The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke Volume VIII Part 14

To these sentiments Colonel Monson and Mr. Francis adhered. Mr. Hastings thought it more safe, on principles similar to those a.s.sumed by Mr.

Barwell, to refuse to hear the charge; but he reserved his remarks on this transaction, because they will be equally applicable to _many others which in the course of this business are likely to be brought before the board_. There appeared, therefore, to him a probability that the charge about the corrupt bargain was no more than the commencement of a whole cla.s.s of such accusations; since he was of opinion (and what is very extraordinary, previous to any examination) that the same remarks would be applicable to several of those which were to follow. He must suppose this cla.s.s of charges very uniform, as well as very extensive.

The majority, however, pressed their point; and notwithstanding his opposition to all inquiry, as he was supported only by Mr. Barwell, the question for it was carried. He was then desired to name a day for the appearance of the accuser, and the inst.i.tution of the inquiry. Though baffled in his attempt to stop the inquiry in the first stage, Mr.

Hastings made a second stand. He seems here to have recollected something inherent in his own office, that put the matter more in his power than at first he had imagined; for he speaks in a positive and commanding tone: "I will not," says his minute, "name a day for Mir Zin ul ab Dien to appear before the board; _nor will I suffer him to appear before the board_."

The question for the inquiry had been carried; it was declared fit to inquire; but there was, according to him, a power which might prevent the appearance of witnesses. On the general policy of obstructing such inquiries, Mr. Francis, on a motion to that effect, made a sound remark, which cannot fail of giving rise to very serious thoughts: "That, supposing it agreed among ourselves that the board shall not hear any charges or complaints against a member of it, a case or cases may hereafter happen, in which, by a reciprocal complaisance to each other, our respective misconduct may be effectually screened from inquiry; and the Company, whose interest is concerned, or the parties who may have reason to complain of any one member individually, may be left without remedy."

Mr. Barwell was not of the opinion of that gentleman, nor of the maker of the motion, General Clavering, nor of Mr. Monson, who supported it.

He entertains sentiments with regard to the orders of the Directors in this particular perfectly correspondent with those which he had given against the original inquiry. He says, "Though it may in some little degree save the Governor-General from personal insult, where there is no judicial power lodged, that of inquisition can never answer any good purpose." This is doctrine of a most extraordinary nature and tendency, and, as your Committee conceive, contrary to every sound principle to be observed in the const.i.tution of judicatures and inquisitions. The power of inquisition ought rather to be wholly separated from the judicial, the former being a previous step to the latter, which requires other rules and methods, and ought not, if possible, to be lodged in the same hands. The rest of his minute (contained in the Appendix) is filled with a censure on the native inhabitants, with reflections on the ill consequences which would arise from an attention to their complaints, and with an a.s.sertion of the authority of the Supreme Court, as superseding the necessity and propriety of such inquiries in Council.

With regard to his principles relative to the natives and their complaints, if they are admitted, they are of a tendency to cut off the very principle of redress. The existence of the Supreme Court, as a means of relief to the natives under all oppressions, is held out to qualify a refusal to hear in the Council. On the same pretence, Mr.

Hastings holds up the authority of the same tribunal. But this and other proceedings show abundantly of what efficacy that court has been for the relief of the unhappy people of Bengal. A person in delegated authority refuses a satisfaction to his superiors, throwing himself on a court of justice, and supposes that nothing but what judicially appears against him is a fit subject of inquiry. But even in this Mr. Hastings fails in his application of his principle; for the majority of the Council were undoubtedly competent to order a prosecution against him in the Supreme Court, which they had no ground for without a previous inquiry. But their inquiry had other objects. No private accuser might choose to appear. The party who was the subject of the peculation might be (as here is stated) the accomplice in it. No popular action or popular suit was provided by the charter under whose authority the court was inst.i.tuted. In any event, a suit might fail in the court for the punishment of an actor in an abuse for want of the strictest legal proof, which might yet furnish matter for the correction of the abuse, and even reasons strong enough not only to justify, but to require, the Directors instantly to address for the removal of a Governor-General.--The opposition of Mr. Hastings and Mr. Barwell proved as ineffectual in this stage as the former; and a day was named by the majority for the attendance of the party.

The day following this deliberation, on the a.s.sembling of the Council, the Governor-General, Mr. Hastings, said, "he would not sit to be confronted by such accusers, nor to _suffer_ a judicial inquiry into his conduct at the board of which he is the president." As on the former occasions, he declares the board dissolved. As on the former occasions, the majority did not admit his claim to this power; they proceeded in his absence to examine the accuser and witnesses. Their proceedings are in Appendix K.

It is remarkable, that, during this transaction, Khan Jehan Khan, the party with whom the corrupt agreement was made, declined an attendance under excuses which the majority thought pretences for delay, though they used no compulsory methods towards his appearance. At length, however, he did appear, and then a step was taken by Mr. Hastings of a very extraordinary nature, after the steps which he had taken before, and the declarations with which those steps had been accompanied. Mr.

Hastings, who had absolutely refused to be present in the foregoing part of the proceeding, appeared with Khan Jehan Khan. And now the affair took another turn; other obstructions were raised. General Clavering said that the informations. .h.i.therto taken had proceeded upon oath. Khan Jehan Khan had previously declared to General Clavering his readiness to be so examined; but when called upon by the board, he changed his mind, and alleged a delicacy, relative to his rank, with regard to the oath.

In this scruple he was strongly supported by Mr. Hastings. He and Mr.

Barwell went further: they contended that the Council had no right to administer an oath. They must have been very clear in that opinion, when they resisted the examination on oath of the very person who, if he could safely swear to Mr. Hastings's innocence, owed it as a debt to his patron not to refuse it; and of the payment of this debt it was extraordinary in the patron not only to enforce, but to support, the absolute refusal.

Although the majority did not acquiesce in this doctrine, they appeared to have doubts of the prudence of enforcing it by violent means; but, construing his refusal into a disposition to screen the peculations of the Governor-General, they treated him as guilty of a contempt of their board, dismissed him from the service, and recommended another (not the accuser) to his office.

The reasons on both sides appear in the Appendix. Mr. Hastings accuses them bitterly of injustice to himself in considering the refusal of this person to swear as a charge proved. How far they did so, and under what qualifications, will appear by reference to the papers in the Appendix.

But Mr. Hastings "thanks G.o.d that they are not his judges." His great hold, and not without reason, is the Supreme Court; and he "blesses the wisdom of Parliament, that const.i.tuted a court of judicature at so seasonable a time, to check the despotism of the new Council." It was thought in England that the court had other objects than the protection of the Governor-General against the examinations of those sent out with instructions to inquire into the peculations of men in power.

Though Mr. Hastings did at that time, and avowedly did, everything to prevent any inquiry that was inst.i.tuted merely for the information of the Court of Directors, yet he did not feel himself thoroughly satisfied with his own proceedings. It was evident that to them his and Mr.

Barwell's reasonings would not appear very respectful or satisfactory; he therefore promises to give them full satisfaction at some future time. In his letter of the 14th of September, 1775, he reiterates a former declaration, and a.s.sures them of his resolution to this purpose in the strongest terms. "I now _again_ recur to the declaration which I have before made, that it is my fixed determination to carry _literally_ into execution, and _most fully and liberally explain every circ.u.mstance of my conduct on the points upon which I have been injuriously arraigned_,--and to afford you the clearest conviction of my own integrity, and of the propriety of my motives for my declining a present defence of it."

These motives, as far as they can be discovered, were the violence of his adversaries, the interested character and views of the accuser, and the danger of a prosecution in the Supreme Court, which made it prudent to reserve his defence. These arguments are applicable to any charge.

Notwithstanding these reasons, it is plain by the above letter that he thought himself bound at some time or other to give satisfaction to his masters: till he should do this, in his own opinion, he remained in an unpleasant situation. But he bore his misfortune, it seems, patiently, with a confidence in their justice for his future relief. He says, "Whatever evil may fill the _long interval_ which may precede it." That interval he has taken care to make long enough; for near eight years are now elapsed, and he has not yet taken the smallest step towards giving to the Court of Directors any explanation whatever, much less that full and liberal explanation which he had so repeatedly and solemnly promised.

It is to be observed, that, though Mr. Hastings talks in these letters much of his integrity, and of the purity of his motives, and of full explanations, he nowhere denies the fact of this corrupt traffic of office. Though he had adjourned his defence, with so much pain to himself, to so very long a day, he was not so inattentive to the ease of Khan Jehan Khan as he has shown himself to his own. He had been accused of corruptly reserving to himself a part of the emoluments of this man's office; it was a delicate business to handle, whilst his defence stood adjourned; yet, in a very short time after a majority came into his hands, he turned out the person appointed by General Clavering, &c, and replaced the very man with whom he stood accused of the corrupt bargain; what was worse, he had been charged with originally turning out another, to make room for this man. The whole is put in strong terms by the then majority of the Council, where, after charging him with every species of peculation, they add, "We believe the proofs of his appropriating four parts in seven of the salary with which the Company is charged for the Phousdar of Hoogly are such as, whether sufficient or not to convict him in a court of justice, will not leave the shadow of a doubt concerning his guilt in the mind of any unprejudiced person. The salary is seventy-two thousand rupees a year; the Governor takes thirty-six thousand, and allows Cantoo Baboo four thousand more for the trouble he submits to in conducting the negotiation with the Phousdar.

This also is the common subject of conversation and derision through the whole settlement. It is our firm opinion and belief, that the late Phousdar of Hoogly, a relation of Mahomed Reza Khan, was turned out of this office merely because his terms were not so favorable as those which the Honorable Governor-General has obtained from the present Phousdar. The Honorable Governor-General is pleased to a.s.sert, with a confidential spirit peculiar to himself, that his measures. .h.i.therto stand unimpeached, except by us. We know not how this a.s.sertion is to be made good, unless _the most daring and flagrant prost.i.tution in every branch_ be deemed an honor to his administration."

The whole style and tenor of these accusations, as well as the nature of them, rendered Mr. Hastings's first postponing, and afterwards totally declining, all denial, or even defence or explanation, very extraordinary. No Governor ought to hear in silence such charges; and no Court of Directors ought to have slept upon them.

The Court of Directors were not wholly inattentive to this business.

They condemned his act as it deserved, and they went into the business of his legal right to dissolve the Council. Their opinions seemed against it, and they gave precise orders against the use of any such power in future. On consulting Mr. Sayer, the Company's counsel, he was of a different opinion with regard to the legal right; but he thought, very properly, that the use of a right, and the manner and purposes for which it was used, ought not to have been separated. What he thought on this occasion appears in his opinion transmitted by the Court of Directors to Mr. Hastings and the Council-General. "But it was as great a _crime_ to dissolve the Council upon _base and sinister motives_ as it would be to a.s.sume the power of dissolving, if he had it not. I believe he is _the first governor that ever_ dissolved a council inquiring into his behavior, when he was innocent. Before he could summon three councils and dissolve them, he had time fully to consider what would be the result of such conduct, _to convince everybody, beyond a doubt, of his conscious guilt_."

It was a matter but of small consolation to Mr. Hastings, during the painful interval he describes, to find that the Company's learned counsel admitted that he had legal powers of which he made an use that raised an universal presumption of his guilt.

Other counsel did not think so favorably of the powers themselves. But this matter was of less consequence, because a great difference of opinion may arise concerning the extent of official powers, even among men professionally educated, (as in this case such a difference did arise,) and well-intentioned men may take either part. But the use that was made of it, in systematical contradiction to the Company's orders, has been stated in the Ninth Report, as well as in many of the others made by two of your committees.

FOOTNOTES:

[14] Appendix B. No. 1.

[15] Vide Supplement to the Second Report, page 7.

[16] Appendix. B. No. 2.

[17] Vide Appendix B. No. 1.

[18] Appendix B. No. 7.

[19] Appendix B. No. 3 and No. 5.

[20] Appendix B. No 6.

[21] Vide Larkins's Affidavit, Appendix B. No. 5.

[22] Vide Appendix B. No. 1.

[23] Vide Appendix B. No. 1.

[24] Ibid.

[25] Ibid., No. 8.

[26] Ibid., No. 1.

[27] Ibid., No. 4.

[28] Appendix B. No. 8.

[29] Ibid.

[30] Ibid., No. 9.

[31] Appendix B. No. 1.

[32] Ibid.

[33] Ibid., No. 8.

[34] Appendix B. No. 4: The Governor-General's Account of Moneys received, dated 22d May, 1782. Also, Appendix B. No. 9: The Auditor's Account of Bonds granted to the Governor-General.

[35] Vide Appendix B. No. 4.

[36] Vide Mr. Hastings's Account, in Appendix B. No. 4.

[37] Vide Hastings's Account, dated 22d May, 1782, in Appendix B. No. 4.

[38] Vide above Appendix, and B. No. 2.

[39] Vide above Appendix.