INDIA
“We hold ourselves bound to the natives of our Indian territory
by the same obligations of duty which bind us to all our other
subjects.”--(Proclamation of Queen Victoria, 1st November 1858.)
Montaigne once uttered a protest against those historians who “chew
the mouthfuls for us,” and spoil all in the process. He coupled with
it, however, another vice which is really far more serious, namely,
their habit of laying down rules for judging, and “for bending history
to their fancy.” As for the presenting history in mouthfuls, it is
probably the only way of making it digestible except for those mighty
intellects which seize facts and figures with avidity, and assimilate
them as if by magic.
Further, the modern historian may urge in defence of the topical method
that it is the only practicable way of dealing with the infinity of
topics of the last two centuries, ranging over parliamentary debates
and wars, finance and social gossip, mean intrigues and philanthropic
movements, industrial changes and empire-building, the efforts of
great men and the impersonal forces that mould and move great nations,
together with the denuding agencies that weather away the old surface
and the resistless powers that thrust up a new world. How shall a
finite intellect grasp at once all the moving details of this varied
life? The mind craves to consider at any one time only one part of the
majestic procession, just as it demands that the facts of Nature shall
be grasped under different sciences. Human life is one as Nature is
one; but the division in each case is necessitated by the increasing
width of man’s outlook. All that is essential in the sorting-out
process is that it shall honestly set forth all the important facts,
and here and there open out vistas revealing the connection with
other fields of human activity. In short, history can no longer be
a detailed panorama of life, but it can and ought to be a series of
companion pictures, informed by the personality of the artist and
devoid of conscious prejudice.
Among the diverse subjects which confront us in the many-sided
career of Pitt, none stands more apart than that of his relations
to India. Of his Herculean labours we may, perhaps, term this one
the cleansing of the Augean stables. The corruption that clung about
the Indian Government, the baffling remoteness of its duties, the
singular relations of the East India Company to the Crown, and of its
own officials to it, above all, the storms of passion which had been
aroused by the masterful dealings of Warren Hastings and the furious
invectives of Burke, presented a problem which could not be solved
save by the exercise of insight, patience, and wise forcefulness. It
would greatly overburden this narrative to recount the signal services,
albeit marred by deeds of severity and injustice, whereby Hastings
grappled with the Mahratta War and the incursion of Hyder Ali into
the Carnatic. All that need be remembered here is that Parliament had
censured some of his actions and demanded his recall, that the Court of
Directors of the Company had endorsed that demand, but that the Court
of Proprietors had annulled it. Hastings therefore remained at his
post, mainly, it would appear, from a conviction that he alone could
safeguard British supremacy.
Accordingly, on this all-important question there was division in the
executive powers at Calcutta, and in the East India Company itself;
while the insubordination of very many of the Company’s servants in
India further revealed the insufficiency of Lord North’s Regulating Act
of 1773. Fortunately, however, the finances of the Company were in such
disorder as to make it amenable to pressure from Westminster. It owed
a very large sum to the Home Government for duties on its imports into
Great Britain; and Parliament was thus the better able to assert the
supremacy of the nation.
It was high time to make good this claim. The India Bills of Fox and
of Pitt had been thrown out; and thus, despite an infinity of talk,
the whole situation remained unchanged, except that nearly every one
now agreed that it must be changed. On questions of detail opinions
differed widely. Some of the proprietors and Directors of the Company
protested against any interference whatsoever with chartered rights
which they were perfectly able to uphold and vindicate. The opposite
extreme was touched by Fox during a preliminary debate on the affairs
of the Company, when he declared that body to be a sink of corruption
and iniquity, a mere conduit for bringing home the wealth acquired by
its servants in India. If, said he, the patronage of the India service
must be vested either in the Directors or in the Crown, let the Crown
take that influence from hands which had so shamefully abused it.
Pitt’s position, it soon appeared, was intermediate between these
extremes. Four days later, on 6th July 1784, he introduced his second
India Bill in a speech marked by great circumspection. He started from
the same principles which had fashioned the outlines of his former
measure (see chapter vii), that, though a charter ought not to override
the needs of the State, yet nothing but absolute necessity could
justify its abrogation. The affairs of the Company, he claimed, did
not warrant so extreme a measure. His aim would be, not to abolish,
but improve on, the existing plan of government for India. There were
two essentials to be aimed at, namely, a due share of activity and
resourcefulness in the Indian Government and obedience to the measures
dictated by Parliament. The former of these requisites could be
attained only by according to the Indian Government a certain degree of
power, and from the latter it resulted that that power must be subject
to the control of a regulating Board at home.
Pitt therefore recurred to his former plan. He left to the Governments
of the Presidencies, above all, to the Governor-General, enough
authority to enable them to cope with emergencies; but he also
proposed to subject them to a Board consisting of members chosen by
the Crown from the Privy Council. To this special committee of the
Privy Council would be entrusted the power of devising legislation
for India, of controlling Indian policy, and of recalling any of the
Company’s officials. It was not, however, to have a voice in those
questions of patronage which might deflect it from the path of duty and
impartiality. The proceedings of the Board might be open to perusal by
the Directors of the Company; but its behests would be final. In case
of flagrant disobedience, or of other grave offences, the officials and
servants of the Company were to be tried by a Commission consisting of
members of the two Houses of Parliament chosen by ballot shortly before
the trial.
Such were the chief proposals. As for the spirit which informed the
measures, it may be divined from that part of the speech in which
the Prime Minister set forth the fundamental principles of our
Indian policy. They were in brief these, the avoidance of war and of
alliances that might lead to war, and the use of such conciliatory
methods as would further the aim which we had chiefly in view--pacific
commerce.[290]
Neither the spirit of enlightened patriotism, which pervaded the
speech, nor the practical nature of the proposals screened the measure
from fierce opposition. That acrid opponent of Warren Hastings, Mr.
Francis, taunted Pitt with leaving to the Directors of the Company
the mere shadow of authority, but he prophesied that the large
powers vested in the Governor-General and in the Governments of the
Presidencies would be abused as flagrantly as ever they had been in the
past. Fox expanded these objections with his usual force, asserting
that far too large powers were given to the Crown, and that the
proposed Board would be quite as partisan a body as the Commissioners
to whom he in his India Bill had entrusted the regulating power. He
further insisted that to leave appointments to the Company, while
depriving it of authority, was a miserably weak expedient which must
sap the base of government. On their side, the Directors of the Company
complained that the present Bill at several points trenched on their
trading rights, which they had always expressly reserved to themselves;
and they urged that they must retain in their own hands the right of
recalling their own servants. As for the proposed tribunal for the
trial of disobedient officials, it seemed to them an unsatisfactory
experiment, seeing that both trial by jury and impeachment were ill
adapted to the complex questions of Indian administration.[291]
Nevertheless, the Company had to give way at nearly all points.
The powers of the Court of Proprietors almost entirely lapsed (to
the satisfaction of all but themselves); and a clause was passed,
compelling the Company’s officials to state on oath the amount of
their fortunes at the end of their service, Pitt himself suggesting
that private gains up to £2,000 a year after the first five years of
service should not be deemed culpable. Though the Bill prohibited the
receiving of “presents” from natives, it was clear that officials
would use other equally objectionable means in order to arrive at that
unobjectionable sum.
On the whole, however, the principle of controlling Indian affairs from
Westminster, which Lord North had rather haltingly asserted eleven
years earlier, now became the dominant fact of the situation. This will
be clear if we review the constitution and powers of the new Board of
Control. It was to consist of six members of the Privy Council chosen
by the King; the Chancellor of the Exchequer and one of the Secretaries
of State being always included. In the absence of these two, the senior
member of the remaining four was to preside; and finally the conduct
of the Board’s affairs came to rest virtually with him, so that he
became, in all but name, Secretary of State for India. For the present,
however, as appears from a letter of Dundas to Cornwallis of 29th July
1787, Pitt attended the Board regularly and thoroughly mastered its
business.
To this Board were submitted all letters and despatches between the
Company and its officials in India, except those which referred solely
to trade. Every proceeding and resolution of the Court of Directors
must come to it; and from it there issued orders which the Directors
were bound to enforce. Further, at the second reading Pitt amended his
Bill so as to allow the Board in urgent cases to frame and transmit
their commands to India without communicating them to the Directors.
Finally, if the Company appealed against the Board’s decisions, the
ultimate judgement lay with the King in Council, that is, with a body
largely the same as that from which it appealed.[292] While, therefore,
Pitt instituted what was called a system of dual control, that control,
save in the lower sphere of commerce, was really exercised by the Home
Government. In the long series of changes which transformed the venture
of a company of London merchants into an Empire administered by the
British people, no step is more important than that taken by him in
this, his first great constructive effort.
But this was not all. Various circumstances in the next eighteen months
showed the need of still further strengthening the Indian executive.
Certain ominous moves of the French caused anxiety. In the spring of
1785 their East India Company was revived on an imposing scale; and
the close relations subsisting between France and the Dutch Republic
augured ill for the British dominions in the Orient. Everything,
therefore, tended to emphasize the need of strong Government at
Calcutta; and the attention directed to Indian affairs, consequent on
the charges brought against Warren Hastings early in the year 1786,
further convinced many competent judges of the need of strengthening
the Indian executive. These considerations furnish the reasons which
led Pitt to bring in an Amending Act.
If we may judge from Pitt’s speeches of 17th and 22nd March of
that year, he had been much impressed by the sagacity of the
Governor-General in seeking to frame an alliance with the Great Mogul
for the purpose of counterbalancing the offensive league of Tippoo
Sahib with the French. The action of Hastings’ Council in frustrating
this statesmanlike plan, because it contravened the instructions of the
Company, showed the unwisdom of doubly tying the hands of a competent
governor, first by instructions drawn up in Leadenhall Street, and
secondly by a Council in which pedantry or personal spite could
paralyze great enterprises. Obviously what was required was to choose
the right man as Governor-General, then to grant him powers large
enough to meet serious crises, and to place him in such a relation to
the Home Government that those powers would not be abused. None of
these conditions could be satisfied so long as the Company appointed
the supreme officials and prescribed their functions.
But Pitt’s Bill of 1784 had changed all this. As we have seen, the
British Government was now the driving force of the Indian machinery,
the Company acting merely as an intermediate wheel. The responsibility
of the Governor-General to the new India Board and to Parliament having
been decisively asserted, his powers could now safely be increased.
This formed the _raison d’être_ of Pitt’s Amending Act of March 1786.
Though introduced by Dundas--a graceful compliment to his exertions
in Indian matters in time past--it emanated from the Prime Minister.
It applied the principles of the India Bill of 1784 to the servants
of the Company in Great Britain. But, what was far more important, it
enabled the Governor-General to override the opinions of his Council
at Calcutta, the members thenceforth merely recording in writing their
protests or the grounds of their opposition. The like powers were
also conferred on the Governors of Madras and Bombay. Finally, the
Governor-General was empowered to fill up any vacancy in the Council
occasioned by death, and was also to act as Commander-in-Chief.
These far-reaching proposals caused Burke’s spleen to overflow. He
burst forth into a violent diatribe against this “raw-head and bloody
bones Bill.” Pitt’s first India Bill, he declared, was an abortion of
tyranny, an imperfect foetus in a bottle, to be handed about as a show,
but hypocrisy had nursed it till now the full-grown monster was before
them.
And at his heels,
Leash’d in like hounds, shall famine, sword, and fire
Crouch for employment.
It was absurd, he said, to expect energy and despatch from a despotism
like that about to be set up in India. Democracy owed most of its
triumphs to the openness and strength of its operations. The joint
experience of many must prevail over the fallible judgements even
of the best mind on earth. After this outburst, which Burke must
have regretfully recalled when he undertook his crusade against
French democracy, Fox emptied the vials of his wrath on the measure,
especially taunting Pitt with robbing the Council at Calcutta of all
administrative functions. This was not surprising, he said, as the
Minister so obviously preferred speech to action. His speeches were
splendid, his actions presented a long record of failure. “Let others
act, the honourable gentleman desired only to argue.” Pitt wisely
declined to notice heated personalities, and limited his speech to
the task of proving that the Bill cured several of the weaknesses
of the Indian Government, and met the needs of the situation. This
reply, quiet, dignified, and practical, carried the House with him by
a majority of eighty-nine. The Bill passed the third reading without a
division on 27th March. Such was Pitt’s retort to the windy declamation
of his opponents.
Thus was completed the fabric begun two years before. Thenceforth the
Governor-General wielded a concentrated power such as India had not
known since the decline of the Moguls. No longer could he be thwarted
by the members of his own Council as Warren Hastings had often been by
the intrigues of Monson and Francis. In truth the Viceroyalty was now
an autocracy such as orientals could understand and respect. But this
autocracy was, after all, local and conditional--a fact which Burke
overlooked or ignored. While wielding despotic authority in India, the
new Viceroy was but an adjunct of the British constitutional machine.
It is perhaps the highest of Pitt’s achievements that he saw how to
combine two ideals of Government, the oriental and the occidental, in
a way that conduced to vigour of action in Bengal, and did not impair
popular progress at home. While investing the real ruler of India
with powers far greater than those wielded by Warren Hastings, he
subordinated them to the will of King and Parliament.
It has been asserted that Pitt was weak as a legislator.[293] It will
be well to notice this charge at the close of these volumes. But
surely, when judged by all conceivable standards, his India Bills must
take rank amongst the greatest of legislative achievements. For by
those measures, Pitt subordinated the most powerful of all Companies
to the British Parliament. By it, as we have seen, he harmonized the
claims of a viceregal autocracy in the Orient with those of popular
government at home; and he thereby saved the British Empire from the
fate which befell that of Rome. Historians of the Roman Republic agree
that the favourites of the Senate of the type of Verres who were
let loose on the provinces beyond the sea, not only proved the most
frightful scourge to the subject peoples, but also undermined popular
liberty at home by the unscrupulous use of their plundered hoards. The
same system palsied the limbs of that Empire and drugged its brain.
Whether the “nabobs” who rolled off from India and settled down in
England would finally have exerted this doubly baleful influence, it
is futile to inquire; but, had they gorged and bribed for several
generations, the results must have been serious among a people that
look on politics from a very practical standpoint.
On the other hand, to have run amok at that class, like Burke, might
have yielded them the ultimate victory. Pitt observed the golden mean.
For the present, the Company hailed him as its champion. But, while
saving it from the Quixotic crusader, he bound it and its servants by
strong ties, which it was found easy to tighten at every renewal of
the Charter. Above all he strengthened the hands of the Viceroy even
while binding him more closely to the Home Government. Has any other
statesman succeeded in the task of linking an oriental autocracy with
the ancient parliamentary system of a Teutonic race?
The first of the parliamentary Governors-General was the man whom
Pitt early in 1784 designed for the equally difficult post of Lord
Lieutenant of Ireland. In the summer of that year, as also early
in 1785, he urged Earl Cornwallis to combine the functions of
Governor-General and Commander-in-Chief of India; but the earl at that
time declined, partly because the powers of the Commander-in-Chief
were unduly restricted.[294] The high hopes which Dundas had long
entertained of the abilities of Cornwallis, shown by his desire to
offer to him the Viceroyalty in 1782, now led the Ministry to meet his
objections by introducing the Amending Act for extending the powers of
the Governor-General in cases of emergency.[295] Cornwallis accordingly
accepted office; and in the seven years of his Viceroyalty (1786–1793)
British rule was so far strengthened as to withstand the attacks of the
Mahrattas and the far-reaching combinations of Bonaparte.
* * * * *
The same year which saw the dawn of a new era for India, witnessed also
the impeachment of Warren Hastings. We are not concerned here with the
series of events which provided material for that longest and most
famous of our State trials. What does concern us is the behaviour of
Pitt in what was perhaps the most complex problem confronted in his
early manhood. Seeing that he was chiefly responsible for the vote in
the House of Commons which made impeachment inevitable, this part of
the question cannot be passed by. Difficult though it is to separate
one of the charges brought by Burke and Fox against Hastings from the
others, yet limits of space compel us to restrict our survey to that
one which induced Pitt to vote for the impeachment. It related to
Hastings’ treatment of Cheyt Singh, the Zamindar (not quite correctly
termed the Rajah) of Benares.
The reader is doubtless aware that Hastings’ tenure of the Governorship
of Bengal in and after the year 1772 coincided with a period of
exceptional difficulty, which was enhanced by the acrid and often
underhand opposition of Francis, Clavering, and Monson in the Governing
Council at Calcutta. Further, the East India Company was often on
the verge of bankruptcy. Undoubtedly the perpetual want of money led
Hastings to the most questionable of his enterprises, the letting
out of the Company’s troops to the Rajah of Oude for the purpose of
driving out or subjecting the Rohillas, a race of freebooters on his
north-western borders. But difficulties thickened with the outbreak
of the war with the Mahrattas and the French. The climax came in 1780
when Hyder Ali, the usurper of Mysore, let loose his hordes upon the
Carnatic, and threatened to sweep the British into the sea. Then it was
that the genius of Hastings awoke to full strength. He strained every
nerve to send from the Hooghly a large force of troops to the relief
of the despairing settlement at Madras; and, money being an essential,
he cast about for all means of finding it without wholly depleting the
exchequer of the embarrassed Company. Among other devices he pressed
one of his feudatories, Cheyt Singh, Zamindar of Benares, for a sum of
£50,000 in addition to the annual tribute. Seeing that the British held
the paramountcy in India, and therefore enjoyed the right of calling
on the vassal princes for help in time of emergency, the claim was
reasonable, especially as Cheyt Singh’s father owed his position to the
East India Company. After giving extra assistance in each of the years
1778–80, Cheyt Singh began to grow restive in 1780 when the demand was
renewed, and showed signs of disloyalty. Hastings thereupon imposed a
fine of £500,000. More than this, he went to Benares in person, hoping
to browbeat the Zamindar; but, his following being scanty, the troops
of the latter rose against him, and cooped him up in his residence.
With the splendid coolness which never deserted him, he manfully faced
the danger. Secretly he sent warning to some of the Company’s forces
not far distant, and British valour rescued him from his desperate
plight. An Englishman in resolution, Hastings was an oriental in his
methods of punishment and revenge. Forthwith he deposed Cheyt Singh,
and set in his place another Zamindar with a much enhanced tribute
(September 1781).
The same plea of overmastering necessity impelled him to interfere in
the affairs of Oude, an episode which, when tricked out in the gorgeous
rhetoric of Burke and Sheridan, shocked the conscience of the British
people. Sheridan’s oration on “The Spoliation of the Begums of Oude”
is perhaps the most thrilling Philippic of the modern world; but its
force is sensibly lessened when we know that Burke derived his version
of facts from a poisoned source. Francis, the bitter enemy of Warren
Hastings, had been worsted by that master-mind in the Council-chamber
at Calcutta; and, on challenging him to a duel, had been wounded in
fair fight. It was this man, beaten twice over, who in 1781 returned
to England to brood over means of revenge, and found them incarnate in
Burke.
The genius which enabled that great Irishman to pour out serene and
soul-satisfying judgements on the affairs of nations was allied with
a more than feminine sensitiveness that often left him at the mercy
of first impressions and Quixotic impulses. On all points of honour,
whether personal or national, his chivalrous nature carried him to
extremes bordering on the fantastic. The two incidents recounted above
kindled in him a passion of indignation, which cooled but slowly, even
when hatred of the French Revolution obsessed him. All attempts to
ascribe Burke’s crusade against Hastings to partisanship or personal
spite have egregiously failed. As Macaulay has shown in his brilliant
but untrustworthy essay on Warren Hastings, Burke’s opposition to
Hastings began in 1781, survived the kaleidoscopic changes of the
next decade, and lived on into the new world of the Revolutionary
Era. Clearly it resulted from a profound difference of view on Indian
affairs. Even to-day, when the justificatory facts of Hastings’ career
are well known, his actions are wholly condemned by men of a similar
bent of mind. On the other hand his policy appears statesmanlike to
those who look first at the wealth of benefits conferred on India by
the British Raj and pay little heed to miscarriages of justice which
they regard as incidental to an alien administration. The Hastings
episode will ever range in hostile groups men of strongly marked
dispositions; while the judicial minority will feel themselves drawn
perplexingly first to the sentimental side and then to the practical
side as new facts and considerations emerge from the welter of evidence.
From midsummer 1785, when Hastings landed at Plymouth and repaired to
the Court at Windsor, England was rent asunder by these prepossessions.
The King, as might be expected, received him with marked favour;
but it caused some surprise that Queen Charlotte, who was propriety
personified, should affably receive his wife, the _divorcée_ of a
complaisant Baron Imhoff. For a time it seemed that Hastings could
afford to scorn the efforts of his opponents. Burke had given
notice of a hostile motion in the House of Commons; but, in the then
discredited state of the Opposition, it was unlikely to pass. Ministers
for the most part approved the conduct of Hastings. Pitt also is said
to have been favourably impressed by an interview which they had
towards the end of June. Unfortunately no account survives of what must
have been a memorable meeting. Hastings was then fifty-two years of
age, exactly double the span of life passed by the Prime Minister. But
the young statesman had by instinct the same faculty of controlling his
feelings under a calm exterior which the Governor-General had perfected
during years of vindictive opposition at Calcutta. The countenance of
each was thin and worn by the workings of a too active brain, reminding
the beholder of the noble lines of Milton:
Deep on his front engraven
Deliberation sat and public care;
And princely counsel in his face yet shone
Majestic.
Undoubtedly they were then the ablest men of action of our race; and,
despite envious surmises to the contrary, we may be sure that Pitt
looked with admiration on the placid intellectual features of the man
whose gigantic toil had saved British India. Both of them had the
power of throwing off the cares of state and of indulging in playful
intercourse with friends;[296] and charm of manner and conversation
must have enlivened the interview.
Yet each was closely on his guard. The opposition of Dundas to Hastings
(for he it was who moved the vote of censure on him in May 1782) must
have coloured Pitt’s feelings; and Hastings, as we know, believed that
the India Bill of 1784 was a veiled attack upon himself. The interview
certainly did not reassure him; for he thenceforth informed his friends
that he could not depend on the support of Pitt.[297] The doubts were
strengthened by the omission of the honours that so distinguished a man
might have expected; but this fact was attributable to the motion of
censure of which Burke had given notice in the House.
Thus Pitt maintained a cautious reserve. To say that he was waiting
to see which way the wind would blow is manifestly unjust. He was
awaiting further information in what was a most complicated case. We
know that he sent to Hastings for an explanation of the terms of a
zamindar’s tenure of office, evidently in order to clear up some of
the questions respecting the Zamindar of Benares.[298] Thus, while
Lansdowne, Mansfield, and Thurlow loudly proclaimed their confidence in
Hastings; while the King continued to converse with him most affably at
the _levées_, and Queen Charlotte accepted a splendid ivory bedstead
presented by his wife, Pitt remained guardedly neutral.
Many members of the Opposition wished to let the motion of censure
drop, and urged this at a private meeting held at the Duke of
Portland’s residence shortly before the meeting of Parliament in
January 1786. But the zeal of Burke and Fox had not cooled with time.
Further, on the first day of the session they were pointedly challenged
by Major Scott, the accredited agent of Hastings in the House. At best
Scott was a poor champion. Verbose, tedious, and ever harping on the
same theme, he wearied the House with the wrongs of Hastings before
they came officially before it; and on the first day of the great trial
Fanny Burney remarked: “What a pity that Mr. Hastings should have
trusted his cause to so frivolous an agent! I believe--and indeed it is
the general belief, both of friends and foes--that to his officious and
injudicious zeal the present prosecution is wholly owing.”[299]
Yet Scott would scarcely have flung down the gauntlet without the
knowledge and consent of his patron. Indeed on all grounds it is
probable that Hastings, with his customary daring, preferred that the
question should come to the clear light of a trial rather than swell
with the accretions of gossip and dark innuendoes.[300] We must also
remember that until the vote of censure of 28th May 1782 was removed
from the journals of the House his name was under a cloud; and now that
the accusations of Burke and Francis hurtled more thickly through the
air, the whole matter was bound to come to the arbitrament of the law
or of pistols.
On Hastings and Scott, then, rests the responsibility for renewing
the strife. While they thus rashly opened the game, Burke replied on
17th February 1786 by a move of unusual skill. He requested that the
Clerk of the House should read Dundas’s resolutions of censure of May
1782, and then ironically suggested that that gentleman, formerly
the president of the special committee of the House, was the man who
now ought to take action against the ex-Viceroy. He himself was but
a humble member of that committee, and he now looked, but in vain,
to those in power to give effect to the earlier resolutions. “But I
perceive,” he said, with his eyes on Pitt, “that any operations by
which the three per cents may be raised in value affect Ministers more
deeply than the violated rights of millions of the human race.”[301]
Dundas, never an effective speaker, failed to wriggle away from the
charge of inconsistency thus pointedly driven home. The attitude of
Pitt was calm and dignified. In the course of the adjourned debate
he professed his neutrality on the question. While commending Burke
for the moderation with which he then urged his demands, he admitted
that the charges brought against Hastings ought to be investigated
and his guilt or innocence proved by incontestable evidence. “I am,”
he said, “neither a determined friend nor foe of Mr. Hastings, but I
will support the principles of justice and equity. I recommend a calm
dispassionate investigation, leaving every man to follow the impulse of
his own mind.”[302]
This declaration of neutrality, the import of which will appear in
the sequel, did not imply that there was to be no investigation.
The challenge having been thrown down, the tournament was bound to
proceed. Thenceforth Pitt confined himself to the functions of arbiter.
Burke now enlarged his motion so as to include all the official
correspondence respecting Oude, whereupon the Minister urged him always
to state his reasons for the production of documents, and not to expect
those which revealed any secret policy. Burke said he was ready to
specify his charges, and he did so. He further said that he was in
possession of abundant evidence to make good those charges. On his
applying for certain confidential papers, Pitt opposed the motion; but
he agreed to sixteen other motions for papers. In face of these facts,
how can the panegyrists of Warren Hastings claim that Pitt objected
to Burke’s procedure and carried a motion against it?[303] Burke’s
motions were agreed to without a division, the Prime Minister having
merely given an obviously necessary veto in the case of confidential
documents.
In view of the charges of gross inconsistency that have been brought
against Pitt on the Hastings trial, it will be well to look into
details somewhat closely. On 3rd March 1786 Burke returned to the
charge by pressing for the communication of papers respecting the
recent peace with the Mahrattas and cognate subjects. At once Dundas
and Pitt objected, on the ground that very many of those documents were
of the most confidential character, revealing, as they did, the secret
means whereby the Mahratta confederacy was dissolved. In the course
of his speech Pitt declared that Hastings had made that peace “with
an address and ingenuity that did him immortal honour.” But he added
that other charges against him might be substantiated. In vain did Fox
and Burke protest against the withholding of documents bearing on the
present topic. The sense of the House was against them. Wilberforce
applauded the caution of Ministers, as did eighty-seven members against
forty-four on a division. A similar motion by the accusers for the
production of papers relative to Delhi met with the same fate three
days later.
On Fox renewing his demand for the Delhi papers (17th March), Pitt took
occasion to state his views clearly. If State papers were called for in
order to set on foot a criminal prosecution, he required the mover to
“show a probable ground of guilt,” and secondly, that the papers were
necessary to substantiate that guilt; the third condition was that the
public service would not suffer by publication.[304] He then proceeded
to prove that the action of Hastings in seeking to form an alliance
with the Great Mogul (despite the orders of the Company) was timely and
statesmanlike, as it promised to thwart the alluring offers of Tippoo
Sahib and the French to that potentate. Finally he asserted that, if he
could reveal the Delhi correspondence to the House, all members would
see how improper its publication would be. For his own ease and for
the reputation of Hastings, which would be enhanced by such a step, he
could wish to give it to the world, especially as all the documents
hitherto granted were hostile to the ex-Viceroy; but in the interests
of the country he must oppose the demand of the prosecutors for the
Delhi papers. In spite of the slap-dash assertions of Sheridan that the
contents of those papers were perfectly well known, the House upheld
Pitt’s decision by 140 votes to 73.[305]
The next move of the prosecutors was to demand the presence of certain
witnesses at the bar of the House. The Master of the Rolls objected
on points of form, and also protested against the appearance of
pamphlets hostile to Hastings which had been industriously circulated
among the members of both Houses. Burke then admitted that most of
the State Papers asked for had been granted, though some had been
denied, but acridly complained that Ministers were now trying to
quash the prosecution. Pitt did not speak.[306] On 26th April Burke
brought forward two more charges, whereupon Pitt remarked that they
contained much criminal matter, but he had formed no opinion as to
their correctness; he hoped that it would appear otherwise, but the
House must examine them with the utmost impartiality. Fox having
taunted him with pretending to see no guilt where he saw too much,
Pitt deprecated such outbursts. Later in the debate he demurred to the
examination of witnesses called by the prosecutors before Hastings
himself had been heard at the bar. Justice, he said, demanded that the
accused should have a hearing before the accusers substantiated their
case. He also declared that he would not consent to the examination of
witnesses, still less to vote the impeachment of Hastings, on the vague
and indefinite charges as yet before the House. Wilberforce expressed
the hope that the Minister would persevere in the steady path he had
pursued and would not be driven from it by the intemperate attacks of
opponents. Burke inveighed against Pitt’s decision; but the latter
carried the day by 139 votes to 80.
It was therefore by Pitt’s action that Hastings procured a hearing
in the House--an opportunity which, if tactfully used, might have
disconcerted his accusers. But the opportunity was lost. Instead of
making a telling speech, Hastings proceeded to read a long and laboured
reply, which occupied all the sittings of 1st and 2nd May, and emptied
the House. Members accustomed to the faultless oratory of Pitt and
the debating vigour of Fox, yawned at the dreary recital of remote
events of which they knew little and cared less. Accordingly, it was
with enhanced hope of success that Burke, after a month of careful
preparation, brought forward his charges respecting the Rohilla War.
On 13th June he introduced them. On the former of them Grenville
defended the conduct of Hastings on the ground that the Rohillas
had by their raids provoked the war, and that it was well to remove
them. Dundas censured the Rohilla War, but maintained that, while the
Governor-General should have been recalled for it twelve years ago,
there was no ground for impeaching him for it now, especially as in
the interval Parliament had three times named him Governor-General.
Wilberforce, whose opinion weighed much with Pitt, took the same view.
The most significant speech of the defence was that of Wilbraham
who, on behalf of Hastings’ honour, urged the House to refer the
charges to the House of Lords, where alone a full acquittal could be
pronounced.[307] Pitt spoke only on a small technical point, but voted
with Grenville and Dundas. Despite a long and powerful speech by Fox,
the House sided with what seemed to be the ministerial view, and at
half-past seven in the morning of 3rd June rejected Burke’s motion by
119 votes to 67.
Undaunted by this further rebuff, Fox, on 13th June, very ably brought
up the charge relating to the treatment of Cheyt Singh, Zamindar of
Benares.[308] He allowed that the continuance of Hastings in power
twelve years after the Rohilla War seemed to imply that Parliament had
condoned that offence; but this plea could not be urged respecting
the Benares affair of 1781. He showed that the Company had agreed to
respect the independence of the Zamindar of Benares, and that Hastings
had pressed on him remorselessly for aids in money and cavalry, and
had finally mulcted the exhausted prince of half a million sterling.
The fate of Bengal, he claimed, depended on their condemnation of so
tyrannical a proceeding.
All eyes were turned on Pitt as he rose to state his views on this
question; and Wraxall avers that never did the range of his faculties
appear greater, his marshalling of facts more lucid, or his elocution
more easy and graceful. This is the more remarkable as the young
Minister avowed his desire on personal grounds to absent himself from
the discussion of so complex and remote a problem. We also know from
his letter of 10th June to Eden, that he had “hardly hours enough
to read all the papers on that voluminous article” (the Benares
charge).[309] It is therefore clear that he formed his judgement within
a very short time of his speech. In this, however, he soon showed
that he had probed the intricacies of the question. Setting forth in
detail the terms of a zamindar’s tenure, he disproved Fox’s contention
that the Company had no right to exact an “aid” from an “independent
rajah.” He demurred to the epithet “independent,” at least as regarded
the supreme power in India. The suzerain power has as good a right in
time of crisis to exact “aids” from its feudatories as any Suzerain in
Europe from his feudal dependents. Next he crushed Francis by citing
his own written opinion that extraordinary demands might be exacted
from such feudatories. Having set forth the question in its true light,
and exposed the inconsistency and malice of Francis, he approached
the crux of the whole problem, whether the fine ultimately exacted
from Cheyt Singh was not excessive. Here he objected to the drawing
of precedents solely from the days of the Indian Emperors. It was the
duty of every British administrator to behave according to the rules of
justice and liberty; and, said he, “On this ground I feel it impossible
to acquit Mr. Hastings of the whole of the charge brought against him;
for I feel in my conscience that he has pushed the exercise of that
arbitrary discretion which, from the nature of the Eastern Government,
was intrusted to him to a greater length than he was warranted to do by
the necessity of the service.” While justified in imposing a penalty,
he continued, Hastings had not proportioned the punishment to the
guilt. In fining Cheyt Singh £500,000 for a mere delay to pay £50,000
(which £50,000 in the last instance was actually paid) Hastings had
“proceeded in an arbitrary tyrannical manner.” As to the restoration of
Cheyt Singh to his possessions, it was beset by certain difficulties,
and he preferred for the present to withhold his opinion.
That speech led to the impeachment of Warren Hastings; for though
Grenville, Lord Mulgrave, and the Attorney-General (Pepper Arden) spoke
against the Prime Minister, the judgement of the last named prevailed;
the House endorsed it by 119 votes to 79, or about the same numbers as
had rejected the previous charge. The conduct of Pitt on this occasion
has been vehemently assailed. Wraxall, writing many years later,
maintained that it was a sudden and unaccountable change of front; and
he further suggested that the jealousy which was said to be felt by
Dundas for the superior abilities of Hastings might have influenced
Pitt’s action.
As the insinuation has been endlessly repeated, I may be pardoned for
dwelling on it somewhat fully. The story has been tricked out with a
wealth of details. It is asserted that Pitt issued a Treasury circular
calling for the attendance of his supporters on the 13th of June, as
if it were for the defence of Hastings. No proof of this statement has
ever been given; and there are good grounds for disbelieving it. In
the first place it should be remembered that attendance at the House
had been greatly thinned by the Whitsuntide holidays. The vacation was
just over; and, as everyone acquainted with Parliament ought to know, a
full House was hardly to be expected at the first sitting afterwards.
Pitt’s letter of 10th June to Eden contains the following sentence.
After stating that there had recently been a short and languid debate,
and a division of seventy-one to thirty-three, he continues: “We
shall probably have some attendance next Tuesday when Mr. Fox moves
the charge respecting Benares; and after that our chief difficulty
will be to get a House for the next fortnight. In the meantime I have
hardly hours enough to read all the papers necessary on that voluminous
article.”[310]
These are not the words of a man who is about to perform an act of
treachery. It is clear that Pitt found great difficulty in getting
through the evidence on that charge before the debate came on; and
further, that he was doing his duty as leader of the House in trying
to assure as good an attendance as the holiday season permitted on
a charge of this importance. Wraxall, who here opposed Pitt, makes
no mention of any ministerial “whip” in favour of Hastings, as he
would certainly have done if he could thereby have strengthened his
case against him. The fact that neither he nor Tomline refers to the
calumny proves the lateness of its origin. Further, if a special “whip”
had been sent out for the support of Hastings, would not some of the
ex-Viceroy’s friends, especially Major Scott, have exposed the fraud?
But no reference to it is to be found in the report of that debate.
Are we also to suppose that the forty or fifty members who changed
sides with Pitt, would have gone over to the accusers if he had been
guilty of such duplicity? Finally, it is clear from the remarks of
Grenville, Mulgrave, and Pepper Arden, that even the colleagues of Pitt
felt perfectly free to vote as they chose. Mulgrave declared that the
Prime Minister would not be fit to remain in office a single day if he
expected his friends and associates to give up their opinions on this
subject. Pitt, as we have seen, had at the outset called on members
to exercise their impartiality; and he now assented to Mulgrave’s
statement.[311] The story that Pitt sent round a “whip” for the support
of Hastings, and then drove his followers like sheep into the opposite
lobby, may therefore be dismissed as a malicious fiction, at variance
with all the known facts of the case.
Then again it is stated by Lord Campbell in his sketch of the life
of Lord Eldon,[312] that Pitt mysteriously abandoned Hastings,
“and--contrary to the wish of Lord Thurlow who had a scheme for making
Hastings a peer, perhaps a Minister--gave him up to impeachment.” The
charge is made in a very loose way; but on it the detractors of Pitt
have built a theory that Dundas and he feared the advent of Hastings
to the India Board, or to the Ministry, or to the House of Lords. This
story has been varied and amplified, so that in one version George III
appears as desirous of forcing him into the Cabinet, or granting him a
peerage on the sole recommendation of Thurlow. But the letter which the
King wrote to Pitt on 14th June shows that, while regretting his action
concerning Hastings, he respected his conscientiousness, and harboured
no thought of breaking with him.[313] That Thurlow had boasted of his
power to further the interests of Hastings is likely enough; but it is
certain that the King never thought of thrusting the ex-Viceroy into
the Cabinet, or the India Board of Control, or of raising him to the
House of Lords without the approval of his Prime Minister. The King’s
letters to Pitt[314] show that his chief desire then was to meet the
large and growing expenses of his family; and Pitt’s economic policy
made his continuance in power at that time especially desirable. Royal
condescension towards Hastings set all tongues wagging; and they have
wagged ever since on the malignant jealousy of Dundas, and the gross
inconsistency of Pitt; but the proofs adduced are of the flimsiest
character. Wraxall and Bland Burges, who later on jotted down their
impressions of parliamentary life, asserted that Dundas had somehow
become convinced that the King intended to eject him from the India
Board of Control and put Hastings in his place. But neither of them
gave any proof. Wraxall merely stated that “the public believed” that
Dundas feared such a change.[315] Bland Burges averred that Dundas had
“by some means” come to know the secret intention of the King, and
therefore “sedulously fanned Mr. Pitt’s jealousy and uneasiness and so
alarmed his mind that he hurried him on to a decision before he had
time to satisfy himself as to its justice or expediency.”[316]
Equally unconvincing is the story, which Hastings himself told some
thirty years later, that on the morning of 13th June Dundas called on
Pitt, remained closeted with him for some hours, and convinced him that
they must abandon the ex-Viceroy. The insinuation conveyed in this
belated anecdote is that Pitt was then and there won over by Dundas,
and owing to the mean motives mentioned above. The ingrained tendency
of men to seek for petty personal pretexts rather than larger, more
generous, and more obvious causes, seems to be the _raison d’être_
of the story and of its perpetuation. There are also some natures so
warped by partisanship that they naturally refer actions of political
opponents to discreditable motives; and it is a sign of the bias which
detracts from the value of Macaulay’s “Warren Hastings,” that he did
not mention the late date at which the story was started, while he
gives it as an historic fact that Pitt’s change of front was “the
result of this conference.”
No statement of what went on at this alleged interview has ever been
forthcoming; but, fortunately, on the all important question of motive,
we have the clear testimony of one who knew Pitt most intimately,
and whose political differences never distorted his imagination.
Wilberforce, who had followed Pitt’s actions closely throughout the
case, afterwards declared that justice had not been done to Pitt:--
People [he said] were asking what could make Pitt support him
[Hastings] on this point and on that, as if he was acting from
political motives; whereas he was always weighing in every
particular whether Hastings had exceeded the discretionary power
lodged in him. I well remember (I could swear to it now) Pitt
listening most attentively to some facts which were coming out
either in the first or second case. He beckoned me over, and went
with me behind the chair, and said: “Does not this look very ill
to you?” “Very bad indeed.” He then returned to his place and made
his speech, giving up Hastings’ case. He paid as much impartial
attention to it as if he were a juryman.[317]
Here we have evidence at first hand, though belonging to Wilberforce’s
later years. Clearly it must refer to the events of 13th June; and
it shows that if any one person was responsible for Pitt’s change of
front that person was Wilberforce. Late in life the philanthropist
declared that Pitt’s regard for truth was exceptionally keen, springing
as it did “from a moral purity which appeared to be a part of his
nature.” He also added that the want of simplicity and frankness
sometimes observable in his answers really sprang from this scrupulous
veracity.[318]
To quote the opinion of another experienced politician. William
Pulteney wrote to Pitt the following hitherto unpublished letter:
LONDON, 15th June 1786.
I cannot abstain from congratulating you on the line you took on
Tuesday. It will do you great credit everywhere, but, what you
will always think of more importance, I am convinced it will have
the most salutary effects in every part of this great Empire,
and particularly in India. Such is the powerful influence of
strict honour and justice in those who govern kingdoms that it
pervades every mind and in a great degree regulates the conduct of
individuals. On the other hand, the wilfully permitting persons in
high and responsible situations to go unpunished and uncensured,
when guilty of important offences, is sufficient to foster the bad
and corrupt principles in all other minds and to lay a foundation
for similar and greater offences. You have my hearty thanks, and I
am sure will have the thanks of all who understand the importance
of your conduct.
I am, etc.
W. PULTENEY.[319]
Few persons did understand his conduct, and sensitive pride kept his
lips sealed. Nevertheless to all unprejudiced minds his conduct needed
no defence. On that higher plane where truth and justice are alone
considered (for justice is applied truth), Pitt did not swerve from
the principles which he at first laid down. From the beginning of the
Hastings case he had sought to hold the balances even. He left it open
to his colleagues to differ from him. He refused the publication of
papers favourable to Hastings where they compromised the welfare of the
State or the characters of our Indian feudatories. He insisted that
the charges against Hastings should be clearly drawn up, and that he
should be allowed to answer those charges in person. On the topic of
the Rohilla War he did not speak, doubtless because his mind was not
made up. The fact that Parliament had three times re-appointed Hastings
after that very censurable event, did in a technical sense screen him
from prosecution now. But on the Benares affair, no such plea could be
urged. It was a question on which the present Parliament alone had to
decide.
The enormous vogue enjoyed by Macaulay’s Essays compels me once more
to notice his treatment of Pitt respecting the Benares charge. A man
of philosophic temperament once expressed a wish that he was as sure
about anything, as the great Whig historian was about everything. This
assertiveness peeps through the veil of diffidence which Macaulay
donned before delivering the verdict, that any man with a tenth part of
Pitt’s abilities ought to have convicted Hastings on the Rohilla charge
and acquitted him on the Benares charge.[320] In order to establish
this assertion Macaulay passed by the technical plea above named,
which must have weighed with Pitt, and then used his powers of special
pleading to whittle down Pitt’s arguments on the Benares case, so that
they seem to turn ultimately on the trumpery question whether the fine
inflicted on the Zamindar was rather too large or not. But we may ask,
firstly, was it a small affair to exact half a million sterling from a
prince who during three years had been hard pressed, and as a matter of
fact had paid up the arrears for which that fine was imposed? Did it
concern the Zamindar alone? Did it not concern all the subjects from
whom that half million must ultimately be wrung?
Not only did the conduct of Hastings far exceed the limits required by
justice; it was also bound up with a question on which the stability of
our Indian Empire has ever rested. So long as the feudatories of the
British Raj feel confidence in his sense of justice, India is safe.
Whenever they have cause to believe that injustice and oppression are
the characteristics of his rule, the foundations of the Indian Empire
are shaken to their base. Not without reason did Fox declare that the
decision on the Benares affair was vital to the preservation of our
ascendancy in Bengal. The statesmanlike eye of Pitt, we may be sure,
discerned the same truth. Besides, there was an additional reason why
he should now more than ever resolve to engrave the names of Justice
and Mercy on the newly formed arch of the Indian Government. As has
been shown, the recent India Bill placed greatly increased powers in
the hands of the Governor-General. Burke and Fox had taunted Pitt
with setting up a despotism from which endless suffering must flow.
The charge was hollow; but, adorned as it was by splendid rhetoric,
it created a deep impression. Was it not well, then, to show by a
concrete example that any Viceroy who violated the principles of
justice would meet with condign punishment at Westminster? A statesman
has to consider, not merely the principles of justice, as applied to
an individual; he must also think of the results of his actions on
the millions whom they will affect; and we may reasonably infer that
among the motives which led Pitt to break with many of his friends
not the least was a heartfelt desire to safeguard the relations of
the feudatories to the Suzerain Power, and to protect the myriads of
Hindoos who had no protection save in the dimly known court of appeal
at Westminster.
On the charge respecting the spoliation of the Begums of Oude, Pitt
also cast his vote against Hastings; and again a majority followed him.
It is questionable whether even the sensationally brilliant oration of
Sheridan on this affecting topic moved the House so much as the silent
but scornful disapproval expressed in Pitt’s vote.[321] The impeachment
was thenceforth inevitable.
With the forensic pageant that ensued we are not here concerned.
Thenceforth the case belonged strictly to the legal domain. Its
duration throughout the years 1788–95 was certainly discreditable to
British law. Hastings out of his never affluent fortunes spent some
£71,000 in the vindication of his actions,[322] and at last secured an
acquittal. But though men in Europe forgot the case amidst the potent
distractions of the French Revolution, the effect of it was not lost
upon the Orient. The comparative calm which settled benignly on India
for twelve years may be attributed largely to a renewal of confidence
in the sense of justice of our people. After the events of the year
1786 princes and peasants alike felt assured that the most transcendent
services, if smirched with acts of injustice, would never screen a
Viceroy from the censure of the British Parliament.