The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke Volume IX Part 6

X. That, the Nabob Jaffier Ali Khan dying in February, 1765, Mahomed Reza Khan was appointed guardian to his children, and administrator of his office, or regent, which appointment the Court of Directors did approve. But the party opposite to Mahomed Reza Khan having continued to cabal against him, sundry accusations were framed relative to oppression at the time of the famine, and for a balance due during his employment of collector of the revenues; upon which the Directors did order him to be deprived of his office, and a strict inquiry to be made into his conduct.

XI. That the said Warren Hastings, then lately appointed to the Presidency, did, on the 1st of April, and on the 24th of September, 1772, write letters to the Court of Directors, informing them that on the very next day after he had received (as he a.s.serts) their private orders, "addressed to himself alone," and not to the board, he did dispatch, by express messengers, his orders to Mr. Middleton, the Resident at the Nabob's court at Moorshedabad, in a public character and trust with the Nabob, to arrest, in his capital, and at his court, and without any previous notice given of any charge, his princ.i.p.al minister, the aforesaid Mahomed Reza Khan, and to bring him down to Calcutta; and he did carefully conceal his said proceedings from the knowledge of the board, on pretext of his not being acquainted with their dispositions, and the influence which he thought that the said Mahomed Reza Khan had amongst them.

XII. That the said Warren Hastings, at the time he gave his orders as aforesaid for arresting the said Mahomed Reza Khan, did not take any measures to compel the appearance of any other persons as witnesses,--declaring it as his opinion, "that there would be little need of violence to obtain such intelligence as they could give against their former master, when his authority is taken from him"; but he did afterwards, in excuse for the long detention and imprisonment of the said Mahomed Reza Khan, without any proofs having been obtained of his guilt, or measures taken to bring him to a trial, a.s.sure the Directors, in direct contradiction to his former declaration, "that the influence of Mahomed Reza Khan still prevailed generally throughout the country, in the Nabob's household, and at the capital, and was scarcely affected by his present disgrace,"--notwithstanding, as he, the said Hastings, doth confess, he had used his utmost endeavors "to break that influence, by removing his dependants, and putting the direction of all the affairs that had been committed to his care into the hands of _the most powerful or active of his enemies_; that he depended on the activity of their hatred to Mahomed Reza Khan, incited by the expectation of rewards, for investigating the conduct of the latter; that with this the inst.i.tution of the new dewanny coincided; and that the same principle had guided him in the choice of Munny Begum and Rajah Gourdas,--the former for the chief administration, the latter" (the son of Nundcomar, and a mere instrument in the hands of his father) "for the dewanny of the Nabob's household,--both _the declared enemies_ of Mahomed Reza Khan."

XIII. That, although it might be true that enemies will become the most active prosecutors, and as such may, though under much guard and many precautions, be used even as witnesses, and that it ought not to be an exception, supposing their character and capacity otherwise good, to the appointing them to power, yet to advance persons to power on the ground not of their honor and integrity, which might have produced the enmity of bad men, but merely for the enmity itself, without any reference whatsoever to a laudable cause, and even with a declared ill opinion of the morals of one of the party, such as was actually delivered in the said letter by him, the said Hastings, of Nundcomar, (and which time has shown he might also on good ground have conceived of others,) was, in the circ.u.mstances of a criminal inquiry, a motive highly disgraceful to the honor of government, and destructive of impartial justice, by holding out the greatest of all possible temptation to false accusation, to corrupt and factious conspiracies, to perjury, and to every species of injustice and oppression.

XIV. That, in consequence of the aforesaid motives, and others pretended, which were by no means a sufficient justification to the said Warren Hastings, he did appoint the woman aforesaid, called Munny Begum, who had been of the lowest and most discreditable order in society, according to the ideas prevalent in India, but from whom he received several sums of money, to be guardian to the Nabob in preference to his own mother, _and to administer the affairs of the government_ in the place of the said Mahomed Reza Khan, the second Mussulman in rank after the Nabob, and the first in knowledge, gravity, weight, and character among the Mussulmen of that province. And in order to try every method and to take every chance for his destruction, the said Warren Hastings did maliciously and oppressively keep him under confinement, for a part of the time without any inquiry, and afterwards with a slow and dilatory trial, for two years together.

XV. That, notwithstanding a total revolution in the power, in part avowedly made for his destruction, the persons appointed for his trial did, on full inquiry, completely acquit the said Mahomed Reza Khan of the criminal charges against him, on account of which he had been so long persecuted and confined, and suffered much in mind, body, and fortune: and the Court of Directors, in their letter of the 3d of March, 1775, testify their satisfaction in the conduct and result of the said inquiry, and did direct the restoration of the said Mahomed Reza Khan to liberty, and to the offices which he had lately held, which comprehended the management of the Nabob's household, and the general superintendency of the justice of Bengal; but, according to the orders of the Court of Directors, his appointments were reduced to thirty thousand pounds a year, or thereabouts, of which he did make grievous complaint, on account of the expenses attendant on his station, and the heavy debts which he had been obliged to contract during his unjust persecution and imprisonment aforesaid.

XVI. That, on the removal of the said Mahomed Reza Khan from the superintendency of the criminal justice, and in consequence of letting the province of Bengal in farm by the said Warren Hastings, several dangerous and mischievous innovations were made by him, the said Warren Hastings, and the criminal justice of the country was almost wholly subverted, and great irregularities and disorders did actually ensue.

XVII. That the Council-General, established by act of Parliament in the year 1773, did restore the said Mahomed Reza Khan, with the consent and approbation of the Nabob, (but under a protest from the said Warren Hastings,) to his liberty and to his offices, according to the spirit of the orders given by the Court of Directors as aforesaid; and the Court of Directors did approve of the said appointment, and did a.s.sure the said Mahomed Reza Khan of their favor and protection as long as his conduct should merit the same, in the following terms. "As the abilities of Mahomed Reza Khan have been sufficiently manifested, as official experience qualifies him for so high a station in a more eminent degree than any other native with whom the Company has been connected, and as no proofs of maladministration have been established against him, either during the strict investigation of his conduct or since his retirement, we cannot under all circ.u.mstances but approve your recommendation of him to the Nabob to const.i.tute him his Naib. We are well pleased that he has received that appointment, and authorize you to a.s.sure him of our favor, so long as a firm attachment to the interest of the Company and a proper discharge of the duties of his station shall render him worthy of our protection." And the said Mahomed Reza Khan did continue to execute the same without any complaint whatsoever of malversation or negligence, in any manner or degree, in his said office.

XVIII. That in March, 1778, the said Warren Hastings, under color that the Nabob had completed his twentieth year, and had desired to be placed in the entire and uncontrolled management of his own affairs, and that Mahomed Reza Khan should be removed from his office, and that Munny Begum, his step-mother, the dancing-girl aforesaid, "should take on herself the management of the _nizamut_ [the government and general superintendency of criminal justice] without the interference of any person whatsoever," and notwithstanding the contradictions in the pretended applications from the Nabob, with whose incapacity for all affairs he was well acquainted, did, in defiance of the orders of the Court of Directors, and without regard to the infamy of an arrangement made for the evident and declared purpose of delivering not only the family with the prince, but the government and justice of a great kingdom, into such insufficient, corrupt, and scandalous hands, and though he has declared his opinion "that our national character is concerned in the character which the Nabob may obtain in the public opinion," on obtaining a majority in Council, without any complaint, real or pretended, remove the said Mahomed Reza from all his offices, and did part.i.tion his salary as a spoil in the following manner: to Munny Begum, the dancing-girl aforesaid, an additional allowance of 72,000 rupees (7,200_l._) a year; to the Nabob's own mother but half that sum, that is to say, 36,000 rupees (3,600_l._) a year; to Rajah Gourdas, son of Nundcomar, (whom he had described as a weak young man,) 72,000 rupees (7,200_l._) a year, as controller of the household; and to a magistrate called Sudder ul Hock, who, in real subserviency to the said Munny Begum, was nominally to act in the department of criminal justice, 78,000 rupees (7,800_l._) a year: the total of which allowances exceeding the salary of Mahomed Reza Khan by 18,000 rupees (1,800_l._) yearly, he did, for the corrupt and scandalous purposes aforesaid, order the same to be made up from the Company's treasury.

XIX. That Mr. Francis and Mr. Wheler having moved that the execution of the aforesaid arrangement, the whole expense of which, ordinary and extraordinary, was charged upon the Company's treasury, and therefore could not be even colorably disposed of at the pretended will of the said Nabob, might be suspended until the pleasure of the Court of Directors thereon should be known, and the same being resolved agreeably to law by a majority of the Council then present, the said Hastings, urging on violently the immediate execution of his corrupt project, and having obtained, by the return of Richard Barwell, Esquire, a majority in Council in his own casting vote, did rescind the aforesaid resolution, and did carry into immediate execution the aforesaid most unwarrantable, mischievous, and scandalous design.

XX. That the consequences which might be expected from such a plan of administration did almost instantly flow from it. For the person appointed to execute one of the offices which had been filled by Mahomed Reza Khan did soon find that the eunuchs of Munny Begum began to employ their power with great superiority and insolence in all the concerns of government and the administration of justice, and did endeavor to dispose of the offices relative to the same for their corrupt purposes, and to rob the Nabob's servants of their due allowances; and in his letter of the 1st September, 1778, he sent a complaint to the board, stating, "that certain bad men had gained an ascendency over the Nabob's temper, by whose instigation he acts"; and after complaining of the slights he received from the Nabob, he adds: "Thus they cause the Nabob to treat me, sometimes with indignity, at others with kindness, just as they think proper to advise him; their view is, that, by compelling me to displeasure at most unworthy treatment, they may force me either to relinquish my station, or to join with them, and act by their advice, and appoint creatures of their recommendation to the different offices, from which they might draw profit to themselves."

XXI. That, in a subsequent letter to the Governor, the said Superintendent of Justice did inform him, the said Warren Hastings, of the audacious and corrupt manner in which, by violence, fraud, and forgery, the eunuchs of Munny Begum had abused the Nabob's name, to deprive the judicial and executory officers of justice of the salaries which they ought to have drawn from the Company's treasury, in the following words: "The Begum's ministers, before my arrival, with the advice of their counsellors, caused the Nabob to sign a receipt, in consequence of which they received, at two different times, near 50,000 rupees [5,000_l._], in the name of the officers of the Adawlut, Phousdary, &c., from the Company's sircars; and having drawn up an account-current _in the manner they wished_, they had got the Nabob to sign it, and sent it to me." And in the same letter he a.s.serts, "that these people had the Nabob entirely in their power."

XXII. That the said Warren Hastings, upon this representation, did, notwithstanding his late pretended opinion of the fitness and the right of the Nabob to the sole administration of his own affairs, authoritatively forbid him from any interference therein, and ordered that the whole should be left to the magistrate aforesaid; to which the Nabob did, notwithstanding his pretended independence, yield an immediate and unreserved submission: for the said Hastings's order being given on the 1st of September at Calcutta, he received _an answer_ from Moorshedabad on the 3d, in the following terms: "Agreeably to your pleasure, I have relinquished all concern with the affairs of the Phousdary and Adawlut, leaving the entire management in Sudder ul Hock's hands." Which said circ.u.mstance, as well as many others, abundantly proves that all the Nabob's actions were in truth and fact entirely governed by the influence of the said Hastings, and that, however the said Hastings may have publicly discouraged the corrupt transactions of the said court, yet he did secretly uphold the authority and influence of Munny Begum, who did entirely direct, with his knowledge and countenance, all the proceedings therein. For

XXIII. That on the 13th of the same month of September he did receive a further complaint of the corrupt and fraudulent practices of the chief eunuch of the said Munny Begum; and these corrupt practices did so continue and increase, that on the 10th of October, 1778, he was obliged to confess, in the strongest terms, the pernicious consequences of his before-created unwarrantable and illegal arrangements; for, in a letter of that date to the Nabob, he expresses himself as follows. "At your Excellency's request, I sent Sudder ul Hock Khan to take on him the administration of the affairs of the Adawlut and Phousdary, and hoped by that means not only to have given satisfaction to your Excellency, but that, through his abilities and experience, these affairs would have been conducted in such manner as to have secured the peace of the country and the happiness of the people; and it is with the greatest concern I learn that this measure is so far from being attended with the expected advantages, that the affairs both of the Phousdary and Adawlut are in the greatest confusion imaginable, and daily robberies and murders are perpetrated throughout the country. This is evidently owing to the want of a proper authority in the person appointed to superintend them. I therefore addressed your Excellency on the importance and delicacy of the affairs in question, and of the necessity of lodging full power in the hands of the person chosen to administer them; in reply to which your Excellency expressed sentiments coincident with mine; notwithstanding which, your dependants and people, actuated by _selfish, and avaricious views, have by their interference so impeded the business as to throw the whole country into a state of confusion, from which nothing can retrieve it but an unlimited power lodged in the hands of the superintendent_. I therefore request that your Excellency will give the strictest injunctions to all your dependants not to interfere in any manner with any matter relative to the affairs of the Adawlut and Phousdary, and that you will yourself relinquish all interference therein, and leave them entirely to the management of Sudder ul Hock Khan: this is absolutely necessary to restore the country to a state of tranquillity." And he concluded by again recommending the Nabob to withdraw all interference with the administrator aforesaid: "otherwise a measure which I adopted at your Excellency's request, and with a view to your satisfaction and the benefit of the country, will be attended with quite contrary effects, and bring discredit on me."

XXIV. That the said Hastings, in the letter aforesaid, in which he so strongly condemns the acts and so clearly marks out the mischievous effects of the corrupt influence under which alone the Nabob acted, and under which alone, from his known incapacity, and his dependence on the person supported by the said Hastings, he could act, did propose to put all the offices of justice (which on another occasion he had requested him to _permit_ to remain in the hands which then held them) into his own disposal,--telling him, or rather the woman and eunuchs who governed him, "that, if his Excellency has any plan for the management of the affairs in future, be pleased to communicate it to me, and every attention shall be paid to give your Excellency satisfaction": by which means not only particular parts, as before, but the whole system of justice was to be afloat, and to be subject to the purposes of the aforesaid corrupt cabal of women and eunuchs.

XXV. That the Court of Directors, on receiving an account of the above arrangements, and being well apprised of the spirit, intention, and probable effect of the same, did, in a clear, firm, and decisive manner, express their condemnation of the measure, and their rejection and reprobation of all the pretended grounds and reasons on which the same was supported,--marking distinctly his prevarication and contradictions in the same, and pointing to him their full conviction of the unworthy motives on which he had made so shameful an arrangement: telling him, in the 17th paragraph of their general letter of the 4th of February, 1779, "The Nabob's letters of the 25th and 30th of August, of the 3d of September, and 17th of November, leave us no doubt of the _true_ design of this _extraordinary_ business being _to bring forward_ Munny Begum, and again to invest her with improper power and influence, notwithstanding our former declaration, that _so great_ a part of the Nabob's allowance had been embezzled and misapplied under her superintendence."

XXVI. That, in consequence of the censure and condemnation of the unwarrantable measures of the said Warren Hastings by the Court of Directors, on the aforesaid and other weighty and substantial grounds, they did order and direct as follows, in the 20th paragraph of the general letter of the same date. "As we deem it for the welfare of the country that the office of Naib Subahdar be for the present continued, and that this high office should be filled by a person of wisdom, experience, and of approved fidelity to the Company, and as we have no reason to alter the opinion given of Mahomed Reza Khan in our letter of the 24th of December, 1776, we positively direct, that you forthwith signify to the Nabob Mobarek ul Dowlah our pleasure that Mahomed Reza Khan be immediately restored to the office of Naib Subahdar; and we further direct, that Mahomed Reza Khan be again a.s.sured of the continuance of our favor, so long as a firm attachment to the interest of the Company and a proper discharge of the duties of his station shall render him worthy of our protection."

XXVII. That the aforesaid direction did convey in it such evident and cogent reason, and was so far enforced by justice to individuals and by regard to the peace and happiness of the natives, as well as by the common decorum to be observed in all the transactions of government, that the said Hastings ought to have yielded a cheerful obedience thereto, even if he had not been by a positive statute, and his relation of servant to the Company, bound to that just submission. Yet the said Hastings did, without denying or evading any one of the reasons a.s.signed by the Court of Directors, or controverting the scandalous motives a.s.signed by them for his conduct, contumaciously refuse obedience to the above positive order, on pretence that the Nabob, who, he had declared it on record "to be as visible as the light of the sun, is a mere pageant, and without even the shadow of authority," did dissent from the same; and he did encourage the said Nabob, or rather the eunuchs, the corrupt ministers of Munny Begum, to oppose himself and themselves to the authority of the said Court of Directors: by which means the arrangement, three times either ratified or expressly ordered by them, was wholly defeated; the aforesaid corrupt system was continued; Mahomed Reza Khan was not restored to his office; and a lesson was taught to the natives of all ranks, that the declared approbation, the avowed sanction, and the decided authority of the Court of Directors were wholly nugatory to their protection against the corrupt influence of their servants.

XXVIII. That the said Warren Hastings, on a reconciliation with Mr.

Francis, one of the Council-General, who made it a condition thereof that certain of the Company's orders should be obeyed, and that Mahomed Reza Khan should be restored to his offices, did, a considerable time after, notwithstanding the pretended reluctance of the Nabob, and his pretended freedom, make, for his convenience in the said accommodation, the arrangement which he had unwarrantably and illegally refused to the orders of the Court of Directors, and did of his own authority and that of the board restore Mahomed Reza Khan to his offices.

XXIX. That soon after the departure of the said Mr. Francis he did again deprive the said Mahomed Reza Khan of his said offices, and did make several great changes in the const.i.tution of the criminal justice in the said country; and after having, under pretence of the Nabob's sufficiency for the management of his own affairs, displaced, without any specific charge, trial, or inquiry whatsoever, the said Mahomed Reza Khan, he did submit the said Nabob to the entire direction, in all parts of his concerns, of a Resident of his own nomination, Sir John D'Oyly, Baronet, and did order an account of the most minute parts of his domestic economy to be made out, and to be delivered to the said Sir John D'Oyly, in the following words, contained in a paper by him int.i.tuled, INSTRUCTIONS from the Governor-General to the Nabob Mobarek ul Dowlah respecting his conduct in the management of his affairs. "You will be pleased to direct your _mutseddies_ to form an account of the fixed sums of your monthly expenses, such as servants' wages in the different departments, pensions, and other allowances, as well as of the estimated amount of variable expenses, to be delivered to Sir John D'Oyly _for my inspection_. I have given such orders to Sir John D'Oyly as will enable him to propose to you such reductions of the pensions and other allowances, and such a distribution of the variable expenses, as shall be proportionable to the total sum of your monthly income; _and I must request you will conform to it_." And he did, in the subsequent articles of his said instructions, order the whole management to be directed by Sir John D'Oyly, subject to his own directions as aforesaid; and did even direct what company he should keep; and did throw reflections on some persons, in places the nearest to him, as of bad character and base origin,--persons whom he should decline to name as such, "unless he heard that they still availed themselves of his goodness to retain _the places_ which they improperly hold near his person." And he did particularly order the said Nabob not to admit any English, but such as the said Sir John D'Oyly should approve, to his presence; and did repeat the said order in the following peremptory manner: "You _must forbid any_ person of _that nation_ to be intruded into _your_ presence without _his_ introduction." And he did require his obedience in the following authoritative style: "I shall think myself obliged to interfere _in another manner_, if you neglect it."

x.x.x. That he, the said Warren Hastings, did insult the captive condition of the said Nabob by informing him, in his imperious instructions aforesaid, that this total, blind, and implicit obedience, in every respect whatsoever, to Sir John D'Oyly and himself personally, and without any reference to the board, "was the very _conditions_ of the compliance of the Governor-General and Council with his late requisition"; which requisition was, that he should enjoy _the free and uncontrolled_ management of his own affairs. And though the said captive did offer, as he, the said Hastings, himself admits, _four lacs_ of his stipend, at that time reduced to sixteen lac, for _the free use of the remainder_, yet he did place him, the said Nabob, in the state of servitude in the said instructions laid down but a very short time after he had a.s.sumed and used the said Nabob's independent rights as a ground for refusing to obey the Company's orders,--and although he has declared, or pretended, on another occasion, which he would have thought similar, that any attempt to limit the household expenses of the Nabob of Oude was an indignity, "which no man living, however mean his rank in life, or dependent his condition in it, would permit to be exercised by any other, without the want or forfeiture of every manly principle."

x.x.xI. That the said Warren Hastings did order the said stipend (which was to be distributed, in the minutest particular, according to the said Hastings's personal directions) to be paid monthly, not to any officer of the Nabob, but to the said Resident, Sir John D'Oyly. And whereas the Governor-General and Council did, on the appointment of Mahomed Reza Khan, according to their duty, instruct him, that "he do conform to the _orders_ of the Company, which direct that an annual account of the Nabob's expenses be transmitted through the Resident at the Durbar, for the inspection of this _board_" the said Hastings, in making his new establishment in favor of his Resident, did wholly omit the said instruction, and did confine the said communication to _himself_, privately. And in fact it does not appear that any account whatsoever of the disposition of the said large sum, exceeding 160,000_l._ sterling a year, has been laid before the board, or at least that any such account has been transmitted to the Court of Directors; and it is not fitting that any British servant of the Company should have the management of any public money, much less of so great a sum, without a public well-vouched account of the specific expenditure thereof.

x.x.xII. That the Court of Directors did, on the 17th of May, 1766, propose certain rules for regulating the correspondence of the Resident with the Nabob of Bengal, in which they did direct, as a principle for the said regulations, as follows (paragraph 16th). "We would have his correspondence to be carried on with the _Select Committee_ through the channel of the President: he should keep a diary of all his transactions. His correspondence with the natives _must be publicly conducted_: copies of _all_ his letters, sent and received, be transmitted monthly to the Presidency, with duplicates and triplicates to be transmitted home in our general packet by every ship."

x.x.xIII. That the President and Select Committee (Lord Clive being then President) did approve of the whole substantial part of the said regulation (the diary excepted); and the principle, in all matters of account, ought to have been strictly adhered to, whatever limitations may have been given to the office of Resident. Yet he, the said Warren Hastings, in defiance of the aforesaid good rules, orders, and late precedent in conformity to the same, did not only withhold any order for the purpose, but, in order to carry on the business of the said durbar in a clandestine manner for his own purposes, did, as aforesaid, exclude all English from an intercourse with the Nabob, who might carry complaints or representations to the board, or the Court of Directors, of his condition, or the conduct of the Resident,--and did further, to defeat all possible publicity, insinuate to him to give the preference to verbal communication above letters, in the words following, of the ninth article of his instructions to the Nabob: "Although I desire to receive your letters frequently, yet, as many matters will occur which cannot be _so easily explained by letters as by conversation_, I desire that you will on such occasions give your orders to him respecting such points as you may desire to have imparted to me; and I, postponing every other concern, will give an immediate and the most satisfactory reply concerning them." Accordingly, no relation whatsoever has been received by the Court of Directors of the said Nabob's affairs, nor any account of the money monthly paid, except from public fame, which reports that his affairs are in groat disorder, his servants unpaid, and many of them dismissed, and all the Mussulmen dependent on his family in a state of indigence.

XVIII.--THE MOGUL DELIVERED UP TO THE MAHRATTAS.

I. That Shah Allum, the prince commonly called the Great Mogul, or, by eminence, _The King_, is, or lately was, in the possession of the ancient capital of Hindostan, and though without any considerable territory, and without a revenue sufficient to maintain a moderate state, he is still much respected and considered, and the custody of his person is eagerly sought by many of the princes in India, on account of the use to be made of his t.i.tle and authority; and it was for the interest of the East India Company, that, while on one hand no wars shall be entered into in support of his pretensions, on the other no steps should be taken which may tend to deliver him into the hands of any of the powerful states of that country, but that he should be treated with friendship, good faith, and respectful attention.

II. That Warren Hastings, in contradiction to this safe, just, and honorable policy, strongly prescribed and enforced by the orders of the Court of Directors, did, at a time when he was engaged in a negotiation the declared purpose of which was to give peace to India, concur with the captain-general of the Mahratta state, called Mahdajee Sindia, in hostile designs against the few remaining territories of that same Mogul emperor, by virtue of whose grant the Company actually possess the government and enjoy the revenues of great provinces, and also against the possessions of a Mahomedan chief called Nudjif Khan, a person of much merit with the East India Company, in acknowledgment of which they had granted him a pension, included in the tribute due to the king, and, together with that tribute, taken from him by the said Warren Hastings, though expressly _guarantied_ to him by the Company. With both these powers the Company had been in friendship, and were actually at peace at the time of the said clandestine concurrence in a design against them; and the said Hastings hath since declared, that the right of one of them, namely, "the right of the Mogul emperor, to our a.s.sistance, has been constantly acknowledged."

III. That the said Warren Hastings, at the time of his treacherous concurrence in a design against a power which he was himself of opinion we were bound to a.s.sist, and against whom there was no doubt he was bound neither to form nor to concur in any hostile attempt, did give a caution to Colonel Muir, to whom the negotiation aforesaid was intrusted on the part of the Company, against "inserting anything in the treaty which might _expressly_ mark our _knowledge_ of his [the Mahratta general's] views, _or concurrence in them_." Which said transaction was full of duplicity and fraud; and the crime of the said Hastings therein is aggravated by his having some years before withheld the tribute which by treaty was solemnly agreed to be paid to the said king, on pretence that he had thrown himself, for the recovery of his city of Delhi, on the protection of the Mahrattas, whom the said Warren Hastings then called _the natural enemies_ of the Company, and the growth of whose power he then alleged to be highly dangerous to the interests of this kingdom in India.

IV. That, after having concurred, in the manner before mentioned, in a design of the Mahrattas against the Mogul, and notwithstanding he, the said Warren Hastings, had formerly declared, "that with him [the Mogul]

our connection had been a long time suspended, and _he wished never to see it renewed_, as it had proved a fatal drain to the wealth of Bengal and the treasury of the Company, without yielding one advantage or possible resource, even of remote benefits, in return," the said Warren Hastings did nevertheless, on or about the month of March, 1783, with the privity and consent of the members of the board, but by no authoritative act, dispatch, as agents of him, the Governor-General only, and not as agents of the Governor-General and Council, as they ought to have been, certain persons, among whom were Major Browne and Major Davy, to the court of the king at Delhi, and did there enter into certain engagements with the said king by the means of those agents, and did carry on certain private and dangerous intrigues for various purposes, particularly for making war in favor of the said king against some powers or princes not precisely described, but which, as may be inferred from a subsequent correspondence, were certain Mahomedan princes in the neighborhood of Delhi in amity with the Company, and some of them at that time in the actual service and in the apparent confidence and favor of the said Mogul; and he did order Major Browne to offer to the Mogul king to provide for the _entire_ expense of _any_ troops the Shah [the said king] might require; and the proposal was accordingly accepted, with the conditions annexed: by which proposal and acceptance thereof the East India Company was placed in a situation of great and perplexing difficulty; since either they were to engage, at an unlimited _expense_, in new wars, contrary to their orders, contrary to their general declared policy, and contrary to the published resolutions of the House of Commons, and wholly incompatible with the state of their finances, or, to preserve peace, they must risk the imputation of a new violation of faith, by departing from an agreement made on the voluntary proposal of their own government,--the agent of the said Hastings having declared, in his letter to the said Hastings, by him communicated to the board, "that the business of a.s.sisting the Shah [the Mogul emperor] can and _must_ go on, if we wish to be secure in India, or regarded as a nation of faith and honor."

V. That the said Warren Hastings did, on the 20th day of January, 1784, send in circulation to the other members of the Council a letter to him from his agent, Major Browne, dated at Delhi, on the 30th of December, 1783, viz., that letter to which the foregoing references are made, in which the said Browne did directly press, and indirectly (though sufficiently and strongly) suggest, several highly dangerous measures for realizing the general offers and engagements of the said Warren Hastings,--proposing, that, besides a proportion of field artillery, and a train of battering cannon for the purpose of sieges, six regiments of sepoys in the Company's service should be transferred to that of the said king, and that certain other corps should also be raised for the said service in the English provinces and dependencies, to be immediately under the king's [the Mogul's] orders, and to be maintained by a.s.signments of territorial revenue within the province of Oude, a dependent member of the British government, but with a caution against having any British officer with the same; the said Major Browne expressing his caution as followeth: "If any European officer _be_ with this corps, a very nice judgment indeed must direct the choice; for scarce any are in the smallest degree _fit_ for _such_ employ, but much more likely to do harm than good." And the letter aforesaid being without any observation thereon, or any disavowal of the matters of fact or of the counsels so strongly and authoritatively delivered therein by the said Warren Hastings's agent, and without any mark of disapprobation of any part of his plan, whether that of the a.s.signment of territory belonging to the Company's allies for the maintenance of troops which were to be by that plan put under the orders of a foreign independent power, or that of employing the said troops without any British officer with them, or for his alarming observation by him entered on the Company's records, which, if not an implied censure on the nature of the service in which British officers are supposed improper to be trusted, is a strong reflection on the character of the British officers, which was to render them unfit to be employed in an honorable service,--the said Warren Hastings did thereby give a countenance to the said unwarrantable and dangerous proposals and reflections.

VI. That a considerable time before the production and circulation of Major Browne's letter, the said Hastings did enter a Minute of Consultation containing a proposition similar in the general intent to that in the said letter contained for a.s.sisting the Mogul with a military force; but the other members of the board did disagree thereto, and, being alarmed at the disposition so strongly shown by the said Hastings to engage in new wars and dangerous foreign connections, and possibly having intelligence of the proceedings of his agent, did call upon him to produce his instructions to Major Browne; and he did, on the 5th of October, 1783, and not before, enter on the Consultations a certain paper purporting to be the instructions which he had given to Major Browne the preceding March, the time of his, the said Browne's, appointment, in which pretended instructions no direction whatsoever was given to the effect of his, the said Hastings's, Minute of Consultation propounded: that is to say, no power was given in the said instructions to make a direct offer of military aid to the Mogul, or to form the arrangements stated by the said Browne, in his letter to the said Hastings, as having been made by the express authority of the said Hastings himself; but the said instructions contained nothing further on that subject but a conditional direction, that, in case a military force should be required for the Mogul's aid or protection, the Major is to know the service on which it is to be employed, and the resources from whence it is to be paid; and the instructions produced as his real instructions by the said Hastings are so guarded as to caution the said Browne against _taking any part in the intrigues of those who are about the King's person_. By which letters, instructions, and transactions, compared with each other, it appears that the said Warren Hastings, after six months' delay in entering of (contrary to the Company's order) any instructions to the said Browne, did at last enter a false paper as the true, or that he did give other secret instructions, totally different from, and even opposite to, his public ostensible instructions, thereby to deceive the Council, and to carry on with less obstruction dark and dangerous intrigues, contrary to the orders of the Court of Directors, to the true policy of this kingdom, and to the safety of the British possessions in the East.

VII. That the said letter from Major Browne was by the said Warren Hastings transmitted to the Court of Directors, without being accompanied by any part of the previous correspondence; by which wilful concealment the said Warren Hastings is guilty of an high and criminal disrespect to the Court of Directors, and of a most flagrant breach and violation of their orders, which he was bound by an act of Parliament to obey.

VIII. That the said Hastings having early in the year 1784 procured to himself a deputation to act in the upper provinces, the Council, being well aware of his disposition to engage in unwarrantable designs against the neighboring states, did expressly confine his powers to the circ.u.mstance of his actual residence within the Company's provinces. But it appears that ways were found out by which he hoped to defeat the precautions of the board: for the said Warren Hastings did write from Lucknow, the capital of the country of Oude, to the Court of Directors, a certain postscript of a letter, dated the 4th of May, 1784, in which he informs the Court that the son and heir-apparent of the Great Mogul had taken refuge with him and the Nabob of Oude; that he had a conference with that prince on the 10th of the same month of May, "no person being either present or within hearing" during the same; and that in the said conference the prince had informed him of the distresses of his father, and his wish for the relief of the king and the restoration of the dominions of his house, as well as to rescue him from the power of certain persons not named, who degraded him into a mere instrument of their interested and sordid designs, and that, on a failure of his application to him, he would either return to his father, or proceed to Calcutta, and thence to England; and that the said Warren Hastings did give him an answer to the following effect: "That our [the British]

government had just obtained relief from a state of universal warfare, and required a term of repose; that our whole nation was weary of war, and dreaded the renewal of it, _and would he equally alarmed at any movement of which it could not see the issue or progress, but which might eventually tend to create new hostilities_; that he came hither [to Lucknow] with a limited authority, and could not, if he chose it, engage in a business of that nature _without the concurrence of his colleagues in office, who he believed would be adverse to it_; that he would represent the same to the joint members of his own government, and wait their determination. In the mean time he advised the prince to make advances to Mahdajee Sindia, both because our government _was in intimate and sworn connection_ with him, and because he was the effectual head of the Mahratta state; besides that he [the said Warren Hastings] feared his [Sindia's] taking the other side of the question, unless he was early prevented."

IX. That in the statement of this discourse there is much criminal reserve towards the Court of Directors,--it not appearing distinctly what the objects were, nor who the persons concerned, nor what the side was which he apprehended the Mahrattas might take, if not prevented by his advances; and in the discourse itself there were many particulars highly criminal, namely,--for that in the said conversation, in which he describes himself as declining a compliance with the request of the prince on account of the aversion (therein strongly expressed) of his colleagues, of the Company, and of the whole British nation, to engage in any measures which might even "_eventually lead to hostilities_," he spoke to the prince as if he had been entirely ignorant of the offers which but five months before had been made to the king, his father, on the part of that very government, (whose repugnance to such measures he then for the first time chose to profess, but which he always had known,) through Major Browne, the Company's representative at the court of Delhi, "to provide for the _entire_ expense of _any_ troops which the Shah [the king] might require," and that this was "what the Resident had _always_ proposed to the king and his confidential ministers,"--the said Browne further declaring, "that, if, in consequence of the said proposals, certain arrangements for the Shah's service by _troops_ were not immediately ordered, in his opinion all our [English government's]

_offers and promises_ will be considered as false and insidious." This being the known state of the business, as represented by the said Hastings's own agent, and this the public opinion of it, although to impose on the ignorance of the prince with regard to the proceedings at his father's court would have been unworthy in itself, yet he, the said Warren Hastings, could not hope to succeed in such imposition, as in the postscript aforesaid he represents the said prince (who was the king's eldest son, and thirty-six years of age) as a person of considerable qualifications, and perfectly acquainted with the transactions at his father's court, and as one who had long held the _princ.i.p.al_ and most active part in the little that remained of _the administration of Shah Allum_. And the said Hastings conferring with a prince so well instructed, without making the slightest allusions to his said positive and recent engagements, or without giving any explanation with regard to them, the said Warren Hastings must appear to the said prince either as a person not only contracting engagements, but actually being the first mover and proposer of them, without any authority from _his colleagues_, and against theirs and the general inclination of the British nation, and on that ground not to be trusted, or that he had used this plea of disagreement between him and his Council as a pretence, set up without color or decency, for a gross violation of his own engagements, leaving the princes and states of the country no solid ground on which they can or ought to contract with the Company, to the utter destruction of all public confidence, and to the equal disgrace of the national candor, integrity, and wisdom.

X. That in a letter dated from the same place, Lucknow, the 16th of the following June, 1784, the said Warren Hastings informs the Court of Directors, that Major Browne, their agent to the Mogul, had arrived there in the character also of agent from the Mogul, with two sets of instructions from two opposite parties in his ministry, which instructions were directly contrary to each other: the first, which were the ostensible instructions, being to engage the said Hastings, in the Mogul's name, to enter into a treaty of mutual alliance with a chief of the country, then minister to the said Mogul, called Afrasaib Khan; the second were from another princ.i.p.al person, called Mudjed ul Dowlah, also a minister of the said Mogul, (but styled in the said letter _confidential_, for distinction,) which were directly destructive of the former; and the said latter instructions, to which it seems credence was to be given, were sent "under the most solemn adjurations of secrecy."

The purpose of these latter and secret instructions was to require the Company's aid in freeing the Mogul from the oppressions of his servants, namely, from the oppressions of the said Afrasaib, between whom and the Company Major Browne (at once agent to that Company, and to two opposite factions in the Mogul's court) accepted a power to make a treaty of mutual alliance under the sanction of his sovereign. And it does not appear that he, Warren Hastings, did discountenance the double-dealing and fraudulent agencies of his and the Company's minister at that court, or did disavow any particular in the letter from him, the said Browne, of the 30th of December, 1783, stating the offers made on his part to the Mogul, so contradictory to his late declarations to the heir-apparent of that monarch, or did give any reprimand to the said Browne, or did show any mark of displeasure against him, as having acted without orders, but did again send him, with renewed confidence, to the court aforesaid.

XI. That the said Warren Hastings, still pursuing his said evil designs, did apply to the Council for discretionary powers relative to the intrigues and factions in the Mogul's court, giving a.s.surances of his resolution not to proceed against their sense; but the said Council, being fully aware of his disposition, and having Major Browne's letter, recorded by himself, the said Warren Hastings, before them, did refuse to grant the said discretionary powers, but, on the contrary, did exhort him "most sedulously and cautiously to avoid, in his correspondence with the different princes in India, whatever may commit, or be strained into an interpretation of committing the Company, either as to their army or treasure,"--observing, "that the Company's orders are positive against their interference in the objects of dispute between the country powers."

XII. That, in order to subvert the plain and natural interpretation given by the Council to the orders of the Court of Directors, and to justify his dangerous intrigues, the said Warren Hastings, in his letter of the 16th June, 1784, to the said Court, did, in a most insolent and contemptuous manner, endeavor to persuade them of their ignorance of the true sense of their own orders, and to limit their prohibition of interference with the disputes of the country powers to such country powers as are _permanent_,--expressing himself as follows: "The faction which now surrounds the throne [the Mogul's throne] is widely different from the idea which your commands are intended to convey by the expressions to which you have generally applied them, of _country powers_, to which that _of permanency is a necessary adjunct_, and which may be more properly compared to a splendid bubble, which the slightest breath of opposition may dissipate with every trace of its existence."

By which construction the said Hastings did endeavor to persuade the Court of Directors that they meant to confine their prohibition of sinister intrigues to those powers only who could not be easily hurt by them, and whose strength was such that their resentment of such clandestine interference was to be dreaded; but that, where the powers were weak and fragile, such intrigues might be allowed.

XIII. That the said Hastings, further to persuade the Court of Directors to involve themselves in the affairs of the Mogul, and to reconcile this measure with his former conduct and declared opinions, did write to them to the following effect: That "at that former period to which the ancient policy with regard to the Mogul applied, the king's authority was sufficiently respected" (which he knew not to be true,--having himself declared, in his minute of the 25th of October, 1774, "that he remained at Delhi, the ancient capital of the empire, _a mere cipher_ in the administration of it") to maintain itself against common vicissitudes; that he would not have advised interference, if the king himself retained the exercise of it, _however feeble_, in his own hands; that, if it [the Mogul's authority] is suffered to receive its final extinction, it is impossible to foresee _what power may arise out of its ruins_, or what events may be linked in the same chain of revolution with it: but your interests _may_ suffer by it, your reputation _certainly will_, as his right to our a.s.sistance _has been constantly acknowledged_, and by a train of consequences to which our government has not intentionally given birth, but most especially by the movements which _its influence, by too near an approach_, has excited, it has unfortunately become the efficient instrument of a great portion of the king's present distresses and dangers,--intimating (as well as the studied obscurity of his expressions will permit anything to be discerned) that his own late intrigues had been among the causes of the distresses and dangers, which by new intrigues he did pretend to remove: and he did conclude this part of his letter with some loose general expressions of his caution not to affect the Company's interests or revenues by any measures he might at that time take.

XIV. That the principle, so far as the same hath been directly avowed, of the said proceedings at the Mogul's court, was as altogether irrational, and the pretended object as impracticable, as the means taken in pursuit of it were fraudulent and dishonorable, namely, the restoration of the Mogul in some degree to the dignity of his situation, and to his free agency in the conduct of his affairs. For the said Hastings, at the very time in which he did with the greatest apparent earnestness urge the purpose which he pretended to have in view with regard to the dignity and liberty of the Mogul emperor, did represent him as a person wholly disqualified, and even indisposed, to take any active part whatsoever in the conduct of his own affairs, and that any attempt for that purpose would be utterly impracticable; and this he hath stated to the Court of Directors as a matter of public notoriety, in his said letter of the 16th of June, 1784, in the following emphatical and decisive terms.

"_You need not be told_ the character of the king, whose inertness, and the habit of long-suffering, has debased his dignity and the fortunes of his house _beyond the power of retrieving either the one or the other_.

Whilst his personal repose is undisturbed, he will _prefer_ to live in _the meanest state of indigence_, under the rule of men whose views are bounded by avarice and the power which they derive from his authority, rather than commit any share of it to his own sons, (though his affection for them is boundless in every other respect,) from a natural jealousy, founded on the experience of a very different combination of those circ.u.mstances which once served as a temptation and example of unlawful ambition in the princes of the royal line. His ministers, from a policy more reasonable, have constantly employed every means of influence to confirm this disposition, and to prevent his sons from having any share in the distribution of affairs, so as to have established a complete usurpation of the royal prerogative under its own sanction and patronage."

XV. That the said Warren Hastings, having given this opinion of the sovereign for whose freedom he pretended so anxious a concern, did describe the minister with whom he had long acted in concurrence, and from whom he had just received the extraordinary secret emba.s.sy aforesaid for the purpose of effecting the deliverance of his master, the Mogul, from the usurpations of _his ministers_, as follows. "The first minister, Mudjed ul Dowlah, is _totally_ deficient in every military quality, conceited of his own superior talents, and formed to the practice of _that crooked policy which, generally defeats its own purpose_, but sincerely attached to his master." The reality of the said attachment was not improbable, but altogether useless, as the said minister was the only one among the princ.i.p.al persons about the king who (besides the total want of all military and civil ability) possessed no territories, troops, or other means of serving and supporting him, but was himself solely upheld by his influence over his master: neither doth the said Hastings free him, any more than the persons more efficient, who were to be destroyed, from a disposition to alienate the king from an attention to his affairs, and from all confidence in his own family; but, on the contrary, he brings him forward as the very first among the instances he adduces to exemplify the practices of the ministers against their sovereign and his children.

XVI. That the said Warren Hastings, recommending in general terms, and yet condemning in detail, every part of his own pretended plan, as impracticable in itself, and as undertaken in favor of persons all of whom he describes as incapable, and the princ.i.p.al as indisposed to avail himself thereof, must have had some other motives for this long, intricate, dark, and laborious proceeding with the Mogul, which must be sought in his actions, and the evident drift and tendency thereof, and in declarations which were brought out by him to serve other purposes, but which serve fully to explain his real intentions in this intrigue.

XVII. That the other members of the Council-General having abundantly certified their averseness to his intrigues, and even having shown apprehensions of his going personally to the Mogul and the Mahrattas for the purpose of carrying on the same, the said Hastings was driven headlong to acts which did much more openly indicate the true nature and purpose of his machinations. For he at length recurred directly, and with little disguise, to the Mahrattas, and did open an intrigue with them, although he was obliged to confess, in his letter aforesaid of the 16th June, 1784, that the exception which he contended to be implied in the orders of the Court of Directors forbidding the intermeddling in the disputes of "the country powers," namely, "powers not permanent," did by no means apply to the Mahrattas; and he informs the Court of Directors that he did, on the very first advice he received of the flight of the Mogul's son, write to Mr. James Anderson to apprise the Mahratta chief, Sindia, of that event,--"for which as he was unprepared, he desired his [the said Sindia's] advice for his conduct on the occasion of it." Which method of calling for the advice of a foreign power to regulate his political conduct, instead of being regulated therein by the advice of the British Council and the standing orders of the Court of Directors, was a procedure highly criminal; and the crime is aggravated by his not communicating the said correspondence to the Council-General, as by his duty he was bound to do; but it does abundantly prove his concert with the Mahrattas in all that related to his negotiations in the Mogul court, which were carried on agreeably to their advice, and in subserviency to their views and purposes.

XVIII. That, in consequence of the cabal begun with the Mahrattas, the said chief, Sindia, did send his "familiar and confidential ministers"

to him, the said Hastings, being at Lucknow, with whom the said Hastings did hold several secret conferences, without any secretary or other a.s.sistant: and the said Hastings hath not conveyed to the Court of Directors any minutes thereof, but hath purposely involved even the general effect and tendency of these conferences in such obscurity that it is no otherwise possible to perceive the drift and tendency of the same, but by the general scope of councils and acts relative to the politics of the Mogul and of the Mahrattas together, and by the final event of the whole, which is sufficiently visible. For