not only sufficient for the purposes and ends which the nature of his
office demanded, and the support of present dignity, but that they were
sufficient to secure him, in a very few years, a comfortable retreat;
but his object in wishing to hold his office long was _to catch applause
in public life_. What an unfortunate man is he, who has so often told
us, in so many places, and through so many mouths, that, after fourteen
years' possession of an office which was to make him a comfortable
fortune in a few years, he is at length bankrupt in fortune, and for his
applause in public life is now at your Lordships' bar, and his accuser
is his country! This, my Lords, is to be unfortunate: but there are some
misfortunes that never do or ever can arrive but through crimes. He was
a deserter from the path of honor. At the turning of the two ways he
made a glorious choice,--he caught at the applause of ambition: which
though I am ready to consent is not virtue, yet surely a generous
ambition for applause for public services in life is one of the best
counterfeits of virtue, and supplies its place in some degree; and it
adds a lustre to real virtue, where it exists as the substratum of it.
Human nature, while it is made as it is, never can wholly repudiate it
for its imperfection, because there is something yet more perfect. But
what shall we say to the deserter of that cause, who, having glory and
honor before him, has chosen to plunge himself into the downward road to
sordid riches?
My Lords, I have shown the grievances that existed. I have shown the
means that existed to put Mr. Hastings beyond a temptation to those
practices of which we accuse him, even in his own opinion,--if he will
not follow his example in the House of Commons, and disavow this letter,
as he has done his defence before them, and say he never wrote it. That
situation which was to afford him a comfortable fortune in a few years
he has held for many years, and therefore he has not one excuse to make
for himself; but I shall show your Lordships much greater and stronger
proofs, that will lean heavy upon him in the day of your sentence. The
first, the peculiar, trust that was put in him, was to redress all those
grievances.
My Lords, I have stated to you the condition of India in 1765. You may
suppose that the means that were taken, the regulations that were made
by the Company at that period of time, had operated their effect, and
that by the beginning of the year 1772, when Mr. Hastings came first to
his government, these evils did not then require, perhaps, so vigorous
an example, or so much diligence in putting an end to them; but, my
Lords, I have to show you a very melancholy truth, that, notwithstanding
all these means, the Company was of opinion that all these disorders had
increased, and accordingly they say, without entering into all the
grievous circumstances of this letter, which was wrote on the 10th of
April, 1773, "We wish we could refute the observation, that almost every
attempt made by us and our administration at your Presidency for
reforming abuses has rather increased them, and added to the misery of a
country we are so anxious to protect and cherish." They say, that, "when
oppression pervades the whole country, when youths have been suffered
with impunity to exercise sovereign jurisdiction over the natives, and
to acquire rapid fortunes by monopolizing of commerce, it cannot be a
wonder to us or yourselves that Dadney merchants do not come forward to
contract with the Company, that the manufactures find their way through
foreign channels, or that our investments are at once enormously dear
and of a debased quality. It is evident, then, that the evils which have
been so destructive to us lie too deep for any partial plans to reach or
correct; it is therefore our resolution to aim at the root of those
evils, and we are happy in having reason to believe that in every just
and necessary regulation we shall meet with the approbation and support
of the legislature, who consider the public as materially interested in
the Company's prosperity."
This is to show your Lordships that Mr. Hastings was armed with great
powers to correct great abuses, and that there was reposed in him a
special trust for that purpose. And now I shall show, by the
twenty-fifth paragraph of the same letter, that they intrusted Mr.
Hastings with this very great power from some particular hope they had,
not only of his abstaining himself, which is a thing taken for granted,
but of his restraining abuses through every part of the service; and
therefore they say, "that, in order to effectuate this great end, the
first step must be to restore perfect obedience and due subordination to
your administration. Our Governor and Council must reassume and exercise
their delegated powers upon every just occasion,--punish delinquents,
cherish the meritorious, discountenance that luxury and dissipation
which, to the reproach of government, prevailed in Bengal. Our
President, Mr. Hastings, we trust, will set the example of temperance,
economy, and application; and upon this, we are sensible, much will
depend. And here we take occasion to indulge the pleasure we have in
acknowledging Mr. Hastings's services upon the coast of Coromandel, in
constructing with equal labor and ability the plan which has so much
improved our investments there; and as we are persuaded he will
persevere in the same laudable pursuit through every branch of our
affairs in Bengal, he, in return, may depend on the steady support and
favor of his employers." Here are not only laws to restrain abuse, here
are not only salaries to prevent the temptation to it, but here are
praises to animate and encourage him, here is what very few men, even
bad in other respects, have resisted,--here is a great trust put in him,
to call upon him with particular vigor and exertion to prevent all
abuses through the settlement, and particularly these abuses of
corruption. Much trust is put in his frugality, his order, his
management of his private affairs; and from thence they hope that he
would not ruin his own fortune, but improve it by honorable means, and
teach the Company's servants the same order and management, in order to
free them from temptation to rapacity in their own particular
situations. There have been known to be men, otherwise corrupt and
vicious, who, when great trust was put in them, have called forth
principles of honor latent in their minds; and men who were nursed, in a
manner, in corruption have been not only great reformers by institution,
but greater reformers by the example of their own conduct. Then I am to
show, that, soon after his coming to that government, there were means
given him instantly of realizing those hopes and expectations, by
putting into his hands several arduous and several difficult
commissions.
My Lords, in the year 1772 the Company had received alarming advices of
many disorders throughout the country: there were likewise, at the same
time, circumstances in the state of the government upon which they
thought it necessary to make new regulations. The famine which prevailed
in and devastated Bengal, and the ill use that was made of that calamity
to aggravate the distress for the advantage of individuals, produced a
great many complaints, some true, some exaggerated, but universally
spread, as I believe is in the memory of those who are not very young
among us. This obliged the Company to a very serious consideration of an
affair which dishonored and disgraced their government, not only at
home, but through all the countries in Europe, much more than perhaps
even more grievous and real oppressions that were exercised under them.
It had alarmed their feelings, it had been marked, and had called the
attention of the public upon them in an eminent manner.
Your Lordships remember the death of Jaffier Ali Khân, the first of
those subahs who introduced the English power into Bengal. He died about
four or five years before this period. He was succeeded by two of his
sons, who succeeded to one another in a very rapid succession. The first
was the person of whom we have read an account to you. He was the
natural son of the Nabob by a person called Munny Begum, who, for the
corrupt gifts the circumstances of which we have recited, had, in
prejudice of the lawful issue of the Nabob, been raised to the _musnud_;
but as bastard slips, it is said in King Richard, (an abuse of a
Scripture phrase,) do not take deep root, this bastard slip, Nujim ul
Dowlah, shortly died, and the legitimate son, Syef ul Dowlah, succeeded
him. After him another legitimate son, Mobarek ul Dowlah, succeeded in a
minority. When I say _succeeded_, I wish your Lordships to understand
that there is no regular succession in the office of subah or viceroy
of the kingdom; but, in general, succession has been considered, and
persons have been put in that place upon some principles resembling a
regular succession. That regular succession had been broken in favor of
a natural son, and the mother of that natural son did obtain the
superiority in the female part of the family for a time.
In consequence of these two circumstances, namely, the famine, and the
abuses that were supposed to arise from it, and from the circumstance of
the minority of Mobarek ul Dowlah, who now reigns or appears to
reign,--in consequence of these two circumstances, the Company gave two
sets of orders.
The first order related to Mahomed Reza Khân, who was (as your Lordships
remember I took, in the beginning of this affair, means of explaining)
lord-deputy of the province under the native government, the English
holding the dewanny,--and deputy dewan, or high-steward, under the name
of the English, and had the command of the whole revenue; and who was
accused before the Company (the channel of which accusation we now
learn) of having aggravated that famine by a monopoly for his own
benefit. The Company, upon these loose and general charges, ordered that
he should be divested of his office, that he should be brought down to
Calcutta, and there be obliged to render an account of his conduct.
The next regulation they made was concerning the effective government of
the country, which was become vacant by the removal of Mahomed Reza
Khân. The offices which he held were in effect these: he was guardian to
the Nabob by the appointment of the Company; he had the care and
management of his family; he had the care of the public justice; and he
represented that shadow of government to foreign nations which it was
the policy of the Company, at that time, to keep up. This was the person
whom Mr. Hastings was ordered to remove; in consequence of which removal
all these offices were to be supplied,--of guardian of the Nabob's
person and manager of his family, of chief magistrate, and of
representative of the fallen dignity of the native government to the
foreign nations which traded to Bengal.
To these orders was added an instruction of a very remarkable nature,
which was a third trust that was given to Mr. Hastings: that during the
Nabob's minority he should reduce the annual allowance, which was
thirty-two lacs, to sixteen; and that to prevent the abuse of this
restricted sum, and to prevent its being directed by the minister's
authority to other purposes than that for which the Company allowed it,
(that is to say, allowed him out of what was his own,) of these sixteen
lacs an account was to be regularly kept, as a check upon the person so
appointed, which account was ordered to be transmitted to Calcutta, and
to be sent to England.
Now we are to show your Lordships what Mr. Hastings's conduct was upon
all these occasions; and for this we mean to produce testimony recorded
in the Company's books, and authentic documents taken from the public
offices of that country. At the same time I do admit that there never
was a positive testimony that did not stand something in need of the
support of presumption: for, as we know that witnesses may be perjured,
and as we know that documents can be forged, we have recourse to a known
principle in the laws of all countries, that circumstances cannot lie;
and therefore, if the testimony that is given was ever so clear and
positive, yet, if it is contrary to the circumstances of the country, if
it is contrary to the circumstances of the facts to which it alludes, if
the deposition is totally adverse and alien to the characters of the
persons, then I will say, that, though the testimonies should be many,
though they should be consistent, and though they should be clear, yet
they will still leave some degree of hesitation and doubt upon every
mind timorous in the execution of justice, as every mind ought to be.
If, for instance, ten witnesses were to swear that the Chief-Justice of
England, that the Lord High-Chancellor, or the Archbishop of Canterbury,
was seen, in the robes of his function, at noonday, robbing upon the
highway, it is not the clearness, the weight, the authority of
testimonies, that could make me believe it; I should attribute it to any
cause, either corruption, mistake, error, or madness, rather than
believe that fact. Why? Because it is totally alien to the character of
the persons, the situation, the circumstances, and to all the rules of
probability. But if, on the contrary, the crime charged has a perfect
relation with the person, with his known conduct, with his known habits,
with the situation and circumstances of the place that he is in, and
with the very corrupt inherent nature of the act that he does, then much
less proof than we are able to produce will serve; and according to the
nature and strength of the presumptions arising from the inherent nature
of a vicious principle and vicious motives in the act, will be
strengthened the weakest evidence, or, if it comes to a sufficient
height, the whole burden of proof will be turned upon the party
accused. And thus we shall think ourselves bound to show your Lordships,
in every step of this proceeding, that there is an inherent presumption
of corruption in every act. We shall show the presumptions which
preceded, we shall show the presumptions which accompanied the proof;
and these, with the subsequent presumptions, will make it impossible to
disbelieve them. Such a body of proof was never given upon any such
occasion: and it is such proof as will prevail against the whole voice
of corruption, that amazing, active, diligent, spreading voice, which
has been made, by buzzing in every part of this country, sometimes to
sound like the public voice; it will put it to silence, by showing that
your Lordships have proceeded upon the strongest evidence, active and
passive.
First, Mr. Hastings received a positive order to seize upon Mahomed Reza
Khân. That order he executed with a military promptitude of obedience,
which will show your Lordships what are the services which are congenial
to his own mind, and which find in him always a ready acquiescence, a
faithful agent, and a spirited instrument in the execution. The very day
after he received the order, he sent up, privately, without
communicating with the Council, from whom he was not ordered to keep
this proceeding a secret,--he sent up, and found that great and
respectable man and respectable magistrate, who was in all those high
offices which I have stated: and if I was to compare them to
circumstances and situations in this country, I should say he had united
in himself the character of First Lord of the Treasury, the character of
Chief-Justice, the character of Lord High-Chancellor, and the character
of Archbishop of Canterbury: a man of great gravity, dignity, and
authority, and advanced in years; had once 100,000_l._ a year for the
support of his dignity, and had at that time 50,000_l._ This man,
sitting in his garden, reposing himself after the toils of his
situation, (for he was one of the most laborious men in the world,) was
suddenly arrested, and, without a moment's respite, dragged down to
Calcutta, and there by Mr. Hastings (exceeding the orders of the
Company) confined near two years under a guard of soldiers. Mr. Hastings
kept this great man for several months without even attempting the trial
upon him. How he tried him afterwards your Lordships may probably in the
course of this business inquire; and you will then judge, from the
circumstances of that trial, that, as he was not tried for his crime, so
neither was he acquitted for his innocence;--but at present I leave him
in that situation. Mr. Hastings, unknown to the Council, having executed
the orders of the Company in the last degree of rigor to this unhappy
man, keeps him in that situation, without a trial, under a guard,
separated from his country, disgraced and dishonored, and by Mr.
Hastings's express order not suffered either to make a visit or receive
a visitor.
There was another commission for Mr. Hastings contained in these orders.
The Company, because they were of opinion that justice could not be
easily obtained while the first situations of the country were filled
with this man's adherents, desired Mr. Hastings to displace them:
leaving him a very large power, and confiding in his justice, prudence,
and impartiality not to abuse a trust of such delicacy. But we shall
prove to your Lordships that Mr. Hastings thought it necessary to turn
out, from the highest to the lowest, several hundreds of people, for no
other reason than that they had been put in their employments by that
very man whom the English government had formerly placed there. If _we_
were to insist that we could not possibly try Mr. Hastings, or come at
his wickedness, until we had eradicated his influence in Bengal, and
left not one man in it who was during his government in any place or
office whatever, yet, though we should readily admit that we could not
do the whole without it, at the same time, rather than make a general
massacre of every person presumed to be under his influence, we would
leave some of his crimes unproved. He did avow and declare, that, unless
he turned all these persons out of their offices, he could never hope to
come at the truth of any charges against Mahomed Reza Khân, against whom
no specific charge had been made. Yet, upon loose and general charges,
did he seize upon this man, confine him in this manner, and every person
who derived any place or authority from him, high or low, was turned
out. Mr. Hastings had in the Company's orders something to justify him
in rigor, but he had likewise a prudential power over that rigor; and he
not only treated this man in the manner described, but every human
creature connected with him, as if they had been all guilty, without any
charge whatever against them. These are his reasons for taking this
extraordinary step.
"I pretend not to enter into the views of others. My own were these.
Mahomed Reza Khân's influence still prevailed generally throughout the
country. In the Nabob's household, and at the capital, it was scarce
affected by his present disgrace. His favor was still courted, and his
anger dreaded. Who, under such discouragements, would give information
or evidence against him? His agents and creatures filled every office of
the nizamut and dewanny. How was the truth of his conduct to be
investigated by these? It would be superfluous to add other arguments to
show the necessity of prefacing the inquiry by breaking his influence,
removing his dependants, and putting the direction of all the affairs
which had been committed to his care into the hands of the most powerful
or active of his enemies."
My Lords, if _we_ of the House of Commons were to desire and to compel
the East India Company, or to address the crown, to remove, according to
their several situations and several capacities, every creature that had
been put into office by Mr. Hastings, because we could otherwise make no
inquiry into his conduct, should we not be justified by his own example
in insisting upon the removal of every creature of the reigning power
before we could inquire into his conduct? We have not done that, though
we feel, as he felt, great disadvantages in proceeding in the inquiry
while every situation in Bengal is notoriously held by his
creatures,--always excepting the first of all, but which we could show
is nothing under such circumstances. Then what do I infer from
this,--from his obedience to the orders of the Company, carried so much
beyond necessity, and prosecuted with so much rigor,--from the inquiry
being suspended for so long a time,--from every person in office being
removed from his situation,--from all these precautions being used as
prefatory to the inquiry, when he himself says, that, after he had used
all these means, he found not the least benefit and advantage from them?
The use I mean to make of this is, to let your Lordships see the great
probability and presumption that Mr. Hastings, finding himself in the
very selfsame situation that had occurred the year before, when
Nundcomar was sold to Mahomed Reza Khân, of selling Mahomed Reza Khân to
Nundcomar, made a corrupt use of it, and that, as Mahomed Reza Khân was
not treated with severity for his crimes, so neither was he acquitted
for his innocence. The Company had given Mr. Hastings severe orders, and
very severely had he executed them. The Company gave him no orders not
to institute a present inquiry; but he, under pretence of business,
neglected that inquiry, and suffered this man to languish in prison to
the utter ruin of his fortune.
We have in part shown your Lordships what Mr. Hastings's own manner of
proceeding with regard to a public delinquent is; but at present we
leave Mahomed Reza Khân where he was. Do your Lordships think that there
is no presumption of Mr. Hastings having a corrupt view in this
business, and of his having put this great man, who was supposed to be
of immense wealth, under contributions? Mr. Hastings never trusted his
colleagues in this proceeding; and what reason does he give? Why, he
supposed that they must be bribed by Mahomed Reza Khân. "For," says he,
"as I did not know their characters at that time, I did not know whether
Mahomed Reza Khân had not secured them to his interest by the known ways
in which great men in the East secure men to their interest." He never
trusted his colleagues with the secret; and the person that he employed
to prosecute Mahomed Reza Khân was his bitter enemy, Nundcomar. I will
not go the length of saying that the circumstance of enmity disables a
person from being a prosecutor; under some circumstances it renders a
man incompetent to be a witness; but this I know, that the circumstance
of having no other person to rely upon in a charge against any man but
his enemy, and of having no other principle to go upon than what is
supposed to be derived out of that enmity, must form some considerable
suspicion against the proceeding. But in this he was justified by the
Company; for Nundcomar, the great rival of Mahomed Reza Khân, was in the
worst situation with the Company as to his credit. This Nundcomar's
politics in the country had been by Mr. Hastings himself, and by several
persons joined with him, cruelly represented to the Company; and
accordingly he stood so ill with them, by reason of Mr. Hastings's
representations and those of his predecessors, that the Company ordered
and directed, that, if he could be of any use in the inquiry into
Mahomed Reza Khân's conduct, some reward should be given him suitable to
his services; but they caution Mr. Hastings at the same time against
giving him any trust which he might employ to the disadvantage of the
Company. Now Mr. Hastings began, before he could experience any service
from him, by giving him his reward, and not the base reward of a base
service, _money_, but every trust and power which he was prohibited from
giving him. Having turned out every one of Mahomed Reza Khân's
dependants, he filled every office, as he avows, with the creatures of
Nundcomar. Now when he uses a cruel and rigorous obedience in the case
of Mahomed Reza Khân, when he breaks through the principles of his
former conduct with regard to Nundcomar, when he gives _him_, Nundcomar,
trust, whom he was cautioned not to trust, and when he gives him that
reward before any service could be done,--I say, when he does this, in
violation of the Company's orders and his own principles, it is the
strongest evidence that he now found them in the situation in which they
were in 1765, when bribes were notoriously taken, and that each party
was mutually sold to the other, and faith kept with neither. The
situation in which Mr. Hastings thus placed himself should have been
dreaded by him of all things, because he knew it was a situation in
which the most outrageous corruption had taken place before.