corruption,--so we commonly call it. Bribes are so little known in this
country that we can hardly get clear and specific technical names to
distinguish them; but in future, I am afraid, the conduct of Mr.
Hastings will improve our law vocabulary. The first, then, of these
offences with which Mr. Hastings stands charged here is receiving bribes
himself, or through his banians. Every one of these are overt acts of
the general charge of bribery, and they are every one of them,
separately taken, substantive crimes. But whatever the criminal nature
of these acts was, (and the nature was very criminal, and the
consequences to the country very dreadful,) yet we mean to prove to your
Lordships that they were not single acts, that they were not acts
committed as opportunity offered, or as necessity tempted or urged upon
the occasion, but that they are parts of a general systematic plan of
corruption, for advancing his fortune at the expense of his integrity;
that he has, for that purpose, not only taken the opportunity of his own
power, but made whole establishments, altered and perverted others, and
created complete revolutions in the country's government, for the
purpose of making the power which ought to be subservient to legal
government subservient to corruption; that, when he could no longer
cover these fraudulent proceedings by artifice, he endeavored to justify
them by principle. These artifices we mean to detect; these principles
we mean to attack, and, with your Lordships' aid, to demolish, destroy,
and subvert forever.
My Lords, I must say, that in this business, which is a matter of
collusion, concealment, and deceit, your Lordships will, perhaps, not
feel the same degree of interest as in the others. Hitherto you have had
before you crimes of dignity: you have had before you the ruin and
expulsion of great and illustrious families, the breach of solemn public
treaties, the merciless pillage and total subversion of the first houses
in Asia. But the crimes which are the most striking to the imagination
are not always the most pernicious in their effects: in these high,
eminent acts of domineering tyranny, their very magnitude proves a sort
of corrective to their virulence. The occasions on which they can be
exercised are rare; the persons upon whom they can be exercised few; the
persons who can exercise them, in the nature of things, are not many.
These high tragic acts of superior, overbearing tyranny are privileged
crimes; they are the unhappy, dreadful prerogative, they are the
distinguished and incommunicable attributes, of superior wickedness in
eminent station.
But, my Lords, when the vices of low, sordid, and illiberal minds infect
that high situation,--when theft, bribery, and peculation, attended with
fraud, prevarication, falsehood, misrepresentation, and forgery--when
all these follow in one train,--when these vices, which gender and spawn
in dirt, and are nursed in dunghills, come and pollute with their slime
that throne which ought to be a seat of dignity and purity, the evil is
much greater; it may operate daily and hourly; it is not only imitable,
but improvable, and it will be imitated, and will be improved, from the
highest to the lowest, through all the gradations of a corrupt
government. They are reptile vices. There are situations in which the
acts of the individual are of some moment, the example comparatively of
little importance. In the other, the mischief of the example is
infinite.
My Lords, when once a Governor-General receives bribes, he gives a
signal to universal pillage to all the inferior parts of the service.
The bridles upon hard-mouthed passion are removed; they are taken away;
they are broken. Fear and shame, the great guards to virtue next to
conscience, are gone. Shame! how can it exist?--it will soon blush away
its awkward sensibility. Shame, my Lords, cannot exist long, when it is
seen that crimes which naturally bring disgrace are attended with all
the outward symbols, characteristics, and rewards of honor and of
virtue,--when it is seen that high station, great rank, general
applause, vast wealth follow the commission of peculation and bribery.
Is it to be believed that men can long be ashamed of that which they see
to be the road to honor? As to fear, let a Governor-General once take
bribes, there is an end of all fear in the service. What have they to
fear? Is it the man whose example they follow that is to bring them
before a tribunal for their punishment? Can he open any inquiry? He
cannot: he that opens a channel of inquiry under these circumstances
opens a high-road to his own detection. Can he make any laws to prevent
it? None: for he can make no laws to restrain that practice without the
breach of his own laws immediately in his own conduct. If we once can
admit, for a single instant, in a Governor-General, a principle, however
defended, upon any pretence whatever, to receive bribes in consequence
of his office, there is an end of all virtue, an end of the laws, and no
hope left in the supreme justice of the country. We are sensible of all
these difficulties; we have felt them; and perhaps it has required no
small degree of exertion for us to get the better of these difficulties
which are thrown in our way by a Governor-General accepting bribes, and
thereby screening and protecting the whole service in such iniquitous
proceedings.
With regard to this matter, we are to state to your Lordships, in order
to bring it fully and distinctly before you, what the nature of this
distemper of bribery is in the Indian government. We are to state what
the laws and rules are which have been opposed to prevent it, and the
utter insufficiency of all that have been proposed: to state the
grievance, the instructions of the Company and government, the acts of
Parliament, the constructions upon the acts of Parliament. We are to
state to your Lordships the particular situation of Mr. Hastings; we are
to state the trust the Company had in him for the prevention of all
those evils; and then we are to prove that every evil, that all those
grievances which the law intended to prevent, which there were covenants
to restrain, and with respect to which there were encouragements to
smooth and make easy the path of duty, Mr. Hastings was invested with a
special, direct, and immediate trust to prevent. We are to prove to your
Lordships that he is the man who, in his own person collectively, has
done more mischief than all those persons whose evil practices have
produced all those laws, those regulations, and even his own
appointment.
The first thing that we shall do is to state, and which we shall prove
in evidence, that this vice of bribery was the ancient, radical,
endemical, and ruinous distemper of the Company's affairs in India, from
the time of their first establishment there. Very often there are no
words nor any description which can adequately convey the state of a
thing like the direct evidence of the thing itself: because the former
might be suspected of exaggeration; you might think that which was
really fact to be nothing but the coloring of the person that explained
it; and therefore I think that it will be much better to give to your
Lordships here a direct state of the Presidency at the time when the
Company enacted those covenants which Mr. Hastings entered into, and
when they took those measures to prevent the very evils from persons
placed in those very stations and in those very circumstances in which
we charge Mr. Hastings with having committed the offences we now bring
before you.
I wish your Lordships to know that we are going to read a consultation
of Lord Clive's, who was sent out for the express purpose of reforming
the state of the Company, in order to show the magnitude of the
pecuniary corruptions that prevailed in it.
"It is from a due sense of the regard we owe and profess to your
interests and to our own honor, that we think it indispensably
necessary to lay open to your view a series of transactions too
notoriously known to be suppressed, and too affecting to your
interest, to the national character, and to the existence of the
Company in Bengal, to escape unnoticed and uncensured,--transactions
which seem to demonstrate that every spring of this government was
smeared with corruption, that principles of rapacity and oppression
universally prevailed, and that every spark of sentiment and public
spirit was lost and extinguished in the unbounded lust of unmerited
wealth.
"To illustrate these positions, we must exhibit to your view a most
unpleasing variety of complaints, inquiries, accusations, and
vindications, the particulars of which are entered in our
Proceedings and the Appendix,--assuring you that we undertake this
task with peculiar reluctance, from the personal regard we entertain
for some of the gentlemen whose characters will appear to be deeply
affected.
"At Fort St. George we received the first advices of the demise of
Mir Jaffier and of Sujah Dowlah's defeat. It was there firmly
imagined that no definite measures would be taken, either in respect
to a peace or filling the vacancy in the nizamut, before our
arrival,--as the 'Lapwing' arrived in the month of January with your
general letter, and the appointment of a committee with express
powers to that purpose, for the successful exertion of which the
happiest occasion now offered. However, a contrary resolution
prevailed in the Council. The opportunity of acquiring immense
fortunes was too inviting to be neglected, and the temptation too
powerful to be resisted. A treaty was hastily drawn up by the board,
or rather transcribed, with few unimportant additions, from that
concluded with Mir Jaffier,--and a deputation, consisting of Messrs.
Johnstone, senior, Middleton, and Leycester, appointed to raise the
natural son of the deceased Nabob to the subahdarry, in prejudice of
the claim of the grandson; and for this measure such reasons are
assigned as ought to have dictated a diametrically opposite
resolution. Meeran's son was a minor, which circumstance alone would
have naturally brought the whole administration into our hands, at a
juncture when it became indispensably necessary we should realize
that shadow of power and influence which, having no solid
foundation, was exposed to the danger of being annihilated by the
first stroke of adverse fortune. But this inconsistence was not
regarded; nor was it material to the views for precipitating the
treaty, which was pressed on the young Nabob at the first interview,
in so earnest and indelicate a manner as highly disgusted him and
chagrined his ministers; while not a single rupee was stipulated for
the Company, whose interests were sacrificed, that their servants
might revel in the spoils of a treasury before impoverished, but now
totally exhausted.
"This scene of corruption was first disclosed, at a visit the Nabob
was paid, to Lord Clive and the gentlemen of the Committee, a few
days after our arrival. He there delivered to his Lordship a letter
filled with bitter complaints of the insults and indignities he had
been exposed to, and the embezzlement of near twenty lacs of rupees,
issued from his treasury for purposes unknown, during the late
negotiations. So public a complaint could not be disregarded, and it
soon produced an inquiry. We referred the letter to the board, in
expectation of obtaining a satisfactory account of the application
of this money, and were answered only by a warm remonstrance entered
by Mr. Leycester against that very Nabob in whose elevation he
boasts of having been a principal agent.
"Mahomed Reza Khân, the Naib Subah, was then called upon to account
for this large disbursement from the treasury; and he soon delivered
to the Committee the very extraordinary narrative entered in our
Proceedings the 6th of June, wherein he specifies the several names
and sums, by whom paid, and to whom, whether in cash, bills, or
obligations. So precise, so accurate an account as this of money for
secret and venal services was never, we believe, before this period,
exhibited to the Honorable Court of Directors,--at least, never
vouched by such undeniable testimony and authentic documents: by
Juggut Seet, who himself was obliged to contribute largely to the
sums demanded; by Muley Ram, who was employed by Mr. Johnstone in
all those pecuniary transactions; by the Nabob and Mahomed Reza
Khân, who were the heaviest sufferers; and, lastly, by the
confession of the gentlemen themselves whose names are specified in
the distribution list.
"Juggut Seet expressly declared in his narrative, that the sum which
he agreed to pay the deputation, amounting to 125,000 rupees, was
extorted by menaces; and since the close of our inquiry, and the
opinions we delivered in the Proceedings of the 21st June, it fully
appears that the presents from the Nabob and Mahomed Reza Khân,
exceeding the immense sum of seventeen lacs, were not the voluntary
offerings of gratitude, but contributions levied on the weakness of
the government, and violently exacted from the dependent state and
timid disposition of the minister. The charge, indeed, is denied on
the one hand, as well as affirmed on the other. Your honorable board
must therefore determine how far the circumstance of extortion may
aggravate the crime of disobedience to your positive orders, the
exposing the government in a manner to sale, and receiving the
infamous wages of corruption from opposite parties and contending
interests. We speak with boldness, because we speak from conviction
founded upon indubitable facts, that, besides the above sums
specified in the distribution account to the amount of 228,125
pounds sterling, there was likewise to the value of several lacs of
rupees procured from Nundcomar and Roydullub, each of whom aspired
at and obtained a promise of that very employment it was
predetermined to bestow on Mahomed Reza Khân.
(Signed at the end)
"CLIVE.
W^M B. SUMNER.
JOHN CARNAC.
H. VERELST.
FRA^S SYKES."
This paper cannot be denied to be a paper of weight and authenticity,
because it is signed by a gentleman now in this House, who sits on one
side of the gentleman at your bar, as his bail. This grievance,
therefore, so authenticated, so great, and described in so many
circumstances, I think it might be sufficient for me, in this part of
the business, to show was, when Mr. Hastings was sent to India, a
prevalent evil.
But, my Lords, it is necessary that I should show to you something more,
because, _prima fronte_, this is some exculpation of Mr. Hastings: for,
if he was only a partaker in a general misconduct, it was rather _vitium
loci et vitium temporis_ than _vitium hominis_. This might be said in
his exculpation. But I am next to show your Lordships the means which
the Company took for removing this grievance; and that Mr. Hastings's
peculiar trust, the great specific ground of his appointment, was a
confidence that he would eradicate this very evil, of which we are going
to prove that he has been one of the principal promoters. I wish your
Lordships to advert to one particular circumstance,--namely, that the
two persons who were bidders at this time, and at this auction of
government, for the favor and countenance of the Presidency at Calcutta,
were Mahomed Reza Khân and Rajah Nundcomar. I wish your Lordships to
recollect this by-and-by, when we shall bring before you the very same
two persons, who, in the same sort of transaction, and in circumstances
exactly similar, or very nearly so, were candidates for the favor of Mr.
Hastings.
My Lords, our next step will be to show you that the Company in 1768 had
made a covenant expressly forbidding the taking of presents of above
400_l._ value in each present by the Governor-General. I take it for
granted, this will not be much litigated. They renewed and enforced that
with other covenants and other instructions; and at last came an act of
Parliament, in the clearest, the most definite, the most specific words
that all the wisdom of the legislature, intent upon the eradication of
this evil, could use, to prevent the receiving of presents.
My Lords, I think it is necessary to state, that there has been some
little difficulty concerning this word, _presents_. Bribery and
extortion have been covered by the name of presents, and the authority
and practice of the East has been adduced as a palliation of the crime.
My Lords, no authority of the East will be a palliation of the breach of
laws enacted in the West: and to those laws of the West, and not the
vicious customs of the East, we insist upon making Mr. Hastings liable.
But do not your Lordships see that this is an entire mistake? that there
never was any custom of the East for it? I do not mean vicious practices
and customs, which it is the business of good laws and good customs to
eradicate. There are three species of presents known in the East,--two
of them payments of money known to be legal, and the other perfectly
illegal, and which has a name exactly expressing it in the manner our
language does. It is necessary that your Lordships should see that Mr.
Hastings has made use of a perversion of the names of authorized gifts
to cover the most abominable and prostituted bribery. The first of those
presents is known in the country by the name of _peshcush_: this
_peshcush_ is a fine paid, upon the grant of lands, to the sovereign, or
whoever grants them. The second is the _nuzzer_, or _nuzzerana_, which
is a tribute of acknowledgment from an inferior to a superior. The last
is called _reshwat_, in the Persian language,--that is to say, a bribe,
or sum of money clandestinely and corruptly taken,--and is as much
distinguished from the others as, in the English language, a fine or
acknowledgment is distinguished from a bribe. To show your Lordships
this, we shall give in evidence, that, whenever a peshcush or fine is
paid, it is a sum of money publicly paid, and paid in proportion to the
grant,--and that the sum is entered upon the very grant itself. We shall
prove the nuzzer is in the same manner entered, and that all legal fees
are indorsed upon the body of the grant for which they are taken: and
that they are no more in the East than in the West any kind of color or
pretence for corrupt acts, which are known by the circumstance of their
being clandestinely taken, and which are acknowledged and confessed to
be illegal and corrupt. Having stated that Mr. Hastings, in some of the
evidence that we shall produce, endeavors to confound these three
things, I am only to remark that the nuzzer is generally a very small
sum of money, that it sometimes amounts to one gold mohur, that
sometimes it is less, and that, in all the records of the Company, I
have never known it exceed one gold mohur, or about thirty-five
shillings,--passing by the fifty gold mohurs which were given to Mr.
Hastings by Cheyt Sing, and a hundred gold mohurs which were given to
the Mogul, as a nuzzer, by Mahomed Ali, Nabob of Arcot.
The Company, seeing that this nuzzer, though small in each sum, might
amount at last to a large tax upon the country, (and it did so in fact,)
thought proper to prohibit any sum of money to be taken upon any pretext
whatever; and the Company in the year 1775 did expressly explode the
whole doctrine of peshcush, nuzzer, and every other private lucrative
emolument, under whatever name, to be taken by the Governor-General, and
did expressly send out an order that that was the construction of the
act, and that he was not even to take a nuzzer. Thus we shall show that
that act had totally cut up the whole system of bribery and corruption,
and that Mr. Hastings had no sort of color whatever for taking the money
which we shall prove he has taken.
I know that positive prohibitions, that acts of Parliament, that
covenants, are things of very little validity indeed, as long as all the
means of corruption are left in power, and all the temptations to
corrupt profit are left in poverty. I should really think that the
Company deserved to be ill served, if they had not annexed such
appointments to great trusts as might secure the persons intrusted from
the temptations of unlawful emolument, and, what in all cases is the
greatest security, given a lawful gratification to the natural passions
of men. Matrimony is to be used, as a true remedy against a vicious
course of profligate manners; fair and lawful emoluments, and the just
profits of office, are opposed to the unlawful means which might be made
use of to supply them. For, in truth, I am ready to agree, that for any
man to expect a series of sacrifices without a return in blessings, to
expect labor without a prospect of reward, and fatigue without any means
of securing rest, is an unreasonable demand in any human creature from
another. Those who trust that they shall find in men uncommon and heroic
virtues are themselves endeavoring to have nothing paid them but the
common returns of the worst parts of human infirmity. And therefore I
shall show your Lordships that the Company did provide large, ample,
abundant means for supporting the Governor-General,--that Lord Clive, in
the year 1765, and the Council with him, of which Mr. Sumner, I am glad
and proud to say, was one, did fix such an allowance as they thought a
sufficient security to the Governor-General against the temptations
attendant upon his situation; and therefore, after they had fixed this
sum, they say, "that, although by this means the Governor will not be
able to amass a million or half a million in the space of two or three
years, yet he will acquire a very handsome independency, and be in that
very situation which a man of honor and true zeal for the service would
wish to possess. Thus situated, he may defy all opposition in Council;
he will have nothing to ask, nothing to propose, but what he wishes for
the advantage of his employers; he may defy the law, because there can
be no foundation for a bill of discovery; and he may defy the obloquy of
the world, because there can be nothing censurable in his conduct. In
short, if stability can be insured to such a government as this, where
riches have been acquired in abundance in a small space of time, by all
ways and means, and by men with or without capacities, it must be
effected by a Governor thus restricted,"--that is, a Governor restricted
from every emolument but that of his salary. I must remark, that this
salary and these emoluments were not settled upon the vague speculations
of men taking the measure of their necessities for India from the
manners of England; but it was fixed by the Council themselves,--fixed
in India,--fixed by those who knew and were in the situation of the
Governor-General, and who knew what was necessary to support his dignity
and to preserve him from the temptation of corruption: and they have
laid open to you such a body of advantages arising from it as would lead
any man, who had a regard to his honor or conscience, to think himself
happy in having such a provision made for him, and at the same time
every temptation to act corruptly removed far from him.
The emoluments of the office, though reduced from the original plan
which Lord Clive had proposed, may be computed at near 30,000_l._ a
year, when Mr. Hastings was President: 22,000_l._ in certain money, and
the rest in other advantages. Whatever it was, I have shown that it was
thought sufficient by those who were the best judges, and who, in
carving for others, were carving for themselves their own allowance at
the time. But, my Lords, I am to give a better opinion of the
sufficiency of that provision to guard against the temptation, out of
Mr. Hastings's own mouth. He says, in his letter to the Court of
Directors, "Although I disclaim the consideration of my own interest in
these speculations, and flatter myself that I proceed upon more liberal
grounds, yet I am proud to avow the feelings of an honest ambition that
stimulates me to aspire at the possession of my present station for
years to come. Those who know my natural turn of mind will not ascribe
this to sordid views. A very few years' possession of the government
would undoubtedly enable me to retire with a fortune amply fitted to the
measure of my desires, were I to consult only my ease: but in my present
situation I feel my mind expand to something greater; I have catched the
desire of applause in public life."