the arrival of the new members of Council from England naturally had the
effect of uniting the old servants of the Company. Clavering, Monson,
and Francis formed the majority. They instantly wrested the government
out of the hands of Hastings; condemned, certainly not without justice,
his late dealings with the Nabob Vizier; recalled the English agent from
Oude, and sent thither a creature of their own; ordered the brigade
which had conquered the unhappy Rohillas to return to the Company's
territories; and instituted a severe inquiry into the conduct of the
war. Next, in spite of the Governor-General's remonstrances, they
proceeded to exercise, in the most indiscreet manner, their new
authority over the subordinate presidencies; threw all the affairs of
Bombay into confusion; and interfered, with an incredible union of
rashness and feebleness, in the intestine disputes of the Mahratta
government. At the same time, they fell on the internal administration
of Bengal, and attacked the whole fiscal and judicial system, a system
which was undoubtedly defective, but which it was very improbable that
gentlemen fresh from England would be competent to amend. The effect of
their reforms was that all protection to life and property was
withdrawn, and that gangs of robbers plundered and slaughtered with
impunity in the very suburbs of Calcutta. Hastings continued to live in
the Government House, and to draw the salary of Governor-General. He
continued even to take the lead at the council board in the transaction
of ordinary business; for his opponents could not but feel that he knew
much of which they were ignorant, and that he decided, both surely and
speedily, many questions which to them would have been hopelessly
puzzling. But the higher powers of government and the most valuable
patronage had been taken from him.
The natives soon found this out. They considered him as a fallen man;
and they acted after their kind. Some of our readers may have seen, in
India, a cloud of crows pecking a sick vulture to death, no bad type of
what happens in that country as often as fortune deserts one who has
been great and dreaded. In an instant, all the sycophants who had lately
been ready to lie for him, to forge for him, to pander for him, to
poison for him, hasten to purchase the favor of his victorious enemies
by accusing him. An Indian government has only to let it be understood
that it wishes a particular man to be ruined, and in twenty-four hours
it will be furnished with grave charges, supported by depositions so
full and circumstantial that any person unaccustomed to Asiatic
mendacity would regard them as decisive. It is well if the signature of
the destined victim is not counterfeited at the foot of some illegal
compact, and if some treasonable paper is not slipped into a
hiding-place in his house. Hastings was now regarded as helpless. The
power to make or mar the fortune of every man in Bengal had passed, as
it seemed, into the hands of the new Councillors. Immediately charges
against the Governor-General began to pour in. They were eagerly
welcomed by the majority, who, to do them justice, were men of too much
honor knowingly to countenance false accusations, but who were not
sufficiently acquainted with the East to be aware that, in that part of
the world, a very little encouragement from power will call forth, in a
week, more Oateses, and Bedloes, and Dangerfields, than Westminster Hall
sees in a century.
It would have been strange indeed if, at such a juncture, Nuncomar had
remained quiet. That bad man was stimulated at once by malignity, by
avarice, and by ambition. Now was the time to be avenged on his old
enemy, to wreak a grudge of seventeen years, to establish himself in the
favor of the majority of the Council, to become the greatest native in
Bengal. From the time of the arrival of the new Councillors, he had paid
the most marked court to them, and had in consequence been excluded,
with all indignity, from the Government House. He now put into the hands
of Francis, with great ceremony, a paper containing several charges of
the most serious description. By this document Hastings was accused of
putting offices up to sale, and of receiving bribes for suffering
offenders to escape. In particular, it was alleged that Mahommed Reza
Khan had been dismissed with impunity, in consideration of a great sum
paid to the Governor-General.
Francis read the paper in Council. A violent altercation followed.
Hastings complained in bitter terms of the way in which he was treated,
spoke with contempt of Nuncomar and of Nuncomar's accusation, and denied
the right of the Council to sit in judgment on the Governor. At the next
meeting of the board, another communication from Nuncomar was produced.
He requested that he might be permitted to attend the Council, and that
he might be heard in support of his assertions. Another tempestuous
debate took place. The Governor-General maintained that the council-room
was not a proper place for such an investigation; that from persons who
were heated by daily conflict with him he could not expect the fairness
of judges; and that he could not, without betraying the dignity of his
post, submit to be confronted with such a man as Nuncomar. The majority,
however, resolved to go into the charges. Hastings rose, declared the
sitting at an end, and left the room, followed by Barwell. The other
members kept their seats, voted themselves a council, put Clavering in
the chair, and ordered Nuncomar to be called in. Nuncomar not only
adhered to the original charges, but, after the fashion of the East,
produced a large supplement. He stated that Hastings had received a
great sum for appointing Rajah Goordas treasurer of the Nabob's
household, and for committing the care of his Highness's person to the
Munny Begum. He put in a letter purporting to bear the seal of the Munny
Begum, for the purpose of establishing the truth of his story. The seal,
whether forged, as Hastings affirmed, or genuine, as we are rather
inclined to believe, proved nothing. Nuncomar, as everybody knows who
knows India, had only to tell the Munny Begum that such a letter would
give pleasure to the majority of the Council, in order to procure her
attestation. The majority, however, voted that the charge was made out;
that Hastings had corruptly received between thirty and forty thousand
pounds; and that he ought to be compelled to refund.
The general feeling among the English in Bengal was strongly in favor of
the Governor-General. In talents for business, in knowledge of the
country, in general courtesy of demeanor, he was decidedly superior to
his persecutors. The servants of the Company were naturally disposed to
side with the most distinguished member of their own body against a
clerk from the war office, who, profoundly ignorant of the native
languages and of the native character, took on himself to regulate every
department of the administration. Hastings, however, in spite of the
general sympathy of his countrymen, was in a most painful situation.
There was still an appeal to higher authority in England. If that
authority took part with his enemies, nothing was left to him but to
throw up his office. He accordingly placed his resignation in the hands
of his agent in London, Colonel Macleane. But Macleane was instructed
not to produce the resignation, unless it should be fully ascertained
that the feeling at the India House was adverse to the Governor-General.
The triumph of Nuncomar seemed to be complete. He held a daily levee, to
which his countrymen resorted in crowds, and to which, on one occasion,
the majority of the Council condescended to repair. His house was an
office for the purpose of receiving charges against the
Governor-General. It was said that, partly by threats, and partly by
wheedling, the villainous Brahmin had induced many of the wealthiest men
of the province to send in complaints. But he was playing a perilous
game. It was not safe to drive to despair a man of such resources and of
such determination as Hastings. Nuncomar, with all his acuteness, did
not understand the nature of the institutions under which he lived. He
saw that he had with him the majority of the body which made treaties,
gave places, raised taxes. The separation between political and judicial
functions was a thing of which he had no conception. It had probably
never occurred to him that there was in Bengal an authority perfectly
independent of the Council, an authority which could protect one whom
the Council wished to destroy, and send to the gibbet one whom the
Council wished to protect. Yet such was the fact. The Supreme Court was,
within the sphere of its own duties, altogether independent of the
Government. Hastings, with his usual sagacity, had seen how much
advantage he might derive from possessing himself of this stronghold;
and he had acted accordingly. The Judges, especially the Chief Justice,
were hostile to the majority of the Council. The time had now come for
putting this formidable machinery into action.
On a sudden, Calcutta was astounded by the news that Nuncomar had been
taken up on a charge of felony, committed, and thrown into the common
jail. The crime imputed to him was that six years before he had forged a
bond. The ostensible prosecutor was a native. But it was then, and still
is, the opinion of everybody, idiots and biographers excepted, that
Hastings was the real mover in the business.
The rage of the majority rose to the highest point. They protested
against the proceedings of the Supreme Court, and sent several urgent
messages to the Judges, demanding that Nuncomar should be admitted to
bail. The Judges returned haughty and resolute answers. All that the
Council could do was to heap honors and emoluments on the family of
Nuncomar; and this they did. In the meantime the assizes commenced; a
true bill was found; and Nuncomar was brought before Sir Elijah Impey
and a jury composed of Englishmen. A great quantity of contradictory
swearing, and the necessity of having every word of the evidence
interpreted, protracted the trial to a most unusual length. At last a
verdict of guilty was returned, and the Chief Justice pronounced
sentence of death on the prisoner.
That Impey ought to have respited Nuncomar we hold to be perfectly
clear. Whether the whole proceeding was not illegal is a question. But
it is certain that, whatever may have been, according to technical rules
of construction, the effect of the statute under which the trial took
place, it was most unjust to hang a Hindoo for forgery. The law which
made forgery capital in England was passed without the smallest
reference to the state of society in India. It was unknown to the
natives of India. It had never been put in execution among them,
certainly not for want of delinquents. It was in the highest degree
shocking to all their notions. They were not accustomed to the
distinction which many circumstances, peculiar to our own state of
society, have led us to make between forgery and other kinds of
cheating. The counterfeiting of a seal was, in their estimation, a
common act of swindling; nor had it ever crossed their minds that it was
to be punished as severely as gang-robbery or assassination. A just
judge would, beyond all doubt, have reserved the case for the
consideration of the sovereign. But Impey would not hear of mercy or
delay.
The excitement among all classes was great. Francis and Francis's few
English adherents described the Governor-General and the Chief Justice
as the worst of murderers. Clavering, it was said, swore that, even at
the foot of the gallows, Nuncomar should be rescued. The bulk of the
European society, though strongly attached to the Governor-General,
could not but feel compassion for a man who, with all his crimes, had so
long filled so large a space in their sight, who had been great and
powerful before the British empire in India began to exist, and to whom,
in the old times, governors and members of council, then mere commercial
factors, had paid court for protection. The feeling of the Hindoos was
infinitely stronger. They were, indeed, not a people to strike one blow
for their countryman. But his sentence filled them with sorrow and
dismay. Tried even by their low standard of morality, he was a bad man.
But, bad as he was, he was the head of their race and religion, a
Brahmin of the Brahmins. He had inherited the purest and highest caste.
He had practised with the greatest punctuality all those ceremonies to
which the superstitious Bengalese ascribe far more importance than to
the correct discharge of the social duties. They felt, therefore, as a
devout Catholic in the dark ages would have felt at seeing a prelate of
the highest dignity sent to the gallows by a secular tribunal.
According to their old national laws, a Brahmin could not be put to
death for any crime whatever. And the crime for which Nuncomar was about
to die was regarded by them in much the same light in which the selling
of an unsound horse for a sound price is regarded by a Yorkshire jockey.
The Mussulmans alone appear to have seen with exultation the fate of the
powerful Hindoo, who had attempted to rise by means of the ruin of
Mahommed Reza Khan. The Mahommedan historian of those times takes
delight in aggravating the charge. He assures us that in Nuncomar's
house a casket was found containing counterfeits of the seals of all the
richest men of the province. We have never fallen in with any other
authority for this story, which in itself is by no means improbable.
The day drew near; and Nuncomar prepared himself to die with that quiet
fortitude with which the Bengalee, so effeminately timid in personal
conflict, often encounters calamities for which there is no remedy. The
sheriff, with the humanity which is seldom wanting in an English
gentleman, visited the prisoner on the eve of the execution, and assured
him that no indulgence, consistent with the law, should be refused to
him. Nuncomar expressed his gratitude with great politeness and
unaltered composure. Not a muscle of his face moved. Not a sigh broke
from him. He put his finger to his forehead, and calmly said that fate
would have its way, and that there was no resisting the pleasure of God.
He sent his compliments to Francis, Clavering, and Monson, and charged
them to protect Rajah Goordas, who was about to become the head of the
Brahmins of Bengal. The sheriff withdrew, greatly agitated by what had
passed, and Nuncomar sat composedly down to write notes and examine
accounts.
The next morning, before the sun was in his power, an immense concourse
assembled round the place where the gallows had been set up. Grief and
horror were on every face; yet to the last the multitude could hardly
believe that the English really purposed to take the life of the great
Brahmin. At length the mournful procession came through the crowd.
Nuncomar sat up in his palanquin, and looked round him with unaltered
serenity. He had just parted from those who were most nearly connected
with him. Their cries and contortions had appalled the European
ministers of justice, but had not produced the smallest effect on the
iron stoicism of the prisoner. The only anxiety which he expressed was
that men of his own priestly caste might be in attendance to take charge
of his corpse. He again desired to be remembered to his friends in the
Council, mounted the scaffold with firmness, and gave the signal to the
executioner. The moment that the drop fell, a howl of sorrow and despair
rose from the innumerable spectators. Hundreds turned away their faces
from the polluting sight, fled with loud wailings towards the Hoogley,
and plunged into its holy waters, as if to purify themselves from the
guilt of having looked on such a crime. These feelings were not confined
to Calcutta. The whole province was greatly excited; and the population
of Dacca, in particular, gave strong signs of grief and dismay.
Of Impey's conduct it is impossible to speak too severely. We have
already said that, in our opinion, he acted unjustly in refusing to
respite Nuncomar. No rational man can doubt that he took this course in
order to gratify the Governor-General. If we had ever had any doubts on
that point, they would have been dispelled by a letter which Mr. Gleig
has published. Hastings, three or four years later, described Impey as
the man "to whose support he was at one time indebted for the safety of
his fortune, honor, and reputation." These strong words can refer only
to the case of Nuncomar; and they must mean that Impey hanged Nuncomar
in order to support Hastings. It is, therefore, our deliberate opinion
that Impey, sitting as a judge, put a man unjustly to death in order to
serve a political purpose.
But we look on the conduct of Hastings in a somewhat different light. He
was struggling for fortune, honor, liberty, all that makes life
valuable. He was beset by rancorous and unprincipled enemies. From his
colleagues he could expect no justice. He cannot be blamed for wishing
to crush his accusers. He was indeed bound to use only legitimate means
for that end. But it was not strange that he should have thought any
means legitimate which were pronounced legitimate by the sages of the
law, by men whose peculiar duty it was to deal justly between
adversaries, and whose education might be supposed to have peculiarly
qualified them for the discharge of that duty. Nobody demands from a
party the unbending equity of a judge. The reason that judges are
appointed is, that even a good man cannot be trusted to decide a cause
in which he is himself concerned. Not a day passes on which an honest
prosecutor does not ask for what none but a dishonest tribunal would
grant. It is too much to expect that any man, when his dearest interests
are at stake, and his strongest passions excited, will, as against
himself, be more just than the sworn dispensers of justice. To take an
analogous case from the history of our own island: suppose that Lord
Stafford, when in the Tower on suspicion of being concerned in the
Popish Plot, had been apprised that Titus Oates had done something which
might, by a questionable construction, be brought under the head of
felony. Should we severely blame Lord Stafford, in the supposed case,
for causing a prosecution to be instituted, for furnishing funds, for
using all his influence to intercept the mercy of the Crown? We think
not. If a judge, indeed, from favor to the Catholic lords, were to
strain the law in order to hang Oates, such a judge would richly deserve
impeachment. But it does not appear to us that the Catholic lord, by
bringing the case before the judge for decision, would materially
overstep the limits of a just self-defence.
While, therefore, we have not the least doubt that this memorable
execution is to be attributed to Hastings, we doubt whether it can with
justice be reckoned among his crimes. That his conduct was dictated by a
profound policy is evident. He was in a minority in Council. It was
possible that he might long be in a minority. He knew the native
character well. He knew in what abundance accusations are certain to
flow in against the most innocent inhabitant of India who is under the
frown of power. There was not in the whole black population of Bengal a
place-holder, a place-hunter, a government tenant, who did not think
that he might better himself by sending up a deposition against the
Governor-General. Under these circumstances, the persecuted statesman
resolved to teach the whole crew of accusers and witnesses that, though
in a minority at the council board, he was still to be feared. The
lesson which he gave them was indeed a lesson not to be forgotten. The
head of the combination which had been formed against him, the richest,
the most powerful, the most artful of the Hindoos, distinguished by the
favor of those who then held the government, fenced round by the
superstitious reverence of millions, was hanged in broad day before many
thousands of people. Everything that could make the warning impressive,
dignity in the sufferer, solemnity in the proceeding, was found in this
case. The helpless rage and vain struggles of the Council made the
triumph more signal. From that moment the conviction of every native was
that it was safer to take the part of Hastings in a minority than that
of Francis in a majority, and that he who was so venturous as to join in
running down the Governor-General might chance, in the phrase of the
Eastern poet, to find a tiger, while beating the jungle for a deer. The
voices of a thousand informers were silenced in an instant. From that
time, whatever difficulties Hastings might have to encounter, he was
never molested by accusations from natives of India.
It is a remarkable circumstance that one of the letters of Hastings to
Dr. Johnson bears date a very few hours after the death of Nuncomar.
While the whole settlement was in commotion, while a mighty and ancient
priesthood were weeping over the remains of their chief, the conqueror
in that deadly grapple sat down, with characteristic self-possession, to
write about the Tour to the Hebrides, Jones's Persian Grammar, and the
history, traditions, arts, and natural productions of India.
In the meantime, intelligence of the Rohilla war, and of the first
disputes between Hastings and his colleagues, had reached London. The
Directors took part with the majority, and sent out a letter filled with
severe reflections on the conduct of Hastings. They condemned, in strong
but just terms, the iniquity of undertaking offensive wars merely for
the sake of pecuniary advantages. But they utterly forgot that, if
Hastings had by illicit means obtained pecuniary advantages, he had done
so, not for his own benefit, but in order to meet their demands. To
enjoin honesty, and to insist on having what could not be honestly got,
was then the constant practice of the Company. As Lady Macbeth says of
her husband, they "would not play false, and yet would wrongly win."
The Regulating Act, by which Hastings had been appointed
Governor-General for five years, empowered the Crown to remove him on an
address from the Company. Lord North was desirous to procure such an
address. The three members of Council who had been sent out from England
were men of his own choice. General Clavering, in particular, was
supported by a large parliamentary connection, such as no cabinet could
be inclined to disoblige. The wish of the Minister was to displace
Hastings, and to put Clavering at the head of the government. In the
Court of Directors parties were very nearly balanced. Eleven voted
against Hastings; ten for him. The Court of Proprietors was then
convened. The great saleroom presented a singular appearance. Letters
had been sent by the Secretary of the Treasury, exhorting all the
supporters of government who held India stock to be in attendance. Lord
Sandwich marshalled the friends of the administration with his usual
dexterity and alertness. Fifty peers and privy councillors, seldom seen
so far eastward, were counted in the crowd. The debate lasted till
midnight. The opponents of Hastings had a small superiority on the
division; but a ballot was demanded; and the result was that the
Governor-General triumphed by a majority of above a hundred votes over
the combined efforts of the Directors and the Cabinet. The ministers
were greatly exasperated by this defeat. Even Lord North lost his
temper, no ordinary occurrence with him, and threatened to convoke
Parliament before Christmas, and to bring in a bill for depriving the
Company of all political power, and for restricting it to its old
business of trading in silks and teas.