The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke Volume XI Part 22

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

Soon after the return of Colonel Hannay to Calcutta, this miserable Nabob received intelligence, which concurrent public fame supported, that Mr. Hastings meant to send him up into the country again, on a second expedition, probably with some such order as this:--"You have sucked blood enough for yourself, now try what you can do for your neighbors." The Nabob was not likely to be misinformed. His friend and agent, Gobind Ram, was at Calcutta, and had constant access to all Mr.

Hastings's people. Mr. Hastings himself tells you what instructions these vakeels always have to search into and discover all his transactions. This Gobind Ram, alarmed with strong apprehensions, and struck with horror at the very idea of such an event, apprised his master of his belief that Mr. Hastings meant to send Colonel Hannay again into the country. Judge now, my lords, what Colonel Hannay must have been, from the declaration which I will now read to you, extorted from that miserable slave, the Nabob, who thus addresses Mr. Hastings.

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

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

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

My Lords, I shall now call your attention to a part of the evidence which we have produced to prove the terrible effects of Colonel Hannay's operations. Captain Edwards, an untainted man, who tells you that he had pa.s.sed through that country again and again, describes it as bearing all the marks of savage desolation. Mr. Holt says it has fallen from its former state,--that whole towns and villages were no longer peopled, and that the country carried evident marks of famine. One would have thought that Colonel Hannay's cruelty and depredations would have satiated Mr.

Hastings. No: he finds another military collector, a Major Osborne, who, having suffered in his preferment by the sentence of a court-martial, whether justly or unjustly I neither know nor care, was appointed to the command of a thousand men in the provinces of Oude, but really to the administration of the revenues of the country. He administered them much in the same manner as Colonel Hannay had done. He, however, transmitted to the government at Calcutta a partial representation of the state of the provinces, the substance of which was, that the natives were exposed to every kind of peculation, and that the country was in a horrible state of confusion and disorder. This is upon the Company's records; and although not produced in evidence, your Lordships may find it, for it has been printed over and over again. This man went up to the Vizier; in consequence of whose complaint, and the renewed cries of the people, Mr.

Hastings was soon obliged to recall him.

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

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

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

_A Copy of a subsequent Letter from the Vizier to Rajah Gobind Ram_.

"I some time ago wrote you the particulars of the conduct of the officers, and now write them again. The officers and gentlemen who are at Cawnpore, and Futtyghur, and Darunghur, and other places, by different means act very tyrannically and oppressively towards the aumils and ryots and inhabitants; and to whomsoever that requires a dustuck they give it, with their own seal affixed, and send for the aumils and punish them. If they say anything, the gentlemen make use of but two words: one,--_That is for the brigade;_ and the second,--_That is to administer justice_. The particulars of it is this,--that the byparees will bring their grain from all quarters, and sell for their livelihood. There is at present no war to occasion a necessity for sending for it. If none comes, whatever quant.i.ty will be necessary every month I will mention to the aumils, that they may bring it for sale: but there is no deficiency of grain. The gentlemen have established gunges for their own advantage, called Colonel Gunge, at Darunghur, Futtyghur, &c. The collection of the customs from all quarters they have stopped, and collected them at their own gunges. Each gunge is rented out at 30,000-40,000 rupees, and their collections paid to the gentlemen.

They have established gunges where there never were any, and where they were, those they have abolished; 30,000 or 40,000 rupees is the sum they are rented at; the collections, to the amount of a lac of rupees, are stopped. Major Briscoe, who is at Darunghur, has established a gunge which rented out for 45,000 rupees, and has stopped the ghauts round about the byparees; and merchants coming from Cashmere, from Shahjehanabad, and bringing shawls and other goods and spices, &c., from all quarters, he orders to his gunge, and collects the duty from the aumils, gives them a chit, and a guard, who conducts them about five hundred coss: the former duties are not collected. From the conduct at Cawnpore, Futtyghur, Furruckabad, &c., the duties from the lilla of Gora and Thlawa are destroyed, and occasion a loss of three lacs of rupees to the duties; and the losses that are sustained in Furruckabad may be ascertained by the Nabob Muzuffer Jung, to whom every day complaints are made: exclusive of the aumils and collectors, others lodge complaints. Whatever I do, I desire no benefit from it; I am remediless and silent; from what happens to me, I know that worse will happen in other places; the second word, I know, is from their mouths only. This is the case. In this country formerly, and even now, whatever is to be received or paid among the zemindars, ryots, and inhabitants of the cities, and poor people, neither those who can pay or those who cannot pay ever make any excuse to the shroffs; but when they could pay, they did. In old debts of fifty years, whoever complain to the gentlemen, they agree that they shall pay one fourth, and send dustucks and sepoys to all the aumils, the chowdries, and canongoes, and inhabitants of all the towns; they send for everybody, to do them justice, confine them, and say they will settle the business. So many and numerous are these calamities, that I know not how much room it will take up to mention them. Mr.

Briscoe is at Darunghur; and the complaints of the aumils arrive daily. I am silent. Now Mr. Middleton is coming here, let the Nabob appoint him for settling all these affairs, that whatever he shall order those gentlemen they will do. From this everything will be settled, and the particulars of this quarter will be made known to the Nabob. I have written this, which you will deliver to the Governor, that everything may be settled; and when he has understood it, whatever is his inclination, he will favor me with it. The Nabob is master in this country, and is my friend; there is no distinction."

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

"I have received your letter, requesting leave for a battalion to be raised by Captain Clark on the same footing as Major Osborne's was, agreeable to the requests and complaints of Ishmael Beg, the aumil of Allahabad, &c., and in compliance with the directions of the Council. You are well acquainted with the particulars and negotiation of Ishmael Beg, and the nature of Mr. Osborne's battalion. At the beginning of the year 1186 (1779) the affairs of Allahabad were given on a lease of three years to Ishmael Beg, together with the purgunnahs Arreel and Parra; and I gave orders for troops to be stationed and raised, conformable to his request.

Ishmael Beg accordingly collected twelve hundred peons, which were not allowed to the aumil of that place in the year 1185. The reason why I gave permission for the additional expense of twelve hundred peons was, that he might be enabled to manage the country with ease, and pay the money to government regularly. I besides sent Mr.

Osborne there to command in the mahals belonging to Allahabad, which were in the possession of Rajah Ajeet Sing; and he accordingly took charge. Afterwards, in obedience to the orders of the Governor-General, Mr. Hastings, Jelladut Jung, he was recalled, and the mahals placed, as before, under Rajah Ajeet Sing. I never sent Mr. Osborne to settle the concerns of Allahabad, for there was no occasion for him; but Mr. Osborne, of himself, committed depredations and rapines within Ishmael Beg's jurisdiction. Last year, the battalion, which, by permission of General Sir Eyre Coote, was sent, received orders to secure and defend Ishmael Beg against the encroachments of Mr. Osborne; for the complaints of Ishmael Beg against the violences of Mr. Osborne had reached the General and Mr.

Purling; and the Governor and gentlemen of Council, at my request, recalled Mr. Osborne. This year, as before, the collections of Arreel and Parra remain under Ishmael Beg. In those places, some of the talookdars and zemindars, who had been oppressed and ill-treated by Mr. Osborne, had conceived ideas of rebellion."

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

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

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

"Notwithstanding the great benefit which the Company would have derived from such an augmentation of their military force as these troops const.i.tuted, ready to act on any emergency, prepared and disciplined without any charge on the Company, as the inst.i.tution professed, until their actual services should be required, I have observed some evils growing out of the system, which, in my opinion, more than counterbalanced those advantages, had they been realized in their fullest effect. The remote stations of these troops, placing the commanding officers beyond the notice and control of the board, afforded too much opportunity and temptation for unwarrantable emoluments, and excited the contagion of peculation and rapacity throughout the whole army. A most remarkable and incontrovertible proof of the prevalence of this spirit has been seen in the court-martial upon Captain Erskine, where the court, composed of officers of rank and respectable characters, unanimously and honorably, most honorably, acquitted him upon an acknowledged fact which in times of stricter discipline would have been deemed a crime deserving the severest punishment."

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

"I was actuated solely by motives of justice to him and a regard to the honor of our national character. In removing those gentlemen I diminish my own influence, as well as that of my colleagues, by narrowing the line of patronage; and I expose myself to obloquy and resentment from those who are immediately affected by the arrangement, and the long train of their friends and powerful patrons. But their numbers, their influence, and the enormous amount of their salaries, pensions, and emoluments, were an intolerable burden on the revenues and authority of the Vizier, and exposed us to the envy and resentment of the whole country, by excluding the native servants and adherents of the Vizier from the rewards of their services and attachment."

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

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

Who says all this, my Lords? Do I say it? No: it is Warren Hastings who says it. He records it. He gives you his vouchers and his evidence, and he draws the conclusion. He is the criminal accuser of the British army.

He who sits in that box accuses the whole British army in India. He has declared them to be so tainted with peculation, from head to foot, as to have been induced to commit the most wicked perjuries, for the purpose of bearing one another out in their abominable peculations. In this unnatural state of things, and whilst there is not one military man on these stations of whom Mr. Hastings does not give this abominably flagitious character, yet every one of them have joined to give him the benefit of their testimony for his honorable intentions and conduct.

In this tremendous scene, which he himself exposes, are there no signs of this captain-generalship which I have alluded to? Are there no signs of this man's being a captain-general of iniquity, under whom all the spoilers of India were paid, disciplined, and supported? I not only charge him with being guilty of a thousand crimes, but I a.s.sert that there is not a soldier or a civil servant in India whose culpable acts are not owing to this man's example, connivance, and protection.

Everything which goes to criminate them goes directly against the prisoner. He puts them in a condition to plunder; he suffered no native authority or government to restrain them; and he never called a man to an account for these flagitious acts which he has thought proper to bring before his country in the most solemn manner and upon the most solemn occasion.

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

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

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

In the House of Commons there are undoubtedly powerful people who may be supposed to be influenced by patronage; but the higher and more powerful part of the country is more directly represented by your Lordships than by us, although we have of the first blood of England in the House of Commons. We do, indeed, represent, by the knights of the shires, the landed interest; by our city and borough members we represent the trading interest; we represent the whole people of England collectively.

But neither blood nor power is represented so fully in the House of Commons as that order which composes the great body of the people,--the protection of which is our peculiar duty, and to which it is our glory to adhere. But the dignities of the country, the great and powerful, are represented eminently by your Lordships. As we, therefore, would keep the lowest of the people from the contagion and dishonor of peculation and corruption, and above all from exercising that vice which, among commoners, is unnatural as well as abominable, the vice of tyranny and oppression, so we trust that your Lordships will clear yourselves and the higher and more powerful ranks from giving the smallest countenance to the system which we have done our duty in denouncing and bringing before you.

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

Did Mr. Francis, whom I saw here a little while ago, send these people into that country? Did General Clavering, or Colonel Monson, whom he charges with this system, send them there? No, they were sent by himself; and if one was sent by anybody else for a time, he was soon recalled: so that he is himself answerable for all the peculation which he attributes to the civil service. You see the character given of that service; you there see their accuser, you there see their defender, who, after having defamed both services, military and civil, never punished the guilty in either, and now receives the prodigal praises of both.

I defy the ingenuity of man to show that Mr. Hastings is not the defamer of the service. I defy the ingenuity of man to show that the honor of Great Britain has not been tarnished under his patronage. He engaged to remove all these bloodsuckers by the treaty of Chunar; but he never executed that treaty. He proposed to take away the temporary brigade; but he again established it. He redressed no grievance; he formed no improvements in the government; he never attempted to provide a remedy without increasing the evil tenfold. He was the primary and sole cause of all the grievances, civil and military, to which the unhappy natives of that country were exposed; and he was the accuser of all the immediate authors of those grievances, without having punished any one of them. He is the accuser of them all. But the only person whom he attempted to punish was that man who dared to a.s.sert the authority of the Court of Directors, and to claim an office a.s.signed to him by them.

I will now read to your Lordships the protest of General Clavering against the military brigade.--"Taking the army from the Nabob is an infringement of the rights of an independent prince, leaving only the name and t.i.tle of it without the power. It is taking his subjects from him, against every law of Nature and of nations."

I will next read to your Lordships a minute of Mr. Francis's.--"By the foregoing letter from Mr. Middleton it appears that he has taken the government of the Nabob's dominions directly upon himself. I was not a party to the resolutions which preceded that measure, and will not be answerable for the consequences of it."

The next paper I will read is one introduced by the Managers, to prove that a representation was made by the Nabob respecting the expenses of the gentlemen resident at his court, and written after the removal before mentioned.

_Extract of a Letter from the Vizier to Mr. Macpherson, received the 21st April, 1785._

"With respect to the expenses of the gentlemen who are here, I have before written in a covered manner; I now write plainly, that I have no ability to give money to the gentlemen, because I am indebted many lacs of rupees to the bankers for the payment of the Company's debt. At the time of Mr. Hastings's departure, I represented to him that I had no resources for the expenses of the gentlemen. Mr.

Hastings, having ascertained my distressed situation, told me that after his arrival in Calcutta he would consult with the Council, and remove from hence the expenses of the gentlemen, and recall every person except the gentlemen in office here. At this time that all the concerns are dependent upon you, and you have in every point given ease to my mind, according to Mr. Hastings's agreement, I hope that the expenses of the gentlemen maybe removed from me, and that you may recall every person residing here beyond the gentlemen in office. Although Major Palmer does not at this time demand anything for the gentlemen, and I have no ability to give them anything, yet the custom of the English gentlemen is, when they remain here, they will in the end ask for something. This is best, that they should be recalled."

I think so, too; and your Lordships will think so with me; but Mr.

Hastings, who says that he himself thought thus in September, 1781, and engaged to recall these gentlemen, was so afraid of their powerful friends and patrons here, that he left India, and left all that load of obloquy upon his successors. He left a Major Palmer there, in the place of a Resident: a Resident of his own, as your Lordships must see; for Major Palmer was no Resident of the Company's. This man received a salary of about 23,000_l._ a year, which he declared to be less than his expenses; by which we may easily judge of the enormous salaries of those who make their fortunes there. He was left by Mr. Hastings as his representative of peculation, his representative of tyranny. He was the second agent appointed to control all power ostensible and unostensible, and to head these gentlemen whose "custom," the Nabob says, "was in the end to ask for money." Money they must have; and there, my Lords, is the whole secret.

I have this day shown your Lordships the entire dependence of Oude on the British empire. I have shown you how Mr. Hastings usurped all power, reduced the prince to a cipher, and made of his minister a mere creature of his own,--how he made the servants of the Company dependent on his own arbitrary will, and considered independence a proof of corruption.

It has been likewise proved to your Lordships that he suffered the army to become an instrument of robbery and oppression, and one of its officers to be metamorphosed into a farmer-general to waste the country and embezzle its revenues. You have seen a clandestine and fraudulent system, occasioning violence and rapine; and you have seen the prisoner at the bar acknowledging and denouncing an abandoned spirit of rapacity without bringing its ministers to justice, and pleading as his excuse the fear of offending your Lordships and the House of Commons. We have shown you the government, revenue, commerce, and agriculture of Oude ruined and destroyed by Mr. Hastings and his creatures. And to wind up all, we have shown you an army so corrupted as to pervert the fundamental principles of justice, which are the elements and basis of military discipline. All this, I say, we have shown you; and I cannot believe that your Lordships will consider that we have trifled with your time, or strained our comments one jot beyond the strict measure of the text. We have shown you a horrible scene, arising from an astonishing combination of horrible circ.u.mstances. The order in which you will consider these circ.u.mstances must be left to your Lordships.

At present I am not able to proceed further. My next attempt will be to bring before you the manner in which Mr. Hastings treated movable and immovable property in Oude, and by which he has left nothing undestroyed in that devoted country.

END OF VOL. XI.