" But
when he understands them, and when he declares he
will not obey them, positively and dogmatically, --
when he -says,' as he has said, and we shall prove it,
that he never succeeds better than when he acts in an utter defiance of those orders, and sets at nought the laws
of his country, -I believe this will not be thought the
language of an ignorant man.
when he understands them, and when he declares he
will not obey them, positively and dogmatically, --
when he -says,' as he has said, and we shall prove it,
that he never succeeds better than when he acts in an utter defiance of those orders, and sets at nought the laws
of his country, -I believe this will not be thought the
language of an ignorant man.
Edmund Burke
And I knew the circumstances of the inhabitants of every province.
And in every kingdom I
appointed writers of intelligence, men of truth and
integrity, that they might send me information of the
conduct and the behavior and the actions and the
manners of the troops and of the inhabitants, and of
every occurrence that might come to pass amongst
them. And if I discovered aught contrary to their
information, I inflicted punishment on the intelligencer; and every circumstance of cruelty and oppression in the governors and in the troops and in the inhabitants, which reached my ears, I chastised agreeably to justice and equity. "' Tenthly. Whatever tribe, and whatever horde,
whether Toork, or Taucheek, or Arrub, or Ajjum,
came in unto me, I received their chiefs with distinction and respect, and their followers I honored
according to their degrees and their stations; and to
the good among them I did good, and the evil I delivered over to their evil actions.
"And whoever attached himself unto me, I forgot
not the merit of his attachment, and I acted towards
him with kindness and generosity; and whoever had
rendered me services, I repaid the value of those services unto. him. And whoever had been my enemy,
and was ashamed thereof, and, flying to me for protection, humbled himself before me, I forgot his enmity, and I purchased him with liberality and kindness.
"In such manner Share Behraum, the chief of a
tribe, was along with me. And he left me in the
hour of action, and he united with the enemy, and
he drew forth his sword against me. And at length
my salt, which he had eaten, seized upon him; and
? ? ? ? 474 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
he again fled to me for refuge, and humbled himself before me. As he was a man of illustrious descent, and of bravery, and of experience, I covered my eyes from his evil actions; and I magnified him,
and I exalted him to a superior rank, and I pardoned his disloyalty in consideration of his. valor.
"Eleventhly. My children, and my relations, and
my associates, and my neighbors, and such as had
been connected with me, all these I distinguished
in the days of my fortune and prosperity, and I paid
unto them their due. And witli respect to my family, I rent not asunder the bands of consanguinity
and mercy; and I issued not commands to slay them,
or to bind them with chains.
" And I dealt with every man, whatever the judgment I had formed of him, according to my own
opinion of his worth. As I had seen much of prosperity and adversity, and had acquired knowledge
and experience, I conducted myself with caution and
with policy towards my friends and towards my enemies.
" Twelfthly. Soldiers, whether associates or adversaries, I held in esteem,-those who sell their permanent happiness to perishable honor, and throw themselves into the field of slaughter and battle, and
hazard their lives in the hour of danger.
"And the man who drew his sword on the "side
of my enemy, and committed hostilities against
me, and preserved his fidelity to his master, him I
greatly honored; and when such a man came unto me, knowing his worth, I classed him with my
faithful associates; and I respected and valued his
fidelity and his attachment.
" And the soldier who forgot his duty and his
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. - SECOND DAY. 475
honor, and in the hour of action turned his face
from his master, and came ill unto me, I considered
as the most detestable of men.
"And in the war between Touktummish Khaun,
his emirs forgot their duty to Touktummish, who
was their master and my foe, and sent proposals and
wrote letters unto me. And I uttered execrations
upon them, because, unmindful of that which they
owed to their lord, they had thrown aside their honor and their duty, and came in unto me. I said
unlto myself,' What fidelity have they observed to
their liege lord? what fidelity will they show unto
me? '
"And, behold, it was known unto me by experience, that every empire which is not established
in morality and religion, nor strengthened by regulations and laws, from that empire all order, grandeur, and power shall pass away. And that empire may be likened unto a naked man, who, when exposed to view, commandeth the eye of modesty to
be covered; and it is like unto a house which hath
neither roof nor gates nor defences, into which whoever willeth may enter unmolested.
"THEREFORE I established the foundation of my
empire on the morality and the religion of Islaum;
and by regulations and laws I gave it stability. And
by laws and by regulations I executed every business and every transaction that came before me in
the course of my government. "
I need not read any further, or I might show
your Lordships the noble principles, the grand, bold,
and manly maxims, the resolution to abstain from
oppression himself, and to crush it in the govern
? ? ? ? 476 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
ors under him, to be found in this book, which Mr.
Hastings has thought proper to resort to as containing what he calls arbitrary principles.
But it is not in this instance only that I must
do justice to the East. I assert that their morality
is equal to ours, in whatever regards the duties of
governors, fathers, and superiors; and I challenge
the world to show in any modern European book
more true morality and wisdom than is to be found
in the writings of Asiatic men in high trust, and
who have been counsellors to princes. If this be
the true morality of Asia, as I affirm and can prove
that it is, the plea founded on Mr. Hastings's geographical morality is annihilated.
I little regard the theories of travellers, where
they do not relate the facts on which they are
founded. I have two' instances of facts attested by
Tavernier, a traveller of power and consequence,
which are very material to be mentioned here, because they show that in some of the instances recorded, in which the princes of the country have used any of those cruel and barbarous executions
which make us execrate them, it has been upon
governors who have abused their trust,- and that
this very Oriental authority to which Mr. Hastings
appeals would have condemned. him to a dreadful
punishment. I thank God, and I say it from' my
heart, that even for his enormous offences there
neither is nor can be anything like such punishments. God forbid that we should not as much
detest out-of-the-way, mad, furious, and unequal punishments as we detest enormous and abominable
crimes! because a severe and cruel penalty for a
crime of a light nature is as bad and iniquitous as
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. -SECOND DAY. 477
the crime which it pretends to punish. As the instances I allude to are curious, and as they go to
the principles of Mir. Hastings's defence, I shall
beg to quote them.
The first is upon a governor who did what Mr.
Hastings says he has a power delegated to him to do:
he levied a tax without the consent of his master.
"Some years after my departure from Com," says
Tavernier, "the governor had, of his own accord,
and without any communication with the king, laid
a small impost upon every pannier of fruit brought
into the city, for the purpose of making some necessary reparations in the walls and bridges of the town. It was towards the end of the year 1632 that the
event I am going to relate happened. The king,
being informed of the impost which the governor
had laid upon the fruit, ordered him to be brought
in chains to court. Theking ordered him to be exposed to the people at one of the gates of the palace; then he commanded the son to pluck off the mustachios of his father, to cut off his nose and ears, to
put out his eyes, and then cut off his head. The
king then told the son to go and take possession of
the government of his father, saying, See that you
govern better than this deceased dog, or thy doom shall
be a death more exquisitely tormenting. "
My Lords, you are struck with horror, I am struck
with horror, at this punishment. I do not relate it
to approve of such a barbarous act, but to prove to
your Lordships, that, whatever power the princes of
that country have, they are jealous of it to such a
degree, that, if any of their governors should levy
-a tax, even the most insignificant, and for the best
purposes, he meets with a cruel punishment. I do
? ? ? ? 478 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
not justify the punishlment; but the severity of it
shows how little of their power the princes of that
country mean to delegate to their servants, the whole
of xvhich the gentleman at your bar says was delegated to him.
There is another case, a very strong one, and that
is the case of presents, which I understand is a customl admitted throughout Asia in all their governments. It was of a person who was raised to a high office; no business was suffered to come before him
without a previous present. " One morning, the
king being at this time on a hunting party, the nazar
came to the tent of the king, but was denied entrance
b)y the meter, or master of the wardrobe. About the
samne time the king came forth, and, seeing the nazar,
commanded his officers to take off the bonnet from
the head of that dog that took gifts from his people, and that he should sit three days bareheaded in
the heat of the sun, and as many nights in the air.
Afterwards he caused him to be chained about the
neck and arms, and condemned him to perpetual
imprisonment, with a mamoudy a day for his maintenance; but he died for grief within eight days
after he was put in prison. "
Do I mean, by reading this to your Lordships, to
express or intimate anll approbation either of the cruelty of the punishment or of the coarse barbarism of
the language? Neither one nor the other. I produce it to your Lordships to prove to you, from this
dreadful example, the horror which that government
felt, when any person subject to it assumed to himself a privilege to receive presents. The cruelty and
severity exercised by these princes is not levelled at
the poor unfortunate people who complain at their
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. - SECOND DAY. 479
gates, but, to use their own barbarous expression.
to dogs that impose taxes and take presents. God forbid I should use that language! The people, when
they complain, are not called dogs and sent away,
but the governors, who do these things against the
people: they are called dogs, and treated in that
cruel manner. I quote them to show that no governors in the East, upon any principle of their constitution or any good practice of their government, can lay arbitrary imposts or receive presents. When
they escape, it is probably by bribery, by corruption,
by creating factions for themselves in the seraglio, in
the country, in the' army, in the divan. But how
they escape such punishments is not my business to
inquire; it is enough for me that the constitution
disavows them, that the princes of the country disavow them, -- that they revile them with the most
horrible expressions, and inflict dreadful punishments on them, when they are called to answer for
these offences.
Thus much concerning the allhomedan laws of
Asia. That the people of Asia have no laws, rights,
or liberty, is a-doctrine that wickedly is to be disseminated through this country. But I again assert,
every Mahomedan government is, by its principles,
a government of law.
I shall now state, from what is known of the government of India, that it does not and cannot delegate, as Mr. Hastings has frequently declared, the whole of its powers and authority to him. If they
are absolute, as they must be in the supreme power,
they ought to be arbitrary in none; they were, however, never absolute in any of their subordinate parts,
and I will prove it by the known provincial constitu.
? ? ? ? 480 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
tions of Hindostan, which are all Mahomedan, the
laws of which are as clear, as explicit, and as learned
as ours.
The first foundation of their law is the Koran.
The next part is the Fetwah, or adjudged cases by
proper authority, well known there. The next, the
written interpretations of the principles of jurisprudence: and their books are as numerous upon the
principles of jurisprudence as in ally country in Europe. . The next part of their law is what they call
the fanon, -that is, a positive rule equivalent to acts
of Parliament, the law of the several powers of the
country, taken from the Greek'word Kavcov, which
was brought into their country, and is well known.
The next is the Rawaj-ul-Mulk, or common law and
custom of the kingdom, equivalent to our common
law. Therefore they have laws from more sources
than we have, exactly in the same order, grounded
upon the same authority, fundamentally fixed to be
administered to the people upon these principles.
The next thing is to show that in India there is
a partition of the powers of the government, which
proves that there is no absolute power delegated.
In every province the first person is the Subahdar
or Nazim, or Viceroy: he has the power of the sword,
and the administration of criminal justice only. Then
there is the Dewan, or High Steward: he has thei revenue and all exchequer causes under him, to be governed according to the law and custom and institutions of the kingdom. The law o&f inheritances, successions, and everything that relates to them, is under the Cadi, in whose court these matters are tried.
But this, too, was subdivided. The Cadi could not
judge, but by the advice of his assessors. Properly
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. -SECOND DAY. 481
in the Mahomedan law there is no appeal, only a removal of. the -cause; but when there is not judgment,
as none can be when the court is not unanimous, it
goes to the general assembly of all the men of the
law. There are, I will venture to say, other divisions
and subdivisions; for there. are the Kanongoes, who
hold their places for life, to be the conservators of the
canons, customs, and good usages of the country: all
these, as::well as the Cadi and. the Mufti, hold their
places and situations, not during the wanton pleasure
of the prince, but on permanent and fixed terms for
life. All. ;these powers of magistracy, revenue, and
law are all different, consequently not delegated in
the whole to any one person.
This is the provincial constitution, and these the,
laws of iBengal; which proves, if there were no other
proof, by the division of the functions and authorities,
that the isupreme\ power of the state in the Mogul
empire did by no means delegate to any of its officers the supreme power in its fulness. Whether or
no we have delegated to Mr. 'Hastings the supreme
power of King and Parliament, that he should act
with the plenitude of authority of the British legislature, you are to judge. : Mr. Hastings has no- refuge here. Let him run from: law to. law; let him fly from the common law
and the sacred institutions of the country in which
he was born;let him fly from acts of Parliament,
from which. his power originated; let him plead his
ignorance' of them, or fly in the face of them, Will
he fly to; the Mahomedan law? That condemns him. .
Will he fly to the high magistracy of Asia to defend~
taking of presents? Padishah and the Sultan wouldi
condemn himn to a cruel death. Will he fly to the:
VOL. IX. 31
? ? ? ? 482 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
Sophis, to the laws of Persia, or to the practice of
those monarchs? I cannot utter the pains, the tortures, that would be inflicted on him, if he were to
govern there as he has done in a British province.
Let him fly where he will, from law to law; law, I
thank God, meets him everywhere, and enforced, too,
by the practice of the most impious tyrants, which he
quotes as if it would justify his conduct. I would as
willingly have him tried by the law of the Koran, or
the Institutes of Tamerlane, as on the common law
or statute law of this kingdom.
The next question is, whether the Gentoo laws
justify arbitrary power: and if he finds any sanctuary there, let him take it, with the cow in the pagoda.
The Gent6os have a law which positively proscribes
in magistrates any idea of will, - a law with which,
or. rather with extracts of it, that gentleman himself
has furnished us. These people in many points are
governed by their own ancient written law, called the
Shaster. Its interpreters and judges are the Pundits.
This law is comprehensive, extending to all the coneerns of life, affording principles and maxims and legal theories applicable to all cases, drawn from the sources of natural equity, modified by their institutions, full of refinement and subtilty of distinction
equal to that of any other law, and has the grand test
of all law, that, wherever it has prevailed, the country
has been populous, flourishing, and happy.
Upon the whole, then, follow him where you will,
let him have Eastern or Western law, you find everywhere arbitrary power and peculation of governors
proscribed and horribly punished,-'more so than I
should ever wish to punish any, the most guilty,
human creature. And if this be the case, as I hope
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. - SECOND DAY. 483
and trust it has been proved to your Lordships, that.
there is law in these countries, that there is no delegation of power which exempts a governor from the law,
then I say at any rate a British governor is to answer
for his conduct, and cannot be justified by wicked
examples and profligate practices.
But another thing which he says is, that he was left
to himself, to govern himself by his own practice:
that is to say, when he had taken one bribe, he might
take another; when he had robbed one mall of his
property, he might rob another; when he had imprisoned one man arbitrarily, and extorted money from
him, he might do so by another. He resorts at first
to the practice of barbarians and usurpers; at last he
comes to his own. Now, if your Lordships will try
him by such maxims and principles, he is certainly
clear: for there is no manner of doubt that there is
nothing he has practised once which he has not practised again; and then the repetition of crimes becomes the means of his indemnity.
The next pleas he urges are not so much in bar of
the impeachment as in extenuation. The first are to
be laid by as claims to be made on motion for arrest
of judgment, the others as an extenuation or mitigation of his fine. He says, and with a kind of triumph,
" The ministry of this country have great legal assistance,-commercial lights of the greatest commercial city in the world, -- the greatest generals and officers to guide and direct them in military affairs:
whereas I, poor man, was sent almost a school-boy
from England, or at least little better, - sent to find
my way in that new world as well as I could. I had
no men of the law, no legal assistance, to supply my
deficiencies. " At Sphingem habebas do. mi. Had he
? ? ? ? 484 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
not the chief-justice, the tamed and domesticated
chief-justice, who waited on him like a familiar spirit,
whom he takes from province to province, his aman.
uensis at home, his postilion and riding express
abroad?
Such a declaration would in some measure suit
persons who had acted much otherwise than Mr.
Hastings. When a man pleads ignorance in justification of his conduct, it ought to be an humble, modest, unpresuming ignorance, an ignorance which may have made him lax and timid in the exercise of his
duty; but an assuming, rash, presumptuous, confident, daring, desperate, and disobedient ignorance
heightens every crime that it accompanies. Mr.
Hastings, if through ignorance he left some of the
Company's orders unexecuted, because he did not
understand them, might well say, " I was an ignorant
man, and these things were above my capacity.
" But
when he understands them, and when he declares he
will not obey them, positively and dogmatically, --
when he -says,' as he has said, and we shall prove it,
that he never succeeds better than when he acts in an utter defiance of those orders, and sets at nought the laws
of his country, -I believe this will not be thought the
language of an ignorant man. But I beg your Lordships' pardon: it is the language of an ignorant man;
for no man who. Was not full of a bold, determined,
profligate ignorance could ever think of such a system
of defence. He quitted Westminster School almost
a boy. ' We have reason to regret that he did not finish his education in that noble seminary, which has
giren so'many luminaries to the Church and ornaments to the State. Greatly it is to be lamented that
lhe did not go;to those Universities where arbitrary
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. -- SECOND DAY. 485
power will I hope never be heard of, but the true
principles of religion, of liberty, and law will ever be
inculcated, instead of studying in the school of Cossim Ali Khan.
If he had lived with us, he would have quoted
the example of Cicero in his government, he would
have quoted several of the sacred and holy prophets,
and made them his example. His want of learning,
profane as well as sacred, reduces him to the necessity of appealing to every name and authority of barbarism, tyranny, and usurpation that are to be found; and from these he says, "From the practice of one
part of Asia or other I have taken my rule. " But
your Lordships will show him that in Asia as well as
in Europe the same law of nations prevails, the same
principles are continually resorted to, and the same
maxims sacredly held and strenuously maintained,
and, however disobeyed, no man suffers from the
breach of them who does not know how and where to
complain of that breach, - that Asia is enlightened
in that respect as well as Europe; but if it were totally blinded, that England would send out governors to
teach them better, and that he must justify himself to
the piety, the truth, the faith of England, and not by
having recourse to the crimes and criminals of other
countries, to the barbarous tyranny of Asia, or any
other part of the world.
I will go further with Mr. Hastings, and admit,
that, if there be a boy in the fourth form of Westminster School, or any school in England, who does not
know, when these articles are read to him, that he
has been guilty of gross and enormous crimes, he
may have the shelter of his present plea, as far as it
will serve him. There are none of us, thank God, so
? ? ? ? 486 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
uninstructed, who have learned our catechisms or
the first elements of Christianity, who do not know
that such conduct is not to be justified, and least of
all by examples.
There is another topic he takes up more seriously,
and as a general rebutter to the charge. Says he,
" After a great many of these practices with which I
am charged, Parliament appointed me to my trust,
and consequently has acquitted me. " -Has it, my
Lords? I am bold to say that the Commons are
wholly guiltless of this charge. I will admit, if Parliament, on a full state of his offences before them, and
full examination of those offences, had appointed him
to the government, that then the people of India and
England would have just reason to exclaim against
so flagitious a proceeding. A sense of propriety and
decorum might have restrained us from prosecuting.
They might have been restrained by some sort of decorum from pursuing him criminally. But the Commons stand before your Lordships without shame. First, in their name we solemnly assure your Lordships that we had not in our Parliamentary capacity
(and most of us, myself I can say surely, heard very
little, and that in confused rumors) the slightest
knowledge of any one of the acts charged upon this
criminal at either of the times of his being appointed
to office, and that we were not guilty of the nefarious
act of collusion and flagitious breach of trust with
which he presumes obliquely to charge us; but from
the moment we knew them, we never ceased to condemn them by reports, by votes, by resolutions, and
that we admonished and declared it to be the duty of
the Court of Directors to take measures for his recall,
and when frustrated in the way known to that court
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. - SECOND DAY. 487
we then proceeded to an inquiry. Your Lordships
know whether you were better informed. We are,
therefore, neither guilty of the precedent crime of
colluding with the criminal, nor the subsequent indecorum of prosecuting what we had virtually and practically approved. Secondly, several of his worst crimes have been
committed since the last Parliamentary renewal of
his trust, as appears by the dates in the charge.
But I believe, my Lords, the judges --judges to
others, grave and weighty counsellors and assistants
to your Lordships- will not, on reference, assert to
your Lordships, (which God forbid, *and we cannot
conceive, or hardly state in argument, if but for argument,) that, if one of the judges had received
bribes before his appointment to an higher judiciary
office, he would not still be open to prosecution.
So far from admitting it as a plea in bar, we
charge, and we hope your Lordships will find it an
extreme aggravation of his offences, that no favors
heaped upon him could make him grateful, no renewed and repeated trusts could make him faithful
and honest.
We have now gone through most of the general
topics.
But he is not responsible, as being thanked by the
Court of Dir'ectors. He has had the thanks and approbatiol of the India Company for his services. - We
know too well here, I trust the world knows, and you
will always assert, that a pardon from the crown is
not pleadable here, that it cannot bar the impeachment of the Commons, -- much less a pardon of the
East India Company, though it may involve them in
guilt which might induce us to punish them for such
? ? ? ? 488 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
a pardon. If any corporation by collusion with criminals refuse to do their duty in coercing. them, the
magistrates are answerable.
It is the use, virtue, and efficacy of Parliamentary
judicial procedure, that it puts an end to this dominion of faction, intrigue, cabal, and clandestine intelligences. The acts of men are put to their proper test, and the works of darkness tried in the face of
day, - not the corrupted opinions of others on them,
but their own intrinsic merits. We charge it as his
crime, that he bribed the Court of Directors to thank
him for what they had condemned as breaches of, his
duty.
The East India Company, it is true,, have thanked
him. They ought not to have done it; and it is a
reflection upon their character that they did it. But
the Directors praise him in the gross, after having
condemned each act in detail. His actions are all,
every one, censured one by one as they arise. I do
not recollect any one transaction, few there are, I am
sure, in the whole body of that succession of crimes
now brought before you for your judgment, in which
the India Company have not censured him. Nay, in
one instance. he pleads- their censure in bar of this
trial;* for he says, " In that censure I have already
received my punishment. " If, for any other reasons,
they come and say, "We thank you, Sir, for all,,your
services," to that I answer, Yes; and Iwould thank
him for his services,:too, if I knew them. But I do
not; -perhaps they do. Let them thank him for
those services. I am ordered to prosecute him for
these crimes. Here, therefore, we are on a balance
with'the India Company; and your Lordships may
* See Mr. Hastings's answer to the first charge.
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. - SECOND DAY. 489
perhaps:think it some addition to his crimes, that
he has found means to obtain the thanks of the India
Company for the whole of his conduct, at the same
time that their records are full of constant, uniform,
particular censure and reprobation of every one of
those acts for which he now stands accused.
He says, there is the testimony of Indian princes
in his favor. But do we not know how seals are obtained in that country? Do we not know how those princes are imposed upon? Do we not know the sub-jection and thraldoin in which they are held, and that they are obliged to return thanks for the sufferings which they have felt? I believe your Lordships will think that there is not, with regard to some of
these princes, a more dreadful thing that can be said
of them than that he has obtained their thanks.
I understand he has obtained the thanks of the
miserable Princesses of Oude, whom he has cruelly
imprisoned, whose treasure he has seized, and whose
eunuchs he has tortured. * They thank him for going
away; they thank him for leaving them the smallest
trifle of their subsistence; and I venture to say, if
he wanted a hundred more panegyrics, provided he
never came again among them, he might have them.
I understand that Mahdajee Sindia has made his
panegyric, too. Mahdajee Sindia has not made his
panegyric for nothing; for, if your Lordships will
suffer him to enter into such a justification, we shall
prove that. he has sacrificed the dignity of this country and the interests of all its allies to that prince. We appear here neither with panegyric nor with
satire; it is for substantial crimes we bring him be --
* A Latin sentence, which was quoted here, is omitted in the MSg
of the short-hand writer. -ED.
? ? ? ? 490 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
fore you, and amongst others for cruelly using per
sons of the highest rank and consideration in India;
and when we prove he has cruelly injured them, you
will think the panegyrics either gross forgeries or
most miserable aggravations of his offences, since
they show the abject and dreadful state into which he
has driven those people. For let it be proved that I
have cruelly. robbed and maltreated any persons, if I
produce a certificate from them of my good behavior,
would it not be a corroborative proof of the terror
into which those persons are thrown by my misconduct?
My Lords, these are, I believe, the general grounds
of our charge. I have now closed completely, and I
hope to your Lordships' satisfaction, the whole body
of history of which I wished to put your Lordships in
possession. I do not mean that many of your Lordships may not have known it more perfectly by your own previous inquiries; but, bringing to your remembrance the state of the circumstances of the persons with whom he acted, the persons and power he has
abused, I have gone to the principles he maintains,
the precedents he quotes, the laws and authorities
which he refuses to abide by, and those on which he
relies; and at last I have refuted all those pleas in
bar on which he depends, and for the effect of which
he presumes on the indulgence and patience of this
country, or on the corruption of some persons in it.
And here I close what I had to say upon this subject,
- wishing and hoping, that, when I open before your
Lordships the case more particularly, so as to state
rather a plan of the proceeding than the direct proof
of the crimes, your Lordships will hear me with the
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. SECOND. DAY. 491
same goodness and indulgence I have hitherto experienced, -that you will consider, if I have detained
you long, it was not with a view of exhausting my
own strength, or putting your patience to too severe a
trial, but from the sense I feel that it is the most difficult and the most complicated cause that was ever
brought before any human tribunal. Therefore I was
resolved to bring the whole substantially before you.
And now, if your Lordships will permit me, I will
state the method of my future proceeding, and the
future proceeding of the gentlemen assisting me.
I mean first to bring before you the crimes as they
are classed, and are of the same species and genus,
and how they mutually arose from one another. I
shall first show that Mr. Hastings's crimes had root
in that which is the root of all evil, I mean avarice;
that avarice and rapacity were the groundwork and
foundation of all his other vicious system; that he
showed it in setting to sale the native government
of the country, in setting to sale the whole landed
interest of the country, in setting to sale the British
government and his own fellow-servants, to the basest
and wickedest of mankind.
I shall then show your Lordships, that, when, in
consequence of such a body of corruption and peculation, he justly dreaded the indignation of his country
and the vengeance of its laws, in order to raise himself a faction embodied by the same guilt and rewarded in the same manner, he has, with a most abandoned profusion, thrown away the revenues of the country
to form such a faction here.
I shall next show your Lordships, that, having exhausted the resources of the Company, and brought
it to extreme difficulties within, he has looked to his
? ? ? ? 492 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
external resources, as he calls them; he has gone up
into the country. I will show that he has plundered,
or attempted to plunder, every person dependent upon,
connected, or allied with this country.
We shall afterwards show what infinite mischief has
followed in the case of Benares, upon which he first
laid his hands; next, in the case of the Begums of
Oude.
We shall then lay before you the profligate system
by which he endeavored to oppress that country: first
by Residents; next by spies under the name of British
Agents; and lastly, that, pursuing his way up to the
mountains, he has found out one miserable chief,
whose crimes were the prosperity of his country, -
that him he endeavored to torture and destroy, -I do
not mean in his body, but by exhausting the treasures
which he kept for the benefit of his people.
Iri short, having shown your Lordships that no
man who is in his power is safe from his arbitrary
will, --that no man, within or without, friend, ally,
rival, has been safe from him, - having brought it to
this point, if I am not able in my own person immediately to go up into the country and show the ramifications of the system, (I hope and trust I shall be spared to take my part in pursuing him through both,)
if I am not, I shall go at least to the root of it, and
some other gentleman, with a thousand times moife
ability thanl I possess, will take up each separate part
~in its proper order. And I believe it is proposed by
the managers that one of them shall as soon as possible begin with the affair of Benares.
The point I now mean first to bring before your
Lordships is the corruption of Mr. Hastings, his system of peculation and bribery, and to show your Lord
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. - SECOND DAY. 493
ships the horrible consequences which resulted from it: for, at first sight, bribery and peculation do not seem to be so horrid a matter; they may seem to be only the transferring a little money out of one pocket into another; but I shall show that by such a system of bribery the country is undone.
I shall inform your Lordships in the best manner I can, and afterwards submit the whole, as I do with a cheerful heart and with an easy and assured security, to that justice which is the security for all the other justice in the kingdom.
? ? ? The works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke.
Burke, Edmund, 1729-1797.
Boston : Little, Brown, and company, 1869.
http://hdl. handle. net/2027/miun. aba1206. 0010. 001
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? ? ? THE
WORKS
OF
THE RIGHT HONORABLE EDMUND BURKE.
THIRD EDITION.
VOL. X.
BOSTON:
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. I869.
? ? ? ? CONTENTS OF VOL. X.
PAGE
SPEECHES IN THE IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS, ESQUIRE, LATE GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF BENGAL. SPEECH IN OPENING THE IMPEACHMENT.
THIRD DAY: MONDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1788. 3
FOURTH DAY: TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 19. . 99
SPEECH ON THE SIXTHI ARTICLE OF CHARGE.
FIRST DAY: TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 1789. 149
SECOND DAY: SATURDAY, APRIL 25. 240
THIRD DAY, TUESDAY, MAY 5. . . . 306
FOURTH DAY: THURSDAY, MAY 7. 396
? ? ? ? SPEECHES
IN
THE IMPEACHMENT
OF
WARREN HASTINGS, ESQUIRE,
LATE GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF BENGAL. SPEECH IN OPENING.
(CONTINUED. )
FEBRUARY, 1788.
VOL. X.
? ? ? ? SPEECH
OPENINGT THE IMPEACHMENT.
THIRD DAY: MONDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1788.
MY LORDS, - The gentlemen who are appointed
by the Commons to manage this prosecution,
have directed me to inform your Lordships, that they
have very carefully and attentively weighed the magnitude of the subject which they bring before you
with the time which the nature and circumstances of
affairs allow for their conducting it.
My Lords, on that comparison, they are very apprehensive, that, if I should go very largely into a preliminary explanation of the several matters in charge, it might be to the prejudice of an early trial of the
substantial merits of each article. We have weighed
and considered this maturely. We have compared
exactly the time with the matter, and we have found
that we are obliged to do as all men must do who
would manage their affairs practicably, to make our
opinion of what might be most advantageous to the
business conform to the time that is left to perform
it in. We must, as all men must, submit affairs to
time, and not think of making time conform to our
wishes; and therefore, my Lords, I very willingly
fall in with the inclinations of the gentlemen with
whom I have the honor to act, to come as soon as
possible to close fighting, and to grapple immediately
? ?
appointed writers of intelligence, men of truth and
integrity, that they might send me information of the
conduct and the behavior and the actions and the
manners of the troops and of the inhabitants, and of
every occurrence that might come to pass amongst
them. And if I discovered aught contrary to their
information, I inflicted punishment on the intelligencer; and every circumstance of cruelty and oppression in the governors and in the troops and in the inhabitants, which reached my ears, I chastised agreeably to justice and equity. "' Tenthly. Whatever tribe, and whatever horde,
whether Toork, or Taucheek, or Arrub, or Ajjum,
came in unto me, I received their chiefs with distinction and respect, and their followers I honored
according to their degrees and their stations; and to
the good among them I did good, and the evil I delivered over to their evil actions.
"And whoever attached himself unto me, I forgot
not the merit of his attachment, and I acted towards
him with kindness and generosity; and whoever had
rendered me services, I repaid the value of those services unto. him. And whoever had been my enemy,
and was ashamed thereof, and, flying to me for protection, humbled himself before me, I forgot his enmity, and I purchased him with liberality and kindness.
"In such manner Share Behraum, the chief of a
tribe, was along with me. And he left me in the
hour of action, and he united with the enemy, and
he drew forth his sword against me. And at length
my salt, which he had eaten, seized upon him; and
? ? ? ? 474 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
he again fled to me for refuge, and humbled himself before me. As he was a man of illustrious descent, and of bravery, and of experience, I covered my eyes from his evil actions; and I magnified him,
and I exalted him to a superior rank, and I pardoned his disloyalty in consideration of his. valor.
"Eleventhly. My children, and my relations, and
my associates, and my neighbors, and such as had
been connected with me, all these I distinguished
in the days of my fortune and prosperity, and I paid
unto them their due. And witli respect to my family, I rent not asunder the bands of consanguinity
and mercy; and I issued not commands to slay them,
or to bind them with chains.
" And I dealt with every man, whatever the judgment I had formed of him, according to my own
opinion of his worth. As I had seen much of prosperity and adversity, and had acquired knowledge
and experience, I conducted myself with caution and
with policy towards my friends and towards my enemies.
" Twelfthly. Soldiers, whether associates or adversaries, I held in esteem,-those who sell their permanent happiness to perishable honor, and throw themselves into the field of slaughter and battle, and
hazard their lives in the hour of danger.
"And the man who drew his sword on the "side
of my enemy, and committed hostilities against
me, and preserved his fidelity to his master, him I
greatly honored; and when such a man came unto me, knowing his worth, I classed him with my
faithful associates; and I respected and valued his
fidelity and his attachment.
" And the soldier who forgot his duty and his
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. - SECOND DAY. 475
honor, and in the hour of action turned his face
from his master, and came ill unto me, I considered
as the most detestable of men.
"And in the war between Touktummish Khaun,
his emirs forgot their duty to Touktummish, who
was their master and my foe, and sent proposals and
wrote letters unto me. And I uttered execrations
upon them, because, unmindful of that which they
owed to their lord, they had thrown aside their honor and their duty, and came in unto me. I said
unlto myself,' What fidelity have they observed to
their liege lord? what fidelity will they show unto
me? '
"And, behold, it was known unto me by experience, that every empire which is not established
in morality and religion, nor strengthened by regulations and laws, from that empire all order, grandeur, and power shall pass away. And that empire may be likened unto a naked man, who, when exposed to view, commandeth the eye of modesty to
be covered; and it is like unto a house which hath
neither roof nor gates nor defences, into which whoever willeth may enter unmolested.
"THEREFORE I established the foundation of my
empire on the morality and the religion of Islaum;
and by regulations and laws I gave it stability. And
by laws and by regulations I executed every business and every transaction that came before me in
the course of my government. "
I need not read any further, or I might show
your Lordships the noble principles, the grand, bold,
and manly maxims, the resolution to abstain from
oppression himself, and to crush it in the govern
? ? ? ? 476 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
ors under him, to be found in this book, which Mr.
Hastings has thought proper to resort to as containing what he calls arbitrary principles.
But it is not in this instance only that I must
do justice to the East. I assert that their morality
is equal to ours, in whatever regards the duties of
governors, fathers, and superiors; and I challenge
the world to show in any modern European book
more true morality and wisdom than is to be found
in the writings of Asiatic men in high trust, and
who have been counsellors to princes. If this be
the true morality of Asia, as I affirm and can prove
that it is, the plea founded on Mr. Hastings's geographical morality is annihilated.
I little regard the theories of travellers, where
they do not relate the facts on which they are
founded. I have two' instances of facts attested by
Tavernier, a traveller of power and consequence,
which are very material to be mentioned here, because they show that in some of the instances recorded, in which the princes of the country have used any of those cruel and barbarous executions
which make us execrate them, it has been upon
governors who have abused their trust,- and that
this very Oriental authority to which Mr. Hastings
appeals would have condemned. him to a dreadful
punishment. I thank God, and I say it from' my
heart, that even for his enormous offences there
neither is nor can be anything like such punishments. God forbid that we should not as much
detest out-of-the-way, mad, furious, and unequal punishments as we detest enormous and abominable
crimes! because a severe and cruel penalty for a
crime of a light nature is as bad and iniquitous as
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. -SECOND DAY. 477
the crime which it pretends to punish. As the instances I allude to are curious, and as they go to
the principles of Mir. Hastings's defence, I shall
beg to quote them.
The first is upon a governor who did what Mr.
Hastings says he has a power delegated to him to do:
he levied a tax without the consent of his master.
"Some years after my departure from Com," says
Tavernier, "the governor had, of his own accord,
and without any communication with the king, laid
a small impost upon every pannier of fruit brought
into the city, for the purpose of making some necessary reparations in the walls and bridges of the town. It was towards the end of the year 1632 that the
event I am going to relate happened. The king,
being informed of the impost which the governor
had laid upon the fruit, ordered him to be brought
in chains to court. Theking ordered him to be exposed to the people at one of the gates of the palace; then he commanded the son to pluck off the mustachios of his father, to cut off his nose and ears, to
put out his eyes, and then cut off his head. The
king then told the son to go and take possession of
the government of his father, saying, See that you
govern better than this deceased dog, or thy doom shall
be a death more exquisitely tormenting. "
My Lords, you are struck with horror, I am struck
with horror, at this punishment. I do not relate it
to approve of such a barbarous act, but to prove to
your Lordships, that, whatever power the princes of
that country have, they are jealous of it to such a
degree, that, if any of their governors should levy
-a tax, even the most insignificant, and for the best
purposes, he meets with a cruel punishment. I do
? ? ? ? 478 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
not justify the punishlment; but the severity of it
shows how little of their power the princes of that
country mean to delegate to their servants, the whole
of xvhich the gentleman at your bar says was delegated to him.
There is another case, a very strong one, and that
is the case of presents, which I understand is a customl admitted throughout Asia in all their governments. It was of a person who was raised to a high office; no business was suffered to come before him
without a previous present. " One morning, the
king being at this time on a hunting party, the nazar
came to the tent of the king, but was denied entrance
b)y the meter, or master of the wardrobe. About the
samne time the king came forth, and, seeing the nazar,
commanded his officers to take off the bonnet from
the head of that dog that took gifts from his people, and that he should sit three days bareheaded in
the heat of the sun, and as many nights in the air.
Afterwards he caused him to be chained about the
neck and arms, and condemned him to perpetual
imprisonment, with a mamoudy a day for his maintenance; but he died for grief within eight days
after he was put in prison. "
Do I mean, by reading this to your Lordships, to
express or intimate anll approbation either of the cruelty of the punishment or of the coarse barbarism of
the language? Neither one nor the other. I produce it to your Lordships to prove to you, from this
dreadful example, the horror which that government
felt, when any person subject to it assumed to himself a privilege to receive presents. The cruelty and
severity exercised by these princes is not levelled at
the poor unfortunate people who complain at their
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. - SECOND DAY. 479
gates, but, to use their own barbarous expression.
to dogs that impose taxes and take presents. God forbid I should use that language! The people, when
they complain, are not called dogs and sent away,
but the governors, who do these things against the
people: they are called dogs, and treated in that
cruel manner. I quote them to show that no governors in the East, upon any principle of their constitution or any good practice of their government, can lay arbitrary imposts or receive presents. When
they escape, it is probably by bribery, by corruption,
by creating factions for themselves in the seraglio, in
the country, in the' army, in the divan. But how
they escape such punishments is not my business to
inquire; it is enough for me that the constitution
disavows them, that the princes of the country disavow them, -- that they revile them with the most
horrible expressions, and inflict dreadful punishments on them, when they are called to answer for
these offences.
Thus much concerning the allhomedan laws of
Asia. That the people of Asia have no laws, rights,
or liberty, is a-doctrine that wickedly is to be disseminated through this country. But I again assert,
every Mahomedan government is, by its principles,
a government of law.
I shall now state, from what is known of the government of India, that it does not and cannot delegate, as Mr. Hastings has frequently declared, the whole of its powers and authority to him. If they
are absolute, as they must be in the supreme power,
they ought to be arbitrary in none; they were, however, never absolute in any of their subordinate parts,
and I will prove it by the known provincial constitu.
? ? ? ? 480 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
tions of Hindostan, which are all Mahomedan, the
laws of which are as clear, as explicit, and as learned
as ours.
The first foundation of their law is the Koran.
The next part is the Fetwah, or adjudged cases by
proper authority, well known there. The next, the
written interpretations of the principles of jurisprudence: and their books are as numerous upon the
principles of jurisprudence as in ally country in Europe. . The next part of their law is what they call
the fanon, -that is, a positive rule equivalent to acts
of Parliament, the law of the several powers of the
country, taken from the Greek'word Kavcov, which
was brought into their country, and is well known.
The next is the Rawaj-ul-Mulk, or common law and
custom of the kingdom, equivalent to our common
law. Therefore they have laws from more sources
than we have, exactly in the same order, grounded
upon the same authority, fundamentally fixed to be
administered to the people upon these principles.
The next thing is to show that in India there is
a partition of the powers of the government, which
proves that there is no absolute power delegated.
In every province the first person is the Subahdar
or Nazim, or Viceroy: he has the power of the sword,
and the administration of criminal justice only. Then
there is the Dewan, or High Steward: he has thei revenue and all exchequer causes under him, to be governed according to the law and custom and institutions of the kingdom. The law o&f inheritances, successions, and everything that relates to them, is under the Cadi, in whose court these matters are tried.
But this, too, was subdivided. The Cadi could not
judge, but by the advice of his assessors. Properly
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. -SECOND DAY. 481
in the Mahomedan law there is no appeal, only a removal of. the -cause; but when there is not judgment,
as none can be when the court is not unanimous, it
goes to the general assembly of all the men of the
law. There are, I will venture to say, other divisions
and subdivisions; for there. are the Kanongoes, who
hold their places for life, to be the conservators of the
canons, customs, and good usages of the country: all
these, as::well as the Cadi and. the Mufti, hold their
places and situations, not during the wanton pleasure
of the prince, but on permanent and fixed terms for
life. All. ;these powers of magistracy, revenue, and
law are all different, consequently not delegated in
the whole to any one person.
This is the provincial constitution, and these the,
laws of iBengal; which proves, if there were no other
proof, by the division of the functions and authorities,
that the isupreme\ power of the state in the Mogul
empire did by no means delegate to any of its officers the supreme power in its fulness. Whether or
no we have delegated to Mr. 'Hastings the supreme
power of King and Parliament, that he should act
with the plenitude of authority of the British legislature, you are to judge. : Mr. Hastings has no- refuge here. Let him run from: law to. law; let him fly from the common law
and the sacred institutions of the country in which
he was born;let him fly from acts of Parliament,
from which. his power originated; let him plead his
ignorance' of them, or fly in the face of them, Will
he fly to; the Mahomedan law? That condemns him. .
Will he fly to the high magistracy of Asia to defend~
taking of presents? Padishah and the Sultan wouldi
condemn himn to a cruel death. Will he fly to the:
VOL. IX. 31
? ? ? ? 482 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
Sophis, to the laws of Persia, or to the practice of
those monarchs? I cannot utter the pains, the tortures, that would be inflicted on him, if he were to
govern there as he has done in a British province.
Let him fly where he will, from law to law; law, I
thank God, meets him everywhere, and enforced, too,
by the practice of the most impious tyrants, which he
quotes as if it would justify his conduct. I would as
willingly have him tried by the law of the Koran, or
the Institutes of Tamerlane, as on the common law
or statute law of this kingdom.
The next question is, whether the Gentoo laws
justify arbitrary power: and if he finds any sanctuary there, let him take it, with the cow in the pagoda.
The Gent6os have a law which positively proscribes
in magistrates any idea of will, - a law with which,
or. rather with extracts of it, that gentleman himself
has furnished us. These people in many points are
governed by their own ancient written law, called the
Shaster. Its interpreters and judges are the Pundits.
This law is comprehensive, extending to all the coneerns of life, affording principles and maxims and legal theories applicable to all cases, drawn from the sources of natural equity, modified by their institutions, full of refinement and subtilty of distinction
equal to that of any other law, and has the grand test
of all law, that, wherever it has prevailed, the country
has been populous, flourishing, and happy.
Upon the whole, then, follow him where you will,
let him have Eastern or Western law, you find everywhere arbitrary power and peculation of governors
proscribed and horribly punished,-'more so than I
should ever wish to punish any, the most guilty,
human creature. And if this be the case, as I hope
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. - SECOND DAY. 483
and trust it has been proved to your Lordships, that.
there is law in these countries, that there is no delegation of power which exempts a governor from the law,
then I say at any rate a British governor is to answer
for his conduct, and cannot be justified by wicked
examples and profligate practices.
But another thing which he says is, that he was left
to himself, to govern himself by his own practice:
that is to say, when he had taken one bribe, he might
take another; when he had robbed one mall of his
property, he might rob another; when he had imprisoned one man arbitrarily, and extorted money from
him, he might do so by another. He resorts at first
to the practice of barbarians and usurpers; at last he
comes to his own. Now, if your Lordships will try
him by such maxims and principles, he is certainly
clear: for there is no manner of doubt that there is
nothing he has practised once which he has not practised again; and then the repetition of crimes becomes the means of his indemnity.
The next pleas he urges are not so much in bar of
the impeachment as in extenuation. The first are to
be laid by as claims to be made on motion for arrest
of judgment, the others as an extenuation or mitigation of his fine. He says, and with a kind of triumph,
" The ministry of this country have great legal assistance,-commercial lights of the greatest commercial city in the world, -- the greatest generals and officers to guide and direct them in military affairs:
whereas I, poor man, was sent almost a school-boy
from England, or at least little better, - sent to find
my way in that new world as well as I could. I had
no men of the law, no legal assistance, to supply my
deficiencies. " At Sphingem habebas do. mi. Had he
? ? ? ? 484 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
not the chief-justice, the tamed and domesticated
chief-justice, who waited on him like a familiar spirit,
whom he takes from province to province, his aman.
uensis at home, his postilion and riding express
abroad?
Such a declaration would in some measure suit
persons who had acted much otherwise than Mr.
Hastings. When a man pleads ignorance in justification of his conduct, it ought to be an humble, modest, unpresuming ignorance, an ignorance which may have made him lax and timid in the exercise of his
duty; but an assuming, rash, presumptuous, confident, daring, desperate, and disobedient ignorance
heightens every crime that it accompanies. Mr.
Hastings, if through ignorance he left some of the
Company's orders unexecuted, because he did not
understand them, might well say, " I was an ignorant
man, and these things were above my capacity.
" But
when he understands them, and when he declares he
will not obey them, positively and dogmatically, --
when he -says,' as he has said, and we shall prove it,
that he never succeeds better than when he acts in an utter defiance of those orders, and sets at nought the laws
of his country, -I believe this will not be thought the
language of an ignorant man. But I beg your Lordships' pardon: it is the language of an ignorant man;
for no man who. Was not full of a bold, determined,
profligate ignorance could ever think of such a system
of defence. He quitted Westminster School almost
a boy. ' We have reason to regret that he did not finish his education in that noble seminary, which has
giren so'many luminaries to the Church and ornaments to the State. Greatly it is to be lamented that
lhe did not go;to those Universities where arbitrary
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. -- SECOND DAY. 485
power will I hope never be heard of, but the true
principles of religion, of liberty, and law will ever be
inculcated, instead of studying in the school of Cossim Ali Khan.
If he had lived with us, he would have quoted
the example of Cicero in his government, he would
have quoted several of the sacred and holy prophets,
and made them his example. His want of learning,
profane as well as sacred, reduces him to the necessity of appealing to every name and authority of barbarism, tyranny, and usurpation that are to be found; and from these he says, "From the practice of one
part of Asia or other I have taken my rule. " But
your Lordships will show him that in Asia as well as
in Europe the same law of nations prevails, the same
principles are continually resorted to, and the same
maxims sacredly held and strenuously maintained,
and, however disobeyed, no man suffers from the
breach of them who does not know how and where to
complain of that breach, - that Asia is enlightened
in that respect as well as Europe; but if it were totally blinded, that England would send out governors to
teach them better, and that he must justify himself to
the piety, the truth, the faith of England, and not by
having recourse to the crimes and criminals of other
countries, to the barbarous tyranny of Asia, or any
other part of the world.
I will go further with Mr. Hastings, and admit,
that, if there be a boy in the fourth form of Westminster School, or any school in England, who does not
know, when these articles are read to him, that he
has been guilty of gross and enormous crimes, he
may have the shelter of his present plea, as far as it
will serve him. There are none of us, thank God, so
? ? ? ? 486 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
uninstructed, who have learned our catechisms or
the first elements of Christianity, who do not know
that such conduct is not to be justified, and least of
all by examples.
There is another topic he takes up more seriously,
and as a general rebutter to the charge. Says he,
" After a great many of these practices with which I
am charged, Parliament appointed me to my trust,
and consequently has acquitted me. " -Has it, my
Lords? I am bold to say that the Commons are
wholly guiltless of this charge. I will admit, if Parliament, on a full state of his offences before them, and
full examination of those offences, had appointed him
to the government, that then the people of India and
England would have just reason to exclaim against
so flagitious a proceeding. A sense of propriety and
decorum might have restrained us from prosecuting.
They might have been restrained by some sort of decorum from pursuing him criminally. But the Commons stand before your Lordships without shame. First, in their name we solemnly assure your Lordships that we had not in our Parliamentary capacity
(and most of us, myself I can say surely, heard very
little, and that in confused rumors) the slightest
knowledge of any one of the acts charged upon this
criminal at either of the times of his being appointed
to office, and that we were not guilty of the nefarious
act of collusion and flagitious breach of trust with
which he presumes obliquely to charge us; but from
the moment we knew them, we never ceased to condemn them by reports, by votes, by resolutions, and
that we admonished and declared it to be the duty of
the Court of Directors to take measures for his recall,
and when frustrated in the way known to that court
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. - SECOND DAY. 487
we then proceeded to an inquiry. Your Lordships
know whether you were better informed. We are,
therefore, neither guilty of the precedent crime of
colluding with the criminal, nor the subsequent indecorum of prosecuting what we had virtually and practically approved. Secondly, several of his worst crimes have been
committed since the last Parliamentary renewal of
his trust, as appears by the dates in the charge.
But I believe, my Lords, the judges --judges to
others, grave and weighty counsellors and assistants
to your Lordships- will not, on reference, assert to
your Lordships, (which God forbid, *and we cannot
conceive, or hardly state in argument, if but for argument,) that, if one of the judges had received
bribes before his appointment to an higher judiciary
office, he would not still be open to prosecution.
So far from admitting it as a plea in bar, we
charge, and we hope your Lordships will find it an
extreme aggravation of his offences, that no favors
heaped upon him could make him grateful, no renewed and repeated trusts could make him faithful
and honest.
We have now gone through most of the general
topics.
But he is not responsible, as being thanked by the
Court of Dir'ectors. He has had the thanks and approbatiol of the India Company for his services. - We
know too well here, I trust the world knows, and you
will always assert, that a pardon from the crown is
not pleadable here, that it cannot bar the impeachment of the Commons, -- much less a pardon of the
East India Company, though it may involve them in
guilt which might induce us to punish them for such
? ? ? ? 488 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
a pardon. If any corporation by collusion with criminals refuse to do their duty in coercing. them, the
magistrates are answerable.
It is the use, virtue, and efficacy of Parliamentary
judicial procedure, that it puts an end to this dominion of faction, intrigue, cabal, and clandestine intelligences. The acts of men are put to their proper test, and the works of darkness tried in the face of
day, - not the corrupted opinions of others on them,
but their own intrinsic merits. We charge it as his
crime, that he bribed the Court of Directors to thank
him for what they had condemned as breaches of, his
duty.
The East India Company, it is true,, have thanked
him. They ought not to have done it; and it is a
reflection upon their character that they did it. But
the Directors praise him in the gross, after having
condemned each act in detail. His actions are all,
every one, censured one by one as they arise. I do
not recollect any one transaction, few there are, I am
sure, in the whole body of that succession of crimes
now brought before you for your judgment, in which
the India Company have not censured him. Nay, in
one instance. he pleads- their censure in bar of this
trial;* for he says, " In that censure I have already
received my punishment. " If, for any other reasons,
they come and say, "We thank you, Sir, for all,,your
services," to that I answer, Yes; and Iwould thank
him for his services,:too, if I knew them. But I do
not; -perhaps they do. Let them thank him for
those services. I am ordered to prosecute him for
these crimes. Here, therefore, we are on a balance
with'the India Company; and your Lordships may
* See Mr. Hastings's answer to the first charge.
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. - SECOND DAY. 489
perhaps:think it some addition to his crimes, that
he has found means to obtain the thanks of the India
Company for the whole of his conduct, at the same
time that their records are full of constant, uniform,
particular censure and reprobation of every one of
those acts for which he now stands accused.
He says, there is the testimony of Indian princes
in his favor. But do we not know how seals are obtained in that country? Do we not know how those princes are imposed upon? Do we not know the sub-jection and thraldoin in which they are held, and that they are obliged to return thanks for the sufferings which they have felt? I believe your Lordships will think that there is not, with regard to some of
these princes, a more dreadful thing that can be said
of them than that he has obtained their thanks.
I understand he has obtained the thanks of the
miserable Princesses of Oude, whom he has cruelly
imprisoned, whose treasure he has seized, and whose
eunuchs he has tortured. * They thank him for going
away; they thank him for leaving them the smallest
trifle of their subsistence; and I venture to say, if
he wanted a hundred more panegyrics, provided he
never came again among them, he might have them.
I understand that Mahdajee Sindia has made his
panegyric, too. Mahdajee Sindia has not made his
panegyric for nothing; for, if your Lordships will
suffer him to enter into such a justification, we shall
prove that. he has sacrificed the dignity of this country and the interests of all its allies to that prince. We appear here neither with panegyric nor with
satire; it is for substantial crimes we bring him be --
* A Latin sentence, which was quoted here, is omitted in the MSg
of the short-hand writer. -ED.
? ? ? ? 490 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
fore you, and amongst others for cruelly using per
sons of the highest rank and consideration in India;
and when we prove he has cruelly injured them, you
will think the panegyrics either gross forgeries or
most miserable aggravations of his offences, since
they show the abject and dreadful state into which he
has driven those people. For let it be proved that I
have cruelly. robbed and maltreated any persons, if I
produce a certificate from them of my good behavior,
would it not be a corroborative proof of the terror
into which those persons are thrown by my misconduct?
My Lords, these are, I believe, the general grounds
of our charge. I have now closed completely, and I
hope to your Lordships' satisfaction, the whole body
of history of which I wished to put your Lordships in
possession. I do not mean that many of your Lordships may not have known it more perfectly by your own previous inquiries; but, bringing to your remembrance the state of the circumstances of the persons with whom he acted, the persons and power he has
abused, I have gone to the principles he maintains,
the precedents he quotes, the laws and authorities
which he refuses to abide by, and those on which he
relies; and at last I have refuted all those pleas in
bar on which he depends, and for the effect of which
he presumes on the indulgence and patience of this
country, or on the corruption of some persons in it.
And here I close what I had to say upon this subject,
- wishing and hoping, that, when I open before your
Lordships the case more particularly, so as to state
rather a plan of the proceeding than the direct proof
of the crimes, your Lordships will hear me with the
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. SECOND. DAY. 491
same goodness and indulgence I have hitherto experienced, -that you will consider, if I have detained
you long, it was not with a view of exhausting my
own strength, or putting your patience to too severe a
trial, but from the sense I feel that it is the most difficult and the most complicated cause that was ever
brought before any human tribunal. Therefore I was
resolved to bring the whole substantially before you.
And now, if your Lordships will permit me, I will
state the method of my future proceeding, and the
future proceeding of the gentlemen assisting me.
I mean first to bring before you the crimes as they
are classed, and are of the same species and genus,
and how they mutually arose from one another. I
shall first show that Mr. Hastings's crimes had root
in that which is the root of all evil, I mean avarice;
that avarice and rapacity were the groundwork and
foundation of all his other vicious system; that he
showed it in setting to sale the native government
of the country, in setting to sale the whole landed
interest of the country, in setting to sale the British
government and his own fellow-servants, to the basest
and wickedest of mankind.
I shall then show your Lordships, that, when, in
consequence of such a body of corruption and peculation, he justly dreaded the indignation of his country
and the vengeance of its laws, in order to raise himself a faction embodied by the same guilt and rewarded in the same manner, he has, with a most abandoned profusion, thrown away the revenues of the country
to form such a faction here.
I shall next show your Lordships, that, having exhausted the resources of the Company, and brought
it to extreme difficulties within, he has looked to his
? ? ? ? 492 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
external resources, as he calls them; he has gone up
into the country. I will show that he has plundered,
or attempted to plunder, every person dependent upon,
connected, or allied with this country.
We shall afterwards show what infinite mischief has
followed in the case of Benares, upon which he first
laid his hands; next, in the case of the Begums of
Oude.
We shall then lay before you the profligate system
by which he endeavored to oppress that country: first
by Residents; next by spies under the name of British
Agents; and lastly, that, pursuing his way up to the
mountains, he has found out one miserable chief,
whose crimes were the prosperity of his country, -
that him he endeavored to torture and destroy, -I do
not mean in his body, but by exhausting the treasures
which he kept for the benefit of his people.
Iri short, having shown your Lordships that no
man who is in his power is safe from his arbitrary
will, --that no man, within or without, friend, ally,
rival, has been safe from him, - having brought it to
this point, if I am not able in my own person immediately to go up into the country and show the ramifications of the system, (I hope and trust I shall be spared to take my part in pursuing him through both,)
if I am not, I shall go at least to the root of it, and
some other gentleman, with a thousand times moife
ability thanl I possess, will take up each separate part
~in its proper order. And I believe it is proposed by
the managers that one of them shall as soon as possible begin with the affair of Benares.
The point I now mean first to bring before your
Lordships is the corruption of Mr. Hastings, his system of peculation and bribery, and to show your Lord
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. - SECOND DAY. 493
ships the horrible consequences which resulted from it: for, at first sight, bribery and peculation do not seem to be so horrid a matter; they may seem to be only the transferring a little money out of one pocket into another; but I shall show that by such a system of bribery the country is undone.
I shall inform your Lordships in the best manner I can, and afterwards submit the whole, as I do with a cheerful heart and with an easy and assured security, to that justice which is the security for all the other justice in the kingdom.
? ? ? The works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke.
Burke, Edmund, 1729-1797.
Boston : Little, Brown, and company, 1869.
http://hdl. handle. net/2027/miun. aba1206. 0010. 001
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? ? ? THE
WORKS
OF
THE RIGHT HONORABLE EDMUND BURKE.
THIRD EDITION.
VOL. X.
BOSTON:
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. I869.
? ? ? ? CONTENTS OF VOL. X.
PAGE
SPEECHES IN THE IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS, ESQUIRE, LATE GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF BENGAL. SPEECH IN OPENING THE IMPEACHMENT.
THIRD DAY: MONDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1788. 3
FOURTH DAY: TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 19. . 99
SPEECH ON THE SIXTHI ARTICLE OF CHARGE.
FIRST DAY: TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 1789. 149
SECOND DAY: SATURDAY, APRIL 25. 240
THIRD DAY, TUESDAY, MAY 5. . . . 306
FOURTH DAY: THURSDAY, MAY 7. 396
? ? ? ? SPEECHES
IN
THE IMPEACHMENT
OF
WARREN HASTINGS, ESQUIRE,
LATE GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF BENGAL. SPEECH IN OPENING.
(CONTINUED. )
FEBRUARY, 1788.
VOL. X.
? ? ? ? SPEECH
OPENINGT THE IMPEACHMENT.
THIRD DAY: MONDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1788.
MY LORDS, - The gentlemen who are appointed
by the Commons to manage this prosecution,
have directed me to inform your Lordships, that they
have very carefully and attentively weighed the magnitude of the subject which they bring before you
with the time which the nature and circumstances of
affairs allow for their conducting it.
My Lords, on that comparison, they are very apprehensive, that, if I should go very largely into a preliminary explanation of the several matters in charge, it might be to the prejudice of an early trial of the
substantial merits of each article. We have weighed
and considered this maturely. We have compared
exactly the time with the matter, and we have found
that we are obliged to do as all men must do who
would manage their affairs practicably, to make our
opinion of what might be most advantageous to the
business conform to the time that is left to perform
it in. We must, as all men must, submit affairs to
time, and not think of making time conform to our
wishes; and therefore, my Lords, I very willingly
fall in with the inclinations of the gentlemen with
whom I have the honor to act, to come as soon as
possible to close fighting, and to grapple immediately
? ?
