The offspring of Munny Begum clinging, as his father did, to Nundcomar,

they tore Nundcomar from his side, as they had done from the side of his

father, and carried him down as a sort of prisoner to Calcutta; where,

having had the weakness to become the first informer, he was made the

first example. This person, pushed to the wall, and knowing that the man

he had to deal with was desperate and cruel in his resentments, resolves

on the first blow, and enters before the Council a regular information

in writing of bribery against Mr. Hastings. In his preface to that

charge he excuses himself for what is considered to be an act equally

insane and wicked, and as the one inexpiable crime of an Indian, the

discovery of the money he gives,--that Mr. Hastings had declaredly

determined on his ruin, and to accomplish it had newly associated

himself with one Mohun Persaud, a name I wish your Lordships to

remember, a bitter enemy of his, an infamous person, whom Mr. Hastings

knew to be such, and as such had turned him out of his house,--that Mr.

Hastings had lately recalled, and held frequent communications with this

Mohun Persaud, the subject of which he had no doubt was his ruin. In the

year 1775 he was hanged by those incorrupt English judges who were sent

to India by Parliament to protect the natives from oppression.

Your Lordships will observe that this new sale of the office of

ministers succeeded to the sale of that of nabobs. All these varied and

successive sales shook the country to pieces. As if those miserable

exhausted provinces were to be cured of inanition by phlebotomy, while

Cossim Ali was racking it above, the Company were drawing off all its

nutriment below. A dreadful, an extensive, and most chargeable war

followed. Half the northern force of India poured down like a torrent on

Bengal, endangered our existence, and exhausted all our resources. The

war was the fruit of Mr. Hastings's cabals. Its termination, as usual,

was the result of the military merit and the fortune of this nation.

Cossim Ali, after having been defeated toy the military genius and

spirit of England, (for the Adamses, Monroes, and others of that period,

I believe, showed as much skill and bravery as any of their

predecessors,) in his flight swept away above three millions in money,

jewels, or effects, out of a country which he had plundered and

exhausted by his unheard-of exactions. However, he fought his way like a

retiring lion, turning his face to his pursuers. He still fought along

his frontier. His ability and his money drew to his cause the Subahdar

of Oude, the famous Sujah ul Dowlah. The Mogul entered into these wars,

and penetrated into the lower provinces on one side, whilst Bulwant

Sing, the Rajah of Benares, entered them on another. After various

changes of party and changes of fortune, the loss which began in the

treachery of the civil service was, as I have before remarked, redeemed

by military merit. Many examples of the same sort have since been seen.

Whilst these things were transacted in India, the Court of Directors in

London, hearing of so many changes, hearing of such an incredible mass

of perfidy and venality, knowing that there was a general market made of

the country and of the Company, that the flame of war spread from

province to province, that, in proportion as it spread, the fire glowed

with augmented fierceness, and that the rapacity which originally gave

rise to it was following it in all its progress,--the Company, my Lords,

alarmed not only for their acquisitions, but their existence, and

finding themselves sinking lower and lower by every victory they

obtained, thought it necessary at length to come to some system and some

settlement. After composing their differences with Lord Clive, they sent

him out to that country about the year 1765, in order, by his name,

weight, authority, and vigor of mind, to give some sort of form and

stability to government, and to rectify the innumerable abuses which

prevailed there, and particularly that great source of disorders, that

fundamental abuse, presents: for the bribes by which all these

revolutions were bought had not the name of conditions, stipulations, or

rewards; they even had the free and gratuitous style of presents. The

receivers contended that they were mere gratuities given for service

done, or mere tokens of affection and gratitude to the parties. They may

give them what names they please, and your Lordships will think of them

what you please; but they were the donations of misery to power, the

gifts of sufferers to the oppressors; and consequently, where they

prevailed, they left no certain property or fixed situation to any man

in India, from the highest to the lowest.

The Court of Directors sent out orders to enlarge the servants'

covenants with new and severe clauses, strongly prohibiting the practice

of receiving presents. Lord Clive himself had been a large receiver of

them. Yet, as it was in the moment of a revolution which gave them all

they possessed, the Company would hear no more of it. They sent him out

to reform: whether they chose well or ill does not signify. I think,

upon the whole, they chose well; because his name and authority could do

much. They sent him out to redress the grievances of that country, and

it was necessary he should be well armed for that service. They sent him

out with such powers as no servant of the Company ever held before. I

would not be understood here in my own character, much less in the

delegated character in which I stand, to contend for any man in the

totality of his conduct. Perhaps in some of his measures he was

mistaken, and in some of his acts reprehensible; but justice obliges me

to say, that the plan which he formed and the course which he pursued

were in general great and well imagined,--that he laid great

foundations, if they had been properly built upon. For, in the first

place, he composed all the neighboring countries torn to pieces by the

wars of Cossim Ali, and quieted the apprehensions raised by the opinion

of the boundless ambition of England. He took strong measures to put an

end to a great many of the abuses that prevailed in the country subject

to the Company. He then proceeded to the upper provinces, and formed a

plan which, for a military man, has great civil and political merit. He

put a bound to the aspiring spirit of the Company's servants; he limited

its conquests; he prescribed bounds to its ambition. "First" (says he)

"quiet the minds of the country; what you have obtained regulate; make

it known to India that you resolve to acquire no more."

On this solid plan he fixed every prince that was concerned in the

preceding wars, on the one side and on the other, in an happy and easy

settlement. He restored Sujah ul Dowlah, who had been driven from his

dominions by the military arm of Great Britain, to the rank of Vizier,

and to the dominion of the territories of Oude. With a generosity that

astonished all Asia, he reinstated this expelled enemy of his nation

peaceably upon his throne. And this act of politic generosity did more

towards quieting the minds of the people of Asia than all the terror,

great as it was, of the English arms. At the same time, Lord Clive,

generous to all, took peculiar care of our friends and allies. He took

care of Bulwant Sing, the great Rajah of Benares, who had taken our part

in the war. He secured him from the revenge of Sujah ul Dowlah. The

Mogul had granted us the superiority over Bulwant Sing. Lord Clive

reëstablished him in a secure, easy independency. He confirmed him,

under the British guaranty, in the rich principality which he held.

The Mogul, the head of the Mussulman religion in India, and of the

Indian empire, a head honored and esteemed even in its ruins, he

procured to be recognized by all the persons that were connected with

his empire. The rents that ought to be paid to the Vizier of the Empire

he gave to the Vizierate. Thus our alliances were cemented, our enemies

were reconciled, all Asia was conciliated by our settlement with the

king. To that unhappy fugitive king, driven from place to place, the

sport of fortune, now an emperor and now a prisoner, prayed for in every

mosque in which his authority was conspired against, one day opposed by

the coin struck in his name and the other day sold for it,--to this

descendant of Tamerlane he allotted, with a decent share of royal

dignity, an honorable fixed residence, where he might be useful and

could not be dangerous.

As to the Bengal provinces, he did not take for the Company the

viceroyalty, as Mr. Holwell would have persuaded, almost forced, the

Company to do; but, to satisfy the prejudices of the Mahomedans, the

country was left in the hands nominally of the Subah, or viceroy, who

was to administer the criminal justice and the exterior forms of

royalty. He obtained from the sovereign the _dewanny_. This is the great

act of the constitutional entrance of the Company into the body politic

of India. It gave to the settlement of Bengal a fixed constitutional

form, with a legal title, acknowledged and recognized now for the first

time by all the natural powers of the country, because it arose from the

charter of the undoubted sovereign. The _dewanny_, or high-stewardship,

gave to the Company the collection and management of the revenue; and in

this modest and civil character they appeared, not the oppressors, but

the protectors of the people. This scheme had all the real power,

without any invidious appearance of it; it gave them the revenue,

without the parade of sovereignty. On this double foundation the

government was happily settled. The minds of the natives were quieted.

The Company's territories and views were circumscribed. The arm of force

was put out of sight. The imperial name covered everything. The power of

the purse was in the hand of the Company. The power of the sword was in

effect so, as they contracted for the maintenance of the army. The

Company had a revenue of a million and a half. The Nabob had, indeed,

fallen from any real and effective power, yet the dignity of the court

was maintained. The prejudices and interests of the Mahomedans, and

particularly of their nobility, who had suffered more by this great

revolution even than the old inhabitants of the country, were consulted;

for by this plan a revenue of 500,000_l._ was settled on the

viceroyalty, which was thus enabled to provide in some measure for those

great families. The Company likewise, by this plan, in order to enjoy

their revenues securely, and to avoid envy and murmur, put them into the

hands of Mahomed Reza Khân, whom Lord Clive found in the management of

affairs, and did not displace; and he was now made deputy-steward to the

Company, as he had been before lieutenant-viceroy to the Nabob. A

British Resident at Moorshedabad was established as a control. The

Company exercised their power over the revenue in the first instance

through the natives, but the British Resident was in reality the great

mover.

If ever this nation stood in a situation of glory throughout Asia, it

was in that moment. But, as I have said, some material errors and

mistakes were committed. After the formation of this plan, Lord Clive

unfortunately did not stay long enough in the country to give

consistency to the measures of reformation he had undertaken, but

rapidly returned to England; and after his departure, the government

that continued had not vigor or authority to support the settlement then

made, and considerable abuses began to prevail in every quarter. Another

capital period in our history here commences. Those who succeeded

(though I believe one of them was one of the honestest men that ever

served the Company, I mean Governor Verelst) had not weight enough to

poise the system of the service, and consequently many abuses and

grievances again prevailed. Supervisors were appointed to every

district, as a check on the native collectors, and to report every abuse

as it should arise. But they who were appointed to redress grievances

were themselves accused of being guilty of them. However, the disorders

were not of that violent kind which preceded Mr. Hastings's departure,

nor such as followed his return: no mercenary wars, no mercenary

revolutions, no extirpation of nations, no violent convulsions in the

revenue, no subversion of ancient houses, no general sales of any

descriptions of men,--none of these, but certainly such grievances as

made it necessary for the Company to send out another commission in

1769, with instructions pointing out the chief abuses. It was composed

of Mr. Vansittart, Mr. Ford, and Mr. Scrafton. The unfortunate end of

that commission is known to all the world; but I mention it in order to

state that the receipt of presents was considered as one of the

grievances which then prevailed in India, and that the supervisors under

that commission were ordered upon no account whatever to take presents.

Upon the unfortunate catastrophe which happened, the Company was

preparing to send out another for the rectification of these grievances,

when Parliament thought it necessary to supersede that commission, to

take the matter into their own hands, and to appoint another commission

in a Parliamentary way (of which Mr. Hastings was one) for the better

government of that country. Mr. Hastings, as I must mention to your

Lordships, soon after the deposition and restoration of Jaffier Ali

Khân, and before Lord Clive arrived, quitted for a while the scene in

which he had been so mischievously employed, and returned to England to

strengthen himself by those cabals which again sent him out with new

authority to pursue the courses which were the natural sequel to his

former proceedings. He returned to India with great power,

indeed,--first to a seat in Council at Fort St. George, and from thence

to succeed to the Presidency of Fort William. On him the Company placed

their chief reliance. Happy had it been for them, happy for India and

for England, if his conduct had been such as to spare your Lordships and

the Commons the exhibition of this day!

When this government, with Mr. Hastings at the head of it, was settled,

Moorshedabad did still continue the seat of the native government, and

of all the collections. Here the Company was not satisfied with placing

a Resident at the durbar, which was the first step to our assuming the

government in that country. These steps must be traced by your

Lordships; for I should never have given you this trouble, if it was not

necessary to possess you clearly of the several progressive steps by

which the Company's government came to be established and to supersede

the native. The next step was the appointment of supervisors in every

province, to oversee the native collector. The third was to establish a

general Council of Revenue at Moorshedabad, to superintend the great

steward, Mahomed Reza Khân. In 1772 that Council by Mr. Hastings was

overturned, and the whole management of the revenue brought to Calcutta.

Mahomed Reza Khân, by orders of the Company, was turned out of all his

offices, and turned out for reasons and principles which your Lordships

will hereafter see; and at last the dewanny was entirely taken out of

the native hands, and settled in the Supreme Council and Presidency

itself in Calcutta; and so it remained until the year 1781, when Mr.

Hastings made another revolution, took it out of the hands of the

Supreme Council, in which the orders of the Company, an act of

Parliament, and their own act had vested it, and put it into a

subordinate council: that is, it was entirely vested in himself.

* * * * *

Now your Lordships see the whole of the revolutions. I have stated them,

I trust, with perspicuity,--stated the grounds and principles upon which

they were made,--stated the abuses that grew upon them,--and that every

revolution produced its abuse. You saw the native government vanish by

degrees, until it was reduced to a situation fit for nothing but to

become a private perquisite, as it has been, to Mr. Hastings, and to be

granted to whom he pleased. The English government succeeded, at the

head of which Mr. Hastings was placed by an act of Parliament, having

before held the office of President of the Council,--the express object

of both these appointments being to redress grievances; and within these

two periods of his power, as President and Governor-General, were those

crimes committed of which he now stands accused. All this history is

merely by way of illustration: his crimination begins from his

nomination to the Presidency; and we are to consider how he comported

himself in that station, and in his office of Governor-General.

The first thing, in considering the merits or demerits of any governor,

is to have some test by which they are to be tried. And here, my Lords,

we conceive, that, when a British governor is sent abroad, he is sent to

pursue the good of the people as much as possible in the spirit of the

laws of this country, which in all respects intend their conservation,

their happiness, and their prosperity. This is the principle upon which

Mr. Hastings was bound to govern, and upon which he is to account for

his conduct here. His rule was, what a British governor, intrusted with

the power of this country, was bound to do or to forbear. If he has

performed and if he has abstained as he ought, dismiss him honorably

acquitted from your bar; otherwise condemn him. He may resort to other

principles and to other maxims; but this country will force him to be

tried by its laws. The law of this country recognizes that well-known

crime called misconduct in office; it is a head of the law of England,

and, so far as inferior courts are competent to try it, may be tried in

them. Here your Lordships' competence is plenary: you are fully

competent both to inquire into and to punish the offence.

And, first, I am to state to your Lordships, by the direction of those

whom I am bound to obey, the principles on which Mr. Hastings declares

he has conducted his government,--principles which he has avowed, first

in several letters written to the East India Company, next in a paper of

defence delivered to the House of Commons explicitly, and more

explicitly in his defence before your Lordships. Nothing in Mr.

Hastings's proceedings is so curious as his several defences; and

nothing in the defences is so singular as the principles upon which he

proceeds. Your Lordships will have to decide not only upon a large,

connected, systematic train of misdemeanors, but an equally connected

system of principles and maxims of government, invented to justify those

misdemeanors. He has brought them forward and avowed them in the face of

day. He has boldly and insultingly thrown them in the face of the

representatives of a free people, and we cannot pass them by without

adopting them. I am directed to protest against those grounds and

principles upon which he frames his defence; for, if those grounds are

good and valid, they carry off a great deal at least, if not entirely,

the foundation of our charge.

My Lords, we contend that Mr. Hastings, as a British governor, ought to

govern on British principles, not by British forms,--God forbid!--for if

ever there was a case in which the letter kills and the spirit gives

life, it would be an attempt to introduce British forms and the

substance of despotic principles together into any country. No! We call

for that spirit of equity, that spirit of justice, that spirit of

protection, that spirit of lenity, which ought to characterize every

British subject in power; and on these, and these principles only, he

will be tried.

But he has told your Lordships, in his defence, that actions in Asia do

not bear the same moral qualities which the same actions would bear in

Europe.

My Lords, we positively deny that principle. I am authorized and called

upon to deny it. And having stated at large what he means by saying that

the same actions have not the same qualities in Asia and in Europe, we

are to let your Lordships know that these gentlemen have formed a plan

of _geographical morality_, by which the duties of men, in public and in

private situations, are not to be governed by their relation to the

great Governor of the Universe, or by their relation to mankind, but by

climates, degrees of longitude, parallels, not of life, but of

latitudes: as if, when you have crossed the equinoctial, all the virtues

die, as they say some insects die when they cross the line; as if there

were a kind of baptism, like that practised by seamen, by which they

unbaptize themselves of all that they learned in Europe, and after which

a new order and system of things commenced.

This geographical morality we do protest against; Mr. Hastings shall not

screen himself under it; and on this point I hope and trust many words

will not be necessary to satisfy your Lordships. But we think it

necessary, in justification of ourselves, to declare that the laws of

morality are the same everywhere, and that there is no action which

would pass for an act of extortion, of peculation, of bribery, and of

oppression in England, that is not an act of extortion, of peculation,

of bribery, and oppression in Europe, Asia, Africa, and all the world

over. This I contend for not in the technical forms of it, but I contend

for it in the substance.

Mr. Hastings comes before your Lordships not as a British governor

answering to a British tribunal, but as a subahdar, as a bashaw of three

tails. He says, "I had an arbitrary power to exercise: I exercised it.

Slaves I found the people: slaves they are,--they are so by their

constitution; and if they are, I did not make it for them. I was

unfortunately bound to exercise this arbitrary power, and accordingly I

did exercise it. It was disagreeable to me, but I did exercise it; and

no other power can be exercised in that country." This, if it be true,

is a plea in bar. But I trust and hope your Lordships will not judge by

laws and institutions which you do not know, against those laws and

institutions which you do know, and under whose power and authority Mr.

Hastings went out to India. Can your Lordships patiently hear what _we_

have heard with indignation enough, and what, if there were nothing

else, would call these principles, as well as the actions which are

justified on such principles, to your Lordships' bar, that it may be

known whether the peers of England do not sympathize with the Commons in

their detestation of such doctrine? Think of an English governor tried

before you as a British subject, and yet declaring that he governed on

the principles of arbitrary power! His plea is, that he did govern there

on arbitrary and despotic, and, as he supposes, Oriental principles. And

as this plea is boldly avowed and maintained, and as, no doubt, all his

conduct was perfectly correspondent to these principles, the principles

and the conduct must be tried together.

If your Lordships will now permit me, I will state one of the many

places in which he has avowed these principles as the basis and

foundation of all his conduct. "The sovereignty which they assumed, it

fell to my lot, very unexpectedly, to exert; and whether or not such

power, or powers of that nature, were delegated to me by any provisions

of any act of Parliament, I confess myself too little of a lawyer to

pronounce. I only know that the acceptance of the sovereignty of

Benares, &c., is not acknowledged or admitted by any act of Parliament;

and yet, by the particular interference of the majority of the Council,

the Company is clearly and indisputably seized of that sovereignty." So

that this gentleman, because he is not a lawyer, nor clothed with those

robes which distinguish, and well distinguish, the learning of this

country, is not to know anything of his duty; and whether he was bound

by any, or what act of Parliament, is a thing he is not lawyer enough to

know! Now, if your Lordships will suffer the laws to be broken by those

who are not of the long robe, I am afraid those of the long robe will

have none to punish but those of their own profession. He therefore goes

to a law he is better acquainted with,--that is, the law of arbitrary

power and force, if it deserves to be called by the name of law. "If,

therefore," says he, "the _sovereignty_ of Benares, as ceded to us by

the Vizier, have _any rights whatever_ annexed to it, and be not a mere

empty word without meaning, those rights must be such as are held,

countenanced, and established by the law, custom, and usage of the Mogul

empire, and not by the provisions of any British act of Parliament

hitherto enacted. _Those rights_, and none other, I have been the

involuntary instrument of enforcing. And if any future act of Parliament

shall positively or by implication tend to annihilate those very rights,

or their exertion as I have exerted them, I much fear that the boasted

sovereignty of Benares, which was held up as an acquisition, almost

obtruded on the Company against my consent and opinion, (for I

acknowledge that even then I foresaw many difficulties and

inconveniences in its future exercise,)--I fear, I say, that this

sovereignty will be found a burden instead of a benefit, a heavy clog

rather than a precious gem to its present possessors: I mean, unless the

whole of our territory in that quarter shall be rounded and made an

uniform compact body by one grand and systematic arrangement.--such an

arrangement as shall do away all the mischiefs, doubts, and

inconveniences (both to the governors and the governed) arising from the

variety of tenures, rights, and claims in all cases of landed property

and feudal jurisdiction in India, from the informality, invalidity, and

instability of all engagements in so divided and unsettled a state of

society, and from the unavoidable anarchy and confusion of different

laws, religions, and prejudices, moral, civil, and political, all

jumbled together in one unnatural and discordant mass.

"Every part of Hindostan has been constantly exposed to these and

similar disadvantages ever since the Mahomedan conquests. The Hindoos,

who never incorporated with their conquerors, were kept in order only by

the strong hand of power. The constant necessity of similar exertions

would increase at once their energy and extent; so that rebellion itself

is the parent and promoter of despotism. Sovereignty in India implies

nothing else. For I know not how we can form an estimate of its powers,

but from its visible effects; and those are everywhere the same, from

Cabool to Assam. The whole history of Asia is nothing more than

precedents to prove the invariable exercise of arbitrary power. To all

this I strongly alluded in the minutes I delivered in Council, when the

treaty with the new Vizier was on foot in 1775; and I wished to make

Cheyt Sing independent, because in India dependence included a thousand

evils, many of which I enumerated at that time, and they are entered in

the ninth clause of the first section of this charge. I knew the powers

with which an Indian sovereignty is armed, and the dangers to which

tributaries are exposed. I knew, that, from the history of Asia, and

from the very nature of mankind, the subjects of a despotic empire are

always vigilant for the moment to rebel, and the sovereign is ever

jealous of rebellious intentions. A zemindar is an Indian subject, and

as such exposed to the common lot of his fellows. _The mean and depraved

state of a mere zemindar_ is therefore this very dependence above

mentioned on a despotic government, this very proneness to shake off his

allegiance, and this very exposure to continual danger from his

sovereign's jealousy, which are consequent on the political state of

Hindostanic governments. Bulwant Sing, if he had been, and Cheyt Sing,

as long as he was a zemindar, stood exactly in this _mean and depraved

state_ by the constitution of his country. I did not make it for him,

but would have secured him from it. Those who made him a zemindar

entailed upon him the consequences of so mean and depraved a tenure.

Aliverdy Khân and Cossim Ali fined all their zemindars on the

necessities of war, and on every pretence either of court necessity or

court extravagance."

My Lords, you have now heard the principles on which Mr. Hastings

governs the part of Asia subjected to the British empire. You have heard

his opinion of the mean and depraved state of those who are subject to

it. You have heard his lecture upon arbitrary power, which he states to

be the constitution of Asia. You hear the application he makes of it;

and you hear the practices which he employs to justify it, and who the

persons were on whose authority he relies, and whose example he

professes to follow. In the first place, your Lordships will be

astonished at the audacity with which he speaks of his own

administration, as if he was reading a speculative lecture on the evils

attendant upon some vicious system of foreign government in which he had

no sort of concern whatsoever. And then, when in this speculative way he

has established, or thinks he has, the vices of the government, he

conceives he has found a sufficient apology for his own crimes. And if

he violates the most solemn engagements, if he oppresses, extorts, and

robs, if he imprisons, confiscates, banishes at his sole will and

pleasure, when we accuse him for his ill-treatment of the people

committed to him as a sacred trust, his defence is,--"To be robbed,

violated, oppressed, is their privilege. Let the constitution of their

country answer for it. I did not make it for them. Slaves I found them,

and as slaves I have treated them. I was a despotic prince. Despotic

governments are jealous, and the subjects prone to rebellion. This very

proneness of the subject to shake off his allegiance exposes him to

continual danger from his sovereign's jealousy, and this is consequent

on the political state of Hindostanic governments." He lays it down as a

rule, that despotism is the genuine constitution of India, that a

disposition to rebellion in the subject or dependent prince is the

necessary effect of this despotism, and that jealousy and its

consequences naturally arise on the part of the sovereign,--that the

government is everything, and the subject nothing,--that the great

landed men are in a mean and depraved state, and subject to many evils.

Such a state of things, if true, would warrant conclusions directly

opposite to those which Mr. Hastings means to draw from them, both

argumentatively and practically, first to influence his conduct, and

then to bottom his defence of it.

Perhaps you will imagine that the man who avows these principles of

arbitrary government, and pleads them as the justification of acts which

nothing else can justify, is of opinion that they are on the whole good

for the people over whom they are exercised. The very reverse. He

mentions them as horrible things, tending to inflict on the people a

thousand evils, and to bring on the ruler a continual train of dangers.

Yet he states, that your acquisitions in India will be a detriment

instead of an advantage, if you destroy arbitrary power, unless you can

reduce all the religious establishments, all the civil institutions, and

tenures of land, into one uniform mass,--that is, unless by acts of

arbitrary power you extinguish all the laws, rights, and religious

principles of the people, and force them to an uniformity, and on that

uniformity build a system of arbitrary power.

But nothing is more false than that despotism is the constitution of any

country in Asia that we are acquainted with. It is certainly not true of

any Mahomedan constitution. But if it were, do your Lordships really

think that the nation would bear, that any human creature would bear, to

hear an English governor defend himself on such principles? or, if he

can defend himself on such principles, is it possible to deny the

conclusion, that no man in India has a security for anything, but by

being totally independent of the British government? Here he has

declared his opinion, that he is a despotic prince, that he is to use

arbitrary power; and of course all his acts are covered with that

shield. "_I know_," says he, "_the constitution of Asia only from its

practice_." Will your Lordships submit to hear the corrupt practices of

mankind made the principles of government? No! it will be your pride

and glory to teach men intrusted with power, that, in their use of it,

they are to conform to principles, and not to draw their principles from

the corrupt practice of any man whatever. Was there ever heard, or could

it be conceived, that a governor would dare to heap up all the evil

practices, all the cruelties, oppressions, extortions, corruptions,

briberies, of all the ferocious usurpers, desperate robbers, thieves,

cheats, and jugglers, that ever had office, from one end of Asia to

another, and, consolidating all this mass of the crimes and absurdities

of barbarous domination into one code, establish it as the whole duty of

an English governor? I believe that till this time so audacious a thing

was never attempted by man.

_He_ have arbitrary power! My Lords, the East India Company have not

arbitrary power to give him; the king has no arbitrary power to give

him; your Lordships have not; nor the Commons, nor the whole

legislature. We have no arbitrary power to give, because arbitrary power

is a thing which neither any man can hold nor any man can give. No man

can lawfully govern himself according to his own will; much less can one

person be governed by the will of another. We are all born in

subjection,--all born equally, high and low, governors and governed, in

subjection to one great, immutable, preëxistent law, prior to all our

devices and prior to all our contrivances, paramount to all our ideas

and all our sensations, antecedent to our very existence, by which we

are knit and connected in the eternal frame of the universe, out of

which we cannot stir.

This great law does not arise from our conventions or compacts; on the

contrary, it gives to our conventions and compacts all the force and

sanction they can have. It does not arise from our vain institutions.

Every good gift is of God; all power is of God; and He who has given the

power, and from whom alone it originates, will never suffer the exercise

of it to be practised upon any less solid foundation than the power

itself. If, then, all dominion of man over man is the effect of the

Divine disposition, it is bound by the eternal laws of Him that gave it,

with which no human authority can dispense,--neither he that exercises

it, nor even those who are subject to it; and if they were mad enough to

make an express compact that should release their magistrate from his

duty, and should declare their lives, liberties, and properties

dependent upon, not rules and laws, but his mere capricious will, that

covenant would be void. The acceptor of it has not his authority

increased, but he has his crime doubled. Therefore can it be imagined,

if this be true, that He will suffer this great gift of government, the

greatest, the best, that was ever given by God to mankind, to be the

plaything and the sport of the feeble will of a man, who, by a

blasphemous, absurd, and petulant usurpation, would place his own

feeble, contemptible, ridiculous will in the place of the Divine wisdom

and justice?

The title of conquest makes no difference at all. No conquest can give

such a right; for conquest, that is, force, cannot convert its own

injustice into a just title, by which it may rule others at its

pleasure. By conquest, which is a more immediate designation of the hand

of God, the conqueror succeeds to all the painful duties and

subordination to the power of God which belonged to the sovereign whom

he has displaced, just as if he had come in by the positive law of some

descent or some election. To this at least he is strictly bound: he

ought to govern them as he governs his own subjects. But every wise

conqueror has gone much further than he was bound to go. It has been his

ambition and his policy to reconcile the vanquished to his fortune, to

show that they had gained by the change, to convert their momentary

suffering into a long benefit, and to draw from the humiliation of his

enemies an accession to his own glory. This has been so constant a

practice, that it is to repeat the histories of all politic conquerors

in all nations and in all times; and I will not so much distrust your

Lordships' enlightened and discriminating studies and correct memories

as to allude to one of them. I will only show you that the Court of

Directors, under whom he served, has adopted that idea,--that they

constantly inculcated it to him, and to all the servants,--that they run

a parallel between their own and the native government, and, supposing

it to be very evil, did not hold it up as an example to be followed, but

as an abuse to be corrected,--that they never made it a question,

whether India is to be improved by English law and liberty, or English

law and liberty vitiated by Indian corruption.

No, my Lords, this arbitrary power is not to be had by conquest. Nor can

any sovereign have it by succession; for no man can succeed to fraud,

rapine, and violence. Neither by compact, covenant, or submission,--for

men cannot covenant themselves out of their rights and their

duties,--nor by any other means, can arbitrary power be conveyed to any

man. Those who give to others such rights perform acts that are void as

they are given,--good indeed and valid only as tending to subject

themselves, and those who act with them, to the Divine displeasure;

because morally there can be no such power. Those who give and those who

receive arbitrary power are alike criminal; and there is no man but is

bound to resist it to the best of his power, wherever it shall show its

face to the world. It is a crime to bear it, when it can be rationally

shaken off. Nothing but absolute impotence can justify men in not

resisting it to the utmost of their ability.

Law and arbitrary power are in eternal enmity. Name me a magistrate, and

I will name property; name me power, and I will name protection. It is a

contradiction in terms, it is blasphemy in religion, it is wickedness in

politics, to say that any man can have arbitrary power. In every patent

of office the duty is included. For what else does a magistrate exist?

To suppose for power is an absurdity in idea. Judges are guided and

governed by the eternal laws of justice, to which we are all subject. We

may bite our chains, if we will, but we shall be made to know ourselves,

and be taught that man is born to be governed by law; and he that will

substitute _will_ in the place of it is an enemy to GOD.

Despotism does not in the smallest degree abrogate, alter, or lessen any

one duty of any one relation of life, or weaken the force or obligation

of any one engagement or contract whatsoever. Despotism, if it means

anything that is at all defensible, means a mode of government bound by

no written rules, and coerced by no controlling magistracies or

well-settled orders in the state. But if it has no written law, it

neither does nor can cancel the primeval, indefeasible, unalterable law

of Nature and of nations; and if no magistracies control its exertions,

those exertions must derive their limitation and direction either from

the equity and moderation of the ruler, or from downright revolt on the

part of the subject by rebellion, divested of all its criminal

qualities. The moment a sovereign removes the idea of security and

protection from his subjects, and declares that he is everything and

they nothing, when he declares that no contract he makes with them can

or ought to bind him, he then declares war upon them: he is no longer

sovereign; they are no longer subjects.

No man, therefore, has a right to arbitrary power. But the thought which

is suggested by the depravity of him who brings it forward is supported

by a gross confusion of ideas and principles, which your Lordships well

know how to discern and separate. It is manifest, that, in the Eastern

governments, and the Western, and in all governments, the supreme power

in the state cannot, whilst that state subsists, be rendered criminally

responsible for its actions: otherwise it would not be the supreme

power. It is certainly true: but the actions do not change their nature

by losing their responsibility. The arbitrary acts which are unpunished

are not the less vicious, though none but God, the conscience, and the

opinions of mankind take cognizance of them.

It is not merely so in this or that government, but in all countries.

The king in this country is undoubtedly unaccountable for his actions.

The House of Lords, if it should ever exercise, (God forbid I should

suspect it would ever do what it has never done!)--but if it should ever

abuse its judicial power, and give such a judgment as it ought not to

give, whether from fear of popular clamor on the one hand, or

predilection to the prisoner on the other,--if they abuse their

judgments, there is no calling them to an account for it. And so, if the

Commons should abuse their power, nay, if they should have been so

greatly delinquent as not to have prosecuted this offender, they could

not be accountable for it; there is no punishing them for their acts,

because we exercise a part of the supreme power. But are they less

criminal, less rebellious against the Divine Majesty? are they less

hateful to man, whose opinions they ought to cultivate as far as they

are just? No: till society fall into a state of dissolution, they cannot

be accountable for their acts. But it is from confounding the

unaccountable character inherent in the supreme power with arbitrary

power, that all this confusion of ideas has arisen.

Even upon a supposition that arbitrary power can exist anywhere, which

we deny totally, and which your Lordships will be the first and proudest

to deny, still, absolute supreme dominion was never conferred or

delegated by you,--much less, arbitrary power, which never did in any

case, nor ever will in any case, time, or country, produce any one of

the ends of just government.

It is true that the supreme power in every constitution of government

must be absolute, and this may be corrupted into the arbitrary. But all

good constitutions have established certain fixed rules for the exercise

of their functions, which they rarely or ever depart from, and which

rules form the security against that worst of evils, the government of

will and force instead of wisdom and justice.

But though the supreme power is in a situation resembling arbitrary, yet

never was there heard of in the history of the world, that is, in that

mixed chaos of human wisdom and folly, such a thing as an _intermediate_

arbitrary power,--that is, of an officer of government who is to exert

authority over the people without any law at all, and who is to have the

benefit of all laws, and all forms of law, when he is called to an

account. For that is to let a wild beast (for such is a man without law)

loose upon the people to prey on them at his pleasure, whilst all the

laws which ought to secure the people against the abuse of power are

employed to screen that abuse against the cries of the people.

This is _de facto_ the state of our Indian government. But to establish

it so in right as well as in fact is a thing left for us to begin with,

the first of mankind. For a subordinate arbitrary or even despotic power

never was heard of in right, claim, or authorized practice; least of all

has it been heard of in the Eastern governments, where all the instances

of severity and cruelty fall upon governors and persons intrusted with

power. This would be a gross contradiction. Before Mr. Hastings, none

ever came before his superiors to claim it; because, if any such thing

could exist, he claims the very power of that sovereign who calls him to

account.

But suppose a man to come before us, denying all the benefits of law to

the people under him,--and yet, when he is called to account, to claim

all the benefits of that law which was made to screen mankind from the

excesses of power: such a claim, I will venture to say, is a monster

that never existed, except in the wild imagination of some theorist. It

cannot be admitted, because it is a perversion of the fundamental

principle, that every power given for the protection of the people below

should be responsible to the power above. It is to suppose that the

people shall have no laws with regard to _him_, yet, when _he_ comes to

be tried, he shall claim the protection of those laws which were made to

secure the people from his violence,--that he shall claim a fair trial,

an equitable hearing, every advantage of counsel, (God forbid he should

not have them!) yet that the people under him shall have none of those

advantages. The reverse is the principle of every just and rational

procedure. For the people, who have nothing to use but their natural

faculties, ought to be gently dealt with; but those who are intrusted

with an artificial and instituted authority have in their hands a great

deal of the force of other people; and as their temptations to injustice

are greater, so their moans are infinitely more effectual for mischief

by turning the powers given for the preservation of society to its

destruction: so that, if an arbitrary procedure be justifiable, (a

strong one I am sure is,) it is when used against those who pretend to

use it against others.

My Lords, I will venture to say of the governments of Asia, that none of

them ever had an arbitrary power; and if any governments had an

arbitrary power, they cannot delegate it to any persons under them: that

is, they cannot so delegate it to others as not to leave them

accountable on the principles upon which it was given. As this is a

contradiction in terms, a gross absurdity, as well as a monstrous

wickedness, let me say, for the honor of human nature, that, although

undoubtedly we may speak it with the pride of England that we have

better institutions for the preservation of the rights of men than any

other country in the world, yet I will venture to say that no country

has wholly meant, or ever meant, to give this power.

As it cannot exist in right on any rational and solid principles of

government, so neither does it exist in the constitution of Oriental

governments,--and I do insist upon it, that Oriental governments know

nothing of arbitrary power. I have taken as much pains as I could to

examine into the constitutions of them. I have been endeavoring to

inform myself at all times on this subject; of late my duty has led me

to a more minute inspection of them; and I do challenge the whole race

of man to show me any of the Oriental governors claiming to themselves a

right to act by arbitrary will.

The greatest part of Asia is under Mahomedan governments. To name a

Mahomedan government is to name a government by law. It is a law

enforced by stronger sanctions than any law that can bind a Christian

sovereign. Their law is believed to be given by God; and it has the

double sanction of law and of religion, with which the prince is no more

authorized to dispense than any one else. And if any man will produce

the Koran to me, and will but show me one text in it that authorizes in

any degree an arbitrary power in the government, I will confess that I

have read that book, and been conversant in the affairs of Asia, in

vain. There is not such a syllable in it; but, on the contrary, against

oppressors by name every letter of that law is fulminated. There are

interpreters established throughout all Asia to explain that law, an

order of priesthood, whom they call _men of the law_. These men are

conservators of the law; and to enable them to preserve it in its

perfection, they are secured from the resentment of the sovereign: for

he cannot touch them. Even their kings are not always vested with a real

supreme power, but the government is in some degree republican.

To bring this point a little nearer home,--since we are challenged thus,

since we are led into Asia, since we are called upon to make good our

charge on the principles of the governments there, rather than on those

of our own country, (which I trust your Lordships will oblige him

finally to be governed by, puffed up as he is with the insolence of

Asia,)--the nearest to us of the governments he appeals to is that of

the Grand Seignior, the Emperor of the Turks.--_He_ an arbitrary power!

Why, he has not the supreme power of his own country. Every one knows

that the Grand Seignior is exalted high in _titles_, as our prerogative

lawyers exalt an abstract sovereign,--and he cannot be exalted higher in

our books. I say he is destitute of the first character of sovereign

power: he cannot lay a tax upon his people. The next part in which he

misses of a sovereign power is, that he cannot dispose of the life, of

the property, or of the liberty of any of his subjects, but by what is

called the _fetwah_, or sentence of the law. He cannot declare peace or

war without the same sentence of the law: so much is _he_, more than

European sovereigns, a subject of strict law, that he cannot declare war

or peace without it. Then, if he can neither touch life nor property,

if he cannot lay a tax on his subjects, or declare peace or war, I leave

it to your Lordships' judgment, whether he can be called, according to

the principles of that constitution, an arbitrary power. A Turkish

sovereign, if he should be judged by the body of that law to have acted

against its principles, (unless he happens to be secured by a faction of

the soldiery,) is liable to be deposed on the sentence of that law, and

his successor comes in under the strict limitations of the ancient law

of that country: neither can he hold his place, dispose of his

succession, or take any one step whatever, without being bound by law.

Thus much may be said, when gentlemen talk of the affairs of Asia, as to

the nearest of Asiatic sovereigns: and he is more Asiatic than European,

he is a Mahomedan sovereign; and no Mahomedan is born who can exercise

any arbitrary power at all, consistently with their constitution;

insomuch that this chief magistrate, who is the highest executive power

among them, is the very person who, by the constitution of the country,

is the most fettered by law.

Corruption is the true cause of the loss of all the benefits of the

constitution of that country. The _practice of Asia_, as the gentleman

at your bar has thought fit to say, is what he holds to; the

constitution he flies away from. The question is, whether you will take

the constitution of the country as your rule, or the base practices of

those usurpers, robbers, and tyrants who have subverted it. Undoubtedly,

much blood, murder, false imprisonment, much peculation, cruelty, and

robbery are to be found in Asia; and if, instead of going to the sacred

laws of the country, he chooses to resort to the iniquitous practices of

it, and practices authorized only by public tumult, contention, war, and

riot, he may indeed find as clear an acquittal in the practices as he

would find condemnation in the institutions of it. He has rejected the

law of England. Your Lordships will not suffer it. God forbid! For my

part, I should have no sort of objection to let him choose his

law,--Mahomedan, Tartarian, Gentoo. But if he disputes, as he does, the

authority of an act of Parliament, let him state to me that law to which

he means to be subject, or any law which he knows that will justify his

actions. I am not authorized to say that I shall, even in that case,

give up what is not in me to give up, because I represent an authority

of which I must stand in awe; but, for myself, I shall confess that I am

brought to public shame, and am not fit to manage the great interests

committed to my charge. I therefore again repeat of that Asiatic

government with which we are best acquainted, which has been constituted

more in obedience to the laws of Mahomet than any other, that the

sovereign cannot, agreeably to that constitution, exercise any arbitrary

power whatever.

The next point for us to consider is, whether or no the Mahomedan

constitution of India authorizes that power. The gentleman at your

Lordships' bar has thought proper to say, that it will be happy for

India, (though soon after he tells you it is an happiness they can never

enjoy,) "when the despotic institutes of Genghiz Khân or Tamerlane shall

give place to the liberal spirit of a British legislature; and," says

he, "I shall be amply satisfied in my present prosecution, if it shall

tend to hasten the approach of an event so beneficial to the great

interests of mankind."

My Lords, you have seen what he says about an act of Parliament. Do you

not now think it rather an extraordinary thing, that any British subject

should, in vindication of the authority which he has exercised, here

quote the names and institutes, as he calls them, of fierce conquerors,

of men who were the scourges of mankind, whose power was a power which

they held by force only?

As to the institutes of Genghiz Khân, which he calls arbitrary

institutes, I never saw them. If he has that book, he will oblige the

public by producing it. I have seen a book existing, called Yassa of

Genghiz Khân; the other I never saw. If there be any part of it to

justify arbitrary power, he will produce it. But if we may judge by

those ten precepts of Genghiz Khân which we have, there is not a shadow

of arbitrary power to be found in any one of them. Institutes of

arbitrary power! Why, if there is arbitrary power, there can be no

institutes.

As to the institutes of Tamerlane, here they are in their original, and

here is a translation. I have carefully read every part of these

institutes; and if any one shows me one word in them in which the prince

claims in himself arbitrary power, I again repeat, that I shall for my

own part confess that I have brought myself to great shame. There is no

book in the world, I believe, which contains nobler, more just, more

manly, more pious principles of government than this book, called the

Institutions of Tamerlane. Nor is there one word of arbitrary power in

it, much less of that arbitrary power which Mr. Hastings supposes

himself justified by,--namely, a delegated, subordinate, arbitrary

power. So far was that great prince from permitting this gross, violent,

intermediate arbitrary power, that I will venture to say the chief thing

by which he has recommended himself to posterity was a most direct

declaration of all the wrath and indignation of the supreme government

against it. But here is the book. It contains the institutes of the

founder of the Mogul empire, left as a sacred legacy to his posterity,

as a rule for their conduct, and as a means of preserving their power.

* * * * *

"Be it known to my fortunate sons, the conquerors of kingdoms, to my

mighty descendants, the lords of the earth, that, since I have hope in

Almighty God that many of my children, descendants, and posterity shall

sit upon the throne of power and regal authority, upon this account,

having established laws and regulations for the well governing of my

dominions, I have collected together those regulations and laws as a

model for others, to the end that, every one of my children,

descendants, and posterity acting agreeably thereto, my power and

empire, which I acquired through hardships and difficulties and perils

and bloodshed, by the Divine favor, and by the influence of the holy

religion of Mahomet, (God's peace be up on him!) and with the assistance

of the powerful descendants and illustrious followers of that prophet,

may be by them preserved. And let them make these regulations the rule

of their conduct in the affairs of their empire, that the fortune and

the power which shall descend from me to them may be safe from discord

and dissolution.

"Now, therefore, be it known to my sons, the fortunate and the

illustrious, to my descendants, the mighty subduers of kingdoms, that,

in like manner as I by twelve maxims, which I established as the rule of

my conduct, attained to regal dignity, and with the assistance of these

maxims conquered and governed kingdoms, and decorated and adorned the

throne of my empire, let them also act according to these regulations,

and preserve the splendor of mine and their dominions.

"And among the rules which I established for the support of my glory and

empire, the _first_ was this,--that I promoted the worship of Almighty

God, and propagated the religion of the sacred Mahomet throughout the

world, and at all times and in all places supported the true faith.

"_Secondly_. With the people of the twelve classes and tribes I

conquered and governed kingdoms, and with them I strengthened the

pillars of my fortune, and from them I formed my assembly.

"_Thirdly_. By consultation and deliberation and provident measures, by

caution and by vigilance, I vanquished armies, and I reduced kingdoms to

my authority. And I carried on the business of my empire by complying

with times and occasions, and by generosity, and by patience, and by

policy; and I acted with courteousness towards my friends and towards my

enemies.

"_Fourthly_. By order and by discipline I regulated the concerns of my

government; and by discipline and by order I so firmly established my

authority, that the emirs and the viziers and the soldiers and the

subjects could not aspire beyond their respective degrees; and every one

of them was the keeper of his own station.

"_Fifthly_. I gave encouragement to my emirs and to my soldiers, and

with money and with jewels I made them glad of heart; and I permitted

them to come into the banquet; and in the field of blood they hazarded

their lives. And I withheld not from them my gold nor my silver. And I

educated and trained them to arms; and to alleviate their sufferings, I

myself shared in their labors and in their hardships, until with the arm

of fortitude and resolution, and with the unanimity of my chiefs and my

generals and my warriors, by the edge of the sword, I obtained

possession of the thrones of seven-and-twenty kings, and became the king

and the ruler of the kingdoms of Eraun, and of Tooraun, and of Room, and

of Mughrib, and of Shaum, and of Missur, and of Erauk-a-Arrub, and of

Ajjum, and of Mauzinduraun, and of Kylaunaut, and of Shurvaunaut, and of

Azzurbauejaun, and of Fauris, and of Khorausaun, and of the Dusht of

Jitteh, and the Dusht of Kipchauk, and of Khauruzm, and Khuttun, and of

Kauboolistaun, and of Hindostaun, and of Bauktur Zemeen.

"And when I clothed myself in the robe of empire, I shut my eyes to

safety, and to the repose which is found on the bed of ease. And from

the twelfth year of my age I travelled over countries, and combated

difficulties, and formed enterprises, and vanquished armies, and

experienced mutinies amongst my officers and my soldiers, and was

familiarized to the language of disobedience; and I opposed them with

policy and with fortitude, and I hazarded my person in the hour of

danger; until in the end I vanquished kingdoms and empires, and

established the glory of my name.

"_Sixthly_. By justice and equity I gained the affections of the people

of God; and I extended my clemency to the guilty as well as to the

innocent; and I passed that sentence which truth required; and by

benevolence I gained a place in the hearts of men; and by rewards and

punishments I kept both my troops and my subjects divided between hope

and fear. And I compassionated the lower ranks of my people, and those

who were distressed. And I gave gifts to the soldiers.

"And I delivered the oppressed from the hand of the oppressor; and after

proof of the oppression, whether on the property or the person, the

decision which I passed between them was agreeable to the sacred law.

And I did not cause any one person to suffer for the guilt of another.

"Those who had done me injuries, who had attacked my person in battle,

and had counteracted my schemes and enterprises, when they threw

themselves on my mercy, I received them with kindness, I conferred on

them additional honors, and I drew the pen of oblivion over their evil

actions; and I treated them in such sort, that, if suspicion remained in

their hearts, it was plucked out entirely.

"_Seventhly_, I selected out, and treated with esteem and veneration,

the posterity of the Prophet, and the theologians, and the teachers of

the true faith, and the philosophers, and the historians. And I loved

men of courage and valor; for God Almighty loveth the brave. And I

associated with good and learned men; and I gained their affections, and

I entreated their support, and I sought success from their holy prayers.

And I loved the dervishes and the poor; and I oppressed them not,

neither did I exclude them from my favor. And I permitted not the evil

and the malevolent to enter into my council; and I acted not by their

advice; and I listened not to their insinuations to the prejudice of

others.

"_Eighthly_. I acted with resolution; and on whatever undertaking I

resolved, I made that undertaking the only object of my attention; and I

withdrew not my hand from that enterprise, until I had brought it to a

conclusion. And I acted according to that which I said. And I dealt not

with severity towards any one, and I was not oppressive in any of my

actions; that God Almighty might not deal severely towards me, nor

render my own actions oppressive unto me.

"And I inquired of learned men into the laws and regulations of ancient

princes, from the days of Adam to those of the Prophet, and from the

days of the Prophet down to this time. And I weighed their institutions

and their actions and their opinions, one by one. And from their

approved manners and their good qualities I selected models. And I

inquired into the causes of the subversion of their power, and I shunned

those actions which tend to the destruction and overthrow of regal

authority. And from cruelty and from oppression, which are the

destroyers of posterity and the bringers of famine and of plagues, I

found it was good to abstain.

"_Ninthly_. The situation of my people was known unto me. And those who

were great among them I considered as my brethren; and I regarded the

poor as my children. And I made myself acquainted with the tempers and

the dispositions of the people of every country and of every city. And I

contracted intimacies with the citizens and the chiefs and the nobles;

and I appointed over them governors adapted to their manners and their

dispositions and their wishes. And I knew the circumstances of the

inhabitants of every province. And in every kingdom I appointed writers

of intelligence, men of truth and integrity, that they might send me

information of the conduct and the behavior and the actions and the

manners of the troops and of the inhabitants, and of every occurrence

that might come to pass amongst them. And if I discovered aught contrary

to their information, I inflicted punishment on the intelligencer; and

every circumstance of cruelty and oppression in the governors and in the

troops and in the inhabitants, which reached my ears, I chastised

agreeably to justice and equity.

"_Tenthly_. Whatever tribe, and whatever horde, whether Toork, or

Taucheek, or Arrub, or Ajjum, came in unto me, I received their chiefs

with distinction and respect, and their followers I honored according to

their degrees and their stations; and to the good among them I did good,

and the evil I delivered over to their evil actions.

"And whoever attached himself unto me, I forgot not the merit of his

attachment, and I acted towards him with kindness and generosity; and

whoever had rendered me services, I repaid the value of those services

unto him. And whoever had been my enemy, and was ashamed thereof, and,

flying to me for protection, humbled himself before me, I forgot his

enmity, and I purchased him with liberality and kindness.

"In such manner Share Behraum, the chief of a tribe, was along with me.

And he left me in the hour of action, and he united with the enemy, and

he drew forth his sword against me. And at length my salt, which he had

eaten, seized upon him; and he again fled to me for refuge, and humbled

himself before me. As he was a man of illustrious descent, and of

bravery, and of experience, I covered my eyes from his evil actions; and

I magnified him, and I exalted him to a superior rank, and I pardoned

his disloyalty in consideration of his valor.

"_Eleventhly_. My children, and my relations, and my associates, and my

neighbors, and such as had been connected with me, all these I

distinguished in the days of my fortune and prosperity, and I paid unto

them their due. And with respect to my family, I rent not asunder the

bands of consanguinity and mercy; and I issued not commands to slay

them, or to bind them with chains.

"And I dealt with every man, whatever the judgment I had formed of him,

according to my own opinion of his worth. As I had seen much of

prosperity and adversity, and had acquired knowledge and experience, I

conducted myself with caution and with policy towards my friends and

towards my enemies.

"_Twelfthly_. Soldiers, whether associates or adversaries, I held in

esteem,--those who sell their permanent happiness to perishable honor,

and throw themselves into the field of slaughter and battle, and hazard

their lives in the hour of danger.

"And the man who drew his sword on the side of my enemy, and committed

hostilities against me, and preserved his fidelity to his master, him I

greatly honored; and when such a man came unto me, knowing his worth, I

classed him with my faithful associates; and I respected and valued his

fidelity and his attachment.

"And the soldier who forgot his duty and his honor, and in the hour of

action turned his face from his master, and came in unto me, I

considered as the most detestable of men.

"And in the war between Touktummish Khaun, his emirs forgot their duty

to Touktummish, who was their master and my foe, and sent proposals and

wrote letters unto me. And I uttered execrations upon them, because,

unmindful of that which they owed to their lord, they had thrown aside

their honor and their duty, and came in unto me. I said unto myself,

'What fidelity have they observed to their liege lord? what fidelity

will they show unto me?'

"And, behold, it was known unto me by experience, that every empire

which is not established in morality and religion, nor strengthened by

regulations and laws, from that empire all order, grandeur, and power

shall pass away. And that empire may be likened unto a naked man, who,

when exposed to view, commandeth the eye of modesty to be covered; and

it is like unto a house which hath neither roof nor gates nor defences,

into which whoever willeth may enter unmolested.

"THEREFORE I established the foundation of my empire on the morality and

the religion of Islaum; and by regulations and laws I gave it stability.

And by laws and by regulations I executed every business and every

transaction that came before me in the course of my government."

* * * * *

I need not read any further, or I might show your Lordships the noble

principles, the grand, bold, and manly maxims, the resolution to abstain

from oppression himself, and to crush it in the governors under him, to

be found in this book, which Mr. Hastings has thought proper to resort

to as containing what he calls arbitrary principles.

But it is not in this instance only that I must do justice to the East.

I assert that their morality is equal to ours, in whatever regards the

duties of governors, fathers, and superiors; and I challenge the world

to show in any modern European book more true morality and wisdom than

is to be found in the writings of Asiatic men in high trust, and who

have been counsellors to princes. If this be the true morality of Asia,

as I affirm and can prove that it is, the plea founded on Mr. Hastings's

geographical morality is annihilated.

I little regard the theories of travellers, where they do not relate the

facts on which they are founded. I have two instances of facts attested

by Tavernier, a traveller of power and consequence, which are very

material to be mentioned here, because they show that in some of the

instances recorded, in which the princes of the country have used any of

those cruel and barbarous executions which make us execrate them, it has

been upon governors who have abused their trust,--and that this very

Oriental authority to which Mr. Hastings appeals would have condemned

him to a dreadful punishment. I thank God, and I say it from my heart,

that even for his enormous offences there neither is nor can be anything

like such punishments. God forbid that we should not as much detest

out-of-the-way, mad, furious, and unequal punishments as we detest

enormous and abominable crimes! because a severe and cruel penalty for a

crime of a light nature is as bad and iniquitous as the crime which it

pretends to punish. As the instances I allude to are curious, and as

they go to the principles of Mr. Hastings's defence, I shall beg to

quote them.

The first is upon a governor who did what Mr. Hastings says he has a

power delegated to him to do: he levied a tax without the consent of his

master. "Some years after my departure from Com," says Tavernier, "the

governor had, of his own accord, and without any communication with the

king, laid a small impost upon every pannier of fruit brought into the

city, for the purpose of making some necessary reparations in the walls

and bridges of the town. It was towards the end of the year 1632 that

the event I am going to relate happened. The king, being informed of the

impost which the governor had laid upon the fruit, ordered him to be

brought in chains to court. The king ordered him to be exposed to the

people at one of the gates of the palace; then he commanded the son to

pluck off the mustachios of his father, to cut off his nose and ears, to

put out his eyes, and then cut off his head. The king then told the son

to go and take possession of the government of his father, saying, _See

that you govern better than this deceased dog, or thy doom shall be a

death more exquisitely tormenting_."

My Lords, you are struck with horror, I am struck with horror, at this

punishment. I do not relate it to approve of such a barbarous act, but

to prove to your Lordships, that, whatever power the princes of that

country have, they are jealous of it to such a degree, that, if any of

their governors should levy a tax, even the most insignificant, and for

the best purposes, he meets with a cruel punishment. I do not justify

the punishment; but the severity of it shows how little of their power

the princes of that country mean to delegate to their servants, the

whole of which the gentleman at your bar says was delegated to him.

There is another case, a very strong one, and that is the case of

presents, which I understand is a custom admitted throughout Asia in all

their governments. It was of a person who was raised to a high office;

no business was suffered to come before him without a previous present.

"One morning, the king being at this time on a hunting party, the

_nazar_ came to the tent of the king, but was denied entrance by the

_meter_, or master of the wardrobe. About the same time the king came

forth, and, seeing the nazar, commanded his officers to take off the

bonnet from the head of that dog that took gifts from his people, and

that he should sit three days bareheaded in the heat of the sun, and as

many nights in the air. Afterwards he caused him to be chained about the

neck and arms, and condemned him to perpetual imprisonment, with a

_mamoudy_ a day for his maintenance; but he died for grief within eight

days after he was put in prison."

Do I mean, by reading this to your Lordships, to express or intimate an

approbation either of the cruelty of the punishment or of the coarse

barbarism of the language? Neither one nor the other. I produce it to

your Lordships to prove to you, from this dreadful example, the horror

which that government felt, when any person subject to it assumed to

himself a privilege to receive presents. The cruelty and severity

exercised by these princes is not levelled at the poor unfortunate

people who complain at their gates, but, to use their own barbarous

expression, _to dogs that impose taxes and take presents_. God forbid I

should use that language! The people, when they complain, are not called

dogs and sent away, but the governors, who do these things against the

people: they are called dogs, and treated in that cruel manner. I quote

them to show that no governors in the East, upon any principle of their

constitution or any good practice of their government, can lay arbitrary

imposts or receive presents. When they escape, it is probably by

bribery, by corruption, by creating factions for themselves in the

seraglio, in the country, in the army, in the divan. But how they escape

such punishments is not my business to inquire; it is enough for me that

the constitution disavows them, that the princes of the country disavow

them,--that they revile them with the most horrible expressions, and

inflict dreadful punishments on them, when they are called to answer for

these offences. Thus much concerning the Mahomedan laws of Asia. That

the people of Asia have no laws, rights, or liberty, is a doctrine that

wickedly is to be disseminated through this country. But I again assert,

every Mahomedan government is, by its principles, a government of law.

I shall now state, from what is known of the government of India, that

it does not and cannot delegate, as Mr. Hastings has frequently

declared, the whole of its powers and authority to him. If they are

absolute, as they must be in the supreme power, they ought to be

arbitrary in none; they were, however, never absolute in any of their

subordinate parts, and I will prove it by the known provincial

constitutions of Hindostan, which are all Mahomedan, the laws of which

are as clear, as explicit, and as learned as ours.

The first foundation of their law is the _Koran_. The next part is the

_Fetwah_, or adjudged cases by proper authority, well known there. The

next, the written interpretations of the principles of jurisprudence:

and their books are as numerous upon the principles of jurisprudence as

in any country in Europe. The next part of their law is what they call

the _Kanon_,--that is, a positive rule equivalent to acts of Parliament,

the law of the several powers of the country, taken from the Greek word

[Greek: Kanôn], which was brought into their country, and is well known.

The next is the _Rawaj-ul-Mulk_, or common law and custom of the

kingdom, equivalent to our common law. Therefore they have laws from

more sources than we have, exactly in the same order, grounded upon the

same authority, fundamentally fixed to be administered to the people

upon these principles.

The next thing is to show that in India there is a partition of the

powers of the government, which proves that there is no absolute power

delegated.

In every province the first person is the _Subahdar_ or _Nazim_, or

Viceroy: he has the power of the sword, and the administration of

criminal justice only. Then there is the _Dewan_, or High Steward: he

has the revenue and all exchequer causes under him, to be governed

according to the law and custom and institutions of the kingdom. The law

of inheritances, successions, and everything that relates to them, is

under the _Cadi_, in whose court these matters are tried. But this, too,

was subdivided. The Cadi could not judge, but by the advice of his

assessors. Properly in the Mahomedan law there is no appeal, only a

removal of the cause; but when there is no judgment, as none can be when

the court is not unanimous, it goes to the general assembly of all the

men of the law. There are, I will venture to say, other divisions and

subdivisions; for there are the _Kanongoes_, who hold their places for

life, to be the conservators of the canons, customs, and good usages of

the country: all these, as well as the Cadi and the Mufti, hold their

places and situations, not during the wanton pleasure of the prince, but

on permanent and fixed terms for life. All these powers of magistracy,

revenue, and law are all different, consequently not delegated in the

whole to any one person.

This is the provincial constitution, and these the laws of Bengal; which

proves, if there were no other proof, by the division of the functions

and authorities, that the supreme power of the state in the Mogul empire

did by no means delegate to any of its officers the supreme power in its

fulness. Whether or no we have delegated to Mr. Hastings the supreme

power of King and Parliament, that he should act with the plenitude of

authority of the British legislature, you are to judge.

Mr. Hastings has no refuge here. Let him run from law to law; let him

fly from the common law and the sacred institutions of the country in

which he was born; let him fly from acts of Parliament, from which his

power originated; let him plead his ignorance of them, or fly in the

face of them. Will he fly to the Mahomedan law? That condemns him. Will

he fly to the high magistracy of Asia to defend taking of presents?

Padishah and the Sultan would condemn him to a cruel death. Will he fly

to the Sophis, to the laws of Persia, or to the practice of those

monarchs? I cannot utter the pains, the tortures, that would be

inflicted on him, if he were to govern there as he has done in a British

province. Let him fly where he will, from law to law; law, I thank God,

meets him everywhere, and enforced, too, by the practice of the most

impious tyrants, which he quotes as if it would justify his conduct. I

would as willingly have him tried by the law of the Koran, or the

Institutes of Tamerlane, as on the common law or statute law of this

kingdom.

The next question is, whether the Gentoo laws justify arbitrary power:

and if he finds any sanctuary there, let him take it, with the cow in

the pagoda. The Gentoos have a law which positively proscribes in

magistrates any idea of will,--a law with which, or rather with extracts

of it, that gentleman himself has furnished us. These people in many

points are governed by their own ancient written law, called the

_Shaster_. Its interpreters and judges are the _Pundits_. This law is

comprehensive, extending to all the concerns of life, affording

principles and maxims and legal theories applicable to all cases, drawn

from the sources of natural equity, modified by their institutions, full

of refinement and subtilty of distinction equal to that of any other

law, and has the grand test of all law, that, wherever it has prevailed,

the country has been populous, flourishing, and happy.

Upon the whole, then, follow him where you will, let him have Eastern or

Western law, you find everywhere arbitrary power and peculation of

governors proscribed and horribly punished,--more so than I should ever

wish to punish any, the most guilty, human creature. And if this be the

case, as I hope and trust it has been proved to your Lordships, that

there is law in these countries, that there is no delegation of power

which exempts a governor from the law, then I say at any rate a British

governor is to answer for his conduct, and cannot be justified by wicked

examples and profligate practices.

But another thing which he says is, that he was left to himself, to

govern himself by his own practice: that is to say, when he had taken

one bribe, he might take another; when he had robbed one man of his

property, he might rob another; when he had imprisoned one man

arbitrarily, and extorted money from him, he might do so by another. He

resorts at first to the practice of barbarians and usurpers; at last he

comes to his own. Now, if your Lordships will try him by such maxims and

principles, he is certainly clear: for there is no manner of doubt that

there is nothing he has practised once which he has not practised again;

and then the repetition of crimes becomes the means of his indemnity.

The next pleas he urges are not so much in bar of the impeachment as in

extenuation. The first are to be laid by as claims to be made on motion

for arrest of judgment, the others as an extenuation or mitigation of

his fine. He says, and with a kind of triumph, "The ministry of this

country have great legal assistance,--commercial lights of the greatest

commercial city in the world,--the greatest generals and officers to

guide and direct them in military affairs: whereas I, poor man, was sent

almost a school-boy from England, or at least little better,--sent to

find my way in that new world as well as I could. I had no men of the

law, no legal assistance, to supply my deficiencies." _At Sphingem

habebas domi._ Had he not the chief-justice, the tamed and domesticated

chief-justice, who waited on him like a familiar spirit, whom he takes

from province to province, his amanuensis at home, his postilion and

riding express abroad?

Such a declaration would in some measure suit persons who had acted much

otherwise than Mr. Hastings. When a man pleads ignorance in

justification of his conduct, it ought to be an humble, modest,

unpresuming ignorance, an ignorance which may have made him lax and

timid in the exercise of his duty; but an assuming, rash, presumptuous,

confident, daring, desperate, and disobedient ignorance heightens every

crime that it accompanies. Mr. Hastings, if through ignorance he left

some of the Company's orders unexecuted, because he did not understand

them, might well say, "I was an ignorant man, and these things were

above my capacity." But when he understands them, and when he declares

he will not obey them, positively and dogmatically,--when he says, as he

has said, and we shall prove it, _that he never succeeds better than

when he acts in an utter defiance of those orders_, and sets at nought

the laws of his country,--I believe this will not be thought the

language of an ignorant man. But I beg your Lordships' pardon: it is the

language of an ignorant man; for no man who was not full of a bold,

determined, profligate ignorance could ever think of such a system of

defence. He quitted Westminster School almost a boy. We have reason to

regret that he did not finish his education in that noble seminary,

which has given so many luminaries to the Church and ornaments to the

State. Greatly it is to be lamented that he did not go to those

Universities where arbitrary power will I hope never be heard of, but

the true principles of religion, of liberty, and law will ever be

inculcated, instead of studying in the school of Cossim Ali Khân.

If he had lived with us, he would have quoted the example of Cicero in

his government, he would have quoted several of the sacred and holy

prophets, and made _them_ his example. His want of learning, profane as

well as sacred, reduces him to the necessity of appealing to every name

and authority of barbarism, tyranny, and usurpation that are to be

found; and from these he says, "From the practice of one part of Asia or

other I have taken my rule." But your Lordships will show him that in

Asia as well as in Europe the same law of nations prevails, the same

principles are continually resorted to, and the same maxims sacredly

held and strenuously maintained, and, however disobeyed, no man suffers

from the breach of them who does not know how and where to complain of

that breach,--that Asia is enlightened in that respect as well as

Europe; but if it were totally blinded, that England would send out

governors to teach them better, and that he must justify himself to the

piety, the truth, the faith of England, and not by having recourse to

the crimes and criminals of other countries, to the barbarous tyranny of

Asia, or any other part of the world.

I will go further with Mr. Hastings, and admit, that, if there be a boy

in the fourth form of Westminster School, or any school in England, who

does not know, when these articles are read to him, that he has been

guilty of gross and enormous crimes, he may have the shelter of his

present plea, as far as it will serve him. There are none of us, thank

God, so uninstructed, who have learned our catechisms or the first

elements of Christianity, who do not know that such conduct is not to be

justified, and least of all by examples.

There is another topic he takes up more seriously, and as a general

rebutter to the charge. Says he, "After a great many of these practices

with which I am charged, Parliament appointed me to my trust, and

consequently has acquitted me."--Has it, my Lords? I am bold to say that

the Commons are wholly guiltless of this charge. I will admit, if

Parliament, on a full state of his offences before them, and full

examination of those offences, had appointed him to the government, that

then the people of India and England would have just reason to exclaim

against so flagitious a proceeding. A sense of propriety and decorum

might have restrained us from prosecuting. They might have been

restrained by some sort of decorum from pursuing him criminally. But the

Commons stand before your Lordships without shame. First, in their name

we solemnly assure your Lordships that we had not in our Parliamentary

capacity (and most of us, myself I can say surely, heard very little,

and that in confused rumors) the slightest knowledge of any one of the

acts charged upon this criminal at either of the times of his being

appointed to office, and that we were not guilty of the nefarious act of

collusion and flagitious breach of trust with which he presumes

obliquely to charge us; but from the moment we knew them, we never

ceased to condemn them by reports, by votes, by resolutions, and that we

admonished and declared it to be the duty of the Court of Directors to

take measures for his recall, and when frustrated in the way known to

that court we then proceeded to an inquiry. Your Lordships know whether

you were better informed. We are, therefore, neither guilty of the

precedent crime of colluding with the criminal, nor the subsequent

indecorum of prosecuting what we had virtually and practically approved.

Secondly, several of his worst crimes have been committed since the last

Parliamentary renewal of his trust, as appears by the dates in the

charge.

But I believe, my Lords, the judges--judges to others, grave and weighty

counsellors and assistants to your Lordships--will not, on reference,

assert to your Lordships, (which God forbid, and we cannot conceive, or

hardly state in argument, if but for argument,) that, if one of the

judges had received bribes before his appointment to an higher judiciary

office, he would not still be open to prosecution.

So far from admitting it as a plea in bar, we charge, and we hope your

Lordships will find it an extreme aggravation of his offences, that no

favors heaped upon him could make him grateful, no renewed and repeated

trusts could make him faithful and honest.

We have now gone through most of the general topics.

But he is not responsible, as being thanked by the Court of Directors.

He has had the thanks and approbation of the India Company for his

services.--We know too well here, I trust the world knows, and you will

always assert, that a pardon from the crown is not pleadable here, that

it cannot bar the impeachment of the Commons,--much less a pardon of the

East India Company, though it may involve them in guilt which might

induce us to punish them for such a pardon. If any corporation by

collusion with criminals refuse to do their duty in coercing them, the

magistrates are answerable.

It is the use, virtue, and efficacy of Parliamentary judicial procedure,

that it puts an end to this dominion of faction, intrigue, cabal, and

clandestine intelligences. The acts of men are put to their proper test,

and the works of darkness tried in the face of day,--not the corrupted

opinions of others on them, but their own intrinsic merits. We charge it

as his crime, that he bribed the Court of Directors to thank him for

what they had condemned as breaches of his duty.

The East India Company, it is true, have thanked him. They ought not to

have done it; and it is a reflection upon their character that they did

it. But the Directors praise him in the gross, after having condemned

each act in detail. His actions are _all_, every one, censured one by

one as they arise. I do not recollect any one transaction, few there

are, I am sure, in the whole body of that succession of crimes now

brought before you for your judgment, in which the India Company have

not censured him. Nay, in one instance he pleads their censure in bar of

this trial;[27] for he says, "In that censure I have already received my

punishment." If, for any other reasons, they come and say, "We thank

you, Sir, for all your services," to that I answer, Yes; and _I_ would

thank him for his services, too, if I knew them. But _I_ do

not;--perhaps _they_ do. Let them thank him for those services. I am

ordered to prosecute him for these crimes. Here, therefore, we are on a

balance with the India Company; and your Lordships may perhaps think it

some addition to his crimes, that he has found means to obtain the

thanks of the India Company for the whole of his conduct, at the same

time that their records are full of constant, uniform, particular

censure and reprobation of every one of those acts for which he now

stands accused.

He says, there is the testimony of Indian princes in his favor. But do

we not know how seals are obtained in that country? Do we not know how

those princes are imposed upon? Do we not know the subjection and

thraldom in which they are held, and that they are obliged to return

thanks for the sufferings which they have felt? I believe your Lordships

will think that there is not, with regard to some of these princes, a

more dreadful thing that can be said of them than that he has obtained

their thanks.

I understand he has obtained the thanks of the miserable Princesses of

Oude, whom he has cruelly imprisoned, whose treasure he has seized, and

whose eunuchs he has tortured.[28] They thank him for going away; they

thank him for leaving them the smallest trifle of their subsistence; and

I venture to say, if he wanted a hundred more panegyrics, provided he

never came again among them, he might have them. I understand that

Mahdajee Sindia has made his panegyric, too. Mahdajee Sindia has not

made his panegyric for nothing; for, if your Lordships will suffer him

to enter into such a justification, we shall prove that he has

sacrificed the dignity of this country and the interests of all its

allies to that prince. We appear here neither with panegyric nor with

satire; it is for substantial crimes we bring him before you, and

amongst others for cruelly using persons of the highest rank and

consideration in India; and when we prove he has cruelly injured them,

you will think the panegyrics either gross forgeries or most miserable

aggravations of his offences, since they show the abject and dreadful

state into which he has driven those people. For let it be proved that I

have cruelly robbed and maltreated any persons, if I produce a

certificate from them of my good behavior, would it not be a

corroborative proof of the terror into which those persons are thrown by

my misconduct?

* * * * *

My Lords, these are, I believe, the general grounds of our charge. I

have now closed completely, and I hope to your Lordships' satisfaction,

the whole body of history of which I wished to put your Lordships in

possession. I do not mean that many of your Lordships may not have known

it more perfectly by your own previous inquiries; but, bringing to your

remembrance the state of the circumstances of the persons with whom he

acted, the persons and power he has abused, I have gone to the

principles he maintains, the precedents he quotes, the laws and

authorities which he refuses to abide by, and those on which he relies;

and at last I have refuted all those pleas in bar on which he depends,

and for the effect of which he presumes on the indulgence and patience

of this country, or on the corruption of some persons in it. And here I

close what I had to say upon this subject,--wishing and hoping, that,

when I open before your Lordships the case more particularly, so as to

state rather a plan of the proceeding than the direct proof of the

crimes, your Lordships will hear me with the same goodness and

indulgence I have hitherto experienced,--that you will consider, if I

have detained you long, it was not with a view of exhausting my own

strength, or putting your patience to too severe a trial, but from the

sense I feel that it is the most difficult and the most complicated

cause that was ever brought before any human tribunal. Therefore I was

resolved to bring the whole substantially before you. And now, if your

Lordships will permit me, I will state the method of my future

proceeding, and the future proceeding of the gentlemen assisting me.

I mean first to bring before you the crimes as they are classed, and are

of the same species and genus, and how they mutually arose from one

another. I shall first show that Mr. Hastings's crimes had root in that

which is the root of all evil, I mean avarice; that avarice and rapacity

were the groundwork and foundation of all his other vicious system; that

he showed it in setting to sale the native government of the country, in

setting to sale the whole landed interest of the country, in setting to

sale the British government and his own fellow-servants, to the basest

and wickedest of mankind.

I shall then show your Lordships, that, when, in consequence of such a

body of corruption and peculation, he justly dreaded the indignation of

his country and the vengeance of its laws, in order to raise himself a

faction embodied by the same guilt and rewarded in the same manner, he

has, with a most abandoned profusion, thrown away the revenues of the

country to form such a faction here.

I shall next show your Lordships, that, having exhausted the resources

of the Company, and brought it to extreme difficulties within, he has

looked to his _external_ resources, as he calls them; he has gone up

into the country. I will show that he has plundered, or attempted to

plunder, every person dependent upon, connected, or allied with this

country.

We shall afterwards show what infinite mischief has followed in the case

of Benares, upon which he first laid his hands; next, in the case of the

Begums of Oude.

We shall then lay before you the profligate system by which he

endeavored to oppress that country: first by Residents; next by spies

under the name of British Agents; and lastly, that, pursuing his way up

to the mountains, he has found out one miserable chief, whose crimes

were the prosperity of his country,--that him he endeavored to torture

and destroy,--I do not mean in his body, but by exhausting the treasures

which he kept for the benefit of his people.

In short, having shown your Lordships that no man who is in his power is

safe from his arbitrary will,--that no man, within or without, friend,

ally, rival, has been safe from him,--having brought it to this point,

if I am not able in my own person immediately to go up into the country

and show the ramifications of the system, (I hope and trust I shall be

spared to take my part in pursuing him through both,) if I am not, I

shall go at least to the root of it, and some other gentleman, with a

thousand times more ability than I possess, will take up each separate

part in its proper order. And I believe it is proposed by the managers

that one of them shall as soon as possible begin with the affair of

Benares.

The point I now mean first to bring before your Lordships is the

corruption of Mr. Hastings, his system of peculation and bribery, and to

show your Lordships the horrible consequences which resulted from it:

for, at first sight, bribery and peculation do not seem to be so horrid

a matter; they may seem to be only the transferring a little money out

of one pocket into another; but I shall show that by such a system of

bribery the country is undone.

I shall inform your Lordships in the best manner I can, and afterwards

submit the whole, as I do with a cheerful heart and with an easy and

assured security, to that justice which is the security for all the

other justice in the kingdom.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] 2d year of George II.

[2] See his letter of the 11th of July, 1785, at the end of the Charges.

[3] 13 Geo. III. c. 63, § 10.

[4] 29 February, 1784.

[5] Dated, Benares, 4th of November, 1781.

[6] Revenue Consultation, 28th January, 1775.

[7] Revenue Board, 14th May, 1772.

[8] Address to the Court of Directors, 25th March, 1775.

[9] 3d November, 1772.

[10] 24th October, 1774.

[11] 22d April, 1775.

[12] 5th February, 1777; 4th July, 1777.

[13] 3d November, 1772.

[14] 14th May, 1772.

[15] See his letter of the 11th July, 1785, at the end of the Charges.

[16] Sic orig.

[17] 28th May, 1782.

[18] 15th Dec, 1775.

[19] On the 15th of November.

[20] Resolution of the House of Commons, 28th May, 1782.

[21] Anderson's letter of 26th January, 1782.

[22] Anderson's letter of 24th February, 1782.

[23] Sic orig.

[24] Sic orig.

[25] Observations on Mr. Bristow's Defence.

[26] As the letter referred to in the Eighth and Sixteenth Articles of

Charge is not contained in any of the Appendixes to the Reports of the

Select Committee, it has been thought necessary to annex it as an

Appendix to these Charges.

[27] See Mr. Hastings's answer to the first charge.

[28] A Latin sentence, which was quoted here, is omitted in the MS of

the short-hand writer.--Ed.

END OF VOL. IX.