The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 11 (of 12)

Extract of a Letter from Hyder Beg Khân, received 21st April, 1785.

"I hope that such orders and commands as relate to the friendship between his Highness and the Company's governments and to your will may be sent through Major Palmer, in your own private letters, or in your letters to the Major, who is appointed from you at the presence of his Highness, that, in obedience to your orders, he may properly explain your commands, and, whatever affair may be settled, he may first secretly inform you of it, and afterwards his Highness may, conformably thereto, write an answer, and I also may represent it. By this system, your pleasure will always be fully made known to his Highness; and his Highness and we will execute whatever may be your orders, without deviating a hair's-breadth: and let not the representations of interested persons be approved of, because his Highness makes no opposition to your will; and I, your servant, am ready in obedience and service, and I make no excuses."

Now, my Lords, was there ever such a discovery made of the arcana of any public theatre? You see here, behind the ostensible scenery, all the crooked working of the machinery developed and laid open to the world. You now see by what secret movement the master of the mechanism has conducted the great Indian opera,—an opera of fraud, deceptions, and harlequin tricks. You have it all laid open before you. The ostensible scene is drawn aside; it has vanished from your sight. All the strutting signors, and all the soft signoras are gone; and instead of a brilliant spectacle of descending chariots, gods, goddesses, sun, moon, and stars, you have nothing to gaze on but sticks, wire, ropes, and machinery. You find the appearance all false and fraudulent; and you see the whole trick at once. All this, my Lords, we owe to Major Scott's trunk, which, by admitting us behind the scene, has enabled us to discover the real state of Mr. Hastings's government in India. And can your Lordships believe that all this mechanism of fraud, prevarication, and falsehood could have been intended for any purpose but to forward that robbery, corruption, and peculation by which Mr. Hastings has destroyed one of the finest countries upon earth? Is it necessary, after this, for me to tell you that you are not to believe one word of the correspondence stated by him to have been received from India? This discovery goes to the whole matter of the whole government of the country. You have seen what that government was, and by-and-by you shall see the effects of it.

Your Lordships have now seen this trunk of Mr. Scott's producing the effects of Aladdin's lamp,—of which your Lordships may read in books much more worthy of credit than Mr. Hastings's correspondence. I have given all the credit of this precious discovery to Mr. Scott's trunk; but, my Lords, I find that I have to ask pardon for a mistake in supposing the letter of Hyder Beg Khân to be a part of Mr. Hastings's correspondence. It comes from another quarter, not much less singular, and equally authentic and unimpeachable. But though it is not from the trunk, it smells of the trunk, it smells of the leather. I was as proud of my imaginary discovery as Sancho Panza was that one of his ancestors had discovered a taste of iron in some wine, and another a taste of leather in the same wine, and that afterwards there was found in the cask a little key tied to a thong of leather, which had given to the wine a taste of both. Now, whether this letter tasted of the leather of the trunk or of the iron of Mr. Macpherson, I confess I was a little out in my suggestion and my taste. The letter in question was written by Hyder Beg Khân, after Mr. Hastings's departure, to Mr. Macpherson, when he succeeded to the government. That gentleman thus got possession of a key to the trunk; and it appears to have been his intentions to follow the steps of his predecessor, to act exactly in the same manner, and in the same manner to make the Nabob the instrument of his own ruin. This letter was written by the Nabob's minister to Sir John Macpherson, newly inaugurated into his government, and who might be supposed not to be acquainted with all the best of Mr. Hastings's secrets, nor to have had all the trunk correspondence put into his hands. However, here is a trunk extraordinary, and its contents are much in the manner of the other. The Nabob's minister acquaints him with the whole secret of the system. It is plain that the Nabob considered it as a system not to be altered: that there was to be nothing true, nothing aboveboard, nothing open in the government of his affairs. When you thus see that there can be little doubt of the true nature of the government, I am sure that hereafter, when we come to consider the effects of that government, it will clear up and bring home to the prisoner at your bar all we shall have to say upon this subject.

Mr. Hastings, having thrown off completely the authority of the Company, as you have seen,—having trampled upon those of their servants who had manifested any symptom of independence, or who considered the orders of the Directors as a rule of their conduct,—having brought every Englishman under his yoke, and made them supple and fit instruments for all his designs,—then gave it to be understood that such alone were fit persons to be employed in important affairs of state. Consider, my Lords, the effect of this upon the whole service. Not one man that appears to pay any regard to the authority of the Directors is to expect that any regard will be paid to himself. So that this man not only rebels himself, in his own person, against the authority of the Company, but he makes all their servants join him in this very rebellion. Think, my Lords, of this state of things,—and I wish it never to pass from your minds that I have called him the captain-general of the whole host of actors in Indian iniquity, under whom that host was arrayed, disciplined, and paid. This language which I used was not, as fools have thought proper to call it, offensive and abusive; it is in a proper criminatory tone, justified by the facts that I have stated to you, and in every step we take it is justified more and more. I take it as a text upon which I mean to preach; I take it as a text which I wish to have in your Lordships' memory from the beginning to the end of this proceeding. He is not only guilty of iniquity himself, but is at the head of a system of iniquity and rebellion, and will not suffer with impunity any one honest man to exist in India, if he can help it. Every mark of obedience to the legal authority of the Company is by him condemned; and if there is any virtue remaining in India, as I think there is, it is not his fault that it still exists there.

We have shown you the servile obedience of the natives of the country; we have shown you the miserable situation to which a great prince, at least a person who was the other day a great prince, was reduced by Mr. Hastings's system. We shall next show you that this prince, who, unfortunately for himself, became a dependant on the Company, and thereby subjected to the will of an arbitrary government, is made by him the instrument of his own degradation, the instrument of his (the Governor's) falsehoods, the instrument of his peculations; and that he had been subjected to all this degradation for the purposes of the most odious tyranny, violence, and corruption.

Mr. Hastings, having assumed the government to himself, soon made Oude a private domain. It had, to be sure, a public name, but it was to all practical intents and purposes his park, or his warren,—a place, as it were, for game, whence he drew out or killed, at an earlier or later season, as he thought fit, anything he liked, and brought it to his table according as it served his purpose. Before I proceed, it will not be improper for me to remind your Lordships of the legitimate ends to which all controlling and superintending power ought to be directed. Whether a man acquires this power by law or by usurpation, there are certain duties attached to his station. Let us now see what these duties are.

The first is, to take care of that vital principle of every state, its revenue. The next is, to preserve the magistracy and legal authorities in honor, respect, and force. And the third, to preserve the property, movable and immovable, of all the people committed to his charge.

In regard to his first duty, the protection of the revenue, your Lordships will find, that, from three millions and upwards which I stated to be the revenue of Oude, and which Mr. Hastings, I believe, or anybody for him, has never thought proper to deny, it sunk under his management to about one million four hundred and forty thousand pounds: and even this, Mr. Middleton says, (as you may see in your minutes,) was not completely realized. Thus, my Lords, you see that one half of the whole revenue of the country was lost after it came into Mr. Hastings's management. Well, but it may perhaps be said this was owing to the Nabob's own imprudence. No such thing, my Lords; it could not be so; for the whole real administration and government of the country was in the hands of Mr. Hastings's agents, public or private.

To let you see how provident Mr. Hastings's management of it was, I shall produce to your Lordships one of the principal manoeuvres that he adopted for the improvement of the revenue, and for the happiness and prosperity of the country, the latter of which will always go along, more or less, with the first.

The Nabob, whose acts your Lordships have now learned to appreciate as no other than the acts of Mr. Hastings, writes to the Council to have a body of British officers, for the purposes of improving the discipline of his troops, collecting his revenues, and repressing disorder and outrage among his subjects. This proposal was ostensibly fair and proper; and if I had been in the Council at that time, and the Nabob had really and bonâ fide made such a request, I should have said he had taken a very reasonable and judicious step, and that the Company ought to aid him in his design.

Among the officers sent to Oude, in consequence of this requisition, was the well-known Colonel Hannay: a man whose name will be bitterly and long remembered in India. This person, we understand, had been recommended to Mr. Hastings by Sir Elijah Impey: and his appointment was the natural consequence of such patronage. I say the natural consequence, because Sir Elijah Impey appears on your minutes to have been Mr. Hastings's private agent and negotiator in Oude. In that light, and in that light only, I consider Colonel Hannay in this business. We cannot prove that he was not of Mr. Hastings's own nomination originally and primarily; but whether we take him in this way, or as recommended by Sir Elijah Impey, or anybody else, Mr. Hastings is equally responsible.

Colonel Hannay is sent up by Mr. Hastings, and has the command of a brigade, of two regiments I think, given to him. Thus far all is apparently fair and easily understood. But in this country we find everything in masquerade and disguise. We find this man, instead of being an officer, farmed the revenue of the country, as is proved by Colonel Lumsden and other gentlemen, who were his sub-farmers and his assistants. Here, my Lords, we have a man who appeared to have been sent up the country as a commander of troops, agreeably to the Nabob's request, and who, upon our inquiry, we discover to have been farmer-general of the country! We discover this with surprise; and I believe, till our inquiries began, it was unknown in Europe. We have, however, proved upon your Lordships' minutes, by an evidence produced by Mr. Hastings himself, that Colonel Hannay was actually farmer-general of the countries of Baraitch and Goruckpore. We have proved upon your minutes that Colonel Hannay was the only person possessed of power in the country; that there was no magistrate in it, nor any administration of the law whatever. We have proved to your Lordships that in his character of farmer-general he availed himself of the influence derived from commanding a battalion of soldiers. In short, we have proved that the whole power, civil, military, municipal, and financial, resided in him; and we further refer your Lordships to Mr. Lumsden and Mr. Halhed for the authority which he possessed in that country. Your Lordships, I am sure, will supply with your diligence what is defective in my statement; I have therefore taken the liberty of indicating to you where you are to find the evidence to which I refer. You will there, my Lords, find this Colonel Hannay in a false character: he is ostensibly given to the Nabob as a commander of his troops, while in reality he is forced upon that prince as his farmer-general. He is invested with the whole command of the country, while the sovereign is unable to control him, or to prevent his extorting from the people whatever he pleases.

If we are asked what the terms of his farm were, we cannot discover that he farmed the country at any certain sum. We cannot discover that he was subjected to any terms, or confined by any limitations. Armed with arbitrary power, and exercising that power under a false title, his exactions from the poor natives were only limited by his own pleasure. Under these circumstances, we are now to ask what there was to prevent him from robbing and ruining the people, and what security against his robbing the exchequer of the person whose revenue he farmed.

You are told by the witnesses in the clearest manner, (and, after what you have heard of the state of Oude, you cannot doubt the fact,) that nobody, not even the Nabob, dared to complain against him,—that he was considered as a man authorized and supported by the power of the British government; and it is proved in the evidence before you that he vexed and harassed the country to the utmost extent which we have stated in our article of charge, and which you would naturally expect from a man acting under such false names with such real powers. We have proved that from some of the principal zemindars in that country, who held farms let to them for twenty-seven thousand rupees a year, a rent of sixty thousand was demanded, and in some cases enforced,—and that upon the refusal of one of them to comply with this demand, he was driven out of the country.

Your Lordships will find in the evidence before you that the inhabitants of the country were not only harassed in their fortunes, but cruelly treated in their persons. You have it upon Mr. Halhed's evidence, and it is not attempted, that I know of, to be contradicted, that the people were confined in open cages, exposed to the scorching heat of the sun, for pretended or real arrears of rent: it is indifferent which, because I consider all confinement of the person to support an arbitrary exaction to be an abomination not to be tolerated. They have endeavored, indeed, to weaken this evidence by an attempt to prove that a man day and night in confinement in an open cage suffers no inconvenience. And here I must beg your Lordships to observe the extreme unwillingness that appears in these witnesses. Their testimony is drawn from them drop by drop, their answers to our questions are never more than yes or no; but when they are examined by the counsel on the other side, it flows as freely as if drawn from a perennial spring: and such a spring we have in Indian corruption. We have, however, proved that in these cages the renters were confined till they could be lodged in the dungeons or mud forts. We have proved that some of them were obliged to sell their children, that others fled the country, and that these practices were carried to such an awful extent that Colonel Hannay was under the necessity of issuing orders against the unnatural sale and flight which his rapacity had occasioned.

The prisoner's counsel have attempted to prove that this had been a common practice in that country. And though possibly some person as wicked as Colonel Hannay might have been there before at some time or other, no man ever sold his children but under the pressure of some cruel exaction. Nature calls out against it. The love that God has implanted in the heart of parents towards their children is the first germ of that second conjunction which He has ordered to subsist between them and the rest of mankind. It is the first formation and first bond of society. It is stronger than all laws; for it is the law of Nature, which is the law of God. Never did a man sell his children who was able to maintain them. It is, therefore, not only a proof of his exactions, but a decisive proof that these exactions were intolerable.

Next to the love of parents for their children, the strongest instinct, both natural and moral, that exists in man, is the love of his country: an instinct, indeed, which extends even to the brute creation. All creatures love their offspring; next to that they love their homes: they have a fondness for the place where they have been bred, for the habitations they have dwelt in, for the stalls in which they have been fed, the pastures they have browsed in, and the wilds in which they have roamed. We all know that the natal soil has a sweetness in it beyond the harmony of verse. This instinct, I say, that binds all creatures to their country, never becomes inert in us, nor ever suffers us to want a memory of it. Those, therefore, who seek to fly their country can only wish to fly from oppression: and what other proof can you want of this oppression, when, as a witness has told you, Colonel Hannay was obliged to put bars and guards to confine the inhabitants within the country?

We have seen, therefore, Nature violated in its strongest principles. We have seen unlimited and arbitrary exaction avowed, on no pretence of any law, rule, or any fixed mode by which these people were to be dealt with. All these facts have been proved before your Lordships by costive and unwilling witnesses. In consequence of these violent and cruel oppressions, a general rebellion breaks out in the country, as was naturally to be expected. The inhabitants rise as if by common consent; every farmer, every proprietor of land, every man who loved his family and his country, and had not fled for refuge, rose in rebellion, as they call it. My Lords, they did rebel; it was a just rebellion. Insurrection was there just and legal, inasmuch as Colonel Hannay, in defiance of the laws and rights of the people, exercised a clandestine, illegal authority, against which there can be no rebellion in its proper sense.

As a rebellion, however, and as a rebellion of the most unprovoked kind, it was treated by Colonel Hannay; and to one instance of the means taken for suppressing it, as proved by evidence before your Lordships, I will just beg leave to call your attention. One hundred and fifty of the inhabitants had been shut up in one of the mud forts I have mentioned. The people of the country, in their rage, attacked the fort, and demanded the prisoners; they called for their brothers, their fathers, their husbands, who were confined there. It was attacked by the joint assault of men and women. The man who commanded in the fort immediately cut off the heads of eighteen of the principal prisoners, and tossed them over the battlements to the assailants. There happened to be a prisoner in the fort, a man loved and respected in his country, and who, whether justly or unjustly, was honored and much esteemed by all the people. "Give us our Rajah, Mustapha Khân!" (that was the name of the man confined,) cried out the assailants. We asked the witness at your bar what he was confined for. He did not know; but he said that Colonel Hannay had confined him, and added, that he was sentenced to death. We desired to see the fetwah, or decree, of the judge who sentenced him. No,—no such thing, nor any evidence of its having ever existed, could be produced. We desired to know whether he could give any account of the process, any account of the magistrate, any account of the accuser, any account of the defence,—in short, whether he could give any account whatever of this man's being condemned to death. He could give no account of it, but the orders of Colonel Hannay, who seems to have imprisoned and condemned him by his own arbitrary will. Upon the demand of Rajah Mustapha by the insurgents being made known to Colonel Hannay, he sends an order to the commander of the fort, a man already stained with the blood of all the people who were murdered there, that, if he had not executed Mustapha Khân, he should execute him immediately. The man is staggered at the order, and refuses to execute it, as not being directly addressed to him. Colonel Hannay then sends a Captain Williams, who has appeared here as an evidence at your bar, and who, together with Captain Gordon and Major Macdonald, both witnesses also here, were all sub-farmers and actors under Colonel Hannay. This Captain Williams, I say, goes there, and, without asking one of those questions which I put to the witness at your bar, and desiring nothing but Colonel Hannay's word, orders the man to be beheaded; and accordingly he was beheaded, agreeably to the orders of Colonel Hannay. Upon this, the rebellion blazed out with tenfold fury, and the people declared they would be revenged for the destruction of their zemindar.

Your Lordships have now seen this Mustapha Khân imprisoned and sentenced to death by Colonel Hannay, without judge and without accuser, without any evidence, without the fetwah, or any sentence of the law. This man is thus put to death by an arbitrary villain, by a more than cruel tyrant, Colonel Hannay, the substitute of a ten thousand times more cruel tyrant, Mr. Hastings.

In this situation was the country of Oude, under Colonel Hannay, when he was removed from it. The knowledge of his misconduct had before induced the miserable Nabob to make an effort to get rid of him; but Mr. Hastings had repressed that effort by a civil reprimand,—telling him, indeed, at the same time, "I do not force you to receive him." (Indeed, the Nabob's situation had in it force enough.) The Nabob, I say, was forced to receive him; and again he ravages and destroys that devoted country, till the time of which I have been just speaking, when he was driven out of it finally by the rebellion, and, as you may imagine, departed like a leech full of blood.

It is stated in evidence upon your minutes that this bloated leech went back to Calcutta; that he was supposed, from a state of debt, (in which he was known to have been when he left that city,) to have returned from Oude with the handsome sum of 300,000l., of which 80,000l. was in gold mohurs. This is declared to be the universal opinion in India, and no man has ever contradicted it. Ten persons have given evidence to that effect; not one has contradicted it, from that hour to this, that I ever heard of. The man is now no more. Whether his family have the whole of the plunder or not,—what partnership there was in this business,—what shares, what dividends were made, and who got them,—about all this public opinion varied, and we can with certainty affirm nothing; but there ended the life and exploits of Colonel Hannay, farmer-general, civil officer, and military commander of Baraitch and Goruckpore. But not so ended Mr. Hastings's proceedings.

Soon after the return of Colonel Hannay to Calcutta, this miserable Nabob received intelligence, which concurrent public fame supported, that Mr. Hastings meant to send him up into the country again, on a second expedition, probably with some such order as this:—"You have sucked blood enough for yourself, now try what you can do for your neighbors." The Nabob was not likely to be misinformed. His friend and agent, Gobind Ram, was at Calcutta, and had constant access to all Mr. Hastings's people. Mr. Hastings himself tells you what instructions these vakeels always have to search into and discover all his transactions. This Gobind Ram, alarmed with strong apprehensions, and struck with horror at the very idea of such an event, apprised his master of his belief that Mr. Hastings meant to send Colonel Hannay again into the country. Judge now, my lords, what Colonel Hannay must have been, from the declaration which I will now read to you, extorted from that miserable slave, the Nabob, who thus addresses Mr. Hastings.

"My country and house belong to you; there is no difference. I hope that you desire in your heart the good of my concerns. Colonel Hannay is inclined to request your permission to be employed in the affairs of this quarter. If by any means any matter of this country dependent on me should be intrusted to the Colonel, I swear by the Holy Prophet, that I will not remain here, but will go from hence to you. From your kindness let no concern dependent on me be intrusted to the Colonel, and oblige me by a speedy answer which may set my mind at ease."

We know very well that the prisoner at your bar denied his having any intention to send him up. We cannot prove them, but we maintain that there were grounds for the strongest suspicions that he entertained such intentions. He cannot deny the reality of this terror which existed in the minds of the Nabob and his people, under the apprehension that he was to be sent up, which plainly showed that they at least considered there was ground enough for charging him with that intention. What reason was there to think that he should not be sent a third time, who had been sent twice before? Certainly, none; because every circumstance of Mr. Hastings's proceedings was systematical, and perfectly well known at Oude.

But suppose it to have been a false report; it shows all that the Managers wish to show, the extreme terror which these creatures and tools of Mr. Hastings struck into the people of that country. His denial of any intention of again sending Colonel Hannay does not disprove either the justness of their suspicions or the existence of the terror which his very name excited.

My Lords, I shall now call your attention to a part of the evidence which we have produced to prove the terrible effects of Colonel Hannay's operations. Captain Edwards, an untainted man, who tells you that he had passed through that country again and again, describes it as bearing all the marks of savage desolation. Mr. Holt says it has fallen from its former state,—that whole towns and villages were no longer peopled, and that the country carried evident marks of famine. One would have thought that Colonel Hannay's cruelty and depredations would have satiated Mr. Hastings. No: he finds another military collector, a Major Osborne, who, having suffered in his preferment by the sentence of a court-martial, whether justly or unjustly I neither know nor care, was appointed to the command of a thousand men in the provinces of Oude, but really to the administration of the revenues of the country. He administered them much in the same manner as Colonel Hannay had done. He, however, transmitted to the government at Calcutta a partial representation of the state of the provinces, the substance of which was, that the natives were exposed to every kind of peculation, and that the country was in a horrible state of confusion and disorder. This is upon the Company's records; and although not produced in evidence, your Lordships may find it, for it has been printed over and over again. This man went up to the Vizier; in consequence of whose complaint, and the renewed cries of the people, Mr. Hastings was soon obliged to recall him.

But, my Lords, let us go from Major Osborne to the rest of these military purveyors of revenue. Your Lordships shall hear the Vizier's own account of what he suffered from British officers, and into what a state Mr. Hastings brought that country by the agency of officers who, under the pretence of defending it, were invested with powers which enabled them to commit most horrible abuses in the administration of the revenue, the collection of customs, and the monopoly of the markets.

Copy of a Letter from the Nabob Vizier to the Governor-General.

"All the officers stationed with the brigade at Cawnpore, Futtyghur, Darunghur, and Furruckabad, and other places, write purwannahs, and give positive orders to the aumils of these places, respecting the grain, &c.; from which conduct the country will become depopulate. I am hopeful from your friendship that you will write to all these gentlemen not to issue orders, &c., to the aumils, and not to send troops into the mahals of the sircar; and for whatever quantity of grain, &c., they may want, they will inform me and the Resident, and we will write it to the aumils, who shall cause it to be sent them every month, and I will deduct the price of them from the tuncaws: this will be agreeable both to me and to the ryots."

A Copy of a subsequent Letter from the Vizier to Rajah Gobind Ram.

"I some time ago wrote you the particulars of the conduct of the officers, and now write them again. The officers and gentlemen who are at Cawnpore, and Futtyghur, and Darunghur, and other places, by different means act very tyrannically and oppressively towards the aumils and ryots and inhabitants; and to whomsoever that requires a dustuck they give it, with their own seal affixed, and send for the aumils and punish them. If they say anything, the gentlemen make use of but two words: one,—That is for the brigade; and the second,—That is to administer justice. The particulars of it is this,—that the byparees will bring their grain from all quarters, and sell for their livelihood. There is at present no war to occasion a necessity for sending for it. If none comes, whatever quantity will be necessary every month I will mention to the aumils, that they may bring it for sale: but there is no deficiency of grain. The gentlemen have established gunges for their own advantage, called Colonel Gunge, at Darunghur, Futtyghur, &c. The collection of the customs from all quarters they have stopped, and collected them at their own gunges. Each gunge is rented out at 30,000-40,000 rupees, and their collections paid to the gentlemen. They have established gunges where there never were any, and where they were, those they have abolished; 30,000 or 40,000 rupees is the sum they are rented at; the collections, to the amount of a lac of rupees, are stopped. Major Briscoe, who is at Darunghur, has established a gunge which rented out for 45,000 rupees, and has stopped the ghauts round about the byparees; and merchants coming from Cashmere, from Shahjehanabad, and bringing shawls and other goods and spices, &c., from all quarters, he orders to his gunge, and collects the duty from the aumils, gives them a chit, and a guard, who conducts them about five hundred coss: the former duties are not collected. From the conduct at Cawnpore, Futtyghur, Furruckabad, &c., the duties from the lilla of Gora and Thlawa are destroyed, and occasion a loss of three lacs of rupees to the duties; and the losses that are sustained in Furruckabad may be ascertained by the Nabob Muzuffer Jung, to whom every day complaints are made: exclusive of the aumils and collectors, others lodge complaints. Whatever I do, I desire no benefit from it; I am remediless and silent; from what happens to me, I know that worse will happen in other places; the second word, I know, is from their mouths only. This is the case. In this country formerly, and even now, whatever is to be received or paid among the zemindars, ryots, and inhabitants of the cities, and poor people, neither those who can pay or those who cannot pay ever make any excuse to the shroffs; but when they could pay, they did. In old debts of fifty years, whoever complain to the gentlemen, they agree that they shall pay one fourth, and send dustucks and sepoys to all the aumils, the chowdries, and canongoes, and inhabitants of all the towns; they send for everybody, to do them justice, confine them, and say they will settle the business. So many and numerous are these calamities, that I know not how much room it will take up to mention them. Mr. Briscoe is at Darunghur; and the complaints of the aumils arrive daily. I am silent. Now Mr. Middleton is coming here, let the Nabob appoint him for settling all these affairs, that whatever he shall order those gentlemen they will do. From this everything will be settled, and the particulars of this quarter will be made known to the Nabob. I have written this, which you will deliver to the Governor, that everything may be settled; and when he has understood it, whatever is his inclination, he will favor me with it. The Nabob is master in this country, and is my friend; there is no distinction."

Copy of another Letter, entered upon the Consultation of the 4th of June, 1781.

"I have received your letter, requesting leave for a battalion to be raised by Captain Clark on the same footing as Major Osborne's was, agreeable to the requests and complaints of Ishmael Beg, the aumil of Allahabad, &c., and in compliance with the directions of the Council. You are well acquainted with the particulars and negotiation of Ishmael Beg, and the nature of Mr. Osborne's battalion. At the beginning of the year 1186 (1779) the affairs of Allahabad were given on a lease of three years to Ishmael Beg, together with the purgunnahs Arreel and Parra; and I gave orders for troops to be stationed and raised, conformable to his request. Ishmael Beg accordingly collected twelve hundred peons, which were not allowed to the aumil of that place in the year 1185. The reason why I gave permission for the additional expense of twelve hundred peons was, that he might be enabled to manage the country with ease, and pay the money to government regularly. I besides sent Mr. Osborne there to command in the mahals belonging to Allahabad, which were in the possession of Rajah Ajeet Sing; and he accordingly took charge. Afterwards, in obedience to the orders of the Governor-General, Mr. Hastings, Jelladut Jung, he was recalled, and the mahals placed, as before, under Rajah Ajeet Sing. I never sent Mr. Osborne to settle the concerns of Allahabad, for there was no occasion for him; but Mr. Osborne, of himself, committed depredations and rapines within Ishmael Beg's jurisdiction. Last year, the battalion, which, by permission of General Sir Eyre Coote, was sent, received orders to secure and defend Ishmael Beg against the encroachments of Mr. Osborne; for the complaints of Ishmael Beg against the violences of Mr. Osborne had reached the General and Mr. Purling; and the Governor and gentlemen of Council, at my request, recalled Mr. Osborne. This year, as before, the collections of Arreel and Parra remain under Ishmael Beg. In those places, some of the talookdars and zemindars, who had been oppressed and ill-treated by Mr. Osborne, had conceived ideas of rebellion."

Here, my Lords, you have an account of the condition of Darunghur, Futtyghur, Furruckabad, and of the whole line of our military stations in the Nabob's dominions. You see the whole was one universal scene of plunder and rapine. You see all this was known to Mr. Hastings, who never inflicted any punishments for all this horrible outrage. You see the utmost he has done is merely to recall one man, Major Osborne, who was by no means the only person deeply involved in these charges. He nominated all these people; he has never called any of them to an account. Shall I not, then, call him their captain-general? Shall not your Lordships call him so? And shall any man in the kingdom call him by any other name? We see all the executive, all the civil and criminal justice of the country seized on by him. We see the trade and all the duties seized upon by his creatures. We see them destroying established markets, and creating others at their pleasure. We see them, in the country of an ally and in a time of peace, producing all the consequences of rapine and of war. We see the country ruined and depopulated by men who attempt to exculpate themselves by charging their unhappy victims with rebellion.

And now, my Lords, who is it that has brought to light all these outrages and complaints, the existence of which has never been denied, and for which no redress was ever obtained, and no punishment ever inflicted? Why, Mr. Hastings himself has brought them before you; they are found in papers which he has transmitted. God, who inflicts blindness upon great criminals, in order that they should meet with the punishment they deserve, has made him the means of bringing forward this scene, which we are maliciously said to have falsely and maliciously devised. If any one of the ravages [charges?] contained in that long catalogue of grievances is false, Warren Hastings is the person who must answer for that individual falsehood. If they are generally false, he is to answer for the false and calumniating accusation; and if they are true, my Lords, he only is answerable, for he appointed those ministers of outrage, and never called them to account for their misconduct.

Let me now show your Lordships the character that Mr. Hastings gives of all the British officers. It is to be found in an extract from the Appendix to that part of his Benares Narrative in which he comments upon the treaty of Chunar. Mark, my Lords, what the man himself says of the whole military service.

"Notwithstanding the great benefit which the Company would have derived from such an augmentation of their military force as these troops constituted, ready to act on any emergency, prepared and disciplined without any charge on the Company, as the institution professed, until their actual services should be required, I have observed some evils growing out of the system, which, in my opinion, more than counterbalanced those advantages, had they been realized in their fullest effect. The remote stations of these 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. A most remarkable and incontrovertible proof of the prevalence of this spirit has been seen in the court-martial upon Captain Erskine, where the court, composed of officers of rank and respectable characters, unanimously and honorably, most honorably, acquitted him upon an acknowledged fact which in times of stricter discipline would have been deemed a crime deserving the severest punishment."

I will now call your Lordships' attention to another extract from the same comment of Mr. Hastings, with respect to the removal of the Company's servants, civil and military, from the court and service of the Vizier.

"I was actuated solely by motives of justice to him and a regard to the honor of our national character. In removing those gentlemen I diminish my own influence, as well as that of my colleagues, by narrowing the line of patronage; and I expose myself to obloquy and resentment from those who are immediately affected by the arrangement, and the long train of their friends and powerful patrons. But 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."

My Lords, you have here Mr. Hastings's opinion of the whole military service. You have here the authority and documents by which he supports his opinion. He states that the contagion of peculation had tainted all the frontier stations, which contain much the largest part of the Company's army. He states that this contagion had tainted the whole army, everywhere: so that, according to him, there was, throughout the Indian army, an universal taint of peculation. My Lords, peculation is not a military vice. Insubordination, want of attention to duty, want of order, want of obedience and regularity, are military vices; but who ever before heard of peculation being a military vice? In the case before you, it became so by employing military men as farmers of revenue, as masters of markets and of gunges. This departure from the military character and from military duties introduced that peculation which tainted the army, and desolated the dominions of the Nabob Vizier.

I declare, when I first read the passage which has been just read to your Lordships, in the infancy of this inquiry, it struck me with astonishment that peculation should at all exist as a military vice; but I was still more astonished at finding Warren Hastings charging the whole British army with being corrupted by this base and depraved spirit, to a degree which tainted even their judicial character. This, my Lords, is a most serious matter. The judicial functions of military men are of vast importance in themselves; and, generally speaking, there is not any tribunal whose members are more honorable in their conduct and more just in their decisions than those of a court-martial. Perhaps there is not a tribunal in this country whose reputation is really more untainted than that of a court-martial. It stands as fair, in the opinion both of the army and of the public, as any tribunal, in a country where all tribunals stand fair. But in India, this unnatural vice of peculation, which has no more to do with the vices of a military character than with its virtues, this venomous spirit, has pervaded the members of military tribunals to such an extent, that they acquit, honorably acquit, most honorably acquit a man, "upon an acknowledged fact which in times of stricter discipline would have been deemed a crime deserving the severest punishment."

Who says all this, my Lords? Do I say it? No: it is Warren Hastings who says it. He records it. He gives you his vouchers and his evidence, and he draws the conclusion. He is the criminal accuser of the British army. He who sits in that box accuses the whole British army in India. He has declared them to be so tainted with peculation, from head to foot, as to have been induced to commit the most wicked perjuries, for the purpose of bearing one another out in their abominable peculations. In this unnatural state of things, and whilst there is not one military man on these stations of whom Mr. Hastings does not give this abominably flagitious character, yet every one of them have joined to give him the benefit of their testimony for his honorable intentions and conduct.

In this tremendous scene, which he himself exposes, are there no signs of this captain-generalship which I have alluded to? Are there no signs of this man's being a captain-general of iniquity, under whom all the spoilers of India were paid, disciplined, and supported? I not only charge him with being guilty of a thousand crimes, but I assert that there is not a soldier or a civil servant in India whose culpable acts are not owing to this man's example, connivance, and protection. Everything which goes to criminate them goes directly against the prisoner. He puts them in a condition to plunder; he suffered no native authority or government to restrain them; and he never called a man to an account for these flagitious acts which he has thought proper to bring before his country in the most solemn manner and upon the most solemn occasion.

I verily believe, in my conscience, his accusation is not true, in the excess, in the generality and extravagance in which he charges it. That it is true in a great measure we cannot deny; and in that measure we, in our turn, charge him with being the author of all the crimes which he denounces; and if there is anything in the charge beyond the truth, it is he who is to answer for the falsehood.

I will now refer your Lordships to his opinion of the civil service, as it is declared and recorded in his remarks upon the removal of the Company's civil servants by him from the service of the Vizier.—"I was," says he, "actuated solely by motives of justice to him [the Nabob of Oude], and a regard to the honor of our national character."—Here, you see, he declares his opinion that in Oude the civil servants of the Company had destroyed the national character, and that therefore they ought to be recalled.—"By removing these people," he adds, "I diminish my patronage."—But I ask, How came they there? Why, through this patronage. He sent them there to suck the blood which the military had spared. He sent these civil servants to do ten times more mischief than the military ravagers could do, because they were invested with greater authority.—"If," says he, "I recall them from thence, I lessen my patronage."—But who, my Lords, authorized him to become a patron? What laws of his country justified him in forcing upon the Vizier the civil servants of the Company? What treaty authorized him to do it? What system of policy, except his own wicked, arbitrary system, authorized him to act thus?

He proceeds to say, "I expose myself to obloquy and resentment from those who are immediately affected by the arrangement, and the long train of their friends and powerful patrons."—My Lords, it is the constant burden of his song, that he cannot do his duty, that he is fettered in everything, that he fears a thousand mischiefs to happen to him,—not from his acting with carefulness, economy, frugality, and in obedience to the laws of his country, but from the very reverse of all this. Says he, "I am afraid I shall forfeit the favor of the powerful patrons of those servants in England, namely, the Lords and Commons of England, if I do justice to the suffering people of this country."

In the House of Commons there are undoubtedly powerful people who may be supposed to be influenced by patronage; but the higher and more powerful part of the country is more directly represented by your Lordships than by us, although we have of the first blood of England in the House of Commons. We do, indeed, represent, by the knights of the shires, the landed interest; by our city and borough members we represent the trading interest; we represent the whole people of England collectively. But neither blood nor power is represented so fully in the House of Commons as that order which composes the great body of the people,—the protection of which is our peculiar duty, and to which it is our glory to adhere. But the dignities of the country, the great and powerful, are represented eminently by your Lordships. As we, therefore, would keep the lowest of the people from the contagion and dishonor of peculation and corruption, and above all from exercising that vice which, among commoners, is unnatural as well as abominable, the vice of tyranny and oppression, so we trust that your Lordships will clear yourselves and the higher and more powerful ranks from giving the smallest countenance to the system which we have done our duty in denouncing and bringing before you.

My Lords, you have heard the account of the civil service. Think of their numbers, think of their influence, and the enormous amount of their salaries, pensions, and emoluments! They were, you have heard, an intolerable burden on the revenues and authority of the Vizier; and they exposed us to the envy and resentment of the whole country, by excluding the native servants and adherents of the prince from the just reward of their services and attachments. Here, my Lords, is the whole civil service brought before you. They usurp the country, they destroy the revenues, they overload the prince, and they exclude all the nobility and eminent persons of the country from the just reward of their service.