EXPULSION OF THE RAJAH OF BENARES.
I. That the said Warren Hastings, being resolved on the ruin of the
Rajah aforesaid, as a preliminary step thereto, did, against the express
orders of the Court of Directors, remove Francis Fowke, Esquire, the
Company's Resident at the city of Benares, without any complaint or
pretence of complaint whatsoever, but merely on his own declaration that
he must have as a Resident at Benares a person of his own special and
personal nomination and confidence, and not a man of the Company's
nomination,--and in the place of the said Francis Fowke, thus illegally
divested of his office, did appoint thereto another servant of the
Company of his own choice.
II. That, soon after he had removed the Company's Resident, he prepared
for a journey to the upper provinces, and particularly to Benares, in
order to execute the wicked and perfidious designs by him before
meditated and contrived: and although he did communicate his purpose
privately to such persons as he thought fit to intrust therewith, he did
not enter anything on the Consultations to that purpose, or record the
principles, real or pretended, on which he had resolved to act, nor did
he state any guilt in the Rajah which he intended to punish, or charge
him, the said Rajah, with entertaining any hostile intentions, the
effects of which were to be prevented by any strong measure; but, on the
contrary, he did industriously conceal his real designs from the Court
of Directors, and did fallaciously enter on the Consultations a minute
declaratory of purposes wholly different therefrom, and which supposed
nothing more than an amicable adjustment, founded on the treaties
between the Company and the Rajah, investing himself by his said minute
with "full power and authority to form _such_ arrangements _with_ the
Rajah of Benares for the _better_ government and management of his
zemindary, and to perform such acts for the improvement of the interest
which the Company possesses in it, as he shall think _fit and consonant
to the mutual engagements subsisting between the Company and the
Rajah_"; and for this and other purposes he did invest himself with the
whole power of the Council, giving to himself an authority as if his
acts had been the acts of the Council itself: which, though a power of a
dangerous, unwarrantable, and illegal extent, yet does plainly imply the
following limits, namely, that the acts done should be _arranged with_
the Rajah, that is, _with his consent_; and, secondly, that they should
be consonant to the actual engagements between the parties; and nothing
appears in the minute conferring the said power, which did express or
imply any authority for depriving the Rajah of his government, or
selling the sovereignty thereof to his hereditary enemy, or for the
plunder of his fort-treasures.
III. That the said Warren Hastings, having formed the plans aforesaid
for the ruin of the Rajah, did set out on a journey to the city of
Benares with a great train, but with a very small force, not much
exceeding six companies of regular black soldiers, to perpetrate some of
the unjust and violent acts by him meditated and resolved on; and the
said Hastings was met, according to the usage of distinguished persons
in that country, by the Rajah of Benares with a very great attendance,
both in boats and on shore, which attendance he did apparently intend as
a mark of honor and observance to the place and person of the said
Hastings, but which the said Hastings did afterwards groundlessly and
maliciously represent as an indication of a design upon his life; and
the said Rajah came into the pinnace in which the said Hastings was
carried, and in a lowly and suppliant manner, alone, and without any
guard or attendance whatsoever, entreated his favor; and being received
with great sternness and arrogance, he did put his turban in the lap of
the said Hastings, thereby signifying that he abandoned his life and
fortune to his disposal, and then departed, the said Hastings not
apprehending, nor having any reason to apprehend, any violence
whatsoever to his person.
IV. That the said Hastings, in the utmost security and freedom from
apprehension, did pursue his journey, and did arrive at the city of
Benares on the 14th of August, 1781, some hours before the Rajah, who,
soon after his arrival, intended to pay him a visit of honor and respect
at his quarters, but was by the said Hastings rudely and insolently
forbid, until he should receive his permission. And the said Hastings,
although he had previously determined on the ruin of the said Rajah, in
order to afford some color of regularity and justice to his proceedings,
did, on the day after his arrival, that is, on the 15th day of August,
1781, send to the Rajah a charge in writing, which, though informal and
irregular, may be reduced to four articles, two general, and two more
particular: the first of the general being, "That he [the Rajah] had, by
the means of his secret agents, endeavored to excite disorders in the
government on which he depended"; the second, "That he had suffered the
_daily_ perpetration of robberies and murders, even in the streets of
Benares, to the great and public scandal of the English name."
V. That it appears that the said Warren Hastings is guilty of an high
offence, contrary to the fundamental principles of justice, in the said
mode of charging misdemeanors, without any specification of person or
place or time or act, or any offer of specification or proofs by which
the party charged may be enabled to refute the same, in order to
unjustly load his reputation, and to prejudice him with regard to the
articles more clearly specified.
VI. That the two specified articles relate to certain delays: the
first, with regard to the payment of the sums of money unjustly extorted
as aforesaid; and the second, the non-compliance with a requisition of
cavalry,--which non-compliance the said Hastings (even if the said
charges had been founded) did falsely, and in contradiction to all law,
affirm and maintain (in his accusation against the Rajah, and addressing
himself to him) "to amount to a _direct_ charge of disaffection and
_infidelity_ to the government on which you depend": and further
proceeded as follows: "I therefore judged it proper to state them [the
said charges] thus fully to you in writing, and to _require_ your
answer; and this I expect _immediately_." That the said Hastings,
stating his pretended facts to amount to a charge of the nature (as he
would have it understood) of high treason, and _therefore_ calling for
an _immediate_ answer, did wilfully act against the rules of natural
justice, which requires that a convenient time should be given to
answer, proportioned to the greatness of the offence alleged, and the
heavy penalties which attend it; and when he did arrogate to himself a
right both to charge and to judge in his own person, he ought to have
allowed the Rajah full opportunity for conferring with his ministers,
his doctors of law, and his accountants, on the facts charged, and on
the criminality inferred in the said accusation of disloyalty and
disaffection, or offences of that quality.
VII. That the said Rajah did, under the pressure of the disadvantages
aforesaid, deliver in, upon the very evening of the day of the charge, a
full, complete, and specific answer to the two articles therein
specified; and did allege and offer proof that the whole of the
extraordinary demands of the said Hastings had been actually long before
paid and discharged; and did state a proper defence, with regard to the
cavalry, even supposing him bound (when he was not bound) to furnish
any. And the said Rajah did make a direct denial of the truth, of the
two _general_ articles, and did explain himself on the same in as
satisfactory a manner and as fully as their nature could permit,
offering to enter into immediate trial of the points in issue between
him and the said Hastings, in the remarkable words following. "My
enemies, with a view to my ruin, have made false representations to you.
Now that, _happily for me_, you have yourself arrived at this place, you
will be able to ascertain all the circumstances: first, relative to the
horse; secondly, to my people going to Calcutta; and thirdly, the dates
of the receipts of the particular sums above mentioned. You will then
know whether I have amused you with a false representation, or made a
just report to you." And in the said answer the said Rajah complained,
but in the most modest terms, of an injury to him of the most dangerous
and criminal nature in transactions of such moment, namely, his not
receiving any answer to his letters and petitions, and concluded in the
following words. "I have never swerved in the smallest degree from my
duty to you. It remains with you to decide on all these matters. I am in
every case your slave. What is just I have represented to you. May your
prosperity increase!"
VIII. That the said Warren Hastings was bound by the essential
principles of natural justice to attend to the claim made by the Rajah
to a fair and impartial trial and inquiry into the matter of accusation
brought against him by the said Hastings, at a time and place which
furnished all proper materials and the presence of all necessary
witnesses; but the said Hastings, instead of instituting the said
inquiry and granting trial, did receive an humble request for justice
from a great prince as a fresh offence, and as a personal insult to
himself, and did conceive a violent passion of anger and a strong
resentment thereat, declaring that he did consider the said answer as
not only unsatisfactory in substance, but offensive in style. "This
answer you will perceive to be not only unsatisfactory in substance, but
offensive in style, and less a vindication of himself than a
recrimination on me. It expresses no concern for the causes of complaint
contained in my letter, or desire to atone for them, nor the smallest
intention to pursue a different line of conduct. An answer couched
nearly _in terms of defiance_ to requisitions of so serious a nature I
could not but consider as _a strong indication of that spirit of
independency_ which the Rajah has for some years past assumed, and of
which indeed I had early observed other manifest symptoms, both before
and from the instant of my arrival." Which representation is altogether
and in all parts thereof groundless and injurious; as the substance of
the answer is a justification proper to be pleaded, and the style, if in
anything exceptionable, it is in its extreme humility, resulting rather
from an unmanly and abject spirit than from anything of an offensive
liberty; but being received as disrespectful by the said Hastings, it
abundantly indicates the tyrannical arrogance of the said Hastings, and
the depression into which the natives are sunk under the British
government.
IX. That the said Warren Hastings, pretending to have been much alarmed
at the offensive language of the said Rajah's defence, and at certain
appearances of independency which he had observed, not only on former
occasions, but since his arrival at Benares, (where he had been but
little more than one day,) and which appearances he never has specified
in any one instance, did assert that he conceived himself indispensably
obliged to adopt some decisive plan; and without any farther inquiry or
consultation (which appears) with any person, did, at ten o'clock of the
very night on which he received the before-mentioned full and
satisfactory as well as submissive answer, send an order to the British
Resident (then being a public minister representing the British
government at the court of the said Rajah, and as such bound by the law
of nations to respect the prince at whose court he was Resident, and not
to attempt anything against his person or state, and who ought not,
therefore, to have been chosen by the said Hastings, and compelled to
serve in that business) that he should on the next morning arrest the
said prince in his palace, and keep him in his custody until further
orders; which said order being conceived in the most peremptory terms,
the Rajah was put under arrest, with a guard of about thirty orderly
sepoys, with their swords drawn; and the particulars thereof were
reported to him as follows.
"HONORABLE SIR,--I this morning, in obedience to your orders of last
night, proceeded with a few of my orderlies, accompanied by Lieutenant
Stalker, to Shewalla Ghaut, the present residence of Rajah Cheyt Sing,
and acquainted him it was your pleasure he should consider himself in
arrest; that he should order his people to behave in a quiet and orderly
manner, for that any attempt _to rescue him would be attended with his
own destruction. The Rajah submitted quietly to the arrest_, and assured
me, that, whatever were your orders, he was ready implicitly to obey; he
hoped that you would allow him a _subsistence_, but as for _his
zemindary, his forts, and his treasure, he was ready to lay them at your
feet, and his life, if required_. He expressed himself much hurt at the
ignominy which he affirmed must be the consequence of his confinement,
and entreated me to return to you with the foregoing submission, hoping
that you would make allowances for his youth and inexperience, and in
consideration of his father's name release him from his confinement, as
soon as he should prove the sincerity of his offers, and himself
deserving of your compassion and forgiveness."
X. That a further order was given, that every servant of the Rajah's
should be disarmed, and a certain number only left to attend him under a
strict watch. In a quarter of an hour after this conversation, two
companies of grenadier sepoys were sent to the Rajah's palace by the
said Hastings; and the Rajah, being dismayed by this unexpected and
unprovoked treatment, wrote two short letters or petitions to the said
Hastings, under the greatest apparent dejection at the outrage and
dishonor he had suffered in the eyes of his subjects, (all imprisonment
of persons of rank being held in that country as a mark of indelible
infamy, and he also, in all probability, considering his imprisonment as
a prelude to the taking away his life,) and in the first of the said
petitions he did express himself in this manner: "Whatever may be your
pleasure, do it with your own hands; I am your slave. What occasion can
there be for a guard?" And in the other: "My honor was bestowed upon me
by your Highness. It depends on you alone to take away or not to take
away the country out of my hands. In case my honor is not left to me,
how shall I be equal to the business of the government? Whoever, with
his hands in a supplicating posture, is ready with his life and
property, what necessity can there be for him to be dealt with in this
way?"
XI. That, according to the said Hastings's narrative of this
transaction, he, the said Hastings, on account of the apparent
despondency in which these letters were written, "thought it _necessary_
to give him _some_ encouragement," and therefore wrote him a note of a
few lines, carelessly and haughtily expressed, and little calculated to
relieve him from his uneasiness, promising to send to him a person to
explain particulars, and desiring him "to set his mind at rest, and not
to conceive any terror or apprehension." To which an answer of great
humility and dejection was received.
XII. That the report of the Rajah's arrest did cause a great alarm in
the city, in the suburbs of which the Rajah's palace is situated, and in
the adjacent country. The people were filled with dismay and anger at
the outrage and indignity offered to a prince under whose government
they enjoyed much ease and happiness. Under these circumstances the
Rajah desired leave to perform his ablutions; which was refused, unless
he sent for water, and performed that ceremony on the spot. This he
did. And soon after some of the people, who now began to surround the
palace in considerable numbers, attempting to force their way into the
palace, a British officer, commanding the guard upon the Rajah, struck
one of them with his sword. The people grew more and more irritated; but
a message being sent from the Rajah to appease them, they continued, on
this interposition, for a while quiet. Then the Rajah retired to a sort
of stone pavilion, or bastion, to perform his devotions, the guard of
sepoys attending him in this act of religion. In the mean time a person
of the meanest station, called a _chubdar_, at best answering to our
common beadle or tipstaff, was sent with a message (of what nature does
not appear) from Mr. Hastings, or the Resident, to the prince under
arrest: and this base person, without regard to the rank of the
prisoner, or to his then occupation, addressed him in a rude, boisterous
manner, "passionately and insultingly," (as the said Rajah has without
contradiction asserted,) "and, reviling him with a loud voice, gave both
him and his people the vilest abuse"; and the manner and matter being
observable and audible to the multitude, divided only by an open stone
lattice from the scene within, a firing commenced from without the
palace; on which the Rajah again interposed, and did what in him lay to
suppress the tumult, until, an English officer striking him with a
sword, and wounding him on the hand, the people no longer kept any
measures, but broke through the inclosure of the palace. The insolent
tipstaff was first cut down, and the multitude falling upon the sepoys
and the English officers, the whole, or nearly the whole, were cut to
pieces: the soldiers having been ordered to that service without any
charges for their pieces. And in this tumult, the Rajah, being justly
fearful of falling into the hands of the said Hastings, did make his
escape over the walls of his palace, by means of a rope formed of his
turban tied together, into a boat upon the river, and from thence into a
place of security; abandoning many of his family to the discretion of
the said Hastings, who did cause the said palace to be occupied by a
company of soldiers after the flight of the Rajah.
XIII. That the Rajah, as soon as he had arrived at a place of refuge,
did, on the very day of his flight, send a suppliant letter to the said
Hastings, filled with expressions of concern (affirmed by the said
Hastings to be slight expressions) for what had happened, and
professions (said by the said Hastings to be indefinite and unapplied)
of fidelity: but the said Warren Hastings, though bound by his duty to
hear the said Rajah, and to prevent extremities, if possible, being
filled with insolence and malice, did not think it "_becoming_ of him to
make any reply to it; and that he _thought_ he ordered the bearer of the
letter to be told that _it required none_."
XIV. That this letter of submission having been received, the said
Rajah, not discouraged or provoked from using every attempt towards
peace and reconciliation, did again apply, on the very morning
following, to Richard Johnson, Esquire, for his interposition, but to no
purpose; and did likewise, with as little effect, send a message to
Cantoo Baboo, native steward and confidential agent of the said
Hastings, which was afterwards reduced into writing, "to exculpate
himself from any concern in what had passed, and to profess his
obedience to his _will_ [Hastings's] _in whatever_ way he should
dictate." But the said Hastings, for several false and contradictory
reasons by him assigned, did not take any advantage of the said opening,
attributing the same to artifice in order to gain time; but instead of
accepting the said submissions, he did resolve upon flight from the city
of Benares, and did suddenly fly therefrom in great confusion.
XV. That the said Hastings did persevere in his resolutions not to
listen to any submission or offer of accommodation whatsoever, though
several were afterwards made through almost every person who might be
supposed to have influence with him, but did cause the Rajah's troops to
be attacked and fallen upon, though they only acted on the defensive,
(as the Rajah has without contradiction asserted,) and thereby, and by
his preceding refusal of propositions of the same nature, and by other
his perfidious, unjust, and tyrannical acts by him perpetrated and done,
and by his total improvidence in not taking any one rational security
whatsoever against the inevitable consequences of those acts, did make
himself guilty of all the mutual slaughter and devastation which ensued,
as well as, in his opinion, of the imminent danger of the total
subversion of the British power in India by the risk of his own person,
which he asserts that it did run,--as also "that it ought not to be
thought that he attributed too much consequence to his personal safety,
when he supposed _the fate of the British empire in India connected with
it_, and that, mean as its substance may be, its accidental qualities
were equivalent to those which, like the characters of a talisman in
the Arabian mythology, formed the _essence_ of the state itself,
representation, title, and the _estimate_ of the public opinion; that,
had he fallen, such a stroke would be universally considered as decisive
of the national fate; every state round it would have started into arms
against it, and _every subject of its own dominion would, according to
their several abilities, have become its enemy_": and that he knew and
has declared, that, though the said stroke was not struck, that great
convulsions did actually ensue from his proceedings, "that half the
province of Oude was in a state of as complete rebellion as that of
Benares," and that invasions, tumults, and insurrections were occasioned
thereby in various other parts.
XVI. That the said Warren Hastings, after he had collected his forces
from all parts, did, with little difficulty or bloodshed, subsequent to
that time, on the part of his troops, and in a few days, entirely reduce
the said province of Benares; and did, after the said short and little
resisted hostility, in cold blood, issue an order for burning a certain
town, in which he accused the people at large of having killed, "upon
what provocation he knows not," certain wounded sepoys, who were
prisoners: which order, being _generally_ given, when it was his duty to
have made some inquiry concerning the particular offenders, but which he
did never make, or cause to be made, was cruel, inhuman, and tended to
the destruction of the revenues of the Company; and that this, and other
acts of devastation, did cause the loss of two months of the
collections.
XVII. That the said Warren Hastings did not only refuse the submissions
of the said Rajah, which were frequently repeated through various
persons after he had left Benares, and even after the defeat of certain
of the Company's forces, but did proscribe and except him from the
pardons which he issued after he had satisfied his vengeance on the
province of Benares.
XVIII. That the said Warren Hastings did send to a certain castle,
called Bidzigur, the residence of a person of high rank, called Panna,
the mother of the Rajah of Benares, with whom his wife, a woman
described by the said Hastings "to be of an amiable character," and all
the other women of the Rajah's family, and the survivors of the family
of his father, Bulwant Sing, did then reside, a body of troops to
dispossess them of her said residence, and to seize upon her money and
effects, although she did not stand, even by himself, accused of any
offence whatsoever,--pretending, but not proving, and not attempting to
prove, then nor since, that the treasures therein contained were the
property of the Rajah, and not her own; and did, in order to stimulate
the British soldiery to rapine and outrage, issue to them several
barbarous orders, contrary to the practice of civilized nations,
relative to their property, movable and immovable, attended with
unworthy and unbecoming menaces, highly offensive to the manners of the
East and the particular respect there paid to the female sex,--which
letters and orders, as well as the letters which he had received from
the officers concerned, the said Hastings did unlawfully suppress, until
forced by the disputes between him and the said officers to discover
the same: and the said orders are as follow.
"I am this instant favored with yours of yesterday. Mine of the same
date [22d October, 1781] has before this time acquainted you with my
resolutions and sentiments respecting the Rannee [the mother of the
Rajah Cheyt Sing]. I think every demand she has made to you, except that
of safety and respect for her person, is unreasonable. If the reports
brought to me are true, _your rejecting her offers, or any negotiations
with her_, would soon obtain you possession of the fort upon your own
terms. I apprehend that she will contrive _to defraud the captors of a
considerable part of the booty by being suffered to retire without
examination. But this is your consideration, and not mine. I should be
very sorry that your officers and soldiers lost ANY PART of the reward
to which they are so well entitled_; but I cannot make any objection, as
you must be the best judge of the expediency of the _promised_
indulgence to the Rannee. What you have engaged for I will certainly
ratify; but as to permitting the Rannee to hold the purgunnah of Hurluk,
or any other in the zemindary, without being subject to the authority of
the zemindar, or any lands whatever, _or indeed making any conditions
with her for a provision, I will never consent to it_." And in another
letter to the same person, dated Benares, 3d of November, 1781, in which
he, the said Hastings, consents that the said woman of distinction
should be allowed to evacuate the place and to receive protection, he
did express himself as follows. "I am willing to grant her now the same
conditions to which I at first consented, provided that she delivers
into your possession, within twenty-four hours from the time of
receiving your message, the fort of Bidzigur, with the treasure and
effects lodged therein by Cheyt Sing or any of his adherents, with the
reserve only, as above mentioned, of such articles _as you shall think
necessary to her sex and condition_, or as you shall be disposed _of
yourself to indulge her with_. If she complies, as I expect she will, it
will be your part to secure the fort and the property it contains _for
the benefit of yourself and detachment_. I have only further to request
that you will grant an escort, if Panna should require it, to conduct
her here, or wherever she may choose to retire to. But should she refuse
to execute the promise she has made, _or delay it beyond the term of
twenty-four hours_, it is my _positive_ injunction that you immediately
put a stop to any further intercourse or negotiation with her, and on no
pretext renew it. If she disappoints _or trifles_ with me, after I have
subjected my duan to the disgrace of returning ineffectually, and of
course myself to discredit, I shall consider it as a _wanton affront and
indignity which I can never forgive_, nor will I grant her any
conditions whatever, but leave her exposed to _those dangers_ which she
has chosen to risk rather than trust to the clemency and generosity of
our government. I think _she cannot be ignorant of these consequences,
and will not venture to incur them_; and it is for this reason I place a
dependence on her offers, and have consented to send my duan to her."
XIX. That the castle aforesaid being surrendered upon terms of safety,
and on express condition of not attempting to search their persons, the
woman of rank aforesaid, her female relations and female dependants, to
the number of three hundred, besides children, evacuated the said
castle; but the spirit of rapacity being excited by the letters and
other proceedings of the said Hastings, the capitulation was shamefully
and outrageously broken, and, in despite of the endeavors of the
commanding officer, the said woman of high condition, and her female
dependants, friends, and servants, were plundered of the effects they
carried with them, and which were reserved to them in the capitulation
of their fortress, and in their persons were otherwise rudely and
inhumanly dealt with by the licentious followers of the camp: for which
outrages, represented to the said Hastings with great concern by the
commanding officer, Major Popham, he, the said Hastings, did afterwards
recommend a late and fruitless redress.
XX. That the Governor-General, Warren Hastings, in exciting the hopes of
the military by declaring them _well entitled to the plunder_ of the
fortress aforesaid, the residence of the mother and other women of the
Rajah of Benares, and by wishing the troops to secure the same for their
own benefit, did advise and act in direct contradiction to the orders of
the Court of Directors, and to his own opinion of his public duty, as
well as to the truth and reality thereof,--he having some years before
entered in writing the declaration which follows.
"The very idea of _prize-money_ suggests to my remembrance _the former
disorders which arose in our army from this source, and had almost
proved fatal to it_. Of this circumstance you must be sufficiently
apprised, and of the necessity for discouraging every expectation of
this kind amongst the troops. _It is to be avoided like poison._ The bad
effects of a similar measure were but too plainly felt in a former
period, and our honorable masters did not fail on that occasion to
reprobate with their censure, in the most severe terms, a practice which
they regarded as the source of infinite evils, and which, if
established, would in their judgment necessarily bring corruption and
ruin on their army."
XXI. That the said Hastings, after he had given the license aforesaid,
and that in consequence thereof the booty found in the castle, to the
amount of 23,27,813 current rupees, was distributed among the soldiers
employed in its reduction, the said Hastings did retract his declaration
of right, and his permission to the soldiers to appropriate to
themselves the plunder, and endeavored, by various devices and
artifices, to explain the same away, and to recover the spoil aforesaid
for the use of the Company; and wholly failing in his attempts to resume
by a breach of faith with the soldiers what he had unlawfully disposed
of by a breach of duty to his constituents, he attempted to obtain the
same as a loan, in which attempt he also failed; and the aforesaid money
being the only part of the treasures belonging to the Rajah, or any of
his family, that had been found, he was altogether frustrated in the
acquisition of every part of that dishonorable object which alone he
pretended to, and pursued through a long series of acts of injustice,
inhumanity, oppression, violence, and bloodshed, at the hazard of his
person and reputation, and, in his own opinion, at the risk of the total
subversion of the British empire.
XXI. That the said Warren Hastings, after the commission of the
offences aforesaid, being well aware that he should be called to an
account for the same, did, by the evil counsel and agency of Sir Elijah
Impey, Knight, his Majesty's chief-justice, who was then out of the
limits of his jurisdiction, cause to be taken at Benares, before or by
the said Sir Elijah Impey, and through the intervention, not of the
Company's interpreter, but of a certain private interpreter of his, the
said Hastings's, own appointment, and a dependant on him, called Major
Davy, several declarations and depositions by natives of Hindostan,--and
did also cause to be taken before the said Sir Elijah Impey several
attestations in English, made by British subjects, and which were
afterwards transmitted to Calcutta, and laid before the
Council-General,--some of which depositions were upon oath, some upon
honor, and others neither upon _oath_ nor _honor_, but all or most of
which were of an irregular and irrelevant nature, and not fit or decent
to be taken by a British magistrate, or to be transmitted to a British
government.
XXIII. That one of the said attestations (but not on oath) was made by a
principal minister of the Nabob of Oude, to whom the said Hastings had
some time before proposed to sell the sovereignty of that very territory
of Benares; and that one other attestation (not upon oath) was made by a
native woman of distinction, whose son he, the said Hastings, did
actually promote to the government of Benares, vacated by the unjust
expulsion of the Rajah aforesaid, and who in her deposition did declare
that she considered the expelled Rajah as her enemy, and that he never
did confer with her, or suffer her to be acquainted with any of his
designs.
XXIV. That, besides the depositions of persons interested in the ruin of
the Rajah, others were made by persons who then received pensions from
him, the said Hastings; and several of the affidavits were made by
persons of mean condition, and so wholly illiterate as not to be able to
write their names.
XXV. That he, the said Hastings, did also cause to be examined by
various proofs and essays, the result of which was delivered in upon
honor, the quality of certain military stores taken by the British
troops from the said Rajah of Benares; and upon the report that the same
were of a good quality, and executed by persons conversant in the making
of good military stores, although the cannon was stated by the same
authority to be bad, he, the said Warren Hastings, from the report
aforesaid, did maliciously, and contrary to the principles of natural
and legal reason, infer that the insurrection which had been raised by
his own violence and oppression, and rendered for a time successful by
his own improvidence, was the consequence of a premeditated design to
overturn the British empire in India, and to exterminate therefrom the
British nation; which design, if it had been true, the said Hastings
might have known, or rationally conjectured, and ought to have provided
against. And if the said Hastings had received any credible information
of such design, it was his duty to lay the same before the Council
Board, and to state the same to the Rajah, when he was in a condition to
have given an answer thereto or to observe thereon, and not, after he
had proscribed and driven him from his dominions, to have inquired into
offences to justify the previous infliction of punishment.
XXVI. That it does not appear, that, in taking the said depositions,
there was any person present on the part of the Rajah to object to the
competence or credibility or relevancy of any of the said affidavits or
other attestations, or to account, otherwise than as the said deponents
did account, for any of the facts therein stated; nor were any copies
thereof sent to the said Rajah, although the Company had a minister at
the place of his residence, namely, in the camp of the Mahratta chief
Sindia, so as to enable him to transmit to the Company any matters which
might induce or enable them to do justice to the injured prince
aforesaid. And it does not appear that the said Hastings has ever
produced any witness, letter, or other document, tending to prove that
the said Rajah ever did carry on any hostile negotiation whatever with
any of those powers with whom he was charged with a conspiracy against
the Company, previous to the period of the said Hastings's having
arrested him in his palace, although he, the said Hastings, had various
agents at the courts of all those princes,--and that a late principal
agent and near relation of a minister of one them, the Rajah of Berar,
called Benaram Pundit, was, at the time of the tumult at Benares,
actually with the said Hastings, and the said Benaram Pundit was by him
highly applauded for his zeal and fidelity, and was therefore by him
rewarded with a large pension on those very revenues which he had taken
from the Rajah Cheyt Sing, and if such a conspiracy had previously
existed, the Mahratta minister aforesaid must have known, and would have
attested it.
XXVII. That it appears that the said Warren Hastings, at the time that
he formed his design of seizing upon the treasures of the Rajah of
Benares, and of deposing him, did not believe him guilty of that
premeditated project for driving the English out of India with which he
afterwards thought fit to charge him, or that he was really guilty of
any other great offence: because he has caused it to be deposed, that,
if the said Rajah should pay the sum of money by him exacted, "he would
settle his zemindary upon him on the most eligible footing"; whereas, if
he had conceived him to have entertained traitorous designs against the
Company, from whom he held his tributary estate, or had been otherwise
guilty of such enormous offences as to make it necessary to take
extraordinary methods for coercing him, it would not have been proper
for him to settle upon such a traitor and criminal the zemindary of
Benares, or any other territory, upon the most eligible, or upon any
other footing whatever: whereby the said Hastings has by his own stating
demonstrated that the money intended to have been exacted was not as a
punishment for crimes, but that the crimes were pretended for the
purpose of exacting money.
XXVIII. That the said Warren Hastings, in order to justify the acts of
violence aforesaid to the Court of Directors, did assert certain false
facts, known by him to be such, and did draw from them certain false and
dangerous inferences, utterly subversive of the rights of the princes
and subjects dependent on the British nation in India, contrary to the
principles of all just government, and highly dishonorable to that of
Great Britain: namely, that the "Rajah of Benares was not a vassal or
tributary prince, and that the deeds which passed between him and the
board, upon the transfer of the zemindary in 1775, were not to be
understood to bear the quality and force of a treaty upon optional
conditions between equal states; that the payments to be made by him
were not a tribute, but a rent; and that the instruments by which his
territories were conveyed to him did not differ from common grants to
zemindars who were merely subjects; but that, being nothing more than a
common zemindar and mere subject, and the Company holding the
acknowledged rights of his former sovereign, held an absolute authority
over him; that, in the known relations of zemindar to the sovereign
authority, or power delegated by it, he owed a personal allegiance and
an implicit and unreserved obedience to that authority, at the
forfeiture of his zemindary, and even of his life and property." Whereas
the said Hastings did well know, that, whether the payments from the
Rajah were called _rent_ or _tribute_, having been frequently by himself
called the one and the other, and that of whatever nature the
instruments by which he held might have been, he did not consider him as
a common zemindar or landholder, but as far independent as a tributary
prince could be: for he did assign as a reason for receiving his rent
rather within the Company's province than in his own capital, that it
would not "frustrate the intention of rendering the Rajah _independent_;
that, if a Resident was appointed to receive the money as it became due
at Benares, such a Resident would unavoidably acquire an influence over
the Rajah, and over his country, which would in effect render him the
master of both; that this consequence might not, perhaps, be brought
completely to pass without a struggle, and many appeals to the Council,
which, in a government constituted like this, cannot fail to terminate
against the Rajah, and, by the construction to which his opposition to
the agent would be liable, might eventually draw on him severe
restrictions, and end _in reducing him to the mean and depraved state of
a zemindar_."
XXIX. And the said Hastings, in the said Minute of Consultation, having
enumerated the frauds, embezzlements, and oppressions which would ensue
from the Rajah's being in the dependent state aforesaid, and having
obviated all apprehensions from giving to him the implied symbols of
dominion, did assert, "that, without such appearance, he would expect
from every change of government additional demands to be made upon him,
and would of course descend to all the arts of intrigue and concealment
practised by other dependent Rajahs, which would keep him indigent and
weak, and eventually prove hurtful to the Company; but that, by proper
encouragement and protection, he might prove a profitable dependant, an
useful barrier, and even a powerful ally to the Company; but that he
would be neither, if the conditions of his connection with the Company
were left open to future variations."
XXX. That, if the fact had been true that the Rajah of Benares was
merely an eminent landholder or any other subject, the wicked and
dangerous doctrine aforesaid, namely, that he owed a personal allegiance
and an implicit and unreserved obedience to the sovereign authority, at
the forfeiture of his zemindary, and even of his life and property, at
the discretion of those who held or fully represented the sovereign
authority, doth leave security neither for life nor property to any
persons residing under the Company's protection; and that no such
powers, nor any powers of that nature, had been delegated to the said
Warren Hastings by any provisions of the act of Parliament appointing a
Governor-General and Council at Fort William in Bengal.
XXXI. That the said Warren Hastings did also advance another dangerous
and pernicious principle in justification of his violent, arbitrary, and
iniquitous actings aforesaid: namely, "that, if he had acted with an
unwarrantable rigor, and even injustice, towards Cheyt Sing, yet, first,
if he did _believe_ that extraordinary means were necessary, and those
exerted with a strong hand, to preserve the Company's interests from
sinking under the accumulated weight that oppressed them, or, secondly,
if he saw a _political necessity_ for curbing the _overgrown_ power of a
great member of their dominion, and to make it contribute to the relief
of their pressing exigencies, that his error would be excusable, as
prompted by an excess of zeal for their [the Company's] interest,
operating with too strong a bias on his judgment; but that much stronger
is the presumption, that such acts are founded on just principles than
that they are the result of a misguided judgment." That the said
doctrines are, in both the members thereof, subversive of all the
principles of just government, by empowering a governor with delegated
authority, in the first case, on his own private _belief_ concerning the
necessities of the state, not to levy an impartial and equal rate of
taxation suitable to the circumstances of the several members of the
community, but to select any individual from the same as an object of
arbitrary and unmeasured imposition,--and, in the second case, enabling
the same governor, on the same arbitrary principles, to determine whose
property should be considered as overgrown, and to reduce the same at
his pleasure.