The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke Volume IX Part 3

XV.--REVENUES.

PART I.

That the property of the lands of Bengal is, according to the laws and customs of that country, an inheritable property, and that it is, with few exceptions; vested in certain natives, called _zemindars_, or landholders, under whom other natives, called _talookdars_ and _ryots_, hold certain subordinate rights of property or occupancy in the said lands. That the said natives are Hindoos, and that their _rights and privileges are grounded upon the possession of regular grants, a long series of family succession, and fair purchase_. That it appears that Bengal has been under the dominion of the Mogul, and subject to a Mahomedan government, for above two hundred years. That, while the Mogul government was in its vigor, the property of zemindars was _held sacred_, and that, either by voluntary grant from the said Mogul or by composition with him, the native Hindoos were left in the free, quiet, and undisturbed possession of their lands, on the single condition of paying a fixed, certain, and unalterable revenue, or quit-rent, to the Mogul government. That this revenue, or quit-rent, was called the _aussil jumma_, or _original ground-rent_, of the provinces, and was not increased from the time when it was first settled in 1573 to 1740, when the regular and effective Mogul government ended. That, from that time to 1765, invasions, usurpations, and various revolutions took place in the government of Bengal, in consequence of which the country was considerably reduced and impoverished, when the East India Company received from the present Mogul emperor, Shah Allum, a grant of the _dewanny_, or collection of the revenues. That about the year 1770 the provinces of Bengal and Bahar were visited with a dreadful famine and mortality, by which at least one third of the inhabitants perished. That Warren Hastings, Esquire, has declared, "that he had always heard the loss of inhabitants reckoned at a third, and in many places near one half of the whole, and that he knew not by what means such a loss could be recruited in four or five years, and believed it impossible." That, nevertheless, the revenue was _violently kept up to its former standard_,--that is, in the two years immediately preceding the appointment of the said Warren Hastings to the government of Fort William,--in consequence of which _the remaining two thirds of the inhabitants were obliged to pay for the lands now left without cultivation_; and that from the year 1770 to the year 1775 _the country had languished, and the evil continued enhancing every day_. That the said Warren Hastings, in a letter to the Secret Committee of the Court of Directors, dated 1st September, 1772, declared, "that the lands had suffered unheard-of depopulation by the famine and mortality of 1769; that the collections, _violently kept up to their former standard_, had added to the distress of the country, and threatened a general decay of the revenue, unless immediate remedies were applied to prevent it." That the said Warren Hastings has declared, "that, by intrusting the collections to the hereditary zemindars, the people would be treated with _more tenderness_, the rents more improved, and cultivation more likely to be encouraged; that _they_ have a perpetual interest in the country; that _their_ inheritance cannot be removed; that _they_ are the proprietors; that the lands are _their_ estates, and _their_ inheritance; that, from a long continuance of the lands in their families, it is to be concluded they have riveted an authority in the district, acquired an ascendency over the minds of the ryots, and _ingratiated their affections_; that, from continuing the lands under the management of those who have a natural and perpetual interest in their prosperity, solid advantages might be expected to accrue; that the zemindar would be less liable to failure or deficiencies than the farmer, from the perpetual interest which the former hath in the country, and because his inheritance cannot be removed, and it would be improbable that he should risk the loss of it by eloping from his district, which is too frequently practised by a farmer when he is hard-pressed for the payment of his balances, and as frequently predetermined when he receives his farm." That, notwithstanding all the preceding declarations made by the said Warren Hastings of the loss of one third of the inhabitants and general decline of the country, he did, immediately after his appointment to the government, in the year 1772, make an arbitrary settlement of the revenues for five years at a higher rate than had ever been received before, and with a progressive and acc.u.mulating increase on each of the four last years of the said settlement.

That, notwithstanding the right of property and inheritance, repeatedly acknowledged by the said Warren Hastings to be in the zemindars and other native landholders, and notwithstanding he had declared "that the security of private property is the greatest encouragement to industry, on which the wealth of every state depends," the said Warren Hastings, nevertheless, in direct violation of those acknowledged rights and principles, did universally let the lands of Bengal _in farm_ for five years,--thereby destroying all the rights of private property of the zemindars,--thereby delivering the management of their estates to farmers, and transferring by a most arbitrary and unjust act of power the whole landed property of Bengal from the owners to strangers. That, to accomplish this iniquitous purpose, he, the said Warren Hastings, did put the lands of Bengal up to a pretended public auction, _and invited all persons to make proposals for farming the same_, thereby encouraging strangers to bid against the proprietors,--in consequence of which, not only the said proprietors were ousted of the possession and management of their estates, but a great part of the lands fell into the hands of the banians, or princ.i.p.al black servants of British subjects connected with and protected by the government; and that the said Warren Hastings himself has since declared, that _by this way the lands too generally fell into the hands of desperate or knavish adventurers_.[6] That, before the measure hereinbefore described was carried into execution, the said Warren Hastings did establish certain fundamental regulations in Council, to be observed in executing the same.[7] That among these regulations it was specially and strictly ordered, that no farm should exceed the annual amount of _one_ lac of rupees, and "that no peshcar, banian, or other servant, of whatever denomination, of the collector, or relation or dependant of any such servant, should be allowed to farm lands, nor directly or indirectly to hold a concern in any farm, nor to be security for any farmer." That, in direct violation of these his own regulations, and in breach of the public trust reposed in him, and sufficiently declared by the manifest duty of his station, if it had not been expressed and enforced by any positive inst.i.tution, he, the said Warren Hastings, did permit and suffer his own banian or princ.i.p.al black steward, named Cantoo Baboo, to hold farms in different purgunnahs, or districts, or to be security for farms, to the amount of thirteen lac of rupees (130,000_l._ or upwards) per annum; and that, after enjoying the whole of those farms for two years, he was permitted by the said Warren Hastings to relinquish two of them. That on the subject of the farms held by Cantoo Baboo the said Warren Hastings has made the following declaration. "Many of his farms were taken without my knowledge, and almost all against my advice. I had no right to use compulsion or authority; nor could I with justice exclude him, because he was my servant, from a liberty allowed to all other persons in the country. The farms which he quitted he quitted by my advice, because I thought that he might engage himself beyond his abilities, and be involved in disputes, which I did not choose to have come before me as judge of them."[8] That the said declaration contains sundry false and contradictory a.s.sertions: that, if _almost all_ the said farms were taken against his advice, it cannot be true that _many_ of them were taken without his knowledge; that, whether Cantoo Baboo had been his servant or not, the said Warren Hastings was bound by his own regulations to prevent his holding any farms to a greater amount than one lac of rupees per annum, and that the said Cantoo Baboo, being the servant of the Governor-General, was excluded by the said regulations from holding any farms whatever; that, if (as the Directors observe) it was thought dangerous to permit the banian of a collector to be concerned in farms, the same or stronger objections would always lie against the Governor's banian being so concerned; that the said Warren Hastings had a right, and was bound by his duty, to prevent his servant from holding the same; that, in advising the said Cantoo Baboo to relinquish some of the said farms, for which he was actually engaged, he has acknowledged an influence over his servant, and has used that influence for a purpose inconsistent with his duty to the India Company, namely, to deprive them of the security of the said Cantoo Baboo's engagement for farms which on trial he had found not beneficial, or not likely to continue beneficial, to himself; and that, if it was improper that he, the said Warren Hastings, should be the judge of any disputes in which his servant might be involved on account of his farms, that reason ought to have obliged him to prevent his servant from being engaged in any farms whatever, or to have advised his said servant to relinquish the remainder of his farms, as well as those which the said Warren Hastings affirms he quitted by his advice. That on the subject of the said charge the Court of Directors of the East India Company have come to the following resolution: "_Resolved_, That it appears that the conduct of the late President and Council of Fort William in Bengal, in suffering Cantoo Baboo, the present Governor-General's banian, to hold farms in different purgunnahs to a large amount, or to be security for such farms, contrary to the tenor and spirit of the 17th regulation of the Committee of Revenue at Fort William, of the 14th May, 1772, and afterwards relinquis.h.i.+ng that security without satisfaction made to the Company, was highly improper, and has been attended with considerable loss to the Company"; and that in the whole of this transaction the said Warren Hastings has been guilty of gross collusion with his servant, and manifest breach of trust to his employers.

That, whereas it was acknowledged by the said Warren Hastings, that the country, in the years 1770 and 1771, had suffered great depopulation and decay, and that the collections of those years, having been violently kept up to their former standard, had added to the distress of the country, the settlement of the revenues made by him for five years, commencing the 1st May, 1772, instead of offering any abatement or relief to the inhabitants who had survived the famine, held out to the East India Company a promise of great _increase_ of revenue, to be exacted from the country by the means hereinbefore described. That this settlement was not realized, but fell considerably short, even in the first of the five years, when the demand was the lightest; and that on the whole of the five years the real collections fell short of the settlement to the enormous amount of two millions and a half sterling, and upwards. That such a settlement, if it had been or could have been rigorously exacted from a country already so distressed, and from a population so impaired, that, in the belief of the said Warren Hastings, it was impossible such loss could be recruited in four or five years, would have been in fact, what it appeared to be in form, an act of the most cruel and tyrannical oppression; but that the real use made of that unjust demand upon the natives of Bengal was, to oblige them to compound privately with the persons who formed the settlement, and who threatened to enforce it. That the enormous balances and remissions on that settlement arose from a general collusion between the farmers and collectors, and from a general peculation and embezzlement of the revenues, by which the East India Company was grossly imposed on, in the first instance, by a promised _increase_ of revenue, and defrauded, in the second, not only by the failure of that _increase_, but by the revenues falling short of what they were in the two years preceding the said settlement to a great amount. That the said Warren Hastings, being then at the head of the government of Bengal, was a party to all the said imposition, fraud, peculation, and embezzlement, and is princ.i.p.ally and specially answerable for the same; and that, whereas sundry proofs of the said peculation and embezzlement were brought before the Court of Directors, the said Directors (in a letter dated the 4th of March, 1778, and signed by William Devaynes and Nathaniel Smith, Esquires, now Chairman and Deputy-Chairman of the said Court, and members of this House) did declare, that, "although it was rather their wish to prevent future evils than to enter into a severe retrospection of past abuses, yet, as in some of the cases then before them they conceived there had been _flagrant corruption_, and in others great oppressions committed on the native inhabitants, they thought it unjust to suffer the delinquents to pa.s.s wholly unpunished, and therefore they directed the Governor-General and Council forthwith to commence a prosecution against the persons who composed the Committee of Circuit, and their representatives, and against all other proper parties"; but that the prosecutions so ordered by the Court of Directors in the year 1778 have never been brought to trial; and that the said Warren Hastings did, on the 23d of December, 1783, propose and carry it in Council, _that orders should be given for withdrawing_ the said prosecutions,--declaring, that he was clearly of opinion that there was no ground to maintain them, and _that they would only be productive of expense to the Company and unmerited vexation to the parties_.

REVENUES.

PART II.

That the said Warren Hastings has on sundry occasions declared his deliberate opinion generally against all innovations, and particularly in the collection and management of the revenues of Bengal: that "he was well aware of the expense and inconvenience _which ever attends innovations of all kinds_, on, their first inst.i.tution;[9]--that innovations are _always_ attended with difficulties and inconveniences, and innovations in the revenue with a suspension of the collections;[10]--that the continual variations in the mode of collecting the revenue, and the continual usurpation on the rights of the people, have fixed in the minds of the ryots a rooted distrust of the ordinances of government."[11] That the Court of Directors have repeatedly declared their apprehensions "that a sudden transition from one mode to another, in the investigation and collection of their revenue, might have alarmed the inhabitants, lessened their confidence in the Company's proceedings, and been attended with other evils."[12]

That the said Warren Hastings, immediately after his appointment to the government of Fort William, in April, 1772, did abolish the office of _Naib Dewan_, or native collector of the revenues, then existing; that he did at the same time appoint a committee of the board to go on a circuit through the provinces, and to form a settlement of the revenues for five years; that he did then appoint sundry of the Company's servants to have the management of the collections, viz., one in each district, under the t.i.tle of _Collector_; that he did then abolish the General Board of Revenue or Council at Moorshedabad, for the following reasons: "That, while the controlling and executive part of the revenue and the correspondence with the collectors was carried on by a council at Moorshedabad, the members of the administration at Calcutta had no opportunity of acquiring that thorough and comprehensive knowledge which could only result from _practical experience_; that the orders of the Court of Directors, which established a new system, which enjoined many new regulations and inquiries, could not properly be delegated to a subordinate council, and it became absolutely necessary that the business of the revenue should be conducted _under the immediate observation and direction of the board_."[13]--That in November, 1773, the said Warren Hastings abolished the office of Collector, and transferred the collection and management of the revenues to several councils of revenue, commonly called _Provincial Councils_. That on the 24th of October, 1774, the said Warren Hastings _earnestly offered his advice_ (to the Governor-General and Council, then newly appointed by act of Parliament) _for the continuation of the said system of Provincial Councils in all its parts_. That the said Warren Hastings did, on the 22d of April, 1775, transmit to the Directors a formal plan for the future settlement of the revenues, and did therein declare, that, "with respect to the mode of managing the collection of the revenue and the administration of justice, none occurred to him so good as the system which was already established of Provincial Councils."

That on the 18th of January, 1776, the said Warren Hastings did transmit to the Court of Directors a plan for the better administration of justice, that in this plan the establishment of the said Provincial Councils was specially provided for and confirmed, and that Warren Hastings did recommend it to the Directors _to obtain the sanction of Parliament for a confirmation of the said plan_. That on the 30th of April, 1776, the said Warren Hastings did transmit to the Court of Directors the draft or scheme of an act of Parliament for the better administration of justice in the provinces, in which the said establishment of Provincial Councils is again specially included, and special jurisdiction a.s.signed to the said Councils. That the Court of Directors, in a letter dated 5th of February, 1777, did give the following instruction to the Governor-General and Council, a majority of whom, viz., Sir John Clavering, Colonel Monson, and Mr. Francis, had disapproved of the plan of Provincial Councils: "If you are fully convinced that the establishment of Provincial Councils has not answered nor is not capable of answering the purposes intended by such inst.i.tutions, we hereby direct you to form a new plan for the collection of the revenues, and to transmit the same to _us for our consideration_."--That the said Warren Hastings, in contradiction to his own sentiments repeatedly declared, and to his own advice repeatedly and deliberately given, and in defiance of the orders of the Directors, to whom he transmitted no previous communication whatever of his intention to abolish the said Provincial Councils, did, in the beginning of the year 1781, again change the whole system of the collections of the public revenue of Bengal, as also the administration of civil and criminal justice throughout the provinces. That the said Warren Hastings, in a letter dated 5th of May, 1781, advising the Court of Directors of the said changes, has falsely affirmed, "that the plan of superintending and collecting the public revenue of the provinces through the agency of Provincial Councils had been inst.i.tuted for the temporary and declared purpose of introducing another more permanent mode _by an easy and gradual change_"; that, on the contrary, the said Warren Hastings, from the year 1773 to the year 1781, has constantly and uniformly insisted on the wisdom of that inst.i.tution, and on the necessity of never departing from it; that he has in that time repeatedly advised that the said inst.i.tution should be confirmed _in perpetuity_ by an act of Parliament; that the said total dissolution of the Provincial Councils was not introduced by any easy and gradual change, nor by any gradations whatever, but was sudden and unprepared, and instantly accomplished by a single act of power; and that the said Warren Hastings, in the place of the said Councils, has subst.i.tuted a Committee of Revenue, consisting of four covenanted servants, on principles opposite to those which he had himself professed, and with exclusive powers, tending to deprive the members of the Supreme Council of a due knowledge of and inspection into the management of the territorial revenues, specially and unalienably vested by the legislature in the Governor-General and Council, and to vest the same solely and entirely in the said Warren Hastings. That the reasons a.s.signed by the said Warren Hastings for const.i.tuting the said Committee of Revenue are incompatible with those which he professed when he abolished the subordinate Council of Revenue at Moorshedabad: that he has invested the said Committee _in the fullest manner with all the powers and authority of the Governor-General and Council_; that he has thereby contracted the whole power and office of the Provincial Councils into a small compa.s.s, and vested the same in four persons appointed by himself; that he has thereby taken the general transaction and cognizance of revenue business out of the Supreme Council; that the said Committee are empowered to conduct the current business of the revenue department without reference to the Supreme Council, and only _report to the board such extraordinary occurrences, claims, and proposals as may require the special orders of the board_; that even the instruction to report to the board in extraordinary cases is nugatory and fallacious, being accompanied with limitations which make it impossible for the said board to decide on any questions whatsoever: since it is expressly provided by the said Warren Hastings, _that, if the members of the Committee differ in opinion, it is not expected that every dissentient opinion should be recorded_; consequently the Supreme Council, on any reference to their board, can see nothing but the resolutions or reasons of the majority of the Committee, without the arguments on which the dissentient opinions might be founded: and since it is also expressly provided by the said Warren Hastings, that _the determination of the majority of the Committee should not therefore be stayed, unless it should be so agreed by the majority_,--that is, that, notwithstanding the reference to the Supreme Council, the measure shall be executed without waiting for their decision.

That the said Warren Hastings has delivered his opinion, with many arguments to support the same, in favor of long leases of the lands, in preference to _annual_ settlements: that he has particularly declared, "that the farmer who holds his farm for one year only, having no interest in the next, takes what he can with the hand of rigor, which, even in the execution of legal claims, is often equivalent to violence; he is under the necessity of being rigid, and _even cruel_,--for what is left in arrear after the expiration of his power is at best a doubtful debt, if ever recoverable; he will be tempted to exceed the bounds of right, and to augment his income by irregular exactions, and by racking the tenants, for which pretences will not be wanting, where the farms pa.s.s _annually_ from one hand to another; that the discouragements which the tenants feel from being transferred every year to new landlords are a great objection to such short leases; that they contribute to injure the cultivation and dispeople the lands; that, on the contrary, from long farms the farmer acquires a permanent interest in his lands; he will, for his own sake, lay out money in a.s.sisting his tenants in improving lands already cultivated, and in clearing and cultivating waste lands."[14] That, nevertheless, the said Warren Hastings, having left it to the discretion of the Committee of Revenue, appointed by him in 1781, to fix the time for which the ensuing settlement should be made, and the said Committee having declared, that, _with respect to the period of the lease, in general, it appeared to the Committee that to limit them to one year would be the best period_, he, the said Warren Hastings, approved of that limitation, in manifest contradiction to all his own arguments, professions, and declarations concerning the fatal consequences of _annual_ leases of the lands; that in so doing the said Warren Hastings did not hold himself bound or restrained by the orders of the Court of Directors, but acted upon his own discretion; and that he has, for partial and interested purposes, exercised that discretion in particular instances against his own general settlement for one year, by granting perpetual leases of farms and zemindaries to persons specially favored by him, and particularly by granting a perpetual lease of the zemindary of Baharbund to his servant Cantoo Baboo on very low terms.

That in all the preceding transactions the said Warren Hastings did act contrary to his duty as Governor of Fort William, contrary to the orders of his employers, and contrary to his own declared sense of expediency, consistency, and justice, and thereby did hara.s.s and afflict the inhabitants of the provinces with perpetual changes in the system and execution of the government placed over them, and with continued innovations and exactions, against the rights of the said inhabitants,--thereby destroying all security to private property, and all confidence in the good faith, principles, and justice of the British government. And that the said Warren Hastings, having subst.i.tuted his own instruments to be the managers and collectors of the public revenue, in the manner hereinbefore mentioned, did act in manifest breach and defiance of an act of the 13th of his present Majesty, by which _the ordering and management and government of all the territorial revenues in the kingdoms of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa_ were vested in the Governor-General and Council, without any power of delegating the said trust and duty to any other persons; and that, by such unlawful delegation of the powers of the Council to a subordinate board appointed by himself, he, the said Warren Hastings, did in effect unite and vest in his own person the ordering, government, and management of all the said territorial revenues; and that for the said illegal act he, the said Warren Hastings, is solely answerable, the same having been proposed and resolved in Council when the Governor-General and Council consisted but of two persons present,--namely, the said Warren Hastings, and the late Edward Wheler, Esquire, and when consequently the Governor-General, by virtue of the casting voice, possessed the whole power of the government. That, in all the changes and innovations hereinbefore described, the pretence used by the said Warren Hastings to recommend and justify the same to the Court of Directors has been, that such changes and innovations would be attended with increase of revenue or diminution of expense to the East India Company; that such pretence, if true, would not have been a justification of such acts; but that such pretence is false and groundless: that during the administration of the said Warren Hastings the territorial revenues have declined; that the charges of collecting the same have greatly increased; and that the said Warren Hastings, by his neglect, mismanagement, and by a direct and intended waste of the Company's property, is chargeable with and answerable for all the said decline of revenue, and all the said increase of expense.

XVI.--MISDEMEANORS IN OUDE.

I. That the province of Oude and its dependencies were, before their connection with and subordination to the Company, in a flouris.h.i.+ng condition with regard to culture, commerce, and population, and their rulers and princ.i.p.al n.o.bility maintained themselves in a state of affluence and splendor; but very shortly after the period aforesaid, the prosperity both of the country and its chiefs began sensibly and rapidly to decline, insomuch that the revenue of the said province, which, on the lowest estimation, had been found, in the commencement of the British influence, at upwards of three millions sterling annually, (and that ample revenue raised without detriment to the country,) did not in the year 1779 exceed the sum of 1,500,000_l._, and in the subsequent years did fall much short of that sum, although the rents were generally advanced, and the country grievously oppressed in order to raise it.

II. That in the aforesaid year, 1779, the demands of the East India Company on the Nabob of Oude are stated by Mr. Purling, their Resident at the court of Oude, to amount to the sum of 1,360,000_l._ sterling and upwards, leaving (upon the supposition that the whole revenue should amount to the sum of 1,500,000_l._ sterling, to which it did not amount) no more than 140,000_l._ sterling for the support of the dignity of the household and family of the Nabob, and for the maintenance of his government, as well as for the payment of the public debts due within the province.

III. That by the treaty of Fyzabad a regular brigade of the Company's troops, to be stationed in the dominions of the Nabob of Oude, was kept up at the expense of the said Nabob; in addition to which a temporary brigade of the same troops was added to his establishment, together with several detached corps in the Company's service, and a great part of his own native Troops were put under the command of British officers.

IV. That the expense of the Company's temporary brigade increased in the same year (the year of 1779) upwards of 80,000_l._ sterling above the estimate, and the expense of the country troops under British officers in the same period increased upwards of 40,000_l._ sterling; and in addition to the aforesaid ruinous expenses, a large civil establishment was gradually, secretly, and without any authority from the Court of Directors, or record in the books of the Council-General concerning the same, formed for the Resident, and another under Mr. Wombwell, an agent for the Company; as also several pensions and allowances, in the same secret and clandestine manner, were charged on the revenues of the said Nabob for the benefit of British subjects, besides large occasional gifts to persons in the Company's service.

V. That in the month of November, 1779, the said Nabob did represent to Mr. Purling, the Company's Resident aforesaid, the distressed state of his revenues in the following terms. "During three years past, the expense occasioned by the troops in brigade, and others commanded by European officers, has much distressed the support of my household, insomuch that the allowances made to the seraglio and children of the deceased Nabob have been reduced to _one fourth_ of what it had been, upon which they have subsisted in a very distressed manner for two years past. The attendants, writers, and servants, &c., of my court, have received no pay for two years past; and there is at present no part of the country that can be allotted to the payment of my father's private creditors, whose applications are daily pressing upon me. All these difficulties I have for these three years past struggled through, and found this consolation therein, that it was complying with the pleasure of the Honorable Company, and in the hope that the Supreme Council would make inquiry from impartial persons into my distressed situation; but I am now forced to a representation. From the _great increase of expense_, the revenues were necessarily farmed out _at a high rate;_ and deficiencies followed yearly. The country and cultivation is abandoned; and this year in particular, from the excessive drought, deductions of many lacs" (stated by the Resident, in his letter to the board of the 13th of the month following, to amount to twenty-five lac, or 250,000_l._ sterling) "have been allowed the farmers, who were still left unsatisfied. I have received but just sufficient to support my absolute necessities, the revenues being deficient to the amount of fifteen lac [150,000_l._ sterling], and for this reason many of the old chieftains with their troops, and the useful attendants of the court, were forced to leave it, and there is now only a few foot and horse for the collection of my revenues; and should the zemindars be refractory, there is not left a sufficient number to reduce them to obedience." And the said Nabob did therefore pray that the a.s.signments for the new brigade, the corps of horse, and the other detached bodies of the Company's troops might not be required from him: alleging, "that the former was not only quite useless to his government, but, moreover, the cause of much loss, both in the revenues and customs; and that the detached bodies of troops under their European officers brought nothing but confusion into the affairs of his government, and were entirely their own masters."

VI. That it appears that the said Nabob was not bound by any treaty to the maintenance, without his consent, _even of the old brigade_,--the Court of Directors having, in their letter of the 15th December, 1775, approved of keeping the same in his service, "_provided it was done with the free consent of the Subah, and by no means without it_." And the _new brigade_ and temporary corps were raised on the express condition, that the expense thereof should be charged on the Nabob only "_for so long a time as he should require the corps for his service_." And the Court of Directors express to the Governor-General and Council their sense of the said agreement in the following terms: "But if you intend to exert your influence first to induce the Vizier to acquiesce in your proposal, and afterwards _to compel him to keep the troops in his pay during your pleasure, your intents are unjust; and a correspondent conduct would reflect great dishonor on the Company_."

VII. That, in answer to the decent and humble representation aforesaid of the Nabob of Oude, the allegations of which, so far as they relate to the distressed state of the Nabob's finances, and his total inability to discharge the demands made on him, were confirmed by the testimony of the English Resident at Oude, and which the said Hastings did not deny in the whole or in any part thereof, he, the said Warren Hastings, did, on pretence of certain political dangers, declare the relief desired to be "without hesitation _totally_ inadmissible," and did falsely and maliciously insinuate, "that the _tone_ in which the demands of the Nabob were a.s.serted, and the season in which they were made, did give cause for _the most alarming suspicions_." And the said Warren Hastings did, in a letter to the Nabob aforesaid, written in haughty and insolent language, and without taking any notice of the distresses of the said Nabob, alleged and verified as before recited, "require and insist upon your [the Nabob's] granting _tuncaws_ [a.s.signments] for the full amount of their [the Company's] demands upon you for the current year, and on your reserving funds sufficient to answer them, _even should the deficiencies of your revenues compel you to leave your own troops unprovided for, or to disband a part of them to enable you to effect it_."

VIII. That, in a letter written at the same time to the Resident, Purling, and intended for his directions in enforcing on the Nabob the unjust demands aforesaid, the said Warren Hastings hath a.s.serted, in direct contradiction to the treaties subsisting between the said Nabob and the Company, "that he [the Nabob] stands engaged to our government to maintain the English armies which at his own request have been formed for the protection of his dominions, and _that it is our part, and not his, to judge and determine in what manner and at what time these shall be reduced and withdrawn_." And in a Minute of Consultation, when the aforesaid measure was proposed by the said Hastings to the Supreme Council, he did affirm and maintain that the troops aforesaid "had now no _separate_ or distinct existence from ours, and may be properly said to consist of our _whole_ military establishment, with the exception only of our European infantry; and that they could not be withdrawn without imposing on the Company _the additional burden of them_, or disbanding nine battalions of disciplined sepoys and three regiments of horse."

IX. That in the Minute of Consultation aforesaid, he, the said Warren Hastings, hath further, in justification of the violent and arbitrary proceedings aforesaid, a.s.serted, "that the arrangement of measures between the British government and their allies, the native powers of India, must, in case of disagreement about the necessity thereof, _be decided by the strongest_"; and hath thereby advanced a dangerous and most indecently expressed position, subversive of the rights of allies, and tending to breed war and confusion, instead of cordiality and cooperation amongst them, and to destroy all confidence of the princes of India in the faith and justice of the English nation. And the said Hastings, having further, in the minute aforesaid, presumed to threaten to "bring to punishment, if my influence" (his, the said Hastings's, influence) "can produce that effect, _those incendiaries_ who have endeavored to make themselves the instruments of division between us,"

hath, as far as in him lay, obstructed the performance of one of the most essential duties of a prince engaged in an unequal alliance with a presiding state,--that of representing the grievances of his subjects to that more powerful state by whose acts they suffer: leaving thereby the governing power in total ignorance of the effects of its own measures, and to the oppressed people no other choice than the alternative of an unqualified submission, or a resistance productive of consequences more fatal.

X. That, all relief being denied to the Nabob, in the manner and on the grounds aforesaid, the demands of the Company on the said Nabob in the year following, that is to say, in the year 1780, did amount to the enormous sum of 1,400,000_l._ sterling, and the distress of the province did rapidly increase.

XI. That the Nabob, on the 24th of February of the same year, did again write to the Governor-General, the said Warren Hastings, a letter, in which he expressed his constant friends.h.i.+p to the Company, and his submission and obedience to their orders, and a.s.serting that he had not troubled them with any of his difficulties, trusting they would learn them from other quarters, and that he should be relieved by their friends.h.i.+p. "But," he says, "when _the knife had penetrated to the bone_, and I was surrounded with such heavy distresses that I could no longer live in expectations, I then wrote an account of my difficulties.

The answer I have received to it is such that it has given me inexpressible grief and affliction. I never had the least idea or expectation from you and the Council that you would have given your orders in _so afflicting a manner, in which you never before wrote, and I could never have imagined_. I have delivered up all my _private_ papers to him [the Resident], that, after examining my receipts and expenses, he may take whatever remains. That, as I know it to be my duty to satisfy you [the Company and Council], I have not failed to obey in any instance; but requested of him that it might be done so as not to distress me in my _necessary_ expenses. There being no other funds but those for the expenses of my _mutseddies_ [clerks and accountants], household expenses, and servants, &c., he demanded these in such a manner, that, being remediless, I was obliged to comply with what he required. He has accordingly stopped _the pensions of my old servants for thirty years, whether sepoys [soldiers], mutseddies [secretaries and accountants], or household servants, and the expenses of my family and kitchen, together with the jaghires of my grandmother, mother, and aunts, and of my brothers and dependants, which were for their support_."

XII. That, in answer to the letter aforesaid, the Resident received from the said Warren Hastings and Council an order to persevere in the demand to its fullest extent,--that is to say, to the amount of 1,400,000_l._ sterling.

XIII. That on the 15th of May the Nabob replied, complaining in an humble and suppliant manner of his distressed situation: that he had at first opposed the a.s.signing to the use of the Company the estates of his mother, of his grandmother, of one of his uncles, and of the sons of another, but that, in obedience to the injunctions of the gentlemen of the Council, it had been done, to the amount, on the whole, of 80,000_l._ sterling a year, or thereabouts; that whatever effects were in the country, with even his table, his animals, and the salaries of his servants, were granted in a.s.signments; that, besides these, if they were resolved again to compel him to give up the estates of his parents and relations, which were granted them for their maintenance, they were at the Company's disposal; saying, "If the Council have directed you to attach them, do it: in the country no further sources remain. I have no means; for I have not a subsistence.--How long shall I dwell upon my misfortunes?"

XIV. That the truth of the said remonstrances was not disputed, nor the _tone_ in which they were written complained of, the same being submissive, and even abject, though the cause (his distresses) was by the said Hastings, in a great degree, and in terms the most offensive, attributed to the Nabob himself; but no relief was given, and the same unwarrantable establishments, maintained at the same ruinous expense, were kept up.

XV. That the said Warren Hastings, having considered as incendiaries those who advised the remonstrances aforesaid, and, to prevent the same in future, having denounced vengeance on those concerned therein, did, for the purpose of keeping in his own power all representations of the state of the court and country aforesaid, and to subject both the one and the other to his own arbitrary will, and to draw to himself and to his creatures the management of the Nabob's revenues, in defiance of the orders of the Court of Directors, a second time recall Mr. Bristow, the Company's Resident, from the court of Oude,--having once before recalled him, as the said Directors express themselves, "without the shadow of a charge being exhibited against him," and having, on the occasion and time now stated, produced no specific charge against the said Resident; and he, the said Hastings, did appoint Nathaniel Middleton, Esquire, to succeed him,--it being his declared principle, that he must have a person of _his own_ confidence in that situation.

XVI. That the said Warren Hastings, after he had refused all relief to the distresses of the Nabob in the manner aforesaid, and had described those who advised the representation of the grievances of Oude as _incendiaries_, did himself, in a minute of the 21st May, 1781, describe that province "as fallen into a state of great disorder and confusion, and its resources in an extraordinary degree diminished,"--and did state, that his presence in the said province was requested by the Nabob, and that, unless some effectual measures were taken for his relief, he [the Nabob] must be under the necessity of leaving his country, and coming down to Calcutta, to represent the situation of his government. And Mr. Wheler did declare that the Governor-General's representation of the state of that province "was but too well founded, and was convinced that it would require his utmost abilities and powers, applied and exercised on the spot, to restore it to its former good order and affluence."

XVII. That the said Warren Hastings, in consequence of the minute aforesaid, did grant to himself, and did procure the consent of his only colleague, Edward Wheler, Esquire, to a commission or delegation, with powers "to a.s.sist the Nabob Vizier in forming such regulations as may be necessary for the peace and good order of his government, the improvement of his revenue, and the adjustment of the mutual concerns subsisting between him and the Company." And in the said commission or delegation he, the said Warren Hastings, did cause to be inserted certain powers and provisions of a new and dangerous nature: that is to say, reciting the business before mentioned, he did convey to himself "such authority to enforce the same _as the Governor-General and Council might or could exercise on occasions in which they could be warranted to exercise the same_, and to form and conclude such several engagements or treaties with the Nabob Vizier, the government of Berar, and with any chiefs or powers of Hindostan, as _he_ should judge expedient and necessary." Towards the conclusion of the act or instrument aforesaid are the words following, viz.: "It is hereby declared, that all such acts, and all such engagements or treaties aforesaid, shall be binding on the Governor-General and Council in the same manner, _and as effectually, as if they had been done and pa.s.sed by the specific and immediate concurrence and actual junction of the Governor-General and Council, in council a.s.sembled_." And the said powers were, by the said Warren Hastings, given by himself and the said Wheler, under the seal of the Company, on the 3d July, 1781.

XVIII. That the said commission, delegating to him, the said Warren Hastings, the whole functions of the Council, is destructive to the const.i.tution thereof, and is contrary to the Company's standing orders, and is illegal.

XIX. That, in virtue of those powers, and the illegal delegation aforesaid, the said Warren Hastings, after he had finished his business at Benares, did procure a meeting with the Nabob of Oude at a place called Chunar, upon the confines of the country of Benares, and did there enter into a treaty, or pretended treaty, with the said Nabob; one part of which the said Warren Hastings did pretend was drawn up from a series of requisitions presented to him by the Nabob, but which requisitions, or any copy thereof, or of any other material doc.u.ment relative thereto, he did not at the time transmit to the Presidency,--the said Warren Hastings informing Mr. Wheler, that the Resident, Middleton, had taken the _authentic_ papers relative to this transaction with him to Lucknow: and it does not appear that the said Warren Hastings did ever reclaim the said papers, in order to record them at the Presidency, to be transmitted to the Court of Directors, as it was his duty to do.

XX. That the purport of certain articles of the said treaty, on the part of the Company, was, that, in consideration of the Nabob's _inability_ (which inability the preamble of the treaty a.s.serts to have been "repeatedly and urgently represented") to support the expenses of the temporary brigade, and of three regiments of cavalry, and also of the British officers with their battalions, and of _other_ gentlemen who were then paid by him, the several corps aforesaid, and the other gentlemen, (with the exception of the Resident's office _then on the Nabob's list_, and a regiment of sepoys for the Resident's guard,) should, after a term of two and a half months, be no longer at his, the Nabob's, charge: "the true meaning of this being, that no more troops than one brigade, and the pay and allowances of a regiment of sepoys,"

(as aforesaid, to the Resident,) amounting in the whole to 342,000_l._ a year, should be paid by the Nabob; and that _no officers, troops, or others, should be put upon the Nabob's establishment_, exclusive of those in the said treaty stipulated.

XXI. That the said Warren Hastings did defend and justify the said articles, in which the troops aforesaid were to be removed from the Nabob's establishment, by declaring as follows. "That the _actual_ disburs.e.m.e.nts to those troops had fallen upon _our own funds_, and that _we_ support a body of troops, established _solely_ for the defence of the Nabob's possessions, _at our own expense_. It is true, we charge the Nabob with this expense; but the large balance already due from him shows too justly the little prospect there was of disengaging ourselves from _a burden_ which was daily adding to _our_ distresses and must soon become _insupportable_, although it were granted that the Nabob's debt, then suffered to acc.u.mulate, _might at some future period be liquidated_, and that this measure would substantially effect an instant relief to the pecuniary distresses of the Company."

XXII. That Nathaniel Middleton, the Resident, did also declare that he would at all times testify, "that, upon the plan of the foregoing years, the receipts from the Nabob were only _a deception_, and _not an advantage_, but _an injury_ to the Company," and "that a remission to the Nabob of this _insufferable burden_ was _a profit_ to the Company."

And the said Hastings did a.s.sert that the force of the Company was not lessened by withdrawing the temporary troops; although, when it suited the purpose of the said Hastings, in denying just relief to the distresses of the said Nabob of Oude, he had not scrupled to a.s.sert the direct contrary of the positions by him maintained in justification of the treaty of Chunar,--having in his minute aforesaid, of the 15th of December, 1779, a.s.serted, "that these troops" (the troops maintained by the Nabob of Oude) "had no _separate or distinct existence_, and may be properly said to consist of our whole military establishment, with the exception only of our European infantry, and that they could not be _withdrawn, without imposing on the Company the additional burden of their expense_, or disbanding nine battalions of disciplined sepoys and three regiments of horse."

XXIII. That he, the said Warren Hastings, in justification of his agreement to withdraw the troops aforesaid from the territories and pay of the Nabob of Oude, did further declare, "that he had been too much accustomed to the tales of hostile preparation and impending invasions, against all the evidence of political probability, to regard them as any other than phantoms raised for the purpose of perpetuating or multiplying commands," and he did trust "all ideas of danger from the neighboring powers were altogether visionary; and that, even if they had been better founded, this mode of antic.i.p.ating possible evils would be more mischievous than anything they had reason to apprehend," and that the internal state of the Nabob's dominions did not require the continuance of the said troops; and that the Nabob, "_whose concern it was, and not ours_" did affirm the same,--notwithstanding he, the said Hastings, had before, in answer to the humble supplications of the Nabob, a.s.serted, that "_it was our part, and not his_, to judge and determine in what manner and at what time they should be reduced or withdrawn."

XXIV. That the said Warren Hastings, in support of his measure of withdrawing the said brigade and other troops, did also represent, that "the remote stations of those troops, placing the commanding officers beyond the notice and control of the board, afforded too much opportunity and temptation for unwarrantable emoluments, and excited the _contagion of peculation and rapacity throughout the whole army_, and, as an instance thereof, that a court-martial, composed of officers of rank and respectable characters, unanimously and honorably, 'most honorably,' acquitted an officer upon an acknowledged fact which in times of stricter discipline would have been deemed a crime deserving the severest punishment."

XXV. That the said Warren Hastings, having in the letter aforesaid contradicted all the grounds and reasons by him a.s.signed for keeping up the aforesaid establishment, and having declared his own conviction that the whole was a fallacy and imposition, and a detriment to the Company instead of a benefit, circ.u.mstances (if they are true) which he might and ought to have well known, was guilty of an high crime and misdemeanor in carrying on the imposture and delusion aforesaid, and in continuing an insupportable burden and grievance upon the Nabob for several years, without attending to his repeated supplications to be relieved therefrom, to the utter ruin of his country, and to the destruction of the discipline of the British troops, by diffusing among them a general spirit of peculation; and the said Hastings hath committed a grievous offence in upholding the same pernicious system, until, by his own confession and declaration, in his minute of the 21st of May, 1781, "the evils had _grown_ to so great an height, that exertions will be required more powerful than can be made through the delegated authority of the servants of the Company now in the province, and that he was far from sanguine in his expectations that _even his own endeavors would be attended with much success_."

XXVI. That, at the time of making the said treaty, and at the time when, under color of the distress of the Nabob of Oude, and the failure of all other means for his relief, he, the said Hastings, broke the Company's faith with the parents of the Nabob, and first encouraged and afterwards compelled him to despoil them of their landed estates, money, jewels, and household goods, and while the said Nabob continued heavily in debt to the Company, he, the said Warren Hastings, did, "_without hesitation_," accept of and receive from the Nabob of Oude and his ministers (who are notoriously known to be not only under his influence, but under his absolute command) a bribe, or unlawful gift or present, of one hundred thousand pounds sterling, and upwards. That, even if the said pretended gift could be supposed to be voluntary, it was contrary to the express provision of the Regulating Act of the 13th year of his Majesty's reign, prohibiting the receipt of all presents upon any pretence whatsoever, and contrary to his own sense of the true intent and meaning of the said act, declared upon a similar, but not so strong a case,--that is, where the service done, and the present offered in return for it, had taken place before the promulgation of the above laws in India: on that occasion he declared, "that the exclusion by an act of Parliament _admitted of no abatement or evasion_, wherever its authority extended."

XXVII. That the said Warren Hastings, confiding in an interest which he supposed himself to have formed in the East India House, did endeavor to prevail on the Court of Directors to violate the said act, and to suffer him to appropriate the money so illegally accepted by him to his own profit, as a reward for his services.

XXVIII. That the said Warren Hastings has since declared to the Court of Directors, that, when _fortune threw a sum in his way_ (meaning the sum of money above mentioned) _of a magnitude which could not be concealed, he chose to apprise his employers of it_:[15] thereby confessing, that, but for the magnitude of the same rendering it difficult to be concealed, he never would have discovered it to them. And the said unlawful present being received at the time when, for reasons directly contradictory of all his former recorded declarations, he did agree to remove the aforesaid troops from the Nabob's dominions, and to recall the pensioners aforesaid, it must be presumed that he did not agree to give the relief (which he had before so obstinately refused) upon the grounds and motives of justice, policy, or humanity, but in consideration of the sum of money aforesaid, which, in a time of such extreme distress in the Nabob's affairs, could not be rationally given, except for those and other concessions stipulated for in the said treaty, but which had on former occasions been refused.

XXIX. That, notwithstanding his, the said Warren Hastings's, receipt of the present of one hundred thousand pounds, as aforesaid, he did violate every one of the stipulations in the said treaty contained, and particularly he did continue in the country, and in the service of the Nabob of Oude, those troops which he had so recently stipulated to withdraw from his country and to take from his establishment: for, upon the 24th of December following, he did order the temporary brigade, making ten battalions of five hundred men each, to be again put on the Vizier's list,--although he had recently informed the Court of Directors, through Edward Wheler, Esquire, that any benefit to be derived from the Nabob's paying that brigade was _a fallacy and a deception_, and that the same was _a charge_ upon the Company, and not _an alleviation of its distresses_, as well as _an insupportable burden_ to the Nabob: thus having, within a short s.p.a.ce of time, twice contradicted himself, both in declaration and in conduct.

x.x.x. That this measure, in direct violation of a treaty of not three months' duration, was so injudicious, that, in the opinion of the a.s.sistant Resident, Johnson, "nothing less than blows could effect it": he, the said Resident, further adding, "that the Nabob was not even able to pay off the arrears still due to it [the new brigade]; and that the troops being _all_ in arrears, and no possibility of present payment, so large a body a.s.sembled here [viz., at Lucknow] without any means to check and control them, nothing but disorder could follow. As one proof that the Nabob is as badly off for funds as we are, I may inform you that his cavalry rose this day upon him, and went all armed to the palace, to demand from thirteen to eighteen months' arrears, and were with great difficulty persuaded to retire, which was probably more effected by a body of troops getting under arms to go against them than any other consideration." But the letter of Warren Hastings, Esquire, of the 24th of December, giving the above orders for the infraction of the treaty, and to which the letter from whence the foregoing extracts are taken is an answer, doth not appear, any otherwise than as the same is recited in the said answer.

x.x.xI. That, notwithstanding the disorders and deficiencies in the revenue aforesaid had continued and increased, and that three very large balances had acc.u.mulated, the said Warren Hastings did cause the Treasury accounts at Calcutta to be examined and scrutinized, and an account of another arrear, composed of various articles, pretended to have acc.u.mulated during seven years previous to the year 1779, (the articles composing which, if they had been just, ought to have been charged at the times they severally became due,) was sent to the Resident, and payment thereof demanded, to the amount of 260,000_l._ sterling; which unexpected demand, in so distressed a situation, did not a little embarra.s.s the Nabob. But whilst he and his ministers were examining into the said unexpected demand, another, and fifth balance, made up of similar forgotten articles, was demanded, to the amount of 140,000_l._ sterling more. Which said two last demands did so terrify and confound the Nabob and his ministers, that they declared that the Resident "might at once take the country, since justice was out of the question."

x.x.xII. That the said Hastings, in order to add to the confusion, perplexity, and distress of the Nabob's affairs, did send to his court (in which he had already a Resident and a.s.sistant Resident) two secret agents, Major Palmer and Major Davy, and did instruct Major Palmer to make a variety of new claims, one of a loan to the Company of 600,000_l._ sterling, although he well knew the Nabob was himself heavily in arrear to the Company, and was utterly unable to discharge the same, as well as in arrear to his own troops, and to many individuals, and that he borrowed (when he could at all borrow) at an interest of near thirty per cent. To this demand was added a new bribe, or unlawful present, to himself, to the amount of 100,000_l._ sterling, which he did not refuse as unlawful and of evil example, but as _indelicate_ in the Nabob's present situation,--and did, as if the same was his own property, presume to dispose of it, and to desire the transfer of it, as of his own bounty, to the Company, his masters. To this second demand he, the said Hastings, added a third demand of 120,000_l._ sterling, for four additional regiments on the Nabob's list, after he had solemnly engaged to take off the ten with which it had been burdened: the whole of the claims through his private agent aforesaid making the sum of 820,000_l._ sterling.