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THE WORKS
OF
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
EDMUND BURKE
IN TWELVE VOLUMES
VOLUME THE TENTH
[Illustration: Burke Coat of Arms.]
LONDON
JOHN C. NIMMO
14, KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND, W.C.
MDCCCLXXXVII
CONTENTS OF VOL. X.
SPEECHES IN THE IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS, ESQUIRE,
LATE GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF BENGAL.
SPEECH IN OPENING THE IMPEACHMENT.
THIRD DAY: MONDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1788 3
FOURTH DAY: TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 19 99
SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE OF CHARGE.
FIRST DAY: TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 1789 149
SECOND DAY: SATURDAY, APRIL 25 240
THIRD DAY: TUESDAY, MAY 5 306
FOURTH DAY: THURSDAY, MAY 7 396
SPEECHES
IN
THE IMPEACHMENT
OF
WARREN HASTINGS, ESQUIRE
LATE GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF BENGAL.
SPEECH IN OPENING.
(CONTINUED.)
FEBRUARY, 1788.
SPEECH
IN
OPENING THE IMPEACHMENT.
THIRD DAY: MONDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1788.
My Lords,--The gentlemen who are appointed by the Commons to manage this
prosecution, have directed me to inform your Lordships, that they have
very carefully and attentively weighed the magnitude of the subject
which they bring before you with the time which the nature and
circumstances of affairs allow for their conducting it.
My Lords, on that comparison, they are very apprehensive, that, if I
should go very largely into a preliminary explanation of the several
matters in charge, it might be to the prejudice of an early trial of the
substantial merits of each article. We have weighed and considered this
maturely. We have compared exactly the time with the matter, and we have
found that we are obliged to do as all men must do who would manage
their affairs practicably, to make our opinion of what might be most
advantageous to the business conform to the time that is left to perform
it in. We must, as all men must, submit affairs to time, and not think
of making time conform to our wishes; and therefore, my Lords, I very
willingly fall in with the inclinations of the gentlemen with whom I
have the honor to act, to come as soon as possible to close fighting,
and to grapple immediately and directly with the corruptions of
India,--to bring before your Lordships the direct articles, to apply the
evidence to the articles, and to bring the matter forward for your
Lordships' decision in that manner which the confidence we have in the
justice of our cause demands from the Commons of Great Britain.
My Lords, these are the opinions of those with whom I have the honor to
act, and in their opinions I readily acquiesce. For I am far from
wishing to waste any of your Lordships' time upon any matter merely
through any opinion I have of the nature of the business, when at the
same time I find that in the opinion of others it might militate against
the production of its full, proper, and (if I may so say) its immediate
effect.
It was my design to class the crimes of the late Governor of Bengal,--to
show their mutual bearings,--how they were mutually aided and grew and
were formed out of each other. I proposed first of all to show your
Lordships that they have their root in that which is the origin of all
evil, avarice and rapacity,--to show how that led to prodigality of the
public money,--and how prodigality of the public money, by wasting the
treasures of the East India Company, furnished an excuse to the
Governor-General to break its faith, to violate all its most solemn
engagements, and to fall with a hand of stern, ferocious, and
unrelenting rapacity upon all the allies and dependencies of the
Company. But I shall be obliged in some measure to abridge this plan;
and as your Lordships already possess, from what I had the honor to
state on Saturday, a general view of this matter, you will be in a
condition to pursue it when the several articles are presented.
My Lords, I have to state to-day the root of all these
misdemeanors,--namely, the pecuniary corruption and avarice which gave
rise and primary motion to all the rest of the delinquencies charged to
be committed by the Governor-General.
My Lords, pecuniary corruption forms not only, as your Lordships will
observe in the charges before you, an article of charge by itself, but
likewise so intermixes with the whole, that it is necessary to give, in
the best manner I am able, a history of that corrupt system which
brought on all the subsequent acts of corruption. I will venture to say
there is no one act, in which tyranny, malice, cruelty, and oppression
can be charged, that does not at the same time carry evident marks of
pecuniary corruption.
I stated to your Lordships on Saturday last the principles upon which
Mr. Hastings governed his conduct in India, and upon which he grounds
his defence. These may all be reduced to one short word,--_arbitrary
power_. My Lords, if Mr. Hastings had contended, as other men have often
done, that the system of government which he patronizes, and on which he
acted, was a system tending on the whole to the blessing and benefit of
mankind, possibly something might be said for him for setting up so
wild, absurd, irrational, and wicked a system,--something might be said
to qualify the act from the intention; but it is singular in this man,
that, at the time he tells you he acted on the principles of arbitrary
power, he takes care to inform you that he was not blind to the
consequences. Mr. Hastings foresaw that the consequences of this system
was corruption. An arbitrary system, indeed, must always be a corrupt
one. My Lords, there never was a man who thought he had no law but his
own will, who did not soon find that he had no end but his own profit.
Corruption and arbitrary power are of natural unequivocal generation,
necessarily producing one another. Mr. Hastings foresees the abusive and
corrupt consequences, and then he justifies his conduct upon the
necessities of that system. These are things which are new in the world;
for there never was a man, I believe, who contended for arbitrary power,
(and there have been persons wicked and foolish enough to contend for
it,) that did not pretend, either that the system was good in itself, or
that by their conduct they had mitigated or had purified it, and that
the poison, by passing through their constitution, had acquired salutary
properties. But if you look at his defence before the House of Commons,
you will see that that very system upon which he governed, and under
which he now justifies his actions, did appear to himself a system
pregnant with a thousand evils and a thousand mischiefs.
The next thing that is remarkable and singular in the principles upon
which the Governor-General acted is, that, when he is engaged in a
vicious system which clearly leads to evil consequences, he thinks
himself bound to realize all the evil consequences involved in that
system. All other men have taken a directly contrary course: they have
said, "I have been engaged in an evil system, that led, indeed, to
mischievous consequences, but I have taken care, by my own virtues, to
prevent the evils of the system under which I acted."
We say, then, not only that he governed arbitrarily, but
corruptly,--that is to say, that he was a giver and receiver of bribes,
and formed a system for the purpose of giving and receiving them. We
wish your Lordships distinctly to consider that he did not only give and
receive bribes accidentally, as it happened, without any system and
design, merely as the opportunity or momentary temptation of profit
urged him to it, but that he has formed plans and systems of government
for the very purpose of accumulating bribes and presents to himself.
This system of Mr. Hastings's government is such a one, I believe, as
the British nation in particular will disown; for I will venture to say,
that, if there is any one thing which distinguishes this nation
eminently above another, it is, that in its offices at home, both
judicial and in the state, there is less suspicion of pecuniary
corruption attaching to them than to any similar offices in any part of
the globe, or that have existed at any time: so that he who would set up
a system of corruption, and attempt to justify it upon the principle of
utility, that man is staining not only the nature and character of
office, but that which is the peculiar glory of the official and
judicial character of this country; and therefore, in this House, which
is eminently the guardian of the purity of all the offices of this
kingdom, he ought to be called eminently and peculiarly to account.
There are many things, undoubtedly, in crimes, which make them frightful
and odious; but bribery, filthy hands, a chief governor of a great
empire receiving bribes from poor, miserable, indigent people, this is
what makes government itself base, contemptible, and odious in the eyes
of mankind.
My Lords, it is certain that even tyranny itself may find some specious
color, and appear as a more severe and rigid execution of justice.
Religious persecution may shield itself under the guise of a mistaken
and over-zealous piety. Conquest may cover its baldness with its own
laurels, and the ambition of the conqueror may be hid in the secrets of
his own heart under a veil of benevolence, and make him imagine he is
bringing temporary desolation upon a country only to promote its
ultimate advantage and his own glory. But in the principles of that
governor who makes nothing but money his object there can be nothing of
this. There are here none of those specious delusions that look like
virtues, to veil either the governed or the governor. If you look at Mr.
Hastings's merits, as he calls them, what are they? Did he improve the
internal state of the government by great reforms? No such thing. Or by
a wise and incorrupt administration of justice? No. Has he enlarged the
boundary of our government? No: there are but too strong proofs of his
lessening it. But his pretensions to merit are, that he squeezed more
money out of the inhabitants of the country than other persons could
have done,--money got by oppression, violence, extortion from the poor,
or the heavy hand of power upon the rich and great.
These are his merits. What we charge as his demerits are all of the same
nature; for, though there is undoubtedly oppression, breach of faith,
cruelty, perfidy, charged upon him, yet the great ruling principle of
the whole, and that from which you can never have an act free, is
money,--it is the vice of base avarice, which never is, nor ever appears
even to the prejudices of mankind to be, anything like a virtue. Our
desire of acquiring sovereignty in India undoubtedly originated first in
ideas of safety and necessity; its next step was a step of ambition.
That ambition, as generally happens in conquest, was followed by gains
of money; but afterwards there was no mixture at all; it was, during Mr.
Hastings's time, altogether a business of money. If he has extirpated a
nation, I will not say whether properly or improperly, it is because
(says he) you have all the benefit of conquest without expense; you have
got a large sum of money from the people, and you may leave them to be
governed by whom and as they will. This is directly contrary to the
principles of conquerors. If he has at any time taken any money from the
dependencies of the Company, he does not pretend that it was obtained
from their zeal and affection to our cause, or that it made their
submission more complete: very far from it. He says they ought to be
independent, and all that you have to do is to squeeze money from them.
In short, money is the beginning, the middle, and the end of every kind
of act done by Mr. Hastings: pretendedly for the Company, but really for
himself.
Having said so much about the origin, the first principle, both of that
which he makes his merit and which we charge as his demerit, the next
step is, that I should lay open to your Lordships, as clearly as I can,
what the sense of his employers, the East India Company, and what the
sense of the legislature itself, has been upon those merits and demerits
of money.
My Lords, the Company, knowing that these money transactions were likely
to subvert that empire which was first established upon them, did, in
the year 1765, send out a body of the strongest and most solemn
covenants to their servants, that they should take no presents from the
country powers, under any name or description, except those things which
were publicly and openly taken for the use of the Company,--namely,
_territories_ or _sums of money_ which might be obtained by treaty. They
distinguished such presents as were taken from any persons privately,
and unknown to them, and without their authority, from subsidies: and
that this is the true nature and construction of their order I shall
contend and explain afterwards to your Lordships. They have said,
nothing shall be taken for their private use; for though in that and in
every state there may be subsidiary treaties by which sums of money may
be received, yet they forbid their servants, their governors, whatever
application they might pretend to make of them, to receive, under any
other name or pretence, more than a certain, marked, simple sum of
money, and this not without the consent and permission of the Presidency
to which they belong. This is the substance, the principle, and the
spirit of the covenants, and will show your Lordships how radicated an
evil this of bribery and presents was judged to be.
When these covenants arrived in India, the servants refused at first to
execute them,--and suspended the execution of them, till they had
enriched themselves with presents. Eleven months elapsed, and it was not
till Lord Clive reached the place of his destination that the covenants
were executed: and they were not executed then without some degree of
force. Soon afterwards the treaty was made with the country powers by
which Sujah ul Dowlah was reëstablished in the province of Oude, and
paid a sum of 500,000_l._ to the Company for it. It was a public
payment, and there was not a suspicion that a single shilling of private
emolument attended it. But whether Mr. Hastings had the example of
others or not, their example could not justify his briberies. He was
sent there to put an end to all those examples. The Company did
expressly vest him with that power. They declared at that time, that the
whole of their service was totally corrupted by bribes and presents, and
by extravagance and luxury, which partly gave rise to them, and these,
in their turn, enabled them to pursue those excesses. They not only
reposed trust in the integrity of Mr. Hastings, but reposed trust in his
remarkable frugality and order in his affairs, which they considered as
things that distinguished his character. But in his defence we have him
quite in another character,--no longer the frugal, attentive servant,
bred to business, bred to book-keeping, as all the Company's servants
are; he now knows nothing of his own affairs, knows not whether he is
rich or poor, knows not what he has in the world. Nay, people are
brought forward to say that they know better than he does what his
affairs are. He is not like a careful man bred in a counting-house, and
by the Directors put into an office of the highest trust on account of
the regularity of his affairs; he is like one buried in the
contemplation of the stars, and knows nothing of the things in this
world. It was, then, on account of an idea of his great integrity that
the Company put him into this situation. Since that he has thought
proper to justify himself, not by clearing himself of receiving bribes,
but by saying that no bad consequences resulted from it, and that, if
any such evil consequences did arise from it, they arose rather from his
inattention to money than from his desire of acquiring it.
I have stated to your Lordships the nature of the covenants which the
East India Company sent out. Afterwards, when they found their servants
had refused to execute these covenants, they not only very severely
reprehended even a moment's delay in their execution, and threatened the
exacting the most strict and rigorous performance of them, but they sent
a commission to enforce the observance of them more strongly; and that
commission had it specially in charge never to receive presents. They
never sent out a person to India without recognizing the grievance, and
without ordering that presents should not be received, as the main
fundamental part of their duty, and upon which all the rest depended, as
it certainly must: for persons at the head of government should not
encourage that by example which they ought by precept, authority, and
force to restrain in all below them. That commission failing, another
commission was preparing to be sent out with the same instructions, when
an act of Parliament took it up; and that act, which gave Mr. Hastings
power, did mould in the very first stamina of his power this principle,
in words the most clear and forcible that an act of Parliament could
possibly devise upon the subject. And that act was made not only upon a
general knowledge of the grievance, but your Lordships will see in the
reports of that time that Parliament had directly in view before them
the whole of that monstrous head of corruption under the name of
presents, and all the monstrous consequences that followed it.
Now, my Lords, every office of trust, in its very nature, forbids the
receipt of bribes. But Mr. Hastings was forbidden it, first, by his
official situation,--next, by covenant,--and lastly, by act of
Parliament: that is to say, by all the things that bind mankind, or that
can bind them,--first, moral obligation inherent in the duty of their
office,--next, the positive injunctions of the legislature of the
country,--and lastly, a man's own private, particular, voluntary act and
covenant. These three, the great and only obligations that bind mankind,
all united in the focus of this single point,--that they should take no
presents.
I am to mark to your Lordships, that this law and this covenant did
consider indirect ways of taking presents--taking them by others, and
such like--directly in the very same light as they considered taking
them by themselves. It is perhaps a much more dangerous way; because it
adds to the crime a false, prevaricating mode of concealing it, and
makes it much more mischievous by admitting others into the
participation of it. Mr. Hastings has said, (and it is one of the
general complaints of Mr. Hastings,) that he is made answerable for the
acts of other men. It is a thing inherent in the nature of his
situation. All those who enjoy a great superintending trust, which is to
regulate the whole affairs of an empire, are responsible for the acts
and conduct of other men, so far as they had anything to do with
appointing them, or holding them in their places, or having any sort of
inspection into their conduct. But when a Governor presumes to remove
from their situations those persons whom the public authority and
sanction of the Company have appointed, and obtrudes upon them by
violence other persons, superseding the orders of his masters, he
becomes doubly responsible for their conduct. If the persons he names
should be of notorious evil character and evil principles, and if this
should be perfectly known to himself, and of public notoriety to the
rest of the world, then another strong responsibility attaches on him
for the acts of those persons.
Governors, we know very well, cannot with their own hands be continually
receiving bribes,--for then they must have as many hands as one of the
idols in an Indian temple, in order to receive all the bribes which a
Governor-General may receive,--but they have them vicariously. As there
are many offices, so he has had various officers for receiving and
distributing his bribes; he has a great many, some white and some black
agents. The white men are loose and licentious; they are apt to have
resentments, and to be bold in revenging them. The black men are very
secret and mysterious; they are not apt to have very quick resentments,
they have not the same liberty and boldness of language which
characterize Europeans; and they have fears, too, for themselves, which
makes it more likely that they will conceal anything committed to them
by Europeans. Therefore Mr. Hastings had his black agents, not one, two,
three, but many, disseminated through the country: no two of them,
hardly, appear to be in the secret of any one bribe. He has had likewise
his white agents,--they were necessary,--a Mr. Larkins and a Mr.
Croftes. Mr. Croftes was sub-treasurer, and Mr. Larkins
accountant-general. These were the last persons of all others that
should have had anything to do with bribes; yet these were some of his
agents in bribery. There are few instances, in comparison of the whole
number of bribes, but there are some, where two men are in the secret of
the same bribe. Nay, it appears that there was one bribe divided into
different payments at different times,--that one part was committed to
one black secretary, another part to another black secretary. So that it
is almost impossible to make up a complete body of all his bribery: you
may find the scattered limbs, some here and others there; and while you
are employed in picking them up, he may escape entirely in a prosecution
for the whole.
The first act of his government in Bengal was the most bold and
extraordinary that I believe ever entered into the head of any man,--I
will say, of any tyrant. It was no more or less than a general, almost
exceptless confiscation, in time of profound peace, of all the landed
property in Bengal, upon most extraordinary pretences. Strange as this
may appear, he did so confiscate it; he put it up to a pretended public,
in reality to a private corrupt auction; and such favored landholders as
came to it were obliged to consider themselves as not any longer
proprietors of the estates, but to recognize themselves as farmers under
government: and even those few that were permitted to remain on their
estates had their payments raised at his arbitrary discretion; and the
rest of the lands were given to farmers-general, appointed by him and
his committee, at a price fixed by the same arbitrary discretion.
It is necessary to inform your Lordships that the revenues of Bengal
are, for the most part, territorial revenues, great quit-rents issuing
out of lands. I shall say nothing either of the nature of this property,
of the rights of the people to it, or of the mode of exacting the rents,
till that great question of revenues, one of the greatest which we shall
have to lay before you, shall be brought before your Lordships
particularly and specially as an article of charge. I only mention it
now as an exemplification of the great principle of corruption which
guided Mr. Hastings's conduct.
When the ancient nobility, the great princes, (for such I may call
them,) a nobility, perhaps, as ancient as that of your Lordships, (and a
more truly noble body never existed in that character,)--my Lords, when
all the nobility, some of whom have borne the rank and port of princes,
all the gentry, all the freeholders of the country, had their estates in
that manner confiscated,--that is, either given to themselves to hold on
the footing of farmers, or totally confiscated,--when such an act of
tyranny was done, no doubt some good was pretended. This confiscation
was made by Mr. Hastings, and the lands let to these farmers for five
years, upon an idea which always accompanies his acts of oppression, the
idea of _moneyed merit_. He adopted this mode of confiscating the
estates, and letting them to farmers, for the avowed purpose of seeing
how much it was possible to take out of them. Accordingly, he set them
up to this wild and wicked auction, as it would have been, if it had
been a real one,--corrupt and treacherous, as it was,--he set these
lands up for the purpose of making that discovery, and pretended that
the discovery would yield a most amazing increase of rent. And for some
time it appeared so to do, till it came to the touchstone of experience;
and then it was found that there was a defalcation from these monstrous
raised revenues which were to cancel in the minds of the Directors the
wickedness of so atrocious, flagitious, and horrid an act of treachery.
At the end of five years what do you think was the failure? No less than
2,050,000_l._ Then a new source of corruption was opened,--that is, how
to deal with the balances: for every man who had engaged in these
transactions was a debtor to government, and the remission of that debt
depended upon the discretion of the Governor-General. Then the persons
who were to settle the composition of that immense debt, who were to see
how much was recoverable and how much not, were able to favor, or to
exact to the last shilling; and there never existed a doubt but that not
only upon the original cruel exaction, but upon the remission
afterwards, immense gains were derived. This will account for the manner
in which those stupendous fortunes which astonish the world have been
made. They have been made, first by a tyrannous exaction from the people
who were suffered to remain in possession of their own land as
farmers,--then by selling the rest to farmers at rents and under hopes
which could never be realized, and then getting money for the relaxation
of their debts. But whatever excuse, and however wicked, there might
have been for this wicked act, namely, that it carried upon the face of
it some sort of appearance of public good,--that is to say, that sort of
public good which Mr. Hastings so often professed, of ruining the
country for the benefit of the Company,--yet, in fact, this business of
balances is that _nidus_ in which have been nustled and bred and born
all the corruptions of India, first by making extravagant demands, and
afterwards by making corrupt relaxations of them.
Besides this monstrous failure, in consequence of a miserable exaction
by which more was attempted to be forced from the country than it was
capable of yielding, and this by way of experiment, when your Lordships
come to inquire who the farmers-general of the revenue were, you would
naturally expect to find them to be the men in the several countries who
had the most interest, the greatest wealth, the best knowledge of the
revenue and resources of the country in which they lived. Those would be
thought the natural, proper farmers-general of each district. No such
thing, my Lords. They are found in the body of people whom I have
mentioned to your Lordships. They were almost all let to Calcutta
banians. Calcutta banians were the farmers of almost the whole. They
sub-delegated to others, who sometimes had sub-delegates under them _ad
infinitum_. The whole formed a system together, through the succession
of black tyrants scattered through the country, in which you at last
find the European at the end, sometimes indeed not hid very deep, not
above one between him and the farmer, namely, his banian directly, or
some other black person to represent him. But some have so managed the
affair, that, when you inquire who the farmer is,--Was such a one
farmer? No. Cantoo Baboo? No. Another? No,--at last you find three deep
of fictitious farmers, and you find the European gentlemen, high in
place and authority, the real farmers of the settlement. So that the
zemindars were dispossessed, the country racked and ruined, for the
benefit of an European, under the name of a farmer: for you will easily
judge whether these gentlemen had fallen so deeply in love with the
banians, and thought so highly of their merits and services, as to
reward _them_ with all the possessions of the great landed interest of
the country. Your Lordships are too grave, wise, and discerning, to make
it necessary for me to say more upon that subject. Tell me that the
banians of English gentlemen, dependants on them at Calcutta, were the
farmers throughout, and I believe I need not tell your Lordships for
whose benefit they were farmers.
But there is one of these who comes so nearly, indeed so precisely,
within this observation, that it is impossible for me to pass him by.
Whoever has heard of Mr. Hastings's name, with any knowledge of Indian
connections, has heard of his banian, Cantoo Baboo. This man is well
known in the records of the Company, as his agent for receiving secret
gifts, confiscations, and presents. You would have imagined that he
would at least have kept _him_ out of these farms, in order to give the
measure a color at least of disinterestedness, and to show that this
whole system of corruption and pecuniary oppression was carried on for
the benefit of the Company. The Governor-General and Council made an
ostensible order by which no collector, or person concerned in the
revenue, should have any connection with these farms. This order did not
include the Governor-General in the words of it, but more than included
him in the spirit of it; because his power to protect a farmer-general
in the person of his own servant was infinitely greater than that of any
subordinate person. Mr. Hastings, in breach of this order, gave farms to
his own banian. You find him the farmer of great, of vast and extensive
farms. Another regulation that was made on that occasion was, that no
farmer should have, except in particular cases, which were marked,
described, and accurately distinguished, a greater farm than what paid
10,000_l._ a year to government. Mr. Hastings, who had broken the first
regulation by giving any farm at all to his banian, finding himself
bolder, broke the second too, and, instead of 10,000_l._, gave him farms
paying a revenue of 130,000_l._ a year to government. Men undoubtedly
have been known to be under the dominion of their domestics; such
things have happened to great men: they never have happened justifiably
in my opinion. They have never happened excusably; but we are acquainted
sufficiently with the weakness of human nature to know that a domestic
who has served you in a near office long, and in your opinion
faithfully, does become a kind of relation; it brings on a great
affection and regard for his interest. Now was this the case with Mr.
Hastings and Cantoo Baboo? Mr. Hastings was just arrived at his
government, and Cantoo Baboo had been but a year in his service; so that
he could not in that time have contracted any great degree of friendship
for him. These people do not live in your house; the Hindoo servants
never sleep in it; they cannot eat with your servants; they have no
second table, in which they can be continually about you, to be
domesticated with yourself, a part of your being, as people's servants
are to a certain degree. These persons live all abroad; they come at
stated hours upon matters of business, and nothing more. But if it had
been otherwise, Mr. Hastings's connection with Cantoo Baboo had been but
of a year's standing; he had before served in that capacity Mr. Sykes,
who recommended him to Mr. Hastings. Your Lordships, then, are to judge
whether such outrageous violations of all the principles by which Mr.
Hastings pretended to be guided in the settlement of these farms were
for the benefit of this old, decayed, affectionate servant of one year's
standing: your Lordships will judge of that.
I have here spoken only of the beginning of a great, notorious system of
corruption, which branched out so many ways and into such a variety of
abuses, and has afflicted that kingdom with such horrible evils from
that day to this, that I will venture to say it will make one of the
greatest, weightiest, and most material parts of the charge that is now
before you; as I believe I need not tell your Lordships that an attempt
to set up the whole landed interest of a kingdom to auction must be
attended, not only in that act, but every consequential act, with most
grievous and terrible consequences.
My Lords, I will now come to a scene of peculation of another kind:
namely, a peculation by the direct sale of offices of justice,--by the
direct sale of the successions of families,--by the sale of
guardianships and trusts, held most sacred among the people of India: by
the sale of them, not, as before, to farmers, not, as you might imagine,
to near relations of the families, but a sale of them to the unfaithful
servants of those families, their own perfidious servants, who had
ruined their estates, who, if any balances had accrued to the
government, had been the cause of those debts. Those very servants were
put in power over their estates, their persons, and their families, by
Mr. Hastings, for a shameful price. It will be proved to your Lordships,
in the course of this business, that Mr. Hastings has done this in
another sacred trust, the most sacred trust a man can have,--that is, in
the case of those _vakeels_, (as they call them,) agents, or attorneys,
who had been sent to assert and support the rights of their miserable
masters before the Council-General. It will be proved that these vakeels
were by Mr. Hastings, for a price to be paid for it, put in possession
of the very power, situation, and estates of those masters who sent them
to Calcutta to defend them from wrong and violence. The selling offices
of justice, the sale of succession in families, of guardianships and
other sacred trusts, the selling masters to their servants, and
principals to the attorneys they employed to defend themselves, were all
parts of the same system; and these were the horrid ways in which he
received bribes beyond any common rate.
When Mr. Hastings was appointed in the year 1773 to be Governor-General
of Bengal, together with Mr. Barwell, General Clavering, Colonel Monson,
and Mr. Francis, the Company, knowing the former corrupt state of their
service, (but the whole corrupt system of Mr. Hastings at that time not
being known or even suspected at home,) did order them, in discharge of
the spirit of the act of Parliament, to make an inquiry into all manner
of corruptions and malversations in office, without the exception of any
persons whatever. Your Lordships are to know that the act did expressly
authorize the Court of Directors to frame a body of instructions, and to
give orders to their new servants appointed under the act of Parliament,
lest it should be supposed that they, by their appointment under the
act, could supersede the authority of the Directors. The Directors,
sensible of the power left in them over their servants by the act of
Parliament, though their nomination was taken from them, did, agreeably
to the spirit and power of that act, give this order.
The Council consisted of two parties: Mr. Hastings and Mr. Barwell, who
were chosen and kept there upon the idea of their local knowledge; and
the other three, who were appointed on account of their great parts and
known integrity. And I will venture to say that those three gentlemen
did so execute their duty in India, in all the substantial parts of it,
that they will serve as a shield to cover the honor of England, whenever
this country is upbraided in India.
They found a rumor running through the country of great peculations and
oppressions. Soon after, when it was known what their instructions were,
and that the Council was ready, as is the first duty of all governors,
even when there is no express order, to receive complaints against the
oppressions and corruptions of government in any part of it, they found
such a body (and that body shall be produced to your Lordships) of
corruption and peculation in every walk, in every department, in every
situation of life, in the sale of the most sacred trusts, and in the
destruction of the most ancient families of the country, as I believe in
so short a time never was unveiled since the world began.
Your Lordships would imagine that Mr. Hastings would at least ostensibly
have taken some part in endeavoring to bring these corruptions before
the public, or that he would at least have acted with some little
management in his opposition. But, alas! it was not in his power; there
was not one, I think, but I am sure very few, of these general articles
of corruption, in which the most eminent figure in the crowd, the
principal figure as it were in the piece, was not Mr. Hastings himself.
There were a great many others involved; for all departments were
corrupted and vitiated. But you could not open a page in which you did
not see Mr. Hastings, or in which you did not see Cantoo Baboo. Either
the black or white side of Mr. Hastings constantly was visible to the
world in every part of these transactions.
With the other gentlemen, who were visible too, I have at present no
dealing. Mr. Hastings, instead of using any management on that occasion,
instantly set up his power and authority, directly against the majority
of the Council, directly against his colleagues, directly against the
authority of the East India Company and the authority of the act of
Parliament, to put a dead stop to all these inquiries. He broke up the
Council, the moment they attempted to perform this part of their duty.
As the evidence multiplied upon him, the daring exertions of his power
in stopping all inquiries increased continually. But he gave a credit
and authority to the evidence by these attempts to suppress it.
Your Lordships have heard that among the body of the accusers of this
corruption there was a principal man in the country, a man of the first
rank and authority in it, called Nundcomar, who had the management of
revenues amounting to 150,000_l._ a year, and who had, if really
inclined to play the small game with which he has been charged by his
accusers, abundant means to gratify himself in playing great ones; but
Mr. Hastings has himself given him, upon the records of the Company, a
character which would at least justify the Council in making some
inquiry into charges made by him.
First, he was perfectly competent to make them, because he was in the
management of those affairs from which Mr. Hastings is supposed to have
received corrupt emolument. He and his son were the chief managers in
those transactions. He was therefore perfectly competent to it.--Mr.
Hastings has cleared his character; for though it is true, in the
contradictions in which Mr. Hastings has entangled himself, he has
abused and insulted him, and particularly after his appearance as an
accuser, yet before this he has given this testimony of him, that the
hatred that had been drawn upon him, and the general obloquy of the
English nation, was on account of his attachment to his own prince and
the liberties of his country. Be he what he might, I am not disposed,
nor have I the least occasion, to defend either his conduct or his
memory.
It is to no purpose for Mr. Hastings to spend time in idle objections to
the character of Nundcomar. Let him be as bad as Mr. Hastings represents
him. I suppose he was a caballing, bribing, intriguing politician, like
others in that country, both black and white. We know associates in dark
and evil actions are not generally the best of men; but be that as it
will, it generally happens that they are the best of all discoverers. If
Mr. Hastings were the accuser of Nundcomar, I should think the
presumptions equally strong against Nundcomar, if he had acted as Mr.
Hastings has acted.--He was not only competent, but the most competent
of all men to be Mr. Hastings's accuser. But Mr. Hastings has himself
established both his character and his competency by employing him
against Mahomed Reza Khân. He shall not blow hot and cold. In what
respect was Mr. Hastings better than Mahomed Reza Khân, that the whole
rule, principle, and system of accusation and inquiry should be totally
reversed in general, nay, reversed in the particular instance, the
moment he became accuser against Mr. Hastings?--Such was the accuser. He
was the man that gave the bribes, and, in addition to his own evidence,
offers proof by other witnesses.
What was the accusation? Was the accusation improbable, either on
account of the subject-matter or the actor in it? Does such an
appointment as that of Munny Begum, in the most barefaced evasion of his
orders, appear to your Lordships a matter that contains no just
presumptions of guilt, so that, when a charge of bribery comes upon it,
you are prepared to reject it, as if the action were so clear and proper
that no man could attribute it to an improper motive? And as to the
man,--is Mr. Hastings a man against whom a charge of bribery is
improbable? Why, he owns it. He is a professor of it. He reduces it into
scheme and system. He glories in it. He turns it to merit, and declares
it is the best way of supplying the exigencies of the Company. Why,
therefore, should it be held improbable?--But I cannot mention this
proceeding without shame and horror.
My Lords, when this man appeared as an accuser of Mr. Hastings, if he
was a man of bad character, it was a great advantage to Mr. Hastings to
be accused by a man of that description. There was no likelihood of any
great credit being given to him.
This person, who, in one of those sales of which I have already given
you some account in the history of the last period of the revolutions of
Bengal, had been, or thought he had been, cheated of his money, had made
some discoveries, and been guilty of that great irremissible sin in
India, the disclosure of peculation. He afterwards came with a second
disclosure, and was likely to have odium enough upon the occasion. He
directly charged Mr. Hastings with the receipt of bribes, amounting
together to about 40,000_l._ sterling, given by himself, on his own
account and that of Munny Begum. The charge was accompanied with every
particular which could facilitate proof or detection,--time, place,
persons, species, to whom paid, by whom received. Here was a fair
opportunity for Mr. Hastings at once to defeat the malice of his enemies
and to clear his character to the world. His course was different. He
railed much at the accuser, but did not attempt to refute the
accusation. He refuses to permit the inquiry to go on, attempts to
dissolve the Council, commands his banian not to attend. The Council,
however, goes on, examines to the bottom, and resolves that the charge
was proved, and that the money ought to go to the Company. Mr. Hastings
then broke up the Council,--I will not say whether legally or illegally.
The Company's law counsel thought he might legally do it; but he
corruptly did it, and left mankind no room to judge but that it was done
for the screening of his own guilt: for a man may use a legal power
corruptly, and for the most shameful and detestable purposes. And thus
matters continued, till he commenced a criminal prosecution against this
man,--this man whom he dared not meet as a defendant.
Mr. Hastings, instead of answering the charge, attacks the accuser.
Instead of meeting the man in front, he endeavored to go round, to come
upon his flanks and rear, but never to meet him in the face, upon the
ground of his accusation, as he was bound by the express authority of
law and the express injunctions of the Directors to do. If the bribery
is not admitted on the evidence of Nundcomar, yet his suppressing it is
a crime, a violation of the orders of the Court of Directors. He
disobeyed those instructions; and if it be only for disobedience, for
rebellion against his masters, (putting the corrupt motive out of the
question,) I charge him for this disobedience, and especially on account
of the principles upon which he proceeded in it.
Then he took another step: he accused Nundcomar of a conspiracy,--which
was a way he then and ever since has used, whenever means were taken to
detect any of his own iniquities.
And here it becomes necessary to mention another circumstance of
history: that the legislature, not trusting entirely to the
Governor-General and Council, had sent out a court of justice to be a
counter security against these corruptions, and to detect and punish any
such misdemeanors as might appear. And this court I take for granted has
done great services.
Mr. Hastings flew to this court, which was meant to protect in their
situations informers against bribery and corruption, rather than to
protect the accused from any of the preliminary methods which must
indispensably be used for the purpose of detecting their guilt,--he flew
to this court, charging this Nundcomar and others with being
conspirators.
A man might be convicted as a conspirator, and yet afterwards live; he
might put the matter into other hands, and go on with his information;
nothing less than _stone-dead_ would do the business. And here happened
an odd concurrence of circumstances. Long before Nundcomar preferred his
charge, he knew that Mr. Hastings was plotting his ruin, and that for
this purpose he had used a man whom he, Nundcomar, had turned out of
doors, called Mohun Persaud. Mr. Hastings had seen papers put upon the
board, charging him with this previous plot for the destruction of
Nundcomar; and this identical person, Mohun Persaud, whom Nundcomar had
charged as Mr. Hastings's associate in plotting his ruin, was now again
brought forward as the principal evidence against him. I will not enter
(God forbid I should!) into the particulars of the subsequent trial of
Nundcomar; but you will find the marks and characters of it to be these.
You will find a close connection between Mr. Hastings and the
chief-justice, which we shall prove. We shall prove that one of the
witnesses who appeared there was a person who had been before, or has
since been, concerned with Mr. Hastings in his most iniquitous
transactions. You will find, what is very odd, that in this trial for
forgery with which this man stood charged, forgery in a private
transaction, all the persons who were witnesses or parties to it had
been, before or since, the particular friends of Mr. Hastings,--in
short, persons from that rabble with whom Mr. Hastings was concerned,
both before and since, in various transactions and negotiations of the
most criminal kind. But the law took its course. I have nothing more to
say than that the man is gone,--hanged justly, if you please; and that
it did so happen,--luckily for Mr. Hastings,--it so happened, that the
relief of Mr. Hastings, and the justice of the court, and the resolution
never to relax its rigor, did all concur just at a happy nick of time
and moment; and Mr. Hastings, accordingly, had the full benefit of them
all.
His accuser was supposed to be what men may be, and yet very competent
for accusers, namely, one of his accomplices in guilty actions,--one of
those persons who may have a great deal to say of bribes. All that I
contend for is, that he was in the closest intimacy with Mr. Hastings,
was in a situation for giving bribes,--and that Mr. Hastings was proved
afterwards to have received a sum of money from him, which may be well
referred to bribes.
This example had its use in the way in which it was intended to operate,
and in which alone it could operate. It did not discourage forgeries:
they went on at their usual rate, neither more nor less: but it put an
end to all accusations against all persons in power for any corrupt
practice. Mr. Hastings observes, that no man in India complains of him.
It is generally true. The voice of all India is stopped. All complaint
was strangled with the same cord that strangled Nundcomar. This murdered
not only that accuser, but all future accusation; and not only defeated,
but totally vitiated and reversed all the ends for which this country,
to its eternal and indelible dishonor, had sent out a pompous embassy of
justice to the remotest parts of the globe.