bribery, in the first instance of it,--namely, the administration of
justice in the country. There is another system of bribery which I shall
state before my friends produce the evidence. He put up all the great
offices of the country to sale; he makes use of the trust he had of the
revenues in order to destroy the whole system of those revenues, and to
bind them and make them subservient to his system of bribery: and this
will make it necessary for your Lordships to couple the consideration of
the charge of the revenues, in some instances, with that of bribery.
The next day your Lordships meet (when I hope I shall not detain you so
long) I mean to open the second stage of his bribery, the period of
discovery: for the first stage was the period of concealment. When he
found his bribes could no longer be concealed, he next took upon him to
discover them himself, and to take merit from them.
When I shall have opened the second scene of his peculation, and his new
principles of it, when you see him either treading in old corruptions,
and excelling the examples he imitated, or exhibiting new ones of his
own, in which of the two his conduct is the most iniquitous, and
attended with most evil to the Company, I must leave your Lordships to
judge.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Document wanting.
[3] Document wanting.
[4] Document wanting.
[5] Document wanting.
[6] Document wanting.
[7] Document wanting.
SPEECH
ON
THE SIXTH ARTICLE OF CHARGE.
THIRD DAY: TUESDAY, MAY 5, 1789.
My Lords,--Agreeably to your Lordships' proclamation, which I have just
heard, and the duty enjoined me by the House of Commons, I come forward
to make good their charge of high crimes and misdemeanors against Warren
Hastings, Esquire, late Governor-General of Bengal, and now a prisoner
at your bar.
My Lords, since I had last the honor of standing in this place before
your Lordships, an event has happened upon which it is difficult to
speak and impossible to be silent. My Lords, I have been disavowed by
those who sent me here to represent them. My Lords, I have been
disavowed in a material part of that engagement which I had pledged
myself to this House to perform. My Lords, that disavowal has been
followed by a censure. And yet, my Lords, so censured and so disavowed,
and by such an authority, I am sent here again, to this the place of my
offence, under the same commission, by the same authority, to make good
the same charge, against the same delinquent.
My Lords, the situation is new and awful: the situation is such as, I
believe, and I am sure, has nothing like it on the records of
Parliament, nor, probably, in the history of mankind. My Lords, it is
not only new and singular, but, I believe, to many persons, who do not
look into the true interior nature of affairs, it may appear that it
would be to me as mortifying as it is unprecedented. But, my Lords, I
have in this situation, and upon the consideration of all the
circumstances, something more to feed my mind with than mere
consolation; because, my Lords, I look upon the whole of these
circumstances, considered together, as the strongest, the most decisive,
and the least equivocal proof which the Commons of Great Britain can
give of their sincerity and their zeal in this prosecution. My Lords, is
it from a mistaken tenderness or a blind partiality to me, that, thus
censured, they have sent me to this place? No, my Lords, it is because
they feel, and recognize in their own breasts, that active principle of
justice, that zeal for the relief of the people of India, that zeal for
the honor of Great Britain, which characterizes me and my excellent
associates, that, in spite of any defects, in consequence of that zeal
which they applaud, and while they censure its mistakes, and, because
they censure its mistakes, do but more applaud, they have sent me to
this place, instructed, but not dismayed, to pursue this prosecution
against Warren Hastings, Esquire. Your Lordships will therefore be
pleased to consider this, as I consider it, not as a thing honorable to
me, in the first place, but as honorable to the Commons of Great
Britain, in whose honor the national glory is deeply concerned; and I
shall suffer myself with pleasure to be sacrificed, perhaps, in what is
dearer to me than my life, my reputation, rather than let it be supposed
that the Commons should for one moment have faltered in their duty. I,
my Lords, on the one hand, feeling myself supported and encouraged,
feeling protection and countenance from this admonition and warning
which has been given to me, will show myself, on the other hand, not
unworthy so great and distinguished a mark of the favor of the
Commons,--a mark of favor not the consequence of flattery, but of
opinion. I shall feel animated and encouraged by so noble a reward as I
shall always consider the confidence of the Commons to be: the only
reward, but a rich reward, which I have received for the toils and
labors of a long life.
The Commons, then, thus vindicated, and myself thus encouraged, I shall
proceed to make good the charge in which the honor of the Commons, that
is, the national honor, is so deeply concerned. For, my Lords, if any
circumstance of weakness, if any feebleness of nerve, if any yielding to
weak and popular opinions and delusions were to shake us, consider what
the situation of this country would be. This prosecution, if weakly
conceived, ill digested, or intemperately pursued, ought never to have
been brought to your Lordships' bar: but being brought to your
Lordships' bar, the nation is committed to it, and the least appearance
of uncertainty in our minds would disgrace us forever. _Esto perpetua_,
has been said. To the glory of this nation, much more be it said, _Esto
perpetua_; and I will say, that, as we have raised and exhibited a
theatre of justice which has excited the admiration of all Europe, there
would be a sort of lustre in our infamy, and a splendor in the disgrace
that we should bring upon ourselves, if we should, just at that moment,
turn that theatre of our glory into a spectacle of dishonor beyond what
has ever happened to any country of the world.
The Commons of Great Britain, whilst willing to keep a strong and firm
hand over all those who represent them in any business, do at the same
time encourage them in the prosecution of it, by allowing them a just
discretion and latitude wherever their own orders have not marked a
distinction. I shall therefore go on with the more cheerful confidence,
not only for the reasons that I have stated, but for another and
material reason. I know and am satisfied, that, in the nobleness of your
judgment, you will always make a distinction between the person that
gives the order and the organ that is to execute it. The House of
Commons know no such thing as indiscretion, imprudence, or impropriety:
it is otherwise with their instruments. Your Lordships very well know,
that, if you hear anything that shall appear to you to be regular, apt
to bring forward the charge, just, prudent, cogent, you are to give it
to the Commons of Great Britain in Parliament assembled; if you should
hear from me (and it must be from me alone, and not from any other
member of the Committee) anything that is unworthy of that situation,
that comes feeble, weak, indigested, or ill-prepared, you are to
attribute that to the instrument. Your Lordships' judgment would do this
without my saying it. But whilst I claim it on the part of the Commons
for their dignity, I claim for myself the necessary indulgence that must
be given to all weakness. Your Lordships, then, will impute it where you
would have imputed it without my desire. It is a distinction you would
naturally have made, and the rather because what is alleged by us at the
bar is not the ground upon which you are to give judgment. If not only
I, but the whole body of managers, had made use of any such expressions
as I made use of,--even if the Commons of Great Britain in Parliament
assembled, if the collective body of Parliament, if the voice of Europe,
had used them,--if we had spoken with the tongues of men and angels,
you, in the seat of judicature, are not to regard what we say, but what
we prove; you are to consider whether the charge is well substantiated,
and proof brought out by legal inference and argument. You know, and I
am sure the habits of judging which your Lordships have acquired by
sitting in judgment must better inform you than any other men, that the
duties of life, in order to be well performed, must be methodized,
separated, arranged, and harmonized in such a manner that they shall not
clash with one another, but each have a department assigned and
separated to itself. My Lords, in that manner it is that we, the
prosecutors, have nothing to do with the principles which are to guide
the judgment, that we have nothing to do with the defence of the
prisoner. Your Lordships well know, that, when we come before you, you
hear a party; that, when the accused come before you, you hear a party:
that it is for you to doubt, and wait till you come to the close, before
you decide; that it is for us, the prosecutors, to have decided before
we came here. To act as prosecutors, we ought to have no doubt or
hesitation, nothing trembling or quivering in our minds upon the
occasion. We ought to be fully convinced of guilt, before we come to
you. It is, then, our business to bring forward the proofs,--to enforce
them with all the clearness, illustration, example, that we can bring
forward,--that we are to show the circumstances that can aggravate the
guilt,--that we are to go further, show the mischievous consequences and
tendency of those crimes to society,--and that we are, if able so to do,
to arouse and awaken in the minds of all that hear us those generous and
noble sympathies which Providence has planted in the breasts of all men,
to be the true guardians of the common rights of humanity. Your
Lordships know that this is the duty of the prosecutors, and that
therefore we are not to consider the defence of the party, which is
wisely and properly left to himself; but we are to press the accusation
with all the energy of which it is capable, and to come with minds
perfectly convinced before an august and awful tribunal which at once
tries the accuser and the accused.
Having stated thus much with respect to the Commons, I am to read to
your Lordships the resolution which the Commons have come to upon this
great occasion, and upon which I shall take the liberty to say a very
few words.
My Lords, the Commons have resolved last night, and I did not see the
resolution till this morning, "that no direction or authority was given
by this House to the committee appointed to manage the impeachment
against Warren Hastings, Esquire, to make any charge or allegation
against the said Warren Hastings respecting the condemnation or
execution of Nundcomar; and that the words spoken by the Right Honorable
Edmund Burke, one of the said managers, _videlicet_, that he (meaning
Mr. Hastings) murdered that man (meaning Nundcomar) by the hands of Sir
Elijah Impey, ought not to have been spoken."
My Lords, this is the resolution of the House of Commons. Your
Lordships well know and remember my having used such or similar words,
and the end and purpose for which I used them. I owe a few words of
explanation to the Commons of Great Britain, who attend in a committee
of the whole House to be the observers and spectators of my conduct. I
owe it to your Lordships, I owe it to this great auditory, I owe it to
the present times and to posterity, to make some apology for a
proceeding which has drawn upon me the disavowal of the House which I
represent. Your Lordships will remember that this charge which I have
opened to your Lordships is primarily a charge founded upon the evidence
of the Rajah Nundcomar; and consequently I thought myself obliged, I
thought it a part of my duty, to support the credit of that person, who
is the principal evidence to support the direct charge that is brought
before your Lordships. I knew that Mr. Hastings, in his anticipated
defence before the House of Commons, had attempted to shake the credit
of that witness. I therefore thought myself justified in informing your
Lordships, and in warning him, that, if he did attempt to shake the
credit of an important witness against him by an allegation of his
having been condemned and executed for a forgery, I would endeavor to
support his credit by attacking that very prosecution which brought on
that condemnation and that execution; and that I did consider it, and
would lay grounds before your Lordships to prove it, to be a murder
committed, instead of a justification set up, or that ought to be set
up.
Now, my Lords, I am ordered by the Commons no longer to persist in that
declaration; and I, who know nothing in this place, and ought to know
nothing in this place, but obedience to the Commons, do mean, when Mr.
Hastings makes that objection (if he shall be advised to make it)
against the credit of Rajah Nundcomar, not thus to support that credit;
and therefore that objection to the credit of the witness must go
unrefuted by me. My Lords, I must admit, perhaps against my private
judgment, (but that is of no consideration for your Lordships, when
opposed to the judgment of the House of Commons,) or, at least, not
contest, that a first minister of state, in a great kingdom, who had the
benefit of the administration, and of the entire and absolute command of
a revenue of fifteen hundred thousand pounds a year, had been guilty of
a paltry forgery in Calcutta; that this man, who had been guilty of this
paltry forgery, had waited for his sentence and his punishment, till a
body of English judges, armed with an English statute, came to Calcutta;
and that this happened at the very happy nick and moment when he was
accusing Mr. Hastings of the bribery with which we now in the name of
the Commons charge him; that it was owing to an entirely fortuitous
concurrence of circumstances, in which Mr. Hastings had no share, or
that it was owing to something beyond this, something that is rather
pious than fortuitous, namely, that, as Mr. Hastings tells you himself,
"all persuasions of men were impressed with a superstitious belief that
a fortunate influence directed all my actions to their destined ends."
I, not being at that time infected with the superstition, and
considering what I thought Mr. Hastings's guilt to be, and what I must
prove it to be as well as I can, did not believe that Providence did
watch over Mr. Hastings, so as in the nick of time, like a god in a
machine, to come down to save him in the moment of his imminent peril
and distress: I did not think so, but I must not say so.
But now, to show that it was not weakly, loosely, or idly, that I took
up this business, or that I anticipated a defence which it was not
probable for Mr. Hastings to make, (and I wish to speak to your
Lordships in the first instance, but to the Commons in the next,) I will
read part of Mr. Hastings's defence before the House of Commons: it is
in evidence before your Lordships. He says,--"My accuser" (meaning
myself, then acting as a private member of Parliament) "charges me with
'the receipt of large sums of money, corruptly taken before the
promulgation of the Regulating Act of 1773, contrary to my covenants
with the Company, and with the receipt of very large sums taken since,
in defiance of that law, and contrary to my declared sense of its
provisions.' And he ushers in this charge in the following pompous
diction: 'That in March, 1775, the late Rajah Nundcomar, a native Hindoo
of the highest caste in his religion, and of the highest rank in
society, by the offices which he had held under the country government,
did lay before the Council an account of various sums of money,' &c. It
would naturally strike every person ignorant of the character of
Nundcomar, that an accusation made by a person of the highest caste in
his religion and of the highest rank by his offices demanded particular
notice, and acquired a considerable degree of credit, from a prevalent
association of ideas that a nice sense of honor is connected with an
elevated rank of life: but when this honorable House is informed that my
accuser knew (though he suppressed the facts) that this person, of high
rank and high caste, had forfeited every pretension to honor, veracity,
and credit,--that there are facts recorded on the very Proceedings which
my accuser partially quotes, proving this man to have been guilty of a
most flagrant forgery of letters from Munny Begum and the Nabob Yeteram
ul Dowlah, (independent of the forgery for which he suffered death,) of
the most deliberate treachery to the state, for which he was confined,
by the orders of the Court of Directors, to the limits of the town of
Calcutta, in order to prevent his dangerous intrigues, and of having
violated every principle of common honesty in private life,--I say, when
this honorable House is acquainted it is from mutilated and garbled
assertions, founded on the testimony of such an evidence, without the
whole matter being fairly stated, I do hope and trust it will be
sufficient for them to reject _now_ these vague and unsupported charges,
in like manner as they were _before_ rejected by the Court of Directors
and his Majesty's ministers, when they were first made by General
Clavering, Colonel Monson, and Mr. Francis.--I must here interrupt the
course of my defence to explain on what grounds I employed or had any
connection with a man of so flagitious a character as Nundcomar."
My Lords, I hope this was a good and reasonable ground for me to
anticipate the defence which Mr. Hastings would make in this
House,--namely, on the known, recognized, infamous character of
Nundcomar, with regard to certain proceedings there charged at large,
with regard to one forgery for which he suffered and two other forgeries
with which Mr. Hastings charged him. I, who found that the Commons of
Great Britain had received that very identical charge of Nundcomar, and
given it to me in trust to make it good, did naturally, I hope
excusably, (for that is the only ground upon which I stand,) endeavor to
support that credit upon which the House acted. I hope I did so; and I
hope that the goodness of that intention may excuse me, if I went a
little too far on that occasion. I would have endeavored to support that
credit, which it was much Mr. Hastings's interest to shake, and which he
had before attempted to shake.
Your Lordships will have the goodness to suppose me now making my
apology, and by no manner of means intending to persist either in this,
or in anything which the House of Commons shall desire me not to declare
in their name. But the House of Commons has not denied me the liberty to
make you this just apology: God forbid they should! for they would be
guilty of great injustice, if they did. The House of Commons, whom I
represent, will likewise excuse me, their representative, whilst I have
been endeavoring to support their characters in the face of the world,
and to make an apology, and only an humble apology, for my conduct, for
having considered that act in the light that I represented it,--and
which I did merely from my private opinion, without any formal
instruction from the House. For there is no doubt that the House is
perfectly right, inasmuch as the House did neither formally instruct me
nor at all forbid my making use of such an argument; and therefore I
have given your Lordships the reason why it was fit to make use of such
argument,--if it was right to make use of it. I am in the memory of your
Lordships that I did conceive it to be relevant, and it was by the
poverty of the language I was led to express my private feelings under
the name of a _murder_. For, if the language had furnished me, under the
impression of those feelings, with a word sufficient to convey the
complicated atrocity of that act, as I felt it in my mind, I would not
have made use of the word _murder_. It was on account of the language
furnishing me with no other I was obliged to use that word. Your
Lordships do not imagine, I hope, that I used that word in any other
than a moral and popular sense, or that I used it in the legal and
technical sense of the word _murder_. Your Lordships know that I could
not bring before this bar any commoner of Great Britain on a charge for
murder. I am not so ignorant of the laws and constitution of my country.
I expressed an act which I conceived to be of an atrocious and evil
nature, and partaking of some of the moral evil consequences of that
crime. What led me into that error? Nine years' meditation upon that
subject.
My Lords, the prisoner at the bar in the year 1780 sent a petition to
the House of Commons complaining of that very chief-justice, Sir Elijah
Impey. The House of Commons, who then had some trust in me, as they have
some trust still, did order me, along with persons more wise and
judicious than myself, several of whom stand near me, to make an inquiry
into the state of the justice of that country. The consequence of that
inquiry was, that we began to conceive a very bad opinion both of the
complainant and defendant in that business,--that we found the English
justice to be, as we thought it, and reported it to the House, a
grievance, instead of a redress, to the people of India. I could bring
before your Lordships, if I did not spare your patience, whole volumes
of reports, whole bodies of evidence, which, in the progress we have
made in the course of eight or nine years, brought to my mind such a
conviction as will never be torn from my heart but with my life; and I
should have no heart that was fit to lodge any honest sentiment, if I
departed from my opinion upon that occasion. But when I declare my own
firm opinion upon it,--when I declare the reasons that led me to
it,--when I mention the long meditation that preceded my founding a
judgment upon it, the strict inquiry, the many hours and days spent in
consideration, collation, and comparison,--I trust that infirmity which
could be actuated by no malice to one party or the other may be excused;
I trust that I shall meet with this indulgence, when your Lordships
consider, that, as far as you know me, as far as my public services for
many years account for me, I am a man of a slow, laborious, inquisitive
temper, that I do seldom leave a pursuit without leaving marks, perhaps
of my weakness, but leaving marks of that labor, and that, in
consequence of that labor, I made that affirmation, and thought the
nature of the cause obliged me to support and substantiate it. It is
true that those who sent me here have sagacity to decide upon the
subject in a week; they can in one week discover the errors of my labors
for nine years.
Now that I have made this apology to you, I assure you, you shall never
hear me, either in my own name here, much less in the name of the
Commons, urge one thing to you in support of the credit of Nundcomar
grounded upon that judgment, until the House shall instruct and order me
otherwise; because I know, that, when I can discover their sentiments,
I ought to know nothing here but what is in strict and literal obedience
to them.
My Lords, another thing might make me, perhaps, a little willing to be
admitted to the proof of what I advanced, and that is, the very answer
of Mr. Hastings to this charge, which the House of Commons, however,
have adopted, and therefore in some degree purified. "To the malicious
part of this charge, which is the condemnation of Nundcomar for a
forgery, I do declare, in the most solemn and unreserved manner, that I
had no concern, either directly or indirectly, in the apprehending,
prosecuting, or executing of Nundcomar. He suffered for a crime of
forgery which he had committed in a private trust that was delegated to
him, and for which he had been prosecuted in the dewanny courts of the
country before the institution of the Supreme Court of Judicature. To
adduce this circumstance, therefore, as a confirmation of what was
before suspicious from his general depravity of character, is just as
reasonable as to assert that the accusations of Empson and Dudley were
confirmed because they suffered death for their atrocious acts."