SECOND REVOLUTION IN BENARES.
That the said Warren Hastings, after he had, in the manner aforesaid,
unjustly and violently expelled the Rajah Cheyt Sing, the lord or
zemindar of Benares, from his said lordship or zemindary, did, of his
own mere usurped authority, and without any communication with the other
members of the Council of Calcutta, appoint another person, of the name
of Mehip Narrain, a descendant by the mother from the late Rajah,
Bulwant Sing, to the government of Benares; and on account or pretence
of his youth and inexperience (the said Mehip Narrain not being above
twenty years old) did appoint his father, Durbege Sing, to act as his
representative or administrator of his affairs; but did give a
controlling authority to the British Resident over both, notwithstanding
his declarations before mentioned of the mischiefs likely to happen to
the said country from the establishment of a Resident, and his opinion
since declared in a letter to the Court of Directors, dated from this
very place (Benares) the 1st of October, 1784, to the same or stronger
effect, in case "agents are sent into the country, and armed with
authority for the purposes of vengeance and corruption,--_for to no
other will they be applied_."
That the said Warren Hastings did, by the same usurped authority,
entirely set aside all the agreements made between the late Rajah and
the Company (which were real agreements with the state of Benares, in
the person of the lord or prince thereof, and his heirs); and without
any form of trial, inquisition, or other legal process, for forfeiture
of the privileges of the people to be governed by magistrates of their
own, and according to their natural laws, customs, and usages, did,
contrary to the said agreement, separate the mint and the criminal
justice from the said government, and did vest the mint in the British
Resident, and the criminal justice in a Mahomedan native of his own
appointment; and did enhance the tribute to be paid from the province,
from two hundred and fifty thousand pounds annually, limited by treaty,
or thereabouts, to three hundred and thirty thousand pounds for the
first year, and to four hundred thousand for every year after; and did
compel the administrator aforesaid (father to the Rajah) to agree to the
same; and did, by the same usurped authority, illegally impose, and
cause to be levied, sundry injudicious and oppressive duties on goods
and merchandise, which did greatly impair the trade of the province, and
threaten the utter ruin thereof; and did charge several pensions on the
said revenues, of his own mere authority; and did send and keep up
various bodies of the Company's troops in the said country; and did
perform sundry other acts with regard to the said territory, in total
subversion of the rights of the sovereign and the people, and in
violation of the treaties and agreements aforesaid.
That the said Warren Hastings, being absent, on account of ill health,
from the Presidency of Calcutta, at a place called Nia Serai, about
forty miles distant therefrom, did carry on a secret correspondence with
the Resident at Benares, and, under color that the instalments for the
new rent or tribute were in arrear, did of his own authority make, in
about one year, a second revolution in the government of the territory
aforesaid, and did order and direct that Durbege Sing aforesaid, father
of the Rajah, and administrator of his authority, should be deprived of
his office and of his lands, and thrown into prison, and did threaten
him with death: although he, the said Warren Hastings, had, at the time
of the making his new arrangement, declared himself sensible that the
rent aforesaid might require abatement; although he was well apprised
that the administrator had been for two months of his administration in
a weak and languid state of body, and wholly incapable of attending to
the business of the collections; though a considerable drought had
prevailed in the said province, and did consequently affect the
regularity and produce of the collections; and though he had other
sufficient reason to believe that the said administrator had not himself
received from the collectors of government and the cultivators of the
soil the rent in arrear: yet he, the said Warren Hastings, without any
known process, or recording any answer, defence, plea, exculpation, or
apology from the party, or recording any other grounds of rigor against
him, except the following paragraph of a letter from the Resident, not
only gave the order as aforesaid, but did afterwards, without laying any
other or better ground before the Council-General, persuade them to, and
did procure from them, a confirmation of the aforesaid cruel and
illegal proceedings, the correspondence concerning which had not been
before communicated: he pleading his illness for not communicating the
same, though that illness did not prevent him from carrying on
correspondence concerning the deposition of the said administrator, and
other important affairs in various places.
That in the letter to the Council requiring the confirmation of his acts
aforesaid the said Warren Hastings did not only propose the confinement
of the said administrator at Benares, although by his imprisonment he
must have been in a great measure disabled from recovering the balances
due to him, and for the non-payment of which he was thus imprisoned, but
did propose, as an alternative, his imprisonment at a remote fortress,
out of the said territory, and in the Company's provinces, called
Chunar: desiring them to direct the Resident at Benares "to exact from
Baboo Durbege Sing every rupee of the collections which it shall appear
that he has made and not brought to account, and either to confine him
at Benares, or to send him a prisoner to Chunar, and to keep him in
confinement until he shall have discharged the whole of the amount due
from him." And the said Warren Hastings did assign motives of passion
and personal resentment for the said unjust and rigorous proceedings, as
follows: "I feel myself, and may be allowed on such an occasion to
acknowledge it, personally hurt at the ingratitude of this man, and at
the discredit which his ill conduct has thrown on my appointment of him.
He has deceived me; he has offended against the government which I then
represented." And as a further reason for depriving him of his jaghire,
(or salary out of land,) he did insinuate in the said letter, but
without giving or offering any proof, "that the said Rajah had been
guilty of _little and mean peculations_, although the appointments
assigned to him had been sufficient to free him from the temptations
thereto."
That it appears, as it might naturally have been expected, that the wife
of the said administrator, the daughter of Bulwant Sing, the late Rajah
of Benares, and her son, the reigning Rajah, did oppose to the best of
their power, but by what remonstrances or upon what plea the said Warren
Hastings did never inform the Court of Directors, the deposition,
imprisonment, and confiscation of the estates of the husband of the one
and the father of the other; but that the said Hastings, persisting in
his malice, did declare to the said Council as follows: "The opposition
made by the Rajah and the old Rannee, both equally incapable of judging
for _themselves_, does certainly originate from some secret influence,
which ought to be checked by a decided and peremptory declaration of the
authority of the board, and a denunciation of their displeasure at
_their presumption_."
That the said Warren Hastings, not satisfied with the injuries done and
the insults and disgraces offered to the family aforesaid, did, in a
manner unparalleled, except by an act of his own on another occasion,
fraudulently and inhumanly endeavor to make the wife and son of the said
administrator, contrary to the sentiments and the law of Nature, the
instruments of his oppressions: directing, "that, if they" (the mother
and son aforesaid) "could be _induced_ to yield _the appearance of a
cheerful acquiescence_ in the new arrangement, and to adopt it as _a
measure formed with their participation_, it would be better than that
it should be done by a declared act of compulsion; but that at all
events it ought to be done."
That, in consequence of the pressing declarations aforesaid, the said
Warren Hastings did on his special recommendation appoint, in opposition
to the wishes and desires of the Rajah and his mother, another person to
the administration of his affairs, called Jagher Deo Seo.
That, the Company having sent express orders for the sending the
Resident by them before appointed to Benares, the said Warren Hastings
did strongly oppose himself to the same, and did throw upon the person
appointed by the Company (Francis Fowke, Esquire) several strong, but
unspecified, reflections and aspersions, contrary to the duty he owed to
the Company, and to the justice he owed to all its servants.
That the said Resident, being appointed by the votes of the rest of the
Council, in obedience to the reiterated orders of the Company, and in
despite of the opposition of the said Hastings, did proceed to Benares,
and, on the representation of the parties, and the submission of the
accounts of the aforesaid Durbege Sing to an arbitrator, did find him,
the said Durbege Sing, in debt to the Company for a sum not considerable
enough to justify the severe treatment of the said Durbege Sing: his
wife and son complaining, at or about the same time, that the balances
due to him from the _aumils_, or sub-collectors, had been received by
the new administrator, and carried to his own credit, in prejudice and
wrong to the said Durbege Sing; which representation, the only one that
has been transmitted on the part of the said sufferers, has not been
contradicted.
That it appears that the said Durbege Sing did afterwards go to Calcutta
for the redress of his grievances, and that it does not appear that the
same were redressed, or even his complaints heard, but he received two
peremptory orders from the Supreme Council to leave the said city and to
return to Benares; that, on his return to Benares, and being there met
by Warren Hastings aforesaid, he, the said Warren Hastings, although he
had reason to be well assured that the said Durbege Sing was in
possession of small or no substance, did again cruelly and inhumanly,
and without any legal authority, order the said Durbege Sing to be
strictly imprisoned; and the said Durbege Sing, in consequence of the
vexations, hardships, and oppressions aforesaid, died in a short time
after, insolvent, but whether in prison or not does not appear.