Now does the history of tyranny furnish, does the
history of popular violence deposing kings firnish,
anything like the dreadful deposition of this prince,
and the cruel and abominable tyranny that has been
exercised over him?
history of popular violence deposing kings firnish,
anything like the dreadful deposition of this prince,
and the cruel and abominable tyranny that has been
exercised over him?
Edmund Burke
For
dignity and property in this country, _Esto perpetua
shall be my prayer this day, and the last prayer of
my life. The Commons, therefore, of Great Britain,
those guardians of property, who will not suffer the
monarch they love, the government which they
adore, to levy one shilling upon the subject in any
? ? ? ? 12 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
other way than the law and statutes of this kingdom
prescribe, will not suffer, nor can they bear the idea,
that any single class of people should be chosen to be
the objects of a contrary conduct, nor that even the
Nabob of Oude should be permitted to act upon such
a flagitious principle. When an English governor
has substituted a power of his own instead of the legal government of the country, as I have proved this
mall to have done, if he found the prince going to do
an act which would shake the property of all the nobility of the country, he surely ought to raise his
hand and say, " You shall not make my name your
sanction for such an atrocious and abominable act as
this confiscation would be. "
Mr. Hastings, however, whilst he gives, with an urbanity for which he is so much praised, his consent
to this confiscation, adds, there must be pensions
secured for all persons losing their estates, who had
the security of our guaranty. Your Lordships know
that Mr. Hastings, by his guaranty, had secured their
jaghires to the Nabob's own relations and family.
One would have imagined, that, if the estates of
those who were without any security were to be confiscated at his pleasure, those at least who were guarantied by the Company, such as the Begums of Oude and several of the principal nobility of the Nabob's
family, would have been secure. He, indeed, says
that pensions shall be given them; for at this time he
had not got the length of violating, without shame or
remorse, all the guaranties of the Company. '" There
shall," says he, " be pensions given. " If pensions were
to be given to the value of the estate, I ask, What
has this violent act done? You shake the security
of property, and, instead of suffering a man to gather
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - FIFTH DAY. 13
his own profits with his own hands, you turn him
into a pensioner upon the public treasury. I can
conceive that such a fneasure will render these persons miserable dependants instead of independent
nobility; but I cannot conceive what financial object
call be answered by paying that in pension which you
are to receive in revenue. This is directly contrary to financial economy. For when you stipulate to
pay out of the treasury of government a certain pension, and take upon you the receipts of an estate, you
adopt a measure by which government is almost sure
of being a loser. You charge it with a certain fixed
sum, and, even upon a supposition that under the
management of the public the estate will be as productive as it was under the management of its private
owner, (a thing highly improbable,) you take your
chance of a reimbursement subject to all the extra
expense, and to all the accidents that may happen to
a public revenue. This confiscation could not, therefore, be justified as a measure of economy; it must
have been designed merely for the sake of shaking
and destroying the property of the country.
The whole transaction, my Lords, was an act of
gross violence, ushered in by a gross fraud. It appears that no pensions were ever intended to be paid;
and this you will naturally guess would be the event,
when such a strange metamorphosis was to be made
as that of turning a great landed interest into a pensionary payment. As it could answer no other purpose, so it could be intended for no other, than that of getting possession of these jaghires by fraud. This
man, my Lords, cannot commit a robbery without
indulging himself at the same time in the practice of
his favorite arts of fraud and falsehood.
? ? ? ? 14 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
And here I must again remind your Lordships,
that at the time of the treaty of Chunar the jaghires
were held in the following manner. Of the 285,0001.
a year which was to be confiscated, the old grants of
Sujah Dowlah, [and? ] the grandfather of the Nabob,
amounted to near two thirds of the whole, as you will
find in the paper to which we refer you. By this confiscation, therefore, the Nabob was authorized to resume grants of which he had not been the grantor.
[Mr. Burke here read the list of the jaghires. ]
Now, my Lords, you see that all these estates, except 25,7821. a year, were either jaghires for the Nabob's own immediate family, settled by his father upon
his mother, and by his father's father upon his grandmother, and upon Salar Jung, his uncle, or were the
property of the most considerable nobility, to the
gross amount of 285,0001. Mr. Hastings confesses
that the Nabob reluctantly made the confiscation to
the extent proposed. Why? "Because," says he,
" the orderlies, namely, certain persons so called, subservient to his debaucheries, were persons whom he
wished to spare. " Now I am to show you that this
man, whatever faults he may have in his private morals, (with which we have nothing at all to do,) has
been slandered throughout by Mr. Hastings. Take
his own account of the matter. " The Nabob," says
he, " would have confiscated all the rest, except his
orderlies, whom he would have spared; but I, finding where his partiality lay, compelled him to sacrifice the whole; for otherwise he would have sacrificed the good to save the bad: whereas," says Mr. Hastings, " in effect my principle was to sacrifice
the good, and at the same time to punish the bad. "
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - FIFTH DAY. 15
Now compare the account he gives of the proceedings of Asoph ul Dowlah with his own. Asoph ul Dowlah, to save some unworthy persons who had
jaghires, would, if left to his own discretion, have
confiscated those only of the deserving; while Mr.
Hastings, to effect the inclusion of the worthless in
the confiscation, confiscates the jaghires of the innocent and the virtuous men of high rank, and of those who had all the ties of Nature to plead for the Nabob's forbearance, and reduced them to a state of dependency and degradation.
Now, supposing these two villanous plans, neither
of which your Lordships can bear to hear the sound
of, to stand equal in point of morality, let us see
how they stand in point of calculation. The unexceptionable part of the 285,0001. amounted to 260,0001. a year; whereas, supposing every part of
the new grants had been made to the most unworthy
persons, it only amounted to 25,0001. a year. Therefore, by his own account, given to you and to tho Company, upon this occasion he has confiscated
260,0001. a year, the property of innocent, if not of
meritorious individuals, in order to punish by confiscation those who had 25,0001. a year only. This
is the account he gives you himself of his honor, his
justice, and his. policy in these proceedings.
But, my Lords, he shall not escape so. It is in
your minutes, that so far was the Nabob from wishing
to save the new exceptionable grants, that, at the
time of the forced loan I have mentioned, and also
when the resumption was proposed, he was perfectly
willing to give up every one of them, and desired
only that his mother, his uncles, and his relations,
with other individuals, the prime of the Mahometan
? ? ? ? 16 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
nobility of that country, should be spared. Is it not
enough that this poor Nabob, this wretched prince, is
made a slave to the man now standing at your bar,
that he is made by him a shame and a scandal to his
family, his race, and his country, but he must be
cruelly aspersed, and have faults and crimes attributed to him that do not belong to him? I know
nothing of his private character and conduct: Mr.
Hastings, who deals in scandalous anecdotes, knows
them: but I take it upon the face of Mr. Purling's
assertion, and I say, that the Nabob would have consented to an arbitrary taxation of the jaghires, and
would have given up to absolute confiscation every
man except those honorable persons I have mentioned.
The prisoner himself has called Mr. Wombwell to
prove the names of those infamous persons with a
partiality for whom Mr. Hastings has aspersed the
Nabob, in order to lay the ground for the destruction
of his family. They amount to only six in number;
and when we come to examine these six, we find that
t;heir jaghires were perfectly contemptible. The list
of the other jaghiredars, your Lordships see, fills up
pages; and the amount of their incomes I have already stated. Your Lordships now see how inconsiderable, both in number and amount, were the culpable jaghires, in the destruction of which he has
involved the greater number and the meritorious.
You see that the Nabob never did propose any
exemption of the former at any time; that this was
a slander and a calumny on that unhappy man, in
order to defend the violent acts of the prisoner, who
has recourse to slander and calumny as a proper way
to defend violence, outrage, and wrongs.
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. -FIFTH DAY. 17
We have now gone through the first stage of Mr.
Hastings's confiscation of the estates of these unhappy
people. When it came to be put in execution, Mr.
Middleton finds the Nabob reluctant in the greatest
degree to mhke this sacrifice of his family and of all
his nobility. It touched him in every way in which
shame and sympathy can affect a man. He falls at
the feet of Mr. Middleton; he says, "I signed the
treaty of Chunar upon an assurance that it was never
meant to be put in force. " Mr. Middleton nevertheless proceeds; he sends the family of the Nabob out of the country; but he entertains fears of a general
revolt as the consequence of this tyrannical act, and
refers the case back to Mr. Hastings, who insists
upon its being executed in its utmost extent. The
Nabob again remonstrates in the strongest manner;
he begs, he prays, he dissembles, he delays. One
day he pretends to be willing to submit, the next he
hangs back, just as the violence of Mr. Hastings or
his own natural feelings and principles of justice
dragged him one way or dragged him another. Mr.
Middleton, trembling, and under the awe of that
dreadful responsibility under which your Lordships
may remember Mr. Hastings had expressly laid him
upon that occasion, ventures at once to usurp the
Nabob's government. He usurped it openly and
avowedly. He declared that he himself would issue
his purwannahs as governor of the country, for the
purpose of executing this abominable confiscation.
He assumed, I say, to himself the government of
the country, and Mr. Hastings had armed him.
with a strong military force for that purpose; he
declared he would order those troops to march for
his support; he at last got this reluctant, strugVOL. XII. 2
? ? ? ? 18 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
gling Nabob to consent in the manner we have described.
I shall now read to your Lordships Mr. Middleton's
letters, that you may hear these men with their own
mouths describing their own acts, and that your Lordships may then judge whether the highest tone and language of crimination comes up to their own description of their own proceedings.
" Lucknow, the 6th of Dec. , 1781.
" Finding the Nabob wavering in his determination
about the resumption of the jaghires, I this day, in
presence of, and with the minister's concurrence,
ordered the necessary purwannahs to be written to
the several aumils for that purpose, and it was my
firm resolution to have dispatched them this evening,
with proper people to see them punctually and
implicitly carried into execution; but before they
were all transcribed, I received a message from the
Nabob, who had been informed by the minister of
the resolution I had taken, entreating that I would
withhold the purwannahs till to-morrow morning,
when he would attend me, and afford me satisfaction
on this point. As the loss of a few hours in the
dispatch of the purwannahs appeared of little moment, and as it is possible the Nabob, seeing that the business will at all events be done, may make it an
act of his own, I have consented to indulge him in'his request; but, be the result of our interview whatever it may, nothing shall prevent the orders
being issued to-morrow, either by him or myself, with
the concurrence of the ministers. Your pleasure respecting the Begums I have learnt from Sir Elijah,
and the measure heretofore proposed will soon follow
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - FIFTH DAY. 19
the resumption of the jaghires; from both, or, indeed, from the former alone, I have no doubt of the complete liquidation of the Company's balance. "
"Lucknow, the 7th Dec. , 1781.
" MY DEAR SIR, -I had the honor to address you
yesterday, informing you of the steps I had taken
in regard to the resumption of the jaghires. This
morning the Vizier came to me, according to. his
agreement, but seemingly without any intention or
desire to yield me satisfaction on the subject under
discussion; for, after a great deal of conversation,
consisting on his part of trifling evasion and puerile
excuses for withholding his assent to the measure,
though at the same time professing the most implicit
submission to your wishes, I found myself without
any other resource than the one of employing that
exclusive authority with which I consider your instructions to vest me. I therefore declared to the Nabob, in presence of the minister and Mr. Johnson,
who I desired might bear witness of the conversation,
that I construed his rejection of the measure proposed as a breach of his solemn promise to you, and an unwillingness to yield that assistance which was
evidently in his power towards liquidating his heavy
accumulated debt to the Company, and that I must
in consequence determine, in my own justification,
to issue immediately the purwannahs, which had
only been withheld in the sanguine hope that he
would be prevailed upon to make that his own act,
which nothing but the most urgent necessity could
force me to make mine. He left me without any
reply, but afterwards sent for his minister, and authorized him to give me hopes that my requisition
? ? ? ? 20 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
would be complied with; on which I expressed my
satisfaction, but declared that I could admit of no
further delays, and, unless I received his Excellency's formal acquiescence before the evening, I should
then most assuredly issue my purwannahs: which I
have accordingly done, not having had any assurances from his Excellency that could justify a further suspension. I shall as soon as possible inform you of the effect of the purwannahs, which in many
parts I am apprehensive it will be found necessary to
enforce with military aid; I am not, however, entirely without hopes that the Nabob, when he sees the
inefficacy of further opposition, may alter his conduct, and prevent the confusion and disagreeable
consequences which would be too likely to result
from the prosecution of a measure of such importance without his concurrence. His Excellency talks
of going to Fyzabad, for the purpose heretofore mentioned, in three or. four days; I wish he may be serious in this intention, and you may rest assured I shall spare no pains to keep him to it. "
Lucknow, 28th -December, 1781.
"If your new demand is to be insisted upon,
which your letter seems to portend, I must beg your
precise orders upon it; as, from the difficulties I have
within these few days experienced in carrying the
points you had enjoined with the Nabob, I have the
best grounds for believing that he would consider it
a direct breach of the late agreement, and totally reject
the proposal as such; and I must own to you, that, in
his present fermented state of mind, I could expect
nothing less than despair and a declared rupture.
"He has by no means been yet able to furnish me
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. ---FIFTH DAY. 21
with means of paying off the arrears due to the temporary brigade, to the stipulated term of its continuance in his service. The funds necessary for paying off and discharging his own military establishment
under British officers, and his pension list, have been
raised, on the private credit of Mr. Johnson and myself, from the shroffs of this place, to whom we are
at this moment pledged for many lacs of rupees; and
without such aid, which I freely and at all hazards
yielded, because I conceived it was your anxious desire to relieve the Nabob as soon as possible of this
heavy burden, the establishment must have been at
his charge to this time, and probably for months to
come, while his resources were strained to the utmost to furnish jaidads for its maintenance to this
period. I therefore hesitate not to declare it utterly
impossible for him, under any circumstances whatever, to provide funds for the payment of the troops
you now propose to send him.
"The wresting Furruckabad, Kyraghur, and Fyzoola Khan's country from his government, (for in
that light, my dear Sir, I can faithfully assure you, he
views the measures adopted in respect to those countries,) together with the resumption of all the jaghires, so much against his inclination, have already brought the Nabob to a persuasion that nothing less
than his destruction, or the annihilation of every
shadow of his power, is meant; and all my labors to
convince him to the contrary have proved abortive.
A settled melancholy has seized him, and his health
is reduced beyond conception; and I do most humbly believe that the march of four regiments of
sepoys towards Lucknow, under whatever circumstances it might be represented, would be considered
? ? ? ? 22 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS;
by him as a force ultimately to be used in securing
his person. In short, my dear Sir, it is a matter of
such immediate moment, and involving, apparently,
such very serious and important consequences, that I
have not only taken upon me to suspend the communication of it to the Nabob until I should be honored
with your further commands, but have also ventured
to write the inclosed letter to Colonel Morgan: liberties which I confidently trust you will excuse, when
you consider that I can be actuated by no other motive than a zeal for the public service, and that, if,
after all, you determine that the measure shall be
insisted on, it will be only the loss of six or at most
eight days in proposing it. But in the last event, I
earnestly entreat your orders may be explicit and
positive, that I may clearly know what lengths you
would wish me to proceed in carrying them into execution. I again declare it is my firm belief, and
assure yourself, my dear Mr. Hastings, I am not
influenced in this declaration by any considerations
but my public duty and my personal attachment to
you, that the enforcing the measure you have proposed would be productive of an open rupture between us and the Nabob; nay, that the first necessary step towards carrying it into effect must be, on our part, a declaration of hostility. "
Your Lordships have now before your eyes proofs,
furnished by Mr. Hastings himself from his correspondence with Mr. Middleton, irrefragable proofs,
that this Nabob, who is stated to have made the proposition himself, was dragged to the signature of it;
and that the troops which are supposed, and fraudulently stated, (and I wish your Lordships particularly
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - FIFTH DAY. 23
to observe this,) to have been sent to assist him in
this measure, were considered by him as a body of
troops sent to imprison him, and to free him from
all the troubles and pains of government.
When Mr. Hastings sent the troops for the purpose, as he pretended, of assisting the Nabob in thle
execution of a measure which was really adopted in
direct opposition to the wishes of that prince, what
other conclusion could be drawn, but that they were
sent to overawe, not to assist him? The march of
alien troops into a country up6n that occasion could
have no object but hostility; they could have been
sent with no other design but that of bringing disgrace upon the Nabob, by making him the instrument of his family's ruin, and of the destruction of
his nobility. Your Lordships, therefore, will not
wonder that this -miserable man should have sunk
into despair, and that he should have felt the weight
of his oppression doubly aggravated by its coming
from such a man as Mr. Hastings, and by its being
enforced by such a man as Mr. Middleton.
And here I must press one observation upon your
Lordships: I do not know a greater insult that can
be offered to a man born to command than to find
himself made the tool of a set of obscure men, come
from an unknown country, without anything to distinguish them but an usurped power. Never shall
I, out of compliment to any persons, because they
happen to be my own countrymen, disguise my feelings, or renounce the dictates of Nature and of humanity. If we send out obscure people, unknowing and unknown, to exercise such acts as these, I must
say it is a bitter aggravation of the victim's suffering, Oppression and robbery are at all times evils;
? ? ? ? 24 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
but they are more bearable, when exercised by persons whom we have been habituated to regard with
awe, and to whom mankind for ages have been accustomed to bow.
Now does the history of tyranny furnish, does the
history of popular violence deposing kings firnish,
anything like the dreadful deposition of this prince,
and the cruel and abominable tyranny that has been
exercised over him? Consider, too, my Lords, for. what object all this was done. Was Mr. Hastings
endeavoring, by his arbitrary interference and the
use of his superior power, to screen a people from
the usurpation and power of a tyrant, - from any
strong and violent acts against property, against dignity, against nobility, against the freedom of his peo.
ple? No: you see here a monarch deposed, in effect, by persons pretending to be his allies, and assigning what are pretended to be his wishes as the motive for using his usurped authority in the execution of these acts of violence against his own family and his subjects. You see him struggling against this violent prostitution of his authoriity. He refuses
the sanction of his name, which before he had given
up to Mr. Hastings to be used as he pleased, and
only begs not to be made an instrument of wrong
which his soul abhors, and which would make him
infamous throughout the world. Mr. Middleton,
however, assumes the sovereignty of the country.
" I," he says, " am Nabob of Oude: the jaghires shall
be confiscated: I have given my orders, and they
shall be supported by a military force. "
I am ashamed to have so far distrusted your Lordships' honorable and generous feelings as to have
offered you, upon this occasion, any remarks which
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. -- FIFTH DAY. 25
you must have run before me in making. Those
feelings which you have, and ought to have, feelings
born in the breasts of all men, and much more in
men of your Lordships' elevated rank, render my remarks unnecessary. I need not, therefore, ask what you feel, when a foreign resident at a prince's court
takes upon himself to force that prince to act the
part of a tyrant, and, upon his resistance, openly and
avowedly assumes the sovereignty of the country.
You have it in proof that Mr. Middleton did this.
He not only put his own name to the orders for this
horrible confiscation, but he actually proceeded to
dispossess the jaghiredars of their lands, and to send
them out of the country. And whom does he send,
in the place of this plundered body of nobility, to
take possession of the country? Why, the usurers
of Benares. Yes, my Lords, he immediately mortgages the whole country to the usurers of Benares, for the purpose of raising money upon it: giving
it up to those bloodsuckers, dispossessed of that nobility, whose interest, wllose duty, whose feelings, and whose habits made them the natural protectors
of the people.
My Lords, we here see a body of usurers put into
possession of all the estates of the nobility: let us
now see if this act was necessary, even for the avowed
purposes of its agents, - the relief of the Nabob's
financial difficulties, and the payment of his debts to
the Company. Mr. Middleton has told your Lord
ships that these jaghires would pay the Company's
debt completely in two years. Then would it not
have been better to have left these estates in the
hands of their owners, and to have oppressed them
in some moderate, decent way? Might they not have
? ? ? ? 26 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
left the jaghiredars to raise the sums required by some
settlement with the bankers of Benares, in which the
repayment of the money within five or six years might
have been secured, and the jaghiredars have had in
the mean time something to subsist upon? Oh, no!
these victims must have nothing to live upon. They
must be turned out. And why? Mr. Hastings
commands it.
Here I must come in aid of Mr. Middleton a
little; for one cannot but pity the miserable instiuments that have to act under Mr. Hastings. I do
not mean to apologize for Mr. Middleton, but to pity
the situation of persons who, being servants of the
Company, were converted, by the usurpation of this
man, into his subjects and his slaves. The mind
of Mr. Middleton revolts. You see him reluctant
to proceed. The Nabob begs a respite. You find
in the Resident a willingness to comply. Even Mr.
Middleton is placable. Mr. Hastings alone is obdurate. His resolution to rob and to destroy was not to be moved, and the estates of the whole Mahometan
nobility of a great kingdom were confiscated in a
moment. Your Lordships will observe that his orders to Mr. Middleton allow no forbearance. He
writes thus to him.
"SIR, -- My mind has been for some days suspended between two opposite impulses: one arising from the necessity of my return to Calcutta; the other,
from the apprehension of my presence being more
necessary and more urgently wanted at Lucknow.
Your answer to this shall decide my choice.
"I have waited thus long in the hopes of hearing
that some progress had been made in the execution
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - FIFTH DAY. 27
of the plan which I concluded with the Nabob in
September last. I do not find that any step towards
it has been yet taken, though three months are
elapsed, and little more than that period did appear
to me requisite to have accomplished the most essential parts of it, and to have brought the whole into
train. This tardiness, and the opposition prepared
to the only decided act yet undertaken, have a bad
appearance. I approve the Nabob's resolutions to
deprive the Begums of their ill-employed treasures.
In both services, it must be your care to prevent all
abuse of the powers given to those that are employed
in them. You yourself ought to be personally present. You must not allow any negotiation or forbearance, but must prosecute both services, until the Begums are at the entire mercy of the Nabob, their
jaghires in the quiet possession of his aumils, and
their wealth in such charge as may secure it against
private embezzlement. You will have a force more
than sufficient to effect both these purposes.
" The reformation of his army and the new settlement of his revenues are also points of immediate
concern, and ought to be immediately concluded.
HIas anything been done in either?
" I now demand and require you most solemnly to
answer me. Are you confident in your own ability
to accomplish all these purposes, and the other
points of my instructions? If you reply that you
are, I will depart with a quiet and assured mind to
the Presidency, but leave you a dreadful responsibility, if you disappoint me. If you tell me that you
cannot rely upon your power, and the other means
which you possess for performing these services, I will
free you from the charge. I will proceed myself to
? ? ? ? 28 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
Lucknow, and I will myself undertake them; and in
that case, I desire that you will immediately order
bearers to be stationed, for myself and two other gentlemen, between Lucknow and Allahabad, and I will
set out friom hence in three days after the receipt
of your letter.
"'I am sorry that I am under the necessity of
writing in this pressing manner. I trust implicitly
to your integrity, I am certain of your attachment
to myself, and I know that your capacity is equal to
any service; but I must express my doubts of your
firmness and activity, and above all of your recollection of my instructions, and of their importance.
My conduct in the late arrangements will be arraigned with all the rancor of disappointed rapacity,
and my reputation and influence will suffer a mortal
wound from the failure of them. They have already
failed in a degree, since no part of them has yet
taken place, but the removal of our forces from the
Dooab and Rohilcund, and of the British officers and
pensioners from the service of the Nabob, and the expenses of the former thrown without any compensation on the Company.
"I expect a supply of money equal to the discharge of all the Nabob's arrears, and am much disappointed and mortified that I am not now able to return with it.
"' Give me an immediate answer to the question
which I have herein proposed, that I may lose no
more time in fruitless inaction. "
About this time Mr. Hastings had received information of our inquiries in the House of Commons into
his conduct; and this is the manner in which he pre
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - FIFTH DAY. 29
pares to meet them. "I must get money. I must
carry with me that great excuse for everything, that
salve for every sore, that expiation for every crime:
let me provide that, all is well. You, Mr. Middleton, try your nerves: are you equal to these services?
Examine yourself; see what is in you: are you man
enough to come up to it? " says the great robber
to the little robber, says Roland the Great to his
puny accomplice. " Are you equal to it? Do you
feel yourself a man? If not, send messengers and
dawks to me, and I, the great master tyrant, will
come myself, and put to shame all the paltry delegate
tools of despotism, that have not edge enough to cut
their way through and do the services I have ordained for them. "
I have already stated to your Lordships his reason
and motives for this violence, and they are such as
aggravated his crime by attempting to implicate his
country in it. He says lie was afraid to go home
without having provided for the payment of the Nabob's debt. Afraid of what? Was he afraid of coming before a British tribunal, and saying, "Through justice, through a regard for the rights of an allied
sovereign, through a regard to the rights of his people, I have not got so much as I expected"? Of
this no man could be afraid. The prisoner's fear had
another origin. "I have failed," says he to himself, " in my first project. I went to Benares to rob;
I have lost by my violence the fruits of that robbery.
I must get the money somewhere, or I dare not appear before a British House of Commons, a British
House of Lords, or any other tribunal in the kingdom; but let me get money enough, and they won't
care how I get it. The estates of whole bodies of
? ? ? ? 30 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
nobility may be confiscated; a people who had lived
under their protection may be given up into the
hands of foreign usurers: they will care for none of
these things; they will suffer me to do all this, and
to employ in it the force of British troops, whom I
have described as a set of robbers, provided I can
get money. " These were Mr. Hastings's views; and,
in accordance with them, the jaghires were all confiscated, the jaghiredars with their families were all
turned out, the possessions delivered, up to the usurer, in order that Mr. Hastings might have the excuse of money to plead at the bar of the House of Commons, and afterwards at the bar of the House
of Lords. If your Lordships, in your sacred character of the first tribunal in the world, should by your
judgment justify those proceedings, you will sanction the greatest wrongs that have been ever known
in history.
But to proceed. The next thing to be asked is,
Were the promised pensions given to the jaghiredars?
I suppose your Lordships are not idle enough to put
that question to us. No compensation, no consideration, was given or stipulated for them. If there had
been any such thing, the prisoner could have proved
it, -he would have proved it. The means were easy
to him. But we have saved him the trouble of the
attempt. We have proved the contrary, and, if called
upon, we will show you the place where this is proved.
I have now shown your Lordships how Mr. Hastings, having with such violent and atrocious circumstances usurped the government of Oude, (I hope I need not use any farther proof that the Nabob- was
in effect non-existent in the country,) treated all the
landed property. The next question will be, How
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - FIFTH DAY. 31
has he treated whatever moneyed property was left
in the country? My Lords, he looked over that immense waste of his own creating, not as Satan viewed the kingdoms of the world and saw the power and
glory of them, --but he looked over the waste of
Oude with a diabolical malice which one could hardly suppose existed in the prototype himself. He saw nowhere above-ground one single shilling that he
could attach, -- no, not one; every place had been
ravaged; no money remained in sight. But possibly some might be buried in vaults, hid from the gripe of tyranny and rapacity. "It must be so," says
he. "Where can I find it? how can I get at it?
There is one illustrious family that is thought to
have accumulated a vast body of treasures, through
a course of three or four successive reigns. It does
not appear openly; but we have good information
that very great sums of money are bricked up and
kept in vaults under ground, and secured under the
guard and within the walls of a fortress": the residence of the females of the family, a guard, as your Lordships know, rendered doubly and trebly secure
by the manners of the country, which make everything that is in the hands of women sacred. It is
said that nothing is proof against gold, --that the
strongest tower will not be impregnable, if Jupiter
makes love in a golden shower. This Jupiter commences making love; but lie does not come to the ladies with gold for their persons, he comes to their
persons for their gold. This impetuous lover, Mr.
Hastings, who is not to be stayed from the objects of
his passion, would annihilate space and time between
him and his beloved object, the jaghires of these ladies, had now, first, their treasure's affection.
? ? ? ? 32 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
Your Lordships have already had a peep behind
the curtain, in the first orders sent to Mr. Middleton.
In the treaty of Chunar you see a desire, obliquely
expressed, to get the landed estates of all these great
families. But even while he was meeting with such
reluctance in the Nabob upon this point, and though
he also met with some resistance upon the part even
of Mr. Middleton, Mr. Hastings appears to have given
him in charge some other still more obnoxious and
dreadful acts. " While I was meditating," says Mr.
Middleton, in one of his letters, "upon this [the
resumption of the jaghires], your orders came to me
through Sir Elijah Impey. " What these orders were
is left obscure in the letter: it is yet but as in a
mist or cloud. But it is evident that Sir Elijah Impey did convey to him some project for getting at
more wealth by some other service, which was not
to supersede the first, but to be concurrent with that
upon which Mr. Hastings had before given him such
dreadful charges and had loaded him with such horrible responsibility. It could not have been anything but the seizure of the Begum's treasures. He thus goaded on two reluctant victims,-first the reluctant Nabob, then the reluctant Mr. Middleton,
forcing them with the bayonet behind them, and
urging on the former, as at last appears, to violate
the sanctity of his mother's house.
Your Lordships have been already told by one
of my able fellow Managers, that Sir Elijah Impey
is the person who carried up the message alluded
to in Mr. Middleton's letter. We have charged it,
as an aggravation of the offences of the prisoner at
your bar, that the Chief-Justice, who, by the sacred
nature of his office, and by the express provisions
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - FIFTH DAY. 33
of the act of Parliament under which he was sent
out to India to redress the wrongs of the natives,
should be made an instrument for destroying the
property, real and personal, of this people. When
it first came to our knowledge that all this private
intrigue for the destruction of these high women
was carried on through the intrigue of a ChiefJustice, we felt such shame and such horror, both
for the instrument and the principal, as I think it
impossible to describe, or for anything but complete
and perfect silence to express.
But by Sir Elijah Impey was that order carried
up to seize and confiscate the treasures of the Begums. We know that neither the Company nor the Nabob had any claim whatever upon these treasures.
On the contrary, we know that two treaties had been
made for the protection of them. We know that
the Nabob, while he was contesting about some elephants and carriages, and some other things that he said were in the hands of their steward, did allow
that the treasures in the custody of his grandmother
and of his mother's principal servants were their
property. This is the Nabob who is now represented by Mr. Hastings and his counsel to have become the instrument of destroying his mother and grandmother, and everything else that ought to be dear to mankind, throughout the whole train of his family.
Mr. Hastings, having resolved to seize upon the
treasures of the Begums, is at a loss for some pretence of justifying the act. His first justification
of it is on grounds which all tyrants have ready at
their hands. He begins to discover a legal title to
that of which he wished to be the possessor, and on
this title sets up a claim to these treasures. I say
VOL.
dignity and property in this country, _Esto perpetua
shall be my prayer this day, and the last prayer of
my life. The Commons, therefore, of Great Britain,
those guardians of property, who will not suffer the
monarch they love, the government which they
adore, to levy one shilling upon the subject in any
? ? ? ? 12 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
other way than the law and statutes of this kingdom
prescribe, will not suffer, nor can they bear the idea,
that any single class of people should be chosen to be
the objects of a contrary conduct, nor that even the
Nabob of Oude should be permitted to act upon such
a flagitious principle. When an English governor
has substituted a power of his own instead of the legal government of the country, as I have proved this
mall to have done, if he found the prince going to do
an act which would shake the property of all the nobility of the country, he surely ought to raise his
hand and say, " You shall not make my name your
sanction for such an atrocious and abominable act as
this confiscation would be. "
Mr. Hastings, however, whilst he gives, with an urbanity for which he is so much praised, his consent
to this confiscation, adds, there must be pensions
secured for all persons losing their estates, who had
the security of our guaranty. Your Lordships know
that Mr. Hastings, by his guaranty, had secured their
jaghires to the Nabob's own relations and family.
One would have imagined, that, if the estates of
those who were without any security were to be confiscated at his pleasure, those at least who were guarantied by the Company, such as the Begums of Oude and several of the principal nobility of the Nabob's
family, would have been secure. He, indeed, says
that pensions shall be given them; for at this time he
had not got the length of violating, without shame or
remorse, all the guaranties of the Company. '" There
shall," says he, " be pensions given. " If pensions were
to be given to the value of the estate, I ask, What
has this violent act done? You shake the security
of property, and, instead of suffering a man to gather
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - FIFTH DAY. 13
his own profits with his own hands, you turn him
into a pensioner upon the public treasury. I can
conceive that such a fneasure will render these persons miserable dependants instead of independent
nobility; but I cannot conceive what financial object
call be answered by paying that in pension which you
are to receive in revenue. This is directly contrary to financial economy. For when you stipulate to
pay out of the treasury of government a certain pension, and take upon you the receipts of an estate, you
adopt a measure by which government is almost sure
of being a loser. You charge it with a certain fixed
sum, and, even upon a supposition that under the
management of the public the estate will be as productive as it was under the management of its private
owner, (a thing highly improbable,) you take your
chance of a reimbursement subject to all the extra
expense, and to all the accidents that may happen to
a public revenue. This confiscation could not, therefore, be justified as a measure of economy; it must
have been designed merely for the sake of shaking
and destroying the property of the country.
The whole transaction, my Lords, was an act of
gross violence, ushered in by a gross fraud. It appears that no pensions were ever intended to be paid;
and this you will naturally guess would be the event,
when such a strange metamorphosis was to be made
as that of turning a great landed interest into a pensionary payment. As it could answer no other purpose, so it could be intended for no other, than that of getting possession of these jaghires by fraud. This
man, my Lords, cannot commit a robbery without
indulging himself at the same time in the practice of
his favorite arts of fraud and falsehood.
? ? ? ? 14 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
And here I must again remind your Lordships,
that at the time of the treaty of Chunar the jaghires
were held in the following manner. Of the 285,0001.
a year which was to be confiscated, the old grants of
Sujah Dowlah, [and? ] the grandfather of the Nabob,
amounted to near two thirds of the whole, as you will
find in the paper to which we refer you. By this confiscation, therefore, the Nabob was authorized to resume grants of which he had not been the grantor.
[Mr. Burke here read the list of the jaghires. ]
Now, my Lords, you see that all these estates, except 25,7821. a year, were either jaghires for the Nabob's own immediate family, settled by his father upon
his mother, and by his father's father upon his grandmother, and upon Salar Jung, his uncle, or were the
property of the most considerable nobility, to the
gross amount of 285,0001. Mr. Hastings confesses
that the Nabob reluctantly made the confiscation to
the extent proposed. Why? "Because," says he,
" the orderlies, namely, certain persons so called, subservient to his debaucheries, were persons whom he
wished to spare. " Now I am to show you that this
man, whatever faults he may have in his private morals, (with which we have nothing at all to do,) has
been slandered throughout by Mr. Hastings. Take
his own account of the matter. " The Nabob," says
he, " would have confiscated all the rest, except his
orderlies, whom he would have spared; but I, finding where his partiality lay, compelled him to sacrifice the whole; for otherwise he would have sacrificed the good to save the bad: whereas," says Mr. Hastings, " in effect my principle was to sacrifice
the good, and at the same time to punish the bad. "
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - FIFTH DAY. 15
Now compare the account he gives of the proceedings of Asoph ul Dowlah with his own. Asoph ul Dowlah, to save some unworthy persons who had
jaghires, would, if left to his own discretion, have
confiscated those only of the deserving; while Mr.
Hastings, to effect the inclusion of the worthless in
the confiscation, confiscates the jaghires of the innocent and the virtuous men of high rank, and of those who had all the ties of Nature to plead for the Nabob's forbearance, and reduced them to a state of dependency and degradation.
Now, supposing these two villanous plans, neither
of which your Lordships can bear to hear the sound
of, to stand equal in point of morality, let us see
how they stand in point of calculation. The unexceptionable part of the 285,0001. amounted to 260,0001. a year; whereas, supposing every part of
the new grants had been made to the most unworthy
persons, it only amounted to 25,0001. a year. Therefore, by his own account, given to you and to tho Company, upon this occasion he has confiscated
260,0001. a year, the property of innocent, if not of
meritorious individuals, in order to punish by confiscation those who had 25,0001. a year only. This
is the account he gives you himself of his honor, his
justice, and his. policy in these proceedings.
But, my Lords, he shall not escape so. It is in
your minutes, that so far was the Nabob from wishing
to save the new exceptionable grants, that, at the
time of the forced loan I have mentioned, and also
when the resumption was proposed, he was perfectly
willing to give up every one of them, and desired
only that his mother, his uncles, and his relations,
with other individuals, the prime of the Mahometan
? ? ? ? 16 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
nobility of that country, should be spared. Is it not
enough that this poor Nabob, this wretched prince, is
made a slave to the man now standing at your bar,
that he is made by him a shame and a scandal to his
family, his race, and his country, but he must be
cruelly aspersed, and have faults and crimes attributed to him that do not belong to him? I know
nothing of his private character and conduct: Mr.
Hastings, who deals in scandalous anecdotes, knows
them: but I take it upon the face of Mr. Purling's
assertion, and I say, that the Nabob would have consented to an arbitrary taxation of the jaghires, and
would have given up to absolute confiscation every
man except those honorable persons I have mentioned.
The prisoner himself has called Mr. Wombwell to
prove the names of those infamous persons with a
partiality for whom Mr. Hastings has aspersed the
Nabob, in order to lay the ground for the destruction
of his family. They amount to only six in number;
and when we come to examine these six, we find that
t;heir jaghires were perfectly contemptible. The list
of the other jaghiredars, your Lordships see, fills up
pages; and the amount of their incomes I have already stated. Your Lordships now see how inconsiderable, both in number and amount, were the culpable jaghires, in the destruction of which he has
involved the greater number and the meritorious.
You see that the Nabob never did propose any
exemption of the former at any time; that this was
a slander and a calumny on that unhappy man, in
order to defend the violent acts of the prisoner, who
has recourse to slander and calumny as a proper way
to defend violence, outrage, and wrongs.
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. -FIFTH DAY. 17
We have now gone through the first stage of Mr.
Hastings's confiscation of the estates of these unhappy
people. When it came to be put in execution, Mr.
Middleton finds the Nabob reluctant in the greatest
degree to mhke this sacrifice of his family and of all
his nobility. It touched him in every way in which
shame and sympathy can affect a man. He falls at
the feet of Mr. Middleton; he says, "I signed the
treaty of Chunar upon an assurance that it was never
meant to be put in force. " Mr. Middleton nevertheless proceeds; he sends the family of the Nabob out of the country; but he entertains fears of a general
revolt as the consequence of this tyrannical act, and
refers the case back to Mr. Hastings, who insists
upon its being executed in its utmost extent. The
Nabob again remonstrates in the strongest manner;
he begs, he prays, he dissembles, he delays. One
day he pretends to be willing to submit, the next he
hangs back, just as the violence of Mr. Hastings or
his own natural feelings and principles of justice
dragged him one way or dragged him another. Mr.
Middleton, trembling, and under the awe of that
dreadful responsibility under which your Lordships
may remember Mr. Hastings had expressly laid him
upon that occasion, ventures at once to usurp the
Nabob's government. He usurped it openly and
avowedly. He declared that he himself would issue
his purwannahs as governor of the country, for the
purpose of executing this abominable confiscation.
He assumed, I say, to himself the government of
the country, and Mr. Hastings had armed him.
with a strong military force for that purpose; he
declared he would order those troops to march for
his support; he at last got this reluctant, strugVOL. XII. 2
? ? ? ? 18 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
gling Nabob to consent in the manner we have described.
I shall now read to your Lordships Mr. Middleton's
letters, that you may hear these men with their own
mouths describing their own acts, and that your Lordships may then judge whether the highest tone and language of crimination comes up to their own description of their own proceedings.
" Lucknow, the 6th of Dec. , 1781.
" Finding the Nabob wavering in his determination
about the resumption of the jaghires, I this day, in
presence of, and with the minister's concurrence,
ordered the necessary purwannahs to be written to
the several aumils for that purpose, and it was my
firm resolution to have dispatched them this evening,
with proper people to see them punctually and
implicitly carried into execution; but before they
were all transcribed, I received a message from the
Nabob, who had been informed by the minister of
the resolution I had taken, entreating that I would
withhold the purwannahs till to-morrow morning,
when he would attend me, and afford me satisfaction
on this point. As the loss of a few hours in the
dispatch of the purwannahs appeared of little moment, and as it is possible the Nabob, seeing that the business will at all events be done, may make it an
act of his own, I have consented to indulge him in'his request; but, be the result of our interview whatever it may, nothing shall prevent the orders
being issued to-morrow, either by him or myself, with
the concurrence of the ministers. Your pleasure respecting the Begums I have learnt from Sir Elijah,
and the measure heretofore proposed will soon follow
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - FIFTH DAY. 19
the resumption of the jaghires; from both, or, indeed, from the former alone, I have no doubt of the complete liquidation of the Company's balance. "
"Lucknow, the 7th Dec. , 1781.
" MY DEAR SIR, -I had the honor to address you
yesterday, informing you of the steps I had taken
in regard to the resumption of the jaghires. This
morning the Vizier came to me, according to. his
agreement, but seemingly without any intention or
desire to yield me satisfaction on the subject under
discussion; for, after a great deal of conversation,
consisting on his part of trifling evasion and puerile
excuses for withholding his assent to the measure,
though at the same time professing the most implicit
submission to your wishes, I found myself without
any other resource than the one of employing that
exclusive authority with which I consider your instructions to vest me. I therefore declared to the Nabob, in presence of the minister and Mr. Johnson,
who I desired might bear witness of the conversation,
that I construed his rejection of the measure proposed as a breach of his solemn promise to you, and an unwillingness to yield that assistance which was
evidently in his power towards liquidating his heavy
accumulated debt to the Company, and that I must
in consequence determine, in my own justification,
to issue immediately the purwannahs, which had
only been withheld in the sanguine hope that he
would be prevailed upon to make that his own act,
which nothing but the most urgent necessity could
force me to make mine. He left me without any
reply, but afterwards sent for his minister, and authorized him to give me hopes that my requisition
? ? ? ? 20 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
would be complied with; on which I expressed my
satisfaction, but declared that I could admit of no
further delays, and, unless I received his Excellency's formal acquiescence before the evening, I should
then most assuredly issue my purwannahs: which I
have accordingly done, not having had any assurances from his Excellency that could justify a further suspension. I shall as soon as possible inform you of the effect of the purwannahs, which in many
parts I am apprehensive it will be found necessary to
enforce with military aid; I am not, however, entirely without hopes that the Nabob, when he sees the
inefficacy of further opposition, may alter his conduct, and prevent the confusion and disagreeable
consequences which would be too likely to result
from the prosecution of a measure of such importance without his concurrence. His Excellency talks
of going to Fyzabad, for the purpose heretofore mentioned, in three or. four days; I wish he may be serious in this intention, and you may rest assured I shall spare no pains to keep him to it. "
Lucknow, 28th -December, 1781.
"If your new demand is to be insisted upon,
which your letter seems to portend, I must beg your
precise orders upon it; as, from the difficulties I have
within these few days experienced in carrying the
points you had enjoined with the Nabob, I have the
best grounds for believing that he would consider it
a direct breach of the late agreement, and totally reject
the proposal as such; and I must own to you, that, in
his present fermented state of mind, I could expect
nothing less than despair and a declared rupture.
"He has by no means been yet able to furnish me
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. ---FIFTH DAY. 21
with means of paying off the arrears due to the temporary brigade, to the stipulated term of its continuance in his service. The funds necessary for paying off and discharging his own military establishment
under British officers, and his pension list, have been
raised, on the private credit of Mr. Johnson and myself, from the shroffs of this place, to whom we are
at this moment pledged for many lacs of rupees; and
without such aid, which I freely and at all hazards
yielded, because I conceived it was your anxious desire to relieve the Nabob as soon as possible of this
heavy burden, the establishment must have been at
his charge to this time, and probably for months to
come, while his resources were strained to the utmost to furnish jaidads for its maintenance to this
period. I therefore hesitate not to declare it utterly
impossible for him, under any circumstances whatever, to provide funds for the payment of the troops
you now propose to send him.
"The wresting Furruckabad, Kyraghur, and Fyzoola Khan's country from his government, (for in
that light, my dear Sir, I can faithfully assure you, he
views the measures adopted in respect to those countries,) together with the resumption of all the jaghires, so much against his inclination, have already brought the Nabob to a persuasion that nothing less
than his destruction, or the annihilation of every
shadow of his power, is meant; and all my labors to
convince him to the contrary have proved abortive.
A settled melancholy has seized him, and his health
is reduced beyond conception; and I do most humbly believe that the march of four regiments of
sepoys towards Lucknow, under whatever circumstances it might be represented, would be considered
? ? ? ? 22 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS;
by him as a force ultimately to be used in securing
his person. In short, my dear Sir, it is a matter of
such immediate moment, and involving, apparently,
such very serious and important consequences, that I
have not only taken upon me to suspend the communication of it to the Nabob until I should be honored
with your further commands, but have also ventured
to write the inclosed letter to Colonel Morgan: liberties which I confidently trust you will excuse, when
you consider that I can be actuated by no other motive than a zeal for the public service, and that, if,
after all, you determine that the measure shall be
insisted on, it will be only the loss of six or at most
eight days in proposing it. But in the last event, I
earnestly entreat your orders may be explicit and
positive, that I may clearly know what lengths you
would wish me to proceed in carrying them into execution. I again declare it is my firm belief, and
assure yourself, my dear Mr. Hastings, I am not
influenced in this declaration by any considerations
but my public duty and my personal attachment to
you, that the enforcing the measure you have proposed would be productive of an open rupture between us and the Nabob; nay, that the first necessary step towards carrying it into effect must be, on our part, a declaration of hostility. "
Your Lordships have now before your eyes proofs,
furnished by Mr. Hastings himself from his correspondence with Mr. Middleton, irrefragable proofs,
that this Nabob, who is stated to have made the proposition himself, was dragged to the signature of it;
and that the troops which are supposed, and fraudulently stated, (and I wish your Lordships particularly
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - FIFTH DAY. 23
to observe this,) to have been sent to assist him in
this measure, were considered by him as a body of
troops sent to imprison him, and to free him from
all the troubles and pains of government.
When Mr. Hastings sent the troops for the purpose, as he pretended, of assisting the Nabob in thle
execution of a measure which was really adopted in
direct opposition to the wishes of that prince, what
other conclusion could be drawn, but that they were
sent to overawe, not to assist him? The march of
alien troops into a country up6n that occasion could
have no object but hostility; they could have been
sent with no other design but that of bringing disgrace upon the Nabob, by making him the instrument of his family's ruin, and of the destruction of
his nobility. Your Lordships, therefore, will not
wonder that this -miserable man should have sunk
into despair, and that he should have felt the weight
of his oppression doubly aggravated by its coming
from such a man as Mr. Hastings, and by its being
enforced by such a man as Mr. Middleton.
And here I must press one observation upon your
Lordships: I do not know a greater insult that can
be offered to a man born to command than to find
himself made the tool of a set of obscure men, come
from an unknown country, without anything to distinguish them but an usurped power. Never shall
I, out of compliment to any persons, because they
happen to be my own countrymen, disguise my feelings, or renounce the dictates of Nature and of humanity. If we send out obscure people, unknowing and unknown, to exercise such acts as these, I must
say it is a bitter aggravation of the victim's suffering, Oppression and robbery are at all times evils;
? ? ? ? 24 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
but they are more bearable, when exercised by persons whom we have been habituated to regard with
awe, and to whom mankind for ages have been accustomed to bow.
Now does the history of tyranny furnish, does the
history of popular violence deposing kings firnish,
anything like the dreadful deposition of this prince,
and the cruel and abominable tyranny that has been
exercised over him? Consider, too, my Lords, for. what object all this was done. Was Mr. Hastings
endeavoring, by his arbitrary interference and the
use of his superior power, to screen a people from
the usurpation and power of a tyrant, - from any
strong and violent acts against property, against dignity, against nobility, against the freedom of his peo.
ple? No: you see here a monarch deposed, in effect, by persons pretending to be his allies, and assigning what are pretended to be his wishes as the motive for using his usurped authority in the execution of these acts of violence against his own family and his subjects. You see him struggling against this violent prostitution of his authoriity. He refuses
the sanction of his name, which before he had given
up to Mr. Hastings to be used as he pleased, and
only begs not to be made an instrument of wrong
which his soul abhors, and which would make him
infamous throughout the world. Mr. Middleton,
however, assumes the sovereignty of the country.
" I," he says, " am Nabob of Oude: the jaghires shall
be confiscated: I have given my orders, and they
shall be supported by a military force. "
I am ashamed to have so far distrusted your Lordships' honorable and generous feelings as to have
offered you, upon this occasion, any remarks which
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. -- FIFTH DAY. 25
you must have run before me in making. Those
feelings which you have, and ought to have, feelings
born in the breasts of all men, and much more in
men of your Lordships' elevated rank, render my remarks unnecessary. I need not, therefore, ask what you feel, when a foreign resident at a prince's court
takes upon himself to force that prince to act the
part of a tyrant, and, upon his resistance, openly and
avowedly assumes the sovereignty of the country.
You have it in proof that Mr. Middleton did this.
He not only put his own name to the orders for this
horrible confiscation, but he actually proceeded to
dispossess the jaghiredars of their lands, and to send
them out of the country. And whom does he send,
in the place of this plundered body of nobility, to
take possession of the country? Why, the usurers
of Benares. Yes, my Lords, he immediately mortgages the whole country to the usurers of Benares, for the purpose of raising money upon it: giving
it up to those bloodsuckers, dispossessed of that nobility, whose interest, wllose duty, whose feelings, and whose habits made them the natural protectors
of the people.
My Lords, we here see a body of usurers put into
possession of all the estates of the nobility: let us
now see if this act was necessary, even for the avowed
purposes of its agents, - the relief of the Nabob's
financial difficulties, and the payment of his debts to
the Company. Mr. Middleton has told your Lord
ships that these jaghires would pay the Company's
debt completely in two years. Then would it not
have been better to have left these estates in the
hands of their owners, and to have oppressed them
in some moderate, decent way? Might they not have
? ? ? ? 26 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
left the jaghiredars to raise the sums required by some
settlement with the bankers of Benares, in which the
repayment of the money within five or six years might
have been secured, and the jaghiredars have had in
the mean time something to subsist upon? Oh, no!
these victims must have nothing to live upon. They
must be turned out. And why? Mr. Hastings
commands it.
Here I must come in aid of Mr. Middleton a
little; for one cannot but pity the miserable instiuments that have to act under Mr. Hastings. I do
not mean to apologize for Mr. Middleton, but to pity
the situation of persons who, being servants of the
Company, were converted, by the usurpation of this
man, into his subjects and his slaves. The mind
of Mr. Middleton revolts. You see him reluctant
to proceed. The Nabob begs a respite. You find
in the Resident a willingness to comply. Even Mr.
Middleton is placable. Mr. Hastings alone is obdurate. His resolution to rob and to destroy was not to be moved, and the estates of the whole Mahometan
nobility of a great kingdom were confiscated in a
moment. Your Lordships will observe that his orders to Mr. Middleton allow no forbearance. He
writes thus to him.
"SIR, -- My mind has been for some days suspended between two opposite impulses: one arising from the necessity of my return to Calcutta; the other,
from the apprehension of my presence being more
necessary and more urgently wanted at Lucknow.
Your answer to this shall decide my choice.
"I have waited thus long in the hopes of hearing
that some progress had been made in the execution
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - FIFTH DAY. 27
of the plan which I concluded with the Nabob in
September last. I do not find that any step towards
it has been yet taken, though three months are
elapsed, and little more than that period did appear
to me requisite to have accomplished the most essential parts of it, and to have brought the whole into
train. This tardiness, and the opposition prepared
to the only decided act yet undertaken, have a bad
appearance. I approve the Nabob's resolutions to
deprive the Begums of their ill-employed treasures.
In both services, it must be your care to prevent all
abuse of the powers given to those that are employed
in them. You yourself ought to be personally present. You must not allow any negotiation or forbearance, but must prosecute both services, until the Begums are at the entire mercy of the Nabob, their
jaghires in the quiet possession of his aumils, and
their wealth in such charge as may secure it against
private embezzlement. You will have a force more
than sufficient to effect both these purposes.
" The reformation of his army and the new settlement of his revenues are also points of immediate
concern, and ought to be immediately concluded.
HIas anything been done in either?
" I now demand and require you most solemnly to
answer me. Are you confident in your own ability
to accomplish all these purposes, and the other
points of my instructions? If you reply that you
are, I will depart with a quiet and assured mind to
the Presidency, but leave you a dreadful responsibility, if you disappoint me. If you tell me that you
cannot rely upon your power, and the other means
which you possess for performing these services, I will
free you from the charge. I will proceed myself to
? ? ? ? 28 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
Lucknow, and I will myself undertake them; and in
that case, I desire that you will immediately order
bearers to be stationed, for myself and two other gentlemen, between Lucknow and Allahabad, and I will
set out friom hence in three days after the receipt
of your letter.
"'I am sorry that I am under the necessity of
writing in this pressing manner. I trust implicitly
to your integrity, I am certain of your attachment
to myself, and I know that your capacity is equal to
any service; but I must express my doubts of your
firmness and activity, and above all of your recollection of my instructions, and of their importance.
My conduct in the late arrangements will be arraigned with all the rancor of disappointed rapacity,
and my reputation and influence will suffer a mortal
wound from the failure of them. They have already
failed in a degree, since no part of them has yet
taken place, but the removal of our forces from the
Dooab and Rohilcund, and of the British officers and
pensioners from the service of the Nabob, and the expenses of the former thrown without any compensation on the Company.
"I expect a supply of money equal to the discharge of all the Nabob's arrears, and am much disappointed and mortified that I am not now able to return with it.
"' Give me an immediate answer to the question
which I have herein proposed, that I may lose no
more time in fruitless inaction. "
About this time Mr. Hastings had received information of our inquiries in the House of Commons into
his conduct; and this is the manner in which he pre
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - FIFTH DAY. 29
pares to meet them. "I must get money. I must
carry with me that great excuse for everything, that
salve for every sore, that expiation for every crime:
let me provide that, all is well. You, Mr. Middleton, try your nerves: are you equal to these services?
Examine yourself; see what is in you: are you man
enough to come up to it? " says the great robber
to the little robber, says Roland the Great to his
puny accomplice. " Are you equal to it? Do you
feel yourself a man? If not, send messengers and
dawks to me, and I, the great master tyrant, will
come myself, and put to shame all the paltry delegate
tools of despotism, that have not edge enough to cut
their way through and do the services I have ordained for them. "
I have already stated to your Lordships his reason
and motives for this violence, and they are such as
aggravated his crime by attempting to implicate his
country in it. He says lie was afraid to go home
without having provided for the payment of the Nabob's debt. Afraid of what? Was he afraid of coming before a British tribunal, and saying, "Through justice, through a regard for the rights of an allied
sovereign, through a regard to the rights of his people, I have not got so much as I expected"? Of
this no man could be afraid. The prisoner's fear had
another origin. "I have failed," says he to himself, " in my first project. I went to Benares to rob;
I have lost by my violence the fruits of that robbery.
I must get the money somewhere, or I dare not appear before a British House of Commons, a British
House of Lords, or any other tribunal in the kingdom; but let me get money enough, and they won't
care how I get it. The estates of whole bodies of
? ? ? ? 30 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
nobility may be confiscated; a people who had lived
under their protection may be given up into the
hands of foreign usurers: they will care for none of
these things; they will suffer me to do all this, and
to employ in it the force of British troops, whom I
have described as a set of robbers, provided I can
get money. " These were Mr. Hastings's views; and,
in accordance with them, the jaghires were all confiscated, the jaghiredars with their families were all
turned out, the possessions delivered, up to the usurer, in order that Mr. Hastings might have the excuse of money to plead at the bar of the House of Commons, and afterwards at the bar of the House
of Lords. If your Lordships, in your sacred character of the first tribunal in the world, should by your
judgment justify those proceedings, you will sanction the greatest wrongs that have been ever known
in history.
But to proceed. The next thing to be asked is,
Were the promised pensions given to the jaghiredars?
I suppose your Lordships are not idle enough to put
that question to us. No compensation, no consideration, was given or stipulated for them. If there had
been any such thing, the prisoner could have proved
it, -he would have proved it. The means were easy
to him. But we have saved him the trouble of the
attempt. We have proved the contrary, and, if called
upon, we will show you the place where this is proved.
I have now shown your Lordships how Mr. Hastings, having with such violent and atrocious circumstances usurped the government of Oude, (I hope I need not use any farther proof that the Nabob- was
in effect non-existent in the country,) treated all the
landed property. The next question will be, How
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - FIFTH DAY. 31
has he treated whatever moneyed property was left
in the country? My Lords, he looked over that immense waste of his own creating, not as Satan viewed the kingdoms of the world and saw the power and
glory of them, --but he looked over the waste of
Oude with a diabolical malice which one could hardly suppose existed in the prototype himself. He saw nowhere above-ground one single shilling that he
could attach, -- no, not one; every place had been
ravaged; no money remained in sight. But possibly some might be buried in vaults, hid from the gripe of tyranny and rapacity. "It must be so," says
he. "Where can I find it? how can I get at it?
There is one illustrious family that is thought to
have accumulated a vast body of treasures, through
a course of three or four successive reigns. It does
not appear openly; but we have good information
that very great sums of money are bricked up and
kept in vaults under ground, and secured under the
guard and within the walls of a fortress": the residence of the females of the family, a guard, as your Lordships know, rendered doubly and trebly secure
by the manners of the country, which make everything that is in the hands of women sacred. It is
said that nothing is proof against gold, --that the
strongest tower will not be impregnable, if Jupiter
makes love in a golden shower. This Jupiter commences making love; but lie does not come to the ladies with gold for their persons, he comes to their
persons for their gold. This impetuous lover, Mr.
Hastings, who is not to be stayed from the objects of
his passion, would annihilate space and time between
him and his beloved object, the jaghires of these ladies, had now, first, their treasure's affection.
? ? ? ? 32 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
Your Lordships have already had a peep behind
the curtain, in the first orders sent to Mr. Middleton.
In the treaty of Chunar you see a desire, obliquely
expressed, to get the landed estates of all these great
families. But even while he was meeting with such
reluctance in the Nabob upon this point, and though
he also met with some resistance upon the part even
of Mr. Middleton, Mr. Hastings appears to have given
him in charge some other still more obnoxious and
dreadful acts. " While I was meditating," says Mr.
Middleton, in one of his letters, "upon this [the
resumption of the jaghires], your orders came to me
through Sir Elijah Impey. " What these orders were
is left obscure in the letter: it is yet but as in a
mist or cloud. But it is evident that Sir Elijah Impey did convey to him some project for getting at
more wealth by some other service, which was not
to supersede the first, but to be concurrent with that
upon which Mr. Hastings had before given him such
dreadful charges and had loaded him with such horrible responsibility. It could not have been anything but the seizure of the Begum's treasures. He thus goaded on two reluctant victims,-first the reluctant Nabob, then the reluctant Mr. Middleton,
forcing them with the bayonet behind them, and
urging on the former, as at last appears, to violate
the sanctity of his mother's house.
Your Lordships have been already told by one
of my able fellow Managers, that Sir Elijah Impey
is the person who carried up the message alluded
to in Mr. Middleton's letter. We have charged it,
as an aggravation of the offences of the prisoner at
your bar, that the Chief-Justice, who, by the sacred
nature of his office, and by the express provisions
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - FIFTH DAY. 33
of the act of Parliament under which he was sent
out to India to redress the wrongs of the natives,
should be made an instrument for destroying the
property, real and personal, of this people. When
it first came to our knowledge that all this private
intrigue for the destruction of these high women
was carried on through the intrigue of a ChiefJustice, we felt such shame and such horror, both
for the instrument and the principal, as I think it
impossible to describe, or for anything but complete
and perfect silence to express.
But by Sir Elijah Impey was that order carried
up to seize and confiscate the treasures of the Begums. We know that neither the Company nor the Nabob had any claim whatever upon these treasures.
On the contrary, we know that two treaties had been
made for the protection of them. We know that
the Nabob, while he was contesting about some elephants and carriages, and some other things that he said were in the hands of their steward, did allow
that the treasures in the custody of his grandmother
and of his mother's principal servants were their
property. This is the Nabob who is now represented by Mr. Hastings and his counsel to have become the instrument of destroying his mother and grandmother, and everything else that ought to be dear to mankind, throughout the whole train of his family.
Mr. Hastings, having resolved to seize upon the
treasures of the Begums, is at a loss for some pretence of justifying the act. His first justification
of it is on grounds which all tyrants have ready at
their hands. He begins to discover a legal title to
that of which he wished to be the possessor, and on
this title sets up a claim to these treasures. I say
VOL.
