The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 09 (of 12)

XVIII. That the said commission, delegating to him, the said Warren Hastings, the whole functions of the Council, is destructive to the constitution 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 document 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 asserts 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 342,000l. 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 disbursements 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 accumulate, 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 assert 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 assert 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, asserted, "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 anticipating 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, asserted, 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 assigned 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, circumstances (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 space of time, twice contradicted himself, both in declaration and in conduct.

XXX. That this measure, in direct violation of a treaty of not three months' duration, was so injudicious, that, in the opinion of the Assistant 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 assembled 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.

XXXI. That, notwithstanding the disorders and deficiencies in the revenue aforesaid had continued and increased, and that three very large balances had accumulated, 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 accumulated 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 260,000l. sterling; which unexpected demand, in so distressed a situation, did not a little embarrass 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 140,000l. 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."

XXXII. 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 Assistant 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 600,000l. 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 100,000l. 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 120,000l. 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 820,000l. sterling.

XXXIII. That the demands, claims, &c., made by the said Warren Hastings upon the government of Oude in that year amounted to the enormous sum of 2,530,000l. sterling; which joined to the arrears to troops, and some internal failures, amounting to 255,000l. sterling more, the whole charge arose to 2,785,000l. sterling, which was considerably more than double the net produce of the Nabob's revenue,—the same only amounting to 1,450,000l. "nominal revenue, never completely realized."

XXXIV. That, towards providing for these extravagant demands, he, the said Warren Hastings, did direct and authorize another breach of the public faith given in the treaty of Chunar. For whereas, by the second article of the treaty aforesaid, it was left to the Nabob's discretion whether or not he should resume the landed estates, called jaghires, within his dominions, and notwithstanding the said Hastings, in defence of the said article, did declare that the Nabob should be left to the exercise of his own authority and pleasure respecting them, yet he, the said Hastings, did authorize a violent compulsion to be used towards the said Nabob for accomplishing an universal confiscation of that species of landed property; and in so doing he did also compel the Nabob to break his faith with all the landholders of that description, not only in violating the assurance of his own original grants, but his assurance recently given, when, being pressed by the Company, he, the Nabob, had made a temporary seizure of the profits of the lands aforesaid, in the manner of a compulsory loan, for the repayment of which he gave his bonds and obligations; and although he had at the same time solemnly pledged his faith that he never would again resort to the like oppressive measure, yet he, the said Warren Hastings, did cause him to be compelled to confiscate the estates of at least sixty-seven of the principal persons of his country, comprehending therein his own nearest relations and the ancient friends and dependants of his family: the annual value of the said estates thus confiscated amounting to 435,000l. sterling, or thereabouts, upon an old valuation, but stated by the Resident, Middleton, as being found to yield considerably more.

XXXV. That the violent and unjust measure aforesaid, subversive of property, utterly destructive of several ancient and considerable families, and most dishonorable to the British government, did produce an universal discontent and the greatest confusion throughout the whole country,—the said confiscated lands being on this occasion put to rack-rents, and the people grievously oppressed: and to prevent a possibility of redress, at least for a considerable time, the said confiscated estates were mortgaged (it appearing otherwise impracticable to make an approach towards satisfying the exorbitant demands of the said Hastings) for a great sum to certain usurious bankers or money-dealers at Benares.

XXXVI. That, besides these enormous demands, which were in part made for the support of several corps of troops under British officers which by the treaty of Chunar ought to have been removed, very large extra charges not belonging to the military list of the said Nabob, and several civil charges and pensions, were continued, and others newly put on since the treaty of Chunar, namely, an allowance to Sir Eyre Coote of 15,554 rupees per month, (being upwards of 18,664l. sterling a year,) and an allowance to Trevor Wheler, Esquire, of 5,000 rupees per month (or 6,000l. sterling and upwards a year); and the whole of the settled charges, not of a military nature, to British subjects, did amount to little less than 140,000l. yearly, and, if other allowances not included in the estimate were added, would greatly exceed that sum, besides much more which may justly be suspected to have been paid, no part whereof had at that time been brought forward to any public account.

XXXVII. That the commander of one of these corps, of whose burden the said Nabob did complain, was Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Hannay, who did farm the revenues of certain districts called Baraitch and Goruckpore, which the said Hastings, in the ninth article of his instructions to Mr. Bristow, did estimate at twenty-three lacs of rupees, or 230,000l., per annum: but under his, the said Hannay's, management, the collections did very greatly decline; complaints were made that the countries aforesaid were harassed and oppressed, and the same did fall into confusion, and at last the inhabitants broke out into a general rebellion.

XXXVIII. That the far greater part of the said heavy list was authorized or ordered by him, the said Warren Hastings, for the purpose of extending his own corrupt influence: for it doth appear, that, at the time when he did pretend, in conformity to the treaty of Chunar aforesaid, to remove the Company's servants, "civil and military, from the court and service of the Vizier," he did assert that he thereby did "diminish his own influence, as well as that of his colleagues, by narrowing the line of patronage"; which proves that the offices, pensions, and other emoluments aforesaid, in Oude, were of his patronage, as his patronage could not be diminished by taking away the said offices, &c., unless the same had been substantially of his gift. And he did, at the time of the pretended reformation aforesaid, express both his knowledge of the existence of the said excessive and abusive establishments, and his sense of his duty in taking them away: for in agreeing to the article in the treaty of Chunar for abolishing the said establishments, he did declare himself "actuated solely by motives of justice to the Nabob, and a regard to the honor of our national character"; and, according to his own representation, the said servants of the Company, civil and military, "by their numbers, their influence, and the enormous amount of their salaries, pensions, and emoluments, were an intolerable burden on the revenues and authority of the Vizier, and exposed us to the envy and resentment of the whole country, by excluding the native servants and adherents of the Vizier from the rewards of their services and attachment."

XXXIX. That the revenue of the country being anticipated, mortgaged, and dilapidated, by the counsel, concurrence, connivance, and influence, and often by the direct order of the said Warren Hastings, the whole civil government, magistracy, and administration of justice gradually declined and at length totally ceased through the whole of the vast provinces which compose the territory of Oude, and no power was visible therein but that of the farmers of the revenue, attended by bodies of troops to enforce the collections; insomuch that robberies, assassinations, and acts of every description of outrage and violence were perpetrated with impunity,—and even in the capital city of Lucknow, the seat of the sovereign power, there was no court of justice whatever to take cognizance of such offences.

XL. That the said Warren Hastings, when he did interfere in the government of Oude, was obliged by his duty to interfere for the good purposes of government, and not merely for the purpose of extorting money therefrom and enriching his own dependants,—which latter purpose alone he did effect, in the manner before mentioned, but not one of the former. For the said Hastings, having procured the extraordinary powers given by and to himself by his delegation of the 3d of July, 1781, did declare the same to be for the purpose, among many others, "of assisting the Nabob Vizier in forming such regulations as may be necessary for the peace and good order of his government and the improvement of his revenue." And in consequence of the said powers, the said Warren Hastings did, in the treaty of Chunar, obtain an article from the Nabob by which the said Nabob did promise to attend to his advice in the reformation of his civil administration; and he did give certain instructions to the Resident, Middleton, to which he did require him to yield the most implicit obedience, and did in one article thereof direct him to urge the Nabob to endeavor gradually, if it could not be done at once, to establish courts of adawlut [justice], and that the darogahs [chief criminal magistrates], moulavies [consulting or assistant lawyers], and other officers, should be selected by the ministers, with his, the Resident's, concurrence; and afterwards, in his instructions to the Resident Bristow, desiring him to pursue the same object, he declared his opinion, "that the want of such courts, and the extreme licentiousness occasioned thereby, is one of the most disreputable defects in his Highness the Nabob's government, and that, while they do not exist, every man knows the hazard which he incurs in lending his money "; but he did give him, the said Resident, no positive instruction concerning the same, supposing the establishment of such courts a matter of difficulty, and did therefore leave him a latitude in his proceedings therein.

XLI. That the said Resident Bristow did, however, in conformity to the said instructions, at last given with such latitude, endeavor to prevail on the said minister gradually to introduce courts of justice for the cognizance of crimes, by beginning to establish a criminal court under a native judge, to judge according to the Mahomedan law in the city of Lucknow. But Hyder Beg Khân, a minister of the said Warren Hastings's nomination, and solely dependent upon him, did elude and obstruct, and in the end totally defeat, the establishment of the same.

XLII. That the obstruction aforesaid, and the evil consequences thereof, were duly represented to the said Hastings; and though the said Hastings had made it the fourth article of a criminal charge against the Resident Middleton, "that he did not report to the Governor-General, or to the board, the progress which he had made from time to time in his endeavors to comply with his instructions, and that, if he met with any impediments in the execution of them, he had omitted to state those impediments, and to apply for fresh orders upon them," yet he, the said Hastings, did give no manner of support to the Resident Bristow against the said Hyder Beg Khân, and did not even answer several of his letters, the said Bristow's letters, stating the said impediments, or take any notice of his remonstrances, but did at length revoke his own instructions, declaring that he, the said Resident, should not presume to act upon the same, and yet did not furnish him with any others, upon which he might act, but did uphold the said Hyder Beg Khân in the obstruction by him given to the performance of the first and fundamental duty of all government,—namely, the administration of justice, and the protection of the lives and property of the subject against wrong and violence.

XLIII. That the said Hastings did afterwards proceed to the length of criminating the Resident Bristow aforesaid for his endeavors to establish the said necessary court, as an invasion of the rights of the Nabob's government,—when, if the Nabob in his own proper person and character, and not the aforesaid Hyder Beg, (who was a creature of the said Hastings,) had opposed the reëstablishment of justice in the said country, it was the duty of the said Hastings to have pressed the same upon him by every exertion of his influence. And the said Warren Hastings, in his pretended attention to the Nabob's authority, when exercised by his, the said Hastings's, minister, to prevent the establishment of courts of justice for the protection of life and property, at the same time that he did not hesitate, in the case of the confiscation of the jaghires, and the proceedings against the mother and grandmother of the Nabob, totally to supersede his authority, and to force his inclinations in acts which overturned all the laws of property, and offered violence to all the sentiments of natural affection and duty, and accusing at the same time his instruments for not going to the utmost lengths in the execution of his said orders, is guilty of an high crime and misdemeanor.

XLIV. That the said Hastings did highly aggravate his offence in discountenancing and discouraging the reëstablishment of magistracy, law, and order, in the country of Oude, inasmuch as he did in the eighth article of his instructions to the Resident order him to exercise powers which ought to have been exercised by lawful magistrates, and in a manner agreeable to law. And in the said article he did state the prevalence of rebellion in the said country of Oude,—as if rebellion could exist in a country in which there was no magistracy, and no protection for life or property, and in which the native authority had no force whatever, and in which he himself states the exercise of British authority to be an absolute usurpation; and he did accordingly direct a rigorous prosecution against the offence of rebellion under such circumstances, but "with a fair and impartial inquiry," when he did not permit the establishment of those courts of justice and magistracy by which alone rebellion could be prevented, or a fair and impartial inquiry relative to the same could be had; and particularly he did instruct the said Resident to obtain the Nabob's order for employing some sure means for apprehending certain zemindars, and particularly three, in the instruction named, whom he, the said Hastings, did cause to be apprehended upon what he calls good information, founded upon some facts to which he asserts he has the testimony of several witnesses, "that they had the destruction of Colonel Hannay and the officers under his command as their immediate object, and ultimately the extirpation of the English influence and power throughout all the Nabob's dominions," and that they did still persevere in their rebellious conduct without deviation, "though the Nabob's, and not our government, was then the object of it"; and he did direct the said Resident, if it should appear, "on a fair and regular inquiry, that their conduct towards the Nabob had been such as it had been reported to be, to insist upon the Nabob's punishing them with death, and to treat with the same rigor every zemindar and every subject who shall be the leader in a rebellion against his authority."

XLV. That the crime of the said Hastings, in his procedure aforesaid, was further highly aggravated by his having received information of several striking circumstances which strongly indicated the necessity of a regular magistracy and a legal judicature, from the total failure of justice, affecting not only the subjects at large, but even the reigning family itself,—as also of the causes why no legal magistracy could exist, and why the princes of the reigning family were not only exposed to the attacks of assassins, but even to a want of the protection which might be had from their servants and attendants, who were driven from their masters for want of that maintenance which the princes, their masters, could not procure even for themselves. And the circumstances aforesaid were detailed to him, the said Hastings, by the Resident, Bristow, in a letter from Lucknow, dated the 29th January, 1784, to the Governor-General, the said Warren Hastings, and the Council of Bengal, in the terms following.