No More Learning

If the money
had been taken at all, it ought to have been accepted as a mere in-
stalment of the debt due to the Company. In truth there is no defence
at all for the acceptance of these sums. Modern historians sometimes
write as though the practice was defensible, if it can be proved that
Hastings spent the money in the public service. But the Regulating
Act had forbidden presents absolutely, for the sake of Indian princes.
The whole theory underlying them was highly objectionable. Either
the giver obtained some special favour from the government, which
means corruption, or he did not, which implies deception. The Select
Committee of 1781 said with justice that the generosity of the donors
“is found in proportion, not to the opulence they possess or to the
favours they receive, but to the indigence they feel, and the insults
they are exposed to",1 and Burke for once was surely fully justified
when he described presents from Indian rulers as "the donations of
misery to power, the gifts of wretchedness to the oppressors". 2
Hastings we must admit seems to have had a blind spot in his mind
as regards money matters.
A third case of Hastings's financial operations with an Indian
ruler must be mentioned as it throws considerable light on the other
two. We have explained how at the end of the Rohilla War the only
chieftain of that race left in possession of territory was Faizulla Khan
of Rampur. A peace had been made between him and the nawab of
Oudh. By it he was to retain not more than 5000 troops and if the
nawab was at war he was to "send two or three thousand men
according to his ability":3 Faizulla Khan proved himself an able
and vigorous ruler, as Hastings some years later freely admitted.
Under him the country prospered and the people were contented.
In February, 1778, there were some rumours that he was maintaining
an unnecessarily large army. Middleton, Resident in Oudh, said that
he might well have acted in this way owing to the injustice and
oppression of the nawab, but the commissioner who was sent down
to Rampur to investigate reported that Faizulla Khan had “preserved
1 Reports from Committees of the House of Commons, v7, 585.
? Bond, Speeches in the Trial of Warren Hastings, I, 70.
8 Reports from Committees of the House of Commons, VI, 22.


## p. 304 (#332) ############################################

304
CHAIT SINGH, OUDH BEGAMS, FAIZULLA KHAN
3
every article of his treaty inviolate”. 1 Faizulla Khan was, as a matter
of fact, one of the very small band of Indian rulers like Ranjit Singh,
who formed a great admiration for the British nation and recognised
once and for all the advantage of trusting them. It is rather a lament-
able reflection that he was very nearly entangled and ruined in the
policy of Hastings. He asked that the treaty which Champion had
made between him and the nawab might now receive the Company's
own ratification, on the ground that it was “the only power in which
he had confidence, and which he could look up to for protection”. ?
The council agreed to his proposal and a special treaty was presented
to him. Soon afterwards Faizulla Khan, whose treaty only bound
him to assist the nawab, on a hint from Middleton offered to lend
the Company 2000 horse. He was formally thanked for this mark of
his faithful attachment to the Company and the English nation.
In November, 1780, Hastings obliged the nawab of Oudh to write
to Faizulla Khan requiring him to furnish “the quota of troops
stipulated by treaty . . . being 5000 horse". It is charitable to assume
that in the original demand Hastings had simply made a mistake
about the terms of his treaty. But this excuse could not be made for
his subsequent action, for Faizulla Khan replied civilly and moderately
pointing out that he was only bound to furnish 2000 or 3000 troops,
not necessarily horse, "according to his ability", and offering to dis-
charge his liabilities to the full by sending 2000 horse and 1000 foot.
It has been well pointed out that if he had been able to provide 5000
horse he might have been charged with breaking the other article
in the treaty which prevented him from maintaining more than that
number as his total army. Hastings recorded a minute that Faizulla
Khan had "evaded the performance of . . . the treaty” 4 which was
of course a direct falsehood. He then in March, 1781, slightly
mitigating his demand, sent a deputation requiring the delivery of
3000 cavalry. As Faizulla Khan firmly but politely maintained his
former position, Hastings made a formal protest against him for
breaking the treaty and gave the nawab of Oudh permission to re-
sume his lands. That Hastings knew perfectly well that the treaty
had not been broken is proved by the amazing minute which he laid
before the council at Calcutta :
The conduct of Faizulla Khan, in refusing the aid demanded, though not
an absolute breach of treaty was evasive and uncandid . . . so scrupulous an
attention to literal expression, when a more liberal interpretation would have
been highly useful and acceptable to us, strongly marks his unfriendly dispo-
sition, though it may not impeach his fidelity. 5
Even at this distance of time the thought that a British administrator
could have written such words arouses a flush of shame and it may
1 Reports from Committees of the House of Commons, VI, 24.
2 Idem, p. 24.
3 Idem, 27.
• Idem, p. 29.
% Idem, p. 31.


## p. 305 (#333) ############################################

CHANGES IN OUDH
305
safely be surmised that such a justification for charging a ruler with
disaffection has never been offered before or since. Faizulla Khan
escaped ruin partly because Hastings, it is to be hoped with a sense
of compunction, postponed for a time the execution of the decree
against him, and partly because before it was put into force the
directors of the Company much to their honour sent a stern dispatch
condemning the whole business and forbidding Hastings to go any
further in the matter.
Hastings's final activities in India were devoted to an attempt at
reconstruction in Benares and Oudh. Bristow had not succeeded in
recovering the Company's balances from that incorrigibly insolvent
debtor, the nawab of Oudh, and his own financial transactions seem
to have been open to serious criticism. The nawab himself desired,
or more probably had been ordered by Hastings to ask for, the recall
of the Resident, and the abolition of the residency. Hastings may
have been right in demanding a complete change of system in Oudh,
but it must be confessed that his action in the matter was curiously
tortuous, and no quite adequate explanation of his conduct has ever
been offered. He had himself given Bristow the strictest orders to
obtain a complete control over the government of Oudh. Soon after-
wards he proposed to the council that Bristow should be recalled for
having attempted to tyrannise over the nawab, and that the nawab
himself, and his minister, Haidar Beg Khan, whom he had in the past
severely criticised, should jointly be security for the Company's debts.
The council at first defended Bristow on the ground that he had only
been endeavouring to carry out his instructions, and that Haidar Beg
Khan had consistently opposed all reforms. Finally, however, with
great reluctance they accepted Hastings's proposal and agreed that
he should proceed to Lucknow to carry out the change. Hastings
arrived at the nawab's capital on 27 March, 1784, and attacked his
new task with characteristic courage and buoyancy. "It is my ambi-
tion”, he wrote,. “to close my government with the redemption of
a great government, family, and nation from ruin . . . it is the boldest
enterprise of my public life, but I confidently hazard the conse-
quences. ” 1 It is generally said that he was very successful, but there
is not much evidence of it; he merely won a respite for the time by
a heavy mortgage on the future. He conciliated the nawab by his
dominating personality, by removing the residency, and by restoring
the jagirs to the begams-an act of restitution which had been ordered
by the court of directors. He also claimed to have "adjusted all the
disputed accounts between the Nabob: Vizier and the Company”. 2 The
position in Oudh was no doubt easier for the moment, but as soon
as Hastings had departed, the hollowness of his reforms was revealed.
It then appeared that, if the residency was removed, there had been
established in its place an "agency of the governor-general", which
1 Gleig, op. cit. m,
153.
* Idem, p. 184.
20


## p. 306 (#334) ############################################

306
CHAIT SINGH, OUDH BEGAMS, FAIZULLA KHAN
interfered quite as drastically in the affairs of Oudh, and was a still
greater burden on its revenues. Whereas the expense of Bristow's
residency had been £64,202 per annum, the cost of the new agency
was over £112,000, of which £22,000 was the salary of the agent.
As soon as Cornwallis came out, the nawab. approached him with
exactly the same complaint that he had addressed to Hastings, that
the burden upon his country was insupportable. As for the alleged
reform of the finances, Cornwallis writes: "I cannot express how
much I was concerned . . . to be witness of the disordered state of his
finances and government, and of the desolated appearance of the
country. The evils were too alarming to admit of palliation". 1
In regard to Benares, Hastings laid before the council a scheme
for securing the revenues, for removing incapable and oppressive
officials, and for safeguarding the tenancy rights of the ryots; but even
his unremitting defender Gleig admits, that in the regeneration of
Benares he was not so immediately successful as in the case of Oudh. ”
No real reformation was possible, so long as the British Resident was
allowed to amass, exclusive of his official salary, an income of £40,000
a year, and Cornwallis could only describe the whole position there
as “a scene of the grossest corruption and mismanagement”. 8
While he was at Lucknow, Hastings had an interview with the
eldest son of the Moghul emperor, who, a fugitive from the warring
factions in Delhi, implored the aid of the British to re-establish his
father's throne. It was thoroughly typical of Hastingstypical both
of the defiant hardihood, which formed so strong'an element in his
character, and of the wilful blindness to obstacles lying athwart his
path-that he was willing to engage upon this enterprise. Any other
man in the face of an imminent retirement, would have been giad
enough to disentangle himself from old responsibilities, let alone
incur new ones. But Hastings urged upon the council as a reason
for taking up the prince's cause “our relaxation from every other
external concern"; and had the political effrontery to maintain :
"I am not sure, but I believe, that we shall be applauded at home,
if we take the generous side of the question”. 4 The council very
wisely would have none of it, and Hastings, though he felt that their
action went some way to save his own interests and peace of mind,
could not resist the temptation of flinging a gibe at them for their
want of courage and for their propensity to turn from the setting to
the rising sun.
Marquis Cornwallis, I, 300.
1 Ross, Correspondence of
2 Gleig, op. cit. Di, 194.
4 Gleig, op. cit. m, 191.
1
8 Ross, op. cit. 1, 253.


## p. 307 (#335) ############################################

1
CHAPTER XVII
THE IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS
HASTINGS left India in February, 1785, and arrived in England
in June, unconscious of the tremendous attack on his life and work
that was being prepared by the vindictive enmity and foiled ambition
of Francis and the more honourable but misguided zeal of Burke.
He was at first well received, especially at court, for George III was
one of his firmest supporters. But in January, 1786, Scott, Hastings's
agent, challenged Burke to produce his charges. Scott has been
severely blamed for this, and contemporary observers, like Wraxall
and Fanny Burney, declared that the prosecution was really due to
him. Scott was undoubtedly an impetuous and injudicious man, yet,
as Professor Holland Rose points out, he would scarcely have acted
without Hastings's consent; and since the vote of censure of 28 May,
1782, still remained on the records of the House, the question would
have had some day to be raised and settled. Burke moved for
papers on 17 February, 1786, and in April brought forward his
charges; at first eleven in number, they were afterwards increased
to twenty-two. On 1, 2 and 3 May Hastings was granted permission
to read a defence at the bar of the House. The actual reading was
done partly by himself, partly by Markham, son of the archbishop
of York. The step was a serious error in judgment; it would have
been better for Hastings to have reserved his defence. The apologia
was too long and wearied his hearers. It was badly put together and
was not always consistent, for parts of it had been drawn up by
different hands : by Scott, Shore, Middleton, Markham and Gilpin.
It was combative and defiant in tone, for Hastings not only defended
himself against censure, he claimed positive merit for all his actions.
There was a certain moral splendour in such a demeanour, but in the
present temper of the House it was not diplomatic. As one member
.
said: “I see in it a perfect character drawn by the culprit himself,
and that character is his own. Conscious triumph in the ability and
success of all his measures pervades every sentence”. On 1 June.
parliament refused to accept an impeachment on the charge of the
Rohilla War by 119 votes to 79, Dundas and Pitt voting with the
majority. On the 13th, the House accepted the charge on the Chait
Singh case, and on this occasion Pitt and Dundas voted against
Hastings From that day to this an extraordinary amount of
ingenuity has been exercised in the attempt to find some motive,
recondite or unworthy, for this action. It has been suggested that
Pitt was jealous of Hastings and his favour with the king; that he was
over-persuaded by Dundas, who feared that Hastings might succeed


## p. 308 (#336) ############################################

308
IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS
him at the Board of Control; that Pitt was not sorry to see the energies
of a powerful and able opposition directed to a quarry other than
His Majesty's Government. The first of these reasons seems only
worthy of the author, Gleig, from whence it sprang. That Hastings,
whose career rightly or wrongly had been subject to so much con-
troversy, should ever become President of the Board of Control was
entirely impossible. The third suggestion loses sight of the fact that
though the trial lasted over seven years, the court only sat in full
session 118 days out of that time, and there is not the least reason to
suppose that the energy of the opposition in the ordinary work of
parliament was in any way diminished.
All this subtlety is beside the mark, and overlooks the fact that
there is a very simple and adequate explanation. It must be remem-
bered that, till a full and elaborate defence was put forward at the
trial, the evidence in the Chait Singh case looked extremely damag-
ing. There is no reason to suppose that Pitt acted otherwise than as an
honest man, that he weighed the evidence carefully, defended Hastings
when he could conscientiously do so, as in the matter of the Rohilla
War, and reluctantly voted against him where the evidence appeared
to be prima facie strong. Above all, it often seems to be forgotten
that he was only voting for a trial not for a condemnation. Apart
from the inherent probabilities of the business, there is plenty of
evidence to support this view. We have first the letter of Dundas to
Cornwallis, 21 March, 1787 :
The proceeding is not pleasant to many of our friends; and of course from
that and many other circumstances, not pleasant to us; but the truth is, when
we examined the various articles of charges against him, with his defences,
they were so strong, and the defences so perfectly unsupported, it was impos-
sible not to concur. 1
There is, secondly, a still more important piece of evidence that has
we think generally escaped notice, namely a letter of George III to
Pitt which is, it may be said, equally creditable to king and minister.
George III was always a thorough-going believer in Hastings, and
Pitt naturally desired wherever he could to meet the king's wishes.
After the adverse vote on the Chait Singh charge, George III wrote
j
Mr. Pitt would have conducted himself yesterday very unlike what my
mind ever expects of him if, as he thinks Mr. Hastings' conduct towards the
Rajah was too severe, he had not taken the part he did, though it made him
coincide with the adverse party. As for myself, I own I do not think it possible
in that country to carry on business with the same moderation that is suitable
to a European civilised nation. 2
It may be added that Wilberforce entirely believed in Pitt's integrity;
he tells us that Pitt paid as much impartial attention to the case was
if he were a juryman". It is important to remember that there was
1
Ross, Correspondence of Marquis Cornwallis, I, 281.
2 Stanhope;. Life of. William Pitt, I, 480.


## p. 309 (#337) ############################################

OPENING THE CHARGES
309
no attempt to constrain men's opinions by the application of party
discipline. The colleagues of the prime minister were left free to vote
as they chose, and Grenville, Lord Mulgrave and the attorney-general
opposed their chief in debate. There is a final argument which will
only appeal to a limited class but will appeal with irresistible strength
-we should have to alter our whole conception of the serene, pure
and lofty mind of Pitt, if we believed that on such a question he were
capable of being swayed by mere motives of the lowest political
expediency.
On 7 February, 1787, the charge relating to the begams of Oudh
was introduced by Sheridan in a speech, which was said to have
eclipsed all previous displays of eloquence ever heard in the House
of Commons, and the debate was adjourned that members might not
vote till their minds were freed from the spell of the orator. On 8
February, the charge was accepted by 175 votes to 68, and finally in
May the decision was made to impeach on twenty-two articles. These
articles attempted to cover the whole of Hastings's administration.
He was charged with having violated treaties made with the nawab
of Oudh, with having interfered in that ruler's internal affairs, with
having unrighteously sold to him Kora and Allahabad, with oppres-
sion and cruelty in the case of Chait Singh and the begams of Oudh,
with an arbitrary settlement of the land revenues of Bengal, with
fraudulent dealings in contracts and commissions and the acceptance
of presents and bribes. The managers for the Commons were Burke,
Fox, Sheridan, Pelham, Windham, Sir Gilbert Elliot, Charles Grey,
Sir James Erskine and twelve others. The House most properly
refused to allow Francis to be one of them: Hastings's counsel were
Law (afterwards Lord Ellenborough), Plumer (afterwards Master
of the Rolls), and Dallas (afterwards Chief Justice of the Common
Pleas).
The impeachment was a calamitous mistake and before it had
gone very far it developed into something like a cruel wrong. It was
not unreasonable that some enquiry should be held; indeed, after the
vote of censure of May, 1782, it was perhaps essential. The fair course
would have been to hear Hastings's case and then parliament might
have expressed a temperate disapproval of some of the methods he
had employed in the case of Chait Singh and the begams of Oudh,
and might well have commented severely upon the laxity of his ideas
of account-keeping. Having ensured that these unhappy features of
his period of office should not be allowed to become precedents for
British policy in the East, they should have recognised the immense
difficulties that confronted Hastings and acknowledged his magni-
ficent services to his country. A grant of some high honour from
the crown would naturally have followed, and the energies of the
reformers might have been devoted, with Hastings's aid and co-
operation, to amending the whole system of the Indian government.
.


## p. 310 (#338) ############################################

310
IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS
>
7
The impeachment of Hastings was an anachronism, a cumbrous
method of inflicting most unmerited suffering on one of the greatest
Englishmen of his time, something very like a travesty of justice.
For this there were several reasons. The trial was intolerably
lengthy. It lasted from February, 1788, to April, 1795, through seven
sessions of parliament and 148 sittings of the court. The personnel of
the judges was constantly changing-during the seven years there
were 180 changes in the peerage. There was a great inequality between
the defence and the attack. Hastings's counsel consisted of trained
lawyers-all of them afterwards rose to high judicial office--men who
used, and rightly used, all the technical devices of the law to protect
their client. His accusers were parliamentary orators and debaters,
masters of invective and controversy, but men unused to weigh
testimony, to substantiate their charges in the cold and dry atmo-
sphere of a court of law or to be guided by the rules of evidence.
Lord Thurlow, Hastings's friend, and Lord Loughborough, who was
on the whole hostile, agreed in reprobating the. "loseness and inac-
curacy” with which the articles were drawn up. They formed indeed
an absurd hotchpot of charges, some involving, had they been proved,
heinous guilt, others mere errors of policy or pardonable miscalcula-
tions. Over the whole trial there lies the false and histrionic glitter
of an elaborate and self-conscious display. Sheridan's speeches were
dramatic entertainments for connoisseurs of oratorical invective. The
Whig party made the occasion a manifesto for their humanitarian
sentiments and an exercise in vituperation. Burke, whose motives
were the most reputable, for he was entirely sincere, was the worst
sinner of all, in his utter surrender to a violent animosity against the
accused and his refusal to accord to him even those rights and
facilities which it would have been unrighteous to deny to the worst
of criminals. Through constant disputes as to the admissibility of
evidence and through the lack of technical juridical skill on the part
of the prosecution the trial lasted just over seven years. Gradually
it was found necessary to drop most of the charges. In 1791 it was
resolved to proceed only with those dealing with Chait Singh, the
begams of Oudh, fraudulent contracts, presents and bribes; the
verdict was finally given on 23 April, 1795. Hastings was acquitted
on all the articles on which a verdict was recorded. The highest
minorities against him were on the charges relating to Chait Singh
and the begams of Oudh, where the voting was 23 to 6.
The Lords review the evidence with the greatest care. Though
the trial had opened before 160 peers, only 29 recorded their votes.
This was due to the fact that, by an informal understanding honour-
ably observed, only those Lords . actually voted who had either
attended the trial from its commencement, or had been present
during a majority of the days when the court was sitting. Lord
Carnarvon had suggested that the House should itself determine


## p. 311 (#339) ############################################

BURKE'S VIOLENCE
311
"what lords had, and what lords had not, a right to vote". 1 But in
the end it was resolved to accept the opinion of Lord Thurlow "that
every lord must draw the line for himself; his own conscience and his
own sense of honour must determine how many days' attendance
entitled him to vote". 2 In the discussion Lord Thurlow and the
bishop of Rochester were strong supporters of Hastings. Lough-
borough, the lord chancellor, was on the whole against him; Lord
Mansfield, though a former friend, felt himself bound to censure some
of his acts. It is clear that even Hastings's warmest allies were hard
put to it to defend some parts of his financial administration and in
the last resort could only do so on the plea that his difficulties were
great and that "he was a man uncommonly regardless of money”.
It seems fairly certain that some votes were given for an acquittal,
not because the judges condoned every act of the accused, but because
they held that the long torture of the trial was a more than adequate
punishment for some errors of judgment, financial irregularities and
even acts of unjust severity committed in circumstances of supreme
crisis and peril. For long it had been clear that this was the only
possible issue. The curious thing is that Burke to the last refused
to see it. He seemed determined to reach the acme of unreason and
folly :
The crimes with which we charge the prisoner at the bar are substantial
crimes. They were crimes which have their rise in the wicked dispositions
of men . .
in avarice, rapacity, pride, cruelty, ferocity, malignity of temper,
haughtiness, insolence; in short, my Lords, in everything that manifests a
heart blackened to the very blackest-a heart dyed deep in blackness-a heart
corrupted, vitiated and gangrened to the very core. 3
It is not surprising that men revolted from such a monstrous position.
The defence, on the other hand, did their best to build a golden
bridge for the retreat of the managers, and perhaps showed, by the
reasonableness of their attitude in this respect, that they recognised
that there was a case to meet and to defend.
"The Commons”, they said, "have well exercised their honour by preferring
a charge and bringing it here to be discussed, to know whether it is true or
not; and it is no dishonour or disgrace to the House of Commons to say, ulti-
mately, that upon that inquiry, it turns out that the charge is not well founded.
Their object is not the individual, but the crime. If the crime does not
exist, they have no resentment against Mr. Hastings the House of Commons
and every individual member of it has no other wish but that the charge should
be fairly sifted and examined, to see whether their suspicions are well or ill
founded; and every member of the House of Commons , will rejoice if it
should turn out, in the event, that Mr. Hastings is able to exonerate himself
from these imputations that have been cast upon him and upon the nation. " +
But the sentiments thus described had no place in the heart of
the leading manager. Burke would have none of it:
. . .
. . . ?
p. 11.
1 Debates of the House of Lords on the Evidence
Bond, Speeches in the Trial of Warren Hastings, 1, 6-7.
2 Idem, p. 13.
4 Idem, II, 692-3.
3


## p. 312 (#340) ############################################

312
IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS
"No", he cried in answer to Plumer, "we never would, nor can we conceive
that we should, do other than pass from this bar with indignation, with rage and
despair, if the House of Commons should, upon such a defence as has here been
made against such a charge as they have produced-if they should be foiled,
baffled and defeated in it. No, my Lords, we never should forget it. A long,
lasting, deep, bitter memory of it would sink into our minds; for we have not
come here to you in the rash heat of a day, with that fervour which sometimes
prevails in popular assemblies and frequently misleads them. No; if we have
been guilty of error, it is a long deliberate error; an error the fruit, of long
laborious inquiry. We are not come here to compromise matters at all.
We do admit that our fame, our honours, nay, the very being of the inquisi-
torial power of the House of Commons are gone, if this man is not guilty. We
are not come here to solve a problem, but to call for justice. I, for myself
and for others, make this deliberate determination, I nuncupate this solemn an:
serious vow—that we do glow with an immortal hatred against all this
corruption. " 1
It is not surprising that when a motion of thanks was made to the
managers of the impeachment, one member declared that he would
be willing to agree, if the leading manager were excepted, “who had
by his conduct disgraced and degraded the House of Commons".
But Burke's errors were the errors of a noble if utterly misguided
soul. He never recovered from the verdict. The day after it was given
he left the House of Commons for ever.
Throughout the trial—in the darkest hour of his fate-Hastings
had borne himself with the same dauntless courage which had enabled
him to hold his head high under the cruel "bludgeonings of chance"
in scenes far distant from Westminster Hall. Nothing, not even the
scorching invective of his accusers, nor the long mental agony of the
seven years' ordeal, had been able to break that indomitable spirit.
As in the council chamber at Calcutta, so at the bar of the House of
Lords, treatment that would have crushed most men to the earth
seemed only to brace him to a stubborn, heroic and provocative
defiance. For his most questionable acts he claimed not pardon or
indulgence but full justification and unmeasured praise. In facing
his accusers he showed in every gesture and every inflection of his
voice that icy yet burning scorn which sprang from his unconquer-
able belief in his own rectitude and which drove his adversary,
Burke, into frenzies of impotent anger.
And so perhaps the greatest Englishman who ever ruled India,
a man who with some ethical defects possessed in superabundant
measure the mobile and fertile brain, the tireless energy and the lofty
fortitude which distinguishes only the supreme statesman, was left
with his name cleared but his fortunes ruined, and every hope of
future distinction and even employment taken from him. The East
India Company came not ungenerously to his assistance, and Hastings
passed from the purview of history to spend the long-drawn evening
of his arduo’s life, surrounded by a circle of devoted friends, in the
peaceful seclusion of his recovered ancestral home at Daylesford.
1 Bond, Speeches in the Trial of Warren Hastings, IV, 332, 334, 345.


## p. 313 (#341) ############################################

CHAPTER XVIII
LEGISLATION AND GOVERNMENTS, 1786-1818
THE legislation of 1784-6 was developed and in some respects
extended when the Company's privileges were reviewed by parlia-
ment in 1793 and 1813. On each occasion the principal object of
attack was the commercial monopoly of the eastern trade, and on
each occasion the Company had to give up something of its rights.
In 1793 it was obliged to allow a certain amount of tonnage for
private merchants' goods both outward and homeward; in 1813 it
lost its monopoly of the Indian though not of the China trade. In
this respect legislative action merely anticipated by a few years
the consequences of economic developments. The application of
machinery and power to the cotton manufacture and calico printing
would in any case have soon brought to an end its main commercial
activity in India—the export to Europe of cotton piece-goods. After
a period of abnormal activity during the wars with France, this
rapidly declined, and expired about the end of the third decade of
the nineteenth century, just before the commercial powers of the
Company were finally abolished by the act of 1833.
In the field of general policy the main tendency was to develop
and emphasise that consciousness of moral obligation in administering
the Company's possessions which had marked the act of 1784. In
1793 Wilberforce had striven, though in vain, to procure the insertion
in the act of provisions for the admission and encouragement of
missionaries in India. In that he had been defeated; but in 1813
section 33 declared that “it is the duty of this country to promote
the interest and happiness of the native inhabitants of the British
dominions in India", and section 43 empowered the government to
expend not less than a lakh of rupees on the revival and encourage-
ment of learning. At the same time, although missionaries were not
specifically named, a section, which clearly had them in view, em-
powered the Board of Control to give licences of residence in India
to persons improperly refused them by the court of directors; and
another section set up a bishop and archdeacons in India.
So far as political institutions went, Pitt's India Act and the sup-
plementary acts of 1786 had already defined the outlines of the
Anglo-Indian constitution, which, though developed by subsequent
legislation, was not fundamentally altered so long as the Company
continued to exist. However, a good many changes in detail took
place, and the actual working of the superior institutions then set up
demands statement and illustration. This is particularly necessary as
regards the Home Government, although the only formal changes of


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314
LEGISLATION AND GOVERNMENTS, 1786-1818
any moment were the establishment of a paid board by the Charter
Act of 1793 in lieu of the unpaid board set up in 1784, and the decla-
ration of British sovereignty over the Company's eastern possessions
in the Charter Act of 1813—which continued the administration in the
Company "without prejudice to the undoubted sovereignty of the
Crown of the United Kingdom . . . in and over the same".
Meanwhile the board rapidly lost its powers, which were concen-
trated in the hands of a single person, the president. This change was
not effected without some ill-feeling. Henry Dundas had from the
first been the moving spirit, to the great indignation of some of his
colleagues, especially Lord Sydney, who protested against the way
in which Dundas pushed the interest of Scotsmen in India. In 1786
it was intended to make the change formal; “In which case”, wrote
Dundas, “I suppose your humble servant not only in reality but
declaredly will be understood as the cabinet minister for India". 2
But although this idea was ultimately carried out by the withdrawal
of the ex-officio members from attending at the board, to the last the
president required the formal assent, first of two and then of one of
his colleagues to legalise his proceedings. The position of the presi-
dent as regards the cabinet varied. It depended on the position of the
person holding the office. So long as Dundas continued to hold it, his
intimacy with Pitt ensured his inclusion in the cabinet; but others,
Minto for example, held it without a seat in the cabinet. 3 Relations
with the court of directors also varied. Dundas almost invariably
took a high hand with the court. At one time he had even contem-
plated taking all the administration out of the hands of the Company
and leaving it with nothing but the conduct of the East India trade.
But this probably seemed to Pitt too near an imitation of the bills of
Fox, and even the hints which Dundas had let fall revived something
of the language which had resounded through the country in 1783.
When the negotiations for the renewal of the charter in 1793 had
been completed, a member of the Company, in moving a vote of
thanks to the directors and the ministry,
hoped by Englishmen it would be long remembered that an administration in
the meridian of power, well knowing that the patronage of India would render
that power immortal, and almost urged by the people to grasp it, . . . had had
the magnanimity to refuse it and assign as reason to the House of Commons
that such an accession of power to the executive government was not compati-
ble with the safety of the British constitution. 5
But though in this project Dundas was foiled, in lesser matters he
had his own way. When, for instance, in 1788 the Company protested
against the dispatch to India of four royal regiments, and declined
1 Sydney to Pitt, 24 September, 1784, ap. Stanhope, Life of Pitt, 1, 227.
2 Cornwallis Correspondence, I, 244.
3 Minto in India, p. 3.
4 Cornwallis Correspondence, II, 13.
8 Debates at the East India House in 1793, p. 120.


## p. 315 (#343) ############################################

BOARD AND COMPANY
315
to provide the funds for their payment, a Declaratory Act was
promptly passed, legalising the ministerial view of the question. In
the appointment of governors to the subordinate presidencies, too,
he used the power of the board relentlessly to enforce his own wishes
on the directors. But later presidents certainly exercised a less
complete control. Castlereagh, for instance, wrote to Wellesley :
Your lordship is aware how difficult and delicate a task it is for the person
who fills my situation (particularly when strong feelings have been excited)
to manage such a body as the court of directors so as to shield the person in
yours from any unpleasant interference on their part. 2
The fact was that each part of the Home Government could make the
position of the governor-general intolerable if it pleased; so that
despite the superiority of the Board of Control and its access to the
cabinet, and despite its power of sending orders through the Secret
Committee of the directors, whcih the latter could neither discuss
nor disclose, policy in general was determined, when disputes arose,
on a basis of compromise; just as in the matter of appointments both
sides had in effect a power of veto, so also, in discussions about policy,
neither body cared to provoke the other overmuch save in exceptional
circumstances. There were two recognised methods by which the
orders to be transmitted to the governments in India might be
prepared. In matters of urgency the president himself might cause
a dispatch to be prepared, which was then sent to the Secret Com-
mittee, which could only sign it and send it off. Dispatches from India
in like manner might be addressed to the Secret Committee, in which
case they would only be laid before the court of directors if and when
the president desired. But this was not the procedure generally
adopted. Usually the chairman of the court would informally propose
a course of action to the president; and the matter would be discussed
between them, either in conversation or by private letters. The chair-
man would then informally propose a dispatch, which would be
prepared at the India House, and sent to the Board of Control
together with a mass of documentary information on which the
dispatch was founded. This was technically called a Previous Com-
munication. It was returned with approval or correction to the
Company, and after reconsideration sent a second time to Westminster
-the document on this second submission being called a Draft. This
double submission-informal and formal-resulted from the clause
in the act of 1784 by which amendments had to be completed by the
board within fourteen days. After 1813 the term was extended to
two months. If the court concurred with the amendments, the
dispatch would then be sent off; but if they did not, the discussions
might continue, in the last resort the board securing obedience by a
mandamus from the Court of King's Bench. The procedure renders
1 28 Geo. III, c. 8, Cf. Cornwallis Correspondence, I, 349, 354.
. ? Wellesley Despatches, III, 92.


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316
LEGISLATION AND ĠOVERNMENTS, 1786-1818
1
1
it exceedingly difficult without the information afforded by private
correspondence to define the actual part played by the various pre-
sidents of the board in the determination of policy; the Previous
Communications have seldom been preserved; and so one seldom
knows to what extent a Draft was influenced by the preliminary
discussions between the president and the chair. The system was
certainly slow and clumsy. But the importance of such a defeet
was largely neutralised by the length of time that communications
took to reach India, and the large degree of discretion which the
Indian governments necessarily enjoyed. With all its defects it was
a vast improvement over the ruinous system which had preceded it,
when the ministry was seeking to control Indian policy by a system
of influence, and when there was no certain link between the cabinet
and the head of the Indian administration such as was now provided
by the ministry's share in the appointment of the governor-general,
and the possibility of sending direct orders from the ministry to the
governor-general through the president of the board and the Secret
Committee of the court of directors. In the last resort and in matters
of real importance the ministry could enforce its will on the most
factious court of directors or on the most independent of governors-
general; while no governor-general was now exposed to the shocking
danger which had confronted Warren Hastings of having to determine
policy without even a probability of support from either side of the
House of Commons.
In other ways, too, the government of Bengal had been streng-
thened. Previous chapters have illustrated the fatal manner in which
the limited powers of the governor-general and the limited control of
the Bengal Government over the subordinate presidencies had worked.
Under the new system the governor-general could enforce his will
over refractory councillor if he were convinced of the need of doing
so. Nor was he longer exposed to the opposition of Madras or Bombay
without adequate powers of repressing it. The act of 1773 only gave
a superintending power, and that with exceptions and limitations,
with regard to the declaration of war and the making of peace; so
that it still lay within the powers of the subordinate governments by
their previous conduct of policy to render war or peace inevitable.
But Pitt's India Act gave power of control over "all transactions with
the country powers or the application of the revenues or forces
time of war, or any such other points as shall be referred by the
court of directors to their control". And, further, to prevent disputes
regarding the extent of the powers of the government of Bengal,
orders from the latter were to be obeyed in every case except only
where contrary orders had been received from England and were
still unknown to the superintending government. The supplementary
. . . in
2
1 Foster, John Company, pp. 246 sqq.
2 Sections 31 and 32.


## p. 317 (#345) ############################################

THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL
317
2
act of 1786 had permitted the union in the same hands of the offices
of governor-general and commander-in-chief; so that no effective
opposition was now to be expected from the military as distinct from
the civil power. But in spite of all these extensions, one serious limi-
tation still remained—that imposed by the distances and the slow
communications of India. Calcutta was a long way from Madras
and Bombay; and what would be the position of the governor-general
if he quitted Bengal and went to one of the subordinate presidencies
to supervise or conduct affairs in person? The question emerged
during the government of Cornwallis, when he went down to Madras
to assume the command against Tipu Sultan. He was formally
granted separate powers by his council; but as it was held in England
that the council had no authority so to do, an act was passed 1
validating what had been done under such defective authority; and
in the Charter Act of 1793 ? provision was made for the appointment
of a vice-president during the governor-general's absence from
Bengal, and the Governor-general himself was empowered (1) to act
with a local council in all things as with the council of Bengal, and
(2) to issue orders to any of the Company's servants without previ-
ously communicating them to the local council. By virtue of these
alterations the governor-general was enabled to proceed to either of
tl:e subordinate provinces and assume the full control of affairs there.
The result was seen in the swift overthrow of Ti, 1, when Wellesley,
following Cornwallis's example, proceeded to Madras in 1798 in order
to control the preparations for the war with Mysore. Thus the later
governors-general were freed from the restraints which had so dis-
astrously hampered the action of Warren Hastings, and which he
had vainly tried to overcome by the futile expedient of nominating
residents on behalf of the Supreme Government at Madras and
Bombay.
Nor were these statutory provisions more than was actually
needed to keep the control of policy under one hand. Even Cornwallis
had had to meet counteraction on the part of the governor of Madras,
the unworthy John Hollond, who, mainly, it appears, owing to his
concern in the nawab's debt, not only dispatched military expedi-
tions without informing the Bengal Government, but also, when
ordered to afford assistance to the raja of Travancore against Tipu,
tried to bargain with the raja for the assistance it was his duty to
give. Lord Hobart, governor of Madras, would order the naval squad-
ron about without reference to the governor-general, Sir John Shore,
and at last quarrelled so violently with his official superior that he
preferred to return to England and forfeit his ultimate succession to
the post of governor-general rather than continue under Shore's
orders. 3 Even Wellesley was, or thought he was, opposed in the
131 Geo. III, c. 40.
2 Sections 52-54.
3 Teignmouth, Life of Shore, 1, 372; Cornwallis Correspondence, a, 307.


## p. 318 (#346) ############################################

318
LEGISLATION AND GOVERNMENTS, 1786-1818
>
991
preparations which he ordered for the war against Tipu, and used
very direct language on the subject of his superior powers not only
to the subordinate officers of the government of Bengal, but also to
the subordinate presidencies. “The main-spring of the government
of India”, said he, "can never be safely touched by any other hand
than that of the principal mover. '
In another way also a great change for the better was made.
Before the act of 1784 patronage was exercised in a peculiarly demo-
ralising way. The home authorities, not content with having the
nomination of the persons who were to enter the Company's civil and
military services, had also sought to control their promotion. Cove-
nanted servants and military officers would take a trip to England
in order to gain admission to council, appointment to some lucrative
office, or the command of a regiment or an army out of their turn.
The relatives of directors expected special promotion without regard
to their seniority or talents. Laurence Sulivan, for example, looked to
restoring the fallen fortunes of his family by employing his influence
in favour of his son. Men with powerful connections were constantly
appearing in India—the illegitimate half-brother of Charles Fox, fcr
instance expecting to be provided for. The necessary result was that
the government in India lacked that most salutary power of reward-
ing merit by promotion. Hastings in particular had found this a most
grievous tax. But Dundas's legislation cut at the root of these per-
nicious practices. In the first place the India Act forbade vacancies
in the councils to be filled by other than covenanted servants except
in the case of the governor-general, the governors, and the com-
manders-in-chief, and confined promotion to due order of seniority
except in special cases when full details were immediately to be sent
to the court of directors. Then the act of 1786 2 limited the nomina-
tion to vacancies to the Company's servants on the spot and pres-
cribed terms of service as the minima for offices carrying more than
certain rates of pay. The Charter Act of 1793 went a step further and
decreed that
all vacancies happening in any of the offices, places, or employments in the
civil line of the Company's service in India (being under the degree of coun-
cillor) shall be from time to time filled up and supplied from amongst the civil
servants of the said company belonging to the presidency wherein such vacan-
cies shall respectively happen. . . . No office, place or employment, the salary,
perquisites, and emoluments whereof shall exceed £500 per annum 'shall be
conferred upon or granted to any of the said servants who shall not have been
actually resident in India as a covenanted servant of the said company for the
space of three years at the least in the whole. . . .
Six years' service was the minimum for posts of £1500 a year, nine
years for those of £. 3000, and twelve years for those of £4000. The
net results of these enactments were (1) that the flood of adventurers
into India was checked; (2) that the jobs of the directors were cur-
1 Wellesley Despatches, 1, 290, 528,
2 26 Geo. III, c. 16, Sections 13-14.


## p. 319 (#347) ############################################

PATRONAGE
319
tailed; and (3) that after 1786 the civil and military services, and
after 1793 the civil service, secured a monopoly of well-paid admini-
strative employment in the old provinces, though not in new
acquisitions. The policy of Cornwallis in confining employment in the
higher ranks to Europeans had thus a legislative basis which has
often been forgotten. Even had he wished to do so, it would not have
been legal for him to nominate an Indian to any post carrying more
than £500 a year, for no Indian was a Company's servant within the
meaning of the acts.
And while the recruitment to the higher administrative posts was
thus being limited to the members of the Company's service, the
practice of appointment from home to special posts was also curtailed.
“This system of patronage, which you so justly reprobated”, wrote
Shore to Hastings in 1787, “and which you always found so grievous
a tax, has been entirely subverted. " 1 Cornwallis put the matter to
one of the directors very bluntly.
“I must freely acknowledge”, he wrote, “that before I accepted the arduous
task of governing this country, I did understand that the practice of naming
persons from England to succeed to offices of great trust and importance to the
public welfare of this country, without either knowing or regarding whether
such persons were in any way qualified for such offices, was entirely done away.
If unfortunately so pernicious a system should be again revived, I should feel
myself obliged to request that some other person might immediately take from
me the responsibility of governing. . . . "
A little later difficulties arose from the directors' nominations to posts
on the board of revenue at Madras and their refusal to confirm
Wellesley's nomination to the post of Political Secretary. But these
were due rather to the directors' distrust of Wellesley's policy than
to any revival of the old system. Save as regards the highest posts
of all, the tendency was for the directors to be limited to the
recruitment of their services by the nomination of writers and cadets,
while the executive governments in India determined their promo-
tion and employment.
On the whole the covenanted servants benefited by these changes.
The old system had been exceedingly unhealthy, promoting intrigue,
and that most vicious practice of private correspondence between
subordinates and members of the direction in England on matters of
public concern, in which the officials sought to secure favour in
England by communicating news that they had learnt in the dis-
charge of their official duties. This custom was prohibited (though
not suppressed) in 1785. Burke expressed great indignation at the
prohibition, but it was in fact the natural and necessary concomitant
of the introduction of a modern system of administration, under which
it neither is, nor is thought desirable to guard against the misconduct
of the heads of the government by such indirect and devious means.
» 2
3
1 Teignmouth, Life of Shore, I, 136. 2 Cornwallis Correspondence, I, 421.
8 Life and Letters of Sir G. Elliot, I, 100.


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320
LEGISLATION AND GOVERNMENTS, 1786-1818
In one direction, however, the covenanted servants lost ground.
With the appointment of Cornwallis they became practically ineligi-
ble for the highest post in India.