is Domitian to be the subject of my
affection?
Edmund Burke
?
?
?
266 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
were taken out of his hands and put into the hands
of Sir John D'Oyly, directly contrary to the orders
of the Company, which certainly implied the restitution of Mahomed Reza Khan to all the offices which
he had before held. He was stripped of everything
but a feeble administration of justice, which, I take
for grailted, could not, under the circumstances,
have been much better in his hands than it had been
in Sudder ul Huk Kha'n's.
Mr. Hastings's protection of this woman continued
to the last; and when he was going away, on the 3d
of November, 1783, he wrote a sentimental letter to
the Court of Directors in her praise. This letter was
transmitted without having been communicated to
the Council. You have heard of delicate affidavits;
here you have a sentimental official despatch: your
Lordships will find it in page 1092 and 1093 of your
printed Minutes. He writes in such a delicate, sentimental strain of this woman, that I will venture to
say you will not find in all the " Arcadia," in all the
novels and romances that ever were published, an instance of a greater, a more constant, and more ardent affection, defying time, ugliness, and old age, did ever
exist, than existed in Mr. Hastings towards this old
woman, Munny Begum. As cases of this kind, cases of gallantry abounding in sentimental expressions,
are rare in the Company's records, I recommend it
as a curiosity to your Lordships' reading, as well as a
proof of what is the great spring and movement of
all the prisoner's actions. On this occasion he thus
speaks of Munny Begum.
" She, too, became the victim of your policy,
and of the resentments which succeeded. Some
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. -- EIGHTH DAY. 267
thing, too, she owed of the source of her misfortunes
to the belief of the personal gratitude which she
might entertain for the public attention which I had
shown to her. Yet, exposed as she was to a treatment which a ruffian would have shuddered at committing, and which no recollection of past enmities shall compel me to believe, even for a moment, proceeded from any commission of authority, she still
maintained the decorum of her character; nor even
then, nor before, nor since that period, has the malice
of calumny ever dared to breathe on her reputation. "
-Delicate! sentimental! -" Pardon, honorable Sirs,
this freedom of expostulation. I must in honest truth
repeat, that your commands laid the first foundation
of her misfortunes; to your equity she has now recourse through me for their alleviation, that she may
pass the remainder of her life in a state which may
at least efface the remembrance of the years of her
affliction; and to your humanity she and an unseen
multitude of the most helpless of her sex cry for sub.
sistence. "
Moving and pathetic! -- I wish to recommend
every word of this letter to your Lordships' consideration, as a model and pattern of perfection. Observe his pity for a woman who had suffered such treatment from the servants of the Company (a parcel of ruffians! ) -treatment that a ruffian would be
ashamed of! Your Lordships have seen, in the evidence, what this ruffianism was. It was neither
more nor less than what was necessary in order to
get at the accounts, which she concealed, as his own
corrupt transactions. She was told, indeed, that she
must privately remove to another house whilst her
? ? ? ? 268 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
papers were examining. Mr. Hastings can never
forget this. He cannot believe that anybody dare
send such an order; and he calls upon you to consider the helplessness of their sex, and the affronts offered to women. For Heaven's sake, my Lords, recollect the manner
in which Mr. Hastings and his creatures treated the
Begums of Oude, and consider that this woman was
only threatened (for the threat was never attempted
to be executed) that she must, if she did not deliver up the accounts, probably be removed to another house, and leave the accounts behind her. This blot
can never be effaced; and for this he desires the Court of Directors to make her a large allowance to comfort her in her old age. In this situation Mr. Hastings leaves her. He leaves in the situation I have described the justice of the country. The only concern he has at parting is, that this woman may have a large allowance.
But I have yet to tell your Lordships, and it appears upon your printed Minutes, that this woman had a way of comforting herself: - for old ladies of
that description, who have passed their youth in
amusements, in dancing, and in gallantries, in their
old age are apt to take comfort in brandy. This
lady was a smuggler, and had influence enough to
avoid payment of the duty on spirits, in which article she is the largest dealer in the district, - as, indeed, she is in almost every species of trade. Thus your Lordships see that this sentimental lady, whom
Mr. Hastings recommends to the Directors, had ways
of comforting herself. She carried on, notwitstanding her dignity, a trade in spirits. Now a Mahometan of distinction never carries on any trade at all, --
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. -- EIGHTH DAY. 269
it is an unknown thing,- very few Mahometans of
any rank carry on any trade at all; but that a Mahometan should carry on a trade in spirits is a prodigy never heard of before; for a woman of quality,
for a woman of sentiment, to become a dealer in
spirits is, my Lords, a thing reserved for the sentimental age of Mr. Hastings; and I will venture to
say that no man or woman could attempt any such a
trade in India, without being dishonored, ruined in
character, and disgraced by it. But she appears not
only to have been a dealer in it, but, through the influence which Mr. Hastings gave her, to have monopolized the trade in brandy, and to have evaded the duties. This, then, is the state in which we leave the
two sentimental lovers, -- the one consoling herself
with brandy, the other wheedling and whining; and,
as Swift describes the progress of an intrigue in some
respects similar, which he calls " The Progress of
Love," whereas this is the Progress of Sentiment,
"They keep at Staines the Old Blue Boar,
Are cat and dog, and rogue and whore. "
Here they set up the sign of the Old Blue Boar.
Munny Begum monopolizes the trade in spirits; and
hence she and Mr. Hastings commence their sentimental correspondence. -And now, having done with
this progress of love, we return to the progress of
justice.
We have seen how Sudder ul Huk Khan, the chiefjustice of Mr. Hastings's own nomination, was treated. Now you shall see how justice was left to shift
for herself under Mahomed Reza Khan. In page
1280 of your Lordships' Minutes you will see the
progress of all these enormities, - of Munny Be
? ? ? ? 270 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
gum's dealing in spirits, of her engrossing the trade,
of her evading duties, - and, lastly, the extinction of
all order in that country, and the funeral of justice
itself. Mr. Shore's evidence respecting this state
of the country will admit of no doubt.
Mr. Shore's Remarks accompanying the Governor-General's Minutes of the 18th Miay, 1785.
" Foujdarry jurisdiction. - Of the foujdarry jurisdiction nothing has yet been said. In this department
criminal justice is administered, and it is the only
office left to the Nabob. I do not see any particular reason for changing the system itself, and perhaps
it would on many accounts be improper; but some
regulations are highly necessary. Mahomed Reza is
at the head of this department, and is the only person I know in the country qualified for it. If he
were left to himself, I have not a doubt but he would
conduct it well; but he is so circumscribed by recommendations of particular persons, and by the protection held out to his officers by Europeans, that to my knowledge he has not been able to punish them,
even when they have been convicted of the greatest
enormities; and he has often on this account been
blamed, where his hands were tied up. "
My Lords, you now see in this minute of Sir John
Shore, now Governor-General of Bengal, one of Mr.
Hastings's own committee for drawing up his defence,
the review which he had just then taken of the ruins
of the government which had been left to him by Mr.
Hastings. You see here not the little paltry things
which might deserve in their causes the animadversion of a rough satirist like Doctor Swift, whom I
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. -EIGHTH DAY. 271
have just quoted, but you see things ten thousand
times more serious, things that deserve the thunderbolt of vindictive justice upon the head of the prisoner at your bar. For you see, that, after lie had ostensibly restored Mallomed Reza Khan, the man
who could and would have executed his office with
fidelity and effect, the man who was fit for and disposed to do his duty, there was still neither law,
order, nor justice in the country. Why? Because
of the interposition of Europeans, and men who must
have been patronized and supported by Europeans.
All this happened before Mr. Hastings's departure:
so that the whole effect of the new arrangement of
government was known to him before he left Calcutta. Tile same pretended remedy was applied. But
in fact he left this woman in the full possession of
her power. His last thoughts were for her; for the
justice of the country, for the peace and security of
the people of Bengal, he took no kind of care; these
great interests were left to the mercy of the woman
and her European associates.
My Lords, I have taken some pains in giving you
this history. I have shown you his open acts and
secret stratagems, in direct rebellion to the Court of
Directors, - his double government, his false pretences of restoring the Nabob's independence, leading
in effect to a most servile dependence, even to the
prohibition of thle approach of any one, native or
European, near him, but through the intervention
of Sir John D'Oyly. I therefore again repeat it,
that Sir John D'Oyly, and the English gentlemen
who were patronized and countenanced by Mr. Hastings, had wrought all that havoc in the country be
fore Mr. Hastings left it.
? ? ? ? 272 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
I have particularly dwelt upon the administration
of justice, because I consider it as the source of all
good, and the maladministration of it as the source
of all evil in the country. Your Lordships have
heard how it was totally destroyed by Mr. Hastings
through Sir' John D'Oyly, who was sent there by
him for the purpose of forming a clandestine government of corruption and peculation. This part of our charge speaks for itself, and I shall dismiss it with a
single observation, --that not the least trace of an
account of all these vast sums of money delivered
into the hands of Sir John D'Oyly for the use of
the Nabob appears in any part of the Company's
records. The undeniable inferences to be drawn
from this fact are, first, that, wherever we find concealment of money, and the ceasing of an account, there has been fraud, --and, secondly, that, if we
find this concealment accompanied with the devastation of a country, and the extinction of justice in it, that devastation of the country and that extinction
of justice have been the result of that fraudulent
peculation.
I am sure your Lordships will not think that a
charge of the annihilation of administrative justice,
in which the happiness and prosperity of a great
body of nobility, of numerous ancient and respectable families, and of the inhabitants in general of extensive and populous provinces are concerned, can,
if it stood single and alone, be a matter of trifling
moment. And in favor of whom do all these sacrifices appear to have been made? In favor of an old prostitute, who, if shown to your Lordships here,
like Helen to the counsellors of Troy, would not, I
think, be admitted to have charms that could palliate
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. -EIGHTH DAY. 27
this man's abominable conduct; you would not cry
out with them,
Ou Yv;ELEC, L -.
ToLj,~' aalpo yvvatKcL 7ro)X'v Xpdov oaXyea,raroXev.
For I will fairly say that there are some passions
that have their excuses; but the passion towards
this woman was the passion of avarice and rapacity
only, -- a passion, indeed, which lasted to the end
of his government, and for which he defied the orders of the Court of Directors, rebelled against his
masters, and finally subverted the justice of a great
country.
My Lords, I have done with this business. I come
next to the third division of the natives, those who
form the landed interest of the country. A few
words only will be necessary upon this part of the
subject. The fact is, that Mr. Hastings, at one
stroke, put up the property of all the nobility and
gentry, and of all the freeholders, in short, the whole
landed interest of Bengal, to a public auction, and
let it to the highest bidder. I will make no observations upon the nature of this measure to your Lordships, who represent so large a part of the dignity, together with so large a part of the landed interest
of this kingdom: though I think, that, even under
your Lordships' restrictive order, I am entitled so to
do; because we have examined some witnesses upon
this point, in the revenue charge. Suffice it to say,
that it is in evidence before your Lordships that this
sale was ordered. Mr. Hastings does not deny it.
He says, indeed, he did it not with an ill intention.
My answer is, that it could have been done withl no
other than a bad intention. The owners of the land
VOL. XII. 18
? ? ? ? 274 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
had no way left to save themselves but to become
farmers of their own estates; and from the competition which naturally took place, (and he himself
declared, that the persons, whether owners or strangers, to whom he let the lands, had agreed to rents
which surpassed their abilities to pay,) I need not
tell you what must have been the consequence, when
it got into such rapacious hands, and was taken out
of the hands of its natural proprietors: that the
public revenue had sunk and lost by it, and that the
country was wasted and destroyed. I leave it to
your Lordships' own meditation and reflection; and
I shall not press it one step further than just to
remind you of what has been so well opened and
pressed by my fellow Managers. He, Mr. Hastings,
confesses that he let the lands to his own banians;
he took his own domestic servants and put them in
the houses of the nobility of the country; and this
he did in direct violation of'an express order made
by himself, that no banian of a collector (the spirit
of which order implied ten thousand times more
strongly the exclusion of any banians of a GovernorGeneral) should have any one of those farms. We
also find that he made a regulation that no farmers
should rent more than a lac of rupees; but at the
same time we find his banians holding several farms
to more than that amount. ; In short, we find that
in every instance, where, under some plausible pretence or other, the fixed regulations are violated, it
touches him so closely as to make it absolutely impossible not to suppose that he himself had the advantage of it. For, in the first place, you have proof that he does
take bribes, and that he has corrupt dealings. This
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. -EIGHTH DAY. 275
is what he admits; but he says that he has done it
from public-spirited motives. Now there is a rule,
formed upon a just, solid presumption of law, that,
if you find a man guilty of one offence contrary to
known law, whenever there is a suspicious case
against him of the same nature, the onus probandi
that he is not guilty is turned upon him. Therefore, when I find the regulations broken,- when
I find farms given of more than a lac of rupees, -
when I find them given to the Governor-General's
own banian, contrary to the principle of the regulation, contrary, I say, in the strongest way to it,when I find that he accumulates farms beyond the regulated number,- when I find all these things
done, and besides that the banian has great balances
of account against him, - then, by the presumption
of law, I am bound to believe that all this was done,
hot for the servants, but for the master.
It is possible Mr. Hastings might really be in love
with Munny Begum; be it so, - many great men
have played the fool for prostitutes, from Mark Antony's days downwards; but no man ever fell in love
with his own banian. The persons for whom Mr.
Hastings was guilty of all this rapine and oppression
have neither relations nor kindred whom they own,
nor does any trace of friendship exist among them;
they do not live in habits of intimacy with any one;
they are good fellows and bottle-companions.
I must now proceed to observe upon another
matter which has been stated to your Lordships, --
namely, that, as soon as he obtained the majority
in the Council, (that beginning of all evils, that
opening of Pandora's box,) by the death of General
? ? ? ? 276 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
Clavering and Colonel Monson, the first thing he
did was to appoint a commission, called an aumeenty,
to go through the whole country, to enter every
man's house, to examine his title-deeds, and,to demand his papers of accounts of every kind, for the purpose of enabling himself to take advantage of
the hopes and fears of all the parties concerned, and
thus to ravage and destroy all their property.
And whom does he place at the head of this commission, to be the manager of the whole affair? Gunga Govind Sing, another banian of his, and one
of his own domestic servants. This we have discovered lately, and not without some surprise; for though I knew he kept a rogue in his house, yet
I did. not think that it was a common receptacle of
thieves and robbers. I did not know till lately that
this Gunga Govind Sing was his domestic servant;
but Mr. Hastings, in a letter to the Court of Directors, calls him his faithful domestic servant, and
as such calls upon the Company to reward him. To
this banian all the Company's servants are made
subject; tl:ey are bound to obey all his orders, and
those of his committee. I hope I need not tell your
Lordships what sort of stuff this committee was made
of, by which Gunga Govind Sing was enabled to ravage the whole country.
But, say his counsel, Mr. Hastings thought that the
value of the lands was thoroughly known; they had
been investigated three times over, and they were all
let by public auction to the highest bidder. - This may
or may not be a true test of their value; but it is a
test which, as it led to the almost entire confiscation
of the landed interest of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa,
three great kingdoms, by a dash of that man's pen,
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. -EIGHTH DAY. 277
into the hands of his banians and creatures, I can
never think of it, or of its author, without horror.
Some people say, you ought to hate the crime and
love the criminal. No, that is the language of false
morality; you ought to hate the crime and the criminal, if the crime is of magnitude. If the crime is a
small one, then you ought to be angry with the crime
and reluctant to punish the criminal; but when there
are great crimes, then you may hate them together.
What! am I to love Nero? to fall in love with Heliogabalus?
is Domitian to be the subject of my affection? No, we hate the crime, and we hate the criminal ten times more; and if I use indignant language, if I use the language of scorn and horror with respect
to the criminal, I use the language that becomes me.
But, says one of the counsel, the Company might
possess a knowledge of the country in general, but
they could not know every beya of it, (about the
third part of an acre of land,) without such a commnission. That is to say, you could not squeeze everything out of the people, without ordering such a villain as Gunga Govind Sing, (I call things by their names,) that most atrocious and wicked instrument
of the most atrocious and wicked tyranny, to examine every man's papers, to oblige every man to produce his titles and accounts upon pain of criminal
punishment, to be inflicted at the discretion of this
commissioner, this Gunga Govind Sing. For an account of these acts, and for a description of an aumeeny, I refer your Lordships to the evidence in
your Minutes, from page 1287 to 1301; and I pass
on, expressing only my horror and detestation at it,
and wishing to kindle in your Lordships' minds the
same horror and detestation of it.
? ? ? ? 278 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
Thus you see that Mr. Hastings was not satisfied
withl confiscation only. He comes just afterwards
with a blister upon the sore. He lets loose another
set of ravagers and inquisitors upon them, under
Gunga Govind Sing, and these poor people are rav-aged by the whole tribe of Calcutta banians.
Mr. Hastillgs has himself defined an aumeen in
page 1022, where he states that Nundcomar desired
him to make his son an aumeen. "'The promise
which he [Nundcomar] says I made him, that he
should be constituted aumeen, that is, inquisitor-general over the whole country, and that I would delegate to him my whole power and influence, is sometlling more than a negative falsehood. " He justly and naturally reprobates the proposition of appointing an inquisitor-general over the whole country;
and yet we see him afterwards appointing Gunga
Govind Sing such an inquisitor-general over the
whole country, in order that a bega of land should
not escape him.
Let us see how all this ended, and what it is that
leads me directly to the presumption of corruption
against him in this wicked aurneeny scheme. Now I
will admit the whole scheme to have been well intended, I will forgive the letting all the lands of Bengal by public auction, I will forgive all hle has done
with regard to his banians, I shall forgive him even
this commission itself, if he will show your Lordships
that there was the smallest use made of it with regard to the settlement of the revenues of the Company. If there was not, then there is obviously one
use only that could be made of it, namely, to put all
the people of the whole country under obedience to
Gtunga Goviiid Sinlg. Wlat, thlen, was done? Titles
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. -EIGHTH DAY. 279
and accounts were exacted; the estimate was made,
acre by acre; but we have not been able to find one
word on their records of any return that was made
to the Company of this investigation, or of any settlement or assessment of the country founded upon it,
or of any regulation that was established upon it.
Therefore, as an honest man, and as a man who is
standing here for the Commons of Great Britain, I
must not give way to any idle doubts and ridiculous
suppositions. I cannot, I say, entertain ally doubts
that the only purpose it was designed to answer was
to subject the whole landed interest of the country to
the cruel inquisition of Gunga Govind Sing, and to
the cruel purposes of Mr. Hastings. Show me another purpose and I will give up the argument: for
if there are two ways of accounting for the same
act, it is possible it may be attributed to the better
motive; but when we see that a bad thing was done
under pretence of some good, we must attach a bad
mnotive to it, if the pretence be never fulfilled.
I have now done with the landed interest of Bengal. I have omitted much whicll might have been
pressed upon your Lordships, not from any indisposition. to remark upon tile matter more fully, but because it has been done already by abler persons; I only wished to make sonie practical inferences, which,
perhaps, in the hurry of my brother Managers, might
possibly have escaped them; I wished to show you that
onie system of known or justly presumed corruption
pervades the whole of this business, from one end to
the other. Having thus disposed of the native land.
ed interest, and the native zemindars or landholders
of the country, I pass to the English government.
? ? ? ? 280 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
My Lords, when we have shown plainly the utter
extinction of the native Mahometan government,
when we have shown the extinction of the native
landed interest, what hope can there be for that afflicted country but in the servants of the Company?
When we have shown the corrupt state of that service, what hope but from the Court of Directors,
what hope but in the superintending control of British tribunals? I think as well of the body of my
countrymen as any man call do. I do not think that
any man sent out to India is sent with an ill purpose,
or goes out with bad dispositions. No: I think the
young men who go there are fair and faithful representatives of the people of the same age, --uncorrupted, but corruptible from their age, as we all are. They are sent there young. There is but one
thing held out to them, -" You are going to make
your fortune. " The Company's service is to be the
restoration of decayed noble families; it is to be
the renovation of old, and the making of new ones.
Now, when such a set of young men are sent out
with these hopes and views, and with little education,
or a very imperfect one, --when these people, from
whatever rank of life selected, many from the best,
most from the middling, very few from the lowest,
but, high, middling, or low, they are sent out to
make two things coincide which the wit of man was
never able to unite, to make their fortune and form
their education at once. What is the education
of the generality of the world? Reading a parcel of books? No. Restraint of discipline, emulation, examples of virtues and of justice, form the education of the world. If the Company's servants
have not that education, and are left to give loose
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. -EIGHTH DAY. 281
to their natural passions, some would be corrupt of
course, and some would be uncorrupt; but probably
the majority of them would be inclined to pursue
moderate courses between these two. Now I am to
show you that Mr. Hastings left these servants but this
alternative: " Be starved, be depressed, be ruined, disappoint the hopes of your families, or be my slaves,
be ready to be subservient to me in every iniquity I
shall order you to commit, and to conceal everything
I shall wish you to conceal. " This was the state of
the service. Therefore the Commons did well and
wisely, when they sent us here, not to attack this or
that servant who may have peculated, but to punish
the man who was sent to reform abuses, and to make
Bengal furnish to the world a brilliant example of
British justice.
I shall now proceed to state briefly the abuses of
the Company's government, -to show you what Mr.
Hastings was expected to do for their reformation,
and what he actually did do; I shall then show
your Lordships the effects of the whole.
I shall begin by reading to your Lordships an
extract from the Directors' letter to Bengal, of the
10th April, 1773.
"We wish we could refute the observation, that almost every attempt made by us and our adnministrations at your Presidency for the reforming of abuses has rather increased them, and added to the miseries
of the country we are so anxious to protect and cherish. The truth of this observation appears fully in the
late appoiiitment of supervisors and chiefs. Instituted as they were, to give relief to the industrious tenants, to improve and enlarge our investments, to de
? ? ? ? 282 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
stroy monopolies and retrench expenses, the end has by
no meaiis been answerable to the institution. Are not
the tenants more than ever oppressed and wretched?
Are our investments improved? Have not the raw
silk and cocoons been raised upon us fifty per cent in
price? We can hardly say what has not been made
a monopoly. And as to the expenses of your Presidency, they are at length swelled to a degree we are
no longer able to support. These facts (for such
they are) should have been stated to us as capital
reasons why neither our orders of 1771, nor indeed
any regulations whatever, could be carried into execution. But, perhaps, as this would have proved
too much, it was not suggested to us; for nothing
could more plainly indicate a state of anarchy, and
that there was no government existing in our servants in Bengal. "
"And therefore, when oppression pervades the
whole country, when youths have been suffered with
impunity to exercise sovereign jurisdiction over the
natives, and to acquire rapid fortunes by monopolizing of commerce, it cannot be a wonder to us or
yourselves, that dadney merchants do not come forward to contract with the Company, that the manufactures find their way through foreign channels, or that our investments are at once enormously dear and
of a debased quality.
"It is evident that the evils which have been so
destructive to us lie too deep for any partial plans
to reach or correct; it is therefore our resolution to
aim at the root of these evils: and we are happy in
having reason to believe that in every just and necessary regulation we shall meet with the approbation
and support of the legislature, who consider the pub
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - EIGHTH DAY. 283
lie as materially interested in the Company's prosperity.
" In order to effectuate this great end, the first step
must be to restore perfect obedience and due subordination to your administration. Our Governor and
Council must reassume and exercise their delegated powers upon every just occasion,- punish delinquents, cherish the meritorious, discountenance that luxury and dissipation which, to the reproach of government, prevailed in Bengal. Our President, Mr.
Hastings, we trust, will set the example of temperance, economy, and application; and upon this, we
are sensible, much will depend. And here we take
occasion to indulge the pleasure we have in acknowledging Mr. Hastings's services upon the coast of
Coromandel, in constructing, with equal labor and
ability, the plan which has so much improved our
investments there; and as we are persuaded he will
persevere in the same laudable pursuit through every
branch of our affairs in Bengal, he, in return, may
depend on the steady support and favor of his employers.
" Your settlement being thus put into a train of
reform, (without which, indeed, all regulations will
prove ineffectual,) you are next to revert to the old
system, when the business of your Presidency was
principally performed by our own servants, who then
had knowledge of our investments, and every other
department of our concerns: you will therefore fill
the several offices with the factors and writers upon
your establishment, (for, with our present appointments, we are assured there will be sufficient for this
purpose,) and thus you will banish idleness, and its
attendants, extravagance and dissipation. And here
? ? ? ? 284 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
we enjoin you to transmit to us a faithfill and minute
state of the pay and 6very known emolument of all
below Council: for, as it is notorious that even youths
in our service expend ill equipage, servants, dress, and
living infinitely more than our stated allowances can
afford, we cannot but be anxious to discover the
means by which they are enabled to proceed in this
manner; and, indeed, so obnoxious is this. conduct
to us, and so injurious in its consequences, that we
expect and require you to show your displeasure to
all such as shall transgress in this respect, contrasting it at the same time with instances of kindness towards the sober, frugal, and industrious. "
My Lords, you see the state in which the Directors conceived the country to be. That it was in this
state is not denied by Mr. Hastings, who was sent
out for the purpose of reforming it. The Directors
had swept away almost the whole body of their Bengal servants for supposed corruption; and they appointed a set of new ones, to regenerate, as it were, the government of that country.
Mr. Hastings says, "I was brought to India like
other people. " This, indeed, is true; and I hope it
will prove an example and instruction to all mankind
never to employ a man who has been bred in base and
corrupt practices, from any hope that his local knowledge may make him the fittest person to correct such
practices. Mr. Hastings goes on to say, that you
could not expect more from him than could be done
by a man bred up, as he was, in the common habits of
the country. This is also true. My Lords, you might
as well expect a man to be fit for a perfumer's shop,
who has lain a month in a pig's stye, as to expect
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. -EIGHTH DAY. 285
that a man who has been a contractor with the
Company for a length of time is a fit person for re.
forming abuses. Mr. Hastings has stated in gelleral
his history, his merits, and his services. We have
looked over with care the records relative to his
proceedings, and we find that in 1760 and 1761 he
was ill possession of a contract for bullocks and a
contract for provisions. It is no way wrong for
any man to take a contract, provided lie does not do
what Mr. Hastings has condemned in his regulations,
-become a contractor with his masters. But though
I do not bear upon Mr. Hastings for having spent his
time in being a bullock-contractor, yet I say that he
ought to have laid aside all the habits of a bullockcontractor wheu he was made a great minister for the reformation of a great service full of abuses. I
will show your Lordships that he never did so; that,
on the contrary, being bred in those bad habits, and
having had the education that I speak of, he perseiered in the habits which had been formed in him to the very last.
I understand it has been imputed as a sort of a
crime in me, that I stated something of the obscurity of Mr. Hastings's birth. The imputation has no foundation. Can it be believed that any man could
be so absurd as to attack a man's birth, when he is
accusing his actions? No, I have always spoken of
the low, sordid, and mercenary habits in which he
was bred; I said nothing of his birth. But, my
Lords, I was a good deal surprised when a friend of
his and mine yesterday morning put into my hands,
who had been attacking Mr. Hastings's life and conduct, a pedigree. I was appealing to the records of the Company; they answer by sending me to the
? ? ? ? 286 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
Herald's Office. Many of your Lordships' pedigrees
are obscure in comparison with that of Mr. Hastings;
and I only wonder how he came to derogate from
such a line of nobles by becoming a contractor for
bullocks.
A man may be an honest bullock-contractor, (God
forbid that many of them in this country should not
be very honest! ) but I find his terms were nearly
four times as high as those which the House of Commons had condemned as exorbitant. They were not only unusually high, but the bullocks were badly
supplied, and the contract had not been fairly advertised. It was therefore agreed to declare the same void at the expiration of twelve months, on the 1st
December, 1763. I say again, that I do not condemn
him for being a bullock-contractor; but I am suspicious of his honesty, because hle has been nursed in bad and vicious habits. That of contracting with his
masters is a bad habit, as he himself has stated in a
record which is printed by the House of Commons.
I condemn him for being a fraudulent bullock-contractor: for he was turned out of that contract for fraudulent practices; it was declared void, and given
to another at a lower price. After it was so disposed
of, Mr. Hastings himself, condemning his own original contract, which was at twelve rupees for a certain species of bullocks, took the contract again at seven;
and on these terms it continued. What I therefore
contend for is this, that he carried with him the
spirit of a fraudulent bullock-contractor through the
whole of the Company's service, in its greatest and
most important parts.
My Lords, the wading through all these corruptions is an unpleasant employment for me; but what
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPILY. -EIGHTH DAY. 287
am I to think of a man who holds up his head so
high, that, when a matter of account is in discussion,
such as appears in this very defence that I have in
my hand, he declares he does not know anything
about it? He cannot keep accounts: that is beneath
him. We trace him throughout the whole of his
career, engaged in a great variety of mercantile employments; and yet, when he comes before you, you would imagine that he had been bred in the study
of the sublimest sciences, and had no concern in
anything else,- that he had been engaged in writing a poem, an Iliad, or some work that might revive fallen literature. There is but one exception to his
abhorrence of accounts: he always contrives to make
up a good account for himself.
My Lords, we have read to you a letter in which
the Court of Directors have described the disorders
of their service, the utter ruin of it, the corruption
that prevailed in it, and the destruction of the country by it. When we are said to exaggerate, we use
no stronger words than they do. We cannot mince
the matter; your Lordships should not mince it; no
little paltry delicacies should hinder you, when there
is a country expiring under all these things, from
calling the authors to a strict account. The Court
of Directors sent him that statement; they recommended to him a radical reformation. What does
he do? We will read his letter of 1773, in which
you will find seeds sown for the propagation of all
those future abuses which terminated in the utter
and irremediable destruction of the whole service.
After he has praised the Directors for the trust that
they had placed in him, after expressing his highest
gratitude, and so on, he says, --
? ? ? ? 288 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
" While I indulge the pleasure which I receive from
the past successes of my endeavors, I own I cannot
refrain from looking back with a mixture of anxiety
on the omissions by which I am sensible I may since
have hazarded the diminution of your esteem. All
my letters addressed to your Honorable Court, and to
the Secret Committee, repeat the strongest promises
of prosecuting the inquiries into the conduct of your
servants, which you have been pleased to commit
particularly to my charge. You will readily perceive that I must have been sincere in those declarations; since it would have argued great indiscretion
to have made them, had I foreseen my inability to perform them. I find myself now under the disagreeable necessity of avowing that inability; at the same time I will boldly take upon me to affirm, that, on
whomsoever you might have delegated that charge,
and by whatever powers it might have been accompanied, it would have been sufficient to occupy the
entire attention of those who were intrusted with it,
and, even with all the aids of leisure and authority.
would have proved ineffectual. I dare appeal to the
public records, to the testimony of those who have
opportunities of knowing me, and even to the detail
which the public voice can report of the past acts of
this government, that my time has been neither idly
nor uselessly employed; yet such are the cares and
embarrassments of this various state, that, although
much may be done, much more, even in matters of
moment, must necessarily remain neglected. . To select from the miscellaneous heap which each day's
exigencies present to our choice those points on
which the general welfare of your affairs most essentially depends, to provide expedients for future ad
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - EIGHTH DAY. 289
vantages, and guard against probable evils, are all
that your administration can faithfully promise to
perform for your service, with their united labors
most diligently exerted. They cannot look back
without sacrificing the objects of their immediate
duty, which are those of your interest, to endless researches, which can produce no real good, and may expose your affairs to all the ruinous consequences
of personal malevolence, both here and at home. "
My Lords, you see here, that, after admitting that
he has promised to the Court of Directors to do what
they ordered him to do, (and he had promised to
make a radical reform in their whole service, and to
cure those abuses which they have stated,) he declares that he will not execute them; he pleads a variety of other occupations; but as to that great
fundamental grievance he was appointed to eradicate,
lie declares he will not even attempt it. "Why did
you promise? "- it naturally occurs to ask him that
question. " Why," says lhe, " you will readily perceive
that I must have been sincere in those declarations;
since it would have argued great indiscretion to have
made them, had I known my inability to perform
them. " This is a kind of argument that belongs to
Mr. Hastings exclusively. Most other people would
say, " You may judge of the sincerity of my promises
by my zeal in the performance "; but he says, " You
may judge of the sincerity of my promises, because I
would not promise, if I had not thought I should be
able to perform.
were taken out of his hands and put into the hands
of Sir John D'Oyly, directly contrary to the orders
of the Company, which certainly implied the restitution of Mahomed Reza Khan to all the offices which
he had before held. He was stripped of everything
but a feeble administration of justice, which, I take
for grailted, could not, under the circumstances,
have been much better in his hands than it had been
in Sudder ul Huk Kha'n's.
Mr. Hastings's protection of this woman continued
to the last; and when he was going away, on the 3d
of November, 1783, he wrote a sentimental letter to
the Court of Directors in her praise. This letter was
transmitted without having been communicated to
the Council. You have heard of delicate affidavits;
here you have a sentimental official despatch: your
Lordships will find it in page 1092 and 1093 of your
printed Minutes. He writes in such a delicate, sentimental strain of this woman, that I will venture to
say you will not find in all the " Arcadia," in all the
novels and romances that ever were published, an instance of a greater, a more constant, and more ardent affection, defying time, ugliness, and old age, did ever
exist, than existed in Mr. Hastings towards this old
woman, Munny Begum. As cases of this kind, cases of gallantry abounding in sentimental expressions,
are rare in the Company's records, I recommend it
as a curiosity to your Lordships' reading, as well as a
proof of what is the great spring and movement of
all the prisoner's actions. On this occasion he thus
speaks of Munny Begum.
" She, too, became the victim of your policy,
and of the resentments which succeeded. Some
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. -- EIGHTH DAY. 267
thing, too, she owed of the source of her misfortunes
to the belief of the personal gratitude which she
might entertain for the public attention which I had
shown to her. Yet, exposed as she was to a treatment which a ruffian would have shuddered at committing, and which no recollection of past enmities shall compel me to believe, even for a moment, proceeded from any commission of authority, she still
maintained the decorum of her character; nor even
then, nor before, nor since that period, has the malice
of calumny ever dared to breathe on her reputation. "
-Delicate! sentimental! -" Pardon, honorable Sirs,
this freedom of expostulation. I must in honest truth
repeat, that your commands laid the first foundation
of her misfortunes; to your equity she has now recourse through me for their alleviation, that she may
pass the remainder of her life in a state which may
at least efface the remembrance of the years of her
affliction; and to your humanity she and an unseen
multitude of the most helpless of her sex cry for sub.
sistence. "
Moving and pathetic! -- I wish to recommend
every word of this letter to your Lordships' consideration, as a model and pattern of perfection. Observe his pity for a woman who had suffered such treatment from the servants of the Company (a parcel of ruffians! ) -treatment that a ruffian would be
ashamed of! Your Lordships have seen, in the evidence, what this ruffianism was. It was neither
more nor less than what was necessary in order to
get at the accounts, which she concealed, as his own
corrupt transactions. She was told, indeed, that she
must privately remove to another house whilst her
? ? ? ? 268 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
papers were examining. Mr. Hastings can never
forget this. He cannot believe that anybody dare
send such an order; and he calls upon you to consider the helplessness of their sex, and the affronts offered to women. For Heaven's sake, my Lords, recollect the manner
in which Mr. Hastings and his creatures treated the
Begums of Oude, and consider that this woman was
only threatened (for the threat was never attempted
to be executed) that she must, if she did not deliver up the accounts, probably be removed to another house, and leave the accounts behind her. This blot
can never be effaced; and for this he desires the Court of Directors to make her a large allowance to comfort her in her old age. In this situation Mr. Hastings leaves her. He leaves in the situation I have described the justice of the country. The only concern he has at parting is, that this woman may have a large allowance.
But I have yet to tell your Lordships, and it appears upon your printed Minutes, that this woman had a way of comforting herself: - for old ladies of
that description, who have passed their youth in
amusements, in dancing, and in gallantries, in their
old age are apt to take comfort in brandy. This
lady was a smuggler, and had influence enough to
avoid payment of the duty on spirits, in which article she is the largest dealer in the district, - as, indeed, she is in almost every species of trade. Thus your Lordships see that this sentimental lady, whom
Mr. Hastings recommends to the Directors, had ways
of comforting herself. She carried on, notwitstanding her dignity, a trade in spirits. Now a Mahometan of distinction never carries on any trade at all, --
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. -- EIGHTH DAY. 269
it is an unknown thing,- very few Mahometans of
any rank carry on any trade at all; but that a Mahometan should carry on a trade in spirits is a prodigy never heard of before; for a woman of quality,
for a woman of sentiment, to become a dealer in
spirits is, my Lords, a thing reserved for the sentimental age of Mr. Hastings; and I will venture to
say that no man or woman could attempt any such a
trade in India, without being dishonored, ruined in
character, and disgraced by it. But she appears not
only to have been a dealer in it, but, through the influence which Mr. Hastings gave her, to have monopolized the trade in brandy, and to have evaded the duties. This, then, is the state in which we leave the
two sentimental lovers, -- the one consoling herself
with brandy, the other wheedling and whining; and,
as Swift describes the progress of an intrigue in some
respects similar, which he calls " The Progress of
Love," whereas this is the Progress of Sentiment,
"They keep at Staines the Old Blue Boar,
Are cat and dog, and rogue and whore. "
Here they set up the sign of the Old Blue Boar.
Munny Begum monopolizes the trade in spirits; and
hence she and Mr. Hastings commence their sentimental correspondence. -And now, having done with
this progress of love, we return to the progress of
justice.
We have seen how Sudder ul Huk Khan, the chiefjustice of Mr. Hastings's own nomination, was treated. Now you shall see how justice was left to shift
for herself under Mahomed Reza Khan. In page
1280 of your Lordships' Minutes you will see the
progress of all these enormities, - of Munny Be
? ? ? ? 270 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
gum's dealing in spirits, of her engrossing the trade,
of her evading duties, - and, lastly, the extinction of
all order in that country, and the funeral of justice
itself. Mr. Shore's evidence respecting this state
of the country will admit of no doubt.
Mr. Shore's Remarks accompanying the Governor-General's Minutes of the 18th Miay, 1785.
" Foujdarry jurisdiction. - Of the foujdarry jurisdiction nothing has yet been said. In this department
criminal justice is administered, and it is the only
office left to the Nabob. I do not see any particular reason for changing the system itself, and perhaps
it would on many accounts be improper; but some
regulations are highly necessary. Mahomed Reza is
at the head of this department, and is the only person I know in the country qualified for it. If he
were left to himself, I have not a doubt but he would
conduct it well; but he is so circumscribed by recommendations of particular persons, and by the protection held out to his officers by Europeans, that to my knowledge he has not been able to punish them,
even when they have been convicted of the greatest
enormities; and he has often on this account been
blamed, where his hands were tied up. "
My Lords, you now see in this minute of Sir John
Shore, now Governor-General of Bengal, one of Mr.
Hastings's own committee for drawing up his defence,
the review which he had just then taken of the ruins
of the government which had been left to him by Mr.
Hastings. You see here not the little paltry things
which might deserve in their causes the animadversion of a rough satirist like Doctor Swift, whom I
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. -EIGHTH DAY. 271
have just quoted, but you see things ten thousand
times more serious, things that deserve the thunderbolt of vindictive justice upon the head of the prisoner at your bar. For you see, that, after lie had ostensibly restored Mallomed Reza Khan, the man
who could and would have executed his office with
fidelity and effect, the man who was fit for and disposed to do his duty, there was still neither law,
order, nor justice in the country. Why? Because
of the interposition of Europeans, and men who must
have been patronized and supported by Europeans.
All this happened before Mr. Hastings's departure:
so that the whole effect of the new arrangement of
government was known to him before he left Calcutta. Tile same pretended remedy was applied. But
in fact he left this woman in the full possession of
her power. His last thoughts were for her; for the
justice of the country, for the peace and security of
the people of Bengal, he took no kind of care; these
great interests were left to the mercy of the woman
and her European associates.
My Lords, I have taken some pains in giving you
this history. I have shown you his open acts and
secret stratagems, in direct rebellion to the Court of
Directors, - his double government, his false pretences of restoring the Nabob's independence, leading
in effect to a most servile dependence, even to the
prohibition of thle approach of any one, native or
European, near him, but through the intervention
of Sir John D'Oyly. I therefore again repeat it,
that Sir John D'Oyly, and the English gentlemen
who were patronized and countenanced by Mr. Hastings, had wrought all that havoc in the country be
fore Mr. Hastings left it.
? ? ? ? 272 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
I have particularly dwelt upon the administration
of justice, because I consider it as the source of all
good, and the maladministration of it as the source
of all evil in the country. Your Lordships have
heard how it was totally destroyed by Mr. Hastings
through Sir' John D'Oyly, who was sent there by
him for the purpose of forming a clandestine government of corruption and peculation. This part of our charge speaks for itself, and I shall dismiss it with a
single observation, --that not the least trace of an
account of all these vast sums of money delivered
into the hands of Sir John D'Oyly for the use of
the Nabob appears in any part of the Company's
records. The undeniable inferences to be drawn
from this fact are, first, that, wherever we find concealment of money, and the ceasing of an account, there has been fraud, --and, secondly, that, if we
find this concealment accompanied with the devastation of a country, and the extinction of justice in it, that devastation of the country and that extinction
of justice have been the result of that fraudulent
peculation.
I am sure your Lordships will not think that a
charge of the annihilation of administrative justice,
in which the happiness and prosperity of a great
body of nobility, of numerous ancient and respectable families, and of the inhabitants in general of extensive and populous provinces are concerned, can,
if it stood single and alone, be a matter of trifling
moment. And in favor of whom do all these sacrifices appear to have been made? In favor of an old prostitute, who, if shown to your Lordships here,
like Helen to the counsellors of Troy, would not, I
think, be admitted to have charms that could palliate
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. -EIGHTH DAY. 27
this man's abominable conduct; you would not cry
out with them,
Ou Yv;ELEC, L -.
ToLj,~' aalpo yvvatKcL 7ro)X'v Xpdov oaXyea,raroXev.
For I will fairly say that there are some passions
that have their excuses; but the passion towards
this woman was the passion of avarice and rapacity
only, -- a passion, indeed, which lasted to the end
of his government, and for which he defied the orders of the Court of Directors, rebelled against his
masters, and finally subverted the justice of a great
country.
My Lords, I have done with this business. I come
next to the third division of the natives, those who
form the landed interest of the country. A few
words only will be necessary upon this part of the
subject. The fact is, that Mr. Hastings, at one
stroke, put up the property of all the nobility and
gentry, and of all the freeholders, in short, the whole
landed interest of Bengal, to a public auction, and
let it to the highest bidder. I will make no observations upon the nature of this measure to your Lordships, who represent so large a part of the dignity, together with so large a part of the landed interest
of this kingdom: though I think, that, even under
your Lordships' restrictive order, I am entitled so to
do; because we have examined some witnesses upon
this point, in the revenue charge. Suffice it to say,
that it is in evidence before your Lordships that this
sale was ordered. Mr. Hastings does not deny it.
He says, indeed, he did it not with an ill intention.
My answer is, that it could have been done withl no
other than a bad intention. The owners of the land
VOL. XII. 18
? ? ? ? 274 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
had no way left to save themselves but to become
farmers of their own estates; and from the competition which naturally took place, (and he himself
declared, that the persons, whether owners or strangers, to whom he let the lands, had agreed to rents
which surpassed their abilities to pay,) I need not
tell you what must have been the consequence, when
it got into such rapacious hands, and was taken out
of the hands of its natural proprietors: that the
public revenue had sunk and lost by it, and that the
country was wasted and destroyed. I leave it to
your Lordships' own meditation and reflection; and
I shall not press it one step further than just to
remind you of what has been so well opened and
pressed by my fellow Managers. He, Mr. Hastings,
confesses that he let the lands to his own banians;
he took his own domestic servants and put them in
the houses of the nobility of the country; and this
he did in direct violation of'an express order made
by himself, that no banian of a collector (the spirit
of which order implied ten thousand times more
strongly the exclusion of any banians of a GovernorGeneral) should have any one of those farms. We
also find that he made a regulation that no farmers
should rent more than a lac of rupees; but at the
same time we find his banians holding several farms
to more than that amount. ; In short, we find that
in every instance, where, under some plausible pretence or other, the fixed regulations are violated, it
touches him so closely as to make it absolutely impossible not to suppose that he himself had the advantage of it. For, in the first place, you have proof that he does
take bribes, and that he has corrupt dealings. This
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. -EIGHTH DAY. 275
is what he admits; but he says that he has done it
from public-spirited motives. Now there is a rule,
formed upon a just, solid presumption of law, that,
if you find a man guilty of one offence contrary to
known law, whenever there is a suspicious case
against him of the same nature, the onus probandi
that he is not guilty is turned upon him. Therefore, when I find the regulations broken,- when
I find farms given of more than a lac of rupees, -
when I find them given to the Governor-General's
own banian, contrary to the principle of the regulation, contrary, I say, in the strongest way to it,when I find that he accumulates farms beyond the regulated number,- when I find all these things
done, and besides that the banian has great balances
of account against him, - then, by the presumption
of law, I am bound to believe that all this was done,
hot for the servants, but for the master.
It is possible Mr. Hastings might really be in love
with Munny Begum; be it so, - many great men
have played the fool for prostitutes, from Mark Antony's days downwards; but no man ever fell in love
with his own banian. The persons for whom Mr.
Hastings was guilty of all this rapine and oppression
have neither relations nor kindred whom they own,
nor does any trace of friendship exist among them;
they do not live in habits of intimacy with any one;
they are good fellows and bottle-companions.
I must now proceed to observe upon another
matter which has been stated to your Lordships, --
namely, that, as soon as he obtained the majority
in the Council, (that beginning of all evils, that
opening of Pandora's box,) by the death of General
? ? ? ? 276 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
Clavering and Colonel Monson, the first thing he
did was to appoint a commission, called an aumeenty,
to go through the whole country, to enter every
man's house, to examine his title-deeds, and,to demand his papers of accounts of every kind, for the purpose of enabling himself to take advantage of
the hopes and fears of all the parties concerned, and
thus to ravage and destroy all their property.
And whom does he place at the head of this commission, to be the manager of the whole affair? Gunga Govind Sing, another banian of his, and one
of his own domestic servants. This we have discovered lately, and not without some surprise; for though I knew he kept a rogue in his house, yet
I did. not think that it was a common receptacle of
thieves and robbers. I did not know till lately that
this Gunga Govind Sing was his domestic servant;
but Mr. Hastings, in a letter to the Court of Directors, calls him his faithful domestic servant, and
as such calls upon the Company to reward him. To
this banian all the Company's servants are made
subject; tl:ey are bound to obey all his orders, and
those of his committee. I hope I need not tell your
Lordships what sort of stuff this committee was made
of, by which Gunga Govind Sing was enabled to ravage the whole country.
But, say his counsel, Mr. Hastings thought that the
value of the lands was thoroughly known; they had
been investigated three times over, and they were all
let by public auction to the highest bidder. - This may
or may not be a true test of their value; but it is a
test which, as it led to the almost entire confiscation
of the landed interest of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa,
three great kingdoms, by a dash of that man's pen,
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. -EIGHTH DAY. 277
into the hands of his banians and creatures, I can
never think of it, or of its author, without horror.
Some people say, you ought to hate the crime and
love the criminal. No, that is the language of false
morality; you ought to hate the crime and the criminal, if the crime is of magnitude. If the crime is a
small one, then you ought to be angry with the crime
and reluctant to punish the criminal; but when there
are great crimes, then you may hate them together.
What! am I to love Nero? to fall in love with Heliogabalus?
is Domitian to be the subject of my affection? No, we hate the crime, and we hate the criminal ten times more; and if I use indignant language, if I use the language of scorn and horror with respect
to the criminal, I use the language that becomes me.
But, says one of the counsel, the Company might
possess a knowledge of the country in general, but
they could not know every beya of it, (about the
third part of an acre of land,) without such a commnission. That is to say, you could not squeeze everything out of the people, without ordering such a villain as Gunga Govind Sing, (I call things by their names,) that most atrocious and wicked instrument
of the most atrocious and wicked tyranny, to examine every man's papers, to oblige every man to produce his titles and accounts upon pain of criminal
punishment, to be inflicted at the discretion of this
commissioner, this Gunga Govind Sing. For an account of these acts, and for a description of an aumeeny, I refer your Lordships to the evidence in
your Minutes, from page 1287 to 1301; and I pass
on, expressing only my horror and detestation at it,
and wishing to kindle in your Lordships' minds the
same horror and detestation of it.
? ? ? ? 278 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
Thus you see that Mr. Hastings was not satisfied
withl confiscation only. He comes just afterwards
with a blister upon the sore. He lets loose another
set of ravagers and inquisitors upon them, under
Gunga Govind Sing, and these poor people are rav-aged by the whole tribe of Calcutta banians.
Mr. Hastillgs has himself defined an aumeen in
page 1022, where he states that Nundcomar desired
him to make his son an aumeen. "'The promise
which he [Nundcomar] says I made him, that he
should be constituted aumeen, that is, inquisitor-general over the whole country, and that I would delegate to him my whole power and influence, is sometlling more than a negative falsehood. " He justly and naturally reprobates the proposition of appointing an inquisitor-general over the whole country;
and yet we see him afterwards appointing Gunga
Govind Sing such an inquisitor-general over the
whole country, in order that a bega of land should
not escape him.
Let us see how all this ended, and what it is that
leads me directly to the presumption of corruption
against him in this wicked aurneeny scheme. Now I
will admit the whole scheme to have been well intended, I will forgive the letting all the lands of Bengal by public auction, I will forgive all hle has done
with regard to his banians, I shall forgive him even
this commission itself, if he will show your Lordships
that there was the smallest use made of it with regard to the settlement of the revenues of the Company. If there was not, then there is obviously one
use only that could be made of it, namely, to put all
the people of the whole country under obedience to
Gtunga Goviiid Sinlg. Wlat, thlen, was done? Titles
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. -EIGHTH DAY. 279
and accounts were exacted; the estimate was made,
acre by acre; but we have not been able to find one
word on their records of any return that was made
to the Company of this investigation, or of any settlement or assessment of the country founded upon it,
or of any regulation that was established upon it.
Therefore, as an honest man, and as a man who is
standing here for the Commons of Great Britain, I
must not give way to any idle doubts and ridiculous
suppositions. I cannot, I say, entertain ally doubts
that the only purpose it was designed to answer was
to subject the whole landed interest of the country to
the cruel inquisition of Gunga Govind Sing, and to
the cruel purposes of Mr. Hastings. Show me another purpose and I will give up the argument: for
if there are two ways of accounting for the same
act, it is possible it may be attributed to the better
motive; but when we see that a bad thing was done
under pretence of some good, we must attach a bad
mnotive to it, if the pretence be never fulfilled.
I have now done with the landed interest of Bengal. I have omitted much whicll might have been
pressed upon your Lordships, not from any indisposition. to remark upon tile matter more fully, but because it has been done already by abler persons; I only wished to make sonie practical inferences, which,
perhaps, in the hurry of my brother Managers, might
possibly have escaped them; I wished to show you that
onie system of known or justly presumed corruption
pervades the whole of this business, from one end to
the other. Having thus disposed of the native land.
ed interest, and the native zemindars or landholders
of the country, I pass to the English government.
? ? ? ? 280 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
My Lords, when we have shown plainly the utter
extinction of the native Mahometan government,
when we have shown the extinction of the native
landed interest, what hope can there be for that afflicted country but in the servants of the Company?
When we have shown the corrupt state of that service, what hope but from the Court of Directors,
what hope but in the superintending control of British tribunals? I think as well of the body of my
countrymen as any man call do. I do not think that
any man sent out to India is sent with an ill purpose,
or goes out with bad dispositions. No: I think the
young men who go there are fair and faithful representatives of the people of the same age, --uncorrupted, but corruptible from their age, as we all are. They are sent there young. There is but one
thing held out to them, -" You are going to make
your fortune. " The Company's service is to be the
restoration of decayed noble families; it is to be
the renovation of old, and the making of new ones.
Now, when such a set of young men are sent out
with these hopes and views, and with little education,
or a very imperfect one, --when these people, from
whatever rank of life selected, many from the best,
most from the middling, very few from the lowest,
but, high, middling, or low, they are sent out to
make two things coincide which the wit of man was
never able to unite, to make their fortune and form
their education at once. What is the education
of the generality of the world? Reading a parcel of books? No. Restraint of discipline, emulation, examples of virtues and of justice, form the education of the world. If the Company's servants
have not that education, and are left to give loose
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. -EIGHTH DAY. 281
to their natural passions, some would be corrupt of
course, and some would be uncorrupt; but probably
the majority of them would be inclined to pursue
moderate courses between these two. Now I am to
show you that Mr. Hastings left these servants but this
alternative: " Be starved, be depressed, be ruined, disappoint the hopes of your families, or be my slaves,
be ready to be subservient to me in every iniquity I
shall order you to commit, and to conceal everything
I shall wish you to conceal. " This was the state of
the service. Therefore the Commons did well and
wisely, when they sent us here, not to attack this or
that servant who may have peculated, but to punish
the man who was sent to reform abuses, and to make
Bengal furnish to the world a brilliant example of
British justice.
I shall now proceed to state briefly the abuses of
the Company's government, -to show you what Mr.
Hastings was expected to do for their reformation,
and what he actually did do; I shall then show
your Lordships the effects of the whole.
I shall begin by reading to your Lordships an
extract from the Directors' letter to Bengal, of the
10th April, 1773.
"We wish we could refute the observation, that almost every attempt made by us and our adnministrations at your Presidency for the reforming of abuses has rather increased them, and added to the miseries
of the country we are so anxious to protect and cherish. The truth of this observation appears fully in the
late appoiiitment of supervisors and chiefs. Instituted as they were, to give relief to the industrious tenants, to improve and enlarge our investments, to de
? ? ? ? 282 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
stroy monopolies and retrench expenses, the end has by
no meaiis been answerable to the institution. Are not
the tenants more than ever oppressed and wretched?
Are our investments improved? Have not the raw
silk and cocoons been raised upon us fifty per cent in
price? We can hardly say what has not been made
a monopoly. And as to the expenses of your Presidency, they are at length swelled to a degree we are
no longer able to support. These facts (for such
they are) should have been stated to us as capital
reasons why neither our orders of 1771, nor indeed
any regulations whatever, could be carried into execution. But, perhaps, as this would have proved
too much, it was not suggested to us; for nothing
could more plainly indicate a state of anarchy, and
that there was no government existing in our servants in Bengal. "
"And therefore, when oppression pervades the
whole country, when youths have been suffered with
impunity to exercise sovereign jurisdiction over the
natives, and to acquire rapid fortunes by monopolizing of commerce, it cannot be a wonder to us or
yourselves, that dadney merchants do not come forward to contract with the Company, that the manufactures find their way through foreign channels, or that our investments are at once enormously dear and
of a debased quality.
"It is evident that the evils which have been so
destructive to us lie too deep for any partial plans
to reach or correct; it is therefore our resolution to
aim at the root of these evils: and we are happy in
having reason to believe that in every just and necessary regulation we shall meet with the approbation
and support of the legislature, who consider the pub
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - EIGHTH DAY. 283
lie as materially interested in the Company's prosperity.
" In order to effectuate this great end, the first step
must be to restore perfect obedience and due subordination to your administration. Our Governor and
Council must reassume and exercise their delegated powers upon every just occasion,- punish delinquents, cherish the meritorious, discountenance that luxury and dissipation which, to the reproach of government, prevailed in Bengal. Our President, Mr.
Hastings, we trust, will set the example of temperance, economy, and application; and upon this, we
are sensible, much will depend. And here we take
occasion to indulge the pleasure we have in acknowledging Mr. Hastings's services upon the coast of
Coromandel, in constructing, with equal labor and
ability, the plan which has so much improved our
investments there; and as we are persuaded he will
persevere in the same laudable pursuit through every
branch of our affairs in Bengal, he, in return, may
depend on the steady support and favor of his employers.
" Your settlement being thus put into a train of
reform, (without which, indeed, all regulations will
prove ineffectual,) you are next to revert to the old
system, when the business of your Presidency was
principally performed by our own servants, who then
had knowledge of our investments, and every other
department of our concerns: you will therefore fill
the several offices with the factors and writers upon
your establishment, (for, with our present appointments, we are assured there will be sufficient for this
purpose,) and thus you will banish idleness, and its
attendants, extravagance and dissipation. And here
? ? ? ? 284 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
we enjoin you to transmit to us a faithfill and minute
state of the pay and 6very known emolument of all
below Council: for, as it is notorious that even youths
in our service expend ill equipage, servants, dress, and
living infinitely more than our stated allowances can
afford, we cannot but be anxious to discover the
means by which they are enabled to proceed in this
manner; and, indeed, so obnoxious is this. conduct
to us, and so injurious in its consequences, that we
expect and require you to show your displeasure to
all such as shall transgress in this respect, contrasting it at the same time with instances of kindness towards the sober, frugal, and industrious. "
My Lords, you see the state in which the Directors conceived the country to be. That it was in this
state is not denied by Mr. Hastings, who was sent
out for the purpose of reforming it. The Directors
had swept away almost the whole body of their Bengal servants for supposed corruption; and they appointed a set of new ones, to regenerate, as it were, the government of that country.
Mr. Hastings says, "I was brought to India like
other people. " This, indeed, is true; and I hope it
will prove an example and instruction to all mankind
never to employ a man who has been bred in base and
corrupt practices, from any hope that his local knowledge may make him the fittest person to correct such
practices. Mr. Hastings goes on to say, that you
could not expect more from him than could be done
by a man bred up, as he was, in the common habits of
the country. This is also true. My Lords, you might
as well expect a man to be fit for a perfumer's shop,
who has lain a month in a pig's stye, as to expect
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. -EIGHTH DAY. 285
that a man who has been a contractor with the
Company for a length of time is a fit person for re.
forming abuses. Mr. Hastings has stated in gelleral
his history, his merits, and his services. We have
looked over with care the records relative to his
proceedings, and we find that in 1760 and 1761 he
was ill possession of a contract for bullocks and a
contract for provisions. It is no way wrong for
any man to take a contract, provided lie does not do
what Mr. Hastings has condemned in his regulations,
-become a contractor with his masters. But though
I do not bear upon Mr. Hastings for having spent his
time in being a bullock-contractor, yet I say that he
ought to have laid aside all the habits of a bullockcontractor wheu he was made a great minister for the reformation of a great service full of abuses. I
will show your Lordships that he never did so; that,
on the contrary, being bred in those bad habits, and
having had the education that I speak of, he perseiered in the habits which had been formed in him to the very last.
I understand it has been imputed as a sort of a
crime in me, that I stated something of the obscurity of Mr. Hastings's birth. The imputation has no foundation. Can it be believed that any man could
be so absurd as to attack a man's birth, when he is
accusing his actions? No, I have always spoken of
the low, sordid, and mercenary habits in which he
was bred; I said nothing of his birth. But, my
Lords, I was a good deal surprised when a friend of
his and mine yesterday morning put into my hands,
who had been attacking Mr. Hastings's life and conduct, a pedigree. I was appealing to the records of the Company; they answer by sending me to the
? ? ? ? 286 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
Herald's Office. Many of your Lordships' pedigrees
are obscure in comparison with that of Mr. Hastings;
and I only wonder how he came to derogate from
such a line of nobles by becoming a contractor for
bullocks.
A man may be an honest bullock-contractor, (God
forbid that many of them in this country should not
be very honest! ) but I find his terms were nearly
four times as high as those which the House of Commons had condemned as exorbitant. They were not only unusually high, but the bullocks were badly
supplied, and the contract had not been fairly advertised. It was therefore agreed to declare the same void at the expiration of twelve months, on the 1st
December, 1763. I say again, that I do not condemn
him for being a bullock-contractor; but I am suspicious of his honesty, because hle has been nursed in bad and vicious habits. That of contracting with his
masters is a bad habit, as he himself has stated in a
record which is printed by the House of Commons.
I condemn him for being a fraudulent bullock-contractor: for he was turned out of that contract for fraudulent practices; it was declared void, and given
to another at a lower price. After it was so disposed
of, Mr. Hastings himself, condemning his own original contract, which was at twelve rupees for a certain species of bullocks, took the contract again at seven;
and on these terms it continued. What I therefore
contend for is this, that he carried with him the
spirit of a fraudulent bullock-contractor through the
whole of the Company's service, in its greatest and
most important parts.
My Lords, the wading through all these corruptions is an unpleasant employment for me; but what
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPILY. -EIGHTH DAY. 287
am I to think of a man who holds up his head so
high, that, when a matter of account is in discussion,
such as appears in this very defence that I have in
my hand, he declares he does not know anything
about it? He cannot keep accounts: that is beneath
him. We trace him throughout the whole of his
career, engaged in a great variety of mercantile employments; and yet, when he comes before you, you would imagine that he had been bred in the study
of the sublimest sciences, and had no concern in
anything else,- that he had been engaged in writing a poem, an Iliad, or some work that might revive fallen literature. There is but one exception to his
abhorrence of accounts: he always contrives to make
up a good account for himself.
My Lords, we have read to you a letter in which
the Court of Directors have described the disorders
of their service, the utter ruin of it, the corruption
that prevailed in it, and the destruction of the country by it. When we are said to exaggerate, we use
no stronger words than they do. We cannot mince
the matter; your Lordships should not mince it; no
little paltry delicacies should hinder you, when there
is a country expiring under all these things, from
calling the authors to a strict account. The Court
of Directors sent him that statement; they recommended to him a radical reformation. What does
he do? We will read his letter of 1773, in which
you will find seeds sown for the propagation of all
those future abuses which terminated in the utter
and irremediable destruction of the whole service.
After he has praised the Directors for the trust that
they had placed in him, after expressing his highest
gratitude, and so on, he says, --
? ? ? ? 288 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
" While I indulge the pleasure which I receive from
the past successes of my endeavors, I own I cannot
refrain from looking back with a mixture of anxiety
on the omissions by which I am sensible I may since
have hazarded the diminution of your esteem. All
my letters addressed to your Honorable Court, and to
the Secret Committee, repeat the strongest promises
of prosecuting the inquiries into the conduct of your
servants, which you have been pleased to commit
particularly to my charge. You will readily perceive that I must have been sincere in those declarations; since it would have argued great indiscretion
to have made them, had I foreseen my inability to perform them. I find myself now under the disagreeable necessity of avowing that inability; at the same time I will boldly take upon me to affirm, that, on
whomsoever you might have delegated that charge,
and by whatever powers it might have been accompanied, it would have been sufficient to occupy the
entire attention of those who were intrusted with it,
and, even with all the aids of leisure and authority.
would have proved ineffectual. I dare appeal to the
public records, to the testimony of those who have
opportunities of knowing me, and even to the detail
which the public voice can report of the past acts of
this government, that my time has been neither idly
nor uselessly employed; yet such are the cares and
embarrassments of this various state, that, although
much may be done, much more, even in matters of
moment, must necessarily remain neglected. . To select from the miscellaneous heap which each day's
exigencies present to our choice those points on
which the general welfare of your affairs most essentially depends, to provide expedients for future ad
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - EIGHTH DAY. 289
vantages, and guard against probable evils, are all
that your administration can faithfully promise to
perform for your service, with their united labors
most diligently exerted. They cannot look back
without sacrificing the objects of their immediate
duty, which are those of your interest, to endless researches, which can produce no real good, and may expose your affairs to all the ruinous consequences
of personal malevolence, both here and at home. "
My Lords, you see here, that, after admitting that
he has promised to the Court of Directors to do what
they ordered him to do, (and he had promised to
make a radical reform in their whole service, and to
cure those abuses which they have stated,) he declares that he will not execute them; he pleads a variety of other occupations; but as to that great
fundamental grievance he was appointed to eradicate,
lie declares he will not even attempt it. "Why did
you promise? "- it naturally occurs to ask him that
question. " Why," says lhe, " you will readily perceive
that I must have been sincere in those declarations;
since it would have argued great indiscretion to have
made them, had I known my inability to perform
them. " This is a kind of argument that belongs to
Mr. Hastings exclusively. Most other people would
say, " You may judge of the sincerity of my promises
by my zeal in the performance "; but he says, " You
may judge of the sincerity of my promises, because I
would not promise, if I had not thought I should be
able to perform.
