"'I am sorry that I am under the necessity of
writing in this pressing manner.
writing in this pressing manner.
Edmund Burke
Your Lordships now see how inconsiderable, both in number and amount, were the culpable jaghires, in the destruction of which he has
involved the greater number and the meritorious.
You see that the Nabob never did propose any
exemption of the former at any time; that this was
a slander and a calumny on that unhappy man, in
order to defend the violent acts of the prisoner, who
has recourse to slander and calumny as a proper way
to defend violence, outrage, and wrongs.
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. -FIFTH DAY. 17
We have now gone through the first stage of Mr.
Hastings's confiscation of the estates of these unhappy
people. When it came to be put in execution, Mr.
Middleton finds the Nabob reluctant in the greatest
degree to mhke this sacrifice of his family and of all
his nobility. It touched him in every way in which
shame and sympathy can affect a man. He falls at
the feet of Mr. Middleton; he says, "I signed the
treaty of Chunar upon an assurance that it was never
meant to be put in force. " Mr. Middleton nevertheless proceeds; he sends the family of the Nabob out of the country; but he entertains fears of a general
revolt as the consequence of this tyrannical act, and
refers the case back to Mr. Hastings, who insists
upon its being executed in its utmost extent. The
Nabob again remonstrates in the strongest manner;
he begs, he prays, he dissembles, he delays. One
day he pretends to be willing to submit, the next he
hangs back, just as the violence of Mr. Hastings or
his own natural feelings and principles of justice
dragged him one way or dragged him another. Mr.
Middleton, trembling, and under the awe of that
dreadful responsibility under which your Lordships
may remember Mr. Hastings had expressly laid him
upon that occasion, ventures at once to usurp the
Nabob's government. He usurped it openly and
avowedly. He declared that he himself would issue
his purwannahs as governor of the country, for the
purpose of executing this abominable confiscation.
He assumed, I say, to himself the government of
the country, and Mr. Hastings had armed him.
with a strong military force for that purpose; he
declared he would order those troops to march for
his support; he at last got this reluctant, strugVOL. XII. 2
? ? ? ? 18 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
gling Nabob to consent in the manner we have described.
I shall now read to your Lordships Mr. Middleton's
letters, that you may hear these men with their own
mouths describing their own acts, and that your Lordships may then judge whether the highest tone and language of crimination comes up to their own description of their own proceedings.
" Lucknow, the 6th of Dec. , 1781.
" Finding the Nabob wavering in his determination
about the resumption of the jaghires, I this day, in
presence of, and with the minister's concurrence,
ordered the necessary purwannahs to be written to
the several aumils for that purpose, and it was my
firm resolution to have dispatched them this evening,
with proper people to see them punctually and
implicitly carried into execution; but before they
were all transcribed, I received a message from the
Nabob, who had been informed by the minister of
the resolution I had taken, entreating that I would
withhold the purwannahs till to-morrow morning,
when he would attend me, and afford me satisfaction
on this point. As the loss of a few hours in the
dispatch of the purwannahs appeared of little moment, and as it is possible the Nabob, seeing that the business will at all events be done, may make it an
act of his own, I have consented to indulge him in'his request; but, be the result of our interview whatever it may, nothing shall prevent the orders
being issued to-morrow, either by him or myself, with
the concurrence of the ministers. Your pleasure respecting the Begums I have learnt from Sir Elijah,
and the measure heretofore proposed will soon follow
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - FIFTH DAY. 19
the resumption of the jaghires; from both, or, indeed, from the former alone, I have no doubt of the complete liquidation of the Company's balance. "
"Lucknow, the 7th Dec. , 1781.
" MY DEAR SIR, -I had the honor to address you
yesterday, informing you of the steps I had taken
in regard to the resumption of the jaghires. This
morning the Vizier came to me, according to. his
agreement, but seemingly without any intention or
desire to yield me satisfaction on the subject under
discussion; for, after a great deal of conversation,
consisting on his part of trifling evasion and puerile
excuses for withholding his assent to the measure,
though at the same time professing the most implicit
submission to your wishes, I found myself without
any other resource than the one of employing that
exclusive authority with which I consider your instructions to vest me. I therefore declared to the Nabob, in presence of the minister and Mr. Johnson,
who I desired might bear witness of the conversation,
that I construed his rejection of the measure proposed as a breach of his solemn promise to you, and an unwillingness to yield that assistance which was
evidently in his power towards liquidating his heavy
accumulated debt to the Company, and that I must
in consequence determine, in my own justification,
to issue immediately the purwannahs, which had
only been withheld in the sanguine hope that he
would be prevailed upon to make that his own act,
which nothing but the most urgent necessity could
force me to make mine. He left me without any
reply, but afterwards sent for his minister, and authorized him to give me hopes that my requisition
? ? ? ? 20 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
would be complied with; on which I expressed my
satisfaction, but declared that I could admit of no
further delays, and, unless I received his Excellency's formal acquiescence before the evening, I should
then most assuredly issue my purwannahs: which I
have accordingly done, not having had any assurances from his Excellency that could justify a further suspension. I shall as soon as possible inform you of the effect of the purwannahs, which in many
parts I am apprehensive it will be found necessary to
enforce with military aid; I am not, however, entirely without hopes that the Nabob, when he sees the
inefficacy of further opposition, may alter his conduct, and prevent the confusion and disagreeable
consequences which would be too likely to result
from the prosecution of a measure of such importance without his concurrence. His Excellency talks
of going to Fyzabad, for the purpose heretofore mentioned, in three or. four days; I wish he may be serious in this intention, and you may rest assured I shall spare no pains to keep him to it. "
Lucknow, 28th -December, 1781.
"If your new demand is to be insisted upon,
which your letter seems to portend, I must beg your
precise orders upon it; as, from the difficulties I have
within these few days experienced in carrying the
points you had enjoined with the Nabob, I have the
best grounds for believing that he would consider it
a direct breach of the late agreement, and totally reject
the proposal as such; and I must own to you, that, in
his present fermented state of mind, I could expect
nothing less than despair and a declared rupture.
"He has by no means been yet able to furnish me
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. ---FIFTH DAY. 21
with means of paying off the arrears due to the temporary brigade, to the stipulated term of its continuance in his service. The funds necessary for paying off and discharging his own military establishment
under British officers, and his pension list, have been
raised, on the private credit of Mr. Johnson and myself, from the shroffs of this place, to whom we are
at this moment pledged for many lacs of rupees; and
without such aid, which I freely and at all hazards
yielded, because I conceived it was your anxious desire to relieve the Nabob as soon as possible of this
heavy burden, the establishment must have been at
his charge to this time, and probably for months to
come, while his resources were strained to the utmost to furnish jaidads for its maintenance to this
period. I therefore hesitate not to declare it utterly
impossible for him, under any circumstances whatever, to provide funds for the payment of the troops
you now propose to send him.
"The wresting Furruckabad, Kyraghur, and Fyzoola Khan's country from his government, (for in
that light, my dear Sir, I can faithfully assure you, he
views the measures adopted in respect to those countries,) together with the resumption of all the jaghires, so much against his inclination, have already brought the Nabob to a persuasion that nothing less
than his destruction, or the annihilation of every
shadow of his power, is meant; and all my labors to
convince him to the contrary have proved abortive.
A settled melancholy has seized him, and his health
is reduced beyond conception; and I do most humbly believe that the march of four regiments of
sepoys towards Lucknow, under whatever circumstances it might be represented, would be considered
? ? ? ? 22 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS;
by him as a force ultimately to be used in securing
his person. In short, my dear Sir, it is a matter of
such immediate moment, and involving, apparently,
such very serious and important consequences, that I
have not only taken upon me to suspend the communication of it to the Nabob until I should be honored
with your further commands, but have also ventured
to write the inclosed letter to Colonel Morgan: liberties which I confidently trust you will excuse, when
you consider that I can be actuated by no other motive than a zeal for the public service, and that, if,
after all, you determine that the measure shall be
insisted on, it will be only the loss of six or at most
eight days in proposing it. But in the last event, I
earnestly entreat your orders may be explicit and
positive, that I may clearly know what lengths you
would wish me to proceed in carrying them into execution. I again declare it is my firm belief, and
assure yourself, my dear Mr. Hastings, I am not
influenced in this declaration by any considerations
but my public duty and my personal attachment to
you, that the enforcing the measure you have proposed would be productive of an open rupture between us and the Nabob; nay, that the first necessary step towards carrying it into effect must be, on our part, a declaration of hostility. "
Your Lordships have now before your eyes proofs,
furnished by Mr. Hastings himself from his correspondence with Mr. Middleton, irrefragable proofs,
that this Nabob, who is stated to have made the proposition himself, was dragged to the signature of it;
and that the troops which are supposed, and fraudulently stated, (and I wish your Lordships particularly
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - FIFTH DAY. 23
to observe this,) to have been sent to assist him in
this measure, were considered by him as a body of
troops sent to imprison him, and to free him from
all the troubles and pains of government.
When Mr. Hastings sent the troops for the purpose, as he pretended, of assisting the Nabob in thle
execution of a measure which was really adopted in
direct opposition to the wishes of that prince, what
other conclusion could be drawn, but that they were
sent to overawe, not to assist him? The march of
alien troops into a country up6n that occasion could
have no object but hostility; they could have been
sent with no other design but that of bringing disgrace upon the Nabob, by making him the instrument of his family's ruin, and of the destruction of
his nobility. Your Lordships, therefore, will not
wonder that this -miserable man should have sunk
into despair, and that he should have felt the weight
of his oppression doubly aggravated by its coming
from such a man as Mr. Hastings, and by its being
enforced by such a man as Mr. Middleton.
And here I must press one observation upon your
Lordships: I do not know a greater insult that can
be offered to a man born to command than to find
himself made the tool of a set of obscure men, come
from an unknown country, without anything to distinguish them but an usurped power. Never shall
I, out of compliment to any persons, because they
happen to be my own countrymen, disguise my feelings, or renounce the dictates of Nature and of humanity. If we send out obscure people, unknowing and unknown, to exercise such acts as these, I must
say it is a bitter aggravation of the victim's suffering, Oppression and robbery are at all times evils;
? ? ? ? 24 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
but they are more bearable, when exercised by persons whom we have been habituated to regard with
awe, and to whom mankind for ages have been accustomed to bow.
Now does the history of tyranny furnish, does the
history of popular violence deposing kings firnish,
anything like the dreadful deposition of this prince,
and the cruel and abominable tyranny that has been
exercised over him? Consider, too, my Lords, for. what object all this was done. Was Mr. Hastings
endeavoring, by his arbitrary interference and the
use of his superior power, to screen a people from
the usurpation and power of a tyrant, - from any
strong and violent acts against property, against dignity, against nobility, against the freedom of his peo.
ple? No: you see here a monarch deposed, in effect, by persons pretending to be his allies, and assigning what are pretended to be his wishes as the motive for using his usurped authority in the execution of these acts of violence against his own family and his subjects. You see him struggling against this violent prostitution of his authoriity. He refuses
the sanction of his name, which before he had given
up to Mr. Hastings to be used as he pleased, and
only begs not to be made an instrument of wrong
which his soul abhors, and which would make him
infamous throughout the world. Mr. Middleton,
however, assumes the sovereignty of the country.
" I," he says, " am Nabob of Oude: the jaghires shall
be confiscated: I have given my orders, and they
shall be supported by a military force. "
I am ashamed to have so far distrusted your Lordships' honorable and generous feelings as to have
offered you, upon this occasion, any remarks which
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. -- FIFTH DAY. 25
you must have run before me in making. Those
feelings which you have, and ought to have, feelings
born in the breasts of all men, and much more in
men of your Lordships' elevated rank, render my remarks unnecessary. I need not, therefore, ask what you feel, when a foreign resident at a prince's court
takes upon himself to force that prince to act the
part of a tyrant, and, upon his resistance, openly and
avowedly assumes the sovereignty of the country.
You have it in proof that Mr. Middleton did this.
He not only put his own name to the orders for this
horrible confiscation, but he actually proceeded to
dispossess the jaghiredars of their lands, and to send
them out of the country. And whom does he send,
in the place of this plundered body of nobility, to
take possession of the country? Why, the usurers
of Benares. Yes, my Lords, he immediately mortgages the whole country to the usurers of Benares, for the purpose of raising money upon it: giving
it up to those bloodsuckers, dispossessed of that nobility, whose interest, wllose duty, whose feelings, and whose habits made them the natural protectors
of the people.
My Lords, we here see a body of usurers put into
possession of all the estates of the nobility: let us
now see if this act was necessary, even for the avowed
purposes of its agents, - the relief of the Nabob's
financial difficulties, and the payment of his debts to
the Company. Mr. Middleton has told your Lord
ships that these jaghires would pay the Company's
debt completely in two years. Then would it not
have been better to have left these estates in the
hands of their owners, and to have oppressed them
in some moderate, decent way? Might they not have
? ? ? ? 26 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
left the jaghiredars to raise the sums required by some
settlement with the bankers of Benares, in which the
repayment of the money within five or six years might
have been secured, and the jaghiredars have had in
the mean time something to subsist upon? Oh, no!
these victims must have nothing to live upon. They
must be turned out. And why? Mr. Hastings
commands it.
Here I must come in aid of Mr. Middleton a
little; for one cannot but pity the miserable instiuments that have to act under Mr. Hastings. I do
not mean to apologize for Mr. Middleton, but to pity
the situation of persons who, being servants of the
Company, were converted, by the usurpation of this
man, into his subjects and his slaves. The mind
of Mr. Middleton revolts. You see him reluctant
to proceed. The Nabob begs a respite. You find
in the Resident a willingness to comply. Even Mr.
Middleton is placable. Mr. Hastings alone is obdurate. His resolution to rob and to destroy was not to be moved, and the estates of the whole Mahometan
nobility of a great kingdom were confiscated in a
moment. Your Lordships will observe that his orders to Mr. Middleton allow no forbearance. He
writes thus to him.
"SIR, -- My mind has been for some days suspended between two opposite impulses: one arising from the necessity of my return to Calcutta; the other,
from the apprehension of my presence being more
necessary and more urgently wanted at Lucknow.
Your answer to this shall decide my choice.
"I have waited thus long in the hopes of hearing
that some progress had been made in the execution
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - FIFTH DAY. 27
of the plan which I concluded with the Nabob in
September last. I do not find that any step towards
it has been yet taken, though three months are
elapsed, and little more than that period did appear
to me requisite to have accomplished the most essential parts of it, and to have brought the whole into
train. This tardiness, and the opposition prepared
to the only decided act yet undertaken, have a bad
appearance. I approve the Nabob's resolutions to
deprive the Begums of their ill-employed treasures.
In both services, it must be your care to prevent all
abuse of the powers given to those that are employed
in them. You yourself ought to be personally present. You must not allow any negotiation or forbearance, but must prosecute both services, until the Begums are at the entire mercy of the Nabob, their
jaghires in the quiet possession of his aumils, and
their wealth in such charge as may secure it against
private embezzlement. You will have a force more
than sufficient to effect both these purposes.
" The reformation of his army and the new settlement of his revenues are also points of immediate
concern, and ought to be immediately concluded.
HIas anything been done in either?
" I now demand and require you most solemnly to
answer me. Are you confident in your own ability
to accomplish all these purposes, and the other
points of my instructions? If you reply that you
are, I will depart with a quiet and assured mind to
the Presidency, but leave you a dreadful responsibility, if you disappoint me. If you tell me that you
cannot rely upon your power, and the other means
which you possess for performing these services, I will
free you from the charge. I will proceed myself to
? ? ? ? 28 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
Lucknow, and I will myself undertake them; and in
that case, I desire that you will immediately order
bearers to be stationed, for myself and two other gentlemen, between Lucknow and Allahabad, and I will
set out friom hence in three days after the receipt
of your letter.
"'I am sorry that I am under the necessity of
writing in this pressing manner. I trust implicitly
to your integrity, I am certain of your attachment
to myself, and I know that your capacity is equal to
any service; but I must express my doubts of your
firmness and activity, and above all of your recollection of my instructions, and of their importance.
My conduct in the late arrangements will be arraigned with all the rancor of disappointed rapacity,
and my reputation and influence will suffer a mortal
wound from the failure of them. They have already
failed in a degree, since no part of them has yet
taken place, but the removal of our forces from the
Dooab and Rohilcund, and of the British officers and
pensioners from the service of the Nabob, and the expenses of the former thrown without any compensation on the Company.
"I expect a supply of money equal to the discharge of all the Nabob's arrears, and am much disappointed and mortified that I am not now able to return with it.
"' Give me an immediate answer to the question
which I have herein proposed, that I may lose no
more time in fruitless inaction. "
About this time Mr. Hastings had received information of our inquiries in the House of Commons into
his conduct; and this is the manner in which he pre
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - FIFTH DAY. 29
pares to meet them. "I must get money. I must
carry with me that great excuse for everything, that
salve for every sore, that expiation for every crime:
let me provide that, all is well. You, Mr. Middleton, try your nerves: are you equal to these services?
Examine yourself; see what is in you: are you man
enough to come up to it? " says the great robber
to the little robber, says Roland the Great to his
puny accomplice. " Are you equal to it? Do you
feel yourself a man? If not, send messengers and
dawks to me, and I, the great master tyrant, will
come myself, and put to shame all the paltry delegate
tools of despotism, that have not edge enough to cut
their way through and do the services I have ordained for them. "
I have already stated to your Lordships his reason
and motives for this violence, and they are such as
aggravated his crime by attempting to implicate his
country in it. He says lie was afraid to go home
without having provided for the payment of the Nabob's debt. Afraid of what? Was he afraid of coming before a British tribunal, and saying, "Through justice, through a regard for the rights of an allied
sovereign, through a regard to the rights of his people, I have not got so much as I expected"? Of
this no man could be afraid. The prisoner's fear had
another origin. "I have failed," says he to himself, " in my first project. I went to Benares to rob;
I have lost by my violence the fruits of that robbery.
I must get the money somewhere, or I dare not appear before a British House of Commons, a British
House of Lords, or any other tribunal in the kingdom; but let me get money enough, and they won't
care how I get it. The estates of whole bodies of
? ? ? ? 30 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
nobility may be confiscated; a people who had lived
under their protection may be given up into the
hands of foreign usurers: they will care for none of
these things; they will suffer me to do all this, and
to employ in it the force of British troops, whom I
have described as a set of robbers, provided I can
get money. " These were Mr. Hastings's views; and,
in accordance with them, the jaghires were all confiscated, the jaghiredars with their families were all
turned out, the possessions delivered, up to the usurer, in order that Mr. Hastings might have the excuse of money to plead at the bar of the House of Commons, and afterwards at the bar of the House
of Lords. If your Lordships, in your sacred character of the first tribunal in the world, should by your
judgment justify those proceedings, you will sanction the greatest wrongs that have been ever known
in history.
But to proceed. The next thing to be asked is,
Were the promised pensions given to the jaghiredars?
I suppose your Lordships are not idle enough to put
that question to us. No compensation, no consideration, was given or stipulated for them. If there had
been any such thing, the prisoner could have proved
it, -he would have proved it. The means were easy
to him. But we have saved him the trouble of the
attempt. We have proved the contrary, and, if called
upon, we will show you the place where this is proved.
I have now shown your Lordships how Mr. Hastings, having with such violent and atrocious circumstances usurped the government of Oude, (I hope I need not use any farther proof that the Nabob- was
in effect non-existent in the country,) treated all the
landed property. The next question will be, How
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - FIFTH DAY. 31
has he treated whatever moneyed property was left
in the country? My Lords, he looked over that immense waste of his own creating, not as Satan viewed the kingdoms of the world and saw the power and
glory of them, --but he looked over the waste of
Oude with a diabolical malice which one could hardly suppose existed in the prototype himself. He saw nowhere above-ground one single shilling that he
could attach, -- no, not one; every place had been
ravaged; no money remained in sight. But possibly some might be buried in vaults, hid from the gripe of tyranny and rapacity. "It must be so," says
he. "Where can I find it? how can I get at it?
There is one illustrious family that is thought to
have accumulated a vast body of treasures, through
a course of three or four successive reigns. It does
not appear openly; but we have good information
that very great sums of money are bricked up and
kept in vaults under ground, and secured under the
guard and within the walls of a fortress": the residence of the females of the family, a guard, as your Lordships know, rendered doubly and trebly secure
by the manners of the country, which make everything that is in the hands of women sacred. It is
said that nothing is proof against gold, --that the
strongest tower will not be impregnable, if Jupiter
makes love in a golden shower. This Jupiter commences making love; but lie does not come to the ladies with gold for their persons, he comes to their
persons for their gold. This impetuous lover, Mr.
Hastings, who is not to be stayed from the objects of
his passion, would annihilate space and time between
him and his beloved object, the jaghires of these ladies, had now, first, their treasure's affection.
? ? ? ? 32 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
Your Lordships have already had a peep behind
the curtain, in the first orders sent to Mr. Middleton.
In the treaty of Chunar you see a desire, obliquely
expressed, to get the landed estates of all these great
families. But even while he was meeting with such
reluctance in the Nabob upon this point, and though
he also met with some resistance upon the part even
of Mr. Middleton, Mr. Hastings appears to have given
him in charge some other still more obnoxious and
dreadful acts. " While I was meditating," says Mr.
Middleton, in one of his letters, "upon this [the
resumption of the jaghires], your orders came to me
through Sir Elijah Impey. " What these orders were
is left obscure in the letter: it is yet but as in a
mist or cloud. But it is evident that Sir Elijah Impey did convey to him some project for getting at
more wealth by some other service, which was not
to supersede the first, but to be concurrent with that
upon which Mr. Hastings had before given him such
dreadful charges and had loaded him with such horrible responsibility. It could not have been anything but the seizure of the Begum's treasures. He thus goaded on two reluctant victims,-first the reluctant Nabob, then the reluctant Mr. Middleton,
forcing them with the bayonet behind them, and
urging on the former, as at last appears, to violate
the sanctity of his mother's house.
Your Lordships have been already told by one
of my able fellow Managers, that Sir Elijah Impey
is the person who carried up the message alluded
to in Mr. Middleton's letter. We have charged it,
as an aggravation of the offences of the prisoner at
your bar, that the Chief-Justice, who, by the sacred
nature of his office, and by the express provisions
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - FIFTH DAY. 33
of the act of Parliament under which he was sent
out to India to redress the wrongs of the natives,
should be made an instrument for destroying the
property, real and personal, of this people. When
it first came to our knowledge that all this private
intrigue for the destruction of these high women
was carried on through the intrigue of a ChiefJustice, we felt such shame and such horror, both
for the instrument and the principal, as I think it
impossible to describe, or for anything but complete
and perfect silence to express.
But by Sir Elijah Impey was that order carried
up to seize and confiscate the treasures of the Begums. We know that neither the Company nor the Nabob had any claim whatever upon these treasures.
On the contrary, we know that two treaties had been
made for the protection of them. We know that
the Nabob, while he was contesting about some elephants and carriages, and some other things that he said were in the hands of their steward, did allow
that the treasures in the custody of his grandmother
and of his mother's principal servants were their
property. This is the Nabob who is now represented by Mr. Hastings and his counsel to have become the instrument of destroying his mother and grandmother, and everything else that ought to be dear to mankind, throughout the whole train of his family.
Mr. Hastings, having resolved to seize upon the
treasures of the Begums, is at a loss for some pretence of justifying the act. His first justification
of it is on grounds which all tyrants have ready at
their hands. He begins to discover a legal title to
that of which he wished to be the possessor, and on
this title sets up a claim to these treasures. I say
VOL. XII. 3
? ? ? ? 34 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
Mr. Hastings set up this claim, because by this time
I suppose your Lordships will not bear to hear the
Nabob's name on such an occasion. The prisoner
pretended, that, by the Mahometan law, these goods
did belong to the Nabob; but whether they did or
did not, he had himself been an active instrument
in the treaty for securing their possession to the Begums, -a security which he attempts to unlock by his constructions of the Mahometan law. Having set
up this title, the guaranty still remained; and how
is he to get rid of that? In his usual way. " You
have rebelled, you have taken up arms against your
own son," (for that is the pretext,) " and therefore
my guaranty is gone, and your goods, whether you
have a title to them or not, are to be confiscated
for your rebellion. " This is his second expedient
by way of justification.
Your Lordships will observe the strange situation
in which we are here placed. If the fact of the
rebellion can be proved, the discussion of the title
to the property in question will be totally useless;
for, if the ladies had actually taken up arms to cut
the Nabob's throat, it would require no person to
come fiom the dead to prove to us that the Nabob,
but not Mr. Hastings, had a right, for his own security and for his own indemnification, to take those treasures, which, whether they belonged to him or
not, were employed in hostilities against him. The
law of self-defence is above every other law; and if
ally persons draw the sword against you, violence on
your part is justified, and you may use your sword
to take from them that property by which they have
been enabled to draw their sword against you.
But the prisoner's counsel do not trust to this
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. -FIFTH DAY. 35
justification; they set up a title of right to these
treasures: but how entirely they have failed in their
attempts to substantiate either the one or the other
of these his alleged justifications your Lordships will
now judge. And first with regard to the title. The
treasure, they say, belonged to the state. The grandmother and mother have robbe(d the son, and kept him out of his rightful inheritance. They then produce the Hedaya to show you what proportion of
the goods of a Mussulman, when he dies, goes to his
family; and here, certainly, there is a question of
law to *be tried. But Mr. Hastings is a great eccentric genius, and has a course of proceeding of
his own: he first seizes upon the property, and then
produces some Mahometan writers to prove that it
did not belong to the persons who were in possession
of it. You would naturally expect, that, when he
was going to seize upon those goods, he would have
consulted his Chief-Justice, (for, as Sir Elijah Impey
went with him, he might have consulted him,) and
have thus learnt what was the Mahometan law: for,
though Sir Elijah had not taken his degree at a
Mahometan college, though he was not a mufti or a
moulavy, yet he had always muftis and moulavies
near him, and he might have consulted them. But
Mr. Hastings does not even pretend that such consultations or conferences were ever had. If he ever consulted Sir Elijah Impey, where is the report of the
case? Whell were the parties before him? Where
are the opinionis of the moulavies? Where is the
judgment of the Chief-Justice? Was he fit for nothing but to be employed as a messenger, as a common tipstaff? Was he not fit to try these rights, or to
decide upon them? He hbis told you here, indeed,
? ? ? ? 36 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
negatively, that he did not know any title Mr. Hastings had to seize upon the property of the Begumls,
except upon his hypothesis of the rebellion. He was
asked if he knew any other. He answered, No. It
consequently appears that Mr. Hastings, though he
had before him his doctors of all laws, who could
unravel for him all the enigmas of all the laws in the
world, and who had himself shone upon questions of
Mahometan law, in the case of the Nuddea Begunim,
did not dare to put this case to Sir Elijah Impey,
and ask what was his opinion concerning the rights
of these people. He was tender, I suppose, of the
reputation of the Chief-Justice. For Sir Elijah Impey, though a very good man to write a letter, or
take an'affidavit in a corner, or run on a message, to
do the business of an under-sheriff, tipstaff, or bumbailiff, was not fit to give an opinion on a question of
Mahometan law.
You have heard Ali Ibrahim Khan referred to.
This Mahometan lawyer was carried by Mr. Hastings
up to Benares, to be a witness of the vast good he had
done in that province, and was made Chief-Justice
there. All, indeed, that we know of him, except the
high character given of him by Mr. Hastings, is, I
believe, that he is the Ali Ibrahim Kha:n whom in
the Company's records I find mentioned as a person
giving bribes upon some former occasion to Mr. Hastings; but whatever he was besides, he was a doctor
of the Mahometan law, he was a mufti, and was
made by Mr. Hastings the principal judge in a criminal court, exercising, as I believe, likewise a considerable civil jurisdiction, and therefore lie was quali. . fled as a lawyer; and Mr. Hastings cannot object
to his qualifications either of integrity or of knowl
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - FIFTH DAY. 37
edge. This man was with him. Why did not he
consult him upon this law? Why did he not make
him out a case of John Doe and Richard Roe, of
John Stokes and John a Nokes? Why not say,," Sinub possesses such things, under such and such circumstances: give me your opinion upon the legality of the possession"? No, he did no such thing. Your Lordships, I am sure, will think it a little
extraordinary, that neither this chief-justice made
by himself, nor that other chief-justice whom he led
about with him in a string, -- the one an English
chief-justice, with a Mahometan suit in his court,
the other a Mahometan chief-justice of the country,
-that neither of them was consulted as lawyers by
the prisoner. Both of them were, indeed, otherwise
employed by him. For we find Ali Ibrahim Khan
employed in the same subservient capacity in which
Sir Elijah Impey was, --in order, I suppose, to keep
the law of England and the law of Mahomet upon a
just par: for upon this equality Mr. Hastings always
values himself. Neither of these two chief-justices,
I say, was ever consulted, nor one opinion taken; but
they were both employed in the correspondence and
private execution of this abominable project, when
the prisoner himself had not either leisure or perhaps
courage to give his public order in it till things got
to greater ripeness.
To Sir Elijah Impey, indeed, he did put a question;
and, upon my word, it did not require an (Edipus or
a Sphinx to answer it. Says he, " I asked Sir Elijah
Impey. " What? a question on the title between the
Nabob and his mother? No such thing. He puts
an hypothetical question. ' Supposing," says he, " a
rebellion to exist in that country; will the Nabob be
? ? ? ? Z8 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
justified in seizing the goods of the rebels?
involved the greater number and the meritorious.
You see that the Nabob never did propose any
exemption of the former at any time; that this was
a slander and a calumny on that unhappy man, in
order to defend the violent acts of the prisoner, who
has recourse to slander and calumny as a proper way
to defend violence, outrage, and wrongs.
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. -FIFTH DAY. 17
We have now gone through the first stage of Mr.
Hastings's confiscation of the estates of these unhappy
people. When it came to be put in execution, Mr.
Middleton finds the Nabob reluctant in the greatest
degree to mhke this sacrifice of his family and of all
his nobility. It touched him in every way in which
shame and sympathy can affect a man. He falls at
the feet of Mr. Middleton; he says, "I signed the
treaty of Chunar upon an assurance that it was never
meant to be put in force. " Mr. Middleton nevertheless proceeds; he sends the family of the Nabob out of the country; but he entertains fears of a general
revolt as the consequence of this tyrannical act, and
refers the case back to Mr. Hastings, who insists
upon its being executed in its utmost extent. The
Nabob again remonstrates in the strongest manner;
he begs, he prays, he dissembles, he delays. One
day he pretends to be willing to submit, the next he
hangs back, just as the violence of Mr. Hastings or
his own natural feelings and principles of justice
dragged him one way or dragged him another. Mr.
Middleton, trembling, and under the awe of that
dreadful responsibility under which your Lordships
may remember Mr. Hastings had expressly laid him
upon that occasion, ventures at once to usurp the
Nabob's government. He usurped it openly and
avowedly. He declared that he himself would issue
his purwannahs as governor of the country, for the
purpose of executing this abominable confiscation.
He assumed, I say, to himself the government of
the country, and Mr. Hastings had armed him.
with a strong military force for that purpose; he
declared he would order those troops to march for
his support; he at last got this reluctant, strugVOL. XII. 2
? ? ? ? 18 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
gling Nabob to consent in the manner we have described.
I shall now read to your Lordships Mr. Middleton's
letters, that you may hear these men with their own
mouths describing their own acts, and that your Lordships may then judge whether the highest tone and language of crimination comes up to their own description of their own proceedings.
" Lucknow, the 6th of Dec. , 1781.
" Finding the Nabob wavering in his determination
about the resumption of the jaghires, I this day, in
presence of, and with the minister's concurrence,
ordered the necessary purwannahs to be written to
the several aumils for that purpose, and it was my
firm resolution to have dispatched them this evening,
with proper people to see them punctually and
implicitly carried into execution; but before they
were all transcribed, I received a message from the
Nabob, who had been informed by the minister of
the resolution I had taken, entreating that I would
withhold the purwannahs till to-morrow morning,
when he would attend me, and afford me satisfaction
on this point. As the loss of a few hours in the
dispatch of the purwannahs appeared of little moment, and as it is possible the Nabob, seeing that the business will at all events be done, may make it an
act of his own, I have consented to indulge him in'his request; but, be the result of our interview whatever it may, nothing shall prevent the orders
being issued to-morrow, either by him or myself, with
the concurrence of the ministers. Your pleasure respecting the Begums I have learnt from Sir Elijah,
and the measure heretofore proposed will soon follow
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - FIFTH DAY. 19
the resumption of the jaghires; from both, or, indeed, from the former alone, I have no doubt of the complete liquidation of the Company's balance. "
"Lucknow, the 7th Dec. , 1781.
" MY DEAR SIR, -I had the honor to address you
yesterday, informing you of the steps I had taken
in regard to the resumption of the jaghires. This
morning the Vizier came to me, according to. his
agreement, but seemingly without any intention or
desire to yield me satisfaction on the subject under
discussion; for, after a great deal of conversation,
consisting on his part of trifling evasion and puerile
excuses for withholding his assent to the measure,
though at the same time professing the most implicit
submission to your wishes, I found myself without
any other resource than the one of employing that
exclusive authority with which I consider your instructions to vest me. I therefore declared to the Nabob, in presence of the minister and Mr. Johnson,
who I desired might bear witness of the conversation,
that I construed his rejection of the measure proposed as a breach of his solemn promise to you, and an unwillingness to yield that assistance which was
evidently in his power towards liquidating his heavy
accumulated debt to the Company, and that I must
in consequence determine, in my own justification,
to issue immediately the purwannahs, which had
only been withheld in the sanguine hope that he
would be prevailed upon to make that his own act,
which nothing but the most urgent necessity could
force me to make mine. He left me without any
reply, but afterwards sent for his minister, and authorized him to give me hopes that my requisition
? ? ? ? 20 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
would be complied with; on which I expressed my
satisfaction, but declared that I could admit of no
further delays, and, unless I received his Excellency's formal acquiescence before the evening, I should
then most assuredly issue my purwannahs: which I
have accordingly done, not having had any assurances from his Excellency that could justify a further suspension. I shall as soon as possible inform you of the effect of the purwannahs, which in many
parts I am apprehensive it will be found necessary to
enforce with military aid; I am not, however, entirely without hopes that the Nabob, when he sees the
inefficacy of further opposition, may alter his conduct, and prevent the confusion and disagreeable
consequences which would be too likely to result
from the prosecution of a measure of such importance without his concurrence. His Excellency talks
of going to Fyzabad, for the purpose heretofore mentioned, in three or. four days; I wish he may be serious in this intention, and you may rest assured I shall spare no pains to keep him to it. "
Lucknow, 28th -December, 1781.
"If your new demand is to be insisted upon,
which your letter seems to portend, I must beg your
precise orders upon it; as, from the difficulties I have
within these few days experienced in carrying the
points you had enjoined with the Nabob, I have the
best grounds for believing that he would consider it
a direct breach of the late agreement, and totally reject
the proposal as such; and I must own to you, that, in
his present fermented state of mind, I could expect
nothing less than despair and a declared rupture.
"He has by no means been yet able to furnish me
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. ---FIFTH DAY. 21
with means of paying off the arrears due to the temporary brigade, to the stipulated term of its continuance in his service. The funds necessary for paying off and discharging his own military establishment
under British officers, and his pension list, have been
raised, on the private credit of Mr. Johnson and myself, from the shroffs of this place, to whom we are
at this moment pledged for many lacs of rupees; and
without such aid, which I freely and at all hazards
yielded, because I conceived it was your anxious desire to relieve the Nabob as soon as possible of this
heavy burden, the establishment must have been at
his charge to this time, and probably for months to
come, while his resources were strained to the utmost to furnish jaidads for its maintenance to this
period. I therefore hesitate not to declare it utterly
impossible for him, under any circumstances whatever, to provide funds for the payment of the troops
you now propose to send him.
"The wresting Furruckabad, Kyraghur, and Fyzoola Khan's country from his government, (for in
that light, my dear Sir, I can faithfully assure you, he
views the measures adopted in respect to those countries,) together with the resumption of all the jaghires, so much against his inclination, have already brought the Nabob to a persuasion that nothing less
than his destruction, or the annihilation of every
shadow of his power, is meant; and all my labors to
convince him to the contrary have proved abortive.
A settled melancholy has seized him, and his health
is reduced beyond conception; and I do most humbly believe that the march of four regiments of
sepoys towards Lucknow, under whatever circumstances it might be represented, would be considered
? ? ? ? 22 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS;
by him as a force ultimately to be used in securing
his person. In short, my dear Sir, it is a matter of
such immediate moment, and involving, apparently,
such very serious and important consequences, that I
have not only taken upon me to suspend the communication of it to the Nabob until I should be honored
with your further commands, but have also ventured
to write the inclosed letter to Colonel Morgan: liberties which I confidently trust you will excuse, when
you consider that I can be actuated by no other motive than a zeal for the public service, and that, if,
after all, you determine that the measure shall be
insisted on, it will be only the loss of six or at most
eight days in proposing it. But in the last event, I
earnestly entreat your orders may be explicit and
positive, that I may clearly know what lengths you
would wish me to proceed in carrying them into execution. I again declare it is my firm belief, and
assure yourself, my dear Mr. Hastings, I am not
influenced in this declaration by any considerations
but my public duty and my personal attachment to
you, that the enforcing the measure you have proposed would be productive of an open rupture between us and the Nabob; nay, that the first necessary step towards carrying it into effect must be, on our part, a declaration of hostility. "
Your Lordships have now before your eyes proofs,
furnished by Mr. Hastings himself from his correspondence with Mr. Middleton, irrefragable proofs,
that this Nabob, who is stated to have made the proposition himself, was dragged to the signature of it;
and that the troops which are supposed, and fraudulently stated, (and I wish your Lordships particularly
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - FIFTH DAY. 23
to observe this,) to have been sent to assist him in
this measure, were considered by him as a body of
troops sent to imprison him, and to free him from
all the troubles and pains of government.
When Mr. Hastings sent the troops for the purpose, as he pretended, of assisting the Nabob in thle
execution of a measure which was really adopted in
direct opposition to the wishes of that prince, what
other conclusion could be drawn, but that they were
sent to overawe, not to assist him? The march of
alien troops into a country up6n that occasion could
have no object but hostility; they could have been
sent with no other design but that of bringing disgrace upon the Nabob, by making him the instrument of his family's ruin, and of the destruction of
his nobility. Your Lordships, therefore, will not
wonder that this -miserable man should have sunk
into despair, and that he should have felt the weight
of his oppression doubly aggravated by its coming
from such a man as Mr. Hastings, and by its being
enforced by such a man as Mr. Middleton.
And here I must press one observation upon your
Lordships: I do not know a greater insult that can
be offered to a man born to command than to find
himself made the tool of a set of obscure men, come
from an unknown country, without anything to distinguish them but an usurped power. Never shall
I, out of compliment to any persons, because they
happen to be my own countrymen, disguise my feelings, or renounce the dictates of Nature and of humanity. If we send out obscure people, unknowing and unknown, to exercise such acts as these, I must
say it is a bitter aggravation of the victim's suffering, Oppression and robbery are at all times evils;
? ? ? ? 24 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
but they are more bearable, when exercised by persons whom we have been habituated to regard with
awe, and to whom mankind for ages have been accustomed to bow.
Now does the history of tyranny furnish, does the
history of popular violence deposing kings firnish,
anything like the dreadful deposition of this prince,
and the cruel and abominable tyranny that has been
exercised over him? Consider, too, my Lords, for. what object all this was done. Was Mr. Hastings
endeavoring, by his arbitrary interference and the
use of his superior power, to screen a people from
the usurpation and power of a tyrant, - from any
strong and violent acts against property, against dignity, against nobility, against the freedom of his peo.
ple? No: you see here a monarch deposed, in effect, by persons pretending to be his allies, and assigning what are pretended to be his wishes as the motive for using his usurped authority in the execution of these acts of violence against his own family and his subjects. You see him struggling against this violent prostitution of his authoriity. He refuses
the sanction of his name, which before he had given
up to Mr. Hastings to be used as he pleased, and
only begs not to be made an instrument of wrong
which his soul abhors, and which would make him
infamous throughout the world. Mr. Middleton,
however, assumes the sovereignty of the country.
" I," he says, " am Nabob of Oude: the jaghires shall
be confiscated: I have given my orders, and they
shall be supported by a military force. "
I am ashamed to have so far distrusted your Lordships' honorable and generous feelings as to have
offered you, upon this occasion, any remarks which
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. -- FIFTH DAY. 25
you must have run before me in making. Those
feelings which you have, and ought to have, feelings
born in the breasts of all men, and much more in
men of your Lordships' elevated rank, render my remarks unnecessary. I need not, therefore, ask what you feel, when a foreign resident at a prince's court
takes upon himself to force that prince to act the
part of a tyrant, and, upon his resistance, openly and
avowedly assumes the sovereignty of the country.
You have it in proof that Mr. Middleton did this.
He not only put his own name to the orders for this
horrible confiscation, but he actually proceeded to
dispossess the jaghiredars of their lands, and to send
them out of the country. And whom does he send,
in the place of this plundered body of nobility, to
take possession of the country? Why, the usurers
of Benares. Yes, my Lords, he immediately mortgages the whole country to the usurers of Benares, for the purpose of raising money upon it: giving
it up to those bloodsuckers, dispossessed of that nobility, whose interest, wllose duty, whose feelings, and whose habits made them the natural protectors
of the people.
My Lords, we here see a body of usurers put into
possession of all the estates of the nobility: let us
now see if this act was necessary, even for the avowed
purposes of its agents, - the relief of the Nabob's
financial difficulties, and the payment of his debts to
the Company. Mr. Middleton has told your Lord
ships that these jaghires would pay the Company's
debt completely in two years. Then would it not
have been better to have left these estates in the
hands of their owners, and to have oppressed them
in some moderate, decent way? Might they not have
? ? ? ? 26 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
left the jaghiredars to raise the sums required by some
settlement with the bankers of Benares, in which the
repayment of the money within five or six years might
have been secured, and the jaghiredars have had in
the mean time something to subsist upon? Oh, no!
these victims must have nothing to live upon. They
must be turned out. And why? Mr. Hastings
commands it.
Here I must come in aid of Mr. Middleton a
little; for one cannot but pity the miserable instiuments that have to act under Mr. Hastings. I do
not mean to apologize for Mr. Middleton, but to pity
the situation of persons who, being servants of the
Company, were converted, by the usurpation of this
man, into his subjects and his slaves. The mind
of Mr. Middleton revolts. You see him reluctant
to proceed. The Nabob begs a respite. You find
in the Resident a willingness to comply. Even Mr.
Middleton is placable. Mr. Hastings alone is obdurate. His resolution to rob and to destroy was not to be moved, and the estates of the whole Mahometan
nobility of a great kingdom were confiscated in a
moment. Your Lordships will observe that his orders to Mr. Middleton allow no forbearance. He
writes thus to him.
"SIR, -- My mind has been for some days suspended between two opposite impulses: one arising from the necessity of my return to Calcutta; the other,
from the apprehension of my presence being more
necessary and more urgently wanted at Lucknow.
Your answer to this shall decide my choice.
"I have waited thus long in the hopes of hearing
that some progress had been made in the execution
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - FIFTH DAY. 27
of the plan which I concluded with the Nabob in
September last. I do not find that any step towards
it has been yet taken, though three months are
elapsed, and little more than that period did appear
to me requisite to have accomplished the most essential parts of it, and to have brought the whole into
train. This tardiness, and the opposition prepared
to the only decided act yet undertaken, have a bad
appearance. I approve the Nabob's resolutions to
deprive the Begums of their ill-employed treasures.
In both services, it must be your care to prevent all
abuse of the powers given to those that are employed
in them. You yourself ought to be personally present. You must not allow any negotiation or forbearance, but must prosecute both services, until the Begums are at the entire mercy of the Nabob, their
jaghires in the quiet possession of his aumils, and
their wealth in such charge as may secure it against
private embezzlement. You will have a force more
than sufficient to effect both these purposes.
" The reformation of his army and the new settlement of his revenues are also points of immediate
concern, and ought to be immediately concluded.
HIas anything been done in either?
" I now demand and require you most solemnly to
answer me. Are you confident in your own ability
to accomplish all these purposes, and the other
points of my instructions? If you reply that you
are, I will depart with a quiet and assured mind to
the Presidency, but leave you a dreadful responsibility, if you disappoint me. If you tell me that you
cannot rely upon your power, and the other means
which you possess for performing these services, I will
free you from the charge. I will proceed myself to
? ? ? ? 28 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
Lucknow, and I will myself undertake them; and in
that case, I desire that you will immediately order
bearers to be stationed, for myself and two other gentlemen, between Lucknow and Allahabad, and I will
set out friom hence in three days after the receipt
of your letter.
"'I am sorry that I am under the necessity of
writing in this pressing manner. I trust implicitly
to your integrity, I am certain of your attachment
to myself, and I know that your capacity is equal to
any service; but I must express my doubts of your
firmness and activity, and above all of your recollection of my instructions, and of their importance.
My conduct in the late arrangements will be arraigned with all the rancor of disappointed rapacity,
and my reputation and influence will suffer a mortal
wound from the failure of them. They have already
failed in a degree, since no part of them has yet
taken place, but the removal of our forces from the
Dooab and Rohilcund, and of the British officers and
pensioners from the service of the Nabob, and the expenses of the former thrown without any compensation on the Company.
"I expect a supply of money equal to the discharge of all the Nabob's arrears, and am much disappointed and mortified that I am not now able to return with it.
"' Give me an immediate answer to the question
which I have herein proposed, that I may lose no
more time in fruitless inaction. "
About this time Mr. Hastings had received information of our inquiries in the House of Commons into
his conduct; and this is the manner in which he pre
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - FIFTH DAY. 29
pares to meet them. "I must get money. I must
carry with me that great excuse for everything, that
salve for every sore, that expiation for every crime:
let me provide that, all is well. You, Mr. Middleton, try your nerves: are you equal to these services?
Examine yourself; see what is in you: are you man
enough to come up to it? " says the great robber
to the little robber, says Roland the Great to his
puny accomplice. " Are you equal to it? Do you
feel yourself a man? If not, send messengers and
dawks to me, and I, the great master tyrant, will
come myself, and put to shame all the paltry delegate
tools of despotism, that have not edge enough to cut
their way through and do the services I have ordained for them. "
I have already stated to your Lordships his reason
and motives for this violence, and they are such as
aggravated his crime by attempting to implicate his
country in it. He says lie was afraid to go home
without having provided for the payment of the Nabob's debt. Afraid of what? Was he afraid of coming before a British tribunal, and saying, "Through justice, through a regard for the rights of an allied
sovereign, through a regard to the rights of his people, I have not got so much as I expected"? Of
this no man could be afraid. The prisoner's fear had
another origin. "I have failed," says he to himself, " in my first project. I went to Benares to rob;
I have lost by my violence the fruits of that robbery.
I must get the money somewhere, or I dare not appear before a British House of Commons, a British
House of Lords, or any other tribunal in the kingdom; but let me get money enough, and they won't
care how I get it. The estates of whole bodies of
? ? ? ? 30 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
nobility may be confiscated; a people who had lived
under their protection may be given up into the
hands of foreign usurers: they will care for none of
these things; they will suffer me to do all this, and
to employ in it the force of British troops, whom I
have described as a set of robbers, provided I can
get money. " These were Mr. Hastings's views; and,
in accordance with them, the jaghires were all confiscated, the jaghiredars with their families were all
turned out, the possessions delivered, up to the usurer, in order that Mr. Hastings might have the excuse of money to plead at the bar of the House of Commons, and afterwards at the bar of the House
of Lords. If your Lordships, in your sacred character of the first tribunal in the world, should by your
judgment justify those proceedings, you will sanction the greatest wrongs that have been ever known
in history.
But to proceed. The next thing to be asked is,
Were the promised pensions given to the jaghiredars?
I suppose your Lordships are not idle enough to put
that question to us. No compensation, no consideration, was given or stipulated for them. If there had
been any such thing, the prisoner could have proved
it, -he would have proved it. The means were easy
to him. But we have saved him the trouble of the
attempt. We have proved the contrary, and, if called
upon, we will show you the place where this is proved.
I have now shown your Lordships how Mr. Hastings, having with such violent and atrocious circumstances usurped the government of Oude, (I hope I need not use any farther proof that the Nabob- was
in effect non-existent in the country,) treated all the
landed property. The next question will be, How
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - FIFTH DAY. 31
has he treated whatever moneyed property was left
in the country? My Lords, he looked over that immense waste of his own creating, not as Satan viewed the kingdoms of the world and saw the power and
glory of them, --but he looked over the waste of
Oude with a diabolical malice which one could hardly suppose existed in the prototype himself. He saw nowhere above-ground one single shilling that he
could attach, -- no, not one; every place had been
ravaged; no money remained in sight. But possibly some might be buried in vaults, hid from the gripe of tyranny and rapacity. "It must be so," says
he. "Where can I find it? how can I get at it?
There is one illustrious family that is thought to
have accumulated a vast body of treasures, through
a course of three or four successive reigns. It does
not appear openly; but we have good information
that very great sums of money are bricked up and
kept in vaults under ground, and secured under the
guard and within the walls of a fortress": the residence of the females of the family, a guard, as your Lordships know, rendered doubly and trebly secure
by the manners of the country, which make everything that is in the hands of women sacred. It is
said that nothing is proof against gold, --that the
strongest tower will not be impregnable, if Jupiter
makes love in a golden shower. This Jupiter commences making love; but lie does not come to the ladies with gold for their persons, he comes to their
persons for their gold. This impetuous lover, Mr.
Hastings, who is not to be stayed from the objects of
his passion, would annihilate space and time between
him and his beloved object, the jaghires of these ladies, had now, first, their treasure's affection.
? ? ? ? 32 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
Your Lordships have already had a peep behind
the curtain, in the first orders sent to Mr. Middleton.
In the treaty of Chunar you see a desire, obliquely
expressed, to get the landed estates of all these great
families. But even while he was meeting with such
reluctance in the Nabob upon this point, and though
he also met with some resistance upon the part even
of Mr. Middleton, Mr. Hastings appears to have given
him in charge some other still more obnoxious and
dreadful acts. " While I was meditating," says Mr.
Middleton, in one of his letters, "upon this [the
resumption of the jaghires], your orders came to me
through Sir Elijah Impey. " What these orders were
is left obscure in the letter: it is yet but as in a
mist or cloud. But it is evident that Sir Elijah Impey did convey to him some project for getting at
more wealth by some other service, which was not
to supersede the first, but to be concurrent with that
upon which Mr. Hastings had before given him such
dreadful charges and had loaded him with such horrible responsibility. It could not have been anything but the seizure of the Begum's treasures. He thus goaded on two reluctant victims,-first the reluctant Nabob, then the reluctant Mr. Middleton,
forcing them with the bayonet behind them, and
urging on the former, as at last appears, to violate
the sanctity of his mother's house.
Your Lordships have been already told by one
of my able fellow Managers, that Sir Elijah Impey
is the person who carried up the message alluded
to in Mr. Middleton's letter. We have charged it,
as an aggravation of the offences of the prisoner at
your bar, that the Chief-Justice, who, by the sacred
nature of his office, and by the express provisions
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - FIFTH DAY. 33
of the act of Parliament under which he was sent
out to India to redress the wrongs of the natives,
should be made an instrument for destroying the
property, real and personal, of this people. When
it first came to our knowledge that all this private
intrigue for the destruction of these high women
was carried on through the intrigue of a ChiefJustice, we felt such shame and such horror, both
for the instrument and the principal, as I think it
impossible to describe, or for anything but complete
and perfect silence to express.
But by Sir Elijah Impey was that order carried
up to seize and confiscate the treasures of the Begums. We know that neither the Company nor the Nabob had any claim whatever upon these treasures.
On the contrary, we know that two treaties had been
made for the protection of them. We know that
the Nabob, while he was contesting about some elephants and carriages, and some other things that he said were in the hands of their steward, did allow
that the treasures in the custody of his grandmother
and of his mother's principal servants were their
property. This is the Nabob who is now represented by Mr. Hastings and his counsel to have become the instrument of destroying his mother and grandmother, and everything else that ought to be dear to mankind, throughout the whole train of his family.
Mr. Hastings, having resolved to seize upon the
treasures of the Begums, is at a loss for some pretence of justifying the act. His first justification
of it is on grounds which all tyrants have ready at
their hands. He begins to discover a legal title to
that of which he wished to be the possessor, and on
this title sets up a claim to these treasures. I say
VOL. XII. 3
? ? ? ? 34 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
Mr. Hastings set up this claim, because by this time
I suppose your Lordships will not bear to hear the
Nabob's name on such an occasion. The prisoner
pretended, that, by the Mahometan law, these goods
did belong to the Nabob; but whether they did or
did not, he had himself been an active instrument
in the treaty for securing their possession to the Begums, -a security which he attempts to unlock by his constructions of the Mahometan law. Having set
up this title, the guaranty still remained; and how
is he to get rid of that? In his usual way. " You
have rebelled, you have taken up arms against your
own son," (for that is the pretext,) " and therefore
my guaranty is gone, and your goods, whether you
have a title to them or not, are to be confiscated
for your rebellion. " This is his second expedient
by way of justification.
Your Lordships will observe the strange situation
in which we are here placed. If the fact of the
rebellion can be proved, the discussion of the title
to the property in question will be totally useless;
for, if the ladies had actually taken up arms to cut
the Nabob's throat, it would require no person to
come fiom the dead to prove to us that the Nabob,
but not Mr. Hastings, had a right, for his own security and for his own indemnification, to take those treasures, which, whether they belonged to him or
not, were employed in hostilities against him. The
law of self-defence is above every other law; and if
ally persons draw the sword against you, violence on
your part is justified, and you may use your sword
to take from them that property by which they have
been enabled to draw their sword against you.
But the prisoner's counsel do not trust to this
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. -FIFTH DAY. 35
justification; they set up a title of right to these
treasures: but how entirely they have failed in their
attempts to substantiate either the one or the other
of these his alleged justifications your Lordships will
now judge. And first with regard to the title. The
treasure, they say, belonged to the state. The grandmother and mother have robbe(d the son, and kept him out of his rightful inheritance. They then produce the Hedaya to show you what proportion of
the goods of a Mussulman, when he dies, goes to his
family; and here, certainly, there is a question of
law to *be tried. But Mr. Hastings is a great eccentric genius, and has a course of proceeding of
his own: he first seizes upon the property, and then
produces some Mahometan writers to prove that it
did not belong to the persons who were in possession
of it. You would naturally expect, that, when he
was going to seize upon those goods, he would have
consulted his Chief-Justice, (for, as Sir Elijah Impey
went with him, he might have consulted him,) and
have thus learnt what was the Mahometan law: for,
though Sir Elijah had not taken his degree at a
Mahometan college, though he was not a mufti or a
moulavy, yet he had always muftis and moulavies
near him, and he might have consulted them. But
Mr. Hastings does not even pretend that such consultations or conferences were ever had. If he ever consulted Sir Elijah Impey, where is the report of the
case? Whell were the parties before him? Where
are the opinionis of the moulavies? Where is the
judgment of the Chief-Justice? Was he fit for nothing but to be employed as a messenger, as a common tipstaff? Was he not fit to try these rights, or to
decide upon them? He hbis told you here, indeed,
? ? ? ? 36 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
negatively, that he did not know any title Mr. Hastings had to seize upon the property of the Begumls,
except upon his hypothesis of the rebellion. He was
asked if he knew any other. He answered, No. It
consequently appears that Mr. Hastings, though he
had before him his doctors of all laws, who could
unravel for him all the enigmas of all the laws in the
world, and who had himself shone upon questions of
Mahometan law, in the case of the Nuddea Begunim,
did not dare to put this case to Sir Elijah Impey,
and ask what was his opinion concerning the rights
of these people. He was tender, I suppose, of the
reputation of the Chief-Justice. For Sir Elijah Impey, though a very good man to write a letter, or
take an'affidavit in a corner, or run on a message, to
do the business of an under-sheriff, tipstaff, or bumbailiff, was not fit to give an opinion on a question of
Mahometan law.
You have heard Ali Ibrahim Khan referred to.
This Mahometan lawyer was carried by Mr. Hastings
up to Benares, to be a witness of the vast good he had
done in that province, and was made Chief-Justice
there. All, indeed, that we know of him, except the
high character given of him by Mr. Hastings, is, I
believe, that he is the Ali Ibrahim Kha:n whom in
the Company's records I find mentioned as a person
giving bribes upon some former occasion to Mr. Hastings; but whatever he was besides, he was a doctor
of the Mahometan law, he was a mufti, and was
made by Mr. Hastings the principal judge in a criminal court, exercising, as I believe, likewise a considerable civil jurisdiction, and therefore lie was quali. . fled as a lawyer; and Mr. Hastings cannot object
to his qualifications either of integrity or of knowl
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - FIFTH DAY. 37
edge. This man was with him. Why did not he
consult him upon this law? Why did he not make
him out a case of John Doe and Richard Roe, of
John Stokes and John a Nokes? Why not say,," Sinub possesses such things, under such and such circumstances: give me your opinion upon the legality of the possession"? No, he did no such thing. Your Lordships, I am sure, will think it a little
extraordinary, that neither this chief-justice made
by himself, nor that other chief-justice whom he led
about with him in a string, -- the one an English
chief-justice, with a Mahometan suit in his court,
the other a Mahometan chief-justice of the country,
-that neither of them was consulted as lawyers by
the prisoner. Both of them were, indeed, otherwise
employed by him. For we find Ali Ibrahim Khan
employed in the same subservient capacity in which
Sir Elijah Impey was, --in order, I suppose, to keep
the law of England and the law of Mahomet upon a
just par: for upon this equality Mr. Hastings always
values himself. Neither of these two chief-justices,
I say, was ever consulted, nor one opinion taken; but
they were both employed in the correspondence and
private execution of this abominable project, when
the prisoner himself had not either leisure or perhaps
courage to give his public order in it till things got
to greater ripeness.
To Sir Elijah Impey, indeed, he did put a question;
and, upon my word, it did not require an (Edipus or
a Sphinx to answer it. Says he, " I asked Sir Elijah
Impey. " What? a question on the title between the
Nabob and his mother? No such thing. He puts
an hypothetical question. ' Supposing," says he, " a
rebellion to exist in that country; will the Nabob be
? ? ? ? Z8 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
justified in seizing the goods of the rebels?
