a year of his and their revenue, and leaves upon his
and their shoulders all the charges that can be made
* Mr.
and their shoulders all the charges that can be made
* Mr.
Edmund Burke
NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS.
81
fictitious private debts over the standing defence and
the standing government. It is there the public is
robbed. It is robbed in its army; it is robbed in its
civil administration; it is robbed in its credit; it is
robbed in its investment, which forms the commercial
connection between that country and Europe. There
is the robbery.
But my principal objection lies a good deal deeper.
That debt to the Company is the pretext under which
all the other debts lurk and cover themselves. That
debt forms the foul, putrid mucus in which are engendered the whole brood of creeping ascarides, all
the endless involutions, the eternal knot, added to
a knot of those inexpugnable tape-worms which de --
Vour the nutriment and eat up the bowels of India. *
It is necessary, Sir, you should recollect two things. .
First, that the Nabob's debt to the Company carries
no interest. In the next place, you will observe, that,
whenever the Company has occasion to borrow, she
has always commanded whatever she thought fit at
eight per cent. Carrying in your mind these two
facts, attend to the process with regard to the public
and private debt, and with what little appearance of
decency they play into each other's hands a game of
utter perdition to the unhappy natives of India. The
Nabob falls into an arrear to the Company. The Presidency presses for payment. The Nabob's answer is,
"I have no money. " Good! But there are soucars
who will supply you on the mortgage of your territories. Then steps forward some Paul Benfield, and,
from his grateful compassion to the Nabob, and his
* Proceeding at Madras, 11th February, 1769, and throughout.
the correspondence on this subject; particularly Consultations, October 4th, 1769, and the creditors' memorial, 20th January, 1770. VOL. III. 6
? ? ? ? S82 SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT S DEBTS.
filial regard to the Company, he unlocks the treasures of his virtuous industry, and, for a consideration of twenty-four or thirty-six per cent on a mortgage of the territorial revenue, becomes security to the Company for the Nabob's arrear.
All this intermediate usury thus becomes sanctified
by the ultimate view to the Company's payment. In
this case, would not a plain man ask this plain ques
tion of the Company: If you know that the Nabob
must annually mortgage his territories to your ser
vants to pay his annual arrear to you, why is not the
assignment or mortgage made directly to the Company
itself? By this simple, obvious operation, the Company would be relieved and the debt paid, without
the charge of a shilling interest to that prince. But
if that course should be thought too indulgent, why
do they not take that assignment with such interest
to themselves as they pay to others, that is, eight per
cent? Or if it were thought more advisable (why it
should I know not) that he must borrow, why do not
the Company lend their own credit to the Nabob for
their own payment? That credit would not be weakened by the collateral security of his territorial mortgage. The money might still be had at eight per
cent. Instead of any of these honest and obvious
methods, the Company has for years kept up a show
of disinterestedness and moderation, by suffering a
debt to accumulate to them from the country powers
without any interest at all; and at the same time
have seen before their eyes, on a pretext of borrowing
to pay that debt, the revenues of the country charged
with an usury of twenty, twenty-four, thirty-six, and
even eight-and-forty per cent, with compound interest,* for the benefit of their servants. All this time
* Appendix, No. 7.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS. 83 they know that by having a debt subsisting without any interest, which is to be paid by contracting a debt on the highest interest, they manifestly render it necessary to the Nabob of Arcot to give the private demand a preference to the public; and, by binding him and their servants together in a common cause, they enable him to form a party to the utter ruin of their own authority and their own affairs. Thus
their false moderation, and their affected purity, by
the natural operation of everything false and everything affected, becomes pander and bawd to the unbridled debauchery and licentious lewdness of usury and extortion.
In consequence of this double game, all the territorial revenues have at one time or other been covered by those locusts, the English soucars. Not one single foot of the Carnatic has escaped them: a territory as large as England. During these operations
what a scene has that country presented! * The
usurious European assignee supersedes the Nabob's
native farmer of the revenue; the farmer flies to the
Nabob's presence to claim his bargain; whilst his
servants murmur for wages, and his soldiers mutiny
* For some part of these usurious transactions, see Consultation,
28th January, 1781; and for the Nabob's excusing his oppressions
on account of these debts, Consultation, 26th November, 1770.
" Still I undertook, first, the payment of the money belonging to the
Company, who are my kind friends, and by borrowing, and mortgaging my jewels, tic. , by taking from every one of my servants, in proportion
to their circumstances, byfi'esh severities also on my country, notwithstanding its distressed state, as you know. " -The Board's remark is as
follows: after controverting some of the facts, they say, ", That his
countries are oppressed is most certain, but not from real necessity;
his debts, indeed, have afforded him a constant pretence for using severities
and cruel oppressions. "
? ? ? ? 84 SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS.
for pay. The mortgage to the European assignee is
then resumed, and the native farmer replaced, - replaced, again to be removed on the new clamor of
the European assignee. * Every man of rank and
landed fortune being long since extinguished, the remaining miserable last cultivator, who grows to the
soil, after having his back scored by the farmer, has
it again flayed by the whip of the assignee, and is
thus, by a ravenous, because a short-lived succession
of claimants, lashed from oppressor to oppressor,
whilst a single drop of blood is left as the means of
extorting a single grain of corn. Do not think I
paint. Far, very far, from it: I do not reach the
fact, nor approach to it. Men of respectable condition, men equal to your substantial English yeomen,
are daily tied up and scourged to answer the multiplied demands of various contending and contradictory titles, all issuing from one and the same source. Tyrannous exaction brings on servile concealment;
and that again calls forth tyrannous coercion. They
move in a circle, mutually producing and produced;
till at length nothing of humanity is left in the government, no trace of integrity, spirit, or manliness in
the people, who drag out a precarious and degraded
existence under this system of outrage upon human
nature. Such is the effect of the establishment of a
debt to the Company, as it has hitherto been managed, and as it ever will remain, until ideas are
adopted totally different from those which prevail at
this time.
* See Consultation, 28th January, 1781, where it is asserted, and
not denied, that the Nabob's farmers of revenue seldom continue for
three months together. From this the state of the country may be
easily judged of.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS. 85
Your worthy ministers, supporting what they are obliged to condemn, have thought fit to renew the Company's old order against contracting private debts in future. They begin by rewarding the violation of
the ancient law; and then they gravely reinact provisions, of which they have given bounties for the breach. This inconsistency has been well exposed. *
But what will you say to their having gone the length
of giving positive directions for contracting the debt
which they positively forbid?
I will explain myself. They order the Nabob, out
of the revenues of the Carnatic, to allot four hundred
and eighty thousand pounds a year, as a fund for the
debts before us. For the punctual payment of this
annuity, they order him to give soucar security. t
When a soucar, that is, a money-dealer, becomes security for any native prince, the course is for the
native prince to counter-secure the money-dealer, by
making over to him in mortgage a portion of his
territory equal to the sum annually to be paid, with
an interest of at least twenty-four per cent. The
point fit for the House to know is, who are these
soucars to whom this security on the revenues in
favor of the Nabob's creditors is to be given? The
majority of the House, unaccustomed to these transactions, will hear with astonishment that these soucars are no other than the creditors themselves. The minister, not content with authorizing these
transactions in a manner and to an extent unhoped
for by the rapacious expectations of usury itself,
loads the broken back of the Indian revenues, ill
favor of his worthy friends, the soucars, with an ad* In Mr. Fox's speech.
t The amended letter, Appendix, No. 9.
? ? ? ? 86 SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS. ditional twenty-four per cent for being security to themselves for their own claims, for condescending to take the country in mortgage to pay to themselves the fruits of their own extortions.
The interest to be paid for this security, according
to the most moderate strain of soucar demand, comes
to 118,0001. a year, which, added to the 480,0001.
on which it is to accrue, will make the whole charge
on account of these debts on the Carnatic revenues
amount to 598,0001. a year,-as much as even a long
peace will enable those revenues to produce. Can
any one reflect for a moment on all those claims of
debt, which the minister exhausts himself in contrivances to augment with new usuries, without lifting up his hands and eyes in astonishment at the impudence both of the claim and of the adjudication? Services of some kind or other these servants of the
Company must have done, so great and eminent
that the Chancellor of the Exchequer cannot think
that all they have brought home is half enough. He
hallooes after them, " Gentlemen, you have forgot a
large packet behind you, in your hurry; you have
not sufficiently recovered yourselves; you ought to
have, and you shall have, interest upon interest
upon a prohibited debt that is made up of interest
upon interest. Even this is too little. I have thought
of another character for you, by which you may add
something to your gains: you shall be security to
yourselves; and hence will arise a new usury, which
shall efface the memory of all the usuries suggested
to you by your own dull inventions. "
I have done with the arrangement relative to the
Carnatic. After this it is to little purpose to observe
on what the ministers have done to Tanjore. Your
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS. 87
ministers have not observed even form and ceremony in their outrageous and insulting robbery of that country, whose only crime has been its early and
constant adherence to the power of this, and the
suffering of an uniform pillage in consequence of it.
The debt of the Company from the Rajah of Tanjore
is just of the same stuff with that of the Nabob of
Arcot.
The subsidy from Tanjore, on the arrear of which
this pretended debt (if any there be) has accrued to
the Company, is not, like that paid by the Nabob
of Arcot, a compensation for vast countries obtained,
augmented, and preserved for him; not the price of
pillaged treasuries, ransacked houses, and plundered
territories: it is a large grant, from a small kingdom not obtained by our arms; robbed, not protected, by our power; a grant for which no equivalent was
ever given, or pretended to be given. The right
honorable gentleman, however, bears witness in his
reports to the punctuality of the payments of this
grant of bounty, or, if you please, of fear. It amounts
to one hundred and sixty thousand pounds sterling
net annual subsidy. He bears witness to a further
grant of a town and port, with an annexed district
of thirty thousand pound a year, surrendered to the
Company since the first donation. He has not borne
witness, but the fact is, (he will not deny it,) that in
the midst of war, and during the ruin and desolation
of a considerable part of his territories, this prince
made many very large payments. Notwithstanding
these merits and services, the first regulation of ministry is to force from him a territory of an extent which they have not yet thought proper to ascertain,*
* Appendix, No. 8.
? ? ? ? 88 SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT S DEBTS.
for a military peace establishment the particulars of
which they have not yet been pleased to settle.
The next part of their arrangement is with regard
to war. As confessedly this prince had no share in
stirring up ally of the former wars, so all future wars
are completely out of his power; for he has no troops
whatever, and is under a stipulation not so much as
to correspond with any foreign state, except through
the Company. Yet, in case the Company's servants
should be again involved in war, or should think
proper again to provoke any enemy, as in times past
they have wantonly provoked all India, he is to
be subjected to a new penalty. To what penalty?
Why, to no less than the confiscation of all his revenues. But this is to end with the war, and they are
to be faithfully returned? Oh, no! nothing like it.
The country is to remain under confiscation until all
the debt which the Company shall think fit to incur
in such war shall be discharged: that is to say, forever. His sole comfort is, to find his old enemy, the Nabob of Arcot, placed in the very same condition.
The revenues of that miserable country were, before the invasion of Hyder, reduced to a gross annual receipt of three hundred and sixty thousand pound. *
From this receipt the subsidy I have just stated is
taken. This again, by payments in advance, by extorting deposits of additional sums to a vast amount
for the benefit of their soucars, and by an endless variety of other extortions, public and private, is loaded with a debt, the amount of which I never could ascertain, but which is large undoubtedly, generating
an usury the most completely ruinous that probably
* Mr. Petrie's evidence before the Select Committee, Appendix,
No. 7.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS. 89
was ever heard of: that is, forty-eight per cent, payable
monthly, with compound interest. *
Such is the state to which the Company's servants
have reduced that country. Now come the reformers, restorers, and comforters of India. What have
they done? In addition to all these tyrannous exactions, with all these ruinous debts in their train, looking to one side of an agreement whilst they wilfully shut their eyes to the other, they withdraw from
Tanjore all the benefits of the treaty of 1762, and
they subject that nation to a perpetual tribute of forty thousand a year to the Nabob of Arcnt: a tribute
never due, or pretended to be due, to him, even when
he appeared to be something; a tribute, as things
now stand, not to a real potentate, but to a shadow,
a -dream, an incubus of oppression. After the Company has accepted in subsidy, in grant of territory, in
remission of rent, as a compensation for their own
protection, at least two hundred thousand pound a
year, without discounting a shilling for that receipt,
the ministers condemn this harassed nation to be
tributary to a person who is himself, by their own
arrangement, deprived of the right of war or peace,
deprived of the power of the sword, forbid to keep
up a single regiment of soldiers, and is therefore
wholly disabled from all protection of the country
which is the object of the pretended tribute. Tribute
hangs on the sword. It is an incident inseparable
from real, sovereign power. In the present case, to
suppose its existence is as absurd as it is cruel and
oppressive. And here, Mr. Speaker, you have a clear
exemplification of the use of those false names and
false colors which the gentlemen who have lately
* Appendix, No. 7.
? ? ? ? 90 SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS.
taken possession of India choose to lay on for the
purpose of disguising their plan of oppression. The
Nabob of Arcot and Rajah of Tanjore have, in truth
and substance, no more than a merely civil authority,
held in the most entire dependence on the Company.
The Nabob, without military, without federal capacity, is extinguished as a potentate; but then he is carefully kept alive as an independent and scvereign
power, for the purpose of rapine and extortion, - for
the purpose of perpetuating the old intrigues, animosities, usuries, and corruptions.
It was not enough that this mockery of tribute was
to be continued without the correspondent protection,
or any of the stipulated equivalents, but ten years of
arrear, to the amount of 400,0001. sterling, is added
to all the debts to the Company and to individuals,
in order to create a new debt, to be paid (if at all
possible to be paid in whole or in part) only by new
usuries, -- and all this for the Nabob of Arcot, or
rather for Mr. Benfield and the corps of the Nabob's
creditors and their soucars. Thus these miserable
Indian princes are continued in their seats for no
other purpose than to render them, in the first instance, objects of every species of extortion, and, in the second, to force them to become, for the sake of a
momentary shadow of reduced authority, a sort of
subordinate tyrants, the ruin and calamity, not the
fathers and cherishers, of their people.
But take this tribute only as a mere charge (without title, cause, or equivalent) on this people; what one step has been taken to furnish grounds for a just
calculation and estimate of the proportion of the burden and the ability? None, - not an attempt at it. They do not adapt the burden to the strength, but
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS. 91
they estimate the strength of the bearers by the burden they impose. Then what care is taken to leave
a fund sufficient to the future reproduction of the
revenues that are to bear all these loads? Every
one, but tolerably conversant in Indian affairs, must
know that the existence of this little kingdom depends on its control over the river Cavery. The benefits of Heaven to any community ought never to be connected with political arrangements, or made to
depend on the personal conduct of princes, in which
the mistake, or error, or neglect, or distress, or passion of a moment, on either side, may bring famine
on millions, and ruin an innocent nation perhaps for
ages. The means of the subsistence of mankind
should be as immutable as the laws of Nature, let
power and dominion take what course they may. Observe what has been done with regard to this important concern. The use of this river is, indeed, at length given to the Rajah, and a power provided for
its enjoyment at his own charge; but the means of
furnishing that charge (and a mighty one it is) are
wholly cut off. This use of the water, which ought
to have no more. connection than clouds and rains
and sunshine with the politics of the Rajah, the Nabob, or the Company, is expressly contrived as a
means of enforcing demands and arrears of tribute.
This horrid and unnatural instrument of extortion
had been a distinguishing feature in the enormities
of the Carnatic politics, that loudly called for reformation. But the food of a whole people is by the
reformers of India conditioned on payments from its
prince, at a moment that he is overpowered with a
swarm of their demands, without regard to the ability of either prince or people. In fine, by opening an
? ? ? ? 92 SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS.
avenue to the irruption of the Nabob of Arcot's creditors and soucars, whom every man, who did not fall
in love with oppression and corruption on an experience of the calamities they produced, would have
raised wall. before wall and mound before mound to
keep from a possibility of entrance, a more destructive enemy than Hyder Ali is introduced into that kingdom. By this part of their arrangement, in
which they establish a debt to the Nabob of Arcot,
in effect and substance, they deliver over Tanjore,
bound hand and foot, to Paul Benfield, the old betrayer, insulter, oppressor, and scourge of a country
which has for years been an object of an unremitted,
but, unhappily, an unequal struggle, between the
bounties of Providence to renovate and the wickedness of mankind to destroy.
The right honorable gentleman * talks of his fairness in determining the territorial dispute between
the Nabob of Arcot and the prince of that country,
when he superseded the determination of the Directors, in whom the law had vested the decision of that controversy. He is in this just as feeble as he is in
every other part. But it is not necessary to say a
word in refutation of any part of his argument. The
mode of the proceeding sufficiently speaks the spirit
of it. It is enough to fix his character as a judge,
that he never heard the Directors in defence of their adjudication, nor either of the parties in support of their respective claims. It is sufficient for me that he takes
from the Rajah of Tanjove by this pretended adjudication, or rather from his unhappy subjects, 40,0001.
a year of his and their revenue, and leaves upon his
and their shoulders all the charges that can be made
* Mr. Dundas.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE NABOBI OF ARCOT'S DEBTS. 93
on the part of the Nabob, on the part of his creditors,
and on the part of the Company, without so much as
hearing him as to right or to ability. But what principally induces me to leave the affair of the territorial dispute between the Nabob and the Rajah to another
day is this,- that, both the parties being stripped of
their all, it little signifies under which of their names
the umhappy, undone people are delivered over to the
merciless soucars, the allies of that right honorable
gentleman and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. In
them ends the account of this long dispute of the
Nabob of Arcot and the Rajah of Tanjore.
The right honorable gentleman is of opinion that
his judgment in this case can be censured by none
but those who seem to act as if they were paid agents
to one of the parties. What does he think of his Court
of Directors? If they are paid by either of the parties, by which of them does he think they are paid?
He knows that their decision has been directly contrary to his. Shall I believe that it does not enter
into his heart to conceive that any person can steadily and actively interest himself in the protection of the injured and oppressed without being well paid
for his service? I have taken notice of this sort of
discourse some days ago, so far as it may be supposed
to relate to me. I then contented myself, as I shall
now do, with giving it a cold, though a very direct
contradiction. Thus much I do from respect to truth.
If I did more, it might be supposed, by my anxiety to
clear myself, that I had imbibed the ideas which, for
obvious reasons, the right honorable gentleman wishes
to have received concerning all attempts to plead the
cause of the natives of India, as if it were a disreputable employment. If he had not forgot, in his pres
? ? ? ? 94 SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS.
ent occupation, every principle which ought to have
guided him, and I hope did guide him, in his late
profession, he would have known that he who takes
a fee for pleading the cause of distress against power,
and manfully performs the duty he has assumed, receives an honorable recompense for a virtuous service.
But if the right honorable gentleman will have no regard to fact in his insinuations or to reason in his
opinions, I wish him at least to consider, that, if taking
an earnest part with regard to the oppressions exercised in India, and with regard to this most oppressive
case of Tanjore in particular, can ground a presumption of interested motives, he is himself the most mercenary man I know. His conduct, indeed, is such that he is on all occasions the standing testimony
against himself. He it was that first called to that
case the attention of the House; the reports of his
own committee are ample and affecting upon that
subject; * and as many of us as have escaped his
massacre must remember the very pathetic picture
he made of the sufferings of the Tanjore country, on
the day when he moved the unwieldy code of his Indian resolutions. Has he not stated over and over
again, in his reports, the ill treatment of the Rajah
of Tanjore (a branch of the royal house of the Mahrattas, every injury to whom the Mahrattas felt as offered
to themselves) as a main cause of the alienation of
that people from the British power? And does he
now think that to betray his principles, to contradict
his declarations, and to become himself an active instrument in those oppressions which he had so tragically lamented, is the way to clear himself of having See Report IV. , Committee of Secrecy, pp. 73 and 74; and Appendix, in sundry places.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT S DEBTS. 95 been actuated by a pecuniary interest at the time when he chose to appear full of tenderness to that ruined nation?
The right honorable gentleman is fond of parading
on the motives of others, and on his own. As to himself, he despises the imputations of those who suppose that anything corrupt could influence him in this his
unexampled liberality of the public treasure. I do
not know that I am obliged to speak to the motives
of ministry, in the arrangements they have made of
the pretended debts of Arcot and Tanjore. If I prove
fraud and collusion with regard to public money on
those right honorable gentlemen, I am not obliged
to assign their motives; because no good motives can
be pleaded in favor of their conduct. Upon that case
I stand; we are at issue; and I desire to go to trial.
This, I am sure, is not loose railing, or mean insinuation, according to their low and degenerate fashion, when they make attacks on the measures of their adversaries. It is a regular and juridical course; and unless I choose it, nothing can compel me to go
further.
But since these unhappy gentlemen have dared to
hold a lofty tone about their motives, and affect to
despise suspicion, instead of being careful not to give
cause for it, I shall beg leave to lay before you some
general observations on what I conceive was their
duty in so delicate a business.
If I were worthy to suggest any line of prudence
to that right honorable gentleman, I would tell him
that the way to avoid suspicion in the settlement of
pecuniary transactions, in which great frauds have
been very strongly presumed, is, to attend to these
few plain principles: -- First, to hear all parties
? ? ? ? 96 SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS. equally, and not the managers for the suspected claimants only; not to proceed in the dark, but
to act with as much publicity as possible; not to precipitate decision; to be religious in following the rules prescribed in the commission under which we act; and, lastly, and above all, not to be fond of straining constructions, to force a jurisdiction, and to draw to ourselves the management of a trust in its nature invidious and obnoxious to suspicion, where the plainest letter of the law does not compel it. If these few plain rules are observed, no corruption ought to be suspected; if any of them are violated, suspicion will attach in proportion; if all of them
are violated, a corrupt motive of some kind or other
will not only be suspected, but must be violently
presumed.
The persons in whose favor all these rules have
been violated, and the conduct of ministers towards
them, will naturally call for your consideration, and
will serve to lead you through a series and combination of facts and characters, if I do not mistake, into the very inmost recesses of this mysterious business.
You will then be in possession of all the materials
on which the principles of sound jurisprudence will
found, or will reject, the presumption of corrupt motives, or, if such motives are indicated, will point out to you of what particular nature the corruption is.
Our wonderful minister, as you all know, formed a
new plan, a plan insigne, recens, indictum ore aio, a
plan for supporting the freedom of our Constitution
by court intrigues, and for removing its corruptions
by Indian delinquency. To carry that bold, paradoxical design into execution, sufficient funds and apt instruments became necessary. You are perfectly
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS. 97
sensible that a Parliamentary reform occupies his
thoughts day and night, as an essential member in
this extraordinary project. In his anxious researches
upon this subject, natural instinct, as well as sound
policy, would direct his eyes and settle his choice on
Paul Benfield. Paul Benfield is the grand Parliamentary reformer, the reformer to whom the whole choir of reformers bow, and to whom even the right
honorable gentleman himself must yield the palm:
for what region in the empire, what city, what borough, what county, what tribunal in this kingdom is
not full of his labors? Others have been only speculators; he is the grand practical reformer; and whilst
the Chancellor of the Exchequer pledges in vain the
man and the minister, to increase the provincial
members, Mr. Benfield has auspiciously and practically begun it. Leaving far behind him even Lord
Camelford's generous design of bestowing Old Sarum
on the Bank of England, Mr. Benfield has thrown in
the borough of Cricklade to reinforce the county representation. Net content with this, in order to station a steady phalanx for all future reforms, this public-spirited usurer, amidst his charitable toils for
the relief of India, did not forget the poor, rotten
Constitution of his native country. For her, he did,
not disdain to stoop to the trade of a wholesale upholsterer for this House, --to furnish it, not with the
faded tapestry figures of antiquated merit, such as
decorate, and may reproach, some other houses, but
with real, solid, living patterns of true modern virtue.
Paul Benfield made (reckoning himself) no fewer
than eight members in the last Parliament. What
copious streams of pure blood must he not have trans --
fused into the veins of the present!
VOL. III. 7
? ? ? ? 98 SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS.
But what is even more striking than the real services of this new-imported patriot is his modesty.
As soon as he had conferred this benefit on the Constitution, he withdrew himself from our applause.
He conceived that the duties of a member of Parliament (which with the elect faithful, the true believers, the Islam of Parliamentary reform, are of little or no
merit, perhaps not much better than specious sins)
might be as well attended to in India as in England,
and the means of reformation to Parliament itself be
far better provided. Mr. Benfield was therefore no
sooner elected than he set off for Madras, and defrauded the longing eyes of Parliament. We have
never enjoyed in this House the luxury of beholding
that minion of the human race, and contemplating
that visage which has so long reflected the happiness
of nations.
It was therefore not possible for the minister to
consult personally with this great man. What, then,
was he to do? Through a sagacity that never failed
him in these pursuits, he found out, in Mr. Benfield's
representative, his exact resemblance. A specific
attraction, by which he gravitates towards all such
characters, soon brought our minister into a close
connection with Mr. Benfield's agent and attorney,
that is, with the grand contractor, (whom I name to
honor,) Mr. Richard Atkinson, - a name that will be
well remembered as long as the records of this House,
as long as the records of the British Treasury, as long
as the monumental debt of England, shall endure.
This gentleman, Sir, acts as attorney for Mr. Paul
Benfield. Every one who hears me is well acquainted with the sacred friendship and the steady mutual attachment that subsists between him and the present
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT S DEBTS. 99
minister. As many members as chose to attend in
the first session of this Parliament can best tell their
own feelings at the scenes which were then acted.
How much that honorable gentleman was consulted
in the original frame and fabric of the bill, commonly
called Mr. Pitt's India Bill, is matter only of conjecture, though by no means difficult to divine. But the public was an indignant witness of the ostentation
with which the measure was made his own, and the
authority with which he brought up clause after
clause, to stuff and fatten the rankness of that corrupt act. As fast as the clauses were brought up
to the table, they were accepted. No hesitation, no
discussion. They were received by the new minister, not with approbation, but with implicit submission. The reformation may be estimated by seeing who was the reformer. Paul Benfield's associate and
agent was held up to the world as legislator of Hindostan. But it was necessary to authenticate the
coalition between the men of intrigue in India and
the minister of intrigue in England by a studied
display of the power of this their connecting link.
Every trust, every honor, every distinction, was to be
heaped upon him. He was at once made a Director
of the India Company, made an alderman of London,
and to be made, if ministry could prevail, (and I am
sorry to say how near, how very near, they were prevailing,) representative of the capital of this kingdom. But to secure his services against all risk, he was brought in for a ministerial borough. On his
part, he was not wanting in zeal for the common
cause. His advertisements show his motives, and
the merits upon which he stood. For your minister, this worn-out veteran submitted to enter into the,
? ? ? ? 100 SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS.
dusty field of the London contest; and you all re.
member that in the same virtuous cause he submitted to keep a sort of public office or counting-house,
where the whole business of the last general election was managed. It was openly managed by the
direct agent and attorney of Benfield. It was managed upon Indian principles and for an Indian interest. This was the golden cup of abominations, this the chalice of the fornications of rapine, usury,
and oppression, which was held out by the gorgeous
Eastern harlot, --which so many of the people, so
many of the nobles of this land had drained to the
very dregs. Do you think that no reckoning was to
follow this lewd debauch? that no payment was to
be demanded for this riot of public drunkenness and
national prostitution? Here, you have it here before
you! The principal of the grand election-manager
must be indemnified; accordingly, the claims of Benfield and his crew must be put above all inquiry.
For several years Benfield appeared as the chief
proprietor, as well as the chief agent, director, and
controller of this system of debt. The worthy chairman of the Company has stated the claims of this
single gentleman on the Nabob of Arcot as amounting to five hundred thousand pound. * Possibly at
the time of the chairman's state they might have
been as high. Eight hundred thousand pound had
been mentioned some time before;t and, according
to the practice of shifting the names of creditors
in these transactions, and reducing or raising the
debt itself at pleasure, I think it not impossible that
at one period the name of Benfield might have stood
* Mr. Smith's protest.
t Madras correspondence on this subject.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS. 101
before those frightful figures. But my best information goes to fix his share no higher than four hundred thousand pounds. By the scheme of the present ministry for adding to the principal twelve per cent
from the year 1777 to the year 1781, four hundred
thousand pounds, that smallest of the sums ever
mentioned for Mr. Benfield, will form a capital of
592,0001. at six per cent. Thus, besides the arrears
of three years, amounting to 106,5001. , (which, as
fast as received, may be legally lent out at twelve
per cent,) Benfield has received, by the ministerial
grant before you, an annuity of 35,5201. a year,
charged on the public revenues.
Our mirror of ministers of finance did not think
this enough for the services of such a friend as Benfield. He found that Lord Macartney, in order to
frighten the Court of Directors from the project of
obliging the Nabob to give soucar security for his
debt, assured them, that, if they should take that
step, Benfield* would infallibly be the soucar, and
would thereby become the entire master of the Carnatic. What Lord Macartney thought sufficient to
deter the very agents and partakers with Benfield in
his iniquities was the inducement to the two right
honorable gentlemen to order this very soucar security to be given, and to recall Benfield to the city of
Madras from the sort of decent exile into which he
had been relegated by Lord Maoartney. You must
therefore consider Benfield as soucar security for
180,0001. a year, which, at twenty-four per cent,
(supposing him contented with that profit,) will,
with the interest of his old debt, produce ail annual
income of 149,5201. a year.
* Appendix, No 6.
? ? ? ? 102 SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS.
Here is a specimen of the new and pure aristocracy created by the right honorable gentleman,* as the support of the crown and Constitution against
the old, corrupt, refractory, natural interests of this
kingdom; and this is the grand counterpoise against
all odious coalitions of these interests. A single
Benfield outweighs them all: a criminal, who long
since ought to have fattened the region kites with his
offal, is by his Majesty's ministers enthroned in the
government of a great kingdom, and enfeoffed with
an estate which in the comparison effaces the splendor of all the nobility of Europe. To bring a little more distinctly into view the true secret of this
dark transaction, I beg you particularly to advert to
the circumstances which I am going to place before
you.
The general corps of creditors, as well as Mr.
Benfield himself, not looking well into futurity, nor
presaging the minister of this day, thought it not
expedient for their common interest that such a
name as his should stand at the head of their list.
It was therefore agreed amongst them that Mr. Benfield should disappear, by making over his debt to Messrs. Taylor, Majendie, and Call, and should in
return be secured by their bond.
The debt thus exonerated of so great a weight of
its odium, and otherwise reduced from its alarming
bulk, the agents thought they might venture to print
a list of the creditors. This was done for the first time
in. the year 1783, during the Duke of Portland's administration. In this list the name of Benfield was not to be seen. To this strong negative testimony
was added the further testimony of the Nabob of Ar* Right Honorable William Pitt.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS. 103
cot. That prince * (or rather Mr. Benfield for him)
writes to the Court of Directors a letter t full of complaints and accusations against Lord Macartney, conveyed in such terms as were natural for one of Mr. Benfield's habits and education to employ. Amongst
the rest he is made to complain of his Lordship's endeavoring to prevent an intercourse of politeness and
sentiment between him and Mr. Benfield; and to
aggravate the affront, he expressly declares Mr. Benfield's visits to be only on account of respect and of
gratitude, as no pecuniary transaction subsisted be
tween them.
Such, for a considerable space of time, was the outward form of the loan of 1777, in which Mr. Benfield
had no sort of concern. At length intelligence arrived at Madras, that this debt, which had always
been renounced by the Court of Directors, was rather
like to become the subject of something more like a
criminal inquiry than of any patronage or sanction
from Parliament. Every ship brought accounts, one
stronger than the other, of the prevalence of the determined enemies of tile Indian system. The public
revenues became an object desperate to the hopes of
Mr. Benfield; he therefore resolved to fall upon his
associates, and, in violation of that faith which subsists among those who have abandoned all other,
commences a suit in the Mayor's Court against Taylor, Majendie, and Call, for the bond given to him,
when he agreed to disappear for his own benefit as
* Appendix, No. 10.
t Dated 13th October. For further illustration of the style in
which these letters were written, and the principles on which they
proceed, see letters from the Nabob to the Court of Directors, dated
August 16th and September 7th, 1783, delivered by Mr. James Macpherson, minister to the Nabob, January 14, 1784. Appendix, No. 10.
? ? ?
fictitious private debts over the standing defence and
the standing government. It is there the public is
robbed. It is robbed in its army; it is robbed in its
civil administration; it is robbed in its credit; it is
robbed in its investment, which forms the commercial
connection between that country and Europe. There
is the robbery.
But my principal objection lies a good deal deeper.
That debt to the Company is the pretext under which
all the other debts lurk and cover themselves. That
debt forms the foul, putrid mucus in which are engendered the whole brood of creeping ascarides, all
the endless involutions, the eternal knot, added to
a knot of those inexpugnable tape-worms which de --
Vour the nutriment and eat up the bowels of India. *
It is necessary, Sir, you should recollect two things. .
First, that the Nabob's debt to the Company carries
no interest. In the next place, you will observe, that,
whenever the Company has occasion to borrow, she
has always commanded whatever she thought fit at
eight per cent. Carrying in your mind these two
facts, attend to the process with regard to the public
and private debt, and with what little appearance of
decency they play into each other's hands a game of
utter perdition to the unhappy natives of India. The
Nabob falls into an arrear to the Company. The Presidency presses for payment. The Nabob's answer is,
"I have no money. " Good! But there are soucars
who will supply you on the mortgage of your territories. Then steps forward some Paul Benfield, and,
from his grateful compassion to the Nabob, and his
* Proceeding at Madras, 11th February, 1769, and throughout.
the correspondence on this subject; particularly Consultations, October 4th, 1769, and the creditors' memorial, 20th January, 1770. VOL. III. 6
? ? ? ? S82 SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT S DEBTS.
filial regard to the Company, he unlocks the treasures of his virtuous industry, and, for a consideration of twenty-four or thirty-six per cent on a mortgage of the territorial revenue, becomes security to the Company for the Nabob's arrear.
All this intermediate usury thus becomes sanctified
by the ultimate view to the Company's payment. In
this case, would not a plain man ask this plain ques
tion of the Company: If you know that the Nabob
must annually mortgage his territories to your ser
vants to pay his annual arrear to you, why is not the
assignment or mortgage made directly to the Company
itself? By this simple, obvious operation, the Company would be relieved and the debt paid, without
the charge of a shilling interest to that prince. But
if that course should be thought too indulgent, why
do they not take that assignment with such interest
to themselves as they pay to others, that is, eight per
cent? Or if it were thought more advisable (why it
should I know not) that he must borrow, why do not
the Company lend their own credit to the Nabob for
their own payment? That credit would not be weakened by the collateral security of his territorial mortgage. The money might still be had at eight per
cent. Instead of any of these honest and obvious
methods, the Company has for years kept up a show
of disinterestedness and moderation, by suffering a
debt to accumulate to them from the country powers
without any interest at all; and at the same time
have seen before their eyes, on a pretext of borrowing
to pay that debt, the revenues of the country charged
with an usury of twenty, twenty-four, thirty-six, and
even eight-and-forty per cent, with compound interest,* for the benefit of their servants. All this time
* Appendix, No. 7.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS. 83 they know that by having a debt subsisting without any interest, which is to be paid by contracting a debt on the highest interest, they manifestly render it necessary to the Nabob of Arcot to give the private demand a preference to the public; and, by binding him and their servants together in a common cause, they enable him to form a party to the utter ruin of their own authority and their own affairs. Thus
their false moderation, and their affected purity, by
the natural operation of everything false and everything affected, becomes pander and bawd to the unbridled debauchery and licentious lewdness of usury and extortion.
In consequence of this double game, all the territorial revenues have at one time or other been covered by those locusts, the English soucars. Not one single foot of the Carnatic has escaped them: a territory as large as England. During these operations
what a scene has that country presented! * The
usurious European assignee supersedes the Nabob's
native farmer of the revenue; the farmer flies to the
Nabob's presence to claim his bargain; whilst his
servants murmur for wages, and his soldiers mutiny
* For some part of these usurious transactions, see Consultation,
28th January, 1781; and for the Nabob's excusing his oppressions
on account of these debts, Consultation, 26th November, 1770.
" Still I undertook, first, the payment of the money belonging to the
Company, who are my kind friends, and by borrowing, and mortgaging my jewels, tic. , by taking from every one of my servants, in proportion
to their circumstances, byfi'esh severities also on my country, notwithstanding its distressed state, as you know. " -The Board's remark is as
follows: after controverting some of the facts, they say, ", That his
countries are oppressed is most certain, but not from real necessity;
his debts, indeed, have afforded him a constant pretence for using severities
and cruel oppressions. "
? ? ? ? 84 SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS.
for pay. The mortgage to the European assignee is
then resumed, and the native farmer replaced, - replaced, again to be removed on the new clamor of
the European assignee. * Every man of rank and
landed fortune being long since extinguished, the remaining miserable last cultivator, who grows to the
soil, after having his back scored by the farmer, has
it again flayed by the whip of the assignee, and is
thus, by a ravenous, because a short-lived succession
of claimants, lashed from oppressor to oppressor,
whilst a single drop of blood is left as the means of
extorting a single grain of corn. Do not think I
paint. Far, very far, from it: I do not reach the
fact, nor approach to it. Men of respectable condition, men equal to your substantial English yeomen,
are daily tied up and scourged to answer the multiplied demands of various contending and contradictory titles, all issuing from one and the same source. Tyrannous exaction brings on servile concealment;
and that again calls forth tyrannous coercion. They
move in a circle, mutually producing and produced;
till at length nothing of humanity is left in the government, no trace of integrity, spirit, or manliness in
the people, who drag out a precarious and degraded
existence under this system of outrage upon human
nature. Such is the effect of the establishment of a
debt to the Company, as it has hitherto been managed, and as it ever will remain, until ideas are
adopted totally different from those which prevail at
this time.
* See Consultation, 28th January, 1781, where it is asserted, and
not denied, that the Nabob's farmers of revenue seldom continue for
three months together. From this the state of the country may be
easily judged of.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS. 85
Your worthy ministers, supporting what they are obliged to condemn, have thought fit to renew the Company's old order against contracting private debts in future. They begin by rewarding the violation of
the ancient law; and then they gravely reinact provisions, of which they have given bounties for the breach. This inconsistency has been well exposed. *
But what will you say to their having gone the length
of giving positive directions for contracting the debt
which they positively forbid?
I will explain myself. They order the Nabob, out
of the revenues of the Carnatic, to allot four hundred
and eighty thousand pounds a year, as a fund for the
debts before us. For the punctual payment of this
annuity, they order him to give soucar security. t
When a soucar, that is, a money-dealer, becomes security for any native prince, the course is for the
native prince to counter-secure the money-dealer, by
making over to him in mortgage a portion of his
territory equal to the sum annually to be paid, with
an interest of at least twenty-four per cent. The
point fit for the House to know is, who are these
soucars to whom this security on the revenues in
favor of the Nabob's creditors is to be given? The
majority of the House, unaccustomed to these transactions, will hear with astonishment that these soucars are no other than the creditors themselves. The minister, not content with authorizing these
transactions in a manner and to an extent unhoped
for by the rapacious expectations of usury itself,
loads the broken back of the Indian revenues, ill
favor of his worthy friends, the soucars, with an ad* In Mr. Fox's speech.
t The amended letter, Appendix, No. 9.
? ? ? ? 86 SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS. ditional twenty-four per cent for being security to themselves for their own claims, for condescending to take the country in mortgage to pay to themselves the fruits of their own extortions.
The interest to be paid for this security, according
to the most moderate strain of soucar demand, comes
to 118,0001. a year, which, added to the 480,0001.
on which it is to accrue, will make the whole charge
on account of these debts on the Carnatic revenues
amount to 598,0001. a year,-as much as even a long
peace will enable those revenues to produce. Can
any one reflect for a moment on all those claims of
debt, which the minister exhausts himself in contrivances to augment with new usuries, without lifting up his hands and eyes in astonishment at the impudence both of the claim and of the adjudication? Services of some kind or other these servants of the
Company must have done, so great and eminent
that the Chancellor of the Exchequer cannot think
that all they have brought home is half enough. He
hallooes after them, " Gentlemen, you have forgot a
large packet behind you, in your hurry; you have
not sufficiently recovered yourselves; you ought to
have, and you shall have, interest upon interest
upon a prohibited debt that is made up of interest
upon interest. Even this is too little. I have thought
of another character for you, by which you may add
something to your gains: you shall be security to
yourselves; and hence will arise a new usury, which
shall efface the memory of all the usuries suggested
to you by your own dull inventions. "
I have done with the arrangement relative to the
Carnatic. After this it is to little purpose to observe
on what the ministers have done to Tanjore. Your
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS. 87
ministers have not observed even form and ceremony in their outrageous and insulting robbery of that country, whose only crime has been its early and
constant adherence to the power of this, and the
suffering of an uniform pillage in consequence of it.
The debt of the Company from the Rajah of Tanjore
is just of the same stuff with that of the Nabob of
Arcot.
The subsidy from Tanjore, on the arrear of which
this pretended debt (if any there be) has accrued to
the Company, is not, like that paid by the Nabob
of Arcot, a compensation for vast countries obtained,
augmented, and preserved for him; not the price of
pillaged treasuries, ransacked houses, and plundered
territories: it is a large grant, from a small kingdom not obtained by our arms; robbed, not protected, by our power; a grant for which no equivalent was
ever given, or pretended to be given. The right
honorable gentleman, however, bears witness in his
reports to the punctuality of the payments of this
grant of bounty, or, if you please, of fear. It amounts
to one hundred and sixty thousand pounds sterling
net annual subsidy. He bears witness to a further
grant of a town and port, with an annexed district
of thirty thousand pound a year, surrendered to the
Company since the first donation. He has not borne
witness, but the fact is, (he will not deny it,) that in
the midst of war, and during the ruin and desolation
of a considerable part of his territories, this prince
made many very large payments. Notwithstanding
these merits and services, the first regulation of ministry is to force from him a territory of an extent which they have not yet thought proper to ascertain,*
* Appendix, No. 8.
? ? ? ? 88 SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT S DEBTS.
for a military peace establishment the particulars of
which they have not yet been pleased to settle.
The next part of their arrangement is with regard
to war. As confessedly this prince had no share in
stirring up ally of the former wars, so all future wars
are completely out of his power; for he has no troops
whatever, and is under a stipulation not so much as
to correspond with any foreign state, except through
the Company. Yet, in case the Company's servants
should be again involved in war, or should think
proper again to provoke any enemy, as in times past
they have wantonly provoked all India, he is to
be subjected to a new penalty. To what penalty?
Why, to no less than the confiscation of all his revenues. But this is to end with the war, and they are
to be faithfully returned? Oh, no! nothing like it.
The country is to remain under confiscation until all
the debt which the Company shall think fit to incur
in such war shall be discharged: that is to say, forever. His sole comfort is, to find his old enemy, the Nabob of Arcot, placed in the very same condition.
The revenues of that miserable country were, before the invasion of Hyder, reduced to a gross annual receipt of three hundred and sixty thousand pound. *
From this receipt the subsidy I have just stated is
taken. This again, by payments in advance, by extorting deposits of additional sums to a vast amount
for the benefit of their soucars, and by an endless variety of other extortions, public and private, is loaded with a debt, the amount of which I never could ascertain, but which is large undoubtedly, generating
an usury the most completely ruinous that probably
* Mr. Petrie's evidence before the Select Committee, Appendix,
No. 7.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS. 89
was ever heard of: that is, forty-eight per cent, payable
monthly, with compound interest. *
Such is the state to which the Company's servants
have reduced that country. Now come the reformers, restorers, and comforters of India. What have
they done? In addition to all these tyrannous exactions, with all these ruinous debts in their train, looking to one side of an agreement whilst they wilfully shut their eyes to the other, they withdraw from
Tanjore all the benefits of the treaty of 1762, and
they subject that nation to a perpetual tribute of forty thousand a year to the Nabob of Arcnt: a tribute
never due, or pretended to be due, to him, even when
he appeared to be something; a tribute, as things
now stand, not to a real potentate, but to a shadow,
a -dream, an incubus of oppression. After the Company has accepted in subsidy, in grant of territory, in
remission of rent, as a compensation for their own
protection, at least two hundred thousand pound a
year, without discounting a shilling for that receipt,
the ministers condemn this harassed nation to be
tributary to a person who is himself, by their own
arrangement, deprived of the right of war or peace,
deprived of the power of the sword, forbid to keep
up a single regiment of soldiers, and is therefore
wholly disabled from all protection of the country
which is the object of the pretended tribute. Tribute
hangs on the sword. It is an incident inseparable
from real, sovereign power. In the present case, to
suppose its existence is as absurd as it is cruel and
oppressive. And here, Mr. Speaker, you have a clear
exemplification of the use of those false names and
false colors which the gentlemen who have lately
* Appendix, No. 7.
? ? ? ? 90 SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS.
taken possession of India choose to lay on for the
purpose of disguising their plan of oppression. The
Nabob of Arcot and Rajah of Tanjore have, in truth
and substance, no more than a merely civil authority,
held in the most entire dependence on the Company.
The Nabob, without military, without federal capacity, is extinguished as a potentate; but then he is carefully kept alive as an independent and scvereign
power, for the purpose of rapine and extortion, - for
the purpose of perpetuating the old intrigues, animosities, usuries, and corruptions.
It was not enough that this mockery of tribute was
to be continued without the correspondent protection,
or any of the stipulated equivalents, but ten years of
arrear, to the amount of 400,0001. sterling, is added
to all the debts to the Company and to individuals,
in order to create a new debt, to be paid (if at all
possible to be paid in whole or in part) only by new
usuries, -- and all this for the Nabob of Arcot, or
rather for Mr. Benfield and the corps of the Nabob's
creditors and their soucars. Thus these miserable
Indian princes are continued in their seats for no
other purpose than to render them, in the first instance, objects of every species of extortion, and, in the second, to force them to become, for the sake of a
momentary shadow of reduced authority, a sort of
subordinate tyrants, the ruin and calamity, not the
fathers and cherishers, of their people.
But take this tribute only as a mere charge (without title, cause, or equivalent) on this people; what one step has been taken to furnish grounds for a just
calculation and estimate of the proportion of the burden and the ability? None, - not an attempt at it. They do not adapt the burden to the strength, but
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS. 91
they estimate the strength of the bearers by the burden they impose. Then what care is taken to leave
a fund sufficient to the future reproduction of the
revenues that are to bear all these loads? Every
one, but tolerably conversant in Indian affairs, must
know that the existence of this little kingdom depends on its control over the river Cavery. The benefits of Heaven to any community ought never to be connected with political arrangements, or made to
depend on the personal conduct of princes, in which
the mistake, or error, or neglect, or distress, or passion of a moment, on either side, may bring famine
on millions, and ruin an innocent nation perhaps for
ages. The means of the subsistence of mankind
should be as immutable as the laws of Nature, let
power and dominion take what course they may. Observe what has been done with regard to this important concern. The use of this river is, indeed, at length given to the Rajah, and a power provided for
its enjoyment at his own charge; but the means of
furnishing that charge (and a mighty one it is) are
wholly cut off. This use of the water, which ought
to have no more. connection than clouds and rains
and sunshine with the politics of the Rajah, the Nabob, or the Company, is expressly contrived as a
means of enforcing demands and arrears of tribute.
This horrid and unnatural instrument of extortion
had been a distinguishing feature in the enormities
of the Carnatic politics, that loudly called for reformation. But the food of a whole people is by the
reformers of India conditioned on payments from its
prince, at a moment that he is overpowered with a
swarm of their demands, without regard to the ability of either prince or people. In fine, by opening an
? ? ? ? 92 SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS.
avenue to the irruption of the Nabob of Arcot's creditors and soucars, whom every man, who did not fall
in love with oppression and corruption on an experience of the calamities they produced, would have
raised wall. before wall and mound before mound to
keep from a possibility of entrance, a more destructive enemy than Hyder Ali is introduced into that kingdom. By this part of their arrangement, in
which they establish a debt to the Nabob of Arcot,
in effect and substance, they deliver over Tanjore,
bound hand and foot, to Paul Benfield, the old betrayer, insulter, oppressor, and scourge of a country
which has for years been an object of an unremitted,
but, unhappily, an unequal struggle, between the
bounties of Providence to renovate and the wickedness of mankind to destroy.
The right honorable gentleman * talks of his fairness in determining the territorial dispute between
the Nabob of Arcot and the prince of that country,
when he superseded the determination of the Directors, in whom the law had vested the decision of that controversy. He is in this just as feeble as he is in
every other part. But it is not necessary to say a
word in refutation of any part of his argument. The
mode of the proceeding sufficiently speaks the spirit
of it. It is enough to fix his character as a judge,
that he never heard the Directors in defence of their adjudication, nor either of the parties in support of their respective claims. It is sufficient for me that he takes
from the Rajah of Tanjove by this pretended adjudication, or rather from his unhappy subjects, 40,0001.
a year of his and their revenue, and leaves upon his
and their shoulders all the charges that can be made
* Mr. Dundas.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE NABOBI OF ARCOT'S DEBTS. 93
on the part of the Nabob, on the part of his creditors,
and on the part of the Company, without so much as
hearing him as to right or to ability. But what principally induces me to leave the affair of the territorial dispute between the Nabob and the Rajah to another
day is this,- that, both the parties being stripped of
their all, it little signifies under which of their names
the umhappy, undone people are delivered over to the
merciless soucars, the allies of that right honorable
gentleman and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. In
them ends the account of this long dispute of the
Nabob of Arcot and the Rajah of Tanjore.
The right honorable gentleman is of opinion that
his judgment in this case can be censured by none
but those who seem to act as if they were paid agents
to one of the parties. What does he think of his Court
of Directors? If they are paid by either of the parties, by which of them does he think they are paid?
He knows that their decision has been directly contrary to his. Shall I believe that it does not enter
into his heart to conceive that any person can steadily and actively interest himself in the protection of the injured and oppressed without being well paid
for his service? I have taken notice of this sort of
discourse some days ago, so far as it may be supposed
to relate to me. I then contented myself, as I shall
now do, with giving it a cold, though a very direct
contradiction. Thus much I do from respect to truth.
If I did more, it might be supposed, by my anxiety to
clear myself, that I had imbibed the ideas which, for
obvious reasons, the right honorable gentleman wishes
to have received concerning all attempts to plead the
cause of the natives of India, as if it were a disreputable employment. If he had not forgot, in his pres
? ? ? ? 94 SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS.
ent occupation, every principle which ought to have
guided him, and I hope did guide him, in his late
profession, he would have known that he who takes
a fee for pleading the cause of distress against power,
and manfully performs the duty he has assumed, receives an honorable recompense for a virtuous service.
But if the right honorable gentleman will have no regard to fact in his insinuations or to reason in his
opinions, I wish him at least to consider, that, if taking
an earnest part with regard to the oppressions exercised in India, and with regard to this most oppressive
case of Tanjore in particular, can ground a presumption of interested motives, he is himself the most mercenary man I know. His conduct, indeed, is such that he is on all occasions the standing testimony
against himself. He it was that first called to that
case the attention of the House; the reports of his
own committee are ample and affecting upon that
subject; * and as many of us as have escaped his
massacre must remember the very pathetic picture
he made of the sufferings of the Tanjore country, on
the day when he moved the unwieldy code of his Indian resolutions. Has he not stated over and over
again, in his reports, the ill treatment of the Rajah
of Tanjore (a branch of the royal house of the Mahrattas, every injury to whom the Mahrattas felt as offered
to themselves) as a main cause of the alienation of
that people from the British power? And does he
now think that to betray his principles, to contradict
his declarations, and to become himself an active instrument in those oppressions which he had so tragically lamented, is the way to clear himself of having See Report IV. , Committee of Secrecy, pp. 73 and 74; and Appendix, in sundry places.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT S DEBTS. 95 been actuated by a pecuniary interest at the time when he chose to appear full of tenderness to that ruined nation?
The right honorable gentleman is fond of parading
on the motives of others, and on his own. As to himself, he despises the imputations of those who suppose that anything corrupt could influence him in this his
unexampled liberality of the public treasure. I do
not know that I am obliged to speak to the motives
of ministry, in the arrangements they have made of
the pretended debts of Arcot and Tanjore. If I prove
fraud and collusion with regard to public money on
those right honorable gentlemen, I am not obliged
to assign their motives; because no good motives can
be pleaded in favor of their conduct. Upon that case
I stand; we are at issue; and I desire to go to trial.
This, I am sure, is not loose railing, or mean insinuation, according to their low and degenerate fashion, when they make attacks on the measures of their adversaries. It is a regular and juridical course; and unless I choose it, nothing can compel me to go
further.
But since these unhappy gentlemen have dared to
hold a lofty tone about their motives, and affect to
despise suspicion, instead of being careful not to give
cause for it, I shall beg leave to lay before you some
general observations on what I conceive was their
duty in so delicate a business.
If I were worthy to suggest any line of prudence
to that right honorable gentleman, I would tell him
that the way to avoid suspicion in the settlement of
pecuniary transactions, in which great frauds have
been very strongly presumed, is, to attend to these
few plain principles: -- First, to hear all parties
? ? ? ? 96 SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS. equally, and not the managers for the suspected claimants only; not to proceed in the dark, but
to act with as much publicity as possible; not to precipitate decision; to be religious in following the rules prescribed in the commission under which we act; and, lastly, and above all, not to be fond of straining constructions, to force a jurisdiction, and to draw to ourselves the management of a trust in its nature invidious and obnoxious to suspicion, where the plainest letter of the law does not compel it. If these few plain rules are observed, no corruption ought to be suspected; if any of them are violated, suspicion will attach in proportion; if all of them
are violated, a corrupt motive of some kind or other
will not only be suspected, but must be violently
presumed.
The persons in whose favor all these rules have
been violated, and the conduct of ministers towards
them, will naturally call for your consideration, and
will serve to lead you through a series and combination of facts and characters, if I do not mistake, into the very inmost recesses of this mysterious business.
You will then be in possession of all the materials
on which the principles of sound jurisprudence will
found, or will reject, the presumption of corrupt motives, or, if such motives are indicated, will point out to you of what particular nature the corruption is.
Our wonderful minister, as you all know, formed a
new plan, a plan insigne, recens, indictum ore aio, a
plan for supporting the freedom of our Constitution
by court intrigues, and for removing its corruptions
by Indian delinquency. To carry that bold, paradoxical design into execution, sufficient funds and apt instruments became necessary. You are perfectly
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS. 97
sensible that a Parliamentary reform occupies his
thoughts day and night, as an essential member in
this extraordinary project. In his anxious researches
upon this subject, natural instinct, as well as sound
policy, would direct his eyes and settle his choice on
Paul Benfield. Paul Benfield is the grand Parliamentary reformer, the reformer to whom the whole choir of reformers bow, and to whom even the right
honorable gentleman himself must yield the palm:
for what region in the empire, what city, what borough, what county, what tribunal in this kingdom is
not full of his labors? Others have been only speculators; he is the grand practical reformer; and whilst
the Chancellor of the Exchequer pledges in vain the
man and the minister, to increase the provincial
members, Mr. Benfield has auspiciously and practically begun it. Leaving far behind him even Lord
Camelford's generous design of bestowing Old Sarum
on the Bank of England, Mr. Benfield has thrown in
the borough of Cricklade to reinforce the county representation. Net content with this, in order to station a steady phalanx for all future reforms, this public-spirited usurer, amidst his charitable toils for
the relief of India, did not forget the poor, rotten
Constitution of his native country. For her, he did,
not disdain to stoop to the trade of a wholesale upholsterer for this House, --to furnish it, not with the
faded tapestry figures of antiquated merit, such as
decorate, and may reproach, some other houses, but
with real, solid, living patterns of true modern virtue.
Paul Benfield made (reckoning himself) no fewer
than eight members in the last Parliament. What
copious streams of pure blood must he not have trans --
fused into the veins of the present!
VOL. III. 7
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But what is even more striking than the real services of this new-imported patriot is his modesty.
As soon as he had conferred this benefit on the Constitution, he withdrew himself from our applause.
He conceived that the duties of a member of Parliament (which with the elect faithful, the true believers, the Islam of Parliamentary reform, are of little or no
merit, perhaps not much better than specious sins)
might be as well attended to in India as in England,
and the means of reformation to Parliament itself be
far better provided. Mr. Benfield was therefore no
sooner elected than he set off for Madras, and defrauded the longing eyes of Parliament. We have
never enjoyed in this House the luxury of beholding
that minion of the human race, and contemplating
that visage which has so long reflected the happiness
of nations.
It was therefore not possible for the minister to
consult personally with this great man. What, then,
was he to do? Through a sagacity that never failed
him in these pursuits, he found out, in Mr. Benfield's
representative, his exact resemblance. A specific
attraction, by which he gravitates towards all such
characters, soon brought our minister into a close
connection with Mr. Benfield's agent and attorney,
that is, with the grand contractor, (whom I name to
honor,) Mr. Richard Atkinson, - a name that will be
well remembered as long as the records of this House,
as long as the records of the British Treasury, as long
as the monumental debt of England, shall endure.
This gentleman, Sir, acts as attorney for Mr. Paul
Benfield. Every one who hears me is well acquainted with the sacred friendship and the steady mutual attachment that subsists between him and the present
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT S DEBTS. 99
minister. As many members as chose to attend in
the first session of this Parliament can best tell their
own feelings at the scenes which were then acted.
How much that honorable gentleman was consulted
in the original frame and fabric of the bill, commonly
called Mr. Pitt's India Bill, is matter only of conjecture, though by no means difficult to divine. But the public was an indignant witness of the ostentation
with which the measure was made his own, and the
authority with which he brought up clause after
clause, to stuff and fatten the rankness of that corrupt act. As fast as the clauses were brought up
to the table, they were accepted. No hesitation, no
discussion. They were received by the new minister, not with approbation, but with implicit submission. The reformation may be estimated by seeing who was the reformer. Paul Benfield's associate and
agent was held up to the world as legislator of Hindostan. But it was necessary to authenticate the
coalition between the men of intrigue in India and
the minister of intrigue in England by a studied
display of the power of this their connecting link.
Every trust, every honor, every distinction, was to be
heaped upon him. He was at once made a Director
of the India Company, made an alderman of London,
and to be made, if ministry could prevail, (and I am
sorry to say how near, how very near, they were prevailing,) representative of the capital of this kingdom. But to secure his services against all risk, he was brought in for a ministerial borough. On his
part, he was not wanting in zeal for the common
cause. His advertisements show his motives, and
the merits upon which he stood. For your minister, this worn-out veteran submitted to enter into the,
? ? ? ? 100 SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS.
dusty field of the London contest; and you all re.
member that in the same virtuous cause he submitted to keep a sort of public office or counting-house,
where the whole business of the last general election was managed. It was openly managed by the
direct agent and attorney of Benfield. It was managed upon Indian principles and for an Indian interest. This was the golden cup of abominations, this the chalice of the fornications of rapine, usury,
and oppression, which was held out by the gorgeous
Eastern harlot, --which so many of the people, so
many of the nobles of this land had drained to the
very dregs. Do you think that no reckoning was to
follow this lewd debauch? that no payment was to
be demanded for this riot of public drunkenness and
national prostitution? Here, you have it here before
you! The principal of the grand election-manager
must be indemnified; accordingly, the claims of Benfield and his crew must be put above all inquiry.
For several years Benfield appeared as the chief
proprietor, as well as the chief agent, director, and
controller of this system of debt. The worthy chairman of the Company has stated the claims of this
single gentleman on the Nabob of Arcot as amounting to five hundred thousand pound. * Possibly at
the time of the chairman's state they might have
been as high. Eight hundred thousand pound had
been mentioned some time before;t and, according
to the practice of shifting the names of creditors
in these transactions, and reducing or raising the
debt itself at pleasure, I think it not impossible that
at one period the name of Benfield might have stood
* Mr. Smith's protest.
t Madras correspondence on this subject.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS. 101
before those frightful figures. But my best information goes to fix his share no higher than four hundred thousand pounds. By the scheme of the present ministry for adding to the principal twelve per cent
from the year 1777 to the year 1781, four hundred
thousand pounds, that smallest of the sums ever
mentioned for Mr. Benfield, will form a capital of
592,0001. at six per cent. Thus, besides the arrears
of three years, amounting to 106,5001. , (which, as
fast as received, may be legally lent out at twelve
per cent,) Benfield has received, by the ministerial
grant before you, an annuity of 35,5201. a year,
charged on the public revenues.
Our mirror of ministers of finance did not think
this enough for the services of such a friend as Benfield. He found that Lord Macartney, in order to
frighten the Court of Directors from the project of
obliging the Nabob to give soucar security for his
debt, assured them, that, if they should take that
step, Benfield* would infallibly be the soucar, and
would thereby become the entire master of the Carnatic. What Lord Macartney thought sufficient to
deter the very agents and partakers with Benfield in
his iniquities was the inducement to the two right
honorable gentlemen to order this very soucar security to be given, and to recall Benfield to the city of
Madras from the sort of decent exile into which he
had been relegated by Lord Maoartney. You must
therefore consider Benfield as soucar security for
180,0001. a year, which, at twenty-four per cent,
(supposing him contented with that profit,) will,
with the interest of his old debt, produce ail annual
income of 149,5201. a year.
* Appendix, No 6.
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Here is a specimen of the new and pure aristocracy created by the right honorable gentleman,* as the support of the crown and Constitution against
the old, corrupt, refractory, natural interests of this
kingdom; and this is the grand counterpoise against
all odious coalitions of these interests. A single
Benfield outweighs them all: a criminal, who long
since ought to have fattened the region kites with his
offal, is by his Majesty's ministers enthroned in the
government of a great kingdom, and enfeoffed with
an estate which in the comparison effaces the splendor of all the nobility of Europe. To bring a little more distinctly into view the true secret of this
dark transaction, I beg you particularly to advert to
the circumstances which I am going to place before
you.
The general corps of creditors, as well as Mr.
Benfield himself, not looking well into futurity, nor
presaging the minister of this day, thought it not
expedient for their common interest that such a
name as his should stand at the head of their list.
It was therefore agreed amongst them that Mr. Benfield should disappear, by making over his debt to Messrs. Taylor, Majendie, and Call, and should in
return be secured by their bond.
The debt thus exonerated of so great a weight of
its odium, and otherwise reduced from its alarming
bulk, the agents thought they might venture to print
a list of the creditors. This was done for the first time
in. the year 1783, during the Duke of Portland's administration. In this list the name of Benfield was not to be seen. To this strong negative testimony
was added the further testimony of the Nabob of Ar* Right Honorable William Pitt.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS. 103
cot. That prince * (or rather Mr. Benfield for him)
writes to the Court of Directors a letter t full of complaints and accusations against Lord Macartney, conveyed in such terms as were natural for one of Mr. Benfield's habits and education to employ. Amongst
the rest he is made to complain of his Lordship's endeavoring to prevent an intercourse of politeness and
sentiment between him and Mr. Benfield; and to
aggravate the affront, he expressly declares Mr. Benfield's visits to be only on account of respect and of
gratitude, as no pecuniary transaction subsisted be
tween them.
Such, for a considerable space of time, was the outward form of the loan of 1777, in which Mr. Benfield
had no sort of concern. At length intelligence arrived at Madras, that this debt, which had always
been renounced by the Court of Directors, was rather
like to become the subject of something more like a
criminal inquiry than of any patronage or sanction
from Parliament. Every ship brought accounts, one
stronger than the other, of the prevalence of the determined enemies of tile Indian system. The public
revenues became an object desperate to the hopes of
Mr. Benfield; he therefore resolved to fall upon his
associates, and, in violation of that faith which subsists among those who have abandoned all other,
commences a suit in the Mayor's Court against Taylor, Majendie, and Call, for the bond given to him,
when he agreed to disappear for his own benefit as
* Appendix, No. 10.
t Dated 13th October. For further illustration of the style in
which these letters were written, and the principles on which they
proceed, see letters from the Nabob to the Court of Directors, dated
August 16th and September 7th, 1783, delivered by Mr. James Macpherson, minister to the Nabob, January 14, 1784. Appendix, No. 10.
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