Part I. Rights of Fyzoola Khan, etc., before the

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THE WORKS

OF

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

EDMUND BURKE

IN TWELVE VOLUMES

VOLUME THE TWELFTH

[Illustration: Burke Coat of Arms.]

LONDON

JOHN C. NIMMO

14, KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND, W.C.

MDCCCLXXXVII

CONTENTS OF VOL. XII.

PAGE

SPEECHES IN THE IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS,

ESQUIRE, LATE GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF BENGAL. (CONTINUED.)

SPEECH IN GENERAL REPLY.

FIFTH DAY: SATURDAY, JUNE 7, 1794 3

SIXTH DAY: WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11 75

SEVENTH DAY: THURSDAY, JUNE 12 143

EIGHTH DAY: SATURDAY, JUNE 14 235

NINTH DAY: MONDAY, JUNE 16 335

GENERAL TABLE OF CONTENTS 401

INDEX 407

SPEECHES

IN

THE IMPEACHMENT

OF

WARREN HASTINGS, ESQUIRE,

LATE GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF BENGAL.

SPEECH IN GENERAL REPLY.

(CONTINUED.)

June, 1794.

SPEECH

IN

GENERAL REPLY.

FIFTH DAY: SATURDAY, JUNE 7, 1794.

My Lords,--We will now resume the consideration of the remaining part of

our charge, and of the prisoner's attempts to defend himself against it.

Mr. Hastings, well knowing (what your Lordships must also by this time

be perfectly satisfied was the case) that this unfortunate Nabob had no

will of his own, draws down his poor victim to Chunar by an order to

attend the Governor-General. If the Nabob ever wrote to Mr. Hastings,

expressing a request or desire for this meeting, his letter was

unquestionably dictated to him by the prisoner. We have laid a ground of

direct proof before you, that the Nabob's being at Chunar, that his

proceedings there, and that all his acts were so dictated, and

consequently must be so construed.

I shall now proceed to lay before your Lordships the acts of oppression

committed by Mr. Hastings through his two miserable instruments: the

one, his passive instrument, the Nabob; the other, Mr. Middleton, his

active instrument, in his subsequent plans for the entire destruction of

that country. In page 513 of the printed Minutes you have Mr.

Middleton's declaration of his promptitude to represent everything

agreeably to Mr. Hastings's wishes.

"My dear Sir,--I have this day answered your public letter in the

form you seemed to expect. I hope there is nothing in it that may

to you appear too pointed. If you wish the matter to be otherwise

understood than I have taken up and stated it, I need not say I

shall be ready to conform to whatever you may prescribe, and to

take upon myself any share of the blame of the hitherto

non-performance of the stipulations made on behalf of the Nabob;

though I do assure you I myself represented to his Excellency and

the ministers, conceiving it to be your desire, that the apparent

assumption of the reins of his government, (for in that light he

undoubtedly considered it at the first view,) as specified in the

agreement executed by him, was not meant to be fully and literally

enforced, but that it was necessary you should have something to

show on your side, as the Company were deprived of a benefit

without a requital; and upon the faith of this assurance alone, I

believe I may safely affirm, his Excellency's objections to signing

the treaty were given up. If I have understood the matter wrong, or

misconceived your design, I am truly sorry for it. However, it is

not too late to correct the error; and I am ready to undertake,

and, God willing, to carry through, whatever you may, on the

receipt of my public letter, tell me is your final resolve.

"If you determine, at all events, that the measures of reducing the

Nabob's army, &c., shall be immediately undertaken, I shall take it

as a particular favor, if you will indulge me with a line at

Fyzabad, that I may make the necessary previous arrangements with

respect to the disposal of my family, which I would not wish to

retain here, in the event either of a rupture with the Nabob, or

the necessity of employing our forces on the reduction of his

aumils and troops. This done, I can begin the work in three days

after my return from Fyzabad."

Besides this letter, which I think is sufficiently clear upon the

subject, there is also another much more clear upon your Lordships'

minutes, much more distinct and much more pointed, expressive of his

being resolved to make such representations of every matter as the

Governor-General may wish. Now a man who is master of the manner in

which facts are represented, and whose subsequent conduct is to be

justified by such representations, is not simply accountable for his

conduct; he is accountable for culpably attempting to form, on false

premises, the judgment of others upon that conduct. This species of

delinquency must therefore be added to the rest; and I wish your

Lordships to carry generally in your minds, that there is not one single

syllable of representation made by any of those parties, except where

truth may happen to break out in spite of all the means of concealment,

which is not to be considered as the representation of Mr. Hastings

himself in justification of his own conduct.

The letter which I have just now read was written preparatory to the

transaction which I am now going to state, called _the treaty of

Chunar_. Having brought his miserable victim thither, he forced him to

sign a paper called a treaty: but such was the fraud in every part of

this treaty, that Mr. Middleton himself, who was the instrument and the

chief agent in it, acknowledges that the Nabob was persuaded to sign it

by the assurance given to him that it never was to be executed. Here,

then, your Lordships have a prince first compelled to enter into a

negotiation, and then induced to accede to a treaty by false assurances

that it should not be executed, which he declares nothing but force

should otherwise have compelled him to accede to.

The first circumstance in this transaction that I shall lay before your

Lordships is that the treaty is declared to have for its objects two

modes of relieving the Nabob from his distresses,--from distresses which

we have stated, and which Mr. Hastings has not only fully admitted, but

has himself proved in the clearest manner to your Lordships. The first

was by taking away that _wicked rabble_, the British troops, represented

by Mr. Hastings as totally ruinous to the Nabob's affairs, and

particularly by removing that part of them which was called the new

brigade. Another remedial part of the treaty regarded the British

pensioners. It is in proof before your Lordships that Mr. Hastings

agreed to recall from Oude that body of pensioners, whose conduct there

is described in such strong terms as being ruinous to the Vizier and to

all his affairs. These pensioners Mr. Hastings engaged to recall; but he

never did recall them. We refer your Lordships to the evidence before

you, in proof that these odious pensioners, so distressing to the Nabob,

so ruinous to his affairs, and so disgraceful to our government, were

not only _not_ recalled by Mr. Hastings, but that, both afterwards, and

upon the very day of signing the treaty, (as Mr. Middleton himself tells

you,) upon that very day, I say, he recommended to the Nabob that these

pensioners might remain upon that very establishment which, by a solemn

treaty of his own making and his own dictating, he had agreed to

relieve from this intolerable burden.

Mr. Hastings, your Lordships will remember, had departed from Benares,

frustrated in his designs of extorting 500,000_l._ from the Rajah for

the Company's use. He had ravaged the country, without obtaining any

benefit for his masters: the British soldiers having divided the only

spoil, and nothing remaining for the share of his employers but

disgrace. He was therefore afraid to return without having something of

a lucrative pecuniary nature to exhibit to the Company. Having this

object in view, Oude appears to have first presented itself to his

notice, as a country from which some advantage of a pecuniary kind might

be derived; and accordingly he turned in his head a vast variety of

stratagems for effecting his purpose.

The first article that occurs in the treaty of Chunar is a power given

to the Nabob to resume all the jaghires not guarantied by the Company,

and to give pensions to all those persons who should be removed from

their jaghires.

Now the first thing which would naturally occur to a man, who was going

to raise a revenue through the intervention of the prince of the

country, would be to recommend to that prince a better economy in his

affairs, and a rational and equal assessment upon his subjects, in order

to furnish the amount of the demand which he was about to make upon him.

I need not tell your Lordships, trained and formed as your minds are to

the rules and orders of good government, that there is no way by which a

prince can justly assess his subjects but by assessing them all in

proportion to their respective abilities, and that, if a prince should

make such a body as the House of Lords in this kingdom (which comes

near the case I am going to state) separately the subject of assessment,

such a thing would be contrary to all the principles of regular and just

taxation in any country in the universe. Some men may possibly, by

locality or privileges, be excepted from certain taxes, but no taxation

ever can be just that is thrown upon some particular class only; and if

that class happen to be small and the demand great, the injustice done

is directly proportionable to the greatness of the exaction, and

inversely to the number of the persons who are the objects of it: these

are clear, irrefragable, and eternal principles. But if, instead of

exacting a part by a proportionable rate, the prince should go further

and attempt to shake the whole mass of property itself, a mass perhaps

not much less than that which is possessed by the whole peers of Great

Britain, by confiscating the whole of the estates at once, as a

government resource, without the charge or pretence of any crime, I say

that such an act would be oppressive, cruel, and wicked in the highest

degree. Yet this is what Mr. Hastings projected, and actually did

accomplish.

My Lords, at the treaty of Chunar, as it is called, Mr. Hastings (for he

always artfully feels his way as he proceeds) first says, that the Nabob

shall be permitted to do this act, if he pleases. He does not assume the

government. He does not compel the Nabob to do anything. He does not

force upon him this abandoned and wicked confiscation of the property of

the whole nobility of a great country. All that he says is this,--"The

Nabob _may be permitted_ to resume these jaghires." Why permitted? If

the act had been legal, proper, and justifiable, he did not want our

permission; he was a sovereign in his own dominions. But Mr. Hastings

recollected that some of these jaghires (as they are called, and on

which I shall say a very few words to your Lordships) were guarantied by

the Company. The jaghires of his own house, of his mother and

grandmother, were guarantied by us. I must inform your Lordships, that,

upon some of our other exactions at an earlier period, the Nabob had

endeavored to levy a forced loan upon the jaghiredars. This forced loan

was made and submitted to by those people upon a direct assurance of

their rights in the jaghires, which right was guarantied by the British

Resident, not only to the Begums, and to the whole family of the Nabob,

but also to all the other objects of the tax.

Before I proceed, I will beg leave to state to you briefly the nature of

these jaghires. The jaghiredars, the holders of jaghires, form the body

of the principal Mahometan nobility. The great nobility of that country

are divided into two parts. One part consists of the zemindars, who are

the ancient proprietors of land, and the hereditary nobility of the

country: these are mostly Gentoos. The Mahometans form the other part,

whose whole interest in the land consists in the jaghires: for very few

indeed of them are zemindars anywhere, in some of the provinces none of

them are so; the whole of them are jaghiredars.

We have heard, my Lords, much discussion about jaghires. It is in proof

before your Lordships that they are of two sorts: that a jaghire

signifies exactly what the word _fee_ does in the English language, or

_feodum_ in the barbarous Latin of the Feudists; that it is a word which

signifies a salary or a maintenance, as did originally the English word

_fee_, derived from the word _feod_ and _feodum_. These jaghires, like

other fees and like other feods, were given in land, as a maintenance:

some with the condition of service, some without any condition; some

were annexed to an office, some were granted as the support of a

dignity, and none were granted for a less term than life, except those

that were immediately annexed to a lease. We have shown your Lordships

(and in this we have followed the example of Mr. Hastings) that some of

them are fees granted actually in perpetuity; and in fact many of them

are so granted. We are farther to tell your Lordships, that by the

custom of the empire they are almost all grown, as the feods in Europe

are grown, by use, into something which is at least virtually an

inheritance. This is the state of the jaghires and jaghiredars.

Among these jaghires we find, what your Lordships would expect to find,

an ample provision for all the nobility of that illustrious family of

which the Nabob is the head: a prince whose family, both by father and

mother, notwithstanding the slander of the prisoner against his

benefactor, was undoubtedly of the first and most distinguished nobility

of the Mahometan empire. Accordingly, his uncles, all his near

relations, his mother, grandmother, all possessed jaghires, some of very

long standing, and most of them not given by the Nabob.

I take some pains in explaining this business, because I trust your

Lordships will have a strong feeling against any confiscation for the

purpose of revenue. Believe me, my Lords, if there is anything which

will root the present order of things out of Europe, it will begin, as

we see it has already begun in a neighboring country, by confiscating,

for the purposes of the state, grants made to classes of men, let them

be held by what names or be supposed susceptible of what abuses soever.

I will venture to say that Jacobinism never can strike a more deadly

blow against property, rank, and dignity than your Lordships, if you

were to acquit this man, would strike against your own dignity, and the

very being of the society in which we live.

Your Lordships will find in your printed Minutes who the jaghiredars

were, and what was the amount of their estates. The jaghires of which

Mr. Hastings authorized the confiscation, or what he calls a

_resumption_, appear from Mr. Purling's account, when first the forced

loan was levied upon them under his Residentship, to amount to

285,000_l._ sterling per annum; which 285,000_l._, if rated and valued

according to the different value of provisions and other necessaries of

life in that country and in England, will amount, as near as may be, to

about 600,000_l._ a year. I am within compass. Everybody conversant with

India will say it is equivalent at least to 600,000_l._ a year in

England; and what a blow such a confiscation as this would be on the

fortunes of the peers of Great Britain your Lordships will judge. I like

to see your estates as great as they are; I wish they were greater than

they are; but whatever they are, I wish, above all that they should be

perpetual. For dignity and property in this country, _Esto perpetua_

shall be my prayer this day, and the last prayer of my life. The

Commons, therefore, of Great Britain, those guardians of property, who

will not suffer the monarch they love, the government which they adore,

to levy one shilling upon the subject in any other way than the law and

statutes of this kingdom prescribe, will not suffer, nor can they bear

the idea, that any single class of people should be chosen to be the

objects of a contrary conduct, nor that even the Nabob of Oude should be

permitted to act upon such a flagitious principle. When an English

governor has substituted a power of his own instead of the legal

government of the country, as I have proved this man to have done, if he

found the prince going to do an act which would shake the property of

all the nobility of the country, he surely ought to raise his hand and

say, "You shall not make my name your sanction for such an atrocious and

abominable act as this confiscation would be."

Mr. Hastings, however, whilst he gives, with an urbanity for which he is

so much praised, his consent to this confiscation, adds, there must be

pensions secured for all persons losing their estates, who had the

security of our guaranty. Your Lordships know that Mr. Hastings, by his

guaranty, had secured their jaghires to the Nabob's own relations and

family. One would have imagined, that, if the estates of those who were

without any security were to be confiscated at his pleasure, those at

least who were guarantied by the Company, such as the Begums of Oude and

several of the principal nobility of the Nabob's family, would have been

secure. He, indeed, says that pensions shall be given them; for at this

time he had not got the length of violating, without shame or remorse,

all the guaranties of the Company. "There shall," says he, "be pensions

given." If pensions were to be given to the value of the estate, I ask,

What has this violent act done? You shake the security of property, and,

instead of suffering a man to gather his own profits with his own hands,

you turn him into a pensioner upon the public treasury. I can conceive

that such a measure will render these persons miserable dependants

instead of independent nobility; but I cannot conceive what financial

object can be answered by paying that in pension which you are to

receive in revenue. This is directly contrary to financial economy. For

when you stipulate to pay out of the treasury of government a certain

pension, and take upon you the receipts of an estate, you adopt a

measure by which government is almost sure of being a loser. You charge

it with a certain fixed sum, and, even upon a supposition that under the

management of the public the estate will be as productive as it was

under the management of its private owner, (a thing highly improbable,)

you take your chance of a reimbursement subject to all the extra

expense, and to all the accidents that may happen to a public revenue.

This confiscation could not, therefore, be justified as a measure of

economy; it must have been designed merely for the sake of shaking and

destroying the property of the country.

The whole transaction, my Lords, was an act of gross violence, ushered

in by a gross fraud. It appears that no pensions were ever intended to

be paid; and this you will naturally guess would be the event, when such

a strange metamorphosis was to be made as that of turning a great landed

interest into a pensionary payment. As it could answer no other purpose,

so it could be intended for no other, than that of getting possession of

these jaghires by fraud. This man, my Lords, cannot commit a robbery

without indulging himself at the same time in the practice of his

favorite arts of fraud and falsehood.

And here I must again remind your Lordships, that at the time of the

treaty of Chunar the jaghires were held in the following manner. Of the

285,000_l._ a year which was to be confiscated, the old grants of Sujah

Dowlah, [and?] the grandfather of the Nabob, amounted to near two thirds

of the whole, as you will find in the paper to which we refer you. By

this confiscation, therefore, the Nabob was authorized to _resume_

grants of which he had not been the grantor.

[_Mr. Burke here read the list of the jaghires._]

Now, my Lords, you see that all these estates, except 25,782_l._ a year,

were either jaghires for the Nabob's own immediate family, settled by

his father upon his mother, and by his father's father upon his

grandmother, and upon Salar Jung, his uncle, or were the property of the

most considerable nobility, to the gross amount of 285,000_l._ Mr.

Hastings confesses that the Nabob reluctantly made the confiscation to

the extent proposed. Why? "Because," says he, "the orderlies, namely,

certain persons so called, subservient to his debaucheries, were persons

whom he wished to spare." Now I am to show you that this man, whatever

faults he may have in his private morals, (with which we have nothing at

all to do,) has been slandered throughout by Mr. Hastings. Take his own

account of the matter. "The Nabob," says he, "would have confiscated all

the rest, except his orderlies, whom he would have spared; but I,

finding where his partiality lay, compelled him to sacrifice the whole;

for otherwise he would have sacrificed the good to save the bad:

whereas," says Mr. Hastings, "in effect my principle was to sacrifice

the good, and at the same time to punish the bad." Now compare the

account he gives of the proceedings of Asoph ul Dowlah with his own.

Asoph ul Dowlah, to save some unworthy persons who had jaghires, would,

if left to his own discretion, have confiscated those only of the

deserving; while Mr. Hastings, to effect the inclusion of the worthless

in the confiscation, confiscates the jaghires of the innocent and the

virtuous men of high rank, and of those who had all the ties of Nature

to plead for the Nabob's forbearance, and reduced them to a state of

dependency and degradation.

Now, supposing these two villanous plans, neither of which your

Lordships can bear to hear the sound of, to stand equal in point of

morality, let us see how they stand in point of calculation. The

unexceptionable part of the 285,000_l._ amounted to 260,000_l._ a year;

whereas, supposing every part of the new grants had been made to the

most unworthy persons, it only amounted to 25,000_l._ a year. Therefore,

by his own account, given to you and to the Company, upon this occasion

he has confiscated 260,000_l._ a year, the property of innocent, if not

of meritorious individuals, in order to punish by confiscation those who

had 25,000_l._ a year only. This is the account he gives you himself of

his honor, his justice, and his policy in these proceedings.

But, my Lords, he shall not escape so. It is in your minutes, that so

far was the Nabob from wishing to save the new exceptionable grants,

that, at the time of the forced loan I have mentioned, and also when the

resumption was proposed, he was perfectly willing to give up every one

of them, and desired only that his mother, his uncles, and his

relations, with other individuals, the prime of the Mahometan nobility

of that country, should be spared. Is it not enough that this poor

Nabob, this wretched prince, is made a slave to the man now standing at

your bar, that he is made by him a shame and a scandal to his family,

his race, and his country, but he must be cruelly aspersed, and have

faults and crimes attributed to him that do not belong to him? I know

nothing of his private character and conduct: Mr. Hastings, who deals in

scandalous anecdotes, knows them: but I take it upon the face of Mr.

Purling's assertion, and I say, that the Nabob would have consented to

an arbitrary taxation of the jaghires, and would have given up to

absolute confiscation every man except those honorable persons I have

mentioned.

The prisoner himself has called Mr. Wombwell to prove the names of those

infamous persons with a partiality for whom Mr. Hastings has aspersed

the Nabob, in order to lay the ground for the destruction of his family.

They amount to only six in number; and when we come to examine these

six, we find that their jaghires were perfectly contemptible. The list

of the other jaghiredars, your Lordships see, fills up pages; and the

amount of their incomes I have already stated. Your Lordships now see

how inconsiderable, both in number and amount, were the culpable

jaghires, in the destruction of which he has involved the greater number

and the meritorious. You see that the Nabob never did propose any

exemption of the former at any time; that this was a slander and a

calumny on that unhappy man, in order to defend the violent acts of the

prisoner, who has recourse to slander and calumny as a proper way to

defend violence, outrage, and wrongs.

We have now gone through the first stage of Mr. Hastings's confiscation

of the estates of these unhappy people. When it came to be put in

execution, Mr. Middleton finds the Nabob reluctant in the greatest

degree to make this sacrifice of his family and of all his nobility. It

touched him in every way in which shame and sympathy can affect a man.

He falls at the feet of Mr. Middleton; he says, "I signed the treaty of

Chunar upon an assurance that it was never meant to be put in force."

Mr. Middleton nevertheless proceeds; he sends the family of the Nabob

out of the country; but he entertains fears of a general revolt as the

consequence of this tyrannical act, and refers the case back to Mr.

Hastings, who insists upon its being executed in its utmost extent. The

Nabob again remonstrates in the strongest manner; he begs, he prays, he

dissembles, he delays. One day he pretends to be willing to submit, the

next he hangs back, just as the violence of Mr. Hastings or his own

natural feelings and principles of justice dragged him one way or

dragged him another. Mr. Middleton, trembling, and under the awe of that

_dreadful responsibility_ under which your Lordships may remember Mr.

Hastings had expressly laid him upon that occasion, ventures at once to

usurp the Nabob's government. He usurped it openly and avowedly. He

declared that he himself would issue his purwannahs as governor of the

country, for the purpose of executing this abominable confiscation. He

assumed, I say, to himself the government of the country, and Mr.

Hastings had armed him with a strong military force for that purpose; he

declared he would order those troops to march for his support; he at

last got this reluctant, struggling Nabob to consent in the manner we

have described.

I shall now read to your Lordships Mr. Middleton's letters, that you may

hear these men with their own mouths describing their own acts, and that

your Lordships may then judge whether the highest tone and language of

crimination comes up to their own description of their own proceedings.

"_Lucknow, the 6th of Dec., 1781._

"Finding the Nabob wavering in his determination about the

resumption of the jaghires, I this day, in presence of, and with

the minister's concurrence, ordered the necessary purwannahs to be

written to the several aumils for that purpose, and it was my firm

resolution to have dispatched them this evening, with proper people

to see them punctually and implicitly carried into execution; but

before they were all transcribed, I received a message from the

Nabob, who had been informed by the minister of the resolution I

had taken, entreating that I would withhold the purwannahs till

to-morrow morning, when he would attend me, and afford me

satisfaction on this point. As the loss of a few hours in the

dispatch of the purwannahs appeared of little moment, and as it is

possible the Nabob, seeing that the business will at all events be

done, may make it an act of his own, I have consented to indulge

him in his request; but, be the result of our interview whatever it

may, nothing shall prevent the orders being issued to-morrow,

either by him or myself, with the concurrence of the ministers.

Your pleasure respecting the Begums I have learnt from Sir Elijah,

and the measure heretofore proposed will soon follow the resumption

of the jaghires; from both, or, indeed, from the former alone, I

have no doubt of the complete liquidation of the Company's

balance."

"_Lucknow, the 7th Dec., 1781._

"My dear Sir,--I had the honor to address you yesterday, informing

you of the steps I had taken in regard to the resumption of the

jaghires. This morning the Vizier came to me, according to his

agreement, but seemingly without any intention or desire to yield

me satisfaction on the subject under discussion; for, after a great

deal of conversation, consisting on his part of trifling evasion

and puerile excuses for withholding his assent to the measure,

though at the same time professing the most implicit submission to

your wishes, I found myself without any other resource than the one

of employing that exclusive authority with which I consider your

instructions to vest me. I therefore declared to the Nabob, in

presence of the minister and Mr. Johnson, who I desired might bear

witness of the conversation, that I construed his rejection of the

measure proposed as a breach of his solemn promise to you, and an

unwillingness to yield that assistance which was evidently in his

power towards liquidating his heavy accumulated debt to the

Company, and that I must in consequence determine, in my own

justification, to issue immediately the purwannahs, which had only

been withheld in the sanguine hope that he would be prevailed upon

to make that his own act, which nothing but the most urgent

necessity could force me to make mine. He left me without any

reply, but afterwards sent for his minister, and authorized him to

give me hopes that my requisition would be complied with; on which

I expressed my satisfaction, but declared that I could admit of no

further delays, and, unless I received his Excellency's formal

acquiescence before the evening, I should then most assuredly issue

my purwannahs: which I have accordingly done, not having had any

assurances from his Excellency that could justify a further

suspension. I shall as soon as possible inform you of the effect of

the purwannahs, which in many parts I am apprehensive it will be

found necessary to enforce with military aid; I am not, however,

entirely without hopes that the Nabob, when he sees the inefficacy

of further opposition, may alter his conduct, and prevent the

confusion and disagreeable consequences which would be too likely

to result from the prosecution of a measure of such importance

without his concurrence. His Excellency talks of going to Fyzabad,

for the purpose heretofore mentioned, in three or four days; I wish

he may be serious in this intention, and you may rest assured I

shall spare no pains to keep him to it."

"_Lucknow, 28th December, 1781._

"If your new demand is to be insisted upon, which your letter seems

to portend, I must beg your precise orders upon it; as, from the

difficulties I have within these few days experienced in carrying

the points you had enjoined with the Nabob, I have the best grounds

for believing that he would consider it a direct breach of the late

agreement, and totally reject the proposal as such; and I must own

to you, that, in his present fermented state of mind, I could

expect nothing less than despair and a declared rupture.

"He has by no means been yet able to furnish me with means of

paying off the arrears due to the temporary brigade, to the

stipulated term of its continuance in his service. The funds

necessary for paying off and discharging his own military

establishment under British officers, and his pension list, have

been raised, on the private credit of Mr. Johnson and myself, from

the shroffs of this place, to whom we are at this moment pledged

for many lacs of rupees; and without such aid, which I freely and

at all hazards yielded, because I conceived it was your anxious

desire to relieve the Nabob as soon as possible of this heavy

burden, the establishment must have been at his charge to this

time, and probably for months to come, while his resources were

strained to the utmost to furnish jaidads for its maintenance to

this period. I therefore hesitate not to declare it utterly

impossible for him, under any circumstances whatever, to provide

funds for the payment of the troops you now propose to send him.

"The wresting Furruckabad, Kyraghur, and Fyzoola Khan's country

from his government, (for in that light, my dear Sir, I can

faithfully assure you, he views the measures adopted in respect to

those countries,) together with the resumption of all the jaghires,

so much against his inclination, have already brought the Nabob to

a persuasion that nothing less than his destruction, or the

annihilation of every shadow of his power, is meant; and all my

labors to convince him to the contrary have proved abortive. A

settled melancholy has seized him, and his health is reduced beyond

conception; and I do most humbly believe that the march of four

regiments of sepoys towards Lucknow, under whatever circumstances

it might be represented, would be considered by him as a force

ultimately to be used in securing his person. In short, my dear

Sir, it is a matter of such immediate moment, and involving,

apparently, such very serious and important consequences, that I

have not only taken upon me to suspend the communication of it to

the Nabob until I should be honored with your further commands, but

have also ventured to write the inclosed letter to Colonel Morgan:

liberties which I confidently trust you will excuse, when you

consider that I can be actuated by no other motive than a zeal for

the public service, and that, if, after all, you determine that the

measure shall be insisted on, it will be only the loss of six or at

most eight days in proposing it. But in the last event, I earnestly

entreat your orders may be explicit and positive, that I may

clearly know what lengths you would wish me to proceed in carrying

them into execution. I again declare it is my firm belief, and

assure yourself, my dear Mr. Hastings, I am not influenced in this

declaration by any considerations but my public duty and my

personal attachment to you, that the enforcing the measure you have

proposed would be productive of an open rupture between us and the

Nabob; nay, that the first necessary step towards carrying it into

effect must be, on our part, a declaration of hostility."

Your Lordships have now before your eyes proofs, furnished by Mr.

Hastings himself from his correspondence with Mr. Middleton,

irrefragable proofs, that this Nabob, who is stated to have made the

proposition himself, was dragged to the signature of it; and that the

troops which are supposed, and fraudulently stated, (and I wish your

Lordships particularly to observe this,) to have been sent to assist

him in this measure, were considered by him as a body of troops sent to

imprison him, and to free him from all the troubles and pains of

government.

When Mr. Hastings sent the troops for the purpose, as he pretended, of

assisting the Nabob in the execution of a measure which was really

adopted in direct opposition to the wishes of that prince, what other

conclusion could be drawn, but that they were sent to overawe, not to

assist him? The march of alien troops into a country upon that occasion

could have no object but hostility; they could have been sent with no

other design but that of bringing disgrace upon the Nabob, by making him

the instrument of his family's ruin, and of the destruction of his

nobility. Your Lordships, therefore, will not wonder that this miserable

man should have sunk into despair, and that he should have felt the

weight of his oppression doubly aggravated by its coming from such a man

as Mr. Hastings, and by its being enforced by such a man as Mr.

Middleton.

And here I must press one observation upon your Lordships: I do not know

a greater insult that can be offered to a man born to command than to

find himself made the tool of a set of obscure men, come from an unknown

country, without anything to distinguish them but an usurped power.

Never shall I, out of compliment to any persons, because they happen to

be my own countrymen, disguise my feelings, or renounce the dictates of

Nature and of humanity. If we send out obscure people, unknowing and

unknown, to exercise such acts as these, I must say it is a bitter

aggravation of the victim's suffering. Oppression and robbery are at all

times evils; but they are more bearable, when exercised by persons whom

we have been habituated to regard with awe, and to whom mankind for ages

have been accustomed to bow.

Now does the history of tyranny furnish, does the history of popular

violence deposing kings furnish, anything like the dreadful deposition

of this prince, and the cruel and abominable tyranny that has been

exercised over him? Consider, too, my Lords, for what object all this

was done. Was Mr. Hastings endeavoring, by his arbitrary interference

and the use of his superior power, to screen a people from the

usurpation and power of a tyrant,--from any strong and violent acts

against property, against dignity, against nobility, against the freedom

of his people? No: you see here a monarch deposed, in effect, by persons

pretending to be his allies, and assigning what are pretended to be his

wishes as the motive for using his usurped authority in the execution of

these acts of violence against his own family and his subjects. You see

him struggling against this violent prostitution of his authority. He

refuses the sanction of his name, which before he had given up to Mr.

Hastings to be used as he pleased, and only begs not to be made an

instrument of wrong which his soul abhors, and which would make him

infamous throughout the world. Mr. Middleton, however, assumes the

sovereignty of the country. "I," he says, "am Nabob of Oude: the

jaghires shall be confiscated: I have given my orders, and they shall be

supported by a military force."

I am ashamed to have so far distrusted your Lordships' honorable and

generous feelings as to have offered you, upon this occasion, any

remarks which you must have run before me in making. Those feelings

which you have, and ought to have, feelings born in the breasts of all

men, and much more in men of your Lordships' elevated rank, render my

remarks unnecessary. I need not, therefore, ask what you feel, when a

foreign resident at a prince's court takes upon himself to force that

prince to act the part of a tyrant, and, upon his resistance, openly and

avowedly assumes the sovereignty of the country. You have it in proof

that Mr. Middleton did this. He not only put his own name to the orders

for this horrible confiscation, but he actually proceeded to dispossess

the jaghiredars of their lands, and to send them out of the country. And

whom does he send, in the place of this plundered body of nobility, to

take possession of the country? Why, the usurers of Benares. Yes, my

Lords, he immediately mortgages the whole country to the usurers of

Benares, for the purpose of raising money upon it: giving it up to those

bloodsuckers, dispossessed of that nobility, whose interest, whose duty,

whose feelings, and whose habits made them the natural protectors of the

people.

My Lords, we here see a body of usurers put into possession of all the

estates of the nobility: let us now see if this act was necessary, even

for the avowed purposes of its agents,--the relief of the Nabob's

financial difficulties, and the payment of his debts to the Company. Mr.

Middleton has told your Lordships that these jaghires would pay the

Company's debt completely in two years. Then would it not have been

better to have left these estates in the hands of their owners, and to

have oppressed them in some moderate, decent way? Might they not have

left the jaghiredars to raise the sums required by some settlement with

the bankers of Benares, in which the repayment of the money within five

or six years might have been secured, and the jaghiredars have had in

the mean time something to subsist upon? Oh, no! these victims must have

nothing to live upon. They must be turned out. And why? Mr. Hastings

commands it.

Here I must come in aid of Mr. Middleton a little; for one cannot but

pity the miserable instruments that have to act under Mr. Hastings. I do

not mean to apologize for Mr. Middleton, but to pity the situation of

persons who, being servants of the Company, were converted, by the

usurpation of this man, into his subjects and his slaves. The mind of

Mr. Middleton revolts. You see him reluctant to proceed. The Nabob begs

a respite. You find in the Resident a willingness to comply. Even Mr.

Middleton is placable. Mr. Hastings alone is obdurate. His resolution to

rob and to destroy was not to be moved, and the estates of the whole

Mahometan nobility of a great kingdom were confiscated in a moment. Your

Lordships will observe that his orders to Mr. Middleton allow no

forbearance. He writes thus to him.

"Sir,--My mind has been for some days suspended between two

opposite impulses: one arising from the necessity of my return to

Calcutta; the other, from the apprehension of my presence being

more necessary and more urgently wanted at Lucknow. Your answer to

this shall decide my choice.

"I have waited thus long in the hopes of hearing that some progress

had been made in the execution of the plan which I concluded with

the Nabob in September last. I do not find that any step towards

it has been yet taken, though three months are elapsed, and little

more than that period did appear to me requisite to have

accomplished the most essential parts of it, and to have brought

the whole into train. This tardiness, and the opposition prepared

to the only decided act yet undertaken, have a bad appearance. I

approve the Nabob's resolutions to deprive the Begums of their

ill-employed treasures. In both services, it must be your care to

prevent an abuse of the powers given to those that are employed in

them. You yourself ought to be personally present. You must not

allow any negotiation or forbearance, but must prosecute both

services, until the Begums are at the entire mercy of the Nabob,

their jaghires in the quiet possession of his aumils, and their

wealth in such charge as may secure it against private

embezzlement. You will have a force more than sufficient to effect

both these purposes.

"The reformation of his army and the new settlement of his revenues

are also points of immediate concern, and ought to be immediately

concluded. Has anything been done in either?

"I now demand and require you most solemnly to answer me. Are you

confident in your own ability to accomplish all these purposes, and

the other points of my instructions? If you reply that you are, I

will depart with a quiet and assured mind to the Presidency, but

leave you a dreadful responsibility, if you disappoint me. If you

tell me that you cannot rely upon your power, and the other means

which you possess for performing these services, I will free you

from the charge. I will proceed myself to Lucknow, and I will

myself undertake them; and in that case, I desire that you will

immediately order bearers to be stationed, for myself and two other

gentlemen, between Lucknow and Allahabad, and I will set out from

hence in three days after the receipt of your letter.

"I am sorry that I am under the necessity of writing in this

pressing manner. I trust implicitly to your integrity, I am certain

of your attachment to myself, and I know that your capacity is

equal to any service; but I must express my doubts of your firmness

and activity, and above all of your recollection of my

instructions, and of their importance. My conduct in the late

arrangements will be arraigned with all the rancor of disappointed

rapacity, and my reputation and influence will suffer a mortal

wound from the failure of them. They have already failed in a

degree, since no part of them has yet taken place, but the removal

of our forces from the Dooab and Rohilcund, and of the British

officers and pensioners from the service of the Nabob, and the

expenses of the former thrown without any compensation on the

Company.

"I expect a supply of money equal to the discharge of all the

Nabob's arrears, and am much disappointed and mortified that I am

not now able to return with it.

"Give me an immediate answer to the question which I have herein

proposed, that I may lose no more time in fruitless inaction."

About this time Mr. Hastings had received information of our inquiries

in the House of Commons into his conduct; and this is the manner in

which he prepares to meet them. "I must get money. I must carry with me

that great excuse for everything, that salve for every sore, that

expiation for every crime: let me provide that, all is well. You, Mr.

Middleton, try your nerves: are you equal to these services? Examine

yourself; see what is in you: are you man enough to come up to it?" says

the great robber to the little robber, says Roland the Great to his puny

accomplice. "Are you equal to it? Do you feel yourself a man? If not,

send messengers and dawks to me, and I, the great master tyrant, will

come myself, and put to shame all the paltry delegate tools of

despotism, that have not edge enough to cut their way through and do the

services I have ordained for them."

I have already stated to your Lordships his reason and motives for this

violence, and they are such as aggravated his crime by attempting to

implicate his country in it. He says he was afraid to go home without

having provided for the payment of the Nabob's debt. Afraid of what? Was

he afraid of coming before a British tribunal, and saying, "Through

justice, through a regard for the rights of an allied sovereign, through

a regard to the rights of his people, I have not got so much as I

expected"? Of this no man could be afraid. The prisoner's fear had

another origin. "I have failed," says he to himself, "in my first

project. I went to Benares to rob; I have lost by my violence the fruits

of that robbery. I must get the money somewhere, or I dare not appear

before a British House of Commons, a British House of Lords, or any

other tribunal in the kingdom; but let me get money enough, and they

won't care how I get it. The estates of whole bodies of nobility may be

confiscated; a people who had lived under their protection may be given

up into the hands of foreign usurers: they will care for none of these

things; they will suffer me to do all this, and to employ in it the

force of British troops, whom I have described as a set of robbers,

provided I can get money." These were Mr. Hastings's views; and, in

accordance with them, the jaghires were all confiscated, the jaghiredars

with their families were all turned out, the possessions delivered up to

the usurer, in order that Mr. Hastings might have the excuse of money to

plead at the bar of the House of Commons, and afterwards at the bar of

the House of Lords. If your Lordships, in your sacred character of the

first tribunal in the world, should by your judgment justify those

proceedings, you will sanction the greatest wrongs that have been ever

known in history.

But to proceed. The next thing to be asked is, Were the promised

pensions given to the jaghiredars? I suppose your Lordships are not idle

enough to put that question to us. No compensation, no consideration,

was given or stipulated for them. If there had been any such thing, the

prisoner could have proved it,--he would have proved it. The means were

easy to him. But we have saved him the trouble of the attempt. We have

proved the contrary, and, if called upon, we will show you the place

where this is proved.

I have now shown your Lordships how Mr. Hastings, having with such

violent and atrocious circumstances usurped the government of Oude, (I

hope I need not use any farther proof that the Nabob was in effect

non-existent in the country,) treated all the landed property. The next

question will be, How has he treated whatever moneyed property was left

in the country? My Lords, he looked over that immense waste of his own

creating, not as Satan viewed the kingdoms of the world and saw the

power and glory of them,--but he looked over the waste of Oude with a

diabolical malice which one could hardly suppose existed in the

prototype himself. He saw nowhere above-ground one single shilling that

he could attach,--no, not one; every place had been ravaged; no money

remained in sight. But possibly some might be buried in vaults, hid from

the gripe of tyranny and rapacity. "It must be so," says he. "Where can

I find it? how can I get at it? There is one illustrious family that is

thought to have accumulated a vast body of treasures, through a course

of three or four successive reigns. It does not appear openly; but we

have good information that very great sums of money are bricked up and

kept in vaults under ground, and secured under the guard and within the

walls of a fortress": the residence of the females of the family, a

guard, as your Lordships know, rendered doubly and trebly secure by the

manners of the country, which make everything that is in the hands of

women sacred. It is said that nothing is proof against gold,--that the

strongest tower will not be impregnable, if Jupiter makes love in a

golden shower. This Jupiter commences making love; but he does not come

to the ladies with gold for their persons, he comes to their persons for

their gold. This impetuous lover, Mr. Hastings, who is not to be stayed

from the objects of his passion, would annihilate space and time between

him and his beloved object, the jaghires of these ladies, had now,

first, their treasure's affection.

Your Lordships have already had a peep behind the curtain, in the first

orders sent to Mr. Middleton. In the treaty of Chunar you see a desire,

obliquely expressed, to get the landed estates of all these great

families. But even while he was meeting with such reluctance in the

Nabob upon this point, and though he also met with some resistance upon

the part even of Mr. Middleton, Mr. Hastings appears to have given him

in charge some other still more obnoxious and dreadful acts. "While I

was meditating," says Mr. Middleton, in one of his letters, "upon this

[the resumption of the jaghires], your orders came to me through Sir

Elijah Impey." What these orders were is left obscure in the letter: it

is yet but as in a mist or cloud. But it is evident that Sir Elijah

Impey did convey to him some project for getting at more wealth by some

other service, which was not to supersede the first, but to be

concurrent with that upon which Mr. Hastings had before given him such

dreadful charges and had loaded him with such horrible responsibility.

It could not have been anything but the seizure of the Begum's

treasures. He thus goaded on two reluctant victims,--first the reluctant

Nabob, then the reluctant Mr. Middleton,--forcing them with the bayonet

behind them, and urging on the former, as at last appears, to violate

the sanctity of his mother's house.

Your Lordships have been already told by one of my able fellow Managers,

that Sir Elijah Impey is the person who carried up the message alluded

to in Mr. Middleton's letter. We have charged it, as an aggravation of

the offences of the prisoner at your bar, that the Chief-Justice, who,

by the sacred nature of his office, and by the express provisions of the

act of Parliament under which he was sent out to India to redress the

wrongs of the natives, should be made an instrument for destroying the

property, real and personal, of this people. When it first came to our

knowledge that all this private intrigue for the destruction of these

high women was carried on through the intrigue of a Chief-Justice, we

felt such shame and such horror, both for the instrument and the

principal, as I think it impossible to describe, or for anything but

complete and perfect silence to express.

But by Sir Elijah Impey was that order carried up to seize and

confiscate the treasures of the Begums. We know that neither the Company

nor the Nabob had any claim whatever upon these treasures. On the

contrary, we know that two treaties had been made for the protection of

them. We know that the Nabob, while he was contesting about some

elephants and carriages, and some other things that he said were in the

hands of their steward, did allow that the treasures in the custody of

his grandmother and of his mother's principal servants were their

property. This is the Nabob who is now represented by Mr. Hastings and

his counsel to have become the instrument of destroying his mother and

grandmother, and everything else that ought to be dear to mankind,

throughout the whole train of his family.

Mr. Hastings, having resolved to seize upon the treasures of the Begums,

is at a loss for some pretence of justifying the act. His first

justification of it is on grounds which all tyrants have ready at their

hands. He begins to discover a legal title to that of which he wished to

be the possessor, and on this title sets up a claim to these treasures.

I say Mr. Hastings set up this claim, because by this time I suppose

your Lordships will not bear to hear the Nabob's name on such an

occasion. The prisoner pretended, that, by the Mahometan law, these

goods did belong to the Nabob; but whether they did or did not, he had

himself been an active instrument in the treaty for securing their

possession to the Begums,--a security which he attempts to unlock by his

constructions of the Mahometan law. Having set up this title, the

guaranty still remained; and how is he to get rid of that? In his usual

way. "You have rebelled, you have taken up arms against your own son,"

(for that is the pretext,) "and therefore my guaranty is gone, and your

goods, whether you have a title to them or not, are to be confiscated

for your rebellion." This is his second expedient by way of

justification.

Your Lordships will observe the strange situation in which we are here

placed. If the fact of the rebellion can be proved, the discussion of

the title to the property in question will be totally useless; for, if

the ladies had actually taken up arms to cut the Nabob's throat, it

would require no person to come from the dead to prove to us that the

Nabob, but not Mr. Hastings, had a right, for his own security and for

his own indemnification, to take those treasures, which, whether they

belonged to him or not, were employed in hostilities against him. The

law of self-defence is above every other law; and if any persons draw

the sword against you, violence on your part is justified, and you may

use your sword to take from them that property by which they have been

enabled to draw their sword against you.

But the prisoner's counsel do not trust to this justification; they set

up a title of right to these treasures: but how entirely they have

failed in their attempts to substantiate either the one or the other of

these his alleged justifications your Lordships will now judge. And

first with regard to the title. The treasure, they say, belonged to the

state. The grandmother and mother have robbed the son, and kept him out

of his rightful inheritance. They then produce the Hedaya to show you

what proportion of the goods of a Mussulman, when he dies, goes to his

family; and here, certainly, there is a question of law to be tried. But

Mr. Hastings is a great eccentric genius, and has a course of proceeding

of his own: he first seizes upon the property, and then produces some

Mahometan writers to prove that it did not belong to the persons who

were in possession of it. You would naturally expect, that, when he was

going to seize upon those goods, he would have consulted his

Chief-Justice, (for, as Sir Elijah Impey went with him, he might have

consulted him,) and have thus learnt what was the Mahometan law: for,

though Sir Elijah had not taken his degree at a Mahometan college,

though he was not a mufti or a moulavy, yet he had always muftis and

moulavies near him, and he might have consulted them. But Mr. Hastings

does not even pretend that such consultations or conferences were ever

had. If he ever consulted Sir Elijah Impey, where is the report of the

case? When were the parties before him? Where are the opinions of the

moulavies? Where is the judgment of the Chief-Justice? Was he fit for

nothing but to be employed as a messenger, as a common tipstaff? Was he

not fit to try these rights, or to decide upon them? He has told you

here, indeed, negatively, that he did not know any title Mr. Hastings

had to seize upon the property of the Begums, except upon his hypothesis

of the rebellion. He was asked if he knew any other. He answered, No. It

consequently appears that Mr. Hastings, though he had before him his

doctors of all laws, who could unravel for him all the enigmas of all

the laws in the world, and who had himself shone upon questions of

Mahometan law, in the case of the Nuddea Begum, did not dare to put this

case to Sir Elijah Impey, and ask what was his opinion concerning the

rights of these people. He was tender, I suppose, of the reputation of

the Chief-Justice. For Sir Elijah Impey, though a very good man to write

a letter, or take an affidavit in a corner, or run on a message, to do

the business of an under-sheriff, tipstaff, or bum-bailiff, was not fit

to give an opinion on a question of Mahometan law.

You have heard Ali Ibrahim Khan referred to. This Mahometan lawyer was

carried by Mr. Hastings up to Benares, to be a witness of the vast good

he had done in that province, and was made Chief-Justice there. All,

indeed, that we know of him, except the high character given of him by

Mr. Hastings, is, I believe, that he is the Ali Ibrahim Khan whom in the

Company's records I find mentioned as a person giving bribes upon some

former occasion to Mr. Hastings; but whatever he was besides, he was a

doctor of the Mahometan law, he was a mufti, and was made by Mr.

Hastings the principal judge in a criminal court, exercising, as I

believe, likewise a considerable civil jurisdiction, and therefore he

was qualified as a lawyer; and Mr. Hastings cannot object to his

qualifications either of integrity or of knowledge. This man was with

him. Why did not he consult him upon this law? Why did he not make him

out a case of John Doe and Richard Roe, of John Stokes and John a Nokes?

Why not say, "Sinub possesses such things, under such and such

circumstances: give me your opinion upon the legality of the

possession"? No, he did no such thing.

Your Lordships, I am sure, will think it a little extraordinary, that

neither this chief-justice made by himself, nor that other chief-justice

whom he led about with him in a string,--the one an English

chief-justice, with a Mahometan suit in his court, the other a Mahometan

chief-justice of the country,--that neither of them was consulted as

lawyers by the prisoner. Both of them were, indeed, otherwise employed

by him. For we find Ali Ibrahim Khan employed in the same subservient

capacity in which Sir Elijah Impey was,--in order, I suppose, to keep

the law of England and the law of Mahomet upon a just par: for upon this

equality Mr. Hastings always values himself. Neither of these two

chief-justices, I say, was ever consulted, nor one opinion taken; but

they were both employed in the correspondence and private execution of

this abominable project, when the prisoner himself had not either

leisure or perhaps courage to give his public order in it till things

got to greater ripeness.

To Sir Elijah Impey, indeed, he did put a question; and, upon my word,

it did not require an Oedipus or a Sphinx to answer it. Says he, "I

asked Sir Elijah Impey." What? a question on the title between the Nabob

and his mother? No such thing. He puts an hypothetical question.

"Supposing," says he, "a rebellion to exist in that country; will the

Nabob be justified in seizing the goods of the rebels?" That is a

question decided in a moment; and I must have a malice to Sir Elijah

Impey of which I am incapable, to deny the propriety of his answer. But

observe, I pray you, my Lords, there is something peculiarly good and

correct in it. He does not take upon him to say one word of the actual

existence of a rebellion, though he was at the time in the country, and,

if there had been any, he must have been a witness to it; but, so chaste

was his character as a judge, that he would not touch upon the juries'

office. "I am chief-justice here," says he, "though a little wandering

out of my orbit; yet still the sacred office of justice is in me. Do you

take upon you the fact; I find the law." Were it not for this sacred

attention to separate jurisdictions, he might have been a tolerable

judge of the fact,--just as good a judge as Mr. Hastings: for neither of

them knew it any other way, as it appears afterwards, but by rumor and

reports,--reports, I believe, of Mr. Hastings's own raising; for I do

not know that Sir Elijah Impey had anything to do with them.

But to proceed. With regard to the title of these ladies, according to

the Mahometan law, you have nothing laid before you by the prisoner's

counsel but a quotation cut out with the scissors from a Mahometan

law-book, (which I suspect very much the learned gentlemen have never

read through,) declaring how a Mahometan's effects are to be

distributed. But Mr. Hastings could not at the time have consulted that

learned counsel who now defends him upon the principles of the Hedaya,

the Hedaya not having been then published in English; and I will venture

to say, that neither Sir Elijah Impey nor Ali Ibrahim Khan, nor any

other person, high or low, in India, ever suggested this defence, and

that it was never thought of till lately found by the learned counsel in

the English translation of the Hedaya. "God bless me!" now says Mr.

Hastings, "what ignorance have I been in all this time! I thought I was

seizing this unjustly, and that the pretence of rebellion was necessary;

but my counsel have found out a book, since published, and from it they

produce the law upon that subject, and show that the Nabob had a right

to seize upon the treasures of his mother." But are your Lordships so

ignorant--(your Lordships are not ignorant of anything)--are any men so

ignorant as not to know that in every country the common law of

distribution of the estate of an intestate amongst private individuals

is no rule with regard to the family arrangements of great princes? Is

any one ignorant, that, from the days of the first origin of the Persian

monarchy, the laws of which have become rules ever since for almost all

the monarchs of the East, the wives of great men have had, independent

of the common distribution of their goods, great sums of money and great

estates in land, one for their girdle, one for their veil, and so on,

going through the rest of their ornaments and attire,--and that they

held great estates and other effects over which the reigning monarch or

his successor had no control whatever? Indeed, my Lords, a more curious

and extraordinary species of trial than this of a question of right

never was heard of since the world began. Mr. Hastings begins with

seizing the goods of the Begums at Fyzabad, nine thousand miles from

you, and fourteen years after tries the title in an English court,

without having one person to appear for these miserable ladies. I trust

you will not suffer this mockery; I hope this last and ultimate shame

will be spared us: for I declare to God, that the defence, and the

principles of it, appear to me ten thousand times worse than the act

itself.

Now, my Lords, this criminal, through his counsel, chooses, with their

usual flippancy, to say that the Commons have been _cautious_ in stating

this part of the charge, knowing that they were on tender ground, and

therefore did not venture to say _entitled_, but _possessed of_ only. A

notable discovery indeed! We are as far from being taken in by such

miserable distinctions as we are incapable of making them. We certainly

have not said that the Begums were entitled to, but only that they were

possessed of, certain property. And we have so said because we were not

competent to decide upon their title, because your Lordships are not

competent to decide upon their title, because no part of this tribunal

is competent to decide upon their title. You have not the parties before

you; you have not the cause before you,--but are getting it by oblique,

improper, and indecent means. You are not a court of justice to try that

question. The parties are at a distance from you; they are neither

present themselves, nor represented by any counsel, advocate, or

attorney: and I hope no House of Lords will ever judge and decide upon

the title of any human being, much less upon the title of the first

women in Asia, sequestered, shut up from you, at nine thousand miles'

distance.

I believe, my Lords, that the Emperor of Hindostan little thought, while

Delhi stood, that an English subject of Mr. Hastings's description

should domineer over the Vizier of his empire, and give the law to the

first persons in his dominions. He as little dreamed of it as any of

your Lordships now dream that you shall have your property seized by a

delegate from Lucknow, and have it tried by what tenure a peer or

peeress of Great Britain hold, the one his estate, and the other her

jointure, dower, or her share of goods, her paraphernalia, in any court

of Adawlut in Hindostan. If any such thing should happen, (for we know

not what may happen; we live in an age of strange revolutions, and I

doubt whether any more strange than this,) the Commons of Great Britain

would shed their best blood sooner than suffer that a tribunal at

Lucknow should decide upon any of your titles, for the purpose of

justifying a robber that has taken your property. We should do the best

we could, if such a strange circumstance occurred.

The House of Commons, who are virtually the representatives of Lucknow,

and who lately took 500,000_l._ of their money, will not suffer the

natives first to be robbed of their property, and then the titles, which

by the laws of their own country they have to the goods they possess, to

be tried by any tribunal in Great Britain. Why was it not tried in India

before Mr. Hastings? One would suppose that an English governor, if

called to decide upon such a claim of the Nabob's, would doubtless be

attended by judges, muftis, lawyers, and all the apparatus of legal

justice. No such thing. This man marches into the country, not with

moulavies, not with muftis, not with the solemn apparatus of Oriental

justice,--no: he goes with colonels, and captains, and majors,--these

are his lawyers: and when he gets there, he demands from the parties,

not their title,--no: "Give me your money!" is his cry. It is a shame

(and I will venture to say, that these gentlemen, upon recollection,

will feel ashamed) to see the bar justify what the sword is ashamed of.

In reading this correspondence, I have found these great muftis and

lawyers, these great chief-justices, attorneys-general, and

solicitors-general, called colonels and captains, ashamed of these

proceedings, and endeavoring to mitigate their cruelty; yet we see

British lawyers in a British tribunal supporting and justifying these

acts, on the plea of defective titles.

The learned counsel asks, with an air of triumph, whether these ladies

possessed these treasures by jointure, dower, will, or settlement. What

was the title? Was it a deed of gift?--was it a devise?--was it _donatio

causa mortis?_--was it dower?--was it jointure?--what was it? To all

which senseless and absurd questions we answer, You asked none of these

questions of the parties, when you guarantied to them, by a solemn

treaty, the possession of their goods. Then was the time to have asked

these questions: but you asked none of them. You supposed their right,

and you guarantied it, though you might then have asked what was their

right. But besides the force and virtue of the guaranty, these unhappy

princesses had ransomed themselves from any claim upon their property.

They paid a sum of money, applied to your use, for that guaranty. They

had a treble title,--by possession, by guaranty, by purchase.

Again, did you ask these questions, when you went to rob them of their

landed estates, their money, their ornaments, and even their

wearing-apparel? When you sent those great lawyers, Major ----, Major

----, and the other majors, and colonels, and captains, did you call on

them to exhibit their title-deeds? No: with a pistol at their breast,

you demanded their money. Instead of forging a charge of rebellion

against these unhappy persons, why did you not then call on them for

their vouchers? No rebellion was necessary to give validity to a civil

claim. What you could get by an ordinary judgment did not want

confiscation called to its aid. When you had their eunuchs, their

ministers, their treasurers, their agents and attorneys in irons, did

you then ask any of these questions? No. "Discover the money you have in

trust, or _you_ go to corporal punishment,--_you_ go to the castle of

Chunar,--here is another pair of irons!"--this was the only language

used.

When the Court of Directors, alarmed at the proceedings against these

ancient ladies, ordered their Indian government to make an inquiry into

their conduct, the prisoner had then an opportunity and a duty imposed

upon him of entering into a complete justification of his conduct: he

might have justified it by every civil, and by every criminal mode of

process. Did he do this? No. Your Lordships have in evidence the manner,

equally despotic, _rebellious_, insolent, fraudulent, tricking, and

evasive, by which he positively refused all inquiry into the matter. How

stands it now, more than twelve years after the seizure of their goods,

at ten thousand miles' distance? You ask of these women, buried in the

depths of Asia, secluded from human commerce, what is their title to

their estate. Have you the parties before you? Have you summoned them?

Where is their attorney? Where is their agent? Where is their counsel?

Is this law? Is this a legal process? Is this a tribunal,--the highest

tribunal of all,--that which is to furnish the example for, and to be a

control on all the rest? But what is worse, you do not come _directly_

to the trial of this right to property. You are desired to surround and

circumvent it; you are desired obliquely to steal an iniquitous

judgment, which you dare not boldly ravish. At this judgment you can

only arrive by a side wind. You have before you a criminal process

against an offender. One of the charges against him is, that he has

robbed matrons of high and reverend place. His defence is, that they had

not the apt deeds to entitle them in law to this property. _In_ this

cause, with only the delinquent party before you, you are called upon to

try their title on his allegations of its invalidity, and by acquitting

him to divest them not only of their goods, but of their honor,--to call

them disseizors, wrong-doers, cheats, defrauders of their own son. No

hearing for them,--no pleading,--all appeal cut off. Was ever a man

indicted for a robbery, that is, for the forcible taking of the goods

possessed by another, suffered to desire the prosecutor to show the

deeds or other instruments by which he acquired those goods? The idea is

contemptible and ridiculous. Do these men dream? Do they conceive, in

their confused imaginations, that you can be here trying such a

question, and venturing to decide upon it? Your Lordships will never do

that, which if you did do, you would be unfit to subsist as a tribunal

for a single hour; and if we, on our part, did not bring before you this

attempt, as the heaviest aggravation of the prisoner's crimes, we

should betray our trust as representatives of the Commons of Great

Britain. Having made this protest in favor of law, of justice, and good

policy, permit me to take a single step more.

I will now show your Lordships that it is very possible, nay, very

probable, and almost certain, that a great part of what these ladies

possessed was a saving of their own, and independent of any grant. It

appears in the papers before you, that these unfortunate ladies had

about 70,000_l._ a year, landed property. Mr. Bristow states in evidence

before your Lordships, that their annual expenses did not exceed a lac

and a half, and that their income was about seven lacs; that they had

possessed this for twenty years before the death of Sujah Dowlah, and

from the death of that prince to the day of the robbery. Now, if your

Lordships will calculate what the savings from an income of 70,000_l._ a

year will amount to, when the party spends about 15,000_l._ a year, you

will see that by a regular and strict economy these people may have

saved considerable property of their own, independent of their titles to

any other property: and this is a rational way of accounting for their

being extremely rich. It may be supposed, likewise, that they had all

those advantages which ladies of high rank usually have in that

country,--gifts at marriage, &c. We know that there are deeds of gift by

husbands to their wives during their lifetime, and many other legal

means, by which women in Asia become possessed of very great property.

But Mr. Hastings has taught them the danger of much wealth, and the

danger of economy. He has shown them that they are saving, not for their

families, for those who may possibly stand in the utmost need of it,

but for tyrants, robbers, and oppressors.

My Lords, I am really ashamed to have said so much upon the subject of

their titles. And yet there is one observation more to be made, and then

I shall have done with this part of the prisoner's defence. It is, that

the Nabob himself never has made a claim on this ground; even Mr.

Hastings, his despotic master, could never get him regularly and

systematically to make such a claim; the very reverse of this is the

truth. When urged on to the commission of these acts of violence by Mr.

Middleton, you have seen with what horror and how reluctantly he lends

his name; and when he does so, he is dragged like a victim to the stake.

At the beginning of this affair, where do we find that he entered this

claim, as the foundation of it? Upon one occasion only, when dragged to

join in this wicked act, something dropped from his lips which seemed

rather to have been forced into his mouth, and which he was obliged to

spit out again, about the possibility that he might have had some right

to the effects of the Begums.

We next come to consider the manner in which these acts of violence were

executed. They forced the Nabob himself to accompany their troops, and

their Resident, Mr. Middleton, to attack the city and to storm the fort

in which these ladies lived, and consequently to outrage their persons,

to insult their character, and to degrade their dignity, as well as to

rob them of all they had.

That your Lordships may learn something of one of these ladies, called

the Munny Begum, I will refer you to Major Browne's evidence,--a man who

was at Delhi, the fountain-head of all the nobility of India, and must

have known who this lady was that has been treated with such indignity

by the prisoner at your bar. Major Browne was asked, "What was the

opinion at Delhi respecting the rank, quality, and character of the

Princesses of Oude, or of either of them?"--"The elder, or Munny Begum,

was," says he, "a woman of high rank: she was, I believe, the daughter

of Saadut Ali Khan, a person of high rank in the time of Mahommed

Shah."--"Do you know whether any woman in all Hindostan was considered

of superior rank or birth?"--He answers, "I believe not, except those of

the royal family. She was a near relation to Mirza Shaffee Khan, who was

a noble of nobles, the first person at that day in the empire." In

answer to another question put by a noble Lord, in the same examination,

respecting the conversation which he had with Mirza Shaffee Khan, and of

which he had given an account, he says, "He [Mirza Shaffee Khan] spoke

of the attempt to seize the treasures of the Begums, which was then

suspected, in terms of resentment, and as a disgrace in which he

participated, as being related by blood to the house of Sufdar Jung, who

was the husband of the old Begum." He says afterwards, in the same

examination, that he, the Begum's husband, was the second man, and that

her father was the first man, in the Mogul empire. Now the Mogul empire,

when this woman came into the world, was an empire of that dignity that

kings were its subjects; and this very Mirza Shaffee Khan, that we speak

of, her near relation, was then a prince with a million a year revenue,

and a man of the first rank, after the Great Mogul, in the whole empire.

My Lords, these were people that ought to have been treated with a

little decorum. When we consider the high rank of their husbands, their

fathers, and their children, a rank so high that we have nothing in

Great Britain to compare with theirs, we cannot be surprised that they

were left in possession of great revenues, great landed estates, and

great moneyed property. All the female parts of these families, whose

alliance was, doubtless, much courted, could not be proffered in

marriage, and endowed in a manner agreeably to the dignity of such

persons, but with great sums of money; and your Lordships must also

consider the multitude of children of which these families frequently

consisted. The consequences of this robbery were such as might naturally

be expected. It is said that not one of the females of this family has

since been given in marriage.

But all this has nothing to do with the rebellion. If they had, indeed,

rebelled to cut their own son's throat, there is an end of the business.

But what evidence have you of this fact? and if none can be produced,

does not the prisoner's defence aggravate infinitely his crime and that

of his agents? Did they ever once state to these unfortunate women that

any such rebellion existed? Did they ever charge them with it? Did they

ever set the charge down in writing, or make it verbally, that they had

conspired to destroy their son, a son whom Mr. Hastings had brought

there to rob them? No, this was what neither Mr. Hastings nor his agent

ever did: for as they never made a civil demand upon them, so they never

made a criminal charge against them, or against any person belonging to

them.

I save your Lordships the trouble of listening to the manner in which

they seized upon these people, and dispersed their guard. Mr. Middleton

states, that they found great difficulties in getting at their

treasures,--that they stormed their forts successively, but found great

reluctance in the sepoys to make their way into the inner inclosures of

the women's apartments. Being at a loss what to do, their only resource,

he says, was to threaten that they would seize their eunuchs. These are

generally persons who have been bought slaves, and who, not having any

connections in the country where they are settled, are supposed to guard

both the honor of the women, and their treasures, with more fidelity

than other persons would do. We know that in Constantinople, and in many

other places, these persons enjoy offices of the highest trust, and are

of great rank and dignity; and this dignity and rank they possess for

the purpose of enabling them to fulfil their great trusts more

effectually. The two principal eunuchs of the Begums were Jewar and

Behar Ali Khan, persons of as high rank and estimation as any people in

the country. These persons, however, were seized, not, says Mr.

Hastings, for the purpose of extorting money, as assumed in the charge,

but as agents and principal instruments of exciting the insurrection

before alluded to, &c. Mr. Hastings declares that they were not seized

for the purpose of extorting money, but that they were seized in order

to be punished for their crimes, and, _eo nomine_, for this crime of

rebellion. Now this crime could not have been committed immediately by

[the?] women themselves; for no woman can come forward and head her own

troops. We have not heard that any woman has done so since the time of

Zenobia, in another part of the East; and we know that in Persia no

person can behold the face of a woman of rank, or speak to females of

condition, but through a curtain: therefore they could not go out

themselves, and be active in a rebellion. But, I own, it would be some

sort of presumption against them, if Jewar Ali Khan and Behar Ali Khan

had headed troops, and been concerned in acts of rebellion; and the

prisoner's counsel have taken abundance of pains to show that such

persons do sometimes head armies and command legions in the East. This

we acknowledge that they sometimes do. If these eunuchs had behaved in

this way, if they had headed armies and commanded legions for the

purposes of rebellion, it would have been a fair presumption that their

mistresses were concerned in it. But instead of any proof of such facts,

Mr. Hastings simply says, "We do not arrest them for the purpose of

extorting money, but as a punishment for their crimes." By Mr.

Middleton's account you will see the utter falsity of this assertion.

God knows what he has said that is true. It would, indeed, be singular

not to detect him in a falsity, but in a truth. I will now show your

Lordships the utter falsity of this wicked allegation.

There is a letter from Mr. Middleton to Sir Elijah Impey, dated Fyzabad,

the 25th of January, 1782, to which I will call your Lordships'

attention.

"Dear Sir Elijah,--I have the satisfaction to inform you that we

have at length so far obtained the great object of our expedition

to this place as to commence on the receipt of money, of which, in

the course of this day, we have got about six lacs. I know not yet

what amount we shall actually realize, but I think I may safely

venture to pronounce it will be equal to the liquidation of the

Company's balance. It has been at once the most important and the

most difficult point of duty which has ever occurred in my office;

and the anxiety, the hopes and fears, which have alternately

agitated my mind, cannot be described or conceived but by those who

have been witness to what has passed in the course of this long

contest. The [Nabob's] ministers have supported me nobly, and

deserve much commendation. Without the shrewd discernment and

knowledge of the finesse and tricks of the country which Hyder Beg

Khan possesses, I believe we should have succeeded but

indifferently; for I soon found that no real advantage was to be

obtained by proceeding at once to violent extremities with the

Begum, and that she was only to be attacked through the medium of

her confidential servants, who it required considerable address to

get hold of. However, we at last effected it; and by using some few

severities with them, we at length came at the secret hoards of

this old lady. I will write you more particulars hereafter.

"I am sorry to inform you my little boy still continues in a very

precarious way, though somewhat better than when I had last the

honor to address you. My respects to Lady Impey. And believe me,

with great regard, my dear Sir Elijah, your faithful, obliged, and

most affectionate humble servant,

"NATHANIEL MIDDLETON."

My Lords, we produce this letter to your Lordships, because it is a

letter which begins with "_Dear Sir Elijah_," and alludes to some family

matters, and is therefore more likely to discover the real truth, the

true genius of a proceeding, than all the formal and official stuff that

ever was produced. You see the tenderness and affection in which they

proceed. You see it is his _dear Sir Elijah_. You see that he does not

tell the dear Sir Elijah, the Chief-Justice of India, the pillar of the

law, the great conservator of personal liberty and private property,--he

does not tell him that he has been able to convict these eunuchs of any

crime; he does not tell him he has the pleasure of informing him what

matter he has got upon which a decision at law may be grounded; he does

not tell him that he has got the least proof of the want of title in

those ladies: not a word of the kind. You cannot help observing the soft

language used in this tender billet-doux between Mr. Middleton and Sir

Elijah Impey. You would imagine that they were making love, and that you

heard the voice of the turtle in the land. You hear the soft cooing, the

gentle addresses,--"Oh, my hopes!" to-day, "My fears!" to-morrow,--all

the language of friendship, almost heightened into love; and it comes at

last to "_I have got at the secret hoards of these ladies_.--Let us

rejoice, my dear Sir Elijah; this is a day of rejoicing, a day of

triumph; and this triumph we have obtained by seizing upon the old

lady's eunuchs,--in doing which, however, we found a great deal of

difficulty." You would imagine, from this last expression, that it was

not two eunuchs, with a few miserable women clinging about them, that

they had to seize, but that they had to break through all the guards

which we see lovers sometimes breaking through, when they want to get at

their ladies. Hardly ever did the beauty of a young lady excite such

rapture; I defy all the charms this country can furnish to produce a

more wonderful effect than was produced by the hoards of these two old

women, in the bosoms of Sir Elijah Impey and Mr. Middleton. "We have

got," he exultingly says, "we have got to the secret hoards of this old

lady!" And I verily believe there never was a passion less dissembled;

there Nature spoke; there was truth triumphant, honest truth. Others may

feign a passion; but nobody can doubt the raptures of Mr. Hastings, Sir

Elijah Impey, and Mr. Middleton.

My Lords, one would have expected to have found here something of their

crimes, something of their rebellion, for he talks of a few "necessary

severities." But no: you find the real criminal, the real object, was

the secret hoards of the old ladies. It is true, _a few severities_ were

necessary to obtain that object: however, they did obtain it. How then

did they proceed? First, they themselves took and received, in weight

and tale, all the money that was in the place. I say _all_; for whether

there was any more they never have discovered, with all their search,

from that day to this. Therefore we fairly presume that they had

discovered all that there was to discover with regard to money. They

next took from these unfortunate people an engagement for the amount of

treasure at a definite sum, without knowing whether they had it or not,

whether they could procure it or not. The Bhow Begum has told us, as

your Lordships have it in evidence, that they demanded from her a

million of money; that she, of course, denied having any such sums; but

Mr. Middleton forced her unfortunate eunuchs or treasurers, by some _few

severities_, to give their bond for 600,000_l._

You would imagine, that, when these eunuchs had given up all that was in

their power, when they had given a bond for what they had not, (for they

were only the treasurers of other people,) that the bond would not have

been rigidly exacted. But what do Mr. Hastings and Mr. Middleton, as

soon as they get their plunder? They went to their own assay-table, by

which they measured the rate of exchange between the coins in currency

at Oude and those at Calcutta, and add the difference to the sum for

which the bond was given. Thus they seize the secret hoards, they

examine it as if they were receiving a debt, and they determine what

this money would and ought to produce at Calcutta: not considering it as

coming from people who gave all they had to give, but as what it would

produce at the mint at Calcutta, according to a custom made for the

profit of the Residents; even though Mr. Hastings, upon another

occasion, charged upon Mr. Bristow as a crime that he had made that

profit. This money, my Lords, was taken to that assay-table, which they

had invented for their own profit, and they made their victims pay a

rupee and a half batta, or exchange of money, upon each gold mohur; by

which and other charges they brought them 60,000_l._ more in debt, and

forced them to give a bond for that 60,000_l._

Your Lordships have seen in what manner these debts were

contracted,--and that they were contracted by persons engaging, not for

themselves, for they had nothing; all their property was apparently

their mistresses'. You will now see in what manner the payment of them

was exacted; and we shall beg leave to read to you their own accounts of

their own proceedings. Your Lordships will then judge whether they were

proceeding against rebels as rebels, or against wealthy people as

wealthy people, punishing them, under pretence of crimes, for their own

profit.

In a letter from Mr. Middleton to Mr. Hastings, after two other

paragraphs, he goes on thus.

"It remained only to get possession of her wealth; and to effect this,

it was then and is still my firm and unalterable opinion that it was

indispensably necessary to employ temporizing expedients, and to work

upon the hopes and fears of the Begum herself, and more especially upon

those of her principal agents, through whose means alone there appeared

any probable chance of our getting access to the hidden treasures of the

late Vizier; and when I acquaint you that by far the greatest part of

the treasure which has been delivered to the Nabob was taken from the

most secret recesses in the houses of the two eunuchs, whence, of

course, it could not have been extracted without the adoption of those

means which could induce the discovery, I shall hope for your

approbation of what I did. I must also observe, that no further rigor

than that which I exerted could have been used against females in this

country, to whom there can be no access. The Nabob and Salar Jung were

the only two that could enter the zenanah: the first was a son, who was

to address a parent, and, of course, could use no language or action but

that of earnest and reiterated solicitation; and the other was, in all

appearance, a traitor to our cause. Where force could be employed, it

was not spared: the troops of the Begum were driven away and dispersed;

their guns taken; her fort, and the outward walls of her house seized

and occupied by our troops, at the Nabob's requisition; and her chief

agents imprisoned and put in irons. No further step was left. And in

this situation they still remain, and are to continue (excepting only a

remission of the irons) until the final liquidation of the payment; and

if then you deem it proper, no possible means of offence being left in

her hands or those of her agents, all her lands and property having been

taken, I mean, with your sanction, to restore her house and servants to

her, and hope to be favored with your early reply, as I expect that a

few days will complete the final surrender of all that is further

expected from the Begum."

There are some things in this letter which I shall beg your Lordships to

remark. There is mention made of a few preliminary severities used by

Mr. Middleton, in order to get at their money. Well, he did get at the

money, and he got a bond for the payment of an additional sum, which

they thought proper to fix at about six hundred thousand pounds, to

which was added another usurious bond for sixty thousand; and in order

to extort these forced bonds, and to make up their aggravated crimes of

usury, violence, and oppression, they put these eunuchs into prison,

without food and water, and loaded their limbs with fetters. This was

their second imprisonment; and what followed these few severities your

Lordships will remark,--still more severities. They continued to

persecute, to oppress, to work upon these men by torture and by the fear

of torture, till at last, having found that all their proceedings were

totally ineffectual, they desire the women to surrender their house;

though it is in evidence before you, that to remove a woman from her own

house to another house without her consent is an outrage of the greatest

atrocity, on account of which many women have not only threatened, but

have actually put themselves to death. Mr. Hastings himself, in the case

of Munny Begum, had considered such a proposition as the last degree of

outrage that could be offered. These women offered to go from house to

house while their residence was searched; but "No," say their

tormentors, "the treasure may be bricked up, in so large a house, in

such a manner that we cannot find it."

But to proceed with the treatment of these unfortunate men. I will read

to your Lordships a letter of Mr. Middleton to Captain Leonard Jaques,

commanding at Fyzabad, 18th March, 1782.

"Sir,--I have received your letter of the 13th instant. The two

prisoners, Behar and Jewar Ali Khan, having violated their written

solemn engagement with me for the payment of the balance due to the

Honorable Company on the Nabob's assignments accepted by them, and

declining giving me any satisfactory assurances on that head, I am

under the disagreeable necessity of recurring to severities to

enforce the said payment. This is, therefore, to desire that you

immediately cause them to be put in irons, and kept so until I

shall arrive at Fyzabad, to take further measures, as may be

necessary."

Here is the answer of Captain Jaques to Mr. Middleton.

"_April 23d, 1782._

"Sir,--Allow me the honor of informing you that the place the

prisoners Behar Ali Khan and Jewar Ali Khan are confined in is

become so very unhealthy, by the number obliged to be on duty in so

confined a place at this hot season of the year, and so situated,

that no reduction can with propriety be made from their guard, it

being at such a distance from the battalion."

You see, my Lords, what a condition these unfortunate persons were in at

that period; you see they were put in irons, in a place highly

unhealthy; and from this you will judge of the treatment which followed

the _few severities_. The first yielded a bond for 600,000_l._; the

second, a bond for 60,000_l._; the third was intended to extort the

payment of these bonds, and completed their series.

I will now read a letter from Captain Jaques to Mr. Middleton, from the

printed Minutes, dated _Palace, Fyzabad, May 18th, 1782_, consequently

written nearly a month after the former.

"Sir,--The prisoners Behar and Jewar Ali Khan, who seem to be very

sickly, have requested their irons might be taken off for a few

days, that they might take medicine, and walk about the garden of

the place where they are confined, to assist the medicine in its

operation. Now, as I am sure they would be equally as secure

without their irons as with them, I think it my duty to inform you

of this request, and desire to know your pleasure concerning it.

(Signed) "LEONARD JAQUES."

On the 22d May, 1782, Captain Jaques's humane proposal is thus replied

to by Mr. Middleton.

"I am sorry it is not in my power to comply with your proposal of

easing the prisoners for a few days of their fetters. Much as my

humanity may be touched by their sufferings, I should think it

inexpedient to afford them any alleviation while they persist in a

breach of their contract with me; and, indeed, no indulgence could

be shown them without the authority of the Nabob, who, instead of

consenting to moderate the rigors of their situation, would be most

willing to multiply them.

(Signed) "NATHANIEL MIDDLETON."

I will now call your Lordships' attention to other letters connected

with this transaction.

_Letter from Major Gilpin to Mr. Middleton, June 5th, 1782._

"Sir,--Agreeably to your instructions, I went to the prisoners,

Behar and Jewar Ali Khan, accompanied by Hoolas Roy, who read the

papers respecting the balance now due, &c., &c.

"In general terms they expressed concern at not being able to

discharge the same without the assistance of the Begum, and

requested indulgence to send a message to her on that subject, and

in the evening they would give an answer.

"I went at the time appointed for the answer, but did not receive a

satisfactory one; in consequence of which I desired them to be

ready, at the shortest notice, to proceed to Lucknow, and explained

to them every particular contained in your letter of the 1st

instant respecting them.

"Yesterday morning I sent for Letafit Ali Khan, and desired him to

go to the Bhow Begum, and deliver the substance of my instructions

to her, which he did, and returned with the inclosed letter from

her. From some circumstances which I have heard to-day, I am

hopeful the prisoners will soon think seriously of their removal,

and pay the balance rather than submit themselves to an

inconvenient journey to Lucknow."

_To Major Gilpin, commanding at Fyzabad, from Mr. Middleton._

"Sir,--I have been favored with your letter of the 5th instant,

informing me of the steps you had taken in consequence of my

instructions of the 1st, and covering a letter from the Bhow Begum,

which is so unsatisfactory that I cannot think of returning an

answer to it. Indeed, as all correspondence between the Begum and

me has long been stopped, I request you will be pleased to inform

her that I by no means wish to resume it, or maintain any friendly

intercourse with her, until she has made good my claim upon her for

the balance due.

"I have now, in conformity to my former instructions, to desire

that the two prisoners, Behar and Jewar Ali Khan, may be

immediately sent, under a sufficient guard, to Lucknow, unless,

upon your imparting to them this intimation, either they or the

Begum should actually pay the balance, or give you such assurances

or security for the assets to be immediately forthcoming as you

think can be relied upon; in which case you will of course suspend

the execution of this order."

_Mr. Richard Johnson to Major Gilpin. Lucknow, 24th June, 1782._

"Sir,--I have received the honor of your letter of the 20th. The

prisoners arrived here this morning. Lieutenant Crow has delivered

them over to Captain Waugh, and returns to you in a day or two.

"I think their hint to you a very good one, and worth improving

upon. Was the Bhow Begum to think that she must go to Allahabad, or

any other place, while her palace is searched for the hidden

treasure of the late Vizier, it might go further than any other

step that can be immediately taken towards procuring payment of the

balance outstanding.

"The prisoners are to be threatened with severities to-morrow, to

make them discover where the balance may be procurable, the fear of

which may possibly have a good effect; and the apprehensions of the

Begum lest they should discover the hidden treasure may induce her

to make you tenders of payment, which you may give any reasonable

encouragement to promote that may occur to you.

"The jaghire cannot be released to her on any other terms, nor even

to the Nabob, until the five lacs for which it was granted be paid

up; and the prisoners must also be detained until the full fifty

lacs be liquidated: consequently nothing but the fear of an

increase of demand, upon breach of the first engagement on her

part, will induce her to prompt payment."

_Letter from Mr. Richard Johnson to the Commanding Officer of the

Guard. Lucknow, 23d July, 1782._

"Sir,--Some violent demands having been made for the release of the

prisoners, it is necessary that every possible precaution be taken

for their security. You will therefore be pleased to be very strict

in guarding them; and I herewith send another pair of fetters, to

be added to those now upon the prisoners."

_Letter from Robert Steere Allen to Richard Johnson, Esq., Acting

Resident. Lucknow, 23d July, 1782._

"Sir,--I have received your instructions, and ordered the fetters

to be added; but they are by much too small for their feet. The

utmost regard shall be paid to the security of the prisoners. I

have sent back the fetters, that you may have them altered, if you

think proper."

_Letter from Mr. Johnson to the Officer commanding the Guard.

Lucknow, 28th June, 1782._

"Sir,--The Nabob having determined to inflict corporal punishment

upon the prisoners under your guard, this is to desire that his

officers, when they shall come, may have free access to the

prisoners, and be permitted to do with them as they shall see

proper, only taking care that they leave them always under your

charge."

I will now trouble your Lordships with the following passages from Mr.

Holt's evidence.

"_Q._ Did you ever see the two ministers of the Begum?--_A._ I saw

them brought into Lucknow.--_Q._ In what situation were they, when

you saw them brought into Lucknow?--_A._ They were brought in their

palanquins, attended by a guard of sepoys.--_Q._ Under whose

command were the sepoys?--_A._ That they were brought in by?--_Q._

Yes.--_A._ I do not recollect.--_Q._ Were those sepoys that brought

in the prisoners part of the Nabob's army, or were they any British

troops?--_A._ To the best of my recollection, they were detached

from a regiment then stationed at Fyzabad.--_Q._ In whose service

was that regiment?--_A._ In the Company's.--_Q._ Were they

imprisoned in any house near that in which you resided?--_A._ They

were imprisoned immediately under the window of the house in which

I resided, close to it.--_Q._ Did you or did you not ever see any

preparations made for any corporal punishment?--_A._ I saw

something of a scaffolding.--_Q._ For what purpose?--_A._ I heard

it was for the purpose of tying them up.--_Q._ Whose prisoners did

you consider these men to be?--_A._ I considered them as prisoners

of the Resident; they were close to his house, and under an

European officer."

Your Lordships have now seen the whole process, except one dreadful part

of it, which was the threatening to send the Begum to the castle at

Chunar. After all these cruelties, after all these menaces of further

cruelties, after erecting a scaffold for actually exercising the last

degree of criminal punishment, namely, by whipping these miserable

persons in public,--after everything has been done but execution, our

inability to prove by evidence this part of their proceedings has

secured to your Lordships a circumstance of decorum observed on the

stage where murders, executions, whippings, and cruelties are performed

behind the scenes. I know as certainly as a man can know such a thing,

from a document which I cannot produce in evidence here, but I have it

in the handwriting of the Resident, Mr. Bristow, that Behar Ali Khan was

actually scourged in the manner that we speak of. I had it in writing in

the man's hand; I put the question to him, but he refused to answer it,

because he thought it might criminate himself, and criminate us all; but

if your Lordships saw the scaffold erected for the purpose, (and of

this we have evidence,) would you not necessarily believe that the

scourging did follow? All this was done in the name of the Nabob; but if

the Nabob is the person claiming his father's effects, if the Nabob is

the person vindicating a rebellion against himself upon his nearest

relations, why did he not in person take a single step in this matter?

why do we see nothing but his abused name in it? We see no order under

his own hand. We see all the orders given by the cool Mr. Middleton, by

the outrageous Mr. Johnson, by all that gang of persons that the

prisoner used to disgrace the British name. Who are the officers that

stormed their fort? who put on the irons? who sent them? who supplied

them? They are all, all, English officers. There is not an appearance,

even, of a minister of the Nabob's in the whole transaction. The actors

are all Englishmen; and we, as Englishmen, call for punishment upon

those who have thus degraded and dishonored the English name.

We do not use torture or cruelties, even for the greatest crimes, but

have banished them from our courts of justice; we never suffer them in

any case. Yet those men, in order to force others to break their most

sacred trust, inflict tortures upon them. They drag their poor victims

from dungeon to dungeon, from one place of punishment to another, and

wholly on account of an extorted bond,--for they owed no money, they

could not owe any,--but to got this miserable balance of 60,000_l._,

founded upon their tables of exchange: after they had plundered these

ladies of 500,000_l._ in money, and 70,000_l._ a year in land, they

could not be satisfied without putting usury and extortion upon tyranny

and oppression. To enforce this unjust demand, the miserable victims

were imprisoned, ironed, scourged, and at last threatened to be sent

prisoners to Chunar. This menace succeeded. The persons who had resisted

irons, who had been, as the Begums say, refused food and water, stowed

in an unwholesome, stinking, pestilential prison, these persons

withstood everything till the fort of Chunar was mentioned to them; and

then their fortitude gave way: and why? The fort of Chunar was not in

the dominions of the Nabob, whose rights they pretended to be

vindicating: to name a British fort, in their circumstances, was to name

everything that is most horrible in tyranny; so, at least, it appeared

to them. They gave way; and thus were committed acts of oppression and

cruelty unknown, I will venture to say, in the history of India. The

women, indeed, could not be brought forward and scourged, but their

ministers were tortured, till, for their redemption, these princesses

gave up all their clothes, all the ornaments of their persons, all their

jewels, all the memorials of their husbands and fathers,--all were

delivered up, and valued by merchants at 50,000_l._; and they also gave

up 5,000_l._ in money, or thereabouts: so that, in reality, only about

5,000_l._, a mere nothing, a sum not worth mentioning, even in the

calculations of extortion and usury, remained unpaid.

But, my Lords, what became of all this money? When you examine these

witnesses here, they tell you it was paid to Hyder Beg Khan. Now they

had themselves received the money in tale at their own assay-table. And

when an account is demanded of the produce of the goods, they shrink

from it, and say it was Hyder Beg Khan who received the things and sold

them. Where is Hyder Beg Khan's receipt? The Begums say (and the thing

speaks for itself) that even gold and jewels coming from them lost their

value; that part of the goods were spoilt, being kept long unsold in

damp and bad warehouses; and that the rest of the goods were sold, as

thieves sell their spoil, for little or nothing. In all this business

Mr. Hastings and Mr. Middleton were themselves the actors, chief actors;

but now, when they are called to account, they substitute Hyder Beg Khan

in their place, a man that is dead and gone, and you hear nothing more

of this part of the business.

But the sufferings of these eunuchs did not end here; they were, on

account of this odd 5,000_l._, confined for twelve months,--not

prisoners at large, like this prisoner who thrusts his sore leg into

your Lordships' faces every day, but in harsh and cruel confinement.

These are the persons that I feel for. It is their dungeon, it is their

unrevenged wrongs that move me. It is for these innocent, miserable,

unhappy men, who were guilty of no offence but fidelity to their

mistresses, in order to vex and torture whom (the first women in Asia)

in the persons of their ministers these cruelties were exercised,--these

are they for whom I feel, and not for the miserable sore leg or whining

cant of this prisoner. He has been the author of all these wrongs; and

if you transfer to him any of the sympathy you owe to these sufferers,

you do wrong, you violate compassion. Think of their irons. Has not this

criminal, who put on these irons, been without one iron? Has he been

threatened with torture? Has he been locked up without food and water?

Have his sufferings been aggravated as the sufferings of these poor men

were aggravated? What punishment has been inflicted, and what can be

inflicted upon him, in any manner commensurate with the atrocity of his

crimes?

At last, my Lords, these unhappy men were released. Mr. Bristow, who had

been sent to Lucknow, writes to Mr. Hastings, and informs him that

severities could do no more, that imprisonments and menaces could get no

more money. I believe not, for I doubt much whether any more was to be

got. But whether there was or not, all the arts of extortion, fortified

by all the arts of tyranny, of every name and species, had failed, and

therefore Mr. Bristow released the prisoners,--but without any warrant

for so doing from Mr. Hastings, who, after having received this letter

from Mr. Bristow, gets the Supreme Council to order these very

severities to be continued till the last farthing was paid. In order to

induce the Council to sanction this measure, he suppressed Mr. Bristow's

declaration, that severities could do nothing more in exacting further

payments; and the Resident, I find, was afterwards obliquely punished

for his humanity by Mr. Hastings.

Mr. Bristow's letter is dated the 12th of December, and he thus writes.

"The battalion at Fyzabad" (where the Begums and their ministers had

been confined) "is recalled, and my letter to the board of the 1st

instant has explained my conduct to the Begum. The letter I addressed

her, a translation of which I beg leave to inclose, (No. 2,) was with a

view of convincing her that you readily assented to her being freed from

the restraints which had been imposed upon her, and that your

acquiescence in her sufferings was a measure of necessity, to which you

were forced by her extraordinary conduct. I wished to make it appear

this was a matter on which you directed me to consult the Vizier's

pleasure, that it might be known you were the spring from whence she was

restored to her dignity and consequence."

On the 3d of March following, the Council agree to send the following

order to Mr. Bristow.

"We desire you will inform us if any and what means have been taken for

recovering the balance due from the Begum at Fyzabad, and, if necessary,

that you recommend it to the Vizier to enforce the most effectual means

for that purpose."

My Lords, you see the fraud he has put upon the Council. You will find

that Mr. Bristow's letters, up to the 3d of March, had been suppressed;

and though then communicated, yet he instigated his cat's-paw, that

blind and ignorant Council, to demand from the Vizier the renewal of

these very severities and cruelties, the continuance of which the

letters in his pocket had shown him were of no effect. Here you have an

instance of his implacable cruelty; you see that it never relaxes, never

remits, and that, finding all the resources of tyranny useless and

ineffective, he is still willing to use them, and for that purpose he

makes a fraudulent concealment of the utter inefficacy of all the means

that had been used.

But, you will ask, what could make him persevere in these acts of

cruelty, after his avarice had been more than satiated? You will find it

is this. He had had some quarrel with these women. He believed that they

had done him some personal injury or other, of which he nowhere informs

you. But, as you find that in the case of Cheyt Sing he considered his

visit to General Clavering as an horrid outrage against himself, which

he never forgave, and revenged to the ruin of that miserable person, so

you find that he has avowed the same malicious disposition towards the

Begums, arising from some similar cause. In page 367 of your printed

Minutes, he says,--"I am sorry that I must in truth add, that a part of

the resentment of the Begums was, as I had too much reason to suspect,

directed to myself personally. The incidents which gave rise to it are

too light to be mixed with the professed subject and occasion of this

detail; and as they want the authenticity of recorded evidence, I could

lay no claim to credit in my relation of them. At some period I may be

induced to offer them to the world, my ultimate and unerring judges,

both of that and of every other trait in my political character."

My Lords, you have an anecdote here handed to you which is the key of a

great part of this transaction. He had determined upon some deep and

desperate revenge for some injury or affront of some kind or other that

he thought he had received from these people. He accuses them of a

personal quarrel with himself; and yet he has not the honor or honesty

to tell you what it was,--what it was that could induce them to

entertain such a personal resentment against him as to ruin themselves

and their country by their supposed rebellion. He says, that some time

or other he will tell it to the world. Why did he not tell his counsel,

and authorize them to tell a story which could not be unimportant, as it

was connected with a rebellion which shook the British power in India to

its foundation? And if it be true that this rebellion had its rise in

some wicked act of this man, who had offended these women, and made

them, as he says, his mortal enemies, you will then see that you never

can go so deep with this prisoner that you do not find in every criminal

act of his some other criminal act. In the lowest deep there is still a

lower deep. In every act of his cruelty there is some hidden, dark

motive, worse than the act itself, of which he just gives you a hint,

without exposing it to that open light which truth courts and falsehood

basely slinks from.

But cruelly as they have suffered, dreadfully as they have been robbed,

insulted as they have been, in every mode of insult that could be

offered to women of their rank, all this must have been highly

aggravated by coming from such a man as Mr. Middleton. You have heard the

audacious and insulting language he has held to them, his declining to

correspond with them, and the mode of his doing it. There are, my Lords,

things that embitter the bitterness of oppression itself: contumelious

acts and language, coming from persons who the other day would have

licked the dust under the feet of the lowest servants of these ladies,

must have embittered their wrongs, and poisoned the very cup of malice

itself.

Oh! but they deserved it. They were concerned in a wicked, outrageous

rebellion: first, for expelling their own son from his dominions; and,

secondly, for expelling and extirpating the English nation out of

India.--Good God Almighty! my Lords, do you hear this? Do you understand

that the English nation had made themselves so odious, so particularly

hateful, even to women the most secluded from the world, that there was

no crime, no mischief, no family destruction, through which they would

not wade, for our extermination? Is this a pleasant thing to hear of?

Rebellion is, in all parts of the world, undoubtedly considered as a

great misfortune: in some countries it must be considered as a

presumption of some fault in government: _nowhere is it boasted of as

supplying the means of justifying acts of cruelty and insult, but with

us_.

We have, indeed, seen that a rebellion did exist in Baraitch and

Goruckpore. It was an universal insurrection of the people: an

insurrection for the very extermination of Englishmen,--for the

extermination of Colonel Hannay,--for the extermination of Captain

Gordon,--for the extermination of Captain Williams, and of all the other

captains and colonels exercising the office of farmer-general and

sub-farmer-general in the manner that we have described. We know that

there did exist in that country such a rebellion. But mark, my Lords,

against whom!--against these mild and gracious sovereigns, Colonel

Hannay, Captain Gordon, Captain Williams. Oh, unnatural and abominable

rebellion!--But will any one pretend to say that the Nabob himself was

ever attacked by any of these rebels? No: the attacks were levelled

against the English. The people rose in favor of their lawful sovereign,

against a rebellion headed by Mr. Middleton, who, you see, usurped his

authority,--headed by Colonel Hannay,--headed by Captain Gordon,--headed

by all those abominable persons exercising, under the Nabob's name, an

authority destructive to himself and his subjects. Against them there

was a rebellion. But was this an unnatural rebellion,--a rebellion

against usurped authority, to save the prince, his children, and state,

from a set of vile usurpers?

My Lords, I shall soon close our proceeding for this day, because I wish

to leave this part of our charge strongly and distinctly impressed upon

your Lordships' memory, and because nothing can aggravate it. I shall

next proceed, in the farther examination of the prisoner's defence, to

dissipate, as I trust we have done, and as I hope we shall do, all the

miserable stuff they have given by way of defence. I shall often have

occasion to repeat and press upon your Lordships that that miserable

defence is a heavy aggravation of his crime. At present, I shall

conclude, leaving this part of our charge with the impression upon your

Lordships' minds that this pretended rebellion was merely an

insurrection against the English, excited by their oppression.

If the rebellion was against the Nabob, or if he was the author of the

oppression which caused it, why do the English only appear to be

concerned in both of them? How comes it that the Nabob never appears to

have expressed any resentment against the rebels? We shall prove beyond

a doubt, that the Begums had nothing to do with it. There was, indeed,

as I have already said, what may be called a rebellion; but it was a

rebellion against--not the Nabob, but in favor of the lawful prince of

the country,--against the usurpers of his authority and the destroyers

of his country. With this, as a rebellion, Mr. Hastings has charged

these women; he has charged them with a war against their son, for the

purpose of exterminating the English. Look, I pray you, at the whole

business, consider all the circumstances of it, and ask yourselves

whether this is not a charge, not only so grossly improbable, but so

perfectly impossible, that there is not any evidence which can make it

even plausible. Consider next, my Lords, on the other side, the evidence

of their innocence, and then ask yourselves whether any additional

matter could make its probability in the least degree more probable. My

Lords, the evidence we have produced is neither more nor less than that

of almost all the persons who have had a share in exciting that

rebellion, and who, to justify their own horrible cruelty, have

attempted to charge the natural consequences of that cruelty upon these

unhappy women.

But where, all this time, is the Nabob, against whom this rebellion is

pretended to be directed? Was it ever even insinuated to him that his

mother had raised a rebellion against him? When were the proofs shown to

him? Did he ever charge her with it? He surely must have been most

anxious to prevent and suppress a rebellion against himself: but not one

word on that subject has ever come out of his mouth; nor has any one

person been produced to show that he was informed of the existence of

such a rebellion. The persons said to be rebels are his mother and

grandmother; and I again ask, Was there the least intimation given to

him by Mr. Middleton, or by any other person, of their being even

suspected of rebellion against him? There was, indeed, a hint of some

rebellion, which the creatures of Mr. Hastings got at obliquely; but

neither the person against whom the rebellion is supposed to exist, nor

the persons who were said to be guilty of it, were ever either informed

of or charged with it. I defy the prisoner and his whole gang to produce

one word ever uttered by any one of them, from which the Nabob or

Begums could learn that they were supposed to be concerned in the

rebellion: so that none of those who were said to be the principal

actors in the scene ever heard of the parts they were acting from the

actual authors and managers of the business. Not one word was uttered of

a charge made, much less of proof given. Nothing was heard but "Give me

the money!"--irons,--new irons,--new imprisonment,--and at last the

castle of Chunar.

And here I beg leave to pause, and to leave upon your minds the

impression, first, of the wrong that was done, the violence, and the

robbery,--and, secondly, of the pretences, both civil and criminal, by

which they have attempted to justify their proceedings.

SPEECH

IN

GENERAL REPLY.

SIXTH DAY, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11, 1794.

My Lords,--Your Lordships will recollect that we closed the last day of

your proceeding in this trial at a most interesting part of our charge,

or rather of our observations upon that charge. We closed at that awful

moment when we found the first women of Oude pillaged of all their

landed and of all their moneyed property, in short, of all they

possessed. We closed by reciting to you the false pretence on which this

pillage was defended, namely, that it was the work of the Nabob. Now we

had before proved to you, from evidence adduced by the prisoner himself,

that this Nabob was a mere tool in his hands; and therefore, if this

pretence be true, it aggravates his guilt: for surely the forcing a son

to violate the property of his mother must everywhere be considered a

crime most portentous and enormous. At this point we closed; and after

the detail which has been given you already of these horrible and

iniquitous proceedings, some apology may perhaps be necessary for

entering again into the refutation of this iniquitous pretence.

My honorable fellow Manager who preceded me in this business did, in his

remarks upon the inference drawn by the prisoner's counsel from the

seizure of the Begums' treasures by the Nabob, as evidence of their

guilt, as he ought to do,--he treated it with proper contempt. I

consider it, indeed, to be as little an evidence of their guilt as he

does, and as little a defence of that seizure as he does. But I consider

it in another and in a new light, namely, as a heavy aggravation of the

prisoner's crimes, and as a matter that will let you into the whole

spirit of his government; and I warn your Lordships against being

imposed on by evasions, of which if it were possible for you to be the

dupes, you would be unfit to be judges of the smallest matters in the

world, civil or criminal.

The first observation which I shall beg leave to make to your Lordships

is this, that the whole of the proceedings, from beginning to end, has

been a mystery of iniquity, and that in no part of them have the orders

of the Company been regarded, but, on the contrary, the whole has been

carried on in a secret and clandestine manner.

It is necessary that your Lordships should be acquainted with the manner

in which the correspondence of the Company's servants ought to be

carried on and their proceedings regulated; your Lordships, therefore,

will please to hear read the orders given concerning correspondence of

every kind with the country powers. You will remember the period when

these orders were issued, namely, the period at which the act passed for

the better direction of the servants of the Company. By this act Mr.

Hastings was appointed to be Governor-General, and the Court of

Directors was required by that act to prepare orders and instructions,

which Mr. Hastings was required by the same act to comply with. You will

see what these instructions and orders were, and in what manner he has

complied with them.

_Extract of General Instructions to the Governor-General and

Council, 29th of March, 1774._

"We direct that you assemble in Council twice every week, and that

all the members be duly summoned; that the correspondence with the

princes or country powers in India be carried on by the

Governor-General only, but that all letters sent by him be first

approved in Council, and that he lay before the Council, at their

next meeting, all letters received by him in the course of such

correspondence, for their information. We likewise direct that a

copy of such parts of the country correspondence be communicated to

our Board of Trade: (to be constituted as hereinafter mentioned) as

may any ways relate to the business of their department."

You will observe, my Lords, two important circumstances in these

instructions: first, that, after the board had regularly met, the

Persian correspondence, kept by the Governor only, was to be

communicated to the Council; and, secondly, that he should write no

answer to any part of the business until he had previously consulted the

Council upon it. Here is the law of the land,--an order given in

pursuance of an act of Parliament. Your Lordships will consider how Mr.

Hastings comported himself with regard to those orders: for we charge it

as a substantive crime, independent of the criminal presumptions arising

from it, that he violated an act of Parliament which imposed direct

instructions upon him as to the manner in which he was to conduct all

matters of business with the native powers.

My Lords, we contend strongly that all the positive rules and

injunctions of the law, though they are merely positive, and do not

contain anything but mere matters of regulation, shall be strictly

observed. The reason is this, and a serious reason it is: official

tyranny and oppression, corruption, peculation, and bribery are crimes

so secret in their nature that we can hardly ever get to the proof of

them without the assistance of rules, orders, and regulations of a

positive nature, intended to prevent the perpetration of these crimes,

and to detect the offender in case the crimes should be actually

perpetrated. You ought, therefore, to presume, that, whenever such rules

or laws are broken, these crimes are intended to be committed; for you

have no means of security against the commission of secret crimes but by

enforcing positive laws, the breach of which must be always plain, open,

and direct. Such, for instance, is the spirit of the laws, that,

although you cannot directly prove bribery or smuggling in a hundred

cases where they have been committed, you can prove whether the proper

documents, proper cockets, proper entries in regular offices have been

observed and performed, or not. By these means you lock the door against

bribery, you lock the door against corruption, against smuggling and

contraband trade. But how? By falling upon and attacking the offence?

No, by falling upon and attacking the breach of the regulation. You

prove that the man broke the regulation, and, as he could have no other

motive or interest in breaking it, you presume that he broke it

fraudulently, and you punish the man not for the crime the regulation

was meant to prevent, but you punish him for the breach of the

regulation itself.

Next to the breach of these positive instructions, your Lordships will

attend to the consequent concealment and mystery by which it was

accompanied. All government must, to preserve its authority, be sincere

in its declarations and authentic in its acts. Whenever in any matter of

policy there is a mystery, you must presume a fraud; whenever in any

matter of money there is concealment, you must presume misconduct: you

must therefore affix your punishment to the breach of the rule;

otherwise the conviction of public delinquents would be unattainable.

I have therefore put before you that rule which he has violated; and we,

the Commons, call upon your Lordships to enforce that rule, and to

avenge the breach of it. You have seen the consequences of breaking the

rule; and we have charged and do charge it as a heavy aggravation of

those consequences, that, instead of consulting the Council, instead of

laying the whole correspondence before them, instead of consulting them

upon his answers, he went himself up into the country, took his

Majesty's chief-justice along with him, and made that person the

instrument of those wrongs, violences, robberies, and concealments

which we call upon your Lordships to punish.

My Lords, an extraordinary circumstance occurred in the course of our

proceedings in another place, which I must state, to show you in what a

horrible manner your laws have been trampled upon and despised. None of

the proceedings which have been last stated to your Lordships respecting

the seizure of the treasures of the Begums appear upon any public record

whatever. From the manner in which they came to our knowledge, your

Lordships will perceive what must have been the prisoner's own opinion

of the horrible nature of proceedings which he thought so necessary to

be concealed.

Whilst we were inquiring into the violences committed against the

Begums, in breach of the treaty entered into with them, there came into

my hands an anonymous letter containing a full account of all the matter

which has lately been stated to you. It came anonymously; and I did not

know from what quarter it came. I do not even know with certainty at

this hour: I say, not with certainty, for I can only form a conjecture.

This anonymous communication enabled us to produce all the

correspondence with Mr. Middleton respecting the cruelties exercised

towards the Begums and their eunuchs in order to extort money. We found

the names of Major Gilpin and several other persons in these letters. We

also found in them a strong fox smell of a Sir Elijah Impey, that his

brush and crime had left behind him; we traced him by that scent; and as

we proceeded, we discovered the footsteps of as many of the wolves as

Mr. Hastings thought proper to leave there. We sent for and examined Mr.

Middleton, and Major Gilpin produced his correspondence. When we applied

to Mr. Middleton, we found that all this part of his correspondence had

been torn out of his book; but having come at it by means of our

anonymous communication, we subsequently proved and established it, in

the manner we have done before your Lordships. Here, then, you have

important matter which this anonymous letter has brought to light; and

otherwise the whole of this correspondence, so essential to the

interests and justice of Great Britain, would have been concealed by

this wicked man. Thus, I say, his violation of a positive law would have

remained undiscovered, if mere accident had not enabled us to trace this

iniquity to its source. Therefore I begin our proceedings this day by

stating to your Lordships this fact, and by calling upon your justice to

punish him for this violation of the laws of his country.

We have told you who the instruments were by which all this wickedness

was committed, Mr. Middleton and Mr. Johnson, persons who were sent as

ambassadors to represent the interests of the Company at the court of an

independent prince. Over this prince they usurped an absolute power;

they even made use of British officers in his own service and receiving

his pay, to enslave his person, and to force him to rob his kindred.

These agents were aided by an English chief-justice, sent under the

authority of an act of Parliament to represent the sovereign majesty of

English justice, and to be a restraint upon the misconduct of the

Company's servants. These are the instruments with which this man works.

We have shown you his system; we have shown you his instruments: we will

now proceed with the examination of the pretences upon which this horrid

and nefarious act is attempted to be justified. We have not entered into

this examination for the sake of refuting things that want no

refutation, but for the purpose of showing you the spirit of the whole

proceeding, and making it appear to your Lordships, as I trust it will

appear, that the wicked act done there is not half so bad as the wicked

defence made here.

The first part of Sir Elijah Impey's commission, as your Lordships will

remember, was to seize upon the Begums' treasures. He had likewise

another budget of instructions, which has been discovered in the trunks

of which your Lordships have heard,--secret instructions to be given by

him to Mr. Middleton for the furtherance of this business. And that his

office of Chief-Justice should not lie dormant, he was commissioned to

seek for affidavits or written testimony from any persons, for the

purpose of convicting these women of a design of atrociously revolting

against their son, and deposing him from the government, with a view of

getting rid of the English inhabitants. This was the accusation; and the

evidence to support it Sir Elijah Impey was sent to collect.

My Lords, I must here observe to your Lordships that there is no act of

violence which, merely as an act of violence, may not in some sort be

borne: because an act of violence infers no principle; it infers nothing

but a momentary impulse of a bad mind, proceeding, without law or

justice, to the execution of its object. For at the same time that it

pays no regard to law, it does not debauch it, it does not wrest it to

its purposes: the law disregarded still exists; and hope still exists in

the sufferer, that, when law shall be resorted to, violence will cease,

and wrongs will be redressed. But whenever the law itself is debauched,

and enters into a corrupt coalition with violence, robbery, and wrong,

then all hope is gone; and then it is not only private persons that

suffer, but the law itself, when so corrupted, is often perverted into

the worst instrument of fraud and violence; it then becomes most odious

to mankind, and an infinite aggravation of every injury they suffer.

We have therefore in our charge strongly reprobated Sir Elijah Impey's

going to take such affidavits. "Oh! but," they say, "a judge may take an

affidavit in his chamber privately; and he may take an affidavit, though

not exactly in the place of his jurisdiction, to authenticate a bond, or

the like."--We are not to be cheated by words. It is not dirty shreds of

worn-out parchments, the sweepings of Westminster Hall, that shall serve

us in place of that justice upon, which the world stands. Affidavits! We

know that in the language of our courts affidavits do not signify a body

of evidence to sustain a criminal charge, but are generally relative to

matter [matters?] in process collateral to the charge, which, not coming

before the jury, are made known to the judge by way of affidavit.

But was it ever heard, or will it be borne, that a person exercising a

judicial office under his Majesty should walk beyond the sphere of his

jurisdiction,--that he should desert the station in which he was placed

for the protection of the natives, and should march to such a place as

Lucknow in order to take depositions for criminating persons in that

country, without so much as letting these poor victims know one article

in the depositions so taken? These depositions, my Lords, were made to

criminate, they were meant to justify a forfeiture, and are not in the

nature of those voluntary affidavits which, whether made within

jurisdiction or without, whether made publicly or privately, signify

comparatively nothing to the cause. I do not mean, to say that any

process of any court has not its weight, when the matter is within it in

the ordinary course of proceedings: it is the extraordinary course, the

extrajudicial conduct, which divests it of that just weight it otherwise

would have.

This chief-justice goes to Lucknow, where he holds his court, such as it

was. He is ready to authenticate any process by the signature of the

English chief-justice, in a court which he holds by night, in a court

which he holds in darkness and secrecy. He holds his court in Fyzabad;

he holds it, unknown to the Nabob of Oude, in his own capital, and

without giving him the least knowledge of or any notice of what he was

proceeding to do. He holds it at the lodgings of Colonel Morgan, a

pensioner of the Nabob; and the person assisting him is Mr. Middleton,

who is likewise, as we have proved to you, one of the Nabob's

pensioners, a monopolizer of trade in the country, and a person who

received much the major part of his emoluments from the Nabob's hands.

In that clandestine manner, in the Nabob's own house, in his own capital

city, in the lodging of his dependant and pensioner, Colonel Morgan,

with no other witness that we know of than Mr. Middleton, was this

iniquitous, dark procedure held, to criminate the mother of the Nabob.

We here see a scene of dark, mysterious contrivance: let us now see what

is brought out in the face of open day. The attestations themselves,

which you have seen on the record before you. They were brought

out--where? there? No: they were brought out in another place; they were

brought out at Calcutta,--but were never communicated to the Nabob. He

never knew anything of the matter. Let us now see what those

attestations were. Your Lordships will bear in mind that I do not advert

to this thing, which they bring as evidence, in the way of imputation of

its being weak, improper, and insufficient evidence, but as an

incontrovertible proof of crimes, and of a systematic design to ruin

the accused party, by force there and by chicane here: these are the

principles upon which I am going to talk to you upon this abominable

subject,--of which, I am sorry to say, I have no words sufficient to

express my horror. No words can express it; nor can anything but the

severity of your Lordships' judgments find an adequate expression of it.

It is not to be expressed in words, but in punishment.

Having stated before whom the evidence collected in this body of

affidavits was taken, I shall now state who the persons were that gave

it. They were those very persons who were guilty of robbing and ruining

the whole country: yes, my Lords, the very persons who had been accused

of this in the mass by Mr. Hastings himself. They were nothing less than

the whole body of those English officers who were usurping the office of

farmers-general, and other lucrative offices in the Nabob's government,

and whose pillage and peculations had raised a revolt of the whole

kingdom against themselves. These persons are here brought in a mass to

clear themselves of this charge by criminating other persons, and

clandestinely imputing to them the effect of their own iniquity.

But supposing these witnesses to be good for anything, supposing it fit

that the least attention should be paid them, the matter of their

testimony may very possibly be true without criminating the Begum. It

criminates Saadut Ali Khan, the brother of the Nabob; the word Begum is

never mentioned in the crimination but in conjunction with his; and much

the greater part of it criminates the Nabob himself. Now, my Lords, I

will say, that the matter of these affidavits, forgetting who the

deponents were, may possibly be true, as far as respects Saadut Ali

Khan, but that it is utterly as improbable, which is the main point and

the stress of the thing, with respect to the Begums, as it is impossible

with respect to the Nabob. That Saadut Ali, being a military man, a man

ambitious and aspiring to greatness, should take advantage of the abuses

of the English government and of the discontent of the country, that he

should, I say, raise a revolt against his brother is very possible; but

it is scarcely within possibility that the mother of the Nabob should

have joined with the illegitimate son against her legitimate son. I can

only say that in human affairs there is the possibility of truth in

this. It is possible she might wish to depose her legitimate son, her

only legitimate son, and to depose him for the sake of a bastard son of

her husband's,--to exalt him at the expense of the former, and to exalt,

of course, the mother of that bastard at her own expense, and to her own

wrong. But I say, that this, though possible, is grossly improbable. The

reason why the Begum is implicated in this charge with Saadut Ali by the

affidavits cannot escape your notice. Their own acquittal might be the

only object of the deponents in their crimination of the latter; but the

treasures of the former were the objects of their employers, and these

treasures could not be come at but by the destruction of the Begums.

But, my Lords, there are other affidavits, or whatever your Lordships

may call them, that go much further. In order to give a color to the

accusation, and make it less improbable, they say that the Nabob himself

was at the bottom of it, and that he joined with his brother and his

mother to extirpate out of his dominions that horrible grievance, the

English brigade officers,--those English officers who were the

farmers-general, and who, as we have proved by Mr. Hastings's own

evidence, had ruined the country. Nothing is more natural than that a

man, sensible of his duty to himself and his subjects, should form a

scheme to get rid of a band of robbers that were destroying his country

and degrading and ruining his family. Thus you see a family compact

naturally accounted for: the Nabob at the head of it, his mother joining

her own son, and a natural brother joining in the general interests of

the family. This is a possible case. But is this the case pressed by

them? No: they pass lightly over the legitimate son; they scarcely touch

upon Saadut Ali Khan; they sink the only two persons that could give

probability or possibility to this business, and endeavor to throw the

whole design upon these two unfortunate women.

Your Lordships see the wickedness and baseness of the contrivance. They

first, in order to keep the whole family in terror, accuse the whole

family; then, having possessed themselves of the treasures of the Begums

upon another pretence, they endeavor to fix upon them that improbable

guilt which they had with some degree of probability charged upon the

whole family, as a farther justification of that spoliation. Your

Lordships will see what an insult is offered to the Peers of Great

Britain, in producing before you, by way of defence, such gross,

scandalous, and fraudulent proceedings.

Who the first set of witnesses were which they produced before their

knight-errant chief-justice, Sir Elijah Impey, who wandered in search of

a law adventure, I have laid open to your Lordships. You have now had

an account of the scandalous manufacture of that batch of affidavits

which was in the budget of Sir Elijah Impey,--that Pandora's box which I

have opened, and out of which has issued every kind of evil. This

chief-justice went up there with the death-warrant of the Begums'

treasures, and, for aught he knew, the death-warrant of their persons.

At the same time that he took these affidavits he became himself a

witness in this business; he appears as a witness. How? Did he know any

one circumstance of the rebellion? No, he does not even pretend to do

so. "But," says he, "in my travels I was obliged to avoid Fyzabad, upon

account of the suspected rebellion there." Another chief-justice would

have gone fifty miles about to avoid Lucknow, for everybody knows that

Lucknow was the focus and centre of extortion, corruption, and

peculation, and that a worse air for the lungs of a chief-justice could

not be found in the world. If his lungs wanted the benefit of pure air,

he would even have put himself in the focus of a rebellion, to have kept

at a distance from the smell of carrion and putrid corruption of every

kind that was at Lucknow. A chief-justice may go to a place where a

rebellion is raging, he may die a martyr to his honor; but a

chief-justice who puts himself into the focus of peculation, into the

focus of bribery, into the focus of everything that is base and

corrupt,--what can we expect from him but that he will be engaged in

clandestine jobs there? The former might kill Sir Elijah Impey, the

knight-errant, but the chief-justice would remain pure and entire;

whereas Sir Elijah Impey has escaped from Lucknow, and the chief-justice

is left by Mr. Hastings to shift for himself.

After mentioning this violation of the laws of hospitality by Sir Elijah

Impey, I would ask, Was any notice given by him, or by any of Mr.

Hastings's agents, to the Nabob, who was so immediately interested in

this matter? Was any notice given to the Begums that any such charge was

entertained against them? Not a word. Was it notified to the eunuchs?

Was it to Saadut Ali Khan? Not a word. They were all within their power.

The eunuchs were a year in irons, and they were subjected to the want of

food and water for a part of that year. They were dragged from Fyzabad

to Lucknow, and from Lucknow to Fyzabad. During all that time was there

a word mentioned to them by any one person on the part of Mr. Hastings,

that they were accused of this matter? Not a word.

We now submit to your Lordships' vindictive justice and condemnation

this recriminatory defence, in which every principle of justice has been

violated. And now I will ask your Lordships whether you would have

suffered such a procedure in the case of the prisoner at your bar. It

was asked by a person of great authority in this House, when we were

going to produce certain evidence against Mr. Hastings, (we do not say

whether we offered to produce it properly or improperly,--that is

another matter,)--we were asked, I say, whether our intentions of

producing that evidence had been communicated to Mr. Hastings. Had he

had an opportunity of cross-examining the witnesses who had given that

evidence? No, he added, that evidence must be rejected. Now I say to

your Lordships, upon the same ground, deal with the Begums as you dealt

with Mr. Hastings. Do not keep two weights and measures for different

persons in the same cause. You would not suffer such evidence to be

produced against him; you will not assuredly suffer such evidence to be

produced to you in his favor and against them.

My Lords, the cause between this man and these unfortunate women is at

last come into Westminster Hall; the cause is come to a solemn trial;

and we demand other witnesses and other kinds of proof than what these

affidavits furnish. My Lords, the persons who have been examined here

are almost all of them the same persons who made these affidavits; but

there is this material difference in their evidence: at your Lordships'

bar they sunk all those parts of their former evidence which criminated

the Nabob and Saadut Ali, and confined their testimony wholly to what

related to the Begums. We were obliged, by a cross-examination, to

squeeze out of them the disavowal of what they had deposed on the former

occasion. The whole of their evidence we leave to the judgment of your

Lordships, with these summary remarks: first, that they are the persons

who were to profit by their own wrong; they are the persons who had

seven months' arrears paid to them out of the money of these unfortunate

ladies; they are the persons who, to justify the revolt which they had

caused in the country by their robbery, charge their own guilt upon

others. The credibility of their evidence is therefore gone. But if it

were not affected by these circumstances, Mr. Hastings has put an end to

it by telling you that there is not one of them who is to be credited

upon his oath,--no, not in a court-martial; and can it, therefore, be

expected that in a case of peculation they will do otherwise than acquit

the party accused? He has himself laid before you the horrible state of

the whole service; your Lordships have it fresh in your memories, and

ringing in your ears. You have also heard from witnesses brought by Mr.

Hastings himself, that these soldiers committed misdemeanors of the very

same kind with those which we have stated. They ought not, therefore, to

be listened to for a moment; and we aver that it is an aggravation of

the prisoner's crimes, that he has brought the instruments of his guilt,

the persons of whom he has complained as having ruined and destroyed

that country, and whom he had engaged, at the Nabob's desire, in the

treaty of Chunar, to send out of the country, as being a nuisance in

it,--to bring, I say, these people here, to criminate, at a distance of

nine thousand miles, these unfortunate women, where they have neither

attorney or agent who can from local knowledge cross-examine them. He

has the audacity to bring these people here; and in what manner they

comport themselves, when they come here, your Lordships have seen.

There is one of them whom we cannot pass by: that is, Captain Gordon.

The other witnesses, who appeared here as evidences to criminate the

Begums, did it by rumors and hearsays. They had heard some person say

that the Begums had encouraged rebellion, always coupling them with

Saadut Ali Khan, and sometimes with the Nabob, because there might have

been some probability for their charge in the transactions with Saadut

Ali Khan, which, though impossible with regard to the Begums, they

thought would implicate him [them?] in his designs. But Captain Gordon

is to give a different account of the proceedings.

Captain Gordon was one of Colonel Hannay's under-farmers. He was hunted

out of the country and, as one of the Begums says, pursued by a

thousand of the zemindars, for robbing the whole country. This woman,

through respect to the British name, that name which guarantied her

possessions to her, receives this Captain Gordon and Captain Williams

with every mark of kindness, hospitality, and protection, that could be

given them. She conveys them from the borders to the city of Fyzabad,

and from Fyzabad, her capital, supposed to be the nest of her rebellion,

on to their place of destination. They both write her letters full of

expressions of gratitude and kindness for the services that they had

received. They then pass on to Lucknow to Sir Elijah Impey, and there

they sink every word of kindness, of any service or protection that they

had received, or of any acknowledgment that they had ever made of it.

They sink all this: not one word of it appears in their affidavits.

How, then, did we come to the knowledge of it? We got it from Major

Gilpin, who was examined in the course of these proceedings; and we used

it in our charge, from the papers that we hold in our hands. Mr.

Hastings has confessed the fact; and Mr. Middleton has endeavored to

slur it over, but could not completely conceal it. We have established

the fact, and it is in evidence before your Lordships.

You have now, then, in this manner, got these testimonials given by

English officers in favor of these women; and by the same means the

letters of the latter accusing the former are come to your hands: and

now these same English officers come here with their recriminatory

accusation. Now why did they not make it at Lucknow? Why did not Mr.

Hastings, when Mr. Middleton had such papers for him in his hands, why,

I ask, did not Mr. Hastings procure some explanation of the

circumstances whilst he was in India? I will read your Lordships the

letter, that you may not only know, but feel, the iniquity of this

business.

_Letter from the Mother of the Vizier to Mr. Hastings; received the

6th of January, 1782._

"Our situation is pretty well, and your good health is constantly

prayed for. I had sent Behar Ali Khan to you. Accordingly people

invented a falsehood, that Behar Ali Khan was gone to get the

deputyship of the Subah; and some persons here were saying,

'Wherefore has she sent Behar Ali Khan to Calcutta to the Nabob

Amaud ul Dowlah? We will never permit the affair to succeed.' And

accordingly it has so happened. For they say that you also have not

put your seal to the treaty: and the people here say, 'Why does the

noble lady correspond with the English gentlemen?' On this account,

I did not send a letter at the time when you came this way. Now the

state of affairs here is thus. On the 27th Zehedja, Asoph ul Dowlah

Banadur, without my knowledge, sent his own aumils into my

jaghires. I accordingly wrote several times to Mr. Middleton on

this business: that his seal was to the treaty and writing of

discharge; why did he not negotiate in my favor? Mr. Middleton

replied, 'The Nabob is the master.' I wrote frequently, but without

effect. Being helpless, I represent to you the state of my affairs,

that, notwithstanding the existence of this treaty, I have been

treated in this manner. It is useless for me to stay here. Whatever

is is a compact; whenever any one deviates from his compact, he

meets with no credit for the future; and the light of mine eyes,

Asoph ul Dowlah, wrote to me that he had sent his own aumils into

my jaghires, and would pay ready money from his treasury. Reflect

on my security for his adhering to his future engagements, from the

consideration of his conduct under his past promises. I do not

agree to his ready money. Let me have my jaghires as formerly;

otherwise, leaving this place, I will wait on you at Benares, and

thence will go towards Shahjehanabad, because he has not adhered to

his engagement. Send letters to Asoph ul Dowlah, and to Mr.

Middleton, and Hussein Reza Khan, and Hyder Beg Khan, not to molest

the Begum's jaghires, and to let them remain, as formerly, with the

Begum's aumils. And it is here suspected of me that my aumil

plundered the property of Mr. John Gordon. The case is this. Mr.

John Gordon arrived at Taunda, a jaghire of mine, fighting with the

zemindars of Acberpore, which belongs to the Khalseh. Accordingly,

Mr. John Gordon having come to Taunda, my aumil performed whatever

appertained to his duty. Afterwards Mr. John Gordon wrote to me to

send my people, that he might come with them to Fyzabad. I sent

people accordingly to bring Mr. John Gordon, and the said gentleman

arrived here in complete safety; and Mr. John Gordon is now

present. Ask him yourself of these matters. Mr. John Gordon will

represent matters in detail; the truth will then become known, how

ill-founded the calumny is. Should you come here for a few days, it

will be very well, and if not, I will wait on you; and your coming

here is very necessary, that all my affairs may become arranged.

And send a speedy answer to my letters, and a letter to Asoph ul

Dowlah, and Mr. Middleton, and Hussein Reza Khan, and Hyder Beg

Khan, on the subject of ceasing to molest my jaghires. And send me

constantly news of your health, for my peace of mind depends

thereon."

This letter was transmitted to Mr. Hastings. I desire your Lordships

will remark upon this letter, for it is a most important one indeed. It

is hardly worth observing that all this correspondence came out of the

various trunks of which your Lordships have already heard, and that this

letter is out of the trunk of Mr. Hastings's private Persian secretary

and interpreter, Mr. Jonathan Scott. Now, my Lords, in this letter there

are several things worthy of your Lordships' observation. The first is,

that this woman is not conscious of having ever been accused of any

rebellion: the only accusation that ever came to her ears was, that

Captain Gordon said that his baggage had been robbed by one of her

aumils. She denies the truth of this charge; and she produces

testimonials of their good behavior to him; and, what is the essential

point of all, she desires Mr. Hastings to apply to this Mr. John Gordon,

and to know from him what truth or falsehood there is in that

accusation, and what weight there is in the attestation she produces.

"Mr. Gordon is now present," says she; "ask him yourself of these

matters." This reasonable request was not complied with. Mr. Gordon

swears before Sir Elijah Impey to the robbery; but he never mentions the

paper he had written, in which he confessed that he owed his life to

this very lady. No inquiry was made into this matter. Colonel Hannay

was then alive. Captain Gordon was alive, and she refers to him: yet

that very man was sworn before Sir Elijah Impey, and accuses his

prisoner. Did the prisoner at your bar make that attestation known to

the Begum, whose letter at that very time was in his possession, in Mr.

Scott's trunk,--that very letter in which he is desired to make the

inquiry from Captain Gordon?

Mr. Hastings is acquainted with the facts stated by the Begum, and with

Captain Gordon's accusation. Did he afterwards inform her of this

accusation? or did he ask this Captain Gordon one question in India,

where the matter might be ventilated? Not one word, my Lords. Therefore

we fix upon him fraud, deceit, and the production of false evidence,

after the woman had desired to have the man who was the evidence against

her examined upon the spot. This he does not do, but with much more

prudence he brings him here. And for what? To discredit his own

testimony, and the written evidence. And how does he discredit them?

There are two of these papers, which I beg leave to read to your

Lordships.

_Copy of a Letter to Jewar and Behar Ali Khan, from Mr. Gordon._

"Sirs, my indulgent friends, remain under, &c., &c., &c. After

compliments, I have the pleasure to inform you, that yesterday,

having taken leave of you, I passed the night at Noorgunge, and

next morning about ten or eleven o'clock, through your favor and

benevolence, arrived safe at Goondah. Mir Aboo Buksh Zemindar and

Mir Rustum Ali accompanied me.

"To what extent can I prolong the praises of you, my beneficent

friends? May the Supreme Being, for this benign, compassionate,

humane action, have you in His keeping, and increase your property,

and speedily grant me the pleasure of an interview; until which

time continue to favor me with friendly letters, and oblige me by

any commands in my power to execute. May your wishes be ever

crowned with success! My compliments," &c., &c., &c.

_Copy of an Address from Mr. Gordon to the Begum._

"Begum Saib of exalted dignity and generosity, whom God preserve!

After presenting the usual professions of servitude, &c., in the

customary manner, my address is presented.

"Your gracious letter, in answer to the petition of your servant

from Goondah, exalted me. From the contents, I became unspeakably

impressed with the honor it conferred. May the Almighty protect

that royal purity, and bestow happiness, increase of wealth, and

prosperity! The welfare of your servant is entirely owing to your

favor and benevolence; a few days have elapsed since I arrived at

Goondah, with the Colonel Saib.

"This is presented for your Highness's information. I cherish hopes

from your generosity, that, considering me in the light of one of

your servants, you will always continue to exalt and honor me with

your gracious letters. May the sun of prosperity continually

shine!"

These acknowledgments of the Begum's friendly disposition and services

were concealed, when the charge was made against this woman at Lucknow

before Sir Elijah Impey: I wish to impress this upon your Lordships'

mind; and that before Mr. Hastings left Bengal, in the trunk of Major

Scott, his private Persian interpreter, was this letter. Did he make

that inquiry of Captain Gordon? No. Did he make that inquiry of Colonel

Hannay? Did he make any inquiry into the matter, after his perusal of

these letters? Or did he give this poor woman any opportunity of

obtaining justice against this Captain Gordon, who, after acknowledging

that he owed his life to her favor, calumniates and traduces her to her

utter destruction? No, he never did; and therefore he is chargeable, and

I charge him, with everything that is wrongful in Captain Gordon's

evidence.

These papers, which carry with them a clear refutation of all the

charges against the Begum, are never once produced, though Captain

Gordon was referred to expressly for inquiry and explanation of the

whole transaction by the woman herself. You hear nothing of them; there

is no appearance of them in the affidavits; no such papers were laid

before the Supreme Council; none were transmitted to the Court of

Directors: but at last the House of Commons having come at the truth of

this matter, Mr. Hastings, not daring to deny the existence of these

papers, brings Captain Gordon to be examined here, in order to prove

that papers which he had himself written were false. Is this to be

tolerated? What will your Lordships think of a man that comes to attest

his own infamy,--to declare that he has written papers containing

falsehoods, and to invalidate the false testimony which he had before

given? Is he to be suffered, I say, to come here, and endeavor to prove

the absolute falsity of his own deeds by his own evidence?

The next point for your Lordships' consideration is the evidence which

he produces to prove the falsity of a paper written by himself. Why, he

himself is the sole evidence. And how does he prove it? Why, says he,

"The reason of my writing that letter was this: she had sent a person

with me as an escort, and this person was desirous of receiving some

proof that he had done his duty; and therefore I wrote a complaisant

letter. I meant nothing by it. It was written merely to satisfy the mind

of the man." Now is that the way in which formal and solemn letters,

written upon great occasions to great people, are to be explained away?

If he had said nothing but "Your servant, such a one, has done his

duty," this explanation might pass. But you see it has another

complexion. It speaks of his owing his life to her. But if you admit

that it is possible (for possibilities have an unknown extent) that he

wrote such a letter at such a time and for such a purpose, and that the

letter he wrote was false, and that the falsity of the letter is proved

by his own testimony given in an affidavit which we have also reason to

believe is false, your Lordships must at the same time admit that it is

one of the most complex pieces of fraud and falsehood that, I believe,

ever existed in the world. But it is worse than all this. There is

another letter, written some days after, which I will read to you, and

which he has not pretended to say was written only to testify that a

messenger had executed his commission properly.

"Your gracious letter," (he thus writes,) "in answer to the petition of

your servant from Goondah, exalted me. From the contents, I became

unspeakably impressed with the honor it conferred."

My Lords, this letter was not sent back by a messenger, in

acknowledgment of his having done his duty, but was written in

consequence of a correspondence in the nature of a petition for

something or other which he made to the Begum. That petition they have

suppressed and sunk. It is plain, however, that the petition had been

sent, and was granted; and therefore the apology that is made for the

former letter does not apply to this letter, which was written

afterwards.

How, then, do they attempt to get rid of this difficulty? Why, says

Captain Gordon, "_The Colonel Saib_ (by whom was meant Colonel Hannay)

was not at Goondah, as stated in the letter, but at Succara, about

eighteen miles from it, and therefore you ought not to pay much regard

to this paper." But he does not deny the letter, nor was it possible for

him to deny it. He says Colonel Hannay was not there. But how do we know

whether Colonel Hannay was there or not? We have only his own word for

it. But supposing he was not there, and that it was clearly proved that

he was eighteen miles distant from it, Major Naylor was certainly with

Captain Gordon at the time. Might not his Persian scribe (for he does

not pretend to say he wrote the letter himself) take Major Naylor for a

colonel, (for he was the superior officer to Captain Gordon,) and think

him the Colonel Saib? For errors of that kind may be committed in our

own country. Every day we may take a major for a lieutenant-colonel.

This was an error that might easily have happened in such a case. He was

in as high rank as Colonel Hannay; for Colonel Hannay at that time was

only a major. I do not believe either of them was properly entitled to

the name of Colonel Saib. I am ashamed, my Lords, to be obliged to

remark upon this prevarication. Their own endeavors to get rid of their

own written acts by contradictory evidence and false constructions

sufficiently clear these women of the crimes of which they were accused;

and I may now ask the prisoner at your bar how he dares to produce

Captain Gordon here, how he dares thus to insult the Peers, how he dares

thus to insult the public justice of his country, after not having dared

to inquire, upon the spot, of this man, to whom he was referred by the

Begums for an account of this very transaction?

I hope your Lordships have got enough of this kind of evidence. All the

rest is of the same batch, and of the same description,--made up of

nothing but hearsays, except in one particular only. This I shall now

mention to your Lordships. Colonel Popham and another gentleman have

told you, that, in a battle with Cheyt Sing's forces, they took

prisoners two wounded nudjeeves or swordsmen, and that these men told

them that they were sent there by the Begums,--that they had got two

rupees and two wounds, but that they thought two rupees a bad

compensation for two wounds. These two men, with their two wounds and

two rupees, had, however, been dismissed. It does not appear that this

accident was considered by these officers to be of consequence enough to

make them ever tell one word of it to Mr. Hastings, though they knew he

was collecting evidence of the disaffection of the Begums, of all kinds,

good, bad, and indifferent, from all sorts of persons.

My Lords, I must beg leave to say a few words upon this matter; because

I consider it as one of the most outrageous violations of your

Lordships' dignity, and the greatest insult that was ever offered to a

court of justice. A nudjeeve is a soldier armed with a sword. It appears

in evidence that the Nabob had several corps of nudjeeves in his

service; that the Begums had some nudjeeves; and that Colonel Hannay had

a corps of nudjeeves. It is well known that every prince in Hindostan

has soldiers of that description,--in like manner, probably, as the

princes of Europe have their guards. The whole, then, amounts to this:

that a story told by two men who were wounded in an action far from the

place from which they were supposed to come, who were not regularly

examined, not cross-examined, not even kept for examination, and whose

evidence was never reported, is to be a reason why you are to believe

that these Begums were concerned in a rebellion against their son, and

deserved to forfeit all their lands and goods, and to suffer the

indignities that we have stated.

My Lords, I am really ashamed to mention so scandalous a thing; but let

us put a case: let us suppose that we had accused Mr. Hastings of

instigating the Rajah of Berar to fall upon some of the country powers,

and that the evidence we produced at your bar to prove it was, that an

officer had taken two nudjeeves, who declared they were instigated by

Mr. Hastings to go into the service of that Rajah: could you bear such a

thing? would you suffer such evidence to be produced? or do you think

that we should have so little regard for our own reputation as to

venture to produce such evidence before you? Again, we have charged Mr.

Hastings with committing several acts of violence against the Begums.

Let us suppose our proof to be, that two persons who never appeared

before nor since, that two grenadiers in English uniforms, (which would

be a great deal stronger than the case of the nudjeeves, because they

have no particular uniform belonging to them,) that two English

grenadiers, I say, had been taken prisoners in some action and let go

again, who said that Mr. Hastings had instigated them to make war upon

the Begums: would your Lordships suffer such evidence to be produced

before you? No. And yet two of the first women in India are to be

stripped of all they have in the world upon no better evidence than that

which you would utterly reject. You would not disgrace the British

peerage, you would not disgrace this court of justice, you would not

disgrace human reason itself, by confiscating, on such evidence, the

meanest property of the meanest wretch. You would not subject to the

smallest fine for the smallest delinquency, upon such evidence. I will

venture to say, that, in an action of assault and battery, or in an

action for the smallest sum, such evidence would be scouted as odious

and contemptible, even supposing that a perfect reliance might be placed

upon its truth. And yet this is the sort of evidence upon which the

property, the dignity, and the rank of some of the first persons in Asia

are to be destroyed,--by which a British guaranty, and the honor and

dignity of the crown of Great Britain, and of the Parliament itself,

which sent out this man, are to be forfeited.

Observe, besides, my Lords, that the two swordsmen said they were sent

by the Begums. Now they could not be sent by the Begums in their own

person. This was a thing in India impossible. They might, indeed, have

been sent by Jewar and Behar Ali Khan: and then we ask again, How came

these ministers not to be called to an account at the time? Why were

they not called upon for their muster-rolls of these nudjeeves? No,

these men and women suffer the penalty, but they never hear the

accusation nor the evidence.

But to proceed with the evidence of this pretended rebellion. Captain

Williams has told your Lordships that he once had a great number of

letters and papers to prove this rebellion of the Begums. But he

declares that he has lost all these letters. A search was ordered to be

made in Mr. Hastings's record-office, called a trunk; and accordingly in

the trunk is found a paper worthy of such a place and such a cause. This

letter, which has been made use of to criminate the Begums, has not

their names mentioned, nor is there any possibility of their being

included in it. By this paper which is preserved you may judge of the

whole of the papers that are lost. Such a letter, I believe, was never

before brought as evidence in a court of justice. It is a letter said to

have been intercepted, and is as follows.

"To the most noble * * * * *, whose prosperity be everlasting!

"It is represented, that the august purwannah [command], having

completed his honorable arrival on the 16th of the month in the

evening, highly exalted me. It is ordered that I should charge

Medeporee, and the other enrolled sepoys belonging to my district,

and take bonds from them that none of them go for service to the

Rajah; and that, when four or five hundred men, nudjeeves and

others, are collected, I should send them to the presence.

According to the order, I have written to Brejunekar Shah Rehemet

Ullah, who is in Bhooaparah, charging him to take bonds from them,

and that whatever sepoys fit for service are collected he should

send to the presence. As at this time the wind is contrary, the

sepoys will not * * * * without travelling charges; for I have

learnt from a letter previously received from Brejunekar Shah

Rehemet Ullah, that the people there also are badly inclined. By

the grace of God, the unalterable glory shall be * * * * *. Zehan

Beg and the nudjeeves who were in the fort of Aneelah have gone off

to Goruckpore."

This is a letter of somebody or other employed by somebody or other for

the recruiting service,--it should seem, by the word "presence,"

somebody employed in enlisting forces for the Nabob. The charge against

the Begum was, that she had joined with the rebellious Rajahs to

exterminate her son's government and the English influence in that

country. In this very paper you see that the soldiers entering into that

service, and officers who are to contract for soldiers, are expressly

bound not to join the Rajahs; and this they produce as proof that the

Begums had joined the Rajahs, and had joined them in a rebellion, for

the purpose of exterminating their son, in the first instance, and the

English afterwards.

There is another circumstance which makes their own acts the refutation

of their false pretences. This letter says that the country is

disaffected, and it mentions the ill-disposed parts of the country. Now

we all know that the country was ill-disposed; and we may therefore

conclude this paper was written by, and addressed to, some person who

was employed against the persons so ill-disposed,--namely, the very

Rajahs so mentioned before. The prisoner's counsel, after producing this

paper, had the candor to declare that they did not see what use could be

made of it. No, to be sure, they do not see what use can be made of it

for their cause; but I see the use that can be made of it against their

cause. I say that the lost papers, upon which they do so much insist,

deserve no consideration, when the only paper that they have preserved

operates directly against them; and that therefore we may safely infer,

that, if we had the rest of the contents of this trunk, we should

probably find them make as strongly against them as this paper does. You

have no reason to judge of them otherwise than by the specimen: for how

can you judge of what is lost but from what remains?

The man who hid these papers in his trunk never understood one word of

the Persian language, and consequently was liable to every kind of

mistake, even though he meant well. But who is this man? Why, it is

Captain Williams,--the man who in his affidavits never mentioned the

Begums without mentioning Saadut Ali. It is Captain Williams,--whom we

charge to have murdered a principal man of the country by his own hand,

without law or legal process. It is Captain Williams,--one of those

British officers whom Mr. Hastings states to be the pests of the

country. This is the man who comes here as evidence against these women,

and produces this monstrous paper.

All the evidence they had produced to you amounts to no more than that

such a man _believes_ such a man _heard of something_; and to close the

whole of this hearsay account, Sir Elijah Impey, who always comes in as

a supplement, declares that no man doubted of the existence of this

rebellion, and of the guilt of the Begums, any more than of the

rebellion of 1745: a comparison which, I must say, is, by way of

evidence, a little indecorous in a chief-justice of India. Your

Lordships are sufficiently acquainted with the history of that rebellion

to know, that, when Lord Lovat was tried at this bar, the proceedings

against him were not founded on second-hand hearsay. The existence of

the rebellion of 1745 was proved, notwithstanding its notoriety; but

neither notoriety nor proof would have signified anything, if Lord

Lovat's participation in it had not been brought home to him directly,

personally, and particularly. Yet a chief-justice, sent to India to

represent the sacred majesty of the crown of England, has gone so far as

to say at your bar that no more doubt could be entertained of the

existence either of the rebellion or the guilt of the Begums than of the

rebellion in 1745. Besides, he forgets that he himself carried the order

to confiscate these people's property without any trial whatever. But

this is the way of proceeding by an English chief-justice in India,--a

chief-justice who had rendered himself the instrument, the

letter-carrier, the messenger, I had almost said the executioner of Mr.

Hastings.

From this view of the whole matter your Lordships will form an estimate

of the spirit of Indian government and Indian justice. But to blow away

and to put an end to all their false pretences, their hearsays, and talk

of nudjeeves, and wounds, and the like, I ask, Who is the first witness

that we have produced upon this occasion? It is the Nabob himself,

negativing all these pretences. Did he believe them? Not a word from him

of any rebellion, actual or suspected. Sir Elijah Impey, indeed, said

that he was obliged to wheel round, and to avoid that dangerous place,

Fyzabad. His friends urged him to this. "For God's sake," say they,

"have a reverend care of your sacred person! What will become of the

justice of India, what will become of the natives, if you, their

legitimate protector, should fall into the hands of these wicked,

rebellious women at Fyzabad?" But although the Chief-Justice does this,

the Nabob, whose deposition is said to be the first object of this

rebellion, takes leave of Mr. Hastings at the very moment when it is

raging in the highest possible degree, and gallops into its very focus.

And under what circumstances does he do this? He had brought some

considerable forces with him. No man of his rank in that country ever

goes without them. He left a part of these forces with Mr. Hastings,

notwithstanding he was going into the centre of the rebellion. He then

went on with a corps of about a thousand horse. He even left a part of

these with Mr. Middleton, and galloped, attended by a few horse, into

the very capital, where the Begums, we are told, had ten thousand armed

men. He put himself into their power, and, not satisfied with this, the

very first thing we hear of him after his arrival is, that he paid his

mother a friendly visit,--thus rushing into the den of a lioness who was

going to destroy her own whelp. Is it to be credited, my Lords, that a

prince would act thus who believed that a conspiracy was formed against

him by his own mother? Is it to be credited that any man would trust a

mother who, contrary to all the rules of Nature and policy, had

conspired to destroy her own son?

Upon this matter your Lordships have the evidence of Captain Edwards,

who was aide-de-camp to the Nabob, who was about his person, his

attendant at Chunar, and his attendant back again. I am not producing

this to exculpate the Begums,--for I say you cannot try them here, you

have not the parties before you, they ought to have been tried on the

spot,--but I am going to demonstrate the iniquity of this abominable

plot beyond all doubt: for it is necessary your Lordships should know

the length, breadth, and depth of this mystery of iniquity.

Captain Edwards being asked,--"Whether he ever heard any native of

credit and authority in the Nabob's dominions, who appeared to believe

the rebellion of the Begums?--_A._ No, I never did.--_Q._ Have you any

reason to believe that the Nabob gave credit to it?--_A._ I really

cannot rightly presume to say whether the Nabob did or did not; but I am

apt to believe that he did not.--_Q._ Have you any reason, and what, to

form a belief about it?--_A._ I have. I think, if he supposed the

rebellion, ever existed at Fyzabad, he would have been the first person

to take and give the alarm to the British troops.--_Q._ And no such

alarm was taken or given to the British troops?--_A._ No, I think not:

as I was always about his person, and in the camp, I think I certainly

must have known it or heard of it; but I never did."

We assure your Lordships, you will find upon your printed Minutes, that

Captain Edwards says he was credibly informed that the Nabob left behind

him a part of his guard of horse; and that, so desirous was he to go

into the power of this cruel lioness, his mother, that he advanced, as

he is a vigorous man, and a bold and spirited rider, leaving all his

guards behind him, and rode before them into the middle of Fyzabad.

There is some more evidence to the same purpose in answer to the

question put next to that which I read before.

"_Q._ When you did hear of the rebellion, did not you understand it to

have been alleged that one object of it was to dethrone the Nabob

himself, as well as to extirpate the English?--_A._ I understood that

the intention of the princesses, the Begums, was to extirpate the

English troops out of the country and out of those dominions, and

likewise to depose her son, and set another son, who seems to have been

a greater favorite of that family, upon the throne, in the room of the

present Nabob; and that son's name is Saadut Ali. I have only heard this

from report. I have no other knowledge but mere report. I understood

from the report, she was to extirpate the English, and depose her son

who is now upon the throne.--_Q._ Was it after or before the seizing of

the treasures, that you heard a circumstantial account of the supposed

object of the rebellion?--_A._ The report was more general after the

seizing of the treasures; but yet there were reports prevailing in the

neighborhood that our troops were sent there in consequence of the

charge that was made by Colonel Hannay and some of his officers of

rebellion existing then at Fyzabad, or having existed, I cannot rightly

say which.--_Q._ Was that report after the order for the troops to march

to Fyzabad?--_A._ It was more general, it was very general then when the

troops did march there, and more general after the seizing of the

treasures.--_Q._ When did the troops first march?--_A._ It was some time

in the month of January, I believe, in the year 1782.--_Q._ While you

was with the Nabob in passing from Lucknow to Chunar, and while you was

with him or the army returning from Chunar, did you then, out of the

whole army, regular or irregular, ever hear of any report of the Begums

being in rebellion?--_A._ No, I do not recollect I ever did.--_Q. (Upon

cross-examination.)_ Do you recollect at what time in August, 1781, you

left Lucknow to proceed with the Nabob to Chunar?--_A._ No, I cannot

rightly mention the date: all that I know is this, that I accompanied

the Nabob, Mr. Middleton, and his attendants, all the way from Lucknow

to Chunargur. I really cannot recollect; I have no notes, and it is so

distant a time since that I do not recollect the particulars of the

month or the day; but I recollect perfectly I accompanied the Nabob all

the way from Lucknow to Chunar, and returned again with him until he

struck off on the road for Fyzabad."

Your Lordships see plainly the whole of this matter. When they had

resolved to seize the Begums' treasures, they propagated this report

just in proportion to their acts. As they proceeded, the report grew

hotter and hotter. This man tells you when it was that the propagation

of this report first began, when it grew hot, and when it was in its

greatest heat. He tells you that not one native of credit in the country

believed it,--that he did not think the Nabob himself believed it; and

he gives a reason that speaks for itself, namely, that he, the Nabob,

would have been the first man to give the alarm, if he believed in a

rebellion, as he was to be the object of it. He says the English were

the principal spreaders of the report. It was, in fact, a wicked report,

propagated by Mr. Middleton and the English agents for the purpose of

justifying their iniquitous spoliation of the Begums.

This is the manner in which the matter stands upon the ground of

rebellion, with the exception of Major Gilpin's and Hyder Beg Khan's

testimony. This last man we have proved to have been kept in his office

by Mr. Hastings's influence, and to have been entirely under his

government. When this dependant comes to give his attestation, he gives

a long account of all the proceedings of Cheyt Sing's rebellion, with

which the rebellion charged on the Begums was supposed to be coincident;

and he ends it very remarkably,--that he tells the whole truth, and

nothing but the truth. But it is also remarkable, that even this Hyder

Beg Khan never mentions by name the rebellion of the Begums, nor says

that he ever heard a word about it: a strong proof that he did not dare,

in the face of his country, to give countenance to such a falsehood.

Major Gilpin's evidence leaves not even the shadow of a pretence for

this charge. He had the Begums and their eunuchs under his custody for a

full year; he was strictly ordered to watch them and to guard them; and

during all that time he lived at Fyzabad. He was the man who commanded

the troops, who had all the witnesses in his power, who had daily access

to all parties at Fyzabad, and who, moreover, was a person attached to

Mr. Hastings in the strongest manner. Your Lordships will now be pleased

to hear read to you this part of Major Gilpin's evidence.

"_Q._ Had you any opportunity of knowing the character of the Begums,

and whether they were disaffected to our government?--_A._ I had a very

good opportunity of knowing, from the circumstance of my having

commanded so long there. The elder Begum, it was generally understood,

(and I have reason to believe,) was disaffected to our government; and

my sentiments of her conduct stand recorded in my correspondence to the

court of Lucknow to that effect; but with respect to the Bhow Begum, I

acquit her entirely of any disaffection to our government, so far as

comes to my knowledge: appearances were for some time against her; but,

on cool, deliberate inquiry, I found there was no ground for supposing

her guilty of any rebellious principles, at the time of Cheyt Sing's

rebellion.--_Q._ Whether that, according to your belief, is not your

present opinion?--_A._ I think I have answered that very fully, that it

was upon those very principles that I did form an opinion of her

innocence; how far they are justifiable or right I will not take upon me

to say upon oath; there was no one circumstance that came to my

knowledge, during my residence at Fyzabad or my residence in India, that

I would wish to withhold from your Lordships.--_Q._ You state here,

'upon cool, deliberate inquiry': what was that cool, deliberate

inquiry?--_A._ That cool, deliberate inquiry was the conversations I had

with the ministers and the people of Fyzabad, and the letters from

herself expressing her innocence; and it appeared to me from those

letters that she really was our friend and ally."

The same witness goes on afterwards to say:--

"_Q._ I understood you to say, that originally the report prevailed with

respect to both the Begums, but that you was induced to alter that

opinion with respect to the younger Begum, in consequence of Mr.

Gordon's letters, and the intelligence of some of her ministers and

other persons: were not those other persons in the interest of the

younger Begum?--_A._ In general the town of Fyzabad were in her

interest.--_Q._ In what sense do you mean generally in her interest?

Were the persons you conversed with merely those who were in her service

and household, or the inhabitants of Fyzabad in general?--_A._ Both: I

held conversations with both her own body-servants and the inhabitants

of the city."

A little lower down, in the same page:--

"_Q._ What do you mean by the word rebellion, as applied to the Begums?

In what sense do you use it?--_A._ In raising troops, and in other acts

of rebellion, in the common acceptation of the word.--_Q._ Against

whom?--_A._ Against the Nabob's government and the British government

jointly: but I beg to know the particular time and circumstance the

question alludes to.--_Q._ I understand you to have said you understood

the elder Begum was in a constant state of rebellion. In what sense do

you use the word rebellion? Did you say the elder Begum was in a

constant state of rebellion?--_A._ I always understood her to be

disaffected to the English government: it might not be a proper

expression of mine, the word rebellion.--_Q._ Do you know of any act by

the elder Begum against the Vizier?--_A._ I cannot state any.--_Q._ Do

you know of any act which you call rebellion, committed by the elder

Begum against the Company?--_A._ I do not know of any particular

circumstance, only it was generally supposed that she was disaffected to

the Company.--_Q._ What acts of disaffection or hostility towards the

English do you allude to, when you speak of the conversation of the

world at the time?--_A._ I have answered that question as fully as I

can,--that it was nothing but conversation,--that I knew of no

particular act or deed myself."

This man, then, declares, as your Lordships have heard, that, upon cool,

deliberate inquiry made at Fyzabad from all the inhabitants, he did not

believe in the existence of any rebellion;--that as to the Bhow Begum,

the grandmother, who was a person that could only be charged with it in

a secondary degree, and as conspiring with the other, he says he knows

no facts against her, except that at the battle of Buxar, in the year

1764, she had used some odd expressions concerning the English, who were

then at war with her son Sujah Dowlah. This was long before we had any

empire or pretence to empire in that part of India: therefore the

expression of a rebellion, which he had used with regard to her, was, he

acknowledged, improper, and that he only meant he had formed some

opinion of her disaffection to the English.

As to the Begum, he positively acquits her of any rebellion. If he,

therefore, did not know it, who was an active officer in the very centre

of the alleged rebellion, and who was in possession of all the persons

from whom information was to be got, who had the eunuchs in prison, and

might have charged them with this rebellion, and might have examined and

cross-examined them at his pleasure,--if this man knew nothing about it,

your Lordships will judge of the falsehood of this wicked rumor, spread

about from hand to hand, and which was circulated by persons who at the

same time have declared that they never heard of it before Sir Elijah

Impey went up into the country, the messenger of Mr. Hastings's orders

to seize the treasures of the Begums, and commissioned to procure

evidence in justification of that violence and robbery.

I now go to another part of this evidence. There is a person they call

Hoolas Roy,--a man in the employment of the Resident, Mr. Middleton. The

gentlemen who are counsel for the prisoner have exclaimed, "Oh! he was

nothing but a news-writer. What! do you take any notice of him?" Your

Lordships would imagine that the man whom they treat in this manner, and

whose negative evidence they think fit to despise, was no better than

the writers of those scandalous paragraphs which are published in our

daily papers, to misrepresent the proceedings of this court to the

public. But who in fact is this Hoolas Roy, whom they represent, for the

convenience of the day, to be nothing but a news-writer? I will read to

your Lordships a letter from Major Naylor to Colonel Jaques, commanding

the second battalion, twentieth regiment.

"Sir,--Hoolas Roy, the person appointed by the Nabob for

transacting the business for which the troops are required here,

will hold constant communication and intercourse with you; and as

he is instructed and acquainted with the best method to accomplish

this business, Mr. Middleton requests implicit attention to be paid

to what he may from time to time represent respecting the prisoners

or the business on which he is employed; in short, as he is the

person nominated by the Nabob, he wishes Hoolas Roy to be

considered in the same light as if he himself was present."

Mr. Middleton, in a letter to Lieutenant Francis Rutledge, writes thus

of him:--

"Sir,--When, this note is delivered to you by Hoolas Roy, I have to

desire that you order the two prisoners to be put in irons, keeping

them from all food, &c., agreeable to my instructions of

yesterday."

You will first see in how confidential a manner Hoolas Roy was employed,

and in what light he was held: that he was employed to carry some

instructions which do not indeed appear, but were accompanied by an

order from Mr. Middleton. "When these instructions shall come to you, to

put these prisoners in irons and keep them without food, &c." The Begums

say, without food and water. _Et cetera_ are words of large import; but

he was "to keep them without food, &c., agreeable to my instructions of

yesterday." This was a pretty general warrant for sufferings. This

Hoolas Roy, this mere news-writer, was not only intrusted with this

warrant, but Mr. Middleton declares him to be a person who was to be

received there, and to represent the Nabob, and very justly too; for he,

Mr. Middleton, was undoubtedly the real nabob of the country. The man,

therefore, whom they talk of in this contemptuous manner in order to

make slight of an observation we made, and which I shall make again, and

whom they affect to consider as a mere paragraph-monger in some

scandalous newspaper, was a man vested by Mr. Middleton with authority

equal to that of the Nabob himself.

Mr. Hastings not only thought him of consequence enough to be a witness

to the severities used on the ministers of the Begums, but he considered

that he would afterwards be a fit witness to the rebellion. I pray your

Lordships to mark this: he sent for this Hoolas Roy, (who is now nothing

but a mere paragraph-monger,)--he sent for him from Fyzabad to

Benares,--a pretty long journey; and at last caused him to be examined

before Sir Elijah Impey. He has, however, sunk his evidence: a

suppression which is strongly in favor of the Begums, and equally strong

against their accuser. Here we have a man who was intrusted with all

their orders,--who represented the English government,--who represented

the Nabob's government: this man is sent for by Mr. Hastings; he gives

his deposition before Sir Elijah Impey; and the deposition so given is

not to be found either upon the Company's record, in Sir Elijah Impey's

trunk, in Jonathan Scott's trunk, nor in any other place whatever. The

evidence of a witness who could speak most clearly, as probably he did,

and most decisively, upon this subject, is sunk. They suppress, and dare

not produce, the affidavit of the man who was at the bottom of every

secret of both governments. They had the folly to let you know,

obliquely, that he had been sent for by Mr. Hastings, but they conceal

the information obtained from him: a silence more damning than any

positive evidence could be. You have here a proof of their practice of

producing such evidence only as they thought most favorable to their

wicked purposes, in the destruction of this great and ancient family.

But all the English, they say, believed in the existence of this

rebellion. This we deny. Mr. Purling, who was Resident the year before

its pretended explosion, has told you that he never knew of anything

like a plot carrying on by these women. We were almost ashamed to put

the question to him. Did Mr. Bristow, the next Resident, know or

believe in this plot? He seems, indeed, to have been induced to give

some oblique hints to Mr. Hastings of improper conduct on the part of

the Begums, but without stating what it was. In a letter to Mr.

Hastings, he appears to endeavor to soften the cruel temper of this

inflexible man by going a little way with him, by admitting that he

thought they had behaved improperly. When Mr. Wombwell, another

Resident, is asked whether any Englishman doubted of it, he says Mr.

Bristow doubted of it. No one, indeed, who reads these papers, can avoid

seeing that Mr. Bristow did not believe one word of it,--no more, in

fact, than did Mr. Hastings, or anybody else.

But, my Lords, let us go from these inferior agents and servants of the

Company to their higher officers. Did Mr. Stables believe it? This

gentleman was Mr. Hastings's colleague in the Council,--a man of as

much honor, I really believe, as ever went to India,--a faithful old

servant of the Company, and very worthy of credit. I believe there is

not a spot upon him during all his long service under the Company: if

any, it is his being a little too obsequious, sometimes, to Mr.

Hastings. Did he believe it? No, he did not: and yet he was one of the

persons authorized to investigate it coolly, and most able to do so.

Upon the whole, then, the persons who best knew the state of the country

did not believe it; the Nabob did not believe it; the Begums were never

charged with it; no ground of suspicion is suggested, except loose

rumors and the story of two nudjeeves. Under these circumstances the

treasures of these ancient ladies were seized, their property

confiscated, and the Nabob dragged most reluctantly to this act. Yes,

my Lords, this poor, miserable victim was forced to violate all the laws

of Nature, all decency, all property, to rob his own mother, for the

benefit of Mr. Hastings. All this he was forced to do: he was made the

reluctant instrument of punishing his mother and grandmother for a plot

of which even their accusers do not pretend to say that the parties

accused had ever received any intimation.

My Lords, in forming your judgment upon this nefarious proceeding, your

Lordships will not fail to advert to the fundamental principles, the

acknowledged maxims and established rules, of all judgment and

justice,--that conviction ought to precede execution, that trial ought

to precede conviction, and that a prosecutor's information and evidence

ought to be the preliminary step and substance of the trial. Here

everything was reversed: Sir Elijah Impey goes up with the order for

execution; the party accused is neither arraigned nor tried; this same

Sir Elijah then proceeds to seek for witnesses and to take affidavits;

and in the mean time neither the Nabob, the ostensible prosecutor, nor

his mother and grandmother, the parties accused, knew one word of the

matter.

But possibly some peculiarity in the circumstances of the case rendered

such a proceeding necessary, and may justify it. No such peculiarity has

been proved or even alleged; nay, it is in the highest degree improbable

that it could have existed. Mr. Hastings had another opportunity of

doing himself justice. When an account of this business was transmitted

to the Court of Directors, they ordered him to inquire into it: and your

Lordships will see what he did in consequence of this order. Your

Lordships will then judge of the extreme audacity of the defence which

he has made of this act at your bar, after having refused to institute

any inquiry into it, although, he had the positive order of the Court of

Directors, and was in the place where that inquiry could be made

effectually, and in the place where the unfortunate women could have an

opportunity of clearing themselves.

I will first read to your Lordships an extract from the letter of the

Court of Directors to the board at Calcutta, dated the 14th of February,

1783.

"4. By the second article of the treaty [of Chunar] the Nabob is

permitted to resume such jaghires as he shall think proper, with a

reserve, that all such jaghiredars, for the amount of whose

jaghires the Company are guaranties, shall, in case of a resumption

of their lands, be paid the amount of the net collections through

the Resident.

"5. We do not see how the Governor-General could consent to the

resumption of such lands as the Company had engaged should remain

in the hands of those who possessed them previous to the execution

of the late treaty, without stronger proofs of the Begums'

defection than have been laid before us; neither can we allow it to

be good policy to reduce the several jaghiredars, and thus uniting

the territory, and the troops maintained for the protection of that

territory, under one head, who, by that means, at some future

period, may become a very powerful enemy to the Company.

"6. With respect to the resumption of the jaghires possessed by the

Begums in particular, and the subsequent seizure of the treasure

deposited with the Vizier's mother, which the Governor-General, in

his letter to the board, 23d January, 1782, has declared he

strenuously encouraged and supported, we hope and trust, for the

honor of the British nation, that the measure appeared to be fully

justified in the eyes of all Hindostan. The Governor-General has

informed us that it can be well attested, that the Begums

principally excited and supported the late commotions, and that

they carried their inveteracy to the English nation so far as to

aim at our utter extirpation.

"7. It must have been publicly known that in 1775 the Resident at

the Vizier's court not only obtained from the Begum, widow of the

late Sujah Dowlah, on the Nabob's account, thirty lacs of rupees,

half of which was to be paid to the Company, but also the

forbearance of twenty-six lacs, for the repayment of which she had

security in land, on the Nabob's agreeing to renounce all further

claims upon her, and that to this agreement the Company were

guaranties.

"8. We find that on the 21st December, 1775, the Begum complained

of a breach of engagements on the part of the Nabob, soliciting

your protection for herself, her mother, and for all the women

belonging to the seraglio of the late Nabob, from the distresses to

which they were reduced; in consequence whereof it was agreed in

consultation, 3d January, 1776, to remonstrate with the

Vizier,--the Governor-General remarking, that, as the

representative of our government has become an agent in this

business, and has pledged the honor and faith of the Company for

the punctual observance of the conditions under which the treaty

was concluded, you had a right to interfere, and justice demanded

it, if it should appear that those engagements have been violated.

And the board at the same time resolved, that, as soon as the

Begum's engagements with the Nabob, to which Mr. Bristow is a

party, shall be fulfilled on her part, this government will think

themselves bound to protect her against any further demand or

molestation.

"9. If, therefore, the disaffection of the Begums was not a matter

of public notoriety, we cannot but be alarmed for the effects which

these subsequent transactions must have had on the minds of the

natives of India. The only consolation we feel upon this occasion

is, that the amount of those jaghires for which the Company were

guaranties is to be paid through our Resident at the court of the

Vizier; and it very materially concerns the credit of your

government on no account to suffer such payments to be evaded.

"10. If it shall hereafter be found that the Begums did not take

that hostile part against the Company which has been represented,

as well in the Governor-General's Narrative as in several documents

therein referred to,--and as it nowhere appears, from the papers at

present in our possession, that they excited any commotion previous

to the imprisonment of Rajah Cheyt Sing, but only armed themselves

in consequence of that transaction,--and as it is probable that

such a conduct proceeded entirely from motives of self-defence,

under an apprehension that they themselves might likewise be laid

under unwarrantable contributions,--we direct that you use your

influence with the Vizier that their jaghires may be restored to

them; but if they should be under apprehensions respecting the

future conduct of the Vizier, and wish our further protection, it

is our pleasure that you afford those ladies an asylum within the

Company's territories, and there be paid the amount of the net

collections of their jaghires, agreeably to the second article of

the late treaty, through the medium of our Resident, as may be

ascertained upon an average estimate of some years back."

You see, my Lords, the Directors had received every one of his false

impressions. They had conceived an idea, that, after the rebellion of

Cheyt Sing, (but not before, upon his own showing,) the Begums had shown

a disposition to arm. They here assume a false fact, which Mr. Hastings

stated in his representation of the business to them. They assume a

variety of other false facts: they assume that the amount of the

jaghires of the Begums were to be paid them in regular pensions; whereas

they were totally confiscated, without any compensation at all. And yet,

upon Mr. Hastings's own showing, they found the transaction to be so

dishonorable to the British government, that they desire him to make

inquiry into it, and give redress accordingly.

Here, then, is another order of the Company, another call upon Mr.

Hastings to examine to the bottom of this affair. The Directors, after

giving him credit for that enormous mass of falsehoods which we have

proved him to have stated in his Narrative, found themselves so utterly

dissatisfied, that they gave this conditional order to restore the

Begums to their jaghires. Your Lordships will find it in evidence upon

your minutes, that he contumaciously disobeyed this order,--that he

would not consent to the propositions of the Council for inquiring into

the conduct of these injured women, but stifled every attempt that was

made by others to do them justice. And yet he here has the effrontery to

propose that your Lordships should inquire into the business at your

bar,--that you should investigate a matter here which he refused to

inquire into on the spot, though expressly ordered by his masters so to

do.

I will now read to your Lordships a short extract from his own narrative

of his own proceedings. It begins with reciting part of a note entered

by Mr. Macpherson in the Consultations of the Council, at the time when

the orders of the Court of Directors which I have just alluded to were

taken into consideration.

"What the Court of Directors seem to have most at heart are, first, that

the engagement of the second article of the Benares treaty should be

faithfully fulfilled,--and, secondly, to guard against the future

misconduct of the Vizier, if he should be disposed to oppress the

Begums; that we should therefore ascertain whether the amount of the

jaghires of the Begums is regularly paid to them through the Company's

Resident, and give them notice that no future demands shall be made upon

them. This the Governor-General might, I think, do in a letter that

would make the Begums sensible of their past misconduct, yet inform them

of the lenity and gracious intentions of the Company, in ordering them

an asylum in Bengal, in case of future distress."

In consequence of the foregoing opinion from Mr. Macpherson, the

following minute was delivered by the Governor-General.

"I should gladly acquiesce in the motion made by Mr. Macpherson, if I

thought it possible to frame a letter to the Begums in any terms which

should at the same time convey the intimation proposed by it and not

defeat the purpose of it, or be productive of evils greater than any

which exist in consequence of the proceedings which have already taken

place, and which time has almost obliterated. The orders of the Court of

Directors are conditional; they require nothing, but in the event of

discoveries made subsequent to the advices which were before you on the

14th February last, in alleviation of the former conduct of the Begums.

Nothing has since appeared in relation to them, but their refusal, or

rather that of one, to fulfil her engagements for the payment of the

remainder of the sum exacted from her by the Nabob Vizier in the

beginning of last year. Whatever obedience may be due to the clear

ascertained spirit of the orders of the Court of Directors, this

obligation cannot extend to points to which neither the letter nor

evident spirit of their orders apply. If I am rightly informed, the

Nabob Vizier and the Begums are on terms of mutual good-will. It would

ill become this government to interpose its influence by any act which

might tend to revive their animosities: and a very slight occasion would

be sufficient to effect it. It will be to little purpose to tell them

that their conduct has, in our estimation of it, been very wrong, and at

the same time to announce to them the orders of our superiors, which

more than indicate the reverse. They will instantly take fire on such a

declaration, proclaim the judgment of the Company in their favor, demand

a reparation of the acts which they will construe wrongs with such a

sentence warranting that construction,--and either accept the

invitation, to the proclaimed scandal of the Vizier, which will not add

to the credit of our government, or remain in his dominions, but not

under his authority, to add to his vexations and the disorders of the

country, by continual intrigues and seditions. Enough already exists to

affect his peace, and the quiet of his people; if we cannot heal, let us

not inflame the wounds which have been inflicted.

"If the Begums think themselves aggrieved to such a degree as to justify

them in an appeal to a foreign jurisdiction,--to appeal to it against a

man standing in the relation of son and grandson to them,--to appeal to

the justice of those who have been the abettors and instruments of their

imputed wrongs,--let us at least permit them to be the judges of their

own feelings, and prefer their complaints before we offer to redress

them: they will not need to be prompted. I hope I shall not depart from

the simplicity of official language, in saying, that the majesty of

justice ought to be approached with solicitation, not descend to provoke

or invite it, much less to debase itself by the suggestion of wrongs and

the promise of redress, with the denunciation of punishment before

trial, and even before accusation."

My Lords, if, since the beginning of the world, such a paper as this was

ever before written by a person standing in the relation of a servant to

his master, I shall allow that every word we have said to your Lordships

upon this occasion to mark his guilt ought to be expunged from your

minutes and from our charges.

Before I proceed to make any observations upon this act of open

rebellion against his superiors, I must beg your Lordships to remark the

cruelty of purpose, the hostile feeling, towards these injured women,

which were displayed in this daring defiance. Your Lordships will find

that he never is a rebel to one party without being a tyrant to some

others; that _rebel_ and _tyrant_ are correlative terms, when applied to

him, and that they constantly go together.

It is suggested by the Directors, that the Nabob is the persecutor, the

oppressor, and that Mr. Hastings is the person who is to redress the

wrong. But here they have mistaken the matter totally. For we have

proved to your Lordships that Mr. Hastings was the principal in the

persecution, and that the Nabob was only an instrument. "If I am rightly

informed," he says, "the Nabob and the Begums are on terms of mutual

good-will. It would ill become this government to interpose its

influence by any act which might tend to revive their animosities: and a

very slight occasion would be sufficient to effect it." What animosities

had they towards each other? None that we know of. Mr. Hastings gets the

Nabob to rob his mother; and then he supposes, contrary to truth,

contrary to fact, contrary to everything your Lordships have heard, that

the Nabob would fall into a fury, if his mother was to obtain any

redress,--and that, if the least inquiry into this business was made, it

would create a flame in the Nabob's mind, on account of the active,

energetic, spirited part he had taken in these transactions.

"Therefore," says he, "oh, for God's sake, soothe the matter! It is a

green wound; don't uncover it; do nothing to irritate. It will be to

little purpose to tell them that their conduct has in our estimation of

it been very wrong, and at the same time announce to them the orders of

our superiors, which more than indicate the reverse." Now, my Lords, to

what does all this amount? "First," says he, "I will not do them

justice,--I will not enter upon an inquiry into their wrongs." Why?

"Because they charge us with having inflicted them." Then, surely, for

that reason, you ought to commence an inquiry. "No," says he, "that

would be telling them that our superiors suspect we are in the wrong."

But when his superiors more than indicated suspicions, was he not bound

tenfold to make that inquiry, for his honor and for their satisfaction,

which they direct him to make? No, he will not do it, "because," says

he, "the Begums would either accept the offer of an asylum in the

Company's territories, to the proclaimed scandal of the Vizier, which

would not add to the credit of our government, or they would remain in

his dominions, but not under his authority, to add to his vexations, and

the disorders of the country, by continual intrigues and seditions."

You see, my Lords, this man is constantly thrusting this peaceable Nabob

before him; goading and pushing him on, as if with a bayonet behind, to

the commission of everything that is base and dishonorable. You have him

here declaring that he will not satisfy the Directors, his masters, in

their inquiries about those acts, for fear of the Nabob's taking

umbrage, and getting into a flame with his mother,--and for fear the

mother, supported by the opinion of the Directors, should be induced to

resent her wrongs. What, I say, does all this amount to? It amounts to

this:--"The Begums accuse me of doing them injustice; the Directors

indicate a suspicion that they have been injured; therefore I will not

inquire into the matter." Why? "Because it may raise disturbances." But

what disturbance could it raise? The mother is disarmed, and could not

hurt the Nabob. All her landed estates he knew were confiscated; he knew

all her money was in his own possession; he knew she had not the means,

if she had been disposed, to create intrigues and cabals;--what

disturbance, then, could be created by his sending a letter to know what

she had to say upon the subject of her wrongs?

"_If_" says he, "_the Begums think themselves aggrieved._" Observe, my

Lords, that the institution of an inquiry is no measure of the Begums;

it is an order of the Court of Directors, made by them upon his own

representation of his own case, and upon nothing else. The Begums did

not dare to murmur; they did not dare to ask for redress, God knows the

poor creatures were, at or about the time, his

prisoners,--robbed,--stripped of everything,--without hope and without

resource. But the Directors, doing their duty upon that occasion, did

condemn him upon his own false representations contained in that bundle

of affidavits upon which his counsel now contend that your Lordships

should acquit him.--"But," says he, "are they to _appeal to a foreign

jurisdiction_?" When these women were to be robbed, we were not

foreigners to them; on the contrary, we adjudged them guilty of

rebellion. We sent an English chief-justice to collect materials of

accusation against them. We sent English officers to take their money.

The whole was an English transaction. When wrong is to be done, we have

then an interest in the country to justify our acting in it; but when

the question is of redressing wrongs, when the question is of doing

justice, when the question is of inquiry, when the question is of

hearing complaints, then it is a foreign jurisdiction. You are to suffer

Mr. Hastings--to make it foreign, or to make it domestic, just as it

answers his purposes.--But they are "_to appeal against a man standing

in the relation of son and grandson to them, and to appeal to the

justice of those who have been the abettors and instruments of their

imputed wrongs_." Why, my Lords, if he allows that he is the abettor of,

and the instrument to which the Directors impute these wrongs, why, I

ask, does he, with those charges lying upon him, object to all inquiry

in the manner you have seen?

But the Company's Governor is, it seems, all at once transformed into a

great sovereign;--"_the majesty of justice ought to be approached with

solicitation_." Here, my Lords, he forgets at once the Court of

Directors, he forgets the laws of England, he forgets the act of

Parliament, he forgets that any obedience is due to his superiors. The

Begums were to approach him by the orders of the Court of Directors; he

sets at nought these orders, and asserts that he must be approached with

solicitations.

"_Time_," says he, "_has obliterated their sufferings._" Oh, what a balm

of oblivion time spreads over the wrongs, wounds, and afflictions of

others, in the mind of the person who inflicts those wrongs and

oppressions! The oppressor soon forgets. This robbery took place in

17[81]; it was in the year 1783 when he asserted that the waters of

Lethe had been poured over all their wrongs and oppressions. Your

Lordships will mark this insulting language, when he says that both the

order of the Directors and the application of the Begums for redress

must be _solicitations to him_.

[Here Mr. Burke was interrupted by Mr. Hastings, who said, "My

Lords, there was no order. I find a man's patience may be

exhausted. I hear so many falsehoods, that I must declare there was

no order of the Court of Directors. Forgive me, my Lords. He may

say what he pleases; I will not again controvert it. But there is

no order; if there is, read it." Mr. Burke then proceeded.]

Judge you, my Lords, what the insolence, audacity, and cruelty of this

man must have been, from his want of patience in his present situation,

and when he dares to hold this language here. Your Lordships will reckon

with him for it, or the world will reckon with you.

[Mr. Hastings here again interrupted Mr. Burke, and said, "There

was no order for inquiry."]

_Mr. Burke._--Your Lordships have heard the letter read,--I mean the

letter from the Directors, which I read just now. You will judge whether

it is an order or not. I did hope within these two days to put an end to

this business; but when your Lordships hear us charged with direct

falsehood at your bar, when you hear this wicked wretch who is before

you--

[_From a Lord._--Order! order! order!]

_Mr. Burke._--Order, my Lords, we call for, in the name of the Commons!

Your Lordships have heard us accused at your bar of falsehood, after we

had read the order upon which our assertion was founded. This man, whom

we have described as the scourge and terror of India, this man gets up,

and charges us, not with a mistake, an error, a wrong construction, but

a direct falsehood,--and adds, that his patience is worn out with the

falsehood he hears. This is not an English court of justice, if such a

thing is permitted. We beg leave to retire, and take instructions from

our constituents. He ought to be sent to Bridewell for going on in this

manner.

[_Mr. Wyndham here read the letter again._]

_Mr. Burke._--With regard to the ravings of this unhappy man, I am sure,

if I were only considering what passed from him to the Managers in this

box, and knowing what allowance is due to a wounded conscience, brought

before an awful tribunal, and smarting under the impressions of its own

guilt, I would pass them over. But, my Lords, we have the honor of the

Commons, we have the honor of this court to sustain. [Your Lordships,

the other day, for an offence committed against a constable, who was

keeping the way under your orders, did, very justly, and to the great

satisfaction of the public, commit the party to Bridewell, for a much

slighter insult against the honor and dignify of your court.] And I

leave it, therefore, for the present, till your Lordships can seriously

consider what the mode of proceeding in this matter ought to be.--I now

proceed.

* * * * *

We have read to your Lordships the orders of the Court of Directors: I

again say we consider them as orders: your Lordships are as good judges

of the propriety of the term as we are. You have heard them read; you

have also heard that the Council at Calcutta considered them as orders,

for resolutions were moved upon them; and Mr. Stables, in evidence

before you here, who was one of the Council, so considered them: and yet

this man has the frantic audacity in this place to assert that they were

not orders, and to declare that he cannot stand the repetition of such

abominable falsehoods as are perpetually urged against him. We cannot

conceive that your Lordships will suffer this; and if you do, I promise

you the Commons will not suffer the justice of the country to be trifled

with and insulted in this manner: because, if such conduct be suffered

by your Lordships, they must say that very disagreeable consequences

will ensue, and very disagreeable inferences will be drawn by the public

concerning it. You will forgive, and we know how to forgive, the ravings

of people smarting under a conscious sense of their guilt. But when we

are reading documents given in evidence, and are commenting upon them,

the use of this kind of language really deserves your Lordships'

consideration. As for us, we regard it no more than we should other

noise and brawlings of criminals who in irons may be led through the

streets, raving at the magistrate that has committed them. We consider

him as a poor, miserable man, railing at his accusers: it is natural he

should fall into all these frantic ravings, but it is not fit or natural

that the Court should indulge him in them. Your Lordships shall now hear

in what sense Mr. Wheler and Mr. Stables, two other members of the

Council, understood this letter.

Mr. Wheler thus writes.--"It always has been and always will be my wish

to conform implicitly to the orders of the Court of Directors, and I

trust that the opinion which I shall give upon that part of the Court's

letter which is now before us will not be taken up against its meaning,

as going to a breach of them. The orders at present under the board's

consideration are entirely provisional. Nothing has passed since the

conclusion of the agreement made by the Governor-General with the Vizier

at Chunar which induces me to alter the opinion which I before held, as

well from the Governor-General's reports to this board as the opinions

which I have heard of many individuals totally unconcerned in the

subject, that the Begums at Fyzabad did take a hostile part against the

Company during the disturbances in Benares; and I am impressed with a

conviction that the conduct of the Begums did not proceed entirely from

motives of self-defence. But as the Court of Directors appear to be of a

different opinion, and conceive that there ought to be stronger proofs

of the defection of the Begums than have been laid before them, I think,

that, before we decide on their orders, the late and present Resident at

the Vizier's court, and the commanding officers in the Vizier's country,

ought to be required to collect and lay before the board all the

information they can obtain with respect to the defection of the Begums

during the troubles in Benares, and their present disposition to the

Company."

Mr. Stables, September 9th, 1783, writes thus.--"The Court of Directors,

by their letter of the 14th February, 1783, seem not to be satisfied

that the disaffection of the Begums to this government is sufficiently

proved by the evidence before them. I therefore think that the late and

present Resident and commanding officers in the Vizier's country at the

time should be called upon to collect what further information they can

on this subject, in which the honor and dignity of this government is so

materially concerned, that such information may be immediately

transmitted to the Court of Directors."

When questioned upon this subject at your Lordships' bar, he gives this

evidence.--"_Q._ What was your motive for proposing that

investigation?--_A._ A letter from the Court of Directors; I conceived

it to be ordered by them.--_Q._ Did you conceive the letter of the Court

of Directors positively to direct that inquiry?--_A._ I did so certainly

at the time, and I beg to refer to the minutes which expressed it."--A

question was put to the same witness by a noble lord. "_Q._ The witness

has stated, that at the time he has mentioned he conceived the letter

from the Court of Directors to order an inquiry, and that it was upon

that opinion that he regulated his conduct, and his proposal for such

inquiry. I wish to know whether the expression, '_at the time_,' was

merely casual, or am I to understand from it that the witness has

altered his opinion of the intention of this letter since that

time?--_A._ I certainly retain that opinion, and I wished the inquiry to

go on."

My Lords, you see that his colleagues so understood it; you see that we

so understood it; and still you have heard the prisoner, after charging

us with falsehood, insultingly tell us we may go on as we please, we may

go on in our own way. If your Lordships think that it was not a positive

order, which Mr. Hastings was bound to obey, you will acquit him of the

breach of it. But it is a most singular thing, among all the astonishing

circumstances of this case, that this man, who has heard from the

beginning to the end of his trial breaches of the Company's orders

constantly charged upon him,--(nay, I will venture to say, that there is

not a single step that we have taken in this prosecution, or in

observations upon evidence, in which we have not charged him with an

avowed direct breach of the Company's order,--you have heard it ten

times this day,--in his defence before the Commons he declares he did

intentionally, in naming Mr. Markham, break the Company's orders,)--it

is singular, I say, that this man should now pretend to be so sore upon

this point. What is it now that makes him break through all the rules of

common decency and common propriety, and show all the burnings of guilt,

upon being accused of the breach of one of the innumerable orders which

he has broken, of which he has avowed the breaking, and attempted to

justify himself a thousand times in the Company's books for having

broken?

My Lords, one of his own body, one of the Council, has sworn at your bar

what he repeatedly declared to be his sense of it. We consider it as one

of the strongest orders that can be given, because the reason of the

order is added to it: the Directors declaring, that, if it should not be

found upon inquiry, (you see, my Lords, it puts the very case,)--"if you

do not find such and such things, we shall consider the English honor

wounded and stained, and we direct you to make reparation." There are,

in fact, two orders contained in this letter, which we take to be

equally strong and positive,--and we charge him with the breach of both:

namely, the order for inquiry, and the conditional order of restoring to

the Begums their jaghires, or making satisfaction for them; and in case

of any apprehension of reluctance in the Nabob, to bring them for

security into the Company's territories. The two last positive orders

are preceded by the supposition of an inquiry which was to justify him

either in the acts he had done or to justify him in making restitution.

He did neither the one nor the other. We aver that he disobeyed all

these orders. And now let his impatience break out again.

Your Lordships have seen, amongst the various pretences by which this

man has endeavored to justify his various delinquencies, that of fearing

to offend the Nabob by the restoration of their jaghires to the Begums

is one. Your Lordships will form your own judgment of the truth or

falsehood of this pretence, when you shall have heard the letter which I

shall now read to you, written to Mr. Hastings by the Nabob himself.

_Letter from the Nabob Vizier to Mr. Hastings, 25th February,

1782._

"You performed on every occasion towards me whatever was becoming

of friendship: I, too, have done whatever affection required and

you commanded; and in future also, whatever may be your pleasure,

there shall be no deviation therefrom, because whatever you direct

is altogether for my benefit. The business for which I came to

Fyzabad is become settled by your favor: particulars will become

known to your wisdom from the writings of Mr. Middleton. I am

grateful for your favors. If in these matters you sincerely approve

me, communicate it, for it will be a comfort to me. Having

appointed my own aumils to the jaghire of the lady mother, I have

engaged to pay her cash. She has complied with my views. Her

pleasure is, that, after receiving an engagement, he should deliver

up the jaghires. What is your pleasure in this matter? If you

command, it will comfort the lady mother giving her back the

jaghire after I have obtained my views; or I will have it under my

aumil. I am obedient to your pleasure."

Your Lordships here see the Begum a suppliant to have her jaghire

restored, (after entering into some engagement that might have been

required of her,) and the Nabob, in a tone equally suppliant, expressing

his consent, at least, that her request should be complied with, if the

command of Mr. Hastings could be procured.

* * * * *

My Lords, in order to save your Lordships' time, and that I might not

overload this business, I did not intend to have troubled you with any

observations upon this part of it; but the charge of falsehood which the

prisoner at your bar has had the audacity to bring against us has

induced me to lay it more particularly before, you. We have now done

with it; but before we retire, your Lordships will permit me to

recapitulate briefly the substance of what has now been urged respecting

his conduct towards these miserable women. We accuse him of reiterated

breaches of the orders of the Court of Directors, both in the letter and

spirit of them, and of his contempt of the opinions which his colleagues

in office had formed of them. We charge him with the aggravation of

these delinquencies, by the oppression and ruin which they brought upon

the family of the Nabob, by the infraction of treaties, and by the

disrepute which in his person was sustained by the government he

represented, and by the stain left upon the justice, honor, and good

faith of the English nation. We charge him with their farther

aggravation by sundry false pretences alleged by him in justification of

this conduct, the pretended reluctance of the Nabob, the fear of

offending him, the suggestion of the Begums having forgotten and

forgiven the wrongs they had suffered, and of the danger of reviving

their discontent by any attempt to redress them, and by his insolent

language, that the majesty of justice with which he impudently invests

himself was only to be approached with solicitation. We have farther

stated, that the pretence that he was only concerned in this business as

an accessary is equally false; it being, on the contrary, notorious,

that the Nabob was the accessary, forced into the service, and a mere

instrument in his hands, and that he and Sir Elijah Impey (whose

employment in this business we stated as a farther aggravation) were the

authors and principal agents. And we farther contend, that each of these

aggravations and pretences is itself, in fact and in its principle, a

substantive crime.

Your Lordships witnessed the insolence with which this man, stung to the

quick by the recital of his crime, interrupted me; and you heard his

recrimination of falsehood against us. We again avouch the truth of all

and every word we have uttered, and the validity of every proof with

which we have supported them. Let his impatience, I say, now again burst

forth,--he who feels so sensibly everything that touches him, and yet

seeks for an act of indemnity for his own atrocities, by endeavoring to

make you believe that the wrongs of a desolated family are within one

year forgotten by them, and buried in oblivion.

I trust, my Lords, that both his prosecutors and his judges will evince

that patience which the criminal wants. Justice is not to wait to have

its majesty approached with solicitation. We see that throne in which

resides invisibly, but virtually, the majesty of England; we see your

Lordships representing, in succession, the juridical authority in the

highest court in this kingdom: but we do not approach you with

solicitation; we make it a petition of right; we claim it; we demand it.

The right of seeking redress is not suppliant, even before the majesty

of England; it comes boldly forward, and never thinks it offends its

sovereign by claiming what is the right of all his people.

We have now done with this business: a business as atrocious as any that

is known in the history of mankind; a business that has stained,

throughout all Asia, the British character, and by which our fame for

honor, integrity, and public faith has been forfeited; a business which

has introduced us throughout that country as breakers of faith,

destroyers of treaties, plunderers of the weak and unprotected, and has

dishonored and will forever dishonor the British name. Your Lordships

have had all this in evidence. You have seen in what manner the Nabob,

his country, his revenues, his subjects, his mother, his family, his

nobility, and all their fortunes, real and personal, have been disposed

of by the prisoner at your bar; and having seen this, you will by the

impatience of this criminal estimate the patience of the unfortunate

women into whose injuries he refused to inquire. What he would not do

the Commons have done. They know that you have a feeling different from

that which he manifested on this occasion; they do not approach you

suppliantly, but demand justice; they insist, that, as the Commons have

done their part, your Lordships will perform yours.

* * * * *

We shall next proceed to show your Lordships how he acted towards

another set of women, the women of the late Sujah Dowlah, and for whom

the Directors had ordered a maintenance to be secured by an express

treaty. You will see that he is cruel towards the weak sex, and to all

others in proportion as they are weak and powerless to resist him. You

will see, I say, when he had usurped the whole government of Oude, and

brought it into a servile dependence on himself, how these women fared;

and then your Lordships will judge whether or not, and in what degree,

he is criminal.

SPEECH

IN

GENERAL REPLY.

SEVENTH DAY. THURSDAY, JUNE 12, 1794.

My Lords,--When I had last the honor of addressing your Lordships from

this place, my observations were principally directed to the unjust

confiscation and seizure of the jaghires and treasures of the Begums,

without previous accusation, or trial, or subsequent inquiry into their

conduct, in violation of a treaty made with them and guarantied by the

East India Company,--to the long imprisonment and cruel treatment of

their ministers, and to the false pretences and abominable principles by

which the prisoner at your bar has attempted to justify his conduct. The

several acts of violence and of oppression were, as we have shown your

Lordships, committed with circumstances of aggravated atrocity highly

disgraceful to the British name and character,--and particularly by his

forcing the Nabob to become the means and instrument of reducing his

mother and grandmother and their families to absolute want and distress.

I have now to call your attention to his treatment of another branch of

this miserable family,--the women and children of the late Nabob Sujah

ul Dowlah. These persons were dependent upon the Begums, and by the

confiscation of their property, and by the ruin of various persons who

would otherwise have contributed to their maintenance, were reduced to

the last extremity of indigence and want. Being left without the common

necessaries of life, they were driven to the necessity of breaking

through all those local principles of decorum which constitute the

character of the female sex in that part of the world; and after

fruitless supplications and shrieks of famine, they endeavored to break

the inclosure of the palace, and to force their way to the market-place,

in order to beg for bread. When they had thus been forced to submit to

the extremity of disgrace and degradation, by exposing themselves to

public view with the starving children of their late sovereign, the

brothers and sisters of the reigning prince, they were, in this attempt,

attacked by the sepoys armed with bludgeons, and driven back by blows

into the palace.

My Lords, we have first laid before you the sufferings and disgraces of

women of the first distinction in Asia, protected by their rank,

protected by their sex, protected by their near relation to the prince

of the country, protected by two guaranties of the representative of the

British government in India. We now come to another class of women, who

suffered by the violent misappropriation of the revenues of the Nabob,

by which their regular allowance was taken from them; and your Lordships

will find that this man's crimes, at every step we take, ripen in guilt,

his acts of positive injustice are always aggravated by his conduct with

regard to the consequences of them, and form but a small part in the

mass of oppression and tyranny which we have brought before you.

My Lords, the unjust seizure of the jaghires and treasures of the

Begums, out of which those women were maintained, reduced them to a

state of indigence, and exposed them not only to the sufferings which

belong to the physical nature of man, but also to the indignities which

particularly affected their sex and condition. But before I proceed, I

will beg leave to restate to your Lordships and recall to your memory

who these women were.

The Nabob Sujah Dowlah had but one legitimate wife. Though the Mahometan

law admits of this number's being extended in certain cases even to

four, yet it is for the most part held disreputable, especially when a

person is married to a woman of the first distinction, to have more than

one legitimate wife. Upon looking into the Hedaya, your Lordships will

see with what extreme rigor fornication is forbidden; but we know that

persons of high rank, by customs that supersede both religion and laws,

add to the number of their wives, or substitute in their room wives of a

subordinate description, and indulge themselves in this license to an

unlimited degree. You will find in Chardin's Travels, where he treats of

the subject of marriage, that such is the custom of all the princes of

the East. The wives of this subordinate class, though they are in

reality no better than concubines, and are subject to the power and

caprices of their lords, are yet allowed, in the eye of the severest

moralists, to have some excuse for their frailty and their weakness; and

they accordingly always do find a degree of favor in this world, and

become the object of particular protection.

We know that Sujah ul Dowlah was a man unquestionably in his manners

very licentious with regard to women, that he had a great number of

these women in his family, and that his women and the women attendant

upon the persons of his favorites had increased to a very great number.

We know that his sons amounted to twenty,--or, according to Mr.

Hastings's own account, to nineteen. Montesquieu supposes that there are

more females born in the East than in the West. But he says this upon no

good ground. We know by better and more regular information concerning

this matter, that the birth of males and females in that country is in

the same proportion as it is here; and therefore, if you suppose that he

had twenty sons, you may suppose he had about nineteen daughters. By the

customs of that country, all these sons and daughters were considered as

persons of eminent distinction, though inferior to the legitimate

children,--assuming the rank of their father, without considering the

rank which their mother held. All these wives with their children, and

all their female servants and attendants, amounting in the whole to

about eight hundred persons, were shut up in what they call the _Khord

Mohul_, or Lesser Palace. This place is described by one of the

witnesses to be about as large as St. James's Square. Your Lordships

have been told, that, in other circumstances as well as this, these

women were considered as objects of a great degree of respect, and of

the greatest degree of protection. I refer your Lordships to the treaty

by which their maintenance was guarantied by the English government.

In order to let your Lordships see that I state nothing to you but what

is supported not only by general history, which is enough to support an

account of general manners, but by the particular and peculiar opinions

of a person best informed of the nature of the case, I will refer you to

the Nabob himself: for, undoubtedly, the Nabob of Oude, the Vizier of

the Empire, the Subahdar of the country, was most likely to be the best

judge of what respect was due to the women of his father's family. I

will therefore read to your Lordships, from his own letters, what the

Nabob's opinion was upon this subject.

_Extract of a Letter from the Vizier, received 23d of August,

1782._

"I never found resource equal to the necessary expenses. Every

year, by taking from the ministers, and selling the articles of my

harkhanna, I with great distress transacted the business. But I

could not take care of my dependants: so that some of my brothers,

from their difficulties, arose and departed; and the people of the

Khord Mohul of the late Nabob, who are all my mothers, from their

distresses are reduced to poverty and involved in difficulties. No

man of rank is deficient in the care of his dependants, in

proportion to his ability."

_Another Letter from the Vizier, received the 31st July, 1784._

"My brother, dear as life, Saadut Ali Khan, has requested that I

would permit his mother to go and reside with him. My friend, all

the mothers of my brothers, and the women of the late Nabob, whom I

respect as my own mothers, are here, and it is incumbent upon me to

support them: accordingly I do it; and it is improper that they

should be separated, nor do I approve it. By God's blessing and

your kindness, I hope that all the women of the late Nabob may

remain here; it is the wish also of my grandmother and my mother

that they should."

Your Lordships now see in what degree of estimation the Nabob held these

women. He regarded the wives of his father as his honorary mothers; he

considers their children as his brethren; he thinks it would be highly

dishonorable to his government, if one of them was taken out of the

sanctuary in which they are placed, and in which, he says, the great of

the country are obliged to maintain their dependants. This is the

account given by the person best acquainted with the usages of the

country, best acquainted with his own duties, best acquainted with his

own wishes.

Now, my Lords, you will see in what light another person, the agent of a

trading company, who designates himself under the name of Majesty, and

assumes other great distinctions, presumes also to consider these

persons,--and in what contempt he is pleased to hold what is respected

and what is held sacred in that country. What I am now going to quote is

from the prisoner's second defence. For I must remind your Lordships

that Mr. Hastings has made three defences,--one in the House of Commons,

another in the lobby of the House of Commons, and a third at your

Lordships' bar. The second defence, though delivered without name, to

the members in the lobby of the House of Commons, has been proved at

your Lordships' bar to be written by himself. This lobby, this

out-of-door defence, militates in some respects, as your Lordships will

find, with the in-door defence; but it probably contains the real

sentiments of Mr. Hastings himself, delivered with a little more

freeness when he gets into the open air,--like the man who was so vain

of some silly plot he had hatched, that he told it to the

hackney-coachman, and every man he met in the streets.

He says,--"Begums are the ladies of an Eastern prince; but these women

are also styled the ladies of the late Vizier, and their sufferings are

painted in such strong colors that the unsuspecting reader is led to mix

the subjects together, and to suppose that these latter, too, were

princesses of Oude, that all their sufferings proceeded from some act of

mine, or had the sanction of my authority or permission. The fact is,

that the persons of the Khord Mohul (or Little Seraglio) were young

creatures picked up wherever youth and beauty could be found, and mostly

purchased from amongst the most necessitous and meanest ranks of the

people, for the Nabob's pleasures." In the in-door defence, he says,

"The said women, who were mostly persons of low condition, and the said

children, if any such there were, lived in the Khord Mohul, on an

establishment entirely distinct from the said Begums'."

My Lords, you have seen what was the opinion of the Nabob, who ought to

know the nature and circumstances of his father's palace, respecting

these women; you hear what Mr. Hastings's opinion is: and now the

question is, whether your Lordships will consider these women in the

same light in which the person does who is most nearly connected with

them and most likely to know them, or in the way in which Mr. Hastings

has thought proper, within doors and without doors, to describe them.

Your Lordships will be pleased to observe that he has brought no proof

whatever of facts which are so boldly asserted by him in defiance of

proof to the contrary, totally at variance with the letter of the son of

the man to whom these women belonged. Your Lordships, I say, will remark

that he has produced not one word of evidence, either within the House

of Commons or the House of Peers, or in the lobby, or anywhere else, to

verify any one word he has said. He slanders these women in order to

lessen that compassion which your Lordships might have for the

sufferings he inflicted upon them. But admitting that some of these

women were of a meaner condition, and that they derived nothing from

their connection with the dignity of the person by whom they had

children, (and we know that in the whole they amounted to about

fourscore children, the Nabob having a race like the patriarchs of old,

as many great persons in that part of the world still have,)--supposing,

I say, all this to be true, yet, when persons are reduced from ease and

affluence to misery and distress, they naturally excite in the mind a

greater degree of compassion by comparing the circumstances in which

they once stood with those into which they are fallen: for famine,

degradation, and oppression were famine, degradation, and oppression to

those persons, even though they were as mean as Mr. Hastings chooses to

represent them. But I hope, as you will sympathize with the great on

account of their condition, that you will sympathize with all mankind on

the ground of the common condition of humanity which belongs to us all;

therefore I hope your Lordships will not consider the calumny of Mr.

Hastings against those women as any other than as an aggravation of his

offence against them. That is the light in which the House of Commons

considered it; for they had heard both his in-door and out-door defence,

and they still persevered in making the charge, and do persevere in

making it still.

We have first stated what these women were,--in what light they stood

with the Nabob,--in what light they stood with the country at large. I

have now to state in what light they stood with the British government,

previous to this invasion of their rights; and we will prove they were

the actual subjects of a guaranty by the Company.

_Extract from an Agreement made by Mr. Middleton, to all the

Particulars of which he engages to procure a Treaty from the Nabob

Asoph ul Dowlah, after his Arrival, and that he will also sign it,

as follows._

"First, That, whenever the Begum shall choose to go to Mecca, she

shall be permitted to go.

"Second, That, when the Nabob shall arrive, I [Mr. Middleton] will

procure suitable allowances to be made to the ladies of the zenanah

and the children of the late Nabob Sujah ul Dowlah, and take care

that they are paid.

"Third, That the festivals (_shadee_) and marriages of the children

of the late Nabob Sujah ul Dowlah shall be at the disposal of the

Begum: whenever she thinks proper, she shall marry them; and

whatever money shall be necessary for these expenses shall be paid

by the Nabob.

"Fourth, That the syer of Coda Gunge and Ali Gunge shall be

retained by the Begum as heretofore.

"Fifth, That I [Mr. Middleton] will, upon the arrival of the Nabob,

procure Vizier Gunge and the garden of Sepoy Dand Khan, or their

equivalent, for the Begum.

"Sixth, That I [Mr. Middleton] will endeavor to obtain from the

Nabob the sum of 1,150,000 rupees on account of the purchase of

Metchee Bohaun, and the house of Sahebjee, and the fort of the

Gossim, with the land and garden and the barraderry on the banks of

Goomply [Goomty?], and bazaar and garden of the house of Mahnarain

and the house of Beng Peofand at Lucknow: all of which the Nabob

Asoph ul Dowlah has assumed possession of.

"Seventh, That I will settle with the Nabob the allowances to be

made in ready money to the ladies of the zenanah and others

specified, in the following amount: Total, 17 lacs 250 rupees per

month.

"Eighth, Upon the arrival of the Nabob Asoph ul Dowlah Bahadur, I

will endeavor with all my influence to settle the monthly

allowances of Mohrum Ali Khan and Mahmud Eltifant Khan, &c., the

attendants of the Begums.

"Ninth, That, if the Begum shall go to Mecca, she shall leave her

mahals and jaghires to the Begum, the mother of Asoph ul Dowlah,

who shall remit the revenues thereof to the Burree Begum: no one

shall prevent her enjoying her jaghires."

Now, my Lords, we will read the copy of an engagement under the seal of

the Nabob Asoph ul Dowlah, and under the seal and signature, in English,

of Mr. Middleton, as follows.

"First, I, who am the Nabob Asoph ul Dowlah Bahadur, do agree that

the jaghires and the gunges and monthly allowance of the officers

and servants, and of the ladies of the zenanah, and of those

specified in the accounts annexed, shall be at the disposal and

under the management and authority of the Begum, and no one shall

oppose or prevent it: this I will punctually observe. In this

agreement Mr. Middleton and the English are engaged.

"Second, Whenever the Begum may choose to go to Mecca, I will not

oppose it.

"Third, Whenever the Begum should go to Mecca, she shall leave her

lands, jaghires, &c., either in the care of my mother or of me; and

I will procure bills for the amount of their revenues, and send

them to her: no one shall oppose this.

"Fourth, The Begum shall have authority over all the ladies of her

zenanah; she shall let them remain with me, and not let them go

anywhere without my permission, or keep them with her.

"Fifth, The jaghires Coda Gunge and Ali Gunge, &c., with the mahal

and syer belonging to the Begum and made over, shall remain as

heretofore in her possession: Total, 14,460 rupees per month.

"Eighth, The Begum has authority over the ladies and attendants of

the zenanah; neither myself nor any one else will oppose it.

"Ninth, The Begum, my grandmother, shall have the authority in all

festivals, and in the marriage of the children of the late Nabob

Sujah ul Dowlah, and, with the consent of my mother and myself,

shall regulate them: excepting in the festivals (_shadee_), the

authority is mine.

"The English are guaranties to the above engagements, so long as

the Begum shall exist."

Your Lordships will observe something here worthy of your notice. You

will first perceive, that the very treaty in which Mr. Hastings, by his

representative, Mr. Middleton, was a party concerned, supposes that the

Nabob Sujah ul Dowlah had other children besides the reigning prince by

his sole legitimate wife; and yet Mr. Hastings, in his defence, has

thought proper, with a full knowledge of that circumstance, to doubt

whether there were any other children. You next see that these women

have Mr. Middleton's (that is, Mr. Hastings's) guaranty for the

allowances which are made and settled upon them, and for the maintenance

of their attendants, for the security and enjoyment of their own

possessions, for their having a law officer of high rank, a moulavy, of

their own. In short, there is a regular establishment formed for all

these women: they are not separated as a part distinct from the Begums,

but they are put by this very guaranty entirely under their management;

the maintenance of the children is secured; the whole order and economy

of their establishment is delivered entirely to the Begum, the

grandmother, and the Begum, the mother, of the Nabob.

My Lords, you see that all these arrangements have the solemn guaranty

of the Company, and that these women form a very considerable part of

that guaranty; and therefore your Lordships will not treat their

sufferings, inflicted in violation of the Company's own settlement and

guaranty, as a matter of no consideration for you.

But to proceed.--We have proved to your Lordships that the Nabob was

reduced to a state of the greatest possible misery and distress; that

his whole revenue was sequestered into the hands of Mr. Hastings's

agents; that by the treaty of Chunar he was to be relieved from the

expense of a body of troops with which he had been burdened without his

own voluntary consent,--nay, more, the temporary brigade, which Mr.

Hastings proposed to take off, but kept on, which he considers not only

as a great distress to his finances, but a dreadful scourge and calamity

to his country,--there was a whole pension-list upon it, with such

enormous pensions as 18,000_l._ a year to Sir Eyre Coote, and other

pensions, that Mr. Hastings proposed to take off, but did not; that, in

proportion as the Nabob's distress increased, Mr. Hastings's demands

increased too; he was not satisfied, with taking from him for the

Company, but he took from him for himself; he demanded six hundred

thousand pounds as a loan, when he knew he had neither money nor credit.

The consequence of these acts of violence was, that these people,

besieged by the English troops, and deprived of every resource, even of

the funds of charity, by which the protectors of the family, male and

female, might have relieved them, but which the cruel rapacity of Mr.

Hastings had either entirely taken away or greatly diminished, were

reduced to the last extremity of distress.

After the length of time which has elapsed since we first brought these

matters with their proofs, I shall beg leave, before you go to judgment,

to refresh your memory with a recital of a part of that evidence, in

order that your Lordships may again fully and distinctly comprehend the

nature and extent of the oppression, cruelty, and injustice committed by

Mr. Hastings, and by which you may estimate the punishment you will

inflict upon him.

_Letter from Captain Leonard Jaques to Richard Johnson, Esq.,

Resident at the Vizier's Court; March 6th, 1782._

"Sir,--The women belonging to the Khord Mohul complain of their

being in want of every necessary of life, and are at last drove to

that desperation, that they at night get on the top of the zenanah,

make a great disturbance, and last night not only abused the

sentinels posted in the gardens, but threw dirt at them; they

threatened to throw themselves from the walls of the zenanah, and

also to break out of it. Humanity obliges me to acquaint you of

this matter, and to request to know if you have any direction to

give me concerning it. I also beg leave to acquaint you, I sent for

Letafit Ali Khan, the cojah who has the charge of them, who informs

me their complaint is well grounded,--that they have sold

everything they had, even to the clothes from their backs, and now

have no means of existing. Inclosed, I transmit you a letter from

Mandall on the subject."

_Letter from Captain Jaques to Richard Johnson, Esq., March 7th,

1782._

"Sir,--I beg leave to address you again concerning the women in the

Khord Mohul. Their behavior last night was so furious that there

seemed the greatest probability of their proceeding to the utmost

extremities, and that they would either throw themselves from the

walls or force the doors of the zenanah. I have made every inquiry

concerning the cause of their complaints, and find from Letafit Ali

Khan that they are in a starving condition, having sold all their

clothes and necessaries, and now have not wherewithal to support

nature. And as my instructions are quite silent upon this head,

should be glad to know how to proceed in case they were to force

the doors of the zenanah; as I suspect it will happen, should no

subsistence be very quickly sent to them."

_Letter from Major Gilpin to John Bristow, Esq., Resident at the

Court of Lucknow; 30th October, 1782._

"Last night, about eight o'clock, the women in the Khord Mohul

Zenanah, under the charge of Letafit Ali Khan, assembled on the

tops of the buildings, crying in a most lamentable manner for

food,--that for the last four days they had got but a very scanty

allowance, and that yesterday they had got none. The melancholy

cries of famine are more easily imagined than described; and from

their representations, I fear that the Nabob's agents for that

business are very inattentive. I therefore think it requisite to

make you acquainted with the circumstance, that his Excellency the

Nabob may cause his agents to be more circumspect in their conduct

to these poor, unhappy women."

_Letter from Mr. Bristow to Major Gilpin; Fyzabad, 4th November,

1782._

"Sir,--I have received your letters of the 12th, 19th, 27th, and

30th ultimo. I communicated the contents of that of the 30th to the

minister, who promised me to issue orders for the payment of a sum

of money to relieve the distress of the Khord Mohul. I shall also

forward a bill for 10,000 rupees to you in the course of three or

four days; and if in the mean time you may find means to supply to

the amount of that sum, I will become personally responsible to

you for the repayment."

_Letter from Major Gilpin to John Bristow, Esq., at the Court of

Lucknow; Fyzabad, 15th November, 1782._

"Sir,--The repeated cries of the women in the Khord Mohul Zenanah

for subsistence have been truly melancholy. They beg most piteously

for liberty, that they may earn their daily bread by laborious

servitude, or be relieved from their misery by immediate death. In

consequence of their unhappy situation, I have this day taken the

liberty of drawing on you in favor of Ramnarain at ten days' sight,

for twenty son Kerah rupees, ten thousand of which I have paid to

Cojah Letafit Ali Khan, under whose charge that zenanah is."

These, my Lords, are the state of the distresses in the year 1782, and

your Lordships will see that they continued almost, with only occasional

reliefs, during the period of that whole year. Now we enter into the

year 1783, to show you that it continued during the whole time; and then

I shall make a very few remarks upon it.

I will now read to your Lordships a part of Mr. Holt's evidence, by

which it is proved that Mr. Hastings was duly advertised of all these

miserable and calamitous circumstances.

"_Q._ Whether you saw a letter of intelligence from Fyzabad

containing a relation of the treatment of the women in the Khord

Mohul?--_A._ Yes, I did, and translated it.--_Q._ From whom did it

come?--_A._ Hoolas Roy.--_Q._ Who was he?--_A._ An agent of the

Resident at Fyzabad, employed for the purpose of transmitting

information to the Resident.--_Q._ Was that paper transmitted to

Mr. Hastings?--_A._ To the best of my recollection, it was

transmitted to the Board, after I had attested it.--_Q._ Do you

remember at what distance of time after the receipt of the

intelligence respecting the distresses of the Khord Mohul that paper

was transmitted to Calcutta?--_A._ I cannot say.--_Q._ Do you

believe it was transmitted within ten months after the time it was

received?--_A._ I understood it to be a letter received just before

it was transmitted.--_Q._ Then you understand it was transmitted

as soon as received?--_A._ Yes, in the course of three days.--_Q._

Can you bring to your mind the time at which the translation was

made?--_A._ To the best of my recollection, it was in January,

1784.--_Q._ Whether the distresses that had been complained of had

ceased for above a twelvemonth before the distresses of the Khord

Mohul?--_A._ I understood they were new distresses.--_Q._ Then you

state that that account transmitted in 1784 was, as you understand,

an account of new distresses?--_A._ Yes."

I shall now refer your Lordships to page 899 of your printed Minutes.

[The Managers for the Commons acquainted the House, that they would

next read the paper of intelligence which had been authenticated by

Mr. Holt, in his evidence at the bar, relative to the miserable

situation of these women, which they meant to bring home to Mr.

Hastings.]

_An Extract of a Consultation of the 17th February, 1784._

"At a Council: present, the Honorable Warren Hastings, Esq.,

Governor-General, President, Edward Wheler and John Stables,

Esqrs.; Mr. Macpherson absent from the Presidency for the benefit

of his health: the following letter and its inclosures were

received from Mr. Bristow on the 8th instant, and circulated.

"'Honorable Sir, and Gentlemen,--I have the honor to forward, for

your further information, the inclosure No. 3; it contains a

relation of the hardships endured by the ladies of the late

Vizier's zenanah.'

(Signed) 'JOHN BRISTOW.'

"_Translation of a Paper of Intelligence from Fyzabad._

"'The ladies, their attendants, and servants were still as

clamorous as last night. Letafit, the darogah, went to them, and

remonstrated with them on the impropriety of their conduct, at the

same time assuring them that in a few days all their allowances

would be paid, and should that not be the case, he would advance

them ten days' subsistence, upon condition that they returned to

their habitations. None of them, however, consented to his

proposal, but were still intent upon making their escape through

the bazaar, and in consequence formed themselves in the following

order,--the children in the front, behind them the ladies of the

seraglio, and behind them again their attendants; but their

intentions were frustrated by the opposition which they met with

from Letafit's sepoys. The next day Letafit went twice to the

women, and used his endeavors to make them return into the zenanah,

promising to advance them ten thousand rupees, which, upon the

money being paid down, they agreed to comply with; but night coming

on, nothing transpired.

"'On the day following, their clamors were more violent than usual.

Letafit went to confer with them on the business of yesterday,

offering the same terms. Depending upon the fidelity of his

promises, they consented to return to their apartments, which they

accordingly did, except two or three of the ladies, and most of

their attendants. Letafit went then to Hossmund Ali Khan, to

consult with him about what means they should take. They came to a

resolution of driving them in by force, and gave orders to their

sepoys to beat any one of the women who should attempt to move

forward; the sepoys accordingly assembled, and each one being

provided with a bludgeon, they drove them, by dint of beating, into

the zenanah. The women, seeing the treachery of Letafit, proceeded

to throw stones and bricks at the sepoys, and again attempted to

get out; but finding that impossible, from the gates being shut,

they kept up a continual discharge till about twelve o'clock, when,

finding their situation desperate, they returned into the Rung

Mohul, and forced their way from thence into the palace, and

dispersed themselves about the house and gardens. After this they

were desirous of getting into the Begum's apartments; but she,

being apprised of their intentions, ordered the doors to be shut.

In the mean time Letafit and Hossmund Ali Khan posted sentries to

secure the gates of the Lesser Mohul. During the whole of this

conflict, the ladies and women remained exposed to the view of the

sepoys.

"'The Begum then sent for Letafit and Hossmund Ali Khan, whom she

severely reprimanded, and insisted upon knowing the cause of this

infamous behavior. They pleaded in their defence the impossibility

of helping it, as the treatment the women had met with had only

been conformable to his Excellency the Vizier's orders. The Begum

alleged, that, even admitting that the Nabob had given these

orders, they were by no means authorized in this manner to disgrace

the family of Sujah Dowlah, and should they not receive their

allowances for a day or two, it could be of no great moment; what

had passed was now at an end, but that the Vizier should certainly

be acquainted with the whole of the affair, and that whatever he

directed she should implicitly comply with. The Begum then sent for

two of the children who were wounded in the affray of last night,

and after endeavoring to soothe them, she again sent to Letafit and

Hossmund Ali Khan, and in the presence of the children again

expressed her disapprobation of their conduct, and the

improbability of Asoph ul Dowlah's suffering the ladies and

children of Sujah Dowlah to be disgraced by being exposed to the

view of the sepoys. Upon which Letafit produced the letter from the

Nabob, representing that he was amenable only to the order of his

Excellency, and that whatever he ordered it was his duty to obey;

and that, had the ladies thought proper to have retired quietly to

their apartments, he would not have used the means he had taken to

compel them. The Begum again observed, that what had passed was now

over. She then gave the children four hundred rupees and dismissed

them, and sent word by Sumrud and the other eunuchs, that, if the

ladies would peaceably retire to their apartments, Letafit would

supply them with three or four thousand rupees for their present

expenses, and recommended them not to incur any further disgrace,

and that, if they did not think proper to act agreeably to her

directions, they would do wrong. The ladies followed her advice,

and about ten at night went back to the zenanah. The next morning

the Begum waited upon the mother of Sujah Dowlah, and related to

her all the circumstances of the disturbance. The mother of Sujah

Dowlah returned for answer, that, after there being no accounts

kept by crores of revenue, she was not surprised that the family of

Sujah Dowlah, in their endeavors to procure subsistence, should be

obliged to expose themselves to the meanest of the people. After

bewailing their misfortunes and shedding many tears, the Begum took

her leave and returned home.'"

As a proof of the extremity of the distress which reigned in the Khord

Mohul, your Lordships have been told that these women must have perished

through famine, if their gaolers, Captain Jaques and Major Gilpin, had

not raised money upon their own credit, and supplied them with an

occasional relief. And therefore, when they talk of his peculation, of

his taking but a bribe here and a bribe there, see the consequences of

his system of peculation, see the consequences of a usurpation which

extinguishes the natural authority of the country, see the consequences

of a clandestine correspondence that does not let the injuries of the

country come regularly before the authorities in Oude to relieve it,

consider the whole mass of crimes, and then consider the sufferings that

have arisen in consequence of it.

My Lords, it was not corporal pain alone that these miserable women

suffered. The unsatisfied cravings of hunger and the blows of the

sepoys' bludgeons could touch only the physical part of their nature.

But, my Lords, men are made of two parts,--the physical part, and the

moral. The former he has in common with the brute creation. Like theirs,

our corporeal pains are very limited and temporary. But the sufferings

which touch our moral nature have a wider range, and are infinitely more

acute, driving the sufferer sometimes to the extremities of despair and

distraction. Man, in his moral nature, becomes, in his progress through

life, a creature of prejudice, a creature of opinions, a creature of

habits, and of sentiments growing out of them. These form our second

nature, as inhabitants of the country and members of the society in

which Providence has placed us. This sensibility of our moral nature is

far more acute in that sex which, I may say without any compliment,

forms the better and more virtuous part of mankind, and which is at the

same time the least protected from the insults and outrages to which

this sensibility exposes them. This is a new source of feelings, that

often make corporal distress doubly felt; and it has a whole class of

distresses of its own. These are the things that have gone to the heart

of the Commons.

We have stated, first, the sufferings of the Begum, and, secondly, the

sufferings of the two thousand women (I believe they are not fewer in

number) that belong to them, and are dependent upon them, and dependent

upon their well-being. We have stated to you that the Court of Directors

were shocked and astonished, when they received the account of the

first, before they had heard the second. We have proved they desired him

to redress the former, if, upon inquiry, he found that his original

suspicions concerning their conduct were ill-founded. He has declared

here that he did not consider these as orders. Whether they were orders

or not, could anything have been more pressing upon all the duties and

all the sentiments of man than at least to do what was just,--that is,

to make such an inquiry as in the result might justify his acts, or have

entitled them to redress? Not one trace of inquiry or redress do we

find, except we suppose, as we hear nothing after this of the famine,

that Mr. Bristow, who seems to be a man of humanity, did so effectually

interpose, that they should no longer depend for the safety of their

honor on the bludgeons of the sepoys, by which alone it seems they were

defended from the profane view of the vulgar, and which we must state as

a matter of great aggravation in this case.

The counsel on the other side say that all this intelligence comes in an

anonymous paper without date, transmitted from a newspaper-writer at

Fyzabad. This is the contempt with which they treat this serious paper,

sent to Mr. Hastings himself by official authority,--by Hoolas Roy, who

was the news-writer at Fyzabad,--the person appointed to convey

authentic intelligence concerning the state of it to the Resident at

Lucknow. The Resident received it as such; he transmitted it to Mr.

Hastings; and it was not till this hour, till the counsel were

instructed (God forgive them for obeying such instructions!) to treat

these things with ridicule, that we have heard this Hoolas Roy called a

common news-writer of anonymous information, and the like. If the

information had come in any way the least authentic, instead of coming

in a manner the most authentic in which it was possible to come to Mr.

Hastings, he was bound by every feeling of humanity, every principle of

regard to his own honor and his employers', to see whether it was true

or false; if false, to refute it; if true, to afford redress: he has

done neither. Therefore we charge him with being the cause; we charge

upon him the consequences, with all the aggravations attending them; and

we call both upon justice and humanity for redress, as far as it can be

afforded to these people, and for the severest punishments which your

Lordships can inflict upon the author of these evils. If, instead of the

mass of crimes that we have brought before you, this singly had been

charged upon the prisoner, I will say that it is a greater crime than

any man has ever been impeached for before the House of Lords, from the

first records of Parliament to this hour.

I need not remind your Lordships of one particular circumstance in this

cruel outrage. No excuse or pretence whatever is brought forward in its

justification. With respect to the Begums, they have been charged with

rebellion; but who has accused the miserable inhabitants of the Khord

Mohul of rebellion, or rebellious designs? What hearsay is there, even,

against them of it? No: even the persons permitted by Mr. Hastings to

rob and destroy the country, and who are stated by him to have been so

employed,--not one of that legion of locusts which he had sent into the

country to eat up and devour the bread of its inhabitants, and who had

been the cause both of the famine itself and of the inability of the

Begums to struggle with it,--none of these people, I say, ventured even

a hearsay about these women.

Were the sufferers few? There were eight hundred of them, besides

children. Were they persons of any rank and consequence? We are told

that they were persons of considerable rank and distinction, connected

with and living under the protection of women of the first rank in Asia.

Were they persons not deserving pity? We know that they were innocent

women and children, not accused, and unsuspected, of any crime. He has

taken into his head to speak contemptuously of these women of the Khord

Mohul: but your Lordships will consider both descriptions generally with

some respect; and where they are not objects of the highest respect,

they will be objects of your compassion. Your Lordships, by your

avenging justice, will rescue the name of the British government from

the foulest disgrace which this man has brought upon it.

An account of these transactions, as we have proved by Mr. Holt's

evidence, was regularly transmitted and made known to him. But why do I

say made known to him? Do not your Lordships know that Oude was

his,--that he treated it like his private estate,--that he managed it in

all its concerns as if it were his private demesne,--that the Nabob

dared not do a single act without him,--that he had a Resident there,

nominated by himself, and forced upon the Nabob, in defiance of the

Company's orders? Yet, notwithstanding all this, we do not find a trace

of anything done to relieve the aggravated distresses of these

unfortunate people.

These are some of the consequences of that abominable system which, in

defiance of the laws of his country, Mr. Hastings established in Oude.

He knew everything there; he had spies upon his regular agents, and

spies again upon them. We can prove, (indeed, he has himself proved,)

that, besides his correspondence with his avowed agents, Major Palmer

and Major Davy, he had secret correspondence with a whole host of agents

and pensioners, who did and must have informed him of every circumstance

of these affairs. But if he had never been informed of it at all, the

Commons contend, and very well and justly contend, that he who usurps

the government of a country, who extinguishes the authority of its

native sovereign, and places in it instruments of his own, and that in

defiance of those whose orders he was bound to obey, is responsible for

everything that was done in the country. We do charge him with these

acts of delinquencies and omissions, we declare him responsible for

them; and we call for your Lordships' judgment upon these outrages

against humanity, as cruel perhaps as ever were suffered in any country.

My Lords, if there is a spark of manhood, if there is in your breasts

the least feeling for our common humanity, and especially for the

sufferings and distresses of that part of human nature which is made by

its peculiar constitution more quick and sensible,--if, I say, there is

a trace of this in your breasts, if you are yet alive to such feelings,

it is impossible that you should not join with the Commons of Great

Britain in feeling the utmost degree of indignation against the man who

was the guilty cause of this accumulated distress. You see women, whom

we have proved to be of respectable rank and condition, exposed to what

is held to be the last of indignities in that country,--the view of a

base, insulting, ridiculing, or perhaps vainly pitying populace. You

have before you the first women in Asia, who consider their honor as

joined with that of these people, weeping and bewailing the calamities

of their house. You have seen that in this misery and distress the sons

of the Nabob were involved, and that two of them were wounded in an

attempt to escape: and yet this man has had the impudence to declare his

doubts of the Nabob's having had any children in the place, though the

account of what was going on had been regularly transmitted to him.

After this, what is there in his conduct that we can wonder at?

My Lords, the maintenance of these women had been guarantied by the

Company; but it was doubly guarantied under the great seal of humanity.

The conscience of every man, and more especially of the great and

powerful, is the keeper of that great seal, and knows what is due to its

authority. For the violation of both these guaranties, without even the

vain and frivolous pretence of a rebellion, and for all its

consequences, Mr. Hastings is answerable; and he will not escape your

justice by those miserable excuses which he has produced to the Court of

Directors, and which he has produced here in his justification. My

Lords, that justification we leave with your Lordships.

* * * * *

We now proceed to another part of our charge, which Mr. Hastings has not

thought proper to deny, but upon which we shall beg leave to make a few

observations. You will first hear read to you, from the 17th article of

our charge, the subject-matter to which we now wish to call your

attention.

"That in or about the month of March, 1783, three of the said

brothers of the Nabob, namely, Mirza Hyder Ali, Mirza Imayut Ali,

and Mirza Syef Ali, did represent to the said Bristow that they

were in distress for dry bread and clothes, and in consequence of

such representation were relieved by the intervention of the said

Bristow, but soon after the deputation of the said Warren Hastings

to Oude, in the year 1784, that is to say, some time in or about

the month of September, in the said year 1784, the said Mirza Hyder

Ali, one of the three princes aforesaid, did fly to the province of

Benares, and did remain there in great distress; and that, although

the said Warren Hastings did write to the said Nabob an account of

the aforesaid circumstances, in certain loose, light, and

disrespectful expressions concerning the said Mirza Hyder Ali, he

did not, as he was in duty bound to do, in any wise exert that

influence which he actually and notoriously possessed over the mind

of the said Nabob, for the relief of the said prince, the brother

of the said Nabob, but, without obtaining any satisfactory and

specific assurances, either from the said Nabob or the said

minister, the said Warren Hastings did content himself with

advising the said prince to return to his brother, the said Nabob."

The answer of Mr. Hastings to that part of the 17th article states:--

"And the said Warren Hastings says, that in or about the month of

July, in the year 1783, a paper was received, inclosed in a letter

to the Governor-General and Council, from Mr. Bristow, purporting

to be a translation of a letter from three brothers of the said

Vizier, in which they did represent themselves to be in distress

for dry bread and clothes; but whether such distress actually

existed, and was relieved by the said Bristow, the said Warren

Hastings cannot set forth.

"And the said Warren Hastings further says, that some time in the

month of September, 1784, the said Warren Hastings, being then at

Benares, did receive information that Mirza Hyder Ali was arrived

there, and the said Warren Hastings, not knowing before that time

that there was any such person, did write to the Nabob Vizier, to

the purport or effect following:--'A few days since I learnt that a

person called Mirza Hyder Ali was arrived at Benares, and calls

himself a son of the deceased Nabob Sujah ul Dowlah, and I was also

told that he came from Fyzabad; as I did not know whether he left

Fyzabad with or without your consent, I therefore did not pay him

much attention, and I now trouble you to give me every information

on this subject, how he came here, and what your intentions are

about him; he remains here in great distress, and I therefore wish

to know your sentiments.'

"And the said Warren Hastings further says, that, having received

an answer from the said Vizier, he did, on or about the 13th of

October, 1784, inclose the same in a letter to the said Mirza, of

which letter the following is a copy:--'An answer is arrived to

what I wrote on your account to the Nabob Vizier, which I inclose

to you: having read it, you will send it back. I conceive you had

better go to the Nabob Vizier's presence, who will certainly afford

you protection and assistance. I will write what is proper to carry

with you to the Nabob, and it will in every respect be for your

good; whatever may be your intention on this head, you will write

to me.'

"And the said Warren Hastings submits, that it was no part of his

duty as Governor-General to interfere with the said Vizier on

behalf of the said Mirza, or to obtain from the said Vizier any

specific assurances on the subject."

Continuation of the 17th article of the charge:--

"That, in order to avoid famine at home, another of the said

Nabob's brothers, by name Mirza Jungli, was under the necessity of

flying from his native country, and did seek protection from a

certain Mahometan lord called Mirza Shuffee Khan, then

prime-minister of the Mogul, from whom he did go to the camp of the

Mahratta chief Mahdajee Sindia, where he did solicit and obtain a

military command, together with a grant of lands, or jaghire, for

the subsistence of himself, his family, and followers; but wishing

again to be received under the protection of the British

government, the said Mirza Jungli, in 1783, did apply to the said

Resident Bristow, through David Anderson, Esquire, then on an

embassy in the camp of the said Sindia; and in consequence of such

application, the said Bristow, sensible of the disgrace which the

exile of the said Mirza Jungli reflected both on the said Nabob of

Oude and the British nation, did negotiate with the said Nabob and

his ministers for the return of the said Mirza Jungli, and for the

settlement and regular payment of some proper allowance for the

maintenance of the said Mirza Jungli; but the allowance required

was ultimately refused; and although the whole of the transactions

aforesaid were duly represented to the said Warren Hastings by the

said Anderson and by the said Bristow, and although he had himself

received, so early as the 23d of August, 1782, a letter from the

Vizier, grievously complaining of the cruel and extortious demands

made upon him by the said Warren Hastings, in which letter he did

expressly mention the flight of his brothers, and the distresses of

the women of his late father, who he said were all as his mothers,

and that his said brothers, from the resumption of their jaghires,

were reduced to great affliction and distress, and he did attribute

the said flight of some of his brethren, and the distresses of the

rest, and of the women who stood in a species of maternal relation

to him, as owing to the aforesaid oppressive demands, yet he, the

said Warren Hastings, did cruelly, inhumanly, and corruptly decline

to make any order for the better provision of any of the said

eminent family, or for the return of the said prince, who had fled

from his brother's court to avoid the danger of perishing by

famine."

Answer of Mr. Hastings to that part of the charge:--

"And the said Warren Hastings further says, that he was informed

that Mirza Jungli, in the said article also mentioned, did leave

his native country in distress, and did go to Mirza Shuffee Khan,

in the said article also mentioned; and the said Warren Hastings

likewise admits he was informed that the said Mirza Jungli did

afterwards leave the said Mirza Shuffee Khan, and repair to the

camp of Mahdajee Sindia, with a view of obtaining some

establishment for himself and followers.

"And the said Warren Hastings further says, that in certain letters

written by David Anderson, Esquire, and John Bristow, Esquire, it

was represented that the said Mirza Jungli did apply to the said

Bristow, through the said Anderson, then on an embassy in the camp

of the said Sindia, and that in consequence thereof the said

Bristow did, amongst other things, apply to the said Nabob Vizier

for a certain allowance to be made for the said Mirza, and for the

regular payment thereof, and that a certain allowance was

accordingly settled by the said Vizier on the said Mirza; and the

said Warren Hastings says, that information of the above

transactions was transmitted to the Board of Council, and that a

letter from the said Vizier was received on the 23d of August,

1782, containing certain representations of the distresses of

himself and his family; and he admits that no order was made by

him, the said Warren Hastings, for the provision of any of the said

family, or for the return of the said Mirza; but the said Warren

Hastings denies that he was guilty of any cruelty, inhumanity, or

corruption, or of any misconduct whatsoever, in the matters

aforesaid."

Continuation of the charge:--

"That some time in or about the month of December, 1783, the Nabob

Bahadur, another of the brothers of the said Nabob of Oude, did

represent to the said Bristow, that he, the said Nabob Bahadur, had

not received a farthing of his allowance for the current year, and

was without food; and being wounded by an assassin, who had also

murdered his aunt in the very capital of Oude, the said Nabob

Bahadur had not a daum to pay the surgeon, who attended him for the

love of God alone. That at or about the period of this said

representation the said Bristow was recalled, and the said Warren

Hastings proceeded up to Lucknow, but did not inquire into the said

representations transmitted by the said Bristow to Calcutta, nor

did order any relief."

Mr. Hastings's answer to the part of the charge last read:--

"And the said Warren Hastings further says, that on the 29th of

January, 1784, after the recall of the said Bristow, he, the said

Bristow, did transmit to the Governor-General and Council two

letters, one dated 28th of December, 1783, the other 7th of

January, 1784, purporting to be written by the said Nabob Bahadur,

addressed to him, the said Bristow, to the effect in the said

article stated; and the said Warren Hastings admits, that, when at

Lucknow, he did not institute any inquiry into the supposed

transaction in the said 17th article stated, or make any order

concerning the said Bahadur, and he denies that it was his duty so

to do."

Here is the name of this Nabob from a list of the jaghiredars stated by

Mr. Purling, page 485 printed Minutes. Amongst the names of jaghiredars,

the times when granted, and the amount of the jaghires, there occurs

that of the Nabob Bahadur, with a grant of a jaghire of the amount of

20,000 rupees.

[The _Lord Chancellor_ here remarked, that what had been

just read was matter of the 17th article of the charge

and parts of the answer to it, and that, upon looking

back to the former proceedings, it has escaped his

attention, if any matter contained in the 17th article

had been made matter of the charge; that it therefore

seemed to him that it could not be brought in upon a

reply, not having been made matter of the charge

originally.

_Mr. Burke._ My Lords, I have to say to this, that I

believe you have heard these facts made matter of charge

by the House of Commons, that I conceive they have been

admitted by the prisoner, and that the Commons have

nothing to do with the proofs of anything in their

charge which is fully and in terms admitted. The proofs

which they have produced to your Lordships were upon

matters which were contested; but here the facts are

admitted in the fullest manner. We neither have

abandoned them, intended to abandon them, or ever shall

abandon them; we have made them, as a charge, upon

record; the answers to them have been recorded, which

answers are complete admissions of every fact in the

charge.

_Lord Chancellor._ I do not make myself understood. The

objection is not that there has not been evidence given

upon the 17th article, but at the close of the case on

the part of the Managers for the House of Commons no

mention having been made of the matter contained in the

17th article, that therefore, although it may all have

been admitted by the answer to be true, yet in justice,

if from that answer you ground the charge, it is

necessary the defendant should be heard upon it.

_Mr. Burke._ If your Lordships choose that the defendant

shall be heard upon it, we have no kind of objection,

nor ever had, or proposed an objection to the defendant

being heard upon it. Your Lordships know that the

defendant's counsel value themselves upon having

abandoned their defence against certain parts of the

charge; your Lordships know that they declared that they

broke off thus in the middle of their defence in order

to expedite this business.

_Lord Chancellor._ Referring to the proceedings, I think

it a matter perfectly clear, that, in the course of the

charge, after certain articles had been gone through,

the Managers for the Commons closed the case there,

leaving therefore all the other articles, excepting

those that had been discussed, as matters standing with

the answers against them, but not insisted upon in

making out the charge. Of course, therefore, if the

defendant had gone into any of those articles, the

defendant must have been stopped upon them, because he

would then have been making a case in defence to that

which had not been made a case in the prosecution. The

objection, therefore, is not at all that no evidence has

been examined. To be sure, it would be an answer to that

to say, you are now proceeding upon an admission; but

even upon those facts that are admitted, (if the facts

are admitted that are insisted upon as matter in

charge,) that should come in the original state of the

cause, and the defendant in common justice must be heard

upon that, and then, and then only, come the

observations in reply.

_Mr. Burke._ We do not know, not are informed, that any

charge, information, or indictment, that is before the

court, and upon record, and is not denied by the

defendant, does not stand in full force against him. We

conceive it to be so; we conceive it to be agreeable to

the analogy of all proceedings; and the reason why we

did not go into and insist upon it was, that, having a

very long cause before us, and having the most full and

complete admission upon this subject, we did not proceed

further in it. The defendant defends himself by averring

that _it was not his duty_. It was not our business to

prove that it was his duty. It was he that admitted the

facts assumed to be the foundation of his duty; the

negative he was bound to prove, and he never offered to

prove it. All that I can say upon this point is, that

his delinquency in the matter in question appeared to us

to be a clear, distinct case,--to be a great

offence,--an offence charged upon the record, admitted

upon the record, and never by us abandoned. As to his

defence having been abandoned, we refer your Lordships

to the last petition laid by him upon your table, (that

libellous petition, which we speak of as a libel upon

the House of Commons,) and which has no validity but as

it asserts a matter of fact from the petitioner; and

there you will find that he has declared explicitly,

that, for the accommodation and ease of this business,

and for its expedition, he did abandon his defence at a

certain period.

_Lord Chancellor._ A charge consisting of a variety of

articles in their nature (however connected with each

other in their subject, but in their nature) distinct

and specific, if only certain articles are pressed in

the charge, to those articles only can a defence be

applied; and all the other articles, that are not made

matter of charge _originally_, have never, in the course

of any proceeding whatever, been taken up _originally_

in reply.

_Mr. Burke._ With great respect to your Lordship's

judgment, we conceive that the objection taken from our

not having at a certain period argued or observed upon

the prisoner's answer to the articles not insisted upon

is not conclusive; inasmuch as the record still stands,

and as our charge still stands. It was never abandoned;

and the defendant might have made a justification to it,

if he had thought fit: he never did think fit so to do.

If your Lordships think that we ought not to argue upon

it here in our reply, because we did not argue upon it

before,--well and good; but we have argued and do argue

in our reply many things to which he never gave any

answer at all. I shall beg leave, if your Lordships

please, to retire with my fellow Managers for a moment,

to consult whether we shall press this point or not. We

shall not detain your Lordships many minutes.

(_The Managers withdrew: in a few minutes the Managers

returned, again into the Hall._)

_Mr. Burke._ My Lords, the Managers have consulted among

themselves upon this business; they first referred to

your printed proceedings, in order to see the particular

circumstance on which the observation of your Lordship

is founded; we find it thus stated:--"Then the Managers

for the Commons informed the Lords, that, saving to

themselves their undoubted rights and privileges, the

Commons were content to rest their charge here." We

rested our charge there, not because we meant to efface

any precedent matter of the charge which had been made

by us, and of which the facts had been admitted by the

defendant, but, simply saving our rights and privileges,

that is, to resume, (and to make new matter, if we

thought fit,) the Commons were content to rest the

charge there.

I have further to remark to your Lordships, that the

counsel for the defendant have opened a vast variety of

matter that is not upon record, either on our part or on

theirs, in order to illustrate and to support their

cause; and they have spoken day after day upon the

principles on which their defence was made. My great

object now is an examination of those principles, and to

illustrate the effects of these principles by examples

which are not the less cogent, the less weighty, and the

less known, because they are articles in this charge.

Most assuredly they are not. If your Lordships recollect

the speeches that were made here, you know that great

merit was given to Mr. Hastings for matters that were

not at all in the charge, and which would put us under

the greatest difficulties, if we were to take no notice

of them in our reply. For instance, his merits in the

Mahratta war, and a great mass of matter upon that

subject, were obliquely, and for other purposes, brought

before you, upon which they argued. That immense mass of

matter, containing an immense mass of principles, and

which was sometimes supported by alleged facts,

sometimes by none, they have opened and argued upon, as

matter relative to principle. In answer to their

argument, we propose to show the mischiefs that have

happened from the mischievous principles laid down by

Mr. Hastings, and the mischievous consequences of them.

If, however, after this explanation, your Lordships are

of opinion that we ought not to be allowed to take this

course, wishing to fall in with your Lordships'

sentiments, we shall abandon it. But we will remind your

Lordships that such things stand upon your records; that

they stand unanswered and admitted on your records; and

consequently they cannot be destroyed by any act of

ours, but by a renunciation of the charge, which

renunciation we cannot make, because the defendant has

clearly and fully admitted it to be founded in fact. We

cannot plead error; we cannot retract it. And why?

Because he has admitted it. We therefore only remind

your Lordships that the charge stands uncontradicted;

and that the observation we intended to make upon it was

to show your Lordships that the principles upon which he

defends all such conduct are totally false and

groundless. But though your Lordships should be of

opinion that we cannot press it, yet we cannot abandon

it; it is not in your power, it is not in our power, it

is not in his power to abandon that charge. You cannot

acquit him of that charge; it is impossible. If,

however, your Lordships, for the accommodation of

business, method of proceedings, or any circumstance of

that kind, wish we should say no more upon the subject,

we close the subject there. Your Lordships are in

possession both of the charge and the admission; and we

wish, and we cannot wish better than, to leave it as it

is upon the record.

The _Lord Chancellor_ here said,--The opinion of the

Lords can only be with me matter of conjecture. I

certainly was not commanded by the House to state the

observation that had occurred to me; but in the position

in which it now stands, I feel no difficulty in saying,

as my own judgment, that nothing can be matter in reply

that does not relate to those articles that were pressed

in the original charge; and therefore, in this position

of the business of reply, you cannot go into new matter

arising out of other articles that were not originally

insisted upon.

_Mr. Burke._ We were aware of the objection that might

be made to admitting our observations, if considered as

observations upon the 17th article, but not when

considered with reference to facts on the record before

you, for the purpose of disproving the principles upon

which the defendant and his counsel had relied: that was

the purpose for which we proposed chiefly to make them.

But your Lordship's [the Lord Chancellor's] own personal

authority will have great weight with us, and, unless we

perceive some other peer differ from you, we will take

it in the course we have constantly done. We never have

sent your Lordships out of the hall to consent

[consult?] upon a matter upon which that noble lord

appeared to have formed a decision in his own mind; we

take for granted that what is delivered from the

woolsack, to which no peer expresses a dissent, is the

sense of the House; as such we take it, and as such we

submit to it in this instance.

Therefore, leaving this upon the record as it stands,

without observing upon it, and submitting to your

Lordships' decision, that we cannot, according to order,

observe in reply upon what was not declared by us to be

a part of the charges we meant to insist upon, we

proceed to another business.]

We have already stated to your Lordships, and we beg to remind you of

it, the state and condition of the country of Oude when Mr. Hastings

first came to it,--his subsequent and immediate usurpation of all the

powers of government, and the use he made of them,--the tyranny he

exercised over the Nabob himself,--the tyranny he exercised upon his

mother and grandmother, and all the other females of his family, and

their dependants of every description, to the number of about eight

hundred persons,--the tyranny exercised (though we are not at liberty

to press it now) upon his brethren. We have shown you how he confiscated

the property of all the jaghiredars, the nobility of the country. We

have proved to your Lordships that he was well acquainted with all the

misery and distress occasioned by these proceedings, and that he

afforded the sufferers no relief. We now proceed to review the effect of

this general mass of usurpation, tyranny, and oppression upon the

revenues and the prosperity of the country.

Your Lordships will first be pleased to advert to the state in which Mr.

Hastings found the country,--in what state he found its revenues,--who

were the executive ministers of the government,--what their conduct was,

and by whom they were recommended and supported. For the evidence of

these facts we refer your Lordships to your printed Minutes: there, my

Lords, they stand recorded: they never can be expunged out of your

record, and the memory of mankind, whether we be permitted to press them

at this time upon your Lordships or not. Your Lordships will there find

in what manner the government was carried on in Oude in 1775, before the

period of Mr. Hastings's usurpation. Mr. Hastings, you will find, has

himself there stated that the minister was recommended by the Begums;

and you will remark this, because Mr. Hastings afterwards makes her

interference in the government of her son a part of his crimination of

the Begum.

* * * * *

The Resident at the court of Oude thus writes on the 2d of March, 1775.

"Notwithstanding the confidence the Nabob reposes in Murtezza Khan,

the Begums are much dissatisfied with his elevation. They

recommended to his Excellency to encourage the old servants of the

government, whose influence in the country, and experience, might

have strengthened his own authority, and seated him firmly on the

musnud. In some measure this, too, may appear consistent with the

interests of the Company; for, as Elija Khan and the old ministers

have by frequent instances within their own knowledge experienced

the power of our government, such men, I should conceive, are much

more likely to pay deference to the Company than a person who at

present can have but a very imperfect idea of the degree of

attention which ought to be paid to our connection with the Nabob."

Your Lordships see that the Begums recommended the old servants,

contrary to the maxims of Rehoboam,--those who had served his father and

had served the country, and who were strongly inclined to support the

English interest there. Your Lordships will remark the effects of the

Begum's influence upon the state of things in 1775, that the Nabob had

been advised by his mother to employ the confidential servants of his

father,--persons conversant in the affairs of the country, persons

interested in it, and persons who were well disposed to support the

English connection. Your Lordships will now attend to a letter from Mr.

Bristow, at Lucknow, to the board, dated 28th November, 1775.

"I also neglected no part of my duty on the spot, but advised the

minister, even at Lucknow, according to my letter of the 3d

instant, to recommend it to the Nabob to dismiss his useless and

mutinous troops, which measure seems by present appearances to have

succeeded beyond expectation: as the rest of the army do now pay

the greatest attention to his Excellency's orders; already the

complaints of the violences the troops used to commit are greatly

decreased; they profess obedience; and, by the best intelligence I

can obtain of their disposition, there seems to be little doubt

that the example made by disbanding Bussunt's corps has every good

effect we could wish, which had crossed the river and voluntarily

surrendered their arms the day before yesterday to the Nabob."

His next letter is dated 13th June, 1776.

"Honorable Sir and Sirs,--It is Elija Khan's first object to

regulate the Vizier's revenue; and I must do him the justice to

say, that the short time he has been in office he has been

indefatigable, and already settled the greater part of the province

of Oude, and fixed on the districts for the assignments of the army

subsidy; Corah and Allahabad he has disposed of, and called for the

Dooab and Rohilcund accounts, in order to adjust them as soon as

possible. This activity will, I hope, produce the most salutary

effects,--as, the present juncture being the commencement of the

season for the cultivation, the aumils, by being thus early placed

in their offices, have the opportunity of advancing _tukavy_,

encouraging the ryots, and making their agreements in their several

districts, in letting under-farms, or disposing of the lands in

such a manner as they may judge most expedient. If, though similar

to the late minister's conduct, a delay of two or three months

should occur in the settlement of the lands, the people throughout

the country would be disheartened, and inevitably a very heavy

balance accrue on the revenue. I have troubled the honorable board

with this detail, in the first place, to show the propriety of

Elija Khan's conduct, and, in the next, the essential service that

will be rendered to the Vizier by continuing Colonel Parker's

detachment during the whole rains in Corah, if required by the

Vizier."

My Lords, you have now had a view of the state of Oude, previous to the

first period of our connection with it. Your Lordships have seen and

understand that part of the middle period, with which we do not mean to

trouble you again. You will now be pleased to attend to a letter from

Fyzoola Khan to the Governor-General, received the 13th of February,

1778.

"This country of Cuttah, which formerly depended on the Rohilla

States, and which I consider as now appertaining to the Company,

was very populous and flourishing; but since the commencement of

the Nabob Vizier's government, the farmers appointed by his

ministers have desolated the country. Its situation is at present

very ruinous; thousands of villages, formerly populous, are now

utterly deserted, and no trace left of them. I have already written

to Roy Buckstowr Sing a full account of the tyranny and oppression

exercised by the farmers, to be communicated to you: the constant

revenue of a country depends on the care of its rulers to preserve

it in a flourishing state. I have been induced to make the

representation by my attachment to the interest of the Company; for

otherwise it is no concern of mine. Should these oppressions

continue one or two years longer, and the rulers take no measures

to put a stop to them, the whole country will be a desert."

My Lords, upon these statements I have only to make this remark,--that

you have seen the first state of this country, and that the period when

it had fallen into the state last described was about two years after

Mr. Hastings had obtained the majority in the Council and began to

govern this country by his lieutenants. We know that the country was put

by him under military collectors: you see the consequences. The person

who makes this representation to Mr. Hastings of the state of the

country, of its distress and calamity, and of the desolation of a

thousand of the villages formerly flourishing in it, is no less a person

than a prince of a neighboring country, a person of whom you have often

heard, and to whom the cause of humanity is much indebted, namely,

Fyzoola Khan,--a prince whose country the English Resident, travelling

through, declares to be cultivated like a garden. That this was the

state of the Rohilla country is owing to its having very fortunately

been one of those that escaped the dominion of Mr. Hastings.

We will now read to your Lordships a letter from Sir Eyre Coote to the

board at Calcutta, dated the 11th of September, 1779.

"Honorable Sir and Sirs,--The day before yesterday I encamped near

Allahabad, where the Vizier did me the honor of a visit; and

yesterday morning, in my way hither, I returned it, and was

received by his Excellency with every mark of respect and

distinction. This morning he called here, and we had some general

conversation, which principally turned upon the subject of his

attachment to the English, and his readiness to show the sincerity

of it upon all occasions. It is to be wished we had employed the

influence which such favorable sentiments must have given us more

to the benefit of the country and ourselves; but I fear the

distresses which evidently appear on the face of the one, and the

failure of the revenues to the other, are not to be wholly ascribed

to the Vizier's mismanagement."

This is the testimony of Mr. Hastings's own pensioner, Sir Eyre Coote,

respecting the known state of the country during the time of this

horrible usurpation, which Sir Eyre Coote mentions under the soft name

of our _influence_. But there could be but one voice upon the subject,

and that your Lordships shall now hear from Mr. Hastings himself. We

refer your Lordships to the Minute of the Governor-General's

Consultation, Fort William, 21st May, 1781: he is here giving his

reasons for going into the upper provinces.

"The province of Oude having fallen into a state of great disorder

and confusion, its resources being in an extraordinary degree

diminished, and the Nabob Asoph ul Dowlah having earnestly

entreated the presence of the Governor-General, and declared, that,

unless some effectual measures are taken for his relief, he must be

under the necessity of leaving his country, and coming down to

Calcutta, to present his situation to this government,--the

Governor-General therefore proposes, with the concurrence of Mr.

Wheler, to visit the province of Oude as speedily as the affairs of

the Presidency will admit, in hopes that, from a minute and

personal observation of the circumstances of that country, the

system of management which has been adopted, and the characters

and conduct of the persons employed, he may possibly be able to

concert and establish some plan by which the province of Oude may

in time be restored to its former state of affluence, good order,

and prosperity."

Your Lordships have now the whole chain of the evidence complete, with

regard to the state of the country, up to the period of Mr. Hastings's

journey into the country. You see that Mr. Hastings himself admits it to

have been formerly in a most flourishing, orderly, and prosperous state.

Its condition in 1781 he describes to you in words than which no enemy

of his can use stronger, in order to paint the state in which it then

was. In this state he found it, when he went up in the year 1781; and he

left it, with regard to any substantial regulation that was executed or

could be executed, in the state in which he found it,--after having

increased every one of those grievances which he pretended to redress,

and taken from it all the little resources that remained in it.

We now come to a subsequent period, at which time the state of the

country is thus described by Mr. Bristow, on the 12th December, 1782.

"Despotism is the principle upon which every measure is founded,

and the people in the interior parts of the country are ruled at

the discretion of the aumil or foujdar for the time being. They

exercise, within the limits of their jurisdiction, the powers of

life and death, and decisions in civil and other cases, in the same

extent as the sovereign at the capital. The forms prescribed by the

ancient institutions of the Mogul empire are unattended to, and the

will of the provincial magistrate is the sole law of the people.

The total relaxation of the Vizier's authority, his inattention and

dislike to business, leave the aumils in possession of this

dangerous power, unawed, uncontrolled by any apprehension of

retrospection, or the interference of justice. I can hardly quote

an instance, since the Vizier's accession to the musnud, of an

aumil having been punished for oppression, though the complaints of

the people and the state of the country are notorious proofs of the

violences daily committed: it is even become unsafe for travellers

to pass, except in large bodies; murders, thefts, and other

enormities shocking to humanity, are committed in open day."

In another paragraph of the same letter, he says,--

"Such has been the system of this government, that the oppressions

have generally originated with the aumils. They have been rarely

selected for their abilities or integrity, but from favor, or the

means to advance a large sum upon being appointed to their office.

The aumil enters upon his trust ruined in reputation and fortune;

and unless he accomplishes his engagements, which is seldom the

case, disgrace and punishment follow. Though the balance of revenue

may be rigorously demanded of him, it has not been usual to

institute any inquiry for oppression. The zemindars, thus left at

the mercy of the aumils, are often driven to rebellion. The weak

are obliged to submit to his exactions, or fly the country; and the

aumil, unable to reduce the more powerful, is compelled to enter

into a disgraceful compromise. Every zemindar looks to his fort for

protection, and the country is crowded with them: Almas Ali Khan

asserts there are not less than seven hundred in his districts.

Hence it has become a general custom to seize the brother, son, or

some near relation or dependant of the different zemindars, as

hostages for the security of the revenue: a great aumil will

sometimes have three or four hundred of these hostages, whom he is

obliged to confine in places of security. A few men like Almas Ali

Khan and Coja Ain ul Din have, from their regularity in the

performance of pecuniary engagements, rendered themselves useful to

the Vizier. A strict scrutiny into his affairs was at all times

irksome to his Excellency, and none of the ministers or officers

about his person possessing the active, persevering spirit

requisite to conduct the detail of engagements for a number of

small farms, it became convenient to receive a large sum from a

great farmer without trouble or deficiency. This system was

followed by the most pernicious consequences; these men were above

all control, they exacted their own terms, and the districts they

farmed were most cruelly oppressed. The revenue of Rohilcund is

reduced above a third, and Almas Ali Khan's administration is well

known to have been extremely violent."

We will next read to your Lordships an extract from Captain Edwards's

evidence.

"_Q._ Had you any opportunity of observing the general face of the

country in the time of Sujah Dowlah?--_A._ I had.--_Q._ Did you

remark any difference in the general state of the country at that

time and the period when you made your latter observation?--did you

observe any difference between the condition of the country at that

time, that of Sujah Dowlah in the year 1774, and the latter period

you have mentioned?--_A._ I did,--a very material difference.--_Q._

In what respect?--_A._ In the general aspect that the country bore,

and the cultivation of the country,--that it was infinitely better

cultivated in 1774 than it was in 1783.--_Q._ You said you had no

opportunity of observing the face of the country till you was

appointed aide-de-camp to the Nabob?--_A._ No,--except by marching

and countermarching. I marched in the year 1774 through the Nabob

Sujah ul Dowlah's provinces into Rohilcund.--_Q._ Had you those

opportunities from the time of your going there in 1774?--_A._ I

had; but not so much as I had after being appointed aide-de-camp to

the Vizier, because I was always before in a subordinate situation:

I marched in a direct line before, with the troops; but afterwards,

when I was aide-de-camp to his Excellency, I was my own master, and

made frequent excursions into the different parts of the

country.--_Q._ Had you an opportunity of observing the difference in

the general happiness and disposition of the people?--_A._ I

had.--_Q._ Did you observe a difference in that respect also between

your first coming and the year 1783?--_A._ Yes, a very sensible

difference: in Sujah ul Dowlah's time the country was in a very

flourishing state, in merchandise, cultivation, and every article of

commerce, and the people then seemed to be very happy under his

government, which latterly was not the case; because the country in

reality appeared in the year 1774 in a flourishing state, and in the

year 1783 it appeared comparatively forlorn and desolate.--_Q._ Was

the court of Asoph ul Dowlah, when you left India, equal in point

of splendor to what it was in the time of Sujah ul Dowlah?--_A._ By

no means: it was not equally splendid, but far inferior.--_Q._ Were

the dependants and officers belonging to the court paid in the same

punctual manner?--_A._ No: I really cannot say whether they were

paid more regularly in Sujah Dowlah's time, only they appeared more

wealthy and more able to live in a splendid style in his time than

they ever have done since his death."

Here, then, your Lordships see the state of the country in 1783. Your

Lordships may trace the whole progress of these evils, step by step,

from the death of Sujah ul Dowlah to the time of Mr. Hastings's

obtaining a majority in the Council, after which he possessed the sole

and uncontrolled management of the country; you have seen also the

consequences that immediately followed till the year 1784, when he went

up a second time into the country.

I do not know, my Lords, that it is necessary to make any observation

upon this state of things. You see that the native authority was, as we

have proved, utterly extinguished by Mr. Hastings, and that there was

no superintendent power but his. You have heard of the oppressions of

the farmers of the revenues; and we have shown you that these farmers

generally were English officers. We have shown you in what manner

Colonel Hannay, one of these farmers sent by Mr. Hastings, acted, and

particularly the accumulation of hostages which were made by him. We

have shown you, that by their arbitrary and tyrannical proceedings all

regular government was subverted, and that the country experienced the

last and most dreadful effects of anarchy. We have shown you that no

other security was left to any human being, but to intrench themselves

in such forts as they could make, and that these forts, in one district

only of the country, had increased in number to the amount of seven

hundred. Your Lordships also know, that, when the prisons and mud forts

in which Colonel Hannay kept his hostages confined were full, he kept

them in uncovered cages in the open air. You know that all these farmers

of revenue were either English and military men, or natives under an

abject submission to them; you know that they had the whole country in

assignments, that the jaghires were all confiscated for their benefits;

and you find that the whole system had its origin at the time when Mr.

Hastings alone formed in effect the authority of the Supreme Council.

The weakness of the Nabob, as Sir Eyre Coote tells you, could not have

been alone the cause of these evils, and that our influence over him, if

not actually the cause of the utter ruin, desolation, and anarchy of

that country, might have been successfully exerted in preventing.

When your Lordships shall proceed to judgment upon these accumulated

wrongs, arising out of the usurped power of the prisoner at your bar,

and redressed by him in no one instance whatever, let not the usurpation

itself of the Nabob's power be considered as a trivial matter. When any

prince at the head of a great country is entirely stripped of everything

in his government, civil or military, by which his rank may be

distinguished or his virtues exercised, he is in danger of becoming a

mere animal, and of abandoning himself wholly to sensual gratifications.

Feeling no personal interest in the institutions or in the general

welfare of the country, he suffers the former (and many wise and

laudable institutions existed in the provinces of the Nabob, for their

good order and government) to fall into disuse, and he leaves the

country itself to persons in inferior situations, to be wasted and

destroyed by them. You find that in Oude, the very appearance of justice

had been banished out of it, and that every aumil exercised an arbitrary

power over the lives and fortunes of the people. My Lords, we have the

proofs of all these facts in our hands; they are in your Lordships'

minutes; and though we can state nothing stronger than is stated in the

papers themselves, yet we do not so far forget our duty as not to point

out to your Lordships such observations as arise out of them.

To close the whole, your Lordships shall how hear read an extract from a

most curious and extraordinary letter, sent by him to the Court of

Directors, preparatory to his return to England.

"My only remaining fear is, that the members of the Council, seeing

affairs through a different medium from that through which I view

them, may be disposed, if not to counteract the system which I have

formed, to withhold from it their countenance and active support.

While I myself remain, it will be sufficient if they permit it to

operate without interruption; and I almost hope, in the event of a

new administration of your affairs which shall confine itself to

the same forbearance, and manifest no symptoms of intended

interference, the objects of my arrangements will be effectually

attained; for I leave them in the charge of agents whose interests,

ambition, and every prospect of life are interwoven with their

success, and the hand of Heaven has visibly blest the soil with

every elementary source of progressive vegetation: but if a

different policy shall be adopted, if new agents are sent into the

country and armed with authority for the purpose of vengeance or

corruption, to no other will they be applied. If new demands are

raised on the Nabob Vizier, and accounts overcharged on one side

with a wide latitude taken on the other to swell his debt beyond

the means of payment,--if political dangers are portended, to

ground on them the pleas of burdening his country with unnecessary

defences and enormous subsidies,--or if, even abstaining from

direct encroachment on the Nabob's rights, your government shall

show but a degree of personal kindness to the partisans of the late

usurpation, or by any constructive indication of partiality and

disaffection furnish ground for the expectation of an approaching

change of system, I am sorry to say that all my labors will prove

abortive; for the slightest causes will be sufficient to deject

minds sore with the remembrance of past conflicts, and to elevate

those whose only dependence is placed in the renewal of the

confusion which I have labored with such zeal to eradicate, and

will of course debilitate the authority which can alone insure

future success. I almost fear that this denunciation of effects

from causes so incompetent, as they will appear to those who have

not had the experience which I have had of the quick sensibility

which influences the habits of men placed in a state of polity so

loose, and subject to the continual variations of capricious and

despotic authority, will be deemed overcharged, or perhaps void of

foundation; nor, if they should come to pass, will it be easy to

trace them with any positive evidence to their connection: yet it

is my duty to apprise you of what I apprehend, on grounds which I

deem of absolute certainty, may come to pass; and I rely on your

candor for a fair interpretation of my intention."

Here, my Lords, the prisoner at your bar has done exactly what his

bitterest accuser would do: he goes through, head by head, every one of

the measures which he had himself pursued in the destruction of the

country; and he foretells, that, if any one of those measures should

again be pursued, or even if good cause should be given to suspect they

would be renewed, the country must fall into a state of inevitable

destruction. This supersedes all observation. This paper is a

recapitulated, minute condemnation of every step which he took in that

country, and which steps, are every one of them upon your Lordships'

minutes.

But, my Lords, we know very well the design of these pretended

apprehensions, and why he wished to have that country left in the state

he speaks of. He had left a secret agent of his own to control that

ostensible government, and to enable him, sitting in the place where he

now sits, to continue to govern those provinces in the way in which he

now governs them.

[_A murmur having arisen here, Mr. Burke proceeded._]

If I am called upon to reword what I have just said, I shall repeat my

words, and show strong grounds and reasons to indicate that he governs

Oude now as much as he ever did.

You see, my Lords, that the reform which he pretended to make in 1781

produced the calamities which he states to have existed in 1784. We

shall now show that the reform which he pretended to make in 1784

brought on the calamities which Lord Cornwallis states in his evidence

to have existed in 1787.

We will now read two letters from Lord Cornwallis: the first is dated

the 16th November, 1787.

"I was received at Allahabad and attended to Lucknow by the Nabob

and his ministers with every mark of friendship and respect. I

cannot, however, express how much I was concerned, during my short

residence at his capital, and my progress through his dominions, to

be witness of the disordered state of his finances and government,

and of the desolate appearances of his country. The evils were too

alarming to admit of palliation, and I thought it my duty to exhort

him, in the most friendly manner, to endeavor to apply effectual

remedies to them. He began with urging as apology, that, whilst he

was not certain of the expense [extent?] of our demands upon him,

he had no real interest in being economical in his expenses, and

that, while we interfered in the internal management of his

affairs, his own authority and that of his ministers were despised

by his own subjects. It would have been useless to discuss these

topics with him; but while I repeated my former declarations of our

being determined to give no ground in future for similar

complaints, he gave me the strongest assurances of his being

resolved to apply himself earnestly to the encouragement of

agriculture, and to endeavor to revive the commerce of his

country."

The second is dated the 25th April, 1788.

"Till I saw the Vizier's troops, I was not without hope that upon

an emergency he would have been able to have furnished us with some

useful cavalry; but I have no reason to believe that he has any in

his service upon which it would be prudent to place any dependence;

and I think it right to add, that his country appears to be in so

ruined a state, and his finances in so much disorder, that even in

case of war we ought not to depend upon any material support from

him."

My Lords, I have only to remark upon these letters, that, so far as they

go, they prove the effects of Mr. Hastings's reformation, from which he

was pleased to promise the Company such great things. But when your

Lordships know that he had left his dependant and minister, Hyder Beg

Khan, there, whose character, as your Lordships will find by a reference

to your minutes he has represented as black as hell, to be the real

governor there, and to carry on private correspondence with him here,

and that he had left Major Palmer, his private agent, for a considerable

time in that country to carry on his affairs, your Lordships will easily

see how it has come to pass that the Vizier, such a man as you have

heard him described to be, was not alone able to restore prosperity to

his country.

My Lords, you have now seen what was the situation of the country in

Sujah Dowlah's time, prior to Mr. Hastings's interference with the

government of it, what it was during his government, and what situation

it was in when Lord Cornwallis left it. Nothing now remains but to call

your Lordships' attention to perhaps the most extraordinary part of

these transactions. But before we proceed, we will beg leave to go back

and read to your Lordships the Nabob's letter of the 24th February,

1780.

"I have received your letter, and understand the contents. I cannot

describe the solidity of your friendship and brotherly affection

which subsisted between you and my late father. From the friendship

of the Company he received numberless advantages; and I,

notwithstanding I was left an orphan, from your favor and that of

the Company was perfectly at ease, being satisfied that everything

would be well, and that I should continue in the same security that

I was during my father's lifetime, from your protection. I

accordingly, from the day of his death, have never omitted to

cultivate your favor, and the protection of the Company; and

whatever was the desire and directions of the Council at that time

I have ever since conformed to, and obeyed with readiness. Thanks

be given to God that I have never as yet been backward in

performing the will of the English Company, of the Council, and of

you, and have always been from my heart ready to obey them, and

have never given you any trouble from my difficulties or wishes.

This I have done simply from my own knowledge of your favor towards

me, and from my being certain that you would learn the particulars

of my distresses and difficulties from other quarters, and would

then show your friendship and good-will in whatever was for my

advantage. But when the knife had penetrated to the bone, and I was

surrounded with such heavy distresses that I could no longer live

in expectations, I then wrote an account of my difficulties. The

answer which I have received to it is such, that it has given me

inexpressible grief and affliction. I never had the least idea or

expectation from you and the Council that you would ever have

given your orders in so afflicting a manner, in which you never

before wrote, and which I could not have imagined. As I am resolved

to obey your orders, and directions of the Council, without any

delay, as long as I live, I have, agreeably to those orders,

delivered up all my private papers to him [the Resident], that,

when he shall have examined my receipts and expenses, he may take

whatever remains. As I know it to be my duty to satisfy you, the

Company, and Council, I have not failed to obey in any instance,

but requested of him that it might be done so as not to distress me

in my necessary expenses: there being no other funds but those for

the expenses of my mutsuddies, household expenses, and servants,

&c. He demanded these in such a manner, that, being remediless, I

was obliged to comply with what he required. He has accordingly

stopped the pensions of my old servants for thirty years, whether

sepoys, mutsuddies, or household servants, and the expenses of my

family and kitchen, together with the jaghires of my grandmother,

mother, and aunts, and of my brothers and dependants, which were

for their support. I had raised fifteen hundred horse and three

battalions of sepoys to attend upon me; but, as I have no resources

to support them, I have been obliged to remove the people stationed

in the mahals, and to send his people into the mahals, so that I

have not now one single servant about me. Should I mention what

further difficulties I have been reduced to, it would lay me open

to contempt. Although I have willingly assented to this which

brings such distress on me, and have in a manner altogether ruined

myself, yet I failed not to do it for this reason, because it was

for your satisfaction, and that of the Council; and I am patient,

and even thankful, in this condition; but I cannot imagine from

what cause you have conceived displeasure against me. From the

commencement of my administration, in every circumstance, I

received strength and security from your favor, and that of the

Council; and in every instance you and the Council have shown your

friendship and affection for me; but at present, that you have sent

these orders, I am greatly perplexed."

We will not trouble your Lordships with the remainder of the letter,

which is all in the same style of distress and affliction, and of the

abject dependence of a man who considers himself as insulted, robbed,

and ruined in that state of dependence.

In addition to the evidence contained in this letter, your Lordships

will be pleased to recollect the Nabob's letter which we read to your

Lordships yesterday, the humble and abject style of which you will never

forget. Oh, consider, my Lords, this instance of the fate of human

greatness! You must remember that there is not a trace anywhere, in any

of the various trunks of Mr. Hastings, that he ever condescended so much

as to give an answer to the suppliant letters of that unhappy man. There

was no mode of indignity with which he did not treat his family; there

was no mode of indignity with which he did not treat his person; there

was no mode of indignity with which he did not treat his minister, Hyder

Beg Khan,--this man whom he represents to be the most infamous and

scandalous of mankind, and of whom he, nevertheless, at the same time

declares, that his only support with the Vizier was the support which

he, Warren Hastings, as representative of the English government, gave

him.

We will now read a paper which perhaps ought not to have been received

in evidence, but which we were willing to enter in your minutes as

evidence, in order that everything should come before you. Your

Lordships have heard the Nabob speak of his misery, distress, and

oppression; but here he makes a complete defeasance, as it were, of the

whole charge, a direct disavowal of every one of the complaints, and

particularly that of having never received an answer to these

complaints. Oh, think, I say, my Lords, of the degraded, miserable, and

unhappy state to which human nature may be reduced, when you hear this

unhappy man declare that all the charges which we have made upon this

subject relative to him, and which are all either admitted by him or

taken from his own representation, are now stated by him in a paper

before you to be all false, and that there is not a word of the

representation which he had made of Mr. Hastings that has the least

truth in it! Your Lordships will find this in that collection of various

papers which ought to be preserved and put into every museum in Europe,

as one of the most extraordinary productions that was ever exhibited to

the world.

_Papers received the 8th of March, 1788, and translated pursuant to

an Order of the Governor-General in Council, dated the 21th of

April, 1788, under the Seal of His Excellency the Nabob Asoph ul

Dowlah, Asoph Jah Bahadur, Vizier ul Momalik._

"I have at this time learnt that the gentlemen in power in England,

upon the suspicion that Mr. Hastings, during his administration,

acted contrary to the rules of justice and impartiality, and,

actuated by motives of avidity, was inimical towards men without

cause; that he broke such engagements and treaties as had been made

between the Company and other chiefs; that he extended the hand of

oppression over the properties of men, tore up the roots of

security and prosperity from the land, and rendered the ryots and

subjects destitute by force and extortion.--As this accusation, in

fact, is destitute of uprightness and void of truth, therefore,

with a view to show the truth in its true colors, I have written

upon this sheet with truth and sincerity, to serve as an evidence,

and to represent real facts,--to serve also as information and

communication, that Mr. Hastings, from the commencement of his

administration until his departure for England, whether during the

lifetime of the deceased Nabob, of blessed memory, Vizier ul Moolk,

Sujah ul Dowlah Bahadur, my father, or during my government, did

not at any time transact contrary to justice any matter which took

place from the great friendship between me and the Company, nor in

any business depart from the path of truth and uprightness, but

cultivated friendship with integrity and sincerity, and in every

respect engaged himself in the duties of friendship with me, my

ministers and confidants. I am at all times, and in every way,

pleased with and thankful for his friendly manners and qualities;

and my ministers and confidants, who have always, every one of

them, been satisfied with his conduct, are forever grateful for his

friendship and thankful for his virtues. As these matters are real

facts, and according to truth, I have written these lines as an

evidence, and transmit this paper to England, through the

government of Calcutta, for the information of the gentlemen of

power and rank in England."

Observe, my Lords, the candor of the Commons. We produce this evidence,

which accuses us, as Mr. Hastings does, of uttering everything that is

false; we choose to bring our shame before the world, and to admit that

this man, on whose behalf and on the behalf of whose country we have

accused Mr. Hastings, has declared that this accusation (namely, this

impeachment) is destitute of uprightness and without truth. But, my

Lords, this is not only a direct contradiction to all he has ever said,

to all that has been proved to you by us, but a direct contradiction to

all the representations of Mr. Hastings himself. Your Lordships will

hence see what credit is to be given to these papers.

Your Lordships shall now hear what Hyder Beg Khan says: that Hyder Beg

Khan who stands recorded in your minutes as the worst of mankind; who is

represented as writing letters without the Nabob's consent, and in

defiance of him; the man of whom Mr. Hastings says, that the Nabob is

nothing but a tool in his hands, and that the Nabob is and ever must be

a tool of somebody or other. Now, as we have heard the tool speak, let

us hear how the workman employed to work with this tool speaks.

_Extract from Hyder Beg Khan's Letter to the Governor and Council._

"It is at this time learnt by the Nabob Vizier, and us, his

ministers, that the gentlemen of power in England are displeased

with Mr. Hastings, on the suspicion that during his administration

in this country, from motives of avidity, he committed oppressions

contrary to the rules of justice, took the properties of men by

deceit and force, injured the ryots and subjects, and rendered the

country destitute and ruined. As the true and upright disposition

of Mr. Hastings is in every respect free of this suspicion, we

therefore with truth and sincerity declare by these lines, written

according to fact, that Mr. Hastings, from the first of his

appointment to the government of this country until his departure

for Europe, during his authority in the management of the affairs

of the country, whether in the lifetime of the Nabob Sujah ul

Dowlah Bahadur, deceased, or whether during the present reign, did

not, in any matters which took place from the great friendship

between this government and the Company, act in any wise upon

motives of avidity, and, not having, in any respect, other than

justice and propriety in intention, did not swerve from their

rules. He kept his Excellency the Vizier always pleased and

satisfied" (you will remember, my Lords, the last expressions of

his pleasure and satisfaction) "by his friendship and attention in

every matter. He at all times showed favor and kindness towards us,

the ministers of this government; and under his protection having

enjoyed perfect happiness and comfort, we are from our hearts

satisfied with and grateful for his benevolence and goodness."

Here, my Lords, you have the character which Hyder Beg Khan gives of Mr.

Hastings,--of the man who he knew had loaded him, as he had done, with

every kind of indignity, reproach, and outrage with which a man can be

loaded. Your Lordships will see that this testimony repeats, almost word

for word, the testimony of the Vizier Nabob,--which shows who the real

writer is.

My Lords, it is said, that there is no word in the Persian language to

express gratitude. With these signal instances of gratitude before us, I

think we may venture to put one into their dictionary. Mr. Hastings has

said he has had the pleasure to find from the people of India that

gratitude which he has not met with from his own countrymen, the House

of Commons. Certainly, if he has done us services, we have been

ungrateful indeed; if he has committed enormous crimes, we are just. Of

the miserable, dependent situation to which these people are reduced,

that they are not ashamed to come forward and deny everything they have

given under their own hand,--all these things show the portentous nature

of this government, they show the portentous nature of that phalanx with

which the House of Commons is at present at war, the power of that

captain-general of every species of Indian iniquity, which, under him,

is embodied, arrayed, and paid, from Leadenhall Street to the

furthermost part of India.

We have but one observation more to offer upon this collection of

_razinamas_, upon these miserable testimonials given by these wretched

people in contradiction to all their own previous

representations,--directly in contradiction to those of Mr. Hastings

himself,--directly in contradiction to those of Lord

Cornwallis,--directly in contradiction to truth itself. It is this. Here

is Mr. Hastings with his agents canvassing the country, with all that

minuteness with which a county is canvassed at an election; and yet in

this whole book of razinamas not one fact adduced by us is attempted to

be disproved, not one fact upon which Mr. Hastings's defence can be

founded is attempted to be proved. There is nothing but bare vile

panegyrics, directly belied by the state of facts, directly belied by

the persons themselves, directly belied by Mr. Hastings at your bar, and

by all the whole course of the correspondence of the country.

We here leave to your Lordships' judgment the consideration of the

elevated rank of the persons aggrieved and degraded to the lowest state

of dependence and actual distress,--the consideration of the condition

of the country gentlemen, who were obliged to hide their heads, wherever

they could, from the plunderers and robbers established under his

authority in every part of the country, and that of the miserable common

people, who have been obliged to sell their children through want of

food to feed them,--the consideration, I say, of the manner in which

this country, in the highest, in the middle, and in the lowest classes

of its inhabitants, nay, in physical works of God, was desolated and

destroyed by this man.

Having now done with the province of Oude, we will proceed to the

province of Bengal, and consider what was the kind of government which

he exercised there, and in what manner it affected the people that were

subjected to it.

* * * * *

Bengal, like every part of India subject to the British empire, contains

(as I have already had occasion to mention) three distinct classes of

people, forming three distinct social systems. The first is the

Mahometans, which, about seven hundred years ago, obtained a footing in

that country, and ever since has in a great degree retained its

authority there. For the Mahometans had settled there long before the

foundation of the Bengal empire, which was overturned by Tamerlane: so

that this people, who are represented sometimes loosely as strangers,

are people of ancient and considerable settlement in that country; and

though, like Mahometan settlers in many other countries, they have

fallen into decay, yet, being continually recruited from various parts

of Tartary under the Mogul empire, and from various parts of Persia,

they continue to be the leading and most powerful people throughout the

peninsula; and so we found them there. These people, for the most part,

follow no trades or occupation, their religion and laws forbidding them

in the strictest manner to take usury or profit arising from money that

is in any way lent; they have, therefore, no other means for their

support but what arises from their adherence to and connection with the

Mogul government and its viceroys. They enjoy under them various

offices, civil and military,--various employments in the courts of law,

and stations in the army. Accordingly a prodigious number of people,

almost all of them persons of the most ancient and respectable families

in the country, are dependent upon and cling to the subahdars or

viceroys of the several provinces. They, therefore, who oppress,

plunder, and destroy the subahdars, oppress, rob, and destroy an immense

mass of people. It is true that a supervening government, established

upon another, always reduces a certain portion of the dependants upon

the latter to want. You must distress, by the very nature of the

circumstances of the case, a great number of people; but then it is your

business, when, by the superiority which you have acquired, however you

may have acquired it, (for I am not now considering whether you have

acquired it by fraud or force, or whether by a mixture of both,) when, I

say, you have acquired it, it is your business not to oppress those

people with new and additional difficulties, but rather to console them

in the state to which they are reduced, and to give them all the

assistance and protection in your power.

The next system is composed of the descendants of the people who were

found in the country by the Mahometan invaders. The system before

mentioned comprehends the official interest, the judicial interest, the

court interest, and the military interest. This latter body includes

almost the whole landed interest, commercial interest, and moneyed

interest of the country. For the Hindoos not being forbidden by their

laws or religious tenets, as laid down in the Shaster, many of them

became the principal money-lenders and bankers; and thus the Hindoos

form the greatest part both of the landed and moneyed interest in that

country.

The third and last system is formed of the English interest; which in

reality, whether it appears directly or indirectly, is the governing

interest of the whole country,--of its civil and military interest, of

its landed, moneyed, and revenue interest; and what to us is the

greatest concern of all, it is this system which is responsible for the

government of that country to the government of Great Britain. It is

divided into two parts: one emanating from the Company, and afterwards

regulated by act of Parliament; the other a judicial body, sent out by

and acting under the authority of the crown itself. The persons

composing that interest are those whom we usually call the servants of

the Company. They enter into that service, as your Lordships know, at an

early period of life, and they are promoted accordingly as their merit

or their interest may provide for them. This body of men, with respect

to its number, is so small as scarcely to deserve mentioning; but, from

certain circumstances, the government of the whole country is fallen

into their hands. Amongst these circumstances, the most important and

essential are their having the public revenues and the public purse

entirely in their own hands, and their having an army maintained by that

purse, and disciplined in the European manner.

Such was the state of that country when Mr. Hastings was appointed

Governor in 1772. Your Lordships are now to decide upon the manner in

which he has comported himself with regard to all these three interests:

first, whether he has made the ancient Mahometan families as easy as he

could; secondly, whether he has made the Hindoo inhabitants, the

zemindars and their tenants, as secure in their property and as easy in

their tenure as he could; and lastly, whether he has made the English

interest a blessing to the country, and, whilst it provided moderate,

safe, and proper emoluments to the persons that were concerned in it, it

kept them from oppression and rapine, and a general waste and ravage of

the country: whether, in short, he made all these three interests pursue

that one object which all interests and all governments ought to pursue,

the advantage and welfare of the people under them.

My Lords, in support of our charge against the prisoner at your bar,

that he acted in a manner directly the reverse of this, we have proved

to you that his first acts of oppression were directed against the

Mahometan government,--that government which had been before, not only

in name, but in effect, to the very time of his appointment, the real

government of the country. After the Company had acquired its right over

it, some shadow still remained of the ancient government. An allowance

was settled for the Nabob of Bengal, to support the dignity of his

court, which amounted to between four and five hundred thousand pounds a

year. In this was comprehended the support of the whole mass of

nobility,--the soldiers, serving or retired,--all the officers of the

court, and all the women that were dependent upon them,--the whole of

the criminal jurisdiction of the country, and a very considerable part

of the civil law and the civil government. These establishments formed

the constitutional basis of their political government.

The Company never had (and it is a thing that we can never too often

repeat to your Lordships)--the Company never had of right despotic power

in that country, to overturn any of these establishments. The Mogul, who

gave them their charters, could not give them such a power,--he did not

_de facto_ give them such a power; the government of this country did

not by act of Parliament, and the Company did not and could not by their

delegation, give him such a power; the act by which he was appointed

Governor did not give him such a power. If he exercised it, he usurped

it; and therefore, every step we take in the examination of his conduct

in Bengal, as in every step we take upon the same subject everywhere

else, we look for the justification of his conduct to laws,--the Law of

Nations, the laws of this country, and the laws of the country he was

sent to govern.

The government of that country, by the ancient constitution of the Mogul

empire, besides the numberless individual checks and counter-checks in

the inferior officers [offices?], is divided into the viceroyal part and

the subahdarry part. The viceroyal part takes in all criminal justice

and political government. Mr. Hastings found the country under a

viceroy, governing according to law, acting by proper judges and

magistrates under him: he himself not being the judicial, but executive

power of the country,--that which sets the other in action, and does not

supersede it or supply its place. The other, the subahdarry power, which

was by the grant of the dewanny conferred upon the Company, had under

its care the revenues, as much of the civil government as is concerned

with the revenues, and many other matters growing out of it. These two

offices are cooerdinate and dependent on each other. The Company, after

contracting to maintain the army out of it, got the whole revenue into

their power. The army being thus within their power, the subahdar by

degrees vanished into an empty name.

When we thus undertook the government of the country, conscious that we

had undertaken a task which by any personal exertion of our own we were

unable to perform in any proper or rational way, the Company appointed a

native of the country, Mahomed Reza Khan, who stands upon the records of

the Company, I venture to say, with such a character as no man perhaps

ever did stand, to execute the duties of both offices. Upon the

expulsion of Cossim Ali Khan, the Nabob of Bengal, all his children were

left in a young, feeble, and unprotected state; and in that state of

things, Lord Clive, Mr. Sumner, who sits near Mr. Hastings, and the rest

of the Council, wisely appointed Mahomed Reza Khan to fulfil the two

offices of deputy-viceroy and deputy-dewan, for which he had immense

allowances, and great jaghires and revenues, I allow. He was a man of

that dignity, rank, and consideration, added to his knowledge of law and

experience in business, that Lord Clive and Mr. Sumner, who examined

strictly his conduct at that time, did not think that 112,000_l._ a

year, the amount of the emoluments which had been allowed him, was a

great deal too much; but at his own desire, and in order that these

emoluments might be brought to stated and fixed sums, they reduced it to

90,000_l._,--an allowance which they thought was not more than

sufficient to preserve the state of so great a magistrate, and a man of

such rank, exercising such great employments. The whole revenue of the

Company depended upon his talents and fidelity; and you will find, that,

on the day in which he surrendered the revenues into our hands, the

dewanny, under his management, was a million more than it produced on

the day Mr. Hastings left it. For the truth of this I refer your

Lordships to a letter of the Company sent to the Board of Control. This

letter is not in evidence before your Lordships, and what I am stating

is merely historical. But I state the facts, and with the power of

referring for their proof to documents as authentic as if they were

absolutely in evidence before you. Assuming, therefore, that all these

facts may be verified by the records of the Company, I have now to state

that this man, by some rumors true or false, was supposed to have

misconducted himself in a time of great calamity in that country. A

great famine had about this time grievously afflicted the whole province

of Bengal.--I must remark by the way, that these countries are liable to

this calamity; but it is greatly blessed by Nature with resources which

afford the means of speedy recovery, if their government does not

counteract them. Nature, that inflicts the calamity, soon heals the

wound; it is in ordinary seasons the most fertile country, inhabited by

the most industrious people, and the most disposed to marriage and

settlement, probably, that exists in the whole world; so that population

and fertility are soon restored, and the inhabitants quickly resume

their former industrious occupations.

During the agitation excited in the country by the calamity I have just

mentioned, Mahomed Reza Khan, through the intrigues of Rajah Nundcomar,

one of his political rivals, and of some English faction that supported

him, was accused of being one of the causes of the famine. In answer to

this charge, he alleged, what was certainly a sufficient justification,

that he had acted under the direction of the English board, to which his

conduct throughout this business was fully known. The Company, however,

sent an order from England to have him tried; but though he frequently

supplicated the government at Calcutta that his trial should be

proceeded in, in order that he might be either acquitted and discharged

or condemned, Mr. Hastings kept him in prison two years, under pretence

(as he wrote word to the Directors) that Mahomed Reza Khan himself was

not very desirous to hasten the matter. In the mean time the Court of

Directors, having removed him from his great offices, authorized and

commanded Mr. Hastings (and here we come within the sphere of your

minutes) to appoint a successor to Mahomed Reza Khan, fit to fulfil the

duties of his station. Now I shall first show your Lordships what sort

of person the Court of Directors described to him as most fit to fill

the office of Mahomed Reza Khan, what sort of person he did appoint, and

then we will trace out to you the consequences of that appointment.

_Letter from the Court of Directors to the President and Council at

Fort William, dated 28th August, 1771._

"Though we have not a doubt but that, by the exertion of your

abilities, and the care and assiduity of our servants in the

superintendency of the revenues, the collections will be conducted

with more advantage to the Company and ease to the natives than by

means of a naib dewan, we are fully sensible of the expediency of

supporting some ostensible minister in the Company's interest at

the Nabob's court, to transact the political affairs of the sircar,

and interpose between the Company and the subjects of any European

power, in all cases wherein they may thwart our interest or

encroach on our authority; and as Mahomed Reza Khan can no longer

be considered by us as one to whom such a power can be safely

committed, we trust to your local knowledge the selection of some

person well qualified for the affairs of government, and of whose

attachment to the Company you shall be well assured: such person

you will recommend to the Nabob to succeed Mahomed Reza as minister

of the government, and guardian of the Nabob's minority; and we

persuade ourselves that the Nabob will pay such regard to your

recommendation as to invest him with the necessary power and

authority.

"As the advantages which the Company may receive from the

appointment of such minister will depend on his readiness to

promote our views and advance our interest, we are willing to allow

him so liberal a gratification as may excite his zeal and secure

his attachment to the Company; we therefore empower you to grant to

the person whom you shall think worthy of this trust an annual

allowance not exceeding three lacs of rupees, (thirty thousand

pounds,) which we consider not only as a munificent reward for any

services he shall render the Company, but sufficient to enable him

to support his station with suitable rank and dignity. And here we

must add, that, in the choice you shall make of a person to be the

active minister of the Nabob's government, we hope and trust that

you will show yourselves worthy of the confidence we have placed in

you, by being actuated therein, by no other motives than those of

the public good and the safety and interest of the Company."

Here, my Lords, a person was to be named fit to fill the office and

supply the place of Mahomed Reza Khan, who was deputy-viceroy of Bengal,

at the head of the criminal justice of the country, and, in short, at

the head of the whole ostensible Mahometan government; he was also to

supply the place of Mahomed Reza Khan as naib dewan, from which Reza

Khan was to be removed: for you will observe, the Directors always speak

of a man fit to perform all the duties of Mahomed Reza Khan; and amongst

these he was to be as the guardian of the Nabob's person, and the

representative of his authority and government.

Mr. Hastings, having received these orders from the Court of Directors,

did--what? He alleges in his defence, that no positive commands were

given him. But a very sufficient description was given of the person who

ought to succeed Mahomed Reza Khan, in whom the Company had before

recognized all the necessary qualities; and they therefore desire him to

name a similar person. But what does Mr. Hastings do in consequence of

this authority? He names no man at all. He searches into the seraglio of

the Nabob, and names a woman to be the viceroy of the province, to be

the head of the ostensible government, to be the guardian of the Nabob's

person, the conservator of his authority, and a proper representative of

the remaining majesty of that government.

Well, my Lords, he searched the seraglio. When you have to take into

consideration the guardianship of a person of great dignity, there are

two circumstances to be attended to: one, a faithful and affectionate

guardianship of his person; and the other, a strong interest in his

authority, and the means of exercising that authority in a proper and

competent manner. Mr. Hastings, when he was looking for a woman in the

seraglio, (for he could find women only there,) must have found actually

in authority there the Nabob's own mother: certainly a person who by

nature was most fit to be his guardian; and there is no manner of doubt

of her being sufficiently competent to that duty. Here, then, was a

legitimate wife of the Nabob Jaffier Ali Khan, a woman of rank and

distinction, fittest to take care of the person and interests, as far as

a woman could take care of them, of her own son. In this situation she

had been placed before, during the administration of Mahomed Reza Khan,

by the direct orders of the Governor, Sir John Cartier. She had, I say,

been put in possession of that trust which it was natural and proper to

give to such a woman. But what does Mr. Hastings do? He deposes this

woman. He strips her of her authority with which he found her invested

under the sanction of the English government. He finds out a woman in

the seraglio, called Munny Begum, who was bound to the Nabob by no tie

whatever of natural affection. He makes this woman the guardian of the

young Nabob's person. She had a son who had been placed upon the musnud

after the death of his father, Sujah Dowlah, and had been appointed his

guardian. This young Nabob died soon afterwards, and was succeeded by

Nujim ul Dowlah, another natural son of Sujah Dowlah. This prince being

left without a mother, this woman was suffered to retain the

guardianship of the Nabob till his death. When Mobarek ul Dowlah, a

legitimate son of Sujah Dowlah, succeeded him, Sir John Cartier did what

his duty was: he put the Nabob's own mother into the place which she was

naturally entitled to hold, the guardianship of her own son, and

displaced Munny Begum. The whole of the arrangement by which Munny Begum

was appointed guardian of the two preceding Nabobs stands in the

Company's records stigmatized as a transaction base, wicked, and

corrupt. We will read to your Lordships an extract from a letter which

has the signature of Mr. Sumner, the gentleman who sits here by the side

of Mr. Hastings, and from which you will learn what the Company and the

Council thought of the original nomination of Munny Begum and of her

son. You will find that they considered her as a great agent and

instrument of all the corruption there; and that this whole transaction,

by which the bastard son of Munny Begum was brought forward to the

prejudice of the legitimate son of the Nabob, was considered to be, what

it upon the very face of it speaks itself to be, corrupt and scandalous.

_Extract of a General Letter from the President and Council at

Calcutta, Bengal, to the Select Committee of the Directors._

Paragraph 5.--"At Fort St. George we received the first advices of

the demise of Mir Jaffier, and of Sujah Dowlah's defeat. It was

there firmly imagined that no definitive measures would be taken,

either with respect to a peace or filling the vacancy in the

nizamut, before our arrival,--as the 'Lapwing' arrived in the month

of January with your general letter, and the appointment of a

committee with express powers to that purpose, for the successful

exertion of which the happiest occasion now offered. However, a

contrary resolution prevailed in the Council. The opportunity of

acquiring immense fortunes was too inviting to be neglected, and

the temptation too powerful to be resisted. A treaty was hastily

drawn up by the board,--or rather, transcribed, with few

unimportant additions, from that concluded with Mir Jaffier,--and a

deputation, consisting of Messrs. Johnstone, senior, Middleton, and

Leycester, appointed to raise the natural son of the deceased Nabob

to the subahdarry, in prejudice of the claim of the grandson; and

for this measure such reasons assigned as ought to have dictated a

diametrically opposite resolution. Meeran's son was a minor, which

circumstance alone would have naturally brought the whole

administration into our hands at a juncture when it became

indispensably necessary we should realize the shadow of power and

influence, which, having no solid foundation, was exposed to the

danger of being annihilated by the first stroke of adverse fortune.

But this inconsistence was not regarded, nor was it material to the

views for precipitating the treaty, which was pressed on the young

Nabob at the first interview, in so earnest and indelicate a manner

as highly disgusted him and chagrined his ministers, while not a

single rupee was stipulated for the Company, whose interests were

sacrificed that their servants might revel in the spoils of a

treasury, before impoverished, but now totally exhausted.

"6. This scene of corruption was first disclosed at a visit the

Nabob paid to Lord Clive and the gentlemen of the Committee a few

days after our arrival. He there delivered to his Lordship a letter

filled with bitter complaints of the insults and indignity he had

been exposed to, and the embezzlement of near twenty lacs of rupees

issued from his treasury for purposes unknown during the late

negotiations. So public a complaint could not be disregarded, and

it soon produced an inquiry. We referred the letter to the board in

expectation of obtaining a satisfactory account of the application

of this money, and were answered only by a warm remonstrance

entered by Mr. Leycester against that very Nabob in whose elevation

he boasts of having been a principal agent.

"7. Mahomed Reza Khan, the naib subah, was then called upon to

account for this large disbursement from the treasury; and he soon

delivered to the Committee the very extraordinary narrative entered

in our Proceedings the 6th of June, wherein he specifies the

several names and sums, by whom paid, and to whom, whether in cash,

bills, or obligations. So precise, so accurate an account as this

of money for secret and venal services was never, we believe,

before this period, exhibited to the Honorable Court of Directors,

at least never vouched by undeniable testimony and authentic

documents: by Juggut Seet, who himself was obliged to contribute

largely to the sums demanded; by Muley Ram, who was employed by Mr.

Johnstone in all these pecuniary transactions; by the Nabob and

Mahomed Reza Khan, who were the heaviest sufferers; and, lastly, by

the confession of the gentlemen themselves whose names are

specified in the distribution list.

"8. Juggut Seet expressly declared in his narrative, that the sum

which he agreed to pay the deputation, amounting to 125,000 rupees,

was extorted by menaces; and since the close of our inquiry, and

the opinions we delivered in the Proceedings of the 21st of June,

it fully appears that the presents from the Nabob and Mahomed Reza

Khan, exceeding the immense sum of seventeen lacs, were not the

voluntary offerings of gratitude, but contributions levied on the

weakness of the government, and violently exacted from the

dependent state and timid disposition of the minister. The charge,

indeed, is denied on the one hand, as well as affirmed on the

other. Your honorable board must therefore determine how far the

circumstance of extortion may aggravate the crime of disobedience

to your positive orders,--the exposing the government in a manner

to sale, and receiving the infamous wages of corruption from

opposite parties and contending interests. We speak with boldness,

because we speak from conviction founded upon indubitable evidence,

that, besides the above sums specified in the distribution account,

to the amount of 228,125_l._ sterling, there was likewise to the

value of several lacs of rupees procured from Nundcomar and Roy

Dullub, each of whom aspired at and obtained a promise of that very

employment it was predetermined to bestow on Mahomed Reza Khan.

(Signed at the end,)

"CLIVE.

W^M B. SUMNER.

JOHN CARNAC.

H. VERELST.

FRA^S SYKES."

My Lords, the persons who sign this letter are mostly the friends, and

one of them is the gentleman who is bail for and sits near Mr. Hastings.

They state to you this horrible and venal transaction, by which the

government was set to sale, by which a bastard son was elevated to the

wrong of the natural and legitimate heir, and in which a prostitute, his

mother, was put in the place of the honorable and legitimate mother of

the representative of the family.

Now, if there was one thing more than another under heaven, which Mr.

Hastings ought to have shunned, it was the suspicion of being concerned

in any such infamous transaction as that which is here recorded to be

so,--a transaction in which the country government had before been sold

to this very woman and her offspring, and in which two great candidates

for power in that country fought against each other, and perhaps the

largest offerer carried it.

When a Governor-General sees the traces of corruption in the conduct of

his predecessors, the traces of injustice following that corruption, the

traces of notorious irregularity in setting aside the just claimants in

favor of those that have no claim at all, he has that before his eyes

which ought to have made him the more scrupulously avoid, and to keep at

the farthest distance possible from, the contagion and even the

suspicion of being corrupted by it. Moreover, my Lords, it was in

consequence of these very transactions that the new covenants were made,

which bind the servants of the Company never to take a present of above

two hundred pounds, or some such sum of money, from any native in

circumstances there described. This covenant I shall reserve for

consideration in another part of this business. It was in pursuance of

this idea, and to prevent the abuse of the prevailing custom of visiting

the governing powers of that country with a view of receiving presents

from them, that the House of Commons afterwards, in its inquiries, took

up this matter and passed the Regulating Act in 1773.

But to return to Munny Begum.--This very person, that had got into power

by the means already mentioned, did Mr. Hastings resort to, knowing her

to be well skilled in the trade of bribery,--knowing her skilful

practice in business of this sort,--knowing the fitness of her eunuchs,

instruments, and agents, to be dealers in this kind of traffic. This

very woman did Mr. Hastings select, stigmatized as she was in the

Company's record, stigmatized by the very gentleman who sits next to

him, and whose name you have heard read to you as one of those members

of the Council that reprobated the horrible iniquity of the transaction

in which this woman was a principal agent. For though neither the young

Nabob nor his mother ought to have been raised to the stations in which

they were placed, and were placed there for the purpose of facilitating

the receipt of bribes, yet the order of Nature was preserved, and the

mother was made the guardian of her own son: for though she was a

prostitute and he a bastard, yet still she was a mother and he a son;

and both Nature and legitimate disposition with regard to the

guardianship of a son went together.

But what did Mr. Hastings do? Improving upon the preceding transaction,

improving on it by a kind of refinement in corruption, he drives away

the lawful mother from her lawful guardianship; the mother of nature he

turns out, and he delivers her son to the stepmother to be the guardian

of his person. That your Lordships may see who this woman was, we shall

read to you a paper from your Lordships' minutes, produced before Mr.

Hastings's face, and never contradicted by him from that day to this.

At a Consultation, 24th July, 1775.--"Shah Chanim, deceased, was

sister to the Nabob Mahub ul Jung by the same father, but different

mothers; she married Mir Mahomed Jaffier Khan, by whom she had a

son and a daughter; the name of the former was Mir Mahomed Sadduc

Ali Khan, and the latter was married to Mir Mahomed Cossim Khan

Sadduc. Ali Khan had two sons and two daughters; the sons' names

are Mir Sydoc and Mir Sobeem, who are now living; the daughters

were married to Sultan Mirza Daood.

"Baboo Begum, the mother of the Nabob Mobarek ul Dowlah, was the

daughter of Summin Ali Khan, and married Mir Mahomed Jaffier Khan.

The history of Munny Begum is this. At a village called Balkonda,

near Sekundra, there lived a widow, who, from her great poverty,

not being able to bring up her daughter Munny, gave her to a slave

girl belonging to Summin Ali Khan, whose name was Bissoo. During

the space of five years she lived at Shahjehanabad, and was

educated by Bissoo after the manner of a dancing-girl. Afterwards

the Nabob Shamut Jung, upon the marriage of Ikram ul Dowlah,

brother to the Nabob Surajah ul Dowlah, sent for Bissoo Beg's set

of dancing-girls from Shahjehanabad, of which Munny Begum was one,

and allowed them ten thousand rupees for their expenses, to dance

at the wedding. While this ceremony was celebrating, they were kept

by the Nabob; but some months afterwards he dismissed them, and

they took up their residence in this city. Mir Mahomed Jaffier Khan

then took them into keeping, and allowed Munny and her set five

hundred rupees per month, till at length, finding that Munny was

pregnant, he took her into his own house. She gave birth to the

Nabob Nujim ul Dowlah, and in this manner she has remained in the

Nabob's family ever since."

My Lords, I do not mean to detain you long upon this part of the

business, but I have thought it necessary to advert to these

particulars. As to all the rest, the honorable and able Manager who

preceded me has sufficiently impressed upon your Lordships' minds the

monstrous nature of the deposing of the Nabob's mother from the

guardianship of her son, for the purpose of placing this woman there at

the head of all his family and of his domestic concerns in the seraglio

within doors, and at the head of the state without, together with the

disposal of the whole of the revenue that was allowed him. Mr. Hastings

pretends, indeed, to have appointed at the same time a trusty mutsuddy

to keep the accounts of the revenue; but he has since declared that no

account had been kept, and that it was in vain to desire it or to call

for it. This is the state of the case with respect to the appointment of

Munny Begum.

With regard to the reappointment of Mahomed Reza Khan, you have heard

from my worthy fellow Manager that he was acquitted of the charges that

had been brought against him by Mr. Hastings, after a long and lingering

trial. The Company was perfectly satisfied with the acquittal, and

declared that he was not only acquitted, but honorably acquitted; and

they also declared that he had a fair claim to a compensation for his

sufferings. They not only declared him innocent, but meritorious. They

gave orders that he should be considered as a person who was to be

placed in office again upon the first occasion, and that he had entitled

himself to this favor by his conduct in the place which he had before

filled.

The Council of the year 1775, (whom I can never mention nor shall

mention without honor,) who complied faithfully with the act of

Parliament, who never disobeyed the orders of the Company, and to whom

no man has imputed even the shadow of corruption, found that this Munny

Begum had acted in the manner which my honorable fellow Manager has

stated: that she had dissipated the revenue, that she had neglected the

education of the Nabob, and had thrown the whole judicature of the

country into confusion. They ordered that she should be removed from her

situation; that the Nabob's own mother should be placed at the head of

the seraglio, a situation to which she was entitled; and with regard to

the rest of the offices, that Mahomed Reza Khan should be employed to

fill them.

Mr. Hastings resisted these propositions with all his might; but they

were by that happy momentary majority carried against him, and Mahomed

Reza Khan was placed in his former situation. But Mr. Hastings, though

thus defeated, was only waiting for what he considered to be the

fortunate moment for returning again to his corrupt, vicious,

tyrannical, and disobedient habits. The reappointment of Mahomed Reza

Khan had met with the fullest approbation of the Company; and they

directed, that, as long as his good behavior entitled him to it, he

should continue in the office. Mr. Hastings, however, without alleging

any ill behavior, and for no reason that can be assigned, but his

corrupt engagement with Munny Begum, overturned (upon the pretence of

restoring the Nabob to his rights) the whole of the Company's

arrangement, as settled by the late majority, and approved by the Court

of Directors.

I have now to show you what sort of a man the Nabob was, who was thus

set up in defiance of the Company's authority; what Mr. Hastings himself

thought of him; what the judges thought of him; and what all the world

thought of him.

I must first make your Lordships acquainted with a little preliminary

matter. A man named Roy Rada Churn had been appointed vakeel, or agent,

to manage the Nabob's affairs at Calcutta. One of this man's creditors

attached him there. Roy Rada Churn pleaded his privilege as the vakeel

or representative of a sovereign prince. The question came to be tried

in the Supreme Court, and the issue was, Whether the Nabob was a

sovereign prince or not. I think the court did exceedingly wrong in

entertaining such a question; because, in my opinion, whether he was or

was not a sovereign prince, any person representing him ought to be left

free, and to have a proper and secure means of concerting his affairs

with the Council. It was, however, taken otherwise; the question was

brought to trial, whether the Nabob was a sovereign prince sufficient to

appoint and protect a person to manage his affairs, under the name of an

ambassador. In that cause did Mr. Hastings come forward to prove, by a

voluntary affidavit, that he had no pretensions, no power, no authority

at all,--that he was a mere pageant, a thing of straw,--and that the

Company exercised every species of authority over him, in every

particular, and in every respect; and that, therefore, to talk of him as

an efficient person was an affront to the common sense of mankind: and

this you will find the judges afterwards declared to be their opinion.

I will here press again one remark, which perhaps you may recollect that

I have made before, that the chief and most usual mode in which all the

villanies perpetrated in India, by Mr. Hastings and his co-partners in

iniquity, has been through the medium and instrumentality of persons

whom they pretended to have rights of their own, and to be acting for

themselves; whereas such persons were, in fact, totally dependent upon

him, Mr. Hastings, and did no one act that was not prescribed by him.

In order, therefore, to let you see the utter falsehood, fraud,

prevarication, and deceit of the pretences by which the native powers of

India are represented to be independent, and are held up as the

instruments of defying the laws of this kingdom, under pretext of their

being absolute princes, I will read the affidavit of Warren Hastings,

Esquire, Governor-General of Bengal, made the 31st July, 1775.

"This deponent maketh oath, and saith, That the late President and

Council did, in or about the month of August, 1772, by their own

authority appoint Munny Begum, relict of the late Nabob, Mir

Jaffier Ali Khan, to be guardian to the present Nabob, Mobarek ul

Dowlah, and Rajah Gourdas, son of Maha Rajah Nundcomar, to be dewan

of the said Nabob's household, allowing to the said Munny Begum a

salary of 140,000 rupees per annum, and to the said Rajah Gourdas,

for himself and officers, a salary of 100,000 rupees per annum:

That the said late President and Council did, in or about the month

of August, 1772, plan and constitute regular and distinct courts of

justice, civil and criminal, by their own authority, for

administration of justice to the inhabitants throughout Bengal,

without consulting the said Nabob or requiring his concurrence, and

that the said civil courts were made solely dependent on the

Presidency of Calcutta; and the said criminal courts were put under

the inspection and control of the Company's servants, although

ostensibly under the name of the Nazim, as appears from the

following extracts from the plan for the administration of justice,

constituted by the President and Council as aforesaid."

My Lords, we need not go through all the circumstances of this

affidavit, which is in your minutes, and, to save time, I will refer

your Lordships to them. This affidavit, as I have already said, was put

into the court to prove that the Nabob had no power or authority at all;

but what is very singular in it, and which I recommend to the particular

notice of your Lordships, when you are scrutinizing this matter, is,

that there is not a single point stated, to prove the nullity of this

Nabob's authority, that was not Mr. Hastings's on particular act. Well,

the Governor-General swears; the judge of the court refers to him in his

decision; he builds and bottoms it upon the Governor-General's

affidavit;--he swears, I say, that the Council, by their own authority,

appointed Munny Begum to be guardian to the Nabob.

"By what authority," the Governor-General asks, "did the Council erect

courts of law and superintend the administration of justice, without any

communication with the Nabob? Had the Nabob himself any idea that he was

a sovereign? Does he complain of the reduction of his stipend or the

infringement of treaties? No; he appears to consider himself to be, what

in fact he really is, absolutely dependent on the Company, and to be

willing to accept any pittance they would allow him for his maintenance:

he claims no rights. Does he complain that the administration of justice

is taken into the hands of the Company? No: by the treaty, the

protection of his subjects is delivered up to the Company; and he well

knew, that, whoever may be held up as the ostensible prince, the

administration of justice must be in the hands of those who have power

to enforce it." He goes on,--"The Governor-General, who, I suppose, had

a delicacy to state more than what had before been made public, closes

his affidavit with saying that all he has deposed to he believes to be

publicly known, as it is particularly set forth in the printed book

entitled 'Reports of the Committee of the House of Commons.' I knew," he

adds, "it was there, and was therefore surprised at this application; it

is so notorious, that everybody in the settlement must have known it:

when I say everybody, I mean with an exception to the gentlemen who have

applied to the court. The only reason I can give for their applying is

the little time they have been in the country." The judge (I think it is

Chief-Justice Impey) then goes on,--"Perhaps this question might have

been determined merely on the dates of the letters to the

Governor-General; but as the Council have made the other a serious

question, I should not have thought that I had done my duty, if I had

not given a full and determinate opinion upon it: I should have been

sorry, if I had left it doubtful whether the empty name of a Nabob

should be thrust between a delinquent and the laws, so as effectually to

protect him from the hand of justice."

My Lords, the court, as you see, bottoms its determination on what we

stand upon here, Mr. Hastings's evidence, that the empty name of a

pretended sovereign should not be thrust forth between a delinquent and

justice.

What does Mr. Le Maistre, the other judge, say upon this occasion? "With

regard to this phantom, that man of straw, Mobarek ul Dowlah, it is an

insult on the understanding of the court to have made the question of

his sovereignty. But as it came from the Governor-General and Council, I

have too much respect for that body to treat it ludicrously, and I

confess I cannot consider it seriously, and we always shall consider a

letter of business from the Nabob the same as a letter from the

Governor-General and Council."

This is the unanimous opinion of all the judges concerning the state and

condition of the Nabob. We have thus established the point we mean to

establish: that any use which shall be made of the Nabob's name for the

purpose of justifying any disobedience to the orders of the Company, or

of bringing forward corrupt and unfit persons for the government, could

be considered as no other than the act of the persons who shall make

such a use of it; and that no letter that the Nabob writes to any one in

power was or could be considered as any other than the letter of that

person himself. This we wish to impress upon your Lordships, because, as

you have before seen the use that has been made in this way of the Nabob

of Oude, you may judge of the use that has been made of the name of

Hyder Beg Khan, and of the names of all the eminent persons of the

country.

One word more and I have done. If, whilst you remark the use that is

made of this man's name, your Lordships shall find that this use has

ever been made of his name for his benefit, or for the purpose of giving

him any useful or substantial authority, or of meliorating his condition

in any way whatever; forgive the fraud, forgive the disobedience. But if

we have shown your Lordships that it was for no other purpose than to

disobey the orders of the Company, to trample upon the laws of his

country, to introduce back again, and to force into power, those very

corrupt and wicked instruments which had formerly done so much

mischief, and for which mischief they were removed, then we shall not

have passed our time in vain, in endeavoring to prove that this man, in

the opinion of a court of justice, and by public notoriety, and by Mr.

Hastings's own opinion, was held to be fit for nothing but to be made a

tool in his hands.

* * * * *

Having stated to your Lordships generally the effects produced upon the

Mahometan interest of Bengal by the misconduct of the prisoner at your

bar with respect to the appointment of the guardian of the Nabob or

Subahdar of that province, and of the ministers of his government, I

shall have the honor of attending your Lordships another day, and shall

show you the use that has been made of this government and of the

authority of the Nabob, who, as your Lordships have seen, was the mere

phantom of power; and I shall show how much a phantom he was for every

good purpose, and how effectual an instrument he was made for every bad

one.

SPEECH

IN

GENERAL REPLY.

EIGHTH DAY: SATURDAY, JUNE 14, 1794

My Lords,--Your Lordships heard, upon the last day of the meeting of

this high court, the distribution of the several matters which I should

have occasion to lay before you, and by which I resolved to guide

myself in the examination of the conduct of Mr. Hastings with regard to

Bengal. I stated that I should first show the manner in which he

comported himself with regard to the people who were found in possession

of the government when we first entered into Bengal. We have shown to

your Lordships the progressive steps by which the native government was

brought into a state of annihilation. We have stated the manner in which

that government was solemnly declared by a court of justice to be

depraved, and incompetent to act, and dead in law. We have shown to your

Lordships (and we have referred you to the document) that its death was

declared upon a certificate of the principal attending physician of the

state, namely, Mr. Warren Hastings himself. This was declared in an

affidavit made by him, wherein he has gone through all the powers of

government, of which he had regularly despoiled the Nabob Mobarek ul

Dowlah, part by part, exactly according to the ancient formula by which

a degraded knight was despoiled of his knighthood: they took, I say,

from him all the powers of government, article by article,--his helmet,

his shield, his cuirass; at last they hacked off his spurs, and left him

nothing. Mr. Hastings laid down all the premises, and left the judges to

draw the conclusion.

Your Lordships will remark (for you will find it on your minutes) that

the judges have declared this affidavit of Mr. Hastings to be a

_delicate_ affidavit. We have heard of affidavits that were true; we

have heard of affidavits that were perjured; but this is the first

instance that has come to our knowledge (and we receive it as a proof of

Indian refinement) of a delicate affidavit. This affidavit of Mr.

Hastings we shall show to your Lordships is not entitled to the

description of a good affidavit, however it might be entitled, in the

opinion of those judges, to the description of a delicate affidavit,--a

phrase by which they appear to have meant that he had furnished all the

proofs of the Nabob's deposition, but had delicately avoided to declare

him expressly deposed. The judges drew, however, this indelicate

conclusion; the conclusion they drew was founded upon the premises; it

was very just and logical; for they declared that he was a mere cipher.

They commended Mr. Hastings's delicacy, though they did not imitate it;

but they pronounced sentence of deposition upon the said Nabob, and they

declared that any letter or paper that was produced from him could not

be considered as an act of government. So effectually was he removed by

the judges out of the way, that no minority, no insanity, no physical

circumstances, not even death itself, could put a man more completely

out of sight. They declare that they would consider his letters in no

other light than as the letters of the Company, represented by the

Governor-General and Council. Thus, then, we find the Nabob legally

dead.

We find next, that he was politically dead. Mr. Hastings, not satisfied

with the affidavit he made in court, has thought proper upon record to

inform the Company and the world of what he considered him to be civilly

and politically.

_Minute entered by the Governor-General._

"_The Governor-General._--I object to this motion," (a motion

relative to the trial above alluded to,) "because I do not

apprehend that the declaration of the judges respecting the Nabob's

sovereignty will involve this government in any difficulties with

the French or other foreign nations." (Mark, my Lords, these

political effects.) "How little the screen of the Nabob's name has

hitherto availed will appear in the frequent and inconclusive

correspondence which has been maintained with the foreign

settlements, the French especially, since the Company have thought

proper to stand forth in their real character in the exercise of

the dewanny. From that period the government of these provinces has

been wholly theirs; nor can all the subtleties and distinctions of

political sophistry conceal the possession of power, where the

exercise of it is openly practised and universally felt in its

operation. In deference to the commands of the Company, we have

generally endeavored, in all our correspondence with foreigners, to

evade the direct avowal of our possessing the actual rule of the

country,--employing the unapplied term government, for the power to

which we exacted their submission; but I do not remember any

instance, and I hope none will be found, of our having been so

disingenuous as to disclaim our own power, or to affirm that the

Nabob was the real sovereign of these provinces. In effect, I do

not hesitate to say that I look upon this state of indecision to

have been productive of all the embarrassments which we have

experienced with the foreign settlements. None of them have ever

owned any dominion but that of the British government in these

provinces. Mr. Chevalier has repeatedly declared, that he will not

acknowledge any other, but will look to that only for the support

of the privileges possessed by his nation, and shall protest

against that alone as responsible for any act of power by which

their privileges may be violated or their property disturbed. The

Dutch, the Danes, have severally applied to this government, as to

the ruling power, for the grant of indulgences and the redress of

their grievances. In our replies to all, we have constantly assumed

the prerogatives of that character, but eluded the direct avowal of

it; under the name of influence we have offered them protection,

and we have granted them the indulgences of government under

elusive expressions, sometimes applied to our treaties with the

Nabobs, sometimes to our own rights as the dewan; sometimes openly

declaring the virtual rule which we held of these provinces, we

have contended with them for the rights of government, and

threatened to repel with force the encroachments on it; we in one

or two instances have actually put these threats into execution, by

orders directly issued to the officers of government and enforced

by detachments from our own military forces; the Nabob was never

consulted, nor was the pretence ever made that his orders or

concurrence were necessary: in a word, we have always allowed

ourselves to be treated as principals, we have treated as

principals, but we have contented ourselves with letting our

actions insinuate the character which we effectually possessed,

without asserting it.

"For my own part, I have ever considered the reserve which has been

enjoined us in this respect as a consequence of the doubts which

have long prevailed, and which are still suffered to subsist,

respecting the rights of the British government and the Company to

the property and dominion of these provinces, not as inferring a

doubt with respect to any foreign power. It has, however, been

productive of great inconveniences; it has prevented our acting

with vigor in our disputes with the Dutch and French. The former

refuse to this day the payment of the _bahor peshcush_, although

the right is incontestably against them, and we have threatened to

enforce it. Both nations refuse to be bound by our decrees, or to

submit to our regulations; they refuse to submit to the payment of

the duties on the foreign commerce but in their own way, which

amounts almost to a total exemption; they refuse to submit to the

duty of ten per cent which is levied upon foreign salt, by which,

unless a stop can be put to it by a more decisive rule, they will

draw the whole of that important trade into their own colonies; and

even in the single instance in which they have allowed us to

prescribe to them, namely, the embargo on grain, on the

apprehension of a dearth, I am generally persuaded that they

acquiesced from the secret design of taking advantage of the

general suspension, by exporting grain clandestinely under cover of

their colors, which they knew would screen them from the rigorous

examination of our officers. We are precluded from forming many

arrangements of general utility, because of the want of control

over the European settlements; and a great part of the defects

which subsist in the government and commercial state of the country

are ultimately derived from this source. I have not the slightest

suspicion that a more open and decided conduct would expose us to

worse consequences from the European nations; on the contrary, we

have the worst of the argument while we contend with them under

false colors, while they know us under the disguise, and we have

not the confidence to disown it. What we have done and may do under

an assumed character is full as likely to involve us in a war with

France, a nation not much influenced by logical weapons, (if such

can be supposed to be the likely consequence of our own trifling

disagreements with them,) as if we stood forth their avowed

opponents. To conclude, instead of regretting, with Mr. Francis,

the occasion which deprives us of so useless and hurtful a

disguise, I should rather rejoice, were it really the case, and

consider it as a crisis which freed the constitution of our

government from one of its greatest defects."

Now, my Lords, the delicacy of the affidavit is no more; the great

arcanum of the state is avowed: it is avowed that the government is

ours,--that the Nabob is nothing. It is avowed to foreign nations; and

the disguise which we have put on, Mr. Hastings states, in his opinion,

to be hurtful to the affairs of the Company. Here we perceive the exact

and the perfect agreement between his character as a delicate

affidavit-maker in a court of justice and his indelicate declarations

upon the records of the Company for the information of the whole world

concerning the real arcanum of the Bengal government.

Now I cannot help praising his consistency upon this occasion, whether

his policy was right or wrong. Hitherto we find the whole consistent, we

find the affidavit perfectly supported. The inferences which delicacy at

first prevented him from producing better recollection and more perfect

policy made him here avow. In this state things continued. The Nabob,

your Lordships see, is dead,--dead in law, dead in politics, dead in a

court of justice, dead upon the records of the Company. Except in mere

animal existence, it is all over with him.

I have now to state to your Lordships, that Mr. Hastings, who has the

power of putting even to death in this way, possesses likewise the art

of restoring to life. But what is the medicine that revives them? Your

Lordships, I am sure, will be glad to know what nostrum, not hitherto

pretended to by quacks in physic, by quacks in politics, nor by quacks

in law, will serve to revive this man, to cover his dead bones with

flesh, and to give him life, activity, and vigor. My Lords, I am about

to tell you an instance of a recipe of such infallible efficacy as was

never before discovered. His cure for all disorders is disobedience to

the commands of his lawful superiors. When the orders of the Court of

Directors are contrary to his own opinions, he forgets them all. Let the

Court of Directors but declare in favor of his own system and his own

positions, and that very moment, merely for the purpose of declaring his

right of rebellion against the laws of his country, he counteracts them.

Then these dead bones arise,--or, to use a language more suitable to

the dignity of the thing, Bayes's men are all revived. "Are these men

dead?" asks Mr. Bayes's friend. "No," says he, "they shall all get up

and dance immediately." But in this ludicrous view of Mr. Hastings's

conduct, your Lordships must not lose sight of its great importance. You

cannot have in an abstract, as it were, any one thing that better

develops the principles of the man, that more fully develops all the

sources of his conduct, and of all the frauds and iniquities which he

has committed, in order at one and the same time to evade his duty to

the Court of Directors, that is to say, to the laws of his country, and

to oppress, crush, rob, and ill-treat the people that are under him.

My Lords, you have had an account of the person who represented the

Nabob's dignity, Mahomed Reza Khan; you have heard of the rank he bore,

the sufferings that he went through, his trial and honorable acquittal,

and the Company's order that the first opportunity should be taken to

appoint him Naib Subah, or deputy of the Nabob, and more especially to

represent him in the administering of justice. Your Lordships are also

acquainted with what was done in consequence of those orders by the

Council-General, in the restoration and reestablishment of the executive

power in this person,--not in the poor Nabob, a poor, helpless,

ill-bred, ill-educated boy, but in the first Mussulman of the country,

who had before exercised the office of Naib Subah, or deputy

viceroy,--in order to give some degree of support to the expiring honor

and justice of that country. The majority, namely, General Clavering,

Colonel Monson, and Mr. Francis, whose names, as I have before said,

will, for obedience to the Company, fidelity to the laws, honor to

themselves, and a purity untouched and unimpeached, stand distinguished

and honored, in spite of all the corrupt and barking virulence of India

against them,--these men, I say, obeyed the Company: they had no secret

or fraudulent connection with Mahomed Reza Khan; but they reinstated him

in his office.

The moment that real death had carried away two of the most virtuous of

this community, and that Mr. Hastings was thereby reestablished in his

power, he returned to his former state of rebellion to the Company, and

of fraud and oppression upon the people. And here we come to the

revivificating medicine. I forgot to tell your Lordships, that this

Nabob, whose letters were declared by a court of law, with his own

approbation, to be in effect letters of the Governor-General and

Council, concludes a formal application transmitted to them, and dated

17th November, 1777, with a demand of the restoration of his rights. Mr.

Hastings upon this enters the following minute:--

"The Nabob's demands are grounded upon positive rights, which will

not admit of a discussion; he has an incontestable right to the

management of his own household; he has an incontestable right to

the nizamut."

My Lords, you have heard his affidavit, you have heard his avowed and

recorded opinion. In direct defiance of both, because he wishes to make

doubtful the orders of the Company and to evade his duty, he here makes

without any delicacy a declaration, which if it be true, the affidavit

is a gross perjury, let it be managed with what delicacy he pleases. The

word _nizamut_, which he uses, may be unfamiliar to your Lordships. In

India it signifies the whole executive government, though the word

strictly means viceroyalty: all the princes of that country holding

their dominions as representatives of the Mogul, the great nominal

sovereign of the empire. To convince you that it does so, take his own

explanation of it.

"It is his by inheritance: the adawlut and the foujdarry having

been repeatedly declared by the Company and by this government to

appertain to the nizamut. The adawlut, namely, the distribution of

civil justice, and the foujdarry, namely, the executive criminal

justice of that country, that is to say, the whole sovereign

government of the courts of justice, have been declared by the

Company to appertain to the nizamut."

I beg of your Lordships to recollect, when you take into your

consideration the charges of the House of Commons, that the person they

accuse, and persons suborned by him, have never scrupled to be guilty,

without sense of shame, of the most notorious falsehoods, the most

glaring inconsistencies, and even of perjury itself; and that it is thus

they make the power of the Company dead or alive, as best suits their

own wicked, clandestine, and fraudulent purposes, and the great end of

all their actions and all their politics plunder and peculation.

I must here refer your Lordships to a minute of Mr. Francis's, which I

recommend to your reading at large, and to your very serious

recollection, in page 1086; because it contains a complete history of

Mr. Hastings's conduct, and of its effects upon this occasion.

And now to proceed.--The Nabob, in a subsequent application to the

Company's government at Calcutta, desires that Munny Begum may be

allowed to take on herself the whole administration of the affairs of

the nizamut, (not the superiority in the administration of the affairs

of the seraglio only, though this would have been a tyrannical

usurpation of the power belonging to the legitimate mother of the

Nabob,) without the interference of any person whatever; and he adds,

that by this the Governor will give him complete satisfaction. In all

fraudulent correspondence you are sure to find the true secret of it at

last. It has been said by somebody, that the true sense of a letter is

to be learnt from its postscript. But this matter is so clumsily

managed, that, in contempt of all decency, the first thing the Nabob

does is to desire he may be put into the hands of Munny Begum, and that

without the interference of anybody whatever.

The next letter, immediately following on the heels of the former, was

received by the Council on the 12th of February, 1778. In this letter he

desires that Mahomed Reza Khan may be removed from his office in the

government; and he expresses his hopes, that, as he himself is now come

to years of maturity, and by the blessing of God is not so devoid of

understanding as to be incapable of conducting his affairs, he says, "I

am therefore hopeful, from your favor and regard to justice, that you

will deliver me from the authority of the aforesaid Mahomed Reza Khan,

and give your permission that I take on myself the management of the

adawlut and foujdarry." There is no doubt of this latter application, in

contradiction to the former, having arisen from a suspicion that the

appointment of Munny Begum would be too gross, and would shock the

Council; and Mr. Hastings therefore orders the second letter to be

written from the Nabob, in which he claims the powers of government for

himself. Then follows a letter from the Governor-General, informing the

Nabob that it had been agreed, that, his Excellency being now arrived at

years of maturity, the control of his own household, and the courts

dependent on the nizamut and foujdarry, should be placed in his hands;

and Mahomed Reza Khan was directed at the same time to resign his

authority to the Nabob.

Here your Lordships see Munny Begum in effect completely invested with,

and you will see how she has used her power: for I suppose your

Lordships are sick of the name of Nabob, as a real actor in the

government. You now see the true parties in the transaction,--namely,

the lover, Warren Hastings, Esquire, and Munny Begum, the object of his

passion and flame, to which he sacrifices as much as Antony ever did to

Cleopatra. You see the object of his love and affection placed in the

administration of the viceroyalty; you see placed at her disposal the

administration of the civil judicature, and of the executory

justice,--together with the salary which was intended for Mahomed Reza

Khan.

Your Lordships will be pleased to remember that this distribution of the

Nabob's government was made in direct defiance of the orders of the

Company. And as a further proof of this defiance, it will not escape

your Lordships, that, before this measure was carried into execution,

Mr. Barwell being one day absent from the Council, Mr. Hastings fell

into a minority; and it was agreed, upon that occasion, that the whole

affair should be referred home to the Court of Directors, and that no

arrangement should be made till the Directors had given their opinion.

Mr. Hastings, the very moment after Mr. Barwell's return to his seat in

the Council, rescinds this resolution, which subjected the orders of the

Court of Directors to their own reconsideration; and he hurries headlong

and precipitately into the execution of his first determination. Your

Lordships will also see in this act what sort of use Mr. Hastings made

of the Council; and I have therefore insisted upon all these practices

of the prisoner at your bar, because there is not one of them in which

some principle of government is not wounded, if not mortally wounded.

My Lords, we have laid before you the consequences of this proceeding.

We have shown what passed within the walls of the seraglio, and what

tyranny was exercised by this woman over the multitude of women there. I

shall now show your Lordships in what manner she made use of her power

over the _supreme judicature_, to peculate, and to destroy the country;

and I shall adduce, as proofs of this abuse of her authority, the facts

I am about to relate, and of which there is evidence before your

Lordships.

There was an ostensible man, named Sudder ul Huk Khan, placed there at

the head of the administration of justice, with a salary of seven

thousand pounds a year of the Company's money. This man, in a letter to

the Governor-General and Council, received the 1st of September, 1778,

says,--"His Highness himself [the Nabob] is not deficient in regard for

me, but certain bad men have gained an ascendency over his temper, by

whose instigation he acts." You will see, my Lords, how this poor man

was crippled in the execution of his duty, and dishonored by the

corruption of this woman and her eunuchs, to whom Mr. Hastings had given

the supreme government, and with it an uncontrolled influence over all

the dependent parts. After thus complaining of the slights he receives

from the Nabob, he adds,--"Thus they cause the Nabob to treat me,

sometimes with indignity, at others with kindness, just as they think

proper to advise him: their view is, that, by compelling me to

displeasure at such unworthy treatment, they may force me either to

relinquish my station, or to join with them and act with their advice,

and appoint creatures of their recommendation to the different offices,

from which they might draw profit to themselves." In a subsequent letter

to the Governor, Sudder ul Huk Khan says,--"The Begum's ministers,

before my arrival, with the advice of their counsellors, caused the

Nabob to sign a receipt, in consequence of which they received, at two

different times, near fifty thousand rupees, in the name of the officers

of the adawlut, foujdarry, &c., from the Company's sircar; and having

drawn up an account current in the manner they wished, they got the

Nabob to sign it, and then sent it to me." In the same letter he asserts

that these people have the Nabob entirely in their power.

Now I have only to remark to your Lordships, that the first and

immediate operation of Mr. Hastings's regulation, which put everything

into the hands of this wicked woman for her corrupt purposes, was, that

the office of chief-justice was trampled upon and depraved, and made use

of to plunder the Company of money, which was appropriated to their own

uses,--and that the person ostensibly holding this office was forced to

become the instrument in the hands of this wicked woman and her two

wicked eunuchs. This, then, was the representation which the

chief-justice made to Mr. Hastings, as one of the very first fruits of

his new arrangement. I am now to tell you what his next step was. This

same Mr. Hastings, who had made the Nabob master of everything and

placed everything at his disposal, who had maintained that the Nabob was

not to act a secondary part and to be a mere instrument in the hands of

the Company, who had, as you have seen, revived the Nabob, now puts him

to death again. He pretends to be shocked at these proceedings of the

Nabob, and, not being able to prevent their coming before the Council of

the Directors at home, he immediately took Sudder ul Huk Khan under his

protection.

Now your Lordships see Mr. Hastings appearing in his own character

again,--exercising the power he had pretended to abdicate, whilst the

Nabob sinks and subsides under him. He becomes the supporter of Sudder

ul Huk Khan, now that the infamy of the treatment he received could no

longer be concealed from the Council. On the 1st of September, 1778, the

Governor informs the Nabob, "that it is highly expedient that Sudder ul

Huk Khan should have full control in all matters relative to his office,

and the sole appointment and dismission of the sudder and mofussil

officers; and that his seal and signature should be authentic to all

papers having relation to the business intrusted to him: I therefore

intimate to you, that he should appoint and dismiss all the officers

under him, and that your Excellency should not interfere in any one

[way?]."

The Nabob, in a letter to the Governor, received the 3d of September,

1778, says,--"Agreeably to your pleasure, I have relinquished all

concern with the affairs of the foujdarry and adawlut, leaving the

entire management in Sudder ul Huk Khan's hands." Here you see the Nabob

again reduced to his former state of subordination. This

chief-justiceship, which was declared to be his inherent right, he is

obliged to submit to the control of Mr. Hastings, and to declare that he

will not interfere at all in a matter which Mr. Hastings had declared to

be his incommunicable attribute. I do not say that Mr. Hastings

interfered improperly. Certainly it was not fit that the highest court

of justice in all Bengal should be made the instrument of the rapacity

of a set of villains with a prostitute at their head: just as if a gang

of thieves in England, with their prostitutes at their head, should

seize the judge which ought to punish them, and endeavor to make use of

his name in their iniquitous transactions. But your Lordships will find

that Mr. Hastings is here acting a merely ostensible part, and that he

has always a means of defeating privately what he declares publicly to

be his intention. Your Lordships will see soon how this ended. Mr.

Hastings gets the Nabob to give up all his authority over the

chief-justice; but he says not one word of Munny Begum, the person who

had the real authority in her hands, and who was not forbidden to

interfere with him. Mr. Hastings's order is dated the 1st September,

1778. On the 3d of September, the Nabob is said to have relinquished all

concern with Sudder ul Huk Khan. In a letter received the 30th of

September, (that is, about twenty-seven days after the date of Mr.

Hastings's order,) you will see how this pretended order was managed.

Sudder ul Huk Khan thus writes, in a letter received the 30th of

September.

"Yatibar Ali Khan," (Munny Begum's chief eunuch,) "from the amount

of salaries of the officers of the adawlut and foujdarry, which

before my arrival he had received for two months from the sircar,

made disbursements according to his own pleasure. He had before

caused the sum of 7,400 rupees, on account of the price of mine and

my peshcar's khelauts, to be carried to account, and now

continually sends a man to demand from me 4,300 and odd rupees, as

a balance of the price of khelauts, and constantly presses me to

take it from the amount of the salaries of the officers of the

adawlut and foujdarry and send it to him; and I shall be under the

necessity of complying. I mention this for your information."

My Lords, you see again how Mr. Hastings's pretended orders were obeyed.

They were orders addressed to the Nabob, whom he knew to be nothing, and

who could neither control or take the least share in the execution of

them; but he leaves the thing loose as to Manny Begum and her eunuchs,

who he knew could alone carry them into effect. Your Lordships see that

the first use made of the restored authority of the Nabob was, under

various pretences, to leave the salaries of the officers of government

unprovided for, to rob the public treasury, and to give the Company's

money to the eunuchs, who were acting in the manner I have stated to

you.

Information of these proceedings reaches Calcutta; a regular complaint

from a person in the highest situation in the government is made, and

the Governor-General is obliged again to take up the matter; and I

shall now read to your Lordships a letter of the 10th of October, 1778,

which contains a representation so pointed and so very just of the fatal

effects which his interference in the administration of justice had

produced as not to stand in need of any comment from me. It speaks too

plainly to require any.

_The Governor-General's Letter to the Nabob_.

"At your Excellency's request I sent Sudder ul Huk Khan to take on

him the administration of the affairs of the adawlut and foujdarry,

and hoped by that means not only to have given satisfaction to your

Excellency, but that, through his abilities and experience, these

affairs would have been conducted in such manner as to have secured

the peace of the country and the happiness of the people; and it is

with the greatest concern I learn that this measure is so far from

being attended with the expected advantages, that the affairs both

of the foujdarry and adawlut are in the greatest confusion

imaginable, and daily robberies and murders are perpetrated

throughout the country. This is evidently owing to the want of a

proper authority in the person appointed to superintend them. I

therefore addressed your Excellency on the importance and delicacy

of the affairs in question, and of the necessity of lodging full

power in the hands of the person chosen to administer them, in

reply to which your Excellency expressed sentiments coincident with

mine; notwithstanding which, your dependants and people, actuated

by selfish and avaricious views, have by their interference so

impeded the business as to throw the whole country into a state of

confusion, from which nothing can retrieve it but an unlimited

power lodged in the hands of the superintendent. I therefore

request that your Excellency will give the strictest injunctions to

all your dependants not to interfere in any manner with any matter

relative to the affairs of the adawlut and foujdarry, and that you

will yourself relinquish all interference therein, and leave them

entirely to the management of Sudder ul Huk Khan. This is

absolutely necessary to restore the country to a state of

tranquillity; and if your Excellency has any plan to propose for

the management of the affairs in future, be pleased to communicate

it to me, and every attention shall be paid to give your Excellency

satisfaction."

My Lords, I think I have read enough to you for our present

purpose,--referring your Lordships for fuller information to your

Minutes, page 1086, which I beg you to read with the greatest attention.

I must again beg your Lordships to remark, that, though Mr. Hastings has

the impudence still to pretend that he wishes for the restoration of

order and justice in the country, yet, instead of writing to Munny Begum

upon the business, whom he knew to be the very object complained of, and

whose eunuchs are expressly mentioned in the complaint, he writes to the

Nabob, whom he knew to be a pageant in his own court and government, and

whose name was not even mentioned in this last complaint. Not one word

is said, even in this letter to the Nabob, of Munny Begum or of her

eunuchs. My Lords, when you consider his tacit support of the authors of

the grievance, and his ostensible application for redress to the man

who he knew never authorized and could not redress the grievance, you

must conclude that he meant to keep the country in the same state for

his own corrupt purposes. In this state the country in fact continued;

Munny Begum and her eunuchs continued to administer and squander the

Company's money, as well as the Nabob's; robberies and murders continued

to prevail throughout the country. No appearance was left of order, law,

or justice, from one end of Bengal to the other.

The account of this state of things was received by the Court of

Directors with horror and indignation. On the 27th of May, 1779, they

write, as you will find in page 1063 of your printed Minutes, a letter

to their government at Calcutta, condemning their proceedings and the

removal of Mahomed Reza Khan, and they order that Munny Begum shall be

displaced, and Mahomed Reza Khan restored again to the seat of justice.

Mr. Francis, upon the arrival of these reiterated orders, moved in

Council for an obedience to them. Mr. Hastings, notwithstanding he had

before his eyes all the horrible consequences that attended his new

arrangement, still resists that proposition. By his casting voice in the

Council he counter-orders the orders of the Court of Directors, and

sanctions a direct disobedience to their authority, by a resolution that

Mahomed Reza Khan should not be restored to his employment, but that

this Sudder ul Huk Khan, who still continued in the condition already

described, should remain in the possession of his office. I say nothing

of Sudder ul Huk Khan; he seems to be very well disposed to do his duty,

if Mr. Hastings's arrangements had suffered him to do it; and indeed,

if Mahomed Reza Khan had been reinstated, and no better supported by Mr.

Hastings than Sudder ul Huk Khan, he could probably have kept the

country in no better order, though, perhaps, his name, and the authority

and weight which still adhered to him in some degree, might have had

some influence.

My Lords, you have seen his defiance of the Company; you have seen his

defiance of all decency; you see his open protection of prostitutes and

robbers of every kind ravaging Bengal; you have seen this defiance of

the authority of the Court of Directors flatly, directly, and

peremptorily persisted in to the last. Order after order was reiterated,

but his disobedience arose with an elastic spring in proportion to the

pressure that was upon it.

My Lords, here there was a pause. The Directors had been disobeyed; and

you might suppose that he would have been satisfied with this act of

disobedience. My Lords, he was resolved to let the native governments of

the country know that he despised the orders of the Court of Directors,

and that, whenever he pretended to obey them, in reality he was resolved

upon the most actual disobedience. An event now happened, the

particulars of which we are not to repeat here. Disputes, conducted, on

Mr. Francis's side, upon no other principle, that we can discover, but a

desire to obey the Company's orders, and to execute his duty with

fidelity and disinterestedness, had arisen between him and Mr. Hastings.

Mr. Francis, about the time we have been speaking of, finding resistance

was vain, reconciles himself to him,--but on the most honorable terms as

a public man, namely, that he should continue to follow and obey the

laws, and to respect the authority of the Court of Directors. Upon this

reconciliation, it was agreed that Mahomed Reza Khan should be restored

to his office. For this purpose Mr. Hastings enters a minute, and writes

to the Nabob an ostensible letter. But your Lordships will here see an

instance of what I said respecting a double current in all Mr.

Hastings's proceedings. Even when he obeys or pretends to obey the

Company's orders, there is always a private channel through which he

defeats them all.

_Letter from Mr. Hastings to the Nabob Mobarek ul Dowlah, written

the 10th of February, 1780._

"The Company, whose orders are peremptory, have directed that

Mahomed Reza Khan shall be restored to the offices he held in

January, 1778. It is my duty to represent this to your Excellency,

and to recommend your compliance with their request, that Mahomed

Reza Khan may be invested with the offices assigned to him under

the nizamut by the Company."

Your Lordships see here that Mr. Hastings informs the Nabob, that,

having received peremptory orders from the Company, he restores and

replaces Mahomed Reza Khan. Mahomed Reza Khan, then, is in

possession,--and in possession by the best of all titles, the orders of

the Company. But you will also see the manner in which he evades his

duty, and vilifies in the eyes of these miserable country powers the

authority of the Directors. He is prepared, as usual, with a defeasance

of his own act; and the manner in which that defeasance came to our

knowledge is this. We knew nothing of this private affair, till Mr.

Hastings, in his answer before the House of Commons, finding it

necessary to destroy the validity of some of his own acts, brought

forward Sir John D'Oyly. He was brought forward before us, not as a

witness in his own person for the defence of Mr. Hastings, but as a

narrator who had been employed by Mr. Hastings as a member of that

Council which, as you have heard, drew up his defence. My Lords, you

have already seen the public agency of this business, you have heard

read the public letter sent to the Nabob: there you see the ostensible

part of the transaction. Now hear the banian, Sir John D'Oyly, give an

account of his part in it, extracted from Mr. Hastings's defence before

the House of Commons.

"I was appointed Resident [at the Court of the Nabob] on the

resignation of Mr. Byam Martin, in the month of January, 1780, and

took charge about the beginning of February of the same year. The

substance of the instructions I received was, to endeavor, by every

means in my power, to conciliate the good opinion and regard of the

Nabob and his family, that I might be able to persuade him to adopt

effectual measures for the better regulation of his expenses, which

were understood to have greatly exceeded his income; that I might

prevent his forming improper connections, or taking any steps

derogatory to his rank, and by every means in my power support his

credit and dignify in the eyes of the world; and with respect to

the various branches of his family, I was instructed to endeavor to

put a stop to the dissensions which had too frequently prevailed

amongst them. The Nabob, on his part, was recommended to pay the

same attention to my advice as he would have done to that of the

Governor-General in person. Some time, I think, in the month of

February of the same year, I received a letter from Mr. Hastings,

purporting that the critical situation of affairs requiring the

union and utmost exertion of every member of the government to give

vigor to the acts necessary for its relief, he had agreed to an

accommodation with Mr. Francis; but to effect this point he had

been under the necessity of making some painful sacrifices, and

particularly that of the restoration of Mahomed Reza Khan to the

office of Naib Subah, a measure which he knew must be highly

disagreeable to the Nabob, and which nothing but the urgent

necessity of the case should have led him to acquiesce in; that he

relied on me to state all these circumstances in the most forcible

manner to the Nabob, and to urge his compliance, assuring him that

it should not continue longer than until the next advices were

received from the Court of Directors."

Here Mr. Hastings himself lets us into the secrets of his government. He

writes an ostensible letter to the Nabob, declaring that what he does is

in conformity to the orders of the Company. He writes a private letter,

in which he directs his agent to assure the Nabob that what he had done

was not in compliance with the orders of the Company, but in consequence

of the arrangement he had made with Mr. Francis, which arrangement he

thought necessary for the support of his own personal power. His design,

in thus explaining the transaction to the Nabob, was in order to

prevent the native powers from looking to any other authority than his,

and from having the least hopes of redress of their complaints from the

justice of this country or from any legal power in it. He therefore

tells him that Mahomed Reza Khan was replaced, not in obedience to the

orders of the Company, but to gratify Mr. Francis. If he quarrels with

Mr. Francis, he makes that a reason for disobeying the orders of his

masters; if he agrees with him, he informs the people concerned in the

transaction, privately, that he acts, not in consequence of the orders

that he has received, but from other motives. But that is not all. He

promises that he will take the first opportunity to remove Mahomed Reza

Khan from his office again. Thus the country is to be re-plunged into

the same distracted and ruined state in which it was before. And all

this is laid open fully and distinctly before you. You have it on the

authority of Sir John D'Oyly. Sir John D'Oyly is a person in the secret;

and one man who is in the secret is worth a thousand ostensible persons.

Mahomed Reza Khan, I must now tell you, was accordingly reinstated in

all his offices, and the Nabob was reduced to the situation, as Mr.

Hastings upon another occasion describes it, of a mere cipher. But mark

what followed,--mark what this Sir John D'Oyly is made to tell you, or

what Mr. Hastings tells you for him: for whether Sir John D'Oyly has

written this for Mr. Hastings, or Mr. Hastings for Sir John D'Oyly, I do

not know; because they seem, as somebody said of two great friends, that

they had but one will, one bed, and one hat between them. These

gentlemen who compose Mr. Hastings's Council have but one style of

writing among them; so that it is impossible for you to determine by

which of the masters of this Roman school any paper was

written,--whether by D'Oyly, by Shore, or by Hastings, or any other of

them. They have a style in common, a kind of bank upon which they have a

general credit; and you cannot tell to whose account anything is to be

placed.

But to proceed.--Sir John D'Oyly says there, that the Nabob is reduced

again to a cipher. Now hear what he afterwards says. "About the month of

June, 1781, Mr. Hastings, being then at Moorshedabad, communicated to me

his intention of performing his promise to the Nabob, by restoring him

to the management of his own affairs,"--that is to say, by restoring

Munny Begum again, and by turning out Mahomed Reza Khan. Your Lordships

see that he communicated privately his intentions to Sir John D'Oyly,

without communicating one word of them to his colleagues in the Supreme

Council, and without entering any minute in the records of the Council,

by which it could be known to the Directors.

Lastly, in order to show you in what manner the Nabob was to be restored

to his power, I refer your Lordships to the order he gave to Sir John

D'Oyly for investigating the Nabob's accounts, and for drawing up

articles of instructions for the Nabob's conduct in the management of

his affairs. You will there see clearly how he was restored: that is to

say, that he was taken out of the hands of the first Mussulman in that

country, the man most capable of administering justice, and whom the

Company had expressly ordered to be invested with that authority, and to

put him into the hands of Sir John D'Oyly. Is Sir John D'Oyly a

Mussulman? Is Sir John D'Oyly fit to be at the head of such a

government? What was there that any person could see about him, that

entitled him to or made him a fit person to be intrusted with this

power, in defiance of the Company's orders? And yet Mahomed Reza Khan,

who was to have the management of the Nabob's affairs, was himself put

under the most complete and perfect subjection to this Sir John D'Oyly.

But, in fact, Munny Begum had the real influence in everything. Sir John

D'Oyly himself was only Mr. Hastings's instrument there to preserve it,

and between them they pillaged the Nabob in the most shocking manner,

and must have done so to the knowledge of Mr. Hastings. A letter written

at this time by Mr. Hastings to the Nabob discovers the secret beyond

all power of evasion.

_Instructions from the Governor-General to the Nabob Mobarek ul

Dowlah, respecting his Conduct in the Management of his Affairs._

"9th. These I make the conditions of the compliance which the

Governor-General and Council have yielded to your late requisition.

It is but just that you should possess what is your acknowledged

right; but their intention would be defeated, and you would be in a

worse situation, if you were to be left a prey, without a guide,

until you have acquired experience, (which, to the strength and

goodness of your understanding, will be the work but of a short

period,) to the rapacity, frauds, and artifices of mankind. You

have offered to give up the sum of four lacs of rupees to be

allowed the free use of the remainder of your stipend. This we have

refused, because it would be contrary to justice. You should

consider this as a proof of the sincerity of the above

arrangements which have been recommended to you, and of their

expediency to your real interests; and your attention to them will

be a means of reconciling the Company to the resolution which we

have taken, and which will be reported to them in a light very

hurtful both to you and to us, if an improper effect should attend

it. These I have ordered Sir John D'Oyly to read in your presence,

and to explain them to you, that no part of them may escape your

notice; and he has my positive orders to remonstrate to you against

every departure from them. Upon all these occasions, I hope and

expect that you will give him a particular and cordial attention,

and regard what he shall say as if said by myself; for I know him

to be a person of the strictest honor and integrity. I have a

perfect reliance on him; and you cannot have a more attached or

more disinterested counsellor. Although I desire to receive your

letters frequently, yet, as many matters will occur which cannot so

easily be explained by letter as by conversation, I desire that you

will on such occasions give your orders to him respecting such

points as you may desire to have imparted to me; and I, postponing

every other concern, will give you an immediate and the most

satisfactory reply concerning them."

My Lords, here is a man who is to administer his own affairs, who has

arrived at sufficient age to supersede the counsel and advice of the

great Mahometan doctors and the great nobility of the country, and he is

put under the most absolute guardianship of Sir John D'Oyly. But Mr.

Hastings has given Sir John D'Oyly a great character. I cannot confirm

it, because I can confirm the character of none of Mr. Hastings's

instruments. They must stand forth here, and defend their own character

before you.

Your Lordships will now be pleased to advert to another circumstance in

this transaction. You see here 40,000_l._ a year offered by this man for

his redemption. "I will give you," he says, "40,000_l._ a year to have

the management of my own affairs." Good heavens! Here is a man, who,

according to Mr. Hastings's assertion, had an indisputable right to the

management of his own affairs, but at the same time was notoriously so

little fit to have the management of them as to be always under some

corrupt tyranny or other, offers 40,000_l._ a year out of his own

revenues to be left his own master, and to be permitted to have the

disposal of the remainder. Judge you of the bribery, rapine, and

peculation which here stare you in the face. Judge of the nature and

character of that government for the management of which 40,000_l._, out

of 160,000_l._ a year of its revenue, is offered by a subordinate to the

supreme authority of the country. This offer shows that at this time the

Nabob had it not himself. Who had it? Sir John D'Oyly; he is brought

forward as the person to whom is given the management of the whole.

Munny Begum had the management before. But, whether it be an Englishman,

a Mussulman, a white man or a black man, a white woman or a black woman,

it is all Warren Hastings.

With respect to the four lacs of rupees, he gets Sir John D'Oyly, in the

narrative that he makes before the House of Commons, positively to deny

in the strongest manner, and he says the Nabob would give oath of it,

that the Nabob never gave a commission to any one to make such an

offer. That such an offer was made had been long published and long in

print, with the remarks such as I have made upon it in the Ninth Report

of the Select Committee; that the Committee had so done was well known

to Mr. Hastings and Sir John D'Oyly; not one word on the part of Mr.

Hastings, not one word on the part of Sir John D'Oyly was said to

contradict it, until the appearance of the latter before the House of

Commons. But, my Lords, there is something much more serious in this

transaction. It is this,--that the evidence produced by Mr. Hastings is

the evidence of witnesses who are mere phantoms; they are persons who

could not, under Mr. Hastings's government, eat a bit of bread but upon

his own terms, and they are brought forward to give such evidence as may

answer his purposes.

You would naturally have imagined, that, in the House of Commons, where

clouds of witnesses had been before produced by the friends and agents

of Mr. Hastings, he would then have brought forward Sir John to

contradict this reported offer; but not a word from Sir John D'Oyly. At

last he is examined before the Committee of Managers. He refuses to

answer. Why? Because his answers might criminate himself. My Lords,

every answer that most of them have been required to make they are

sensible they cannot make without danger of criminating themselves,

being all involved in the crimes of the prisoner. He has corrupted and

ruined the whole service; there is not one of them that dares appear and

give a fair and full answer in any case, as you have seen in Mr.

Middleton, and many others at your bar. "I will not answer this

question," they say, "because it tends to criminate myself." How comes

it that the Company's servants are not able to give evidence in the

affairs of Mr. Hastings, without its tending to criminate themselves?

Well,--Sir John D'Oyly is in England,--why is he not called now? I have

not the honor of being intimately acquainted with him, but he is a man

of a reputable and honorable family. Why is he not called by Mr.

Hastings to verify the assertion, and why do they suffer this black

record to stand before your Lordships to be urged by us, and to press it

as we do against him? If he knows that Sir John D'Oyly can acquit him of

this part of our accusation, he would certainly bring him as a witness

to your bar; but he knows he cannot. When, therefore, I see upon your

records that Sir John D'Oyly and Mr. Hastings received such an offer for

the redemption of the Nabob's affairs out of their hands, I conclude,

first, that at the time of this offer the Nabob had not the disposal of

his own affairs,--and, secondly, that those who had the disposal of them

disposed of them so corruptly and prodigally that he thought they could

hardly be redeemed at too high a price. What explanation of this matter

has been attempted? There is no explanation given of it at all. It

stands clear, full, bare in all its nakedness before you. They have not

attempted to produce the least evidence against it. Therefore in that

state I leave it with you; and I shall only add, that Mr. Hastings

continued to make Munny Begum the first object of his attention, and

that, though he could not entirely remove Mahomed Reza Khan from the

seat of justice, he was made a cipher in it. All his other offices were

taken out of his hands and put into the hands of Sir John D'Oyly,

directly contrary to the orders of the Company, which certainly implied

the restitution of Mahomed Reza Khan to all the offices which he had

before held. He was stripped of everything but a feeble administration

of justice, which, I take for granted, could not, under the

circumstances, have been much better in his hands than it had been in

Sudder ul Huk Khan's.

Mr. Hastings's protection of this woman continued to the last; and when

he was going away, on the 3d of November, 1783, he wrote a sentimental

letter to the Court of Directors in her praise. This letter was

transmitted without having been communicated to the Council. You have

heard of delicate affidavits; here you have a sentimental official

despatch: your Lordships will find it in page 1092 and 1093 of your

printed Minutes. He writes in such a delicate, sentimental strain of

this woman, that I will venture to say you will not find in all the

"Arcadia," in all the novels and romances that ever were published, an

instance of a greater, a more constant, and more ardent affection,

defying time, ugliness, and old age, did ever exist, than existed in Mr.

Hastings towards this old woman, Munny Begum. As cases of this kind,

cases of gallantry abounding in sentimental expressions, are rare in the

Company's records, I recommend it as a curiosity to your Lordships'

reading, as well as a proof of what is the great spring and movement of

all the prisoner's actions. On this occasion he thus speaks of Munny

Begum.

"She, too, became the victim of your policy, and of the resentments

which succeeded. Something, too, she owed of the source of her

misfortunes to the belief of the personal gratitude which she

might entertain for the public attention which I had shown to her.

Yet, exposed as she was to a treatment which a ruffian would have

shuddered at committing, and which no recollection of past enmities

shall compel me to believe, even for a moment, proceeded from any

commission of authority, she still maintained the decorum of her

character; nor even then, nor before, nor since that period, has

the malice of calumny ever dared to breathe on her

reputation."--Delicate! sentimental!--"Pardon, honorable Sirs, this

freedom of expostulation. I must in honest truth repeat, that your

commands laid the first foundation of her misfortunes; to your

equity she has now recourse through me for their alleviation, that

she may pass the remainder of her life in a state which may at

least efface the remembrance of the years of her affliction; and to

your humanity she and an unseen multitude of the most helpless of

her sex cry for subsistence."

Moving and pathetic!--I wish to recommend every word of this letter to

your Lordships' consideration, as a model and pattern of perfection.

Observe his pity for a woman who had suffered such treatment from the

servants of the Company (a parcel of ruffians!)--treatment that a

ruffian would be ashamed of! Your Lordships have seen, in the evidence,

what this ruffianism was. It was neither more nor less than what was

necessary in order to get at the accounts, which she concealed, as his

own corrupt transactions. She was told, indeed, that she must privately

remove to another house whilst her papers were examining. Mr. Hastings

can never forget this. He cannot believe that anybody dare send such an

order; and he calls upon you to consider the helplessness of their sex,

and the affronts offered to women.

For Heaven's sake, my Lords, recollect the manner in which Mr. Hastings

and his creatures treated the Begums of Oude, and consider that this

woman was only threatened (for the threat was never attempted to be

executed) that she must, if she did not deliver up the accounts,

probably be removed to another house, and leave the accounts behind her.

This blot can never be effaced; and for this he desires the Court of

Directors to make her a large allowance to comfort her in her old age.

In this situation Mr. Hastings leaves her. He leaves in the situation I

have described the justice of the country. The only concern he has at

parting is, that this woman may have a large allowance.

But I have yet to tell your Lordships, and it appears upon your printed

Minutes, that this woman had a way of comforting herself:--for old

ladies of that description, who have passed their youth in amusements,

in dancing, and in gallantries, in their old age are apt to take comfort

in brandy. This lady was a smuggler, and had influence enough to avoid

payment of the duty on spirits, in which article she is the largest

dealer in the district,--as, indeed, she is in almost every species of

trade. Thus your Lordships see that this sentimental lady, whom Mr.

Hastings recommends to the Directors, had ways of comforting herself.

She carried on, notwithstanding her dignity, a trade in spirits. Now a

Mahometan of distinction never carries on any trade at all,--it is an

unknown thing,--very few Mahometans of any rank carry on any trade at

all; but that a Mahometan should carry on a trade in spirits is a

prodigy never heard of before; for a woman of quality, for a woman of

sentiment, to become a dealer in spirits is, my Lords, a thing reserved

for the sentimental age of Mr. Hastings; and I will venture to say that

no man or woman could attempt any such a trade in India, without being

dishonored, ruined in character, and disgraced by it. But she appears

not only to have been a dealer in it, but, through the influence which

Mr. Hastings gave her, to have monopolized the trade in brandy, and to

have evaded the duties. This, then, is the state in which we leave the

two sentimental lovers,--the one consoling herself with brandy, the

other wheedling and whining; and, as Swift describes the progress of an

intrigue in some respects similar, which he calls "The Progress of

Love," whereas this is the Progress of Sentiment,

"They keep at Staines the Old Blue Boar,

Are cat and dog, and rogue and whore."

Here they set up the sign of the Old Blue Boar. Munny Begum monopolizes

the trade in spirits; and hence she and Mr. Hastings commence their

sentimental correspondence.--And now, having done with this progress of

love, we return to the progress of justice.

* * * * *

We have seen how Sudder ul Huk Khan, the chief-justice of Mr. Hastings's

own nomination, was treated. Now you shall see how justice was left to

shift for herself under Mahomed Reza Khan. In page 1280 of your

Lordships' Minutes you will see the progress of all these

enormities,--of Munny Begum's dealing in spirits, of her engrossing the

trade, of her evading duties,--and, lastly, the extinction of all order

in that country, and the funeral of justice itself. Mr. Shore's evidence

respecting this state of the country will admit of no doubt.

_Mr. Shore's Remarks accompanying the Governor-General's Minutes of

the 18th May, 1785._

"Foujdarry jurisdiction.--Of the foujdarry jurisdiction nothing has

yet been said. In this department criminal justice is administered,

and it is the only office left to the Nabob. I do not see any

particular reason for changing the system itself, and perhaps it

would on many accounts be improper; but some regulations are highly

necessary. Mahomed Reza is at the head of this department, and is

the only person I know in the country qualified for it. If he were

left to himself, I have not a doubt but he would conduct it well;

but he is so circumscribed by recommendations of particular

persons, and by the protection held out to his officers by

Europeans, that to my knowledge he has not been able to punish

them, even when they have been convicted of the greatest

enormities; and he has often on this account been blamed, where his

hands were tied up."

My Lords, you now see in this minute of Sir John Shore, now

Governor-General of Bengal, one of Mr. Hastings's own committee for

drawing up his defence, the review which he had just then taken of the

ruins of the government which had been left to him by Mr. Hastings. You

see here not the little paltry things which might deserve in their

causes the animadversion of a rough satirist like Doctor Swift, whom I

have just quoted, but you see things ten thousand times more serious,

things that deserve the thunderbolt of vindictive justice upon the head

of the prisoner at your bar. For you see, that, after he had ostensibly

restored Mahomed Reza Khan, the man who could and would have executed

his office with fidelity and effect, the man who was fit for and

disposed to do his duty, there was still neither law, order, nor justice

in the country. Why? Because of the interposition of Europeans, and men

who must have been patronized and supported by Europeans. All this

happened before Mr. Hastings's departure: so that the whole effect of

the new arrangement of government was known to him before he left

Calcutta. The same pretended remedy was applied. But in fact he left

this woman in the full possession of her power. His last thoughts were

for her; for the justice of the country, for the peace and security of

the people of Bengal, he took no kind of care; these great interests

were left to the mercy of the woman and her European associates.

My Lords, I have taken some pains in giving you this history. I have

shown you his open acts and secret stratagems, in direct rebellion to

the Court of Directors,--his double government, his false pretences of

restoring the Nabob's independence, leading in effect to a most servile

dependence, even to the prohibition of the approach of any one, native

or European, near him, but through the intervention of Sir John D'Oyly.

I therefore again repeat it, that Sir John D'Oyly, and the English

gentlemen who were patronized and countenanced by Mr. Hastings, had

wrought all that havoc in the country before Mr. Hastings left it.

I have particularly dwelt upon the administration of justice, because I

consider it as the source of all good, and the maladministration of it

as the source of all evil in the country. Your Lordships have heard how

it was totally destroyed by Mr. Hastings through Sir John D'Oyly, who

was sent there by him for the purpose of forming a clandestine

government of corruption and peculation. This part of our charge speaks

for itself, and I shall dismiss it with a single observation,--that not

the least trace of an account of all these vast sums of money delivered

into the hands of Sir John D'Oyly for the use of the Nabob appears in

any part of the Company's records. The undeniable inferences to be drawn

from this fact are, first, that, wherever we find concealment of money,

and the ceasing of an account, there has been fraud,--and, secondly,

that, if we find this concealment accompanied with the devastation of a

country, and the extinction of justice in it, that devastation of the

country and that extinction of justice have been the result of that

fraudulent peculation.

I am sure your Lordships will not think that a charge of the

annihilation of administrative justice, in which the happiness and

prosperity of a great body of nobility, of numerous ancient and

respectable families, and of the inhabitants in general of extensive and

populous provinces are concerned, can, if it stood single and alone, be

a matter of trifling moment. And in favor of whom do all these

sacrifices appear to have been made? In favor of an old prostitute, who,

if shown to your Lordships here, like Helen to the counsellors of Troy,

would not, I think, be admitted to have charms that could palliate this

man's abominable conduct; you would not cry out with them,--

[Greek: Ou nemesis, ...

Toied' amphi gunaiki polun chronon algea paschein.]

For I will fairly say that there are some passions that have their

excuses; but the passion towards this woman was the passion of avarice

and rapacity only,--a passion, indeed, which lasted to the end of his

government, and for which he defied the orders of the Court of

Directors, rebelled against his masters, and finally subverted the

justice of a great country.

* * * * *

My Lords, I have done with this business. I come next to the third

division of the natives, those who form the landed interest of the

country. A few words only will be necessary upon this part of the

subject. The fact is, that Mr. Hastings, at one stroke, put up the

property of all the nobility and gentry, and of all the freeholders, in

short, the whole landed interest of Bengal, to a public auction, and let

it to the highest bidder. I will make no observations upon the nature of

this measure to your Lordships, who represent so large a part of the

dignity, together with so large a part of the landed interest of this

kingdom: though I think, that, even under your Lordships' restrictive

order, I am entitled so to do; because we have examined some witnesses

upon this point, in the revenue charge. Suffice it to say, that it is in

evidence before your Lordships that this sale was ordered. Mr. Hastings

does not deny it. He says, indeed, he did it not with an ill intention.

My answer is, that it could have been done with no other than a bad

intention. The owners of the land had no way left to save themselves but

to become farmers of their own estates; and from the competition which

naturally took place, (and he himself declared, that the persons,

whether owners or strangers, to whom he let the lands, had agreed to

rents which surpassed their abilities to pay,) I need not tell you what

must have been the consequence, when it got into such rapacious hands,

and was taken out of the hands of its natural proprietors: that the

public revenue had sunk and lost by it, and that the country was wasted

and destroyed. I leave it to your Lordships' own meditation and

reflection; and I shall not press it one step further than just to

remind you of what has been so well opened and pressed by my fellow

Managers. He, Mr. Hastings, confesses that he let the lands to his own

banians; he took his own domestic servants and put them in the houses of

the nobility of the country; and this he did in direct violation of an

express order made by himself, that no banian of a collector (the spirit

of which order implied ten thousand times more strongly the exclusion of

any banians of a Governor-General) should have any one of those farms.

We also find that he made a regulation that no farmers should rent more

than a lac of rupees; but at the same time we find his banians holding

several farms to more than that amount. In short, we find that in every

instance, where, under some plausible pretence or other, the fixed

regulations are violated, it touches him so closely as to make it

absolutely impossible not to suppose that he himself had the advantage

of it.

For, in the first place, you have proof that he does take bribes, and

that he has corrupt dealings. This is what he admits; but he says that

he has done it from public-spirited motives. Now there is a rule,

formed upon a just, solid presumption of law, that, if you find a man

guilty of one offence contrary to known law, whenever there is a

suspicious case against him of the same nature, the _onus probandi_ that

he is not guilty is turned upon him. Therefore, when I find the

regulations broken,--when I find farms given of more than a lac of

rupees,--when I find them given to the Governor-General's own banian,

contrary to the principle of the regulation, contrary, I say, in the

strongest way to it,--when I find that he accumulates farms beyond the

regulated number,--when I find all these things done, and besides that

the banian has great balances of account against him,--then, by the

presumption of law, I am bound to believe that all this was done, not

for the servants, but for the master.

It is possible Mr. Hastings might really be in love with Munny Begum; be

it so,--many great men have played the fool for prostitutes, from Mark

Antony's days downwards; but no man ever fell in love with his own

banian. The persons for whom Mr. Hastings was guilty of all this rapine

and oppression have neither relations nor kindred whom they own, nor

does any trace of friendship exist among them; they do not live in

habits of intimacy with any one; they are good fellows and

bottle-companions.

* * * * *

I must now proceed to observe upon another matter which has been stated

to your Lordships,--namely, that, as soon as he obtained the majority in

the Council, (that beginning of all evils, that opening of Pandora's

box,) by the death of General Clavering and Colonel Monson, the first

thing he did was to appoint a commission, called an _aumeeny_, to go

through the whole country, to enter every man's house, to examine his

title-deeds, and to demand his papers of accounts of every kind, for the

purpose of enabling himself to take advantage of the hopes and fears of

all the parties concerned, and thus to ravage and destroy all their

property.

And whom does he place at the head of this commission, to be the manager

of the whole affair? Gunga Govind Sing, another banian of his, and one

of his own domestic servants. This we have discovered lately, and not

without some surprise; for though I knew he kept a rogue in his house,

yet I did not think that it was a common receptacle of thieves and

robbers. I did not know till lately that this Gunga Govind Sing was his

domestic servant; but Mr. Hastings, in a letter to the Court of

Directors, calls him his faithful domestic servant, and as such calls

upon the Company to reward him. To this banian all the Company's

servants are made subject; they are bound to obey all his orders, and

those of his committee. I hope I need not tell your Lordships what sort

of stuff this committee was made of, by which Gunga Govind Sing was

enabled to ravage the whole country.

But, say his counsel, Mr. Hastings thought that the value of the lands

was thoroughly known; they had been investigated three times over, and

they were all let by public auction to the highest bidder.--This may or

may not be a true test of their value; but it is a test which, as it led

to the almost entire confiscation of the landed interest of Bengal,

Bahar, and Orissa, three great kingdoms, by a dash of that man's pen,

into the hands of his banians and creatures, I can never think of it,

or of its author, without horror.

Some people say, you ought to hate the crime and love the criminal. No,

that is the language of false morality; you ought to hate the crime and

the criminal, if the crime is of magnitude. If the crime is a small one,

then you ought to be angry with the crime and reluctant to punish the

criminal; but when there are great crimes, then you may hate them

together. What! am I to love Nero? to fall in love with Heliogabalus? is

Domitian to be the subject of my affection? No, we hate the crime, and

we hate the criminal ten times more; and if I use indignant language, if

I use the language of scorn and horror with respect to the criminal, I

use the language that becomes me.

But, says one of the counsel, the Company might possess a knowledge of

the country in general, but they could not know every _bega_, of it,

(about the third part of an acre of land,) without such a commission.

That is to say, you could not squeeze everything out of the people,

without ordering such a villain as Gunga Govind Sing, (I call things, by

their names,) that most atrocious and wicked instrument of the most

atrocious and wicked tyranny, to examine every man's papers, to oblige

every man to produce his titles and accounts upon pain of criminal

punishment, to be inflicted at the discretion of this commissioner, this

Gunga Govind Sing. For an account of these acts, and for a description

of an aumeeny, I refer your Lordships to the evidence in your Minutes,

from page 1287 to 1301; and I pass on, expressing only my horror and

detestation at it, and wishing to kindle in your Lordships' minds the

same horror and detestation of it.

Thus you see that Mr. Hastings was not satisfied with confiscation only.

He comes just afterwards with a blister upon the sore. He lets loose

another set of ravagers and inquisitors upon them, under Gunga Govind

Sing, and these poor people are ravaged by the whole tribe of Calcutta

banians.

Mr. Hastings has himself defined an aumeen in page 1022, where he states

that Nundcomar desired him to make his son an aumeen. "The promise which

he [Nundcomar] says I made him, that he should be constituted aumeen,

that is, inquisitor-general over the whole country, and that I would

delegate to him my whole power and influence, is something more than a

negative falsehood." He justly and naturally reprobates the proposition

of appointing an inquisitor-general over the whole country; and yet we

see him afterwards appointing Gunga Govind Sing such an

inquisitor-general over the whole country, in order that a bega of land

should not escape him.

Let us see how all this ended, and what it is that leads me directly to

the presumption of corruption against him in this wicked _aumeeny_

scheme. Now I will admit the whole scheme to have been well intended, I

will forgive the letting all the lands of Bengal by public auction, I

will forgive all he has done with regard to his banians, I shall forgive

him even this commission itself, if he will show your Lordships that

there was the smallest use made of it with regard to the settlement of

the revenues of the Company. If there was not, then there is obviously

one use only that could be made of it, namely, to put all the people of

the whole country under obedience to Gunga Govind Sing. What, then, was

done? Titles and accounts were exacted; the estimate was made, acre by

acre; but we have not been able to find one word on their records of any

return that was made to the Company of this investigation, or of any

settlement or assessment of the country founded upon it, or of any

regulation that was established upon it. Therefore, as an honest man,

and as a man who is standing here for the Commons of Great Britain, I

must not give way to any idle doubts and ridiculous suppositions. I

cannot, I say, entertain any doubts that the only purpose it was

designed to answer was to subject the whole landed interest of the

country to the cruel inquisition of Gunga Govind Sing, and to the cruel

purposes of Mr. Hastings. Show me another purpose and I will give up the

argument: for if there are two ways of accounting for the same act, it

is possible it may be attributed to the better motive; but when we see

that a bad thing was done under pretence of some good, we must attach a

bad motive to it, if the pretence be never fulfilled.

* * * * *

I have now done with the landed interest of Bengal. I have omitted much

which might have been pressed upon your Lordships, not from any

indisposition to remark upon the matter more fully, but because it has

been done already by abler persons; I only wished to make some practical

inferences, which, perhaps, in the hurry of my brother Managers, might

possibly have escaped them; I wished to show you that one system of

known or justly presumed corruption pervades the whole of this business,

from one end to the other. Having thus disposed of the native landed

interest, and the native zemindars or landholders of the country, I pass

to the English government.

My Lords, when we have shown plainly the utter extinction of the native

Mahometan government, when we have shown the extinction of the native

landed interest, what hope can there be for that afflicted country but

in the servants of the Company? When we have shown the corrupt state of

that service, what hope but from the Court of Directors, what hope but

in the superintending control of British tribunals? I think as well of

the body of my countrymen as any man can do. I do not think that any man

sent out to India is sent with an ill purpose, or goes out with bad

dispositions. No: I think the young men who go there are fair and

faithful representatives of the people of the same age,--uncorrupted,

but corruptible from their age, as we all are. They are sent there

young. There is but one thing held out to them,--"You are going to make

your fortune." The Company's service is to be the restoration of decayed

noble families; it is to be the renovation of old, and the making of new

ones. Now, when such a set of young men are sent out with these hopes

and views, and with little education, or a very imperfect one,--when

these people, from whatever rank of life selected, many from the best,

most from the middling, very few from the lowest, but, high, middling,

or low, they are sent out to make two things coincide which the wit of

man was never able to unite, to make their fortune and form their

education at once. What is the education of the generality of the world?

Reading a parcel of books? No. Restraint of discipline, emulation,

examples of virtues and of justice, form the education of the world. If

the Company's servants have not that education, and are left to give

loose to their natural passions, some would be corrupt of course, and

some would be uncorrupt; but probably the majority of them would be

inclined to pursue moderate courses between these two. Now I am to show

you that Mr. Hastings left these servants but this alternative: "Be

starved, be depressed, be ruined, disappoint the hopes of your families,

or be my slaves, be ready to be subservient to me in every iniquity I

shall order you to commit, and to conceal everything I shall wish you to

conceal." This was the state of the service. Therefore the Commons did

well and wisely, when they sent us here, not to attack this or that

servant who may have peculated, but to punish the man who was sent to

reform abuses, and to make Bengal furnish to the world a brilliant

example of British justice.

I shall now proceed to state briefly the abuses of the Company's

government,--to show you what Mr. Hastings was expected to do for their

reformation, and what he actually did do; I shall then show your

Lordships the effects of the whole.

I shall begin by reading to your Lordships an extract from the

Directors' letter to Bengal, of the 10th April, 1773.

"We wish we could refute the observation, that almost every attempt

made by us and our administrations at your Presidency for the

reforming of abuses has rather increased them, and added to the

miseries of the country we are so anxious to protect and cherish.

The truth of this observation appears fully in the late appointment

of supervisors and chiefs. Instituted as they were, to give relief

to the industrious tenants, to improve and enlarge our investments,

to destroy monopolies and retrench expenses, the end has by no

means been answerable to the institution. Are not the tenants more

than ever oppressed and wretched? Are our investments improved?

Have not the raw silk and cocoons been raised upon us fifty per

cent in price? We can hardly say what has not been made a monopoly.

And as to the expenses of your Presidency, they are at length

swelled to a degree we are no longer able to support. These facts

(for such they are) should have been stated to us as capital

reasons why neither our orders of 1771, nor indeed any regulations

whatever, could be carried into execution. But, perhaps, as this

would have proved too much, it was not suggested to us; for nothing

could more plainly indicate a state of anarchy, and that there was

no government existing in our servants in Bengal."

"And therefore, when oppression pervades the whole country, when

youths have been suffered with impunity to exercise sovereign

jurisdiction over the natives, and to acquire rapid fortunes by

monopolizing of commerce, it cannot be a wonder to us or

yourselves, that dadney merchants do not come forward to contract

with the Company, that the manufactures find their way through

foreign channels, or that our investments are at once enormously

dear and of a debased quality.

"It is evident that the evils which have been so destructive to us

lie too deep for any partial plans to reach or correct; it is

therefore our resolution to aim at the root of these evils: and we

are happy in having reason to believe that in every just and

necessary regulation we shall meet with the approbation and support

of the legislature, who consider the public as materially

interested in the Company's prosperity.

"In order to effectuate this great end, the first step must be to

restore perfect obedience and due subordination to your

administration. Our Governor and Council must reassume and exercise

their delegated powers upon every just occasion,--punish

delinquents, cherish the meritorious, discountenance that luxury

and dissipation which, to the reproach of government, prevailed in

Bengal. Our President, Mr. Hastings, we trust, will set the example

of temperance, economy, and application; and upon this, we are

sensible, much will depend. And here we take occasion, to indulge

the pleasure we have in acknowledging Mr. Hastings's services upon

the coast of Coromandel, in constructing, with equal labor and

ability, the plan which has so much improved our investments there;

and as we are persuaded he will persevere in the same laudable

pursuit through every branch of our affairs in Bengal, he, in

return, may depend on the steady support and favor of his

employers.

"Your settlement being thus put into a train of reform, (without

which, indeed, all regulations will prove ineffectual,) you are

next to revert to the old system, when the business of your

Presidency was principally performed by our own servants, who then

had knowledge of our investments, and every other department of our

concerns: you will therefore fill the several offices with the

factors and writers upon your establishment, (for, with our present

appointments, we are assured there will be sufficient for this

purpose,) and thus you will banish idleness, and its attendants,

extravagance and dissipation. And here we enjoin you to transmit to

us a faithful and minute state of the pay and every known

emolument of all below Council: for, as it is notorious that even

youths in our service expend in equipage, servants, dress, and

living infinitely more than our stated allowances can afford, we

cannot but be anxious to discover the means by which they are

enabled to proceed in this manner; and, indeed, so obnoxious is

this conduct to us, and so injurious in its consequences, that we

expect and require you to show your displeasure to all such as

shall transgress in this respect, contrasting it at the same time

with instances of kindness towards the sober, frugal, and

industrious."

My Lords, you see the state in which the Directors conceived the country

to be. That it was in this state is not denied by Mr. Hastings, who was

sent out for the purpose of reforming it. The Directors had swept away

almost the whole body of their Bengal servants for supposed corruption;

and they appointed a set of new ones, to regenerate, as it were, the

government of that country.

Mr. Hastings says, "I was brought to India like other people." This,

indeed, is true; and I hope it will prove an example and instruction to

all mankind never to employ a man who has been bred in base and corrupt

practices, from any hope that his local knowledge may make him the

fittest person to correct such practices. Mr. Hastings goes on to say,

that you could not expect more from him than could be done by a man bred

up, as he was, in the common habits of the country. This is also true.

My Lords, you might as well expect a man to be fit for a perfumer's

shop, who has lain a month in a pig's stye, as to expect that a man who

has been a contractor with the Company for a length of time is a fit

person for reforming abuses. Mr. Hastings has stated in general his

history, his merits, and his services. We have looked over with care the

records relative to his proceedings, and we find that in 1760 and 1761

he was in possession of a contract for bullocks and a contract for

provisions. It is no way wrong for any man to take a contract, provided

he does not do what Mr. Hastings has condemned in his

regulations,--become a contractor with his masters. But though I do not

bear upon Mr. Hastings for having spent his time in being a

bullock-contractor, yet I say that he ought to have laid aside all the

habits of a bullock-contractor when he was made a great minister for the

reformation of a great service full of abuses. I will show your

Lordships that he never did so; that, on the contrary, being bred in

those bad habits, and having had the education that I speak of, he

persevered in the habits which had been formed in him to the very last.

I understand it has been imputed as a sort of a crime in me, that I

stated something of the obscurity of Mr. Hastings's birth. The

imputation has no foundation. Can it be believed that any man could be

so absurd as to attack a man's birth, when he is accusing his actions?

No, I have always spoken of the low, sordid, and mercenary habits in

which he was bred; I said nothing of his birth. But, my Lords, I was a

good deal surprised when a friend of his and mine yesterday morning put

into my hands, who had been attacking Mr. Hastings's life and conduct, a

pedigree. I was appealing to the records of the Company; they answer by

sending me to the Herald's Office. Many of your Lordships' pedigrees

are obscure in comparison with that of Mr. Hastings; and I only wonder

how he came to derogate from such a line of nobles by becoming a

contractor for bullocks.

A man may be an honest bullock-contractor, (God forbid that many of them

in this country should not be very honest!) but I find his terms were

nearly four times as high as those which the House of Commons had

condemned as exorbitant. They were not only unusually high, but the

bullocks were badly supplied, and the contract had not been fairly

advertised. It was therefore agreed to declare the same void at the

expiration of twelve months, on the 1st December, 1763. I say again,

that I do not condemn him for being a bullock-contractor; but I am

suspicious of his honesty, because he has been nursed in bad and vicious

habits. That of contracting with his masters is a bad habit, as he

himself has stated in a record which is printed by the House of Commons.

I condemn him for being a fraudulent bullock-contractor: for he was

turned out of that contract for fraudulent practices; it was declared

void, and given to another at a lower price. After it was so disposed

of, Mr. Hastings himself, condemning his own original contract, which

was at twelve rupees for a certain species of bullocks, took the

contract again at seven; and on these terms it continued. What I

therefore contend for is this, that he carried with him the spirit of a

fraudulent bullock-contractor through the whole of the Company's

service, in its greatest and most important parts.

My Lords, the wading through all these corruptions is an unpleasant

employment for me; but what am I to think of a man who holds up his

head so high, that, when a matter of account is in discussion, such as

appears in this very defence that I have in my hand, he declares he does

not know anything about it? He cannot keep accounts: that is beneath

him. We trace him throughout the whole of his career engaged in a great

variety of mercantile employments; and yet, when he comes before you,

you would imagine that he had been bred in the study of the sublimest

sciences, and had no concern in anything else,--that he had been engaged

in writing a poem, an Iliad, or some work that might revive fallen

literature. There is but one exception to his abhorrence of accounts: he

always contrives to make up a good account for himself.

My Lords, we have read to you a letter in which the Court of Directors

have described the disorders of their service, the utter ruin of it, the

corruption that prevailed in it, and the destruction of the country by

it. When we are said to exaggerate, we use no stronger words than they

do. We cannot mince the matter; your Lordships should not mince it; no

little paltry delicacies should hinder you, when there is a country

expiring under all these things, from calling the authors to a strict

account. The Court of Directors sent him that statement; they

recommended to him a radical reformation. What does he do? We will read

his letter of 1773, in which you will find seeds sown for the

propagation of all those future abuses which terminated in the utter and

irremediable destruction of the whole service. After he has praised the

Directors for the trust that they had placed in him, after expressing

his highest gratitude, and so on, he says,--

"While I indulge the pleasure which I receive from the past

successes of my endeavors, I own I cannot refrain from looking back

with a mixture of anxiety on the omissions by which I am sensible I

may since have hazarded the diminution of your esteem. All my

letters addressed to your Honorable Court, and to the Secret

Committee, repeat the strongest promises of prosecuting the

inquiries into the conduct of your servants, which you have been

pleased to commit particularly to my charge. You will readily

perceive that I must have been sincere in those declarations; since

it would have argued great indiscretion to have made them, had I

foreseen my inability to perform them. I find myself now under the

disagreeable necessity of avowing that inability; at the same time

I will boldly take upon me to affirm, that, on whomsoever you might

have delegated that charge, and by whatever powers it might have

been accompanied, it would have been sufficient to occupy the

entire attention of those who were intrusted with it, and, even

with all the aids of leisure and authority, would have proved

ineffectual. I dare appeal to the public records, to the testimony

of those who have opportunities of knowing me, and even to the

detail which the public voice can report of the past acts of this

government, that my time has been neither idly nor uselessly

employed; yet such are the cares and embarrassments of this various

state, that, although much may be done, much more, even in matters

of moment, must necessarily remain neglected. To select from the

miscellaneous heap which each day's exigencies present to our

choice those points on which the general welfare of your affairs

most essentially depends, to provide expedients for future

advantages, and guard against probable evils, are all that your

administration can faithfully promise to perform for your service,

with their united labors most diligently exerted. They cannot look

back without sacrificing the objects of their immediate duty, which

are those of your interest, to endless researches, which can

produce no real good, and may expose your affairs to all the

ruinous consequences of personal malevolence, both here and at

home."

My Lords, you see here, that, after admitting that he has promised to

the Court of Directors to do what they ordered him to do, (and he had

promised to make a radical reform in their whole service, and to cure

those abuses which they have stated,) he declares that he will not

execute them; he pleads a variety of other occupations; but as to that

great fundamental grievance he was appointed to eradicate, he declares

he will not even attempt it. "Why did you promise?"--it naturally occurs

to ask him that question. "Why," says he, "you will readily perceive

that I must have been sincere in those declarations; since it would

have argued great indiscretion to have made them, had I known my

inability to perform them." This is a kind of argument that belongs to

Mr. Hastings exclusively. Most other people would say, "You may judge of

the sincerity of my promises by my zeal in the performance"; but he

says, "You may judge of the sincerity of my promises, because I would

not promise, if I had not thought I should be able to perform." It runs

in this ridiculous circle: "I promised to obey the Court of Directors;

therefore I knew that I could obey them: but I could not obey them;

therefore I was absolved from my promise, and did not attempt to obey

them." In fact, there is not so much as one grievance or abuse in the

country, that he reformed. And this was systematical in Mr. Hastings's

conduct,--that he was resolved to connive at the whole of the iniquities

of the service, because he was resolved that every one of those existing

iniquities should be practised by himself. "But," says he, "the

reformation required can produce no real good, and may expose your

affairs to all the ruinous consequences of personal malevolence, both

here and at home." This he gives you as a reason why he will not

prosecute the inquiry into abuses abroad,--because he is afraid that you

should punish him at home for doing his duty abroad,--that it will

expose him to malevolence at home; and therefore, to avoid being subject

to malevolence at home, he would not do his duty abroad.

He follows this with something that is perfectly extraordinary: he

desires, instead of doing his duty, which he declares it is impossible

to do, that he may be invested with an arbitrary power. I refer your

Lordships to pages 2827, 2828, and 2829 of the printed Minutes, where

you will find the system of his government to be formed upon a

resolution not to use any one legal means of punishing corruption, or

for the prevention of corruption; all that he desires is, to have an

absolute arbitrary power over the servants of the Company. There you

will see that arbitrary power for corrupt purposes over the servants of

the Company is the foundation of every part of his whole conduct. Remark

what he says here, and then judge whether these inferences are to be

eluded by any chicane.

"In the charge of oppression, although supported by the cries of

the people and the most authentic representations, it is yet

impossible, in most cases, to obtain legal proofs of it; and unless

the discretionary power which I have recommended be somewhere

lodged, the assurance of impunity from any formal inquiry will

baffle every order of the board; as, on the other hand, the fear of

the consequences will restrain every man within the bounds of his

duty, if he knows himself liable to suffer by the effects of a

single control."

My Lords, you see two things most material for you to consider in the

judgment of this great cause, which is the cause of nations. The first

thing for you to consider is the declaration of the culprit at your bar,

that a person may be pursued by the cries of a whole people,--that

documents the most authentic and satisfactory, but deficient in

technical form, may be produced against him,--in short, that he may be

guilty of the most enormous crimes,--and yet that legal proofs may be

wanting. This shows you how seriously you ought to consider, before you

reject any proof upon the idea that it is not technical legal proof. To

this assertion of Mr. Hastings I oppose, however, the opinion of a

gentleman who sits near his side, Mr. Sumner, which is much more

probable.

Mr. Hastings says, that the power of the Council is not effectual

against the inferior servants, that [it?] is too weak to coerce them.

With much more truth Mr. Sumner has said, in his minute, you might

easily coerce the inferior servants, but that the dread of falling upon

persons in high stations discourages and puts an end to complaint. I

quote the recorded authority of the gentleman near him, as being of

great weight in the affairs of the Company, to prove what is infinitely

more probable, the falsehood of Mr. Hastings's assertion, that an

inferior servant cannot be coerced, and that they must riot with

impunity in the spoils of the people.

But we will go to a much more serious part of the business. After

desiring arbitrary power in this letter, he desires a perpetuation of

it. And here he has given you a description of a bad Governor, to which

I must call your attention, as your Lordships will find it, in every

part of his proceeding, to be exactly applicable to himself and to his

own government.

"The first command of a state so extensive as that of Bengal is not

without opportunities of private emoluments; and although the

allowance which your bounty has liberally provided for your

servants may be reasonably expected to fix the bounds of their

desires, yet you will find it extremely difficult to restrain men

from profiting by other means, who look upon their appointment as

the measure of a day, and who, from the uncertainty of their

condition, see no room for any acquisition but of wealth, since

reputation and the consequences which follow the successful conduct

of great affairs are only to be attained in a course of years.

Under such circumstances, however rigid your orders may be, or

however supported, I am afraid that in most instances they will

produce no other fruits than either avowed disobedience or the

worst extreme of falsehood and hypocrisy. These are not the

principles which should rule the conduct of men whom you have

constituted the guardians of your property, and checks on the

morals and fidelity of others. The care of self-preservation will

naturally suggest the necessity of seizing the opportunity of

present power, when the duration of it is considered as limited to

the usual term of three years, and of applying it to the provision

of a future independency; therefore every renewal of this term is

liable to prove a reiterated oppression. It is perhaps owing to the

causes which I have described, and a proof of their existence, that

this appointment has been for some years past so eagerly solicited

and so easily resigned. There are yet other inconveniences

attendant on this habit, and perhaps an investigation of them all

would lead to endless discoveries. Every man whom your choice has

honored with so distinguished a trust seeks to merit approbation

and acquire an _eclat_ by innovations, for which the wild scene

before him affords ample and justifiable occasion."

You see, my Lords, he has stated, that, if a Governor is appointed to

hold his office only for a short time, the consequence would be either

an avowed disobedience, or, what is worse, extreme falsehood and

hypocrisy. Your Lordships know that this man has held his office for a

long time, and yet his disobedience has been avowed, and his hypocrisy

and his falsehood have been discovered, and have been proved to your

Lordships in the course of this trial. You see this man has declared

what are the principles which should rule the conduct of men whom you

have constituted the guardians of your property, and checks upon the

morals and fidelity of others. Mr. Hastings tells you himself directly

what his duty was; he tells you himself, and he pronounces his own

condemnation, what was expected from him, namely, that he should give a

great example himself, and be a check and guardian of the fidelity of

all that are under him. He declares, at the end of this letter, that a

very short continuance in their service would enable him to make a

fortune up to the height of his desire. He has since thought proper to

declare to you that he is a beggar and undone, notwithstanding all his

irregular resources in that very service.

I have read this letter to your Lordships, that you may contrast it with

the conduct of the prisoner, as stated by us, and proved by the evidence

we have adduced. We have stated and proved that Mr. Hastings did enter

upon a systematic connivance at the peculation of the Company's

servants, that he refused to institute any check whatever for the

purpose of preventing corruption, and that he carried into execution no

one measure of government agreeably to the positive and solemn

engagements into which he had entered with the Directors. We therefore

charge him, not only with his own corruptions, but with a systematic,

premeditated corruption of the whole service, from the time when he was

appointed, in the beginning of the year 1772, down to the year 1785,

when he left it. He never attempted to detect any one single abuse

whatever; he never endeavored once to put a stop to any corruption in

any man, black or white, in any way whatever. And thus he has acted in a

government of which he himself declares the nature to be such that it is

almost impossible so to detect misconduct as to give legal evidence of

it, though a man should be declared by the cries of the whole people to

be guilty.

My Lords, he desires an arbitrary power over the Company's servants to

be given to him. God forbid arbitrary power should be given into the

hands of any man! At the same time, God forbid, if by power be meant the

ability to discover, to reach, to check, and to punish subordinate

corruption, that he should not be enabled so to do, and to get at, to

prosecute, and punish delinquency by law! But honesty only, and not

arbitrary power, is necessary for that purpose. We well know, indeed,

that a government requiring arbitrary power has been the situation in

which this man has attempted to place us.

We know, also, my Lords, that there are cases in which the act of the

delinquent may be of consequence, while the example of the criminal,

from the obscurity of his situation, is of little importance: in other

cases, the act of the delinquent may be of no great importance, but the

consequences of the example dreadful. We know that crimes of great

magnitude, that acts of great tyranny, can but seldom be exercised, and

only by a few persons. They are privileged crimes. They are the dreadful

prerogatives of greatness, and of the highest situations only. But when

a Governor-General descends into the muck and filth of peculation and

corruption, when he receives bribes and extorts money, he does acts that

are imitable by everybody. There is not a single man, black or white,

from the highest to the lowest, that is possessed in the smallest degree

of momentary authority, that cannot imitate the acts of such a

Governor-General. Consider, then, what the consequences will be, when it

is laid down as a principle of the service, that no man is to be called

to account according to the existing laws, and that you must either

give, as he says, arbitrary power, or suffer your government to be

destroyed.

We asked Mr. Anderson, whether the covenant of every farmer of the

revenue did not forbid him from giving any presents to any persons, or

taking any. He answered, he did not exactly remember, (for the memory of

this gentleman is very indifferent, though the matter was in his own

particular province,) but he thought it did; and he referred us to the

record of it. I cannot get at the record; and therefore you must take it

as it stands from Mr. Anderson, without a reference to the record,--that

the farmers were forbidden to take or give any money to any person

whatever, beyond their engagements. Now, if a Governor-General comes to

that farmer, and says, "You must give a certain sum beyond your

engagements," he lets him loose to prey upon the landholders and

cultivators; and thus a way is prepared for the final desolation of the

whole country, by the malversation of the Governor, and by the

consequent oppressive conduct of the farmers.

Mr. Hastings being now put over the whole country to regulate it, let us

see what he has done. He says, "Let me have an arbitrary power, and I

will regulate it." He assumed arbitrary power, and turned in and out

every servant at his pleasure. But did he by that arbitrary power

correct any one corruption? Indeed, how could he? He does not say he

did. For when a man gives ill examples in himself, when he cannot set on

foot an inquiry that does not terminate in his own corruption, of course

he cannot institute any inquiry into the corruption of the other

servants.

But again, my Lords, the subordinate servant will say, "I cannot rise"

(properly here, as Mr. Hastings has well observed) "to the height of

greatness, power, distinction, rank, or honor in the government; but I

can make my fortune, according to my degree, my measure, and my place."

His views will be then directed so to make it. And when he sees that the

Governor-General is actuated by no other views,--when he himself, as a

farmer, is confidently assured of the corruptions of his superior,--when

he knows it to be laid down as a principle by the Governor-General, that

no corruption is to be inquired into, and that, if it be not expressly

laid down, yet that his conduct is such as to make it the same as if he

had actually so laid it down,--then, I say, every part of the service is

instantly and totally corrupted.

* * * * *

I shall next refer your Lordships to the article of contracts. Five

contracts have been laid before you, the extravagant and corrupt profits

of which have been proved to amount to 500,000_l._ We have shown you, by

the strongest presumptive evidence, that these contracts were given for

the purpose of corrupting the Company's servants in India, and of

corrupting the Company itself in England. You will recollect that

40,000_l._ was given in one morning for a contract which the contractor

was never to execute: I speak of Mr. Sulivan's contract. You will also

recollect that he was the son of the principal person in the Indian

direction, and who, in or out of office, was known to govern it, and to

be supported by the whole Indian interest of Mr. Hastings. You have seen

the corruption of Sir Eyre Coote, in giving to Mr. Croftes the bullock

contract. You have seen the bullock contracts stated to Mr. Hastings's

face, and not denied, to have been made for concealing a number of

corrupt interests. You have seen Mr. Auriol's contract, given to the

secretary of the Company by Mr. Hastings in order that he might have the

whole records and registers of the Company under his control. You have

seen that the contract and commission for the purchase of stores and

provisions, an enormous job, was given to Mr. Belli, an obscure man, for

whom Mr. Hastings offers himself as security, under circumstances that

went to prove that Mr. Belli held this commission for Mr. Hastings.

These, my Lords, are things that cannot be slurred over. The

Governor-General is corrupt; he corrupts all about him; he does it upon

system; he will make no inquiry.

My Lords, I have stated the amount of the sums which he has squandered

away in these contracts; but you will observe that we have brought

forward but five of them. Good God! when you consider the magnitude and

multiplicity of the Company's dealings, judge you what must be the

enormous mass of that corruption of which he has been the cause, and in

the profits of which he has partaken. When your Lordships shall have

considered this document, his defence, which I have read in part to you,

see whether you are not bound, when he imputes to us and throws upon us

the cause of all his corruption, to throw back the charge by your

decision, and hurl it with indignation upon himself.

But there is another shameless and most iniquitous circumstance, which I

have forgotten to mention, respecting these contracts. He not only

considered them as means of present power, and therefore protected his

favorites without the least inquiry into their conduct, and with

flagrant suspicion of a corrupt participation in their delinquency, but

he goes still farther: he declares, that, if he should be removed from

his government, he will give them a lease in these exorbitant profits,

for the purpose of securing a corrupt party to support and bear him out

by their evidence, upon the event of any inquiry into his conduct,--to

give him a _razinama_, to give him a flourishing character, whenever he

should come upon his trial. Hear what his principles are; hear what the

man himself avows.

"_Fort William, October 4, 1779._

"In answer to Mr. Francis's insinuation, that it is natural enough

for the agent to wish to secure himself before the expiration of

the present government, I avow the fact as to myself as well as the

agent. When I see a systematic opposition to every measure proposed

by me for the service of the public, by which an individual may

eventually benefit, I cannot hesitate a moment to declare it to be

my firm belief, that, should the government of this country be

placed in the hands of the present minority, they would seek the

ruin of every man connected with me; it is therefore only an act

of common justice in me to wish to secure them, as far as I legally

can, from the apprehension of future oppression."

Here is the principle avowed. He takes for granted, and he gives it the

name of oppression, that the person who should succeed him would take

away those unlawful and wicked emoluments, and give them to some other.

"But," says he, "I will put out of the Company's power the very means

of redress."

The document which I am now going to read to your Lordships contains a

declaration by Mr. Hastings of another mean which he used of corrupting

the whole Company's service.

_Minute of the Governor-General.--Extract from that Minute._

"Called upon continually by persons of high rank and station, both

in national and in the Company's councils, to protect and prefer

their friends in the army, and by the merits and services which

have come under my personal knowledge and observation, I suffer

both pain and humiliation at the want of power to reward the

meritorious, or to show a proper attention to the wishes of my

superiors, without having recourse to means which must be

considered as incompatible with the dignity of my station. The

slender relief which I entreat of the board from this state of

mortification is the authority to augment the number of my staff,

which will enable me to show a marked and particular attention in

circumstances such as above stated, and will be no considerable

burden to the Company."

My Lords, you here see what he has been endeavoring to effect, for the

express purpose of enabling him to secure himself a corrupt influence in

England. But there is another point much more material, which brings the

matter directly home to this court, and puts it to you either to punish

him or to declare yourselves to be accomplices in the corruption of the

whole service. Hear what the man himself says. I am first to mention to

your Lordships the occasion upon which the passage which I shall read to

you was written. It was when he was making his enormous and shameful

establishment of a Revenue Board, in the year 1781,--of which I shall

say a few words hereafter, as being a gross abuse in itself: he then

felt that the world would be so much shocked at the enormous prodigality

and corrupt profusion of what he was doing, that he at last spoke out

plainly.

_A Minute of Mr. Hastings, transmitted in a Letter by Mr. Wheler._

"In this, as it must be the case in every reformation, the interest

of individuals has been our principal, if not our only impediment.

We could not at once deprive so large a body of our fellow-servants

of their bread, without feeling that reluctance which humanity must

dictate,--not unaccompanied, perhaps, with some concern for the

consequence which our own credit might suffer by an act which

involved the fortunes of many, and extended its influence to all

their connections. This, added to the justice which was due to your

servants, who were removed for no fault of theirs, but for the

public convenience, induced us to continue their allowances until

other offices could be provided for them, and the more cheerfully

to submit to the expediency of leaving others in a temporary or

partial charge of the internal collections. In effect, the civil

officers [offices?] of this government might be reduced to a very

scanty number, were their exigency alone to determine the list of

your covenanted servants, which at this time consist of no less a

number than two hundred and fifty-two,--many of them the sons of

the first families in the kingdom of Great Britain, and every one

aspiring to the rapid acquisition of lacs, and to return to pass

the prime of their lives at home, as multitudes have done before

them. Neither will the revenues of this country suffice for such

boundless pretensions, nor are they compatible with yours and the

national interests, which may eventually suffer as certain a ruin

from the effects of private competition and the claims of patronage

as from the more dreaded calamities of war, or the other ordinary

causes which lead to the decline of dominion."

My Lords, you have here his declaration, that patronage, which he avows

to be one of the principles of his government, and to be the principle

of the last of his acts, is worse than war, pestilence, and famine,--and

that all these calamities together might not be so effectual as this

patronage in wasting and destroying the country. And at what time does

he tell you this? He tells it you when he himself had just wantonly

destroyed an old regular establishment for the purpose of creating a new

one, in which he says he was under the necessity of pensioning the

members of the old establishment from motives of mere humanity. He here

confesses himself to be the author of the whole mischief. "I could,"

says he, "have acted better; I might have avoided desolating the country

by peculation; but," says he, "I had sons of the first families in the

kingdom of Great Britain, every one aspiring to the rapid acquisition of

lacs, and this would not suffer me to do my duty." I hope your Lordships

will stigmatize the falsehood of this assertion. Consider, my Lords,

what he has said,--two hundred and fifty men at once, and in

succession, aspiring to come home in the prime of their youth with

_lacs_. You cannot take _lacs_ to be less than two; we cannot make a

plural less than two. Two lacs make 20,000_l._ Then multiply that, by

252, and you will find more than 2,500,000_l._ to be provided for that

set of gentlemen, and for the claims of patronage. Undoubtedly such a

patronage is worse than the most dreadful calamities of war, and all the

other causes which lead to decline of dominion.

My Lords, I beseech you to consider this plan of corrupting the

Company's servants, beginning with systematical corruption, and ending

with an avowed declaration that he will persist in this iniquitous

proceeding, and to the utmost of his power entail it upon the Company,

for the purpose of securing his accomplices against all the consequences

of any change in the Company's government. "I dare not," says he, "be

honest: if I make their fortunes, you will judge favorably of me; if I

do not make their fortunes, I shall find myself crushed with a load of

reproach and obloquy, from which I cannot escape in any other way than

by bribing the House of Peers." What a shameful avowal this to be made

in the face of the world! Your Lordships' judgment upon this great cause

will obliterate it from the memory of man.

But his apprehension of some change in the Company's government is not

his only pretext for some of these corrupt proceedings; he adverts also

to the opposition which he had to encounter with his colleagues, as

another circumstance which drove him to adopt others of these scandalous

expediences. Now there was a period when he had no longer to contend

with, or to fear, that opposition.

When he had got rid of the majority in the Council, which thwarted him,

what did he do? Did he himself correct any of the evils and disorders

which had prevailed in the service, and which his hostile majority had

purposed to reform? No, not one,--notwithstanding the Court of Directors

had supported the majority in all their declarations, and had accused

him of corruption and rebellion in every part of his opposition to them.

Now that he was free from the yoke of all the mischief of that cursed

majority which he deprecates, and which I have heard certain persons

consider as a great calamity, (a calamity indeed it was to

patronage,)--as soon, I say, as he was free from this, you would imagine

he had undertaken some great and capital reformation; for all the power

which the Company could give was in his hands,--total, absolute, and

unconfined.

I must here remind your Lordships, that the Provincial Councils was an

establishment made by Mr. Hastings. So confident was he in his own

opinion of the expediency of them, that he transmitted to the Court of

Directors a draught of an act of Parliament to confirm them. By this act

it was his intention to place them beyond the possibility of mutation.

Whatever opinion others might entertain of their weakness, inefficacy,

or other defects, Mr. Hastings found no such things in them. He had

declared in the beginning that he considered them as a sort of

experiment, but that in the progress he found them answer so perfectly

well that he proposed even an act of Parliament to support them. The

Court of Directors, knowing the mischiefs that innovation had produced

in their service, and the desolations which it had brought on the

country, commanded him not to take any step for changing them, without

their orders. Contrary, however, to his own declarations, contrary to

the sketch of an act of Parliament, which, for aught he knew, the

legislature might then have passed, (I know that it was in contemplation

to pass, about that time, several acts for regulating the Company's

affairs, and, for one, I should have been, as I always have been, a good

deal concerned in whatever tended to fix some kind of permanent and

settled government in Bengal,)--in violation, I say, of his duty, and in

contradiction to his own opinion, he at that time, without giving the

parties notice, turns out of their employments, situations, and bread,

the Provincial Councils.

And who were the members of those Provincial Councils? They were of high

rank in the Company's service; they were not junior servants, boys of a

day, but persons who had gone through some probation, who knew something

of the country, who were conversant in its revenues and in the course of

its business; they were, in short, men of considerable rank in the

Company's service. What did he do with these people? Without any regard

to their rank in the service,--no more than he had regarded the rank of

the nobility of the country,--he sweeps them all, in one day, from their

independent situations, without reference to the Directors, and turns

them all into pensioners upon the Company. And for what purpose was this

done? It was done in order to reduce the Company's servants, who, in

their independent situations, were too great a mass and volume for him

to corrupt, to an abject dependence upon his absolute power. It was,

that he might tell them, "You have lost your situations; you have

nothing but small alimentary pensions, nothing more than a maintenance;

and you must depend upon me whether you are to have anything more or

not." Thus at one stroke a large division of the Company's servants, and

one of the highest orders of them, were reduced, for their next bread,

to an absolute, submissive dependence upon his will; and the Company was

loaded with the pensions of all these discarded servants. Thus were

persons in an honorable, independent situation, earned by long service

in that country, and who were subject to punishment for their crimes, if

proved against them, all deprived, unheard, of their employments. You

would imagine that Mr. Hastings had at least charged them with

corruption. No, you will see upon your minutes, that, when he abolished

the Provincial Councils, he declared at the same time that he found no

fault with the persons concerned in them.

Thus, then, he has got rid, as your Lordships see, of one whole body of

the Company's servants; he has systematically corrupted the rest, and

provided, as far as lay in his power, for the perpetuation of their

corruption; he has connived at all their delinquencies, and has

destroyed the independence of all the superior orders of them.

Now hear what he does with regard to the Council-General itself. They

had, by the act that made Mr. Hastings Governor, the management of the

revenues vested in them. You have been shown by an honorable and able

fellow Manager of mine, that he took the business of this department

wholly out of the hand of the Council; that he named a committee for

the management of it, at an enormous expense,--committee made up of his

own creatures and dependants; and that, after destroying the Provincial

Councils, he brought down the whole management of the revenue to

Calcutta. This committee took this important business entirely out of

the hands of the Council, in which the act had vested it, and this

committee he formed without the orders of the Court of Directors, and

directly contrary to the act, which put the superintendence in the hands

of the Council.

Oh, but he reserved a superintendence over them.--You shall hear what

the superintendence was; you shall see, feel, smell, touch; it shall

enter into every avenue and pore of your soul. It will show you what was

the real principle of Mr. Hastings's government. We will read to you

what Sir John Shore says of that institution, and of the only ends and

purposes which it could answer; your Lordships will then see how far he

was justifiable in violating an act of Parliament, and giving out of the

Council's hands the great trust which the laws of his country had vested

in them. It is part of a paper written in 1785 by Mr. Shore, who was

sole acting president of this committee to which all Bengal was

delivered. He was an old servant of the Company, and he is now at the

head of the government of that country. He was Mr. Hastings's particular

friend, and therefore you cannot doubt either of his being a competent

evidence, or that he is a favorable evidence for Mr. Hastings, and that

he would not say one word against the establishment of which he himself

was at the head, that was not perfectly true, and forced out of him by

the truth of the case. There is not a single part of it that does not

point out some abuse.

"In the actual collection of the revenues, nothing is more

necessary than to give immediate attention to all complaints, which

are preferred daily without number, and to dispatch them in a

summary manner. This cannot be done where the control is remote. In

every purgunnah throughout Bengal there are some distinct usages,

which cannot be clearly known at a distance; yet in all complaints

of oppression or extortion, these must be known before a decision

can be pronounced. But to learn at Calcutta the particular customs

of a district of Rajeshahye or Dacca is almost impossible; and

considering the channel through which an explanation must pass, and

through which the complaint is made, any coloring may be given to

it, and oppression and extortion, to the ruin of a district, may be

practised with impunity. This is a continual source of

embarrassment to the Committee of Revenue in Calcutta.

"One object of their institution was to bring the revenues without

the expenses of agency to the Presidency, and to remove all local

control over the farmers, who were to pay their rents at Calcutta.

When complaints are made against farmers by the occupiers of the

lands, it is almost impossible to discriminate truth from

falsehood; but to prevent a failure in the revenue, it is found

necessary, in all doubtful cases, to support the farmer,--a

circumstance which may give rise to and confirm the most cruel acts

of oppression. The real state of any district cannot be known by

the Committee. An occupier or zemindar may plead, that an

inundation has ruined him, or that his country is a desert through

want of rain. An aumeen is sent to examine the complaint. He

returns with an exaggerated account of losses, proved in volumes of

intricate accounts, which the Committee have no time to read, and

for which the aumeen is well paid. Possibly, however, the whole

account is false. Suppose no aumeen is employed, and the renter is

held to the tenor of his engagement, the loss, if real, must

occasion his ruin, unless his assessment is very moderate indeed.

"I may venture to pronounce that the real state of the districts is

now less known, and the revenue less understood, than in the year

1774. Since the natives have had the disposal of accounts, since

they have been introduced as agents and trusted with authority,

intricacy and confusion have taken place. The records and accounts

which have been compiled are numerous, yet, when any particular

account is wanted, it cannot be found. It is the business of all,

from the ryots to the dewan, to conceal and deceive. The simplest

matters of fact are designedly covered with a veil through which no

human understanding can penetrate.

"With respect to the present Committee of Revenue, it is morally

impossible for them to execute the business they are intrusted

with. They are invested with a general control, and they have an

executive authority larger than ever was before given to any board

or body of men. They may and must get through the business; but to

pretend to assert that they really execute it would be folly and

falsehood.

"The grand object of the native dewannies was to acquire

independent control, and for many years they have pursued this

with wonderful art. The farmers and zemindars under the Committee

prosecute the same plan, and have already objections to anything

that has the least appearance of restriction. All control removed,

they can plunder as they please.

"The Committee must have a dewan, or executive officer, call him by

what name you please. This man, in fact, has all the revenues paid

at the Presidency at his disposal, and can, if he has any

abilities, bring all the renters under contribution. It is of

little advantage to restrain the Committee themselves from bribery

or corruption, when their executive officer has the power of

protecting [practising?] both undetected.

"To display the arts employed by a native on such an occasion would

fill a volume. He discovers the secret resources of the zemindars

and renters, their enemies and competitors, and by the engines of

hope and fear raised upon these foundations he can work them to his

purpose. The Committee, with the best intentions, best abilities,

and steadiest application, must, after all, be a tool in the hand

of their dewan."

Here is the account of Mr. Hastings's new Committee of Revenue,

substituted in the place of an establishment made by act of Parliament.

Here is what he has substituted for Provincial Councils. Here is what he

has substituted in the room of the whole regular order of the service,

which he totally subverted. Can we add anything to this picture? Can we

heighten it? Can we do anything more than to recommend it to your

Lordships' serious consideration?

But before I finally dismiss this part of our charge, I must request

your Lordships' most earnest attention to the true character of these

atrocious proceedings, as they now stand proved before you, by direct or

the strongest presumptive evidence, upon the Company's records, and by

his own confessions and declarations, and those of his most intimate

friends and avowed agents.

Your Lordships will recollect, that, previously to the appointment of

Mr. Hastings to be the Governor-General, in 1772, the collection of the

revenues was committed to a naib dewan, or native collector, under the

control of the Supreme Council,--and that Mr. Hastings did at that time,

and upon various occasions afterwards, declare it to be his decided and

fixed opinion, that nothing would be so detrimental to the interests of

the Company, and to the happiness and welfare of the inhabitants of

their provinces, as changes, and more especially sudden changes, in the

collection of their revenues. His opinion was also most strongly and

reiteratedly pressed upon him by his masters, the Court of Directors.

The first step taken after his appointment was to abolish the office of

naib dewan, and to send a committee through the provinces, at the

expense of 50,000_l._ a year, to make a settlement of rents to be paid

by the natives for five years. At the same time he appointed one of the

Company's servants to be the collector in each province, and he

abolished the General Board of Revenue, which had been established at

Moorshedabad, chiefly for the following reasons: that, by its exercising

a separate control, the members of the Supreme Council at Calcutta were

prevented from acquiring that intimate acquaintance with the revenues

which was necessary to persons in their station; and because many of the

powers necessary for the collection of the revenues could not be

delegated to a subordinate council. In consideration of these opinions,

orders, and declarations, he, in 1773, abolished the office of

collector, and transferred the management of the revenues to several

councils of revenue, called Provincial Councils, and recommended their

perpetual establishment by act of Parliament. In the year 1774, in

contradiction of his former opinion respecting the necessity of the

Supreme Council possessing all possible means of becoming acquainted

with the details of the revenue, he again recommended the continuance of

the Provincial Councils in all their parts. This he again declared to be

his deliberate opinion in 1775 and in 1776.

In the mean time a majority of the Supreme Council, consisting of

members who had generally differed in opinion from Mr. Hastings, had

transmitted their advice to the Court of Directors, recommending some

changes in the system of Provincial Councils. The Directors, in their

reply to this recommendation, did in 1777 order the Supreme Council to

form a new plan for the collection of the revenues, and to transmit it

to them for their consideration.

No such plan was transmitted; but in the year 1781, Mr. Hastings having

obtained a majority in the Council, he again changed the whole system,

both of collection of the revenue and of the executive administration of

civil and criminal justice. And who were the persons substituted in the

place of those whom he removed? Names, my Lords, with which you are

already but too well acquainted. At their head stands Munny Begum; then

comes his own domestic, and private bribe-agent, Gunga Govind Sing; then

his banian, Cantoo Baboo; then that instrument of all evil, Debi Sing;

then the whole tribe of his dependants, white and black, whom he made

farmers of the revenue, with Colonel Hannay at their head; and, lastly,

his confidential Residents, secret agents, and private secretaries, Mr.

Middleton, Major Palmer, &c., &c. Can your Lordships doubt, for a single

instant, of the real spirit of these proceedings? Can you doubt of the

whole design having originated and ended in corruption and peculation?

We have fully stated to you, from the authority of these parties

themselves, the effects and consequences of these proceedings,--namely,

the dilapidation of the revenues, and the ruin and desolation of the

provinces. And, my Lords, what else could have been expected or designed

by this sweeping subversion of the control of the Company's servants

over the collections of the revenue, and the vesting of it in a black

dewan, but fraud and peculation? What else, I say, was to be expected,

in the inextricable turnings and windings of that black mystery of

iniquity, but the concealment of every species of wrong, violence,

outrage, and oppression?

Your Lordships, then, have seen that the whole country was put into the

hands of Gunga Govind Sing; and when you remember who this Gunga Govind

Sing was, and how effectually Mr. Hastings had secured him against

detection, in every part of his malpractices and atrocities, can you for

a moment hesitate to believe that the whole project was planned and

executed for the purpose of putting all Bengal under contribution to Mr.

Hastings? But if you are resolved, after all this, to entertain a good

opinion of Mr. Hastings,--if you have taken it into your heads, for

reasons best known to yourselves, to imagine that he has some hidden

virtues, which in the government of Bengal he has not displayed, and

which, to us of the House of Commons, have not been discernible in any

one single instance,--these virtues may be fit subjects for paragraphs

in newspapers, they may be pleaded for him by the partisans of his

Indian _faction_, but your Lordships will do well to remember that it is

not to Mr. Hastings himself that you are trusting, but to Gunga Govind

Sing. If the Committee were tools in his hands, must not Mr. Hastings

have also been a tool in his hands? If they with whom he daily and

hourly had to transact business, and whose office it was to control and

restrain him, were unable so to do, is this control and restraint to be

expected from Mr. Hastings, who was his confidant, and whose corrupt

transactions he could at any time discover to the world? My worthy

colleague has traced the whole of Mr. Hastings's bribe account, in the

most clear and satisfactory manner, to Gunga Govind Sing,--him first,

him last, him midst, and without end. If we fail of the conviction of

the prisoner at your bar, your Lordships will not have acquitted Mr.

Hastings merely, but you will confirm all the robberies and rapines of

Gunga Govind Sing. You will recognize him as a faithful governor of

India. Yes, my Lords, let us rejoice in this man! Let us adopt him as

our own! Let our country, let this House, be proud of him! If Mr.

Hastings can be acquitted, we must admit Gunga Govind Sing's government

to be the greatest blessing that ever happened to mankind. But if Gunga

Govind Sing's government be the greatest curse that ever befell

suffering humanity, as we assert it to have been, there is the man that

placed him in it; there is his father, his godfather, the first author

and origin of all these evils and, calamities. My Lords, remember

Dinagepore; remember the bribe of 40,000_l._ which Gunga Govind Sing

procured for Mr. Hastings in that province, and the subsequent horror of

that scene.

But, my Lords, do you extend your confidence to Gunga Govind Sing? Not

even the face of this man, to whom the revenues of the Company, together

with the estates, fortunes, reputations, and lives of the inhabitants of

that country were delivered over, is known in those provinces. He

resides at Calcutta, and is represented by a variety of under-agents. Do

you know Govind Ghose? Do you know Nundulol? Do you know the whole tribe

of peculators, whom Mr. Hastings calls his faithful domestic servants?

Do you know all the persons that Gunga Govind Sing must employ in the

various ramifications of the revenues throughout all the provinces? Are

you prepared to trust all these? The Board of Revenue has confessed that

it could not control them. Mr. Hastings himself could not control them.

The establishment of this system was like Sin's opening the gates of

Hell: like her, he could open the gate,--but to shut, as Milton says,

exceeded his power. The former establishments, if defective, or if

abuses were found in them, might have been corrected. There was at least

the means of detecting and punishing abuse. But Mr. Hastings destroyed

the means of doing either, by putting the whole country into the hands

of Gunga Govind Sing.

Now, having seen all these things done, look to the account. Your

Lordships will now be pleased to look at this business as a mere account

of revenue. You will find, on comparing the three years in which Mr.

Hastings was in the minority with the three years after the appointment

of this Committee, that the assessment upon the country increased, but

that the revenue was diminished; and you will also find, which is a

matter that ought to astonish you, that the expenses of the collections

were increased by no less a sum than 500,000_l._ You may judge from this

what riot there was in rapacity and ravage, both amongst the European

and native agents, but chiefly amongst the natives: for Mr. Hastings did

not divide the greatest part of this spoil among the Company's servants,

but among this gang of black dependants. These accounts are in pages

1273 and 1274 of your Minutes.

My Lords, weighty indeed would have been the charge brought before your

Lordships by the Commons of Great Britain against the prisoner at your

bar, if they had fixed upon no other crime or misdemeanor than that

which I am now pressing upon you,--his throwing off the allegiance of

the Company, his putting a black master over himself, and his subjecting

the whole of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa, the whole of the Company's

servants, the Company's revenues, the Company's farms, to Gunga Govind

Sing. But, my Lords, it is a very curious and remarkable thing, that we

have traced this man as Mr. Hastings's bribe-broker up to the time of

the nomination of this Committee; we have traced him through a regular

series of bribery; he is Mr. Hastings's bribe-broker at Patna; he is Mr.

Hastings's bribe-broker at Nuddea; he is his bribe-broker at Dinagepore;

we find him his bribe-broker in all these places; but from the moment

that this Committee was constituted, it became a gulf in which the

prevention, the detection, and the correction of all kind of abuses

were sunk and lost forever. From the time when this Committee and Gunga

Govind Sing were appointed, you do not find one word more of Mr.

Hastings's bribes. Had he then ceased to receive any? or where are you

to look for them? You are to look for them in that 500,000_l._ excess of

expense in the revenue department, and in the rest of all that corrupt

traffic of Gunga Govind Sing of which we gave you specimens at the time

we proved his known bribes to you. These are nothing but index-hands to

point out to you the immense mass of corruption which had its origin,

and was daily accumulating in these provinces, under the protection of

Mr. Hastings. And can you think, and can we talk of such transactions,

without feeling emotions of indignation and horror not to be described?

Can we contemplate such scenes as these,--can we look upon those

desolated provinces, upon a country so ravaged, a people so

subdued,--Mahometans, Gentoos, our own countrymen, all trampled under

foot by this tyrant,--can we do this; without giving expression to those

feelings which, after animating us in this life, will comfort us when we

die, and will form our best part in another?

My Lords, I am now at the last day of my endeavors to inspire your

Lordships with a just sense of these unexampled atrocities. I have had a

great encyclopedia of crimes to deal with; I will get through them as

soon as I can; and I pray your Lordships to believe, that, if I omit

anything, it is to time I sacrifice it,--that it is to want of strength

I sacrifice it,--that it is to necessity, and not from any despair of

making, from the records and from the evidence, matter so omitted as

black as anything that I have yet brought before you.

The next thing of which I have to remind your Lordships respecting these

black agents of the prisoner is, that we find him, just before his

departure from India, recommending three of them, Gunga Govind Sing,

Gunga Ghose, and Nundulol, as persons fit and necessary to be rewarded

for their services by the Company. Now your Lordships will find, that,

of these faithful domestic servants, there is not one of them who was

not concerned in these enormous briberies, and in betraying their own

native and natural master. If I had time for it, I believe I could trace

every person to be, in proportion to Mr. Hastings's confidence in him,

the author of some great villany. These persons he thinks had not been

sufficiently rewarded, and accordingly he recommends to the board, as

his dying legacy, provision for these faithful attached servants of his,

and particularly for Gunga Govind Sing. The manner in which this man was

to be rewarded makes a part of the history of these transactions, as

curious, perhaps, as was ever exhibited to the world. Your Lordships

will find it in page 2841 of your Minutes.

The Rajah of Dinagepore was a child at that time about eleven years old,

and had succeeded to the Rajahship (by what means I shall say nothing)

when he was about five years old. He is made to apply to Mr. Hastings

for leave to grant a very considerable part of his estate to Gunga

Govind Sing, as a reward for his services. These services could only be

known to the Rajah's family by having robbed it of at least 40,000_l._,