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

"That they shall not take any grant of lands, or rents or revenues issuing out of lands, or any territorial possession, jurisdiction, dominion, power, or authority whatsoever, from any of the Indian princes, sovereigns, subahs, or nabobs, or any of their ministers, servants, or agents, for any service or services, or upon any account or pretence whatsoever, without the license or consent of the Court of Directors."

This clause in the covenant had doubtless a regard to Lord Clive, and to Sir Hector Munro, and to some others, who had received gifts, and grants of jaghires, and other territorial revenues, that were confirmed by the Company. But though this confirmation might be justifiable at a time when we had no real sovereignty in the country, yet the Company very wisely provided afterwards, that under no pretence whatever should their servants have the means of extorting from the sovereigns or pretended sovereigns of the country any of their lands or possessions. Afterwards it appeared that there existed abuses of a similar nature, and particularly (as was proved before us in the year 1773, and reported to our House, upon the evidence of Mahomed Reza Khân) the practice of frequently visiting the princes, and of extorting, under pretence of such visits, great sums of money. All their servants, and the Governor-General particularly, were therefore obliged to enter into the following covenant:—

"That they shall not, directly or indirectly, accept, take, or receive, or agree to accept, take, or receive, any gift, reward, gratuity, allowance, donation, or compensation, in money, effects, jewels, or otherwise howsoever, from any of the Indian princes, sovereigns, subahs, or nabobs, or any of their ministers, servants, or agents, exceeding the value of four thousand rupees, for any service or services performed or to be performed by them in India, or upon any other account or pretence whatsoever."

By this covenant, my Lords, Mr. Hastings is forbidden to accept, upon any pretence and under any name whatsoever, any sum above four thousand rupees,—that is to say, any sum above four hundred pounds. Now the sum that was here received is eighteen thousand pounds sterling, by way of a present, under the name of an allowance for an entertainment, which is the precise thing which his covenant was made to prevent. The covenant suffered him to receive four hundred pounds: if he received more than that money, he became a criminal, he had broken his covenant, and forfeited the obligation he had made with his masters. Think with yourselves, my Lords, what you will do, if you acquit the prisoner of this charge. You will avow the validity, you will sanction the principle of his defence: for, as the fact is avowed, there is an end of that.

Good God! my Lords, where are we? If they conceal their gifts and presents, they are safe by their concealment; if they avow them, they are still safer. They plead the customs of the country, or rather, the customs which we have introduced into the country,—customs which have been declared to have their foundation in a system of the most abominable corruption, the most flagitious extortion, the most dreadful oppression,—those very customs which their covenant is made to abolish. Think where your Lordships are. You have before you a covenant declaring that he should take under no name whatever (I do not know how words could be selected in the English language more expressive) any sum more than four hundred pounds. He says, "I have taken eighteen thousand pounds." He makes his counsel declare, and he desires your Lordships to confirm their declaration, that he is not only justifiable in so doing, but that he ought to do so,—that he ought to break his covenant, and act in direct contradiction to it. He does not even pretend to say that this money was intended, either inwardly or outwardly, avowedly or covertly, for the Company's service. He put absolutely into his own pocket eighteen thousand pounds, besides his salary.

Consider, my Lords, the consequences of this species of iniquity. If any servant of the Company, high in station, chooses to make a visit from Calcutta to Moorshedabad, which Moorshedabad was then the residence of our principal revenue government,—if he should choose to take an airing for his health, if he has a fancy to make a little voyage for pleasure as far as Moorshedabad, in one of those handsome barges or budgeros of which you have heard so much in his charge against Nundcomar, he can put twenty thousand pounds into his pocket any day he pleases, in defiance of all our acts of Parliament, covenants, and regulations.

Do you make your laws, do you make your covenants, for the very purpose of their being evaded? Is this the purpose for which a British tribunal sits here, to furnish a subject for an epigram, or a tale for the laughter of the world? Believe me, my Lords, the world is not to be thus trifled with. But, my Lords, you will never trifle with your duty. You have a gross, horrid piece of corruption before you,—impudently confessed, and more impudently defended. But you will not suffer Mr. Hastings to say, "I have only to go to Moorshedabad, or to order the Nabob to meet me half way, and I can set aside and laugh at all your covenants and acts of Parliament." Is this all the force and power of the covenant by which you would prevent the servants of the Company from committing acts of fraud and oppression, that they have nothing to do but to amuse themselves with a tour of pleasure to Moorshedabad in order to put any sum of money in their pocket that they please?

But they justify themselves by saying, such things have been practised before. No doubt they have; and these covenants were made that they should not be practised any more. But your Lordships are desired to say, that the very custom which the covenant is made to destroy, the very grievance itself, may be pleaded; the abuse shall be admitted to destroy the law made to prevent it. It is impossible, I venture to say, that your Lordships should act thus. The conduct of the criminal is not half so abhorrent as the justification is affronting to justice, whilst it tends to vilify and degrade the dignity of the Peerage and the character of the Commons of Great Britain, before the former and against the latter of which such a justification is produced in the face of the world.

At the same time that we call for your justice upon this man, we beseech you to remember the severest justice upon him is the tenderest pity towards the innocent victims of his crimes. Consider what was at that time the state of the people from whom, in direct defiance of his covenant, he took this sum of money. Were they at this time richer, were they more opulent, was the state of the country more flourishing than when Mr. Sumner, when Mr. Vansittart, in short, than when the long line of Mr. Hastings's predecessors visited that country? No, they were not. Mr. Hastings at this very time had reduced the Nabob's income from 450,000l. [400,000l.?] sterling a year, exclusive of other considerable domains and revenues, to 160,000l. He was, indeed, an object of compassion. His revenues had not only been reduced during his state of minority, but they were reduced when he afterwards continued in a state in which he could do no one valid act; and yet, in this state, he was made competent to give away, under the name of compensation for entertainments, the sum of 18,000l.,—perhaps at that time nearly all he had in the world.

Look at your minutes, and you will find Mr. Hastings had just before this time said that the bread of ten thousand persons, many of them of high rank, depended upon the means possessed by the Nabob for their support,—that his heart was cut and afflicted to see himself obliged to ruin and starve so many of the Mahometan nobility, the greatest part of whose yet remaining miserable allowances were now taken away. You know, and you will forgive me again remarking, that it is the nature of the eagles and more generous birds of prey to fall upon living, healthy victims, but that vultures and carrion crows, and birds of that base and degenerate kind, always prey upon dead or dying carcases. It is upon ruined houses, it is upon decayed families, it is upon extinguished nobility, that Mr. Hastings chooses to prey, and to justify his making them his prey.

But again we hear, my Lords, that it is a custom, upon ceremonial and complimentary visits, to receive these presents. Do not let us deceive ourselves. Mr. Hastings was there upon no visit either of ceremony or politics. He was a member, at that time, of the Committee of Circuit, which went to Moorshedabad for the purpose of establishing a system of revenue in the country. He went up upon that business only, as a member of the Committee of Circuit, for which business he was, like other members of the Committee of Circuit, amply paid, in addition to his emoluments as Governor, which amounted to about 30,000l. a year. Not satisfied with those emoluments, and without incurring new known expense of any kind or sort, he was paid for the extra expenses of his journey, as appears in your minutes, like other members of the Committee of Circuit. In fact, he was on no visit there at all. He was merely executing his duty in the settlement of the revenue, as a member of the Committee of Circuit. I do not mean to praise the Committee of Circuit in anyway: God forbid I should!—for we know that it was a committee of robbers. He was there as one of that committee, which I am pretty well justified in describing as I have done, because the Court of Directors, together with the Board of Control, did, in the year 1786, declare that the five years' settlement (which originated in that committee) was a thing bought and sold: your Lordships may read it whenever you please, in the 80th paragraph of their letter.

Your Lordships are now fully in possession of all the facts upon which we charge the prisoner with peculation, by extorting or receiving large sums of money, upon pretence of visits, or in compensation of entertainments. I appeal to your Lordships' consciences for a serious and impartial consideration of our charge. This is a business not to be hurried over in the mass, as amongst the acts of a great man, who may have his little errors among his great services; no, you cannot, as a judicial body, huddle all this into a hotchpotch, and decide upon it in a heap. You will have to ask yourselves,—Is this justifiable by his covenant? Is this justifiable by law? Is this justifiable, under the circumstances of the case, by an enlarged discretion? Is it to be justified under any principles of humanity? Would it be justifiable by local customs, if such were applicable to the case in question? and even if it were, is it a practice fit for an English Governor-General to follow?

I dwell the longer upon this, because the fact is avowed; the whole is an issue of law between us,—whether a Governor-General, in such a case, ought to take such money; and therefore, before I finally dismiss it, I beg leave to restate it briefly once more for your Lordships' consideration.

First I wish to leave fixed in your Lordships' minds, what is distinctly fixed, and shall never go out of ours, that his covenant did not allow him to take above four hundred pounds as a present, upon any pretence whatsoever.

Your Lordships will observe we contend, that, if there was a custom, this covenant puts an end to that custom. It was declared and intended so to do. The fact is, that, if such custom existed at all, it was a custom applicable only to an ambassador or public minister sent on a necessary complimentary visit to a sovereign prince. We deny, positively, that there is any such general custom. We say, that he never was any such minister or that he ever went upon any such complimentary visit. We affirm, that, when he took this money, he was doing an act of quite another nature, and came upon that business only to Moorshedabad, the residence of the prince of the country. Now do you call a man who is going to execute a commission, a commission more severe than those issued against bankrupts, a commission to take away half a man's income, and to starve a whole body of people dependent upon that income,—do you call this a complimentary visit? Is this a visit for which a man is to have great entertainments given him? No, the pretence for taking this money is worse than the act itself. When a man is going to execute upon another such harsh cruelty, when he is going upon a service at which he himself says his mind must revolt, is that precisely the time when he is to take from his undone host a present, as if he was upon a visit of compliment, or about to confer some honor or benefit upon him,—to augment his revenues, to add to his territories, or to conclude some valuable treaty with him? Was this a proper time to take at all from an helpless minor so large a sum of money?

And here I shall leave this matter for your Lordships' consideration, after reminding you that this poor Nabob is still at Moorshedabad, and at the mercy of any English gentleman who may choose to take 18,000l., or any other given sum of money from him, after the example of the prisoner at your bar, if it should be sanctioned by your connivance. Far different was the example set him by General Clavering. In page 1269 your Lordships will find the most honorable testimony to the uprightness and fidelity of this meritorious servant of the Company. It runs thus: "Conceiving it to be the intention of the legislature that the Governor-General and members of the Council should receive no presents, either from the Indian powers or any persons whatever, he [General Clavering] has strictly complied, since his arrival here, both with the spirit and the letter of the act of Parliament, and has accordingly returned all the presents which have been made to him." I have dwelt thus long upon this subject, not merely upon account of its own corrupt character, which has been sufficiently stigmatized by my honorable colleague, but upon account of the principle that is laid down by the prisoner, in his defence of his conduct,—a principle directly leading to a continuance of the same iniquitous practice, and subversive of every attempt to check or control it.

I must beg leave to recall your Lordships' attention to another, but similar instance of his peculation, another and new mode of taking presents: I mean, the present which Mr. Hastings took, through Gunga Govind Sing, from those farmers of the revenues amongst whom he had distributed the pillage of the whole country. This scandalous breach of his covenant he attempts to justify by the inward intention of his own mind to apply the money so taken to the public service. Upon this, my Lords, I shall only observe, that this plea of an inward intention in his own mind may, if admitted, justify any evil act whatever of this kind. You have seen how presents from the Nabob are justified; you have seen how the taking a sum of money or allowance for entertainment, directly contrary to the covenant, how that is attempted to be justified; you see in what manner he justifies this last-mentioned act of peculation; and your Lordships will now have to decide upon the validity of these pleas.

There still remains, unobserved upon, an instance of his malversation, wholly new in its kind, to which I will venture to desire your Lordships very seriously to turn your attention. In all the causes of peculation or malversation in office that ever have been tried before this high court, or before any lower court of judicature, in all the judicial records of modern crimes, or of antiquity, you will not find anything in any degree like it. We have all, in our early education, read the Verrine Orations. We read them not merely to instruct us, as they will do, in the principles of eloquence, and to acquaint us with the manners, customs, and laws of the ancient Romans, of which they are an abundant repository, but we may read them from a much higher motive. We may read them from a motive which the great author had doubtless in his view, when by publishing them he left to the world and to the latest posterity a monument by which it might be seen what course a great public accuser in a great public cause ought to pursue, and, as connected with it, what course judges ought to pursue in deciding upon such a cause. In these orations you will find almost every instance of rapacity and peculation which we charge upon Mr. Hastings. Undoubtedly, many Roman and English governors have received corrupt gifts and bribes, under various pretences. But in the cause before your Lordships there is one species of disgrace, in the conduct of the party accused, which I defy you to find in Verres, or in the whole tribe of Roman peculators, in any governor-general, proconsul, or viceroy. I desire you to consider it not included in any other class of crimes, but as a species apart by itself. It is an individual, a single case; but it is like the phœnix,—it makes a class or species by itself: I mean the business of Nobkissin. The money taken from him was not money pretended to be received in lieu of entertainment; it was not money taken from a farmer-general of revenue, out of an idea that his profits were unreasonable, and greater than government ought to allow; it was not a donation from a great man, as an act of his bounty. No, it was a sum of money taken from a private individual,—or rather, as has been proved to you by Mr. Larkins, his own book-keeper, money borrowed, for which he had engaged to give his bond. That he had actually deposited his bond for this money Mr. Larkins has proved to you,—and that the bond was carried to Nobkissin's credit, in his account with the government. But Mr. Hastings, when he was called upon for the money, withdraws the bond; he will not pay the money; he refused to pay it upon the applications made to him both in India and here at home; and he now comes to your Lordships and says, "I borrowed this money, I intended to give my bond for it, as has been proved before you; but I must have it for my own use." We have heard of governors being everything that is bad and wicked; but a governor putting himself in the situation of a common cheat, of a common swindler, never was, I believe, heard of since the creation of the world to this day. This does not taste of the common oppressions of power; this does not taste of the common abuses of office; but it in no way differs from one of those base swindling cases that come to be tried and heavily punished in the King's Bench every day. This is neither more nor less than a plain, barefaced cheat.

Now, my Lords, let us see how it is justified. To justify openly and directly a cheat, to justify a fraud upon an individual, is reserved for our times. But, good Heavens, what a justification have we here! Oh, my Lords, consider into what a state Indian corruption has brought us in this country, when any person can be found to come to the bar of the House of Lords and say, "I did cheat, I did defraud; I did promise, and gave my bond; I have now withdrawn it, but I will account for it to you as to a gang of robbers concerned with me in the transaction. I confess I robbed this man; but I have acted as trustee for the gang. Observe what I have done for the gang. Come forward, Mr. Auriol, and prove what handsome budgeros I gave the company: were not they elegantly painted, beautifully gilt, charming and commodious? I made use of them as long as I had occasion; and though they are little worse for wear, and would hardly suffer the least percentage deduction from prime cost upon them, I gave them to the company. Oh, I did not put the money into my own pocket. I provided for myself and wore a suit of lace clothes, when I was Jew bail for some of this company: it will turn, for it is hardly the worse for wear, though I appeared two or three times, in different characters, as bail for you on such and such an occasion. I therefore set off these items against this money which I gained by swindling on your account. It is true I also picked such a one's pocket of a watch; here it is; I have worn it as long as it was convenient; now I give the watch to the company, and let them send it to the pawnbroker for what it will bring. Besides all this, I maintained aide-de-camps for you, and gave them house-rent." (By the way, my Lords, what sort of aide-de-camps were these? Who made him a military man, and to have such a legion of aide-de-camps?) "But," says he, "I paid house-rent for them; that is, in other words, I paid, at night-cellars and houses in Saint Giles's, sixpence a week for some of the gang." (This, my Lords, is the real spirit of the whole proceeding, and more especially of the last item in it.) "Then," says he, "I was the gang's schoolmaster, and taught lessons on their account. I founded a Mahometan school." (Your Lordships have already heard something of this shameful affair, of this scene of iniquity,—I think of such iniquity as the world never yet had to blush at.) "I founded a Mahometan college for your use; and I bore the expense of it from September, 1780, when I placed a professor there, called Mudjed-o-Din."—This Mudjed-o-Din was to perfect men, by contract, in all the arts and sciences, in about six months; and the chief purpose of the school was, as Mr. Hastings himself tells you, to breed theologians, magistrates, and moulavies, that is to say, judges and doctors of law, who were to be something like our masters in chancery, the assessors of judges, to assist them in their judgments. Such was the college founded by Mr. Hastings, and he soon afterwards appropriated one of the Company's estates, (I am speaking of matters of public notoriety,) worth 3,000l. a year, for its support. Heaven be praised, that Mr. Hastings, when he was resolved to be pious and munificent, and to be a great founder, chose a Mahometan rather than a Christian foundation, so that our religion was not disgraced by such a foundation!

Observe how he charges the expense of the foundation to the Company twice over. He first makes them set aside an estate of 3,000l. a year for its support. In what manner this income was applied during Mr. Hastings's stay in India no man living knows; but we know, that, at his departure, one of the last acts he did was to desire it should be put into the hands of Mudjed-o-Din. He afterwards, as you have seen, takes credit to himself with the Company for the expenses relative to this college.

I must now introduce your Lordships to the last visitation that was made of this college. It was visited by order of Lord Cornwallis in the year 1788, upon the complaints made against it which I have already mentioned to your Lordships,—that it was a sink of filth, vermin, and misery. Mr. Chapman, who was the visitor, and the friend of Mr. Hastings, declares that he could not sit in it even for a few minutes; his words are,—"The wretched, squalid figures that from every part ran out upon me appeared to be more like anything else than students." In fact, a universal outcry was raised by the whole city against it, not only as a receptacle of every kind of abuse, not only of filth and excrements which made it stink in the natural nostrils, but of worse filth, which made it insufferably offensive to the moral nostrils of every inhabitant. Such is the account given of a college supported at an expense of 3,000l. a year, (a handsome foundation for a college,) and for building which the Company was charged 5,000l.: though no vouchers of its expenditure were ever given by Mr. Hastings. But this is not all. When Lord Cornwallis came to inquire into it, he found that Mudjed-o-Din had sunk the income of the estate from 3,000l. to 2,000l. a year,—in short, that it had been a scene of peculation, both by the masters and scholars, as well as of abandonment to every kind of vicious and licentious courses; and all this without the shadow of any benefit having been derived from it. The visitors expressly inquired whether there was any good mixed with all this evil; and they found it was all bad and mischievous, from one end to the other. Your Lordships will remark, that the greatest part of this disgusting business must have been known to Mr. Hastings when he gave to Mudjed-o-Din the disposal of 3,000l. a year. And now, my Lords, can you vote this money, expended in the manner which I have stated to you, to be a set-off in his favor, in an account for money which was itself swindled from a private individual?

But there still remains behind another more serious matter belonging to this affair; and I hope you will not think that I am laying too much stress upon it, when I declare, that, if I were to select from the whole of his conduct one thing more dishonorable than another to the British nation, it would be that which I am now about to mention. I will leave your Lordships to judge of the sincerity of this declaration, when you shall have heard read a paper produced by the prisoner in justification of conduct such as I have stated his to have been. It is the razinama, or attestation, of Munny Begum (the woman whom Mr. Hastings placed in the seat of justice in that country) concerning this college, made precisely at the time of this inquisition by Lord Cornwallis into the management of it. Your Lordships will see what sort of things attestations are from that country: that they are attestations procured in diametrical contradiction to the certain knowledge of the party attesting. It is in page 2350 of your Minutes. Indeed, my Lords, these are pages which, unless they are effaced by your judgment, will rise up in judgment against us, some day or other.