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Fowke, then Mr. Grant; they all went up with a
design to make the most of it. They endeavored
to do so; but they never could screw it up to more
than forty lacs by all the violent means which they
employed. The ordinary subsidy, as paid at Calcutta by the Rajah, amounted to twenty-two lacs;
and it is therefore clearly proved by this paper,
that Mr. Hastings's demand of fifty lacs (500,0001. ),
joined to the subsidies, was more than the whole
revenue which the country could yield. What
hoarded treasure the Rajah possessed, and which
Mr. Hastings says he carried off with him, does
not appear. That it was any considerable sum is
more than Mr. Hastings knows, more than can be
proved, more than is probable. He had not, in
his precipitate flight, any means, I think, of carrying away a great sum. It further appears from
these accounts, that, after the payment of the subsidy, there would only have been left 18,0001. a year
for the support of the Rajah's family and establishments.
Your Lordships have now a standard, not a vision
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. -SECOND DAY. 299
ary one, but a standard verified by accurate calculation and authentic accounts. You may now fairly estimate the avarice and rapacity of this man, who describes countries to be enormously rich in order that he may be justified in pillaging them. But however
insatiable the prisoner's avarice may be, he has other
objects in view, other* passions rankling in his heart,
besides the lust of money. He was not ignorant, and
we have proved it by his own confession, that his pretended expectation of benefit to the Company could
not be realized; but he well knew that by enforcing
his demands he should utterly and effectually ruin a
man whom he mortally hated and abhorred, - a man
who could not, by any sacrifices offered to the avarice, avert the cruelty of his implacable enemy. As
long as truth remains, as long as figures stand,
as long as two and'two are four, as long as there
is mathematical and arithmetical demonstration, so
long shall his cruelty, rage, ravage, and oppression
remain evident to an astonished posterity.
I shall undertake, my Lords, when this court meets
again, to develop the consequences of this wicked proceeding. I shall then show you that that part of
the Rajah's family which he left behind him, and
which Mr. Hastings pretended to take under his protection, was also ruined, undone, and destroyed; and
that the once beautiful country of Benares, which he
has had the impudence to represent as being still
in a prosperous condition, was left by him in such
a state as would move pity in any tyrant in the
world except the one who now stands before you.
? ? ? ? SPE E C H
GENERAL REPLY.
THIRD DAY: TUESDAY, JUNE 3, 1794.
MY LORDS, -- We are called, with an awful
voice, to come forth and make good our charge
against the prisoner at your bar; but. as a long time
has elapsed since your Lordships heard that charge, I
shall take the liberty of requesting my worthy fellow
Manager near me to read that part to your Lordships
which I am just now going to observe upon, that you
may be the better able to apply my observations to the
letter of the charge.
[Mr. Wyndham reads. ]
" That the said Warren Hastings, having, as aforesaid, expelled the said Cheyt Sing from his dominions, did, of his own usurped authority, and without any
communication with or any approbation given by the
other members of the Council, nominate and appoint
Rajah Mehip Narrain to the government of the provinces of Benares, and did appoint his father, Durbege Sing, as administrator of his authority, and did give
to the British Resident, William Markham, a controlling authority over both; and'did farther abrogate and set aside all treaties and agreements which subsisted
between the state of Benares and the British nation;
and did arbitrarily and tyrannically, of his mere au
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. -- THIRD DAY. 301
thority, raise the tribute to the sum of four hundred thousand pounds sterling, or thereabouts; did
further wantonly and illegally impose certain oppressive duties upon goods and merchandise, to the great injury of trade and ruin of the provinces; and did farther dispose of, as his own, the property within the said provinces, by granting the same, or parts thereof,
in pensions to such persons as he thought fit.
"That the said Warren Hastings did, some time in
the year 1782, enter into a clandestine correspondence
with William Markham, Esquire, the then Resident
at Benares, which said Markham had been by him,
the said Warren Hastings, obtruded into the said office, contrary to the positive orders of the Court of Directors; and, in consequence of the representations
of the said Markham, did, under pretence that the
new excessive rent or tribute was in arrear, and that
the affairs of the provinces were likely to fall into
confusion, authorize and impower him, by his own
private authority, to remove the said Durbege Sing
from his office and deprive him of his estate.
"That the said Durbege Sing was, by the private
orders and authorities given by the said Warren
Hastings, and in consequence of the representations
aforesaid, violently thrown into prison, and cruelly
confined therein, under pretence of the non-payment
of the arrears of the tribute aforesaid.
" That the widow of Bulwant Sing, and the Rajah
Mehip Narrain, did pointed. y accuse the said Markham
of being the sole cause of any delay in the payment
of the tribute aforesaid, and did offer to prove the
innocence of the said Durbege Sing, and also to prove
that the faults ascribed to him were solely the faults
of the said Markham; yet the said Warren Hastings
? ? ? ? ~02 IMPEACHMENT OPF WARREN HASTINGS.
did pay no. regard whatever to the said representations,
nor make any inquiry into the truth of the same, but
did accuse the said widow of Bulwant Sing and the
Rajah aforesaid of gross presumption for the same;
and, listening to the representations of the person accused, (viz. , the Resident Markham,) did continue
to confine the said Durbege Sing in prison, and did
invest the Resident Markham with authority to bestow
his office upon whomsoever he pleased. ' That the said Markham did bestow the said office
of administrator of the provinces of Benares upon a
certain person named Jagher Deo Seo, who, in order
to gratify the arbitrary demands of the said Warren
Hastings, was obliged greatly to distress and harass
the unfortunate inhabitants of the said provinces.
" That the said Warren Hastings did, some time in
the year 1784, remove the said Jagher Deo Seo from
the said office, under pretence of certain irregularities
and oppressions; which irregularities and oppressions
are solely imputable to him, the said Warren Hastings.
" That the consequences of all these violent changes
and arbitrary acts. were the total ruin and desolation
of the country, and the flight of the inhabitants: the
said Warren Hastings having found every place abandoned at his approach, even by the officers of the very
government which he established, and seeing nothing
but traces of devastation in every village, the provinces in effect without a government, the administration misconducted, the people oppressed, trade discouraged, and the revenue in danger of a rapid decline. " All which destruction, devastation, oppression,
and ruin are solely imputable to the abovementioned
and other arbitrary, illegal, unjust, and tyrannical
acts of him, the said Warren Hastings, who, by all
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - THIRD DAY. 303
and every one of the same, was and is guilty of high
crimes and misdemeanors. "
[Mr. Burke proceeded. ]
My Lords, you have heard the charge; and you are
now going to see the prisoner at your bar in a new
point of view. I will now endeavor to display him in
his character df a legislator in a foreign land, not
augmenting the territory, honor, and power of Great
Britain, and bringing the acquisition under the dominion of law and liberty, but desolating a flourishing country, that to all intents and purposes was our
own, -a country which we had conquered from freedom, from tranquillity, order, and prosperity, and submitted, through him, to arbitrary power, misrule, anarchy, and ruin. We now see the object of his corrupt vengeance utterly destroyed, his family driven from their home, his people butchered, his wife and
all the females of his family robbed and dishonored
in their persons, and the effects which husband and
parents had laid up in store for the subsistence of
their families, all the savings of provident economy,
distributed amongst a rapacious soldiery. His malice
is victorious. He has well avenged, in the destruction of this unfortunate family, the Rajah's intended
visit to General Clavering; he has well avenged the
suspected discovery of his bribe to Mr. Francis.
"Thou hast it now, King, Cawdor, Glamis, all! "
Let us see, my Lords, what use he makes of this
power, - how he justifies the bounty of Fortune,
bestowing on him this strange and anomalous conquest. Anomalous I call it, my Lords, because it
was the result of no plan in the cabinet, no opera
? ? ? ? 304 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
tion in the-field. No act or direction proceeded from
him, the responsible chief, except the merciless orders,
and the grant to the soldiery. He lay skulking and
trembling in the fort of Chunar, while the British
soldiery entitled themselves to the plunder which he
held out to them. Nevertheless, my Lords, he conquers; the country is his own; he treats it as his
own. Let us, therefore, see how this successor of
Tamerlane, this emulator of Genghis Khan, governs
a country conquered by the talents and courage of
others, without assistance, guide, direction, or counsel given by himself.
My Lords, I will introduce his first act to your
Lordships' notice in the words of the charge.
" The said Warren Hastings did, some time in the
year- 1782, enter into a clandestine correspondence
with William Markham, Esquire, the then Resident
at Benares; which said Markham had been by him,
the said Warren Hastings, obtruded into the said office, contrary to the positive orders of the Court of Directors. "
This unjustifiable obtrusion, this illegal appoint
ment, shows you at the very outset that'he defies the
laws of his country, - most positively and pointedly
defies them. In attempting to give a reason for this
defiance, he has chosen to tell a branch of the legislature from which originated the act which wisely and prudently ordered him to pay implicit' obedience to
the Court of Directors, that he removed Mr. Fowke
from Benares, contrary to the orders of the Court,
on political grounds; because, says he, " I thought it
necessary the Resident there should be a man of my
own nomination and confidence. I avow the principle, and think no government can subsist without it.
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - THIRD DAY. 305
The punishment of the Rajah made no part of my
design in Mr. Fowke's removal or Mr. Markham's
appointment, nor was his punishment an object of my
contemplation at the time I removed Mr. Fowke to
appoint Mr. Markham: an appointment of my own
choice, and a signal to notify the restoration of my
own authority; as I had before removed Mr. Fowke
and appointed Mr. Graham for the same purpose. "
Here, my Lords, he does not even pretend that he
had any view whatever, in this appointment of Mr.
Markham, but to defy the laws of his country. "I
must," says he, " have a man of my own nomination,
because it is a signal to notify the restoration of my
own authority, as I had before removed Mr. Fowke
for the same purpose. "
I must beg your Lordships to keep in mind that
the greater part of the observations with which I shall
trouble you have a reference to the principles upon
which this man acts; and I beseech you to remember
always that you have before you a question and an
issue of law; I beseech you to consider what it is that
you are disposing of, - that you are not merely disposing of this man and his cause, but that you are disposing of the laws of your country.
You, my Lords, have made, and we have made, an
act of Parliament in which the Council at Calcutta
is vested with a special power, distinctly limited and
defined. He says, " My authority is absolute. I defy the orders of the Court of Directors, because it is necessary for me to show that I can disregard them,
as a signal of my own authority. " He supposes his
authority gone while he obeys the laws; but, says he.
"the moment I got rid of the bonds and barriers of
the laws;" (as if there had been some act of violence
VOL. XI. 20
? ? ? ? 306 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
and usurpation that had deprived him of his rightful powers,) "I was restored to my own authority. " What is this authority to which he is restored? Not
an authority vested in him by the East India Company; not an authority sanctioned by the laws of
this kingdom. It is neither of these, but the authority of Warren Hastings; an inherent divine right, I suppose, which he has thought proper to claim as
belonging to himself; something independent of the
laws, something independent of the Court of Directors, something independent -of his brethren of the Council. It is " my own authority. "
And what is the signal by which you are to know
when this authority is restored? By his obedience
to the Court of Directors? - by his attention to the
laws of his country? -by his regard to the rights of
the people? No, my Lords, no: the notification of
the restoration of this authority is a formal disobedience of the orders of the Court of Directors. When you find the laws of the land trampled upon, and
their appointed authority despised, then you may be
sure that the authority of the prisoner is reestablished.
There is, my Lords, always a close connection between vices of every description. The man who is a tyrant would, under some other circumstances, be a
rebel; and he that is a rebel would become a tyrant.
They are things which originally proceed from the
same source. They owe their birth to the wild, unbridled lewdness of arbitrary power. They arise from a contempt of public order, and of the laws and institutions which curb mankind. They arise from a harsh, cruel, and ferocious disposition, impatient of
the rules of law, order, and morality: and accord
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. THIRD DAY. 307
ilgly, as their relation varies, the man is a tyrant,
if a superior, a rebel, if an inferior. But this man,
standing in a middle point between the two relations,
the superior and inferior, declares himself at once
both a rebel and a tyrant. We therefore naturally
expect, that, when he has thrown off the laws of his
country, he will throw off all other authority. Accordingly, in defiance of that authority to which he owes his'situation, he nominates Mr. Markham to the
Residency at Benares, and therefore every act of Mr.
Markham is his. He is responsible, - doubly responsible to what he would have been, if in the. ordinary course of office he had named. this agent. Every
governor is responsible for the misdemeanors committed under his legal authority for which he does not punish the delinquent; but the prisoner is doubly responsible in this case, because he assumed an illegal authority, which can be justified only, if at all,
by the good resulting from the assumption.
Having now chosen his principal instrument and
his confidential and sole counsellor, having the country entirely in his hand, and every obstacle that could impede his course swept out of the arena, what
does he do under these auspicious circumstances?
You would imagine, that, in the first place, he would
have sent down to the Council at Calcutta a general
view of his proceedings, and of their consequences,
together with a complete statement of the revenue;
that he would have recommended the fittest persons
for public trusts, with such other measures as he
might judge to be most essential to the interest and
honor of his employers. One would have imagined
he would have done this, in order that the Council
and the Court of Directors might have a clear view
? ? ? ? 308 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
of the whole existing system, before he attempted to
make a permanent arrangement for the administration of the country. But, on the contrary, the whole of his proceedings is clandestinely conducted; there
is not the slightest communication with the Council
upon the business, till he had determined and settled the whole. Thus the Council was placed in a complete dilemma, - either to confirm all his wicked
and arbitrary acts, (for such we have proved them to
be,) or to derange the whole administration of the
country again, and to make another revolution as
complete and dreadful as that which he had made.
The task which the Governor-General had imposed
upon himself was, I admit, a difficult one; but those
who pull down important ancient establishments,
who wantonly destroy modes of administration and
public institutions under which a country has prospered, are the most mischievous, and therefore the wickedest of men. It is not a reverse of fortune, it
is not the fall of an individual, that -we are here
talking of. We are, indeed, sorry for Cheyt Sing
and Durbege Sing, as we should be sorry for any
individual under similar circumstances.
It is wisely provided in the constitution of our
heart, that we should interest ourselves in the fate
of great personages. They are therefore made everywhere the objects of tragedy, which addresses itself directly to our passions and our feelings. And
why? Because men of great place, men of great
rank, men of great hereditary authority, cannot fall
without a horrible crash upon all about them. Such
towers cannot tumble without ruining their dependent cottages.
The prosperity of a country, that has been dis
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. -THIRD DAY. 309
tressed by a revolution which has swept off its principal men, cannot be reestablished -without extreme difficulty. This man, therefore, who wantonly and
wickedly destroyed the existing government of Benares, was doubly bound to use all possible care and caution in supplying the loss of those institutions
which he had destroyed, and of the men whom he
had driven into exile. This, I say, he ought to have
done. Let us now see what he really did do.
He set out by disposing of all the property of the
country as if it was his own. He first confiscated
the whole estates of the Baboos, the great nobility
of the country, to the amount of six lacs of rupees.
He then distributed the lands and revenue of the
country according to his own pleasure; and as he
had seized the lands without our knowing why or
wherefore, so the portion which he took away from
some persons he gave to others, in the same arbitrary
manner, and without any assignable reason.
When we were inquiring what jaghires Mr. Hastings had thought proper' to grant, we found, to our astonishment, (though it is natural that his mind
should take this turn,) that he endowed several
charities with jaghires. He gave a jaghire to some
Brahmins to pray for the perpetual prosperity of the
Company, and others to procure the prayers of the
same class of men for himself. I do not blame his
Gentoo piety, when I find no Christian piety in the
man. : let him take refuge in any superstition he
pleases. The crime we charge is his having distributed the lands of others at his own pleasure.
Whether this proceeded from piety, from ostentation,
or from any other motive, it matters not. We contend that he ought not to have distributed such land
? ? ? ? 310 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
at all, -- that he had no right to do so; and consequently, the gift of a single acre of land, by his own
private will, was an act of robbery, either from the
public or some individual.
When he had thus disturbed the landed property
of Benares, and distributed it according to his own
will, he thought it would be proper to fix upon a
person to govern the country; and of this person he
himself made the choice. It does not appear that
the people could have lost, even by the revolt of
Cheyt Sing, the right which was inherent in them to
be governed by the lawful successor of his family.
We find, however, that this man, by his own authority, by the arbitrary exercise of his own will and fancy, did think proper to nominate a person to succeed the Rajah who had no legal claims to the succession.
He made' choice of a boy about nineteen years old;
and he says he made that choice upon the principle
of this boy's being descended from Bulwant Sing
by the female line. But he does not pretend to say
that he was the proper and natural heir to Cheyt
Sing; and we will show you the direct contrary. Indeed, he confesses the contrary himself; for he argues, in his defence, that, when a new system was to be formed with the successor of Cheyt Sing who was
not his heir, such successor had no claim of right.
But perhaps the want of right was supplied by the
capacity and fitness of the person who was chosen.
I do not say that this does or can for one moment
supersede the positive right of another person; but
it would palliate the injustice in some degree. Was
there in this case any palliative matter? Who was
the person chosen by Mr. Hastings to succeed Cheyt
Sing? My Lords, the person chosen was a minor:
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - THIRD DAY. 311
for we find the prisoner at your bar immediately proceeded to appoint him a guardian. This guardian
he also chose by his own will and pleasure, as he
himself declares, without referring to any particular
claim or usage,- without calling the Pundits to instruct him, upon whom, by the \Gentoo laws, the
guardianship devolved.
I admit, that, in selecting a guardian, he did not,
in one respect, act improperly; for he chose. the
boy's father, and he could not have chosen a better
guardian for his person. But for the administration
of his government qualities were required which this
man did not possess. He should have chosen a man
of vigor, capacity, and diligence, a man fit to meet
the great difficulties of the situation in which he was
to be placed.
Mr. Hastings, my Lords, plainly tells you that he
did not think the man's talents to be extraordinary,
and he soon afterwards says that lie had a great
many incapacities. He tells you that he has a doubt
whether he was capable of realizing those hopes of
revenue which he ( Mr. Hastings) had formed. Nor
can this be matter of wonder, when we consider that
he had ruined and destroyed the ancient system, the
whole scheme and tenor of public offices, and had
substituted nothing for them but his own arbitrary
will. He had formed a plan of an entire new system, in which the practical details had no reference
to the experience and wisdom of past ages. He did
not take the government as he found it; he did not
take the system of offices as it was arranged to his
hand; but lie dared to make the wicked and flagitious experiment which I have stated, -- an experiment upon the happiness of a numerous people,
? ? ? ? 312 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
whose property he had usurped and distributed ill
the manner which has been laid before your Lord
ships. The attempt failed, and he is responsible for
the consequences.
How dared he to make these experiments? In
what manner can he be justified for playing fast and
loose with the dearest interests, and perhaps with
the very existence, of a nation? Attend to the
manner in which he justifies himself, and you will
find the whole secret let out. "The easy accumulation of too much wealth," he says, " had been
Cheyt Sing's ruin; it had buoyed him up with extravagant and ill-founded notions of independence,
which I very much wished to discourage in the future Rajah. Some part, therefore, of the superabundant produce in the country I turned into the coffers of the sovereign by an augmentation of the
tribute. " -- Who authorized him to make any augmentation of the tribute? But above all, who au-n
thorized him to augment it upon this principle? --
" I must take care the tributary prince does not grow'too rich; if he gets rich, he will get proud. " -This
prisoner has got a scale like that in the almanac, -
" War begets poverty, poverty peace,"' and so on.
The first rule that he lays down is, that he will keep
the new Rajah in a state of poverty; because, if he
grows rich, he will become proud, and behave as
Cheyt Sing did. You see the ground, foundation,
and spirit of the whole proceeding. Cheyt Sing was
to be robbed. Why? Because he is too rich. His
successor is to be reduced to a miserable condition.
Why? Lest he should grow rich and become troublesome. The whole of his system is to prevent men
from growing rich, lest, if they should grow rich, they
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - THIRD DAY. 313
should grow proud, and seek independence. Your
Lordships see that in this man's opinion riches must
beget pride. I hope your Lordships will never be
so poor as to cease to be proud; for, ceasing to be
proud, y6u will cease to be independent.
Having resolved that the Rajah should not grow
rich, for fear he should grow proud and independent,
he orders him to pay forty lacs of rupees, or 400,0001. ,
annually to the Company. The tribute had before
been 250,0001. , and he all at once raised it to
400,0001. Did he previously inform the Council
of these intentions? Did he inform them of the
amount of the gross collections of the country, from.
any properly authenticated accounts procured from
any public office?
I need not inform your Lordships, that it is a
serious thing to draw out of a country, instead of
250,0001. , an annual tribute of 400,0001. There
were other persons besides the Rajah concerned in
this enormous increase of revenue. The whole country is interested in its resources being fairly estimated and assessed; for, if you overrate the. revenue which
it is supposed to yield to the great general collector,
you necessitate him to overrate every under-collector, and thereby instigate them to harass and oppress the people. It is upon these grounds that we have
charged the prisoner at your bar with having acted
arbitrarily, illegally, unjustly, and tyrannically: and
your Lordships will bear in mind that these acts were
done by his sole authority, which authority we have
showin to have been illegally assumed.
My Lords, before he took the important steps which
I have just stated, he consulted no one but Mr. Markham, whom he placed over the new Rajah. The
? ? ? ? 314 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
Rajah was only nineteen years old: but Mr. Markham undoubtedly had the advantage of him in this respect, for he was twenty-one. He had also the
benefit of five months' experience of the country:
an abundant experience, to be sure, my Lords, in a
country where it is well known, from the peculiar
character. of its inhabitants, that a man cannot anywhere put his foot without placing it upoel some trap or mine, until he is perfectly acquainted with its localities. Nevertheless, le puts the whole country and a prince of nineteen, as appears from the evidence, into the hands of Mr. Markham, a man-of twenty-one. We have no doubt of Mr. Markham's capacity; but
he could have no experience in a country over which
he possessed a general controlling power. Under
these circumstances, we surely shall not wonder, it
this young man fell into error. I do not like to treat.
harshly the errors into which a very young person
may fall: but the manil who employs him, and puts
him into a situation for which he has neither capacity
nor experience, is responsible for the consequences
of such an appointment; and Mr. Hastings is doubly
responsible in this case, because he placed Mr. Markham as Resident merely to show that he defied the authority of the Court of Directors.
But, my Lords, let us proceed. We find Mr.
Hastings resolved to exact forty lacs from the country, although he had no proof that such a tribute could be fairly collected. He next assigns to this
boy, the Rajah, emoluments amounting to about
60,0001. a year. Let us now see upon what grounds
he can justify the assignment of these emoluments. I
can perceive none but such as are founded upon the
opinion of its being necessary to the support of the
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. THIRD DAY. 315
Rajah's dignity. Now. when Mr. Markham, who is
the sole ostensible actor in the management of the
new Rajah, as he had been a witness to the deposition
of the former, comes before you to give an account
of what he- thought of Cheyt Sing, who appears to
have properly supported the dignity of his situation,
he tells you that about a lac or a lac and a half
d(10,0001. or 15,0001. ) a year was as much as Cheyt
Sing could spend. And yet this young creature,
settled in the same country, and'who was to pay
400,0001. a year, instead of 250,0001. , tribute to the
Company, was authorized by Mr. Hastings to collect
and reserve to his own use 60,0001. out of the revenue. That is to say, he was to receive four times
as much as was stated by Mr. Hastings, on Mr. Markham's evidence, to have been necessary to support -him.
Your Lordships tread upon corruption everywhere.
Why was such a large revenue given to the young
Rajah to support his dignity, when, as they say, Cheyt
Sing did not spend above a lac and half in support
of his, - though it is known' he had great establishments to maintain, that he had erected considerable buildings adorned with fine gardens, and, according
to them, had made great preparations for war?
We must at length imagine that they knew the
country could bear the impost imposed upon it. I
ask, How, did they know this? We have proved to
you, by a paper presented here by Mr. Markham, that
the net amount of the collections was about 360,0001.
This is their own account, and was made up, as Mr.
Markham says, by one. of the clerks of Durbege Sing,
together with his Persian moonshee, (a very fine council to settle the revenues of the kingdom! ) i his pri
? ? ? ? 316 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
vate house. And with this account before them, they
have dared to impose upon the necks of that unhappy
people a tribute of 400,0001. , together with an income
for the Rajah of 60,0001. These sums the Naib,
Durbege Sing, was bound to furnish, and left to
get them as he could. Your Lordships will observe
that I speak of the net proceeds of the collections.
We have nothing to do with the gross amount. We
are speaking of what came to the public treasury,
which was no more than I have stated; and it was
out of the public treasury that these payments were
to be made, because there could be no other honest
way of getting the money.
But let us now come to the main point, which is
to ascertain what sums the country could really bear.
Mr. Hastings maintains (whether in the speech of his
counsel or otherwise I do not recollect) that the revenue of the country was 400,0001. , that it constantly paid that sum, and flourished under the payment.
In answer to this, I refer your Lordships, first, to Mr.
Markham's declaration, and the Wassil Baakee, which
is in page 1750 of the printed Minutes. I next refer your Lordships to Mr. Duncan's Reports, in page 2493. According to Mr. Duncan's public estimate
of the revenue of Benares, the net collections of the
very year we are speaking of, when Durbege Sing
had the management, and when Mr. Markham, his
Persian moonshee, and a clerk in his private house,
made their estimates without any documents, or with
whatever documents, or God only knows, for nothing
appears on the record of the transaction, --the collections yielded in that year but 340,0001. , that is, 20,0001. less than Mr. Markham's estimate. But take
it which. way you will, whether you take it at Mr.
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - THIRD DAY. 317
Markham's 360,0001. , or at Mr. Duncan's 340,0001. ,
your Lordships will see, that, after reserving 60,0001.
for his own private expenses, the RQjah could not realize a sum nearly equal to the tribute demanded.
Your Lordships have also in evidence before you
an account of the produce of the country for I believe
full five years after this period, from which it appears
that it never realized the forty lacs, or anything like
it, -- yielding only thirty-seven and thirty-nine lacs,
or thereabouts, which is 20,0001. short of Mr. Markham's estimate, and 160,0001. short of Mr. Hastings's.
On what data could the prisoner at your bar have
formed this estimate? Where were all the clerks and
mutsuddies, where were all the men of business in
Benares, who could have given him complete information upon the subject? We do not find the trace
of any of them; all our information is Mr. Markham's
moonshee, and some clerk of Durbege Sing's employed in Mr. Markham's private counting-house, in
estimating revenues'of a country.
The disposable revenue was still further reduced
by the jaghires which Mr. Hastings granted, but to
what amount does not appear. He mentions the increase in the revenue by the confiscation of the estates of the Baboos, who had been in rebellion. This he rates at six lacs. But we have inspected the accounts, we have examined them with that sedulous
attention which belongs to that branch of the legislature that has the care of the public revenues, and we
have not found one trace of this addition. Whether
these confiscations were ever actually made remains
doubtful; but if they were made, the application or
the receipt of the money they yielded does not appear in any account whatever. I leave your Lordships to judge of this.
? ? ? ? 318 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
But it may be said that Hastings might have been
in an error. If he was in an error, my Lords, his
error continued. an extraordinary length of time.
The error itself was also extraordinary in a man of
business: it was an error of account. If his confidential agent, Mr. Markham, had originally contributed to lead him into the error, he soon perceived
it. He soon informed Mr. Hastings that his expectations were erroneous, and that he had overrated the
country. What, then, are we to think of his persevering in this error? Mr. Hastings might have
formed extravagant and wild expectations, when he
was going up the country to plunder; for we allow
that avarice may often overcalculate the hoards that
it is going to rob. :If a thief is going to plunder a
banker's shop, his avarice, when running the risk of
his life, may lead him to imagine there is more money
in the shop than there really is. But w'hen this man
was in possession of the country, how came he not to
know and understand the condition of it better?