of ruin, had been
laid during his government, and under his advice. Nearly the whole
of the speech was an attack on Lord Clive, on the same subjects, and
conveyed in the same violent language to which he had already so often
given vent during the contests in the Court of Proprietors.[178]
Leave was given to introduce the bill.
Nearly three months had elapsed since the allusion to India in the
Royal Speech, and Ministers, during that time, had shown no disposition
to take the matter into their own hands, as such a reference seemed
to promise. They were not prepared for a measure of such importance,
embarrassed, as they were, with other nearer business. By the allusions
in the speech, they, perhaps, wished to show that they had not lost
sight of a subject which occupied so much of the public attention;
but, with nothing to propose, were willing to let it lie over till it
received its first impulse from some other quarter. This impulse it
very soon did receive.
On the day of bringing in Mr. Sulivan's bill[179], Colonel Burgoyne
made a motion, that a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into
the nature, state, and condition of the East India Company, and
of the British affairs in the East Indies. Burgoyne was a man not
without talent, of showy parts, bold, vain, well-meaning, a political
adventurer. He was not connected with the Ministry, but thought the
opportunity a favourable one to bring himself into notice, by taking
the lead in a question of great national consequence. In his speech
introducing the motion, he represented, with much judgment, the
inconsistency of giving a vote on the bill which was that day to be
presented, without first examining the state of the country to which it
referred; and that no facts were before the House to enable it to come
to a sound judgment: he professed perfect impartiality and independence
of all parties, and disavowed any hostility to the Company or its
servants: he disclaimed all wish to throw the Company's affairs into
the hands of the Crown; but argued that facts sufficiently notorious
had occurred to justify and demand an inquiry into the rights of the
Company, and the mode in which they had been exercised, especially as
the fate of fifteen millions of people was involved in the question. It
was objected to his motion, that the proceedings of a Select Committee
being private, there was little responsibility on its members; that
such a Committee would virtually be really a Government nomination;
that no plan was yet before the House, and that, therefore, the
inquiries of such a Committee must necessarily be vague and indefinite,
such as the House could not limit or control. The motion, was, however,
carried without a division; and the members, thirty-one in number,
appointed by ballot, with directions, as the session was far spent, to
sit during the summer. Mr. Sulivan's bill was dropped after the second
reading.
When the Committee met, Colonel Burgoyne, who had proposed it, was
chosen Chairman. It was expected that he would have proposed a plan;
but having none to offer, Governor Johnstone, who was a member, and
who saw all the advantages of attack which such a Committee afforded
him, addressed the Committee, and submitted to them one which, from
different motives, was agreed to by all. By some (says Mr. Strachey,
himself a member of the Committee) it was readily adopted, because
they saw that it tended to an inquiry into the conduct of individuals
who had amassed great wealth in India, and particularly of Lord Clive,
whose high reputation, as well as riches, had rendered him the most
exalted object of envy. By Lord Clive himself, who was also a member
of the Committee, the plan was readily adopted, because it was not
fitting for him to oppose an inquiry into a conduct that had been so
long the subject of ill-grounded invective. By the few personal friends
of his Lordship it was readily adopted, because they were convinced
that his character would receive additional lustre from the scrutiny,
and that the attack levelled at his fame would tend only to establish
his reputation in the minds of all mankind. Others acquiesced in it,
because some plan was necessary, and it was the only one proposed.