DEMAND OF FIVE THOUSAND HORSE.
I. That, notwithstanding his own private honor thus deeply engaged,
notwithstanding the public justice and generosity of the Company and the
nation thus solemnly committed, disregarding the plain import and
positive terms of the guarantied treaty, the Governor-General, Warren
Hastings aforesaid, in November, 1780, while a body of Fyzoola Khân's
cavalry, voluntarily granted, were still serving under a British
officer, did recommend to the Vizier "to require from Fyzoola Khân the
quota of troops stipulated by treaty to be furnished by the latter for
his [the Vizier's] service, being FIVE THOUSAND HORSE," though, as the
Vizier did not march in person, he was not, under any construction of
the treaty, entitled by stipulation to more than "_two or three thousand
troops_," horse and foot, "according to the ability of Fyzoola Khân";
and that, whereas the said Warren Hastings would have been guilty of
very criminal perfidy, if he had simply neglected to interfere as a
guaranty against a demand thus plainly contrary to the faith of treaty,
so he aggravated the guilt of his perfidy in the most atrocious degree
by being himself the first mover and instigator of that injustice, which
he was bound by so many ties on himself, the Company, and the nation,
not only not to promote, but, by every exertion of authority, influence,
and power, to control, to divert, or to resist.
II. That the answer of Fyzoola Khân to the Vizier did represent, with
many expressions of deference, duty, and allegiance, that the whole
force allowed him was but "five thousand men," and that "these consisted
of two thousand horse and three thousand foot; which," he adds, "in
consequence of our intimate connection, are equally yours and the
Company's": though he does subsequently intimate, that "the three
thousand foot are for the management of the concerns of his jaghire, and
without them the collections can never be made in time."
That, on the communication of the said answer to the Governor-General,
Warren Hastings, he, the said Hastings, (who, as the Council now
consisted only of himself and Edward Wheler, Esquire, "united in his own
person all the powers of government,") was not induced to relax from his
unjust purpose, but did proceed with new violence to record, that "the
Nabob Fyzoola Khân _had evaded the performance of his part of the
treaty_ between the late Nabob Sujah ul Dowlah and him, to which the
Honorable Company were guaranties, and upon which he was lately summoned
to furnish the stipulated number of troops, which he is obliged to
furnish on the condition by which he holds the jaghire granted to him."
That, by the vague and indefinite term of evasion, the said Warren
Hastings did introduce a loose and arbitrary principle of interpreting
formal engagements, which ought to be regarded, more especially by
guaranties, ill a sense the most literally scrupulous and precise.
That he charged with such evasion a moderate, humble, and submissive
representation on a point which would have warranted a peremptory
refusal and a positive remonstrance; and that in consequence of the said
imputed evasion he indicated a disposition to attach such a forfeiture
as in justice could only have followed from a gross breach of
treaty,--though the said Hastings did not then pretend any actual
infringement even of the least among the conditions to which, in the
name of the Company, he, the said Hastings, was the executive guaranty.
III. That, however "the number of troops stipulated by treaty may have
been understood," at the period of the original demand, "to be five
thousand horse," yet the said Warren Hastings, at the time when he
recorded the supposed evasion of Fyzoola Khân's answer to the said
demand, could not be unacquainted with the express words of the
stipulation, as a letter of the Vizier, inserted in the same
Consultation, refers the Governor-General to inclosed copies "of all
engagements entered into by the late Vizier and by himself [the
reigning Vizier] with Fyzoola Khân," and that the treaty itself,
therefore, was at the very moment before the said Warren Hastings: which
treaty (as the said Hastings observed with respect to another treaty, in
the case of another person) "most assuredly does not contain a syllable
to justify his conduct; but, by the unexampled latitude which he assumes
in his constructions, he may, if he pleases, extort this or any other
meaning from any part of it."[25]
IV. That the Vizier himself appears by no means to have been persuaded
of his own right to five thousand horse under the treaty,--since, in his
correspondence on the subject, he, the Vizier, nowhere mentions the
treaty as the ground of his demand, except where he is recapitulating to
the Governor-General, Warren Hastings, the substance of his, the said
Hastings's, own letters; on the contrary, the Vizier hints his
apprehensions lest Fyzoola Khân should appeal to the treaty against the
demand, as a breach thereof,--in which case, he, the Vizier, informs the
said Hastings of the projected reply. "Should Fyzoola Khân" (says the
Vizier) "mention anything of the tenor of the treaty, _the first breach
of it has been committed by him_, in keeping up more men than allowed of
by the treaty: _I have accordingly sent a person to settle that point
also_. In case he should mention to me anything respecting the treaty, I
will then reproach him with having kept up too many troops, and will
oblige him to send the five thousand horse": thereby clearly intimating,
that, as a remonstrance against the demand as a breach of treaty could
only be answered by charging a prior breach of treaty on Fyzoola Khân,
so by annulling the whole treaty to reduce the question to a mere
question of force, and thus "oblige Fyzoola Khân to send the five
thousand horse": "for," (continues the Vizier,) "if, when the Company's
affairs, on which my honor depends, require it, Fyzoola Khân will not
lend his assistance, _what_ USE _is there to continue the country to
him_?"
That the Vizier actually did make his application to Fyzoola Khân for
the five thousand horse, not as for an aid to which he had a just claim,
but as for something over and above the obligations of the treaty,
something "that would give increase to their friendship and satisfaction
to the Nabob Governor," (meaning the said Hastings,) whose directions he
represents as the motive "of his call for the five thousand horse to be
employed," not in his, the Vizier's, "but in the Company's service."
And that the aforesaid Warren Hastings did, therefore, in recording the
answer of Fyzoola Khân as an evasion of treaty, act in notorious
contradiction not only to that which ought to have been the fair
construction of the said treaty, but to that which he, the said
Hastings, must have known to be the Vizier's own interpretation of the
same, disposed as the Vizier was "to reproach Fyzoola Khân with breach
of treaty," and to "send up persons who should settle points with him."
V. That the said Warren Hastings, not thinking himself justified, on the
mere plea of an evasion, to push forward his proceedings to that
extremity which he seems already to have made his scope and object, and
seeking some better color for his unjust and violent purposes, did
further move, that commissioners should be sent from the Vizier and the
Company to Fyzoola Khân, to insist on a clause of a treaty which nowhere
appears, being essentially different from the treaty of Lall-Dang,
though not in the part on which the requisition is founded; and the said
Hastings did then, in a style unusually imperative, proceed as follows.
"_Demand immediate delivery of three thousand cavalry; and if he should
evade or refuse compliance, that the deputies shall deliver him a formal
protest against him for breach of treaty_, and return, making this
report to the Vizier, which Mr. Middleton is to transmit to the board."
VI. That the said motion of the Governor-General, Hastings, was ordered
accordingly,--the Council, as already has been herein related,
consisting but of two members, and the said Hastings consequently
"uniting in his own person all the powers of government."
VII. That, when the said Hastings ordered the said demand for three
thousand cavalry, he, the said Hastings, well knew that a compliance
therewith, on the part of the Nabob Fyzoola Khân, was utterly
impossible: for he, the said Hastings, had at the very moment before him
a letter of Fyzoola Khân, stating, that he, Fyzoola Khân, had "but two
thousand cavalry" altogether; which letter is entered on the records of
the Company, in the same Consultation, immediately preceding the
Governor-General's minute. That the said Hastings, therefore, knew that
the only possible consequence of the aforesaid demand necessarily and
inevitably must be a protest for a breach of treaty; and the Court of
Directors did not hesitate to declare that the said demand "carried the
appearance of a determination to create a pretext for depriving him
[Fyzoola Khân] of his jaghire entirely, or to leave him at the mercy of
the Vizier."
VIII. That Richard Johnson, Esquire, Assistant Resident at Oude, was,
agreeably to the afore-mentioned order of Council, deputed commissioner
from Mr. Middleton and the Vizier to Fyzoola Khân; but that he did early
give the most indecent proofs of glaring partiality, to the prejudice of
the said Fyzoola Khân: for that the very next day (as it seems) after
his arrival, he, the said Johnson, from opinions imbibed in his journey,
did state himself to be "unwilling to draw any favorable or flattering
inferences relatively to the object of his mission," and did studiously
seek to find new breaches of treaty, and, without any form of regular
inquiry whatever, from a single glance of his eye in passing, did take
upon himself to pronounce "the Rohilla soldiers, in the district of
Rampoor alone, to be not less than twenty thousand," and the grant of
course to be forfeited. And that such a gross and palpable display of a
predetermination to discover guilt did argue in the said Johnson a
knowledge, a strong presumption, or a belief, that such representations
would be agreeable to the secret wishes and views of the said Hastings,
under whose orders he, the said Johnson, acted, and to whom all his
reports were to be referred.
IX. That the said Richard Johnson, did soon after proceed to the
immediate object of his mission, "which" (the said Johnson relates)
"was short to a degree." The demand was made, and "a flat refusal"
given. The question was repeated, with like effect. The said Johnson, in
presence of proper witnesses, then drew up his protest, "together with a
memorandum of _a palliative offer_ made by the Nabob Fyzoola Khân," and
inserted in the protest:--"That he would, in compliance with the demand,
and _in conformity to the treaty, which specified no definite number of
cavalry or infantry, only expressing troops_, furnish three thousand
men: viz., he would, in addition to the one thousand cavalry already
granted, give one thousand more, when and wheresoever required, and one
thousand foot,"--together with one year's pay in advance, and funds for
the regular payment of them in future.
And this, the said Richard Johnson observes, "I put down at his [the
Nabob Fyzoola Khân's] particular desire, but otherwise useless; as _my
orders_" (which orders do not appear) "_were, not to receive any
palliation, but a negative or affirmative_": though such palliation, as
it is called by the said Johnson, might be, as it was, in the strictest
conformity to the treaty.
X. That in the said offer the Nabob Fyzoola Khân, instead of palliating,
did at once admit the extreme right of the Vizier under the treaty, by
agreeing to furnish three thousand men, when he, Fyzoola Khân, would
have been justified in pleading his inability to send more than two
thousand; that such inability would not (as appears) have been a false
and evasive plea, but perfectly true and valid,--as the three thousand
foot maintained by Fyzoola Khân were for the purposes of his internal
government, for which the whole three thousand must have been
demonstrably necessary; and that the Nabob Fyzoola Khân, by declining to
avail himself of a plea so fair, so well founded, and so consonant to
the indulgence expressly acknowledged in the treaty, and by thus meeting
the specific demand of the Vizier as fully as, according to his own
military establishment, he could, did for the said offer deserve rather
the thanks of the said Vizier and the Company than the protest which the
aforesaid Johnson, under the orders of Warren Hastings, did deliver.
XI. That the report of the said protest, as well as the former letter of
the said Johnson, were by the Resident, Middleton, transmitted to the
board, together with a letter from the Vizier, founded on the said
report and letter of the said Johnson, and proposing in consequence "to
resume the grant, and to leave Fyzoola Khân to join his other faithless
brethren who were sent across the Ganges."
That the said papers were read in Council on the 4th of June, 1781, when
the Governor-General, Warren Hastings, did move and carry a vote to
suspend a final resolution on the same: and the said Hastings did not
express any disapprobation of the proceedings of the said Johnson;
neither did the said Hastings assign any reasons for his motion of
suspension, which passed without debate. That in truth the said Hastings
had then projected a journey up the country to meet the Vizier for the
settlement of articles relative to the regulation of Oude and its
dependencies, among which was included the jaghire of Fyzoola Khân; and
the said Hastings, for the aforesaid purposes, did, on the 3d of July,
by his own casting vote, grant to himself, and did prevail on his
colleague, Edward Wheler, Esquire, to grant, a certain illegal
delegation of the whole powers of the Governor-General and Council, and
on the seventh of the same month did proceed on his way to join the
Vizier at a place called Chunar, on the borders of Benares; and that the
aforesaid vote of suspending a final resolution on the transactions with
Fyzoola Khân was therefore in substance and effect a reference thereof
by the said Hastings from himself in council with his colleague, Wheler,
to himself in conference and negotiation with the Vizier, who, from the
first demand of the five thousand horse, had taken every occasion of
showing his inclination to dispossess Fyzoola Khân, and who before the
said demand (in a letter which does not appear, but which the Vizier
himself quotes as antecedent to the said demand) had complained to the
said Hastings of the "injury and irregularity in the management of the
provinces bordering on Rampoor, arising from Fyzoola Khân having the
uncontrolled dominion of that district."