The
population
of
this great empire is not easy to be calculated.
this great empire is not easy to be calculated.
Edmund Burke
?
SPEECH
(DECEMBER 1, 1783)
UPON'HE QUESTION FOR THE SPEAKER'S LEAVING THE
CHAIR IN ORDER FOR THE HOUSE TO RESOLVE ITSELF INTO A COMMITTEE ON
MR. FOX'S EAST INDIA BILL.
? ? ? ? SPEECH.
MR. SPEAKER, - I thank you for pointing to
me. I really wished much to engage your
attention in an early stage of the debate. I have
been long very deeply, though perhaps ineffectually, engaged in the preliminary inquiries, which
have continued without intermission for some years.
Though I have felt, with some degree of sensibility,
the natural and inevitable impressions of the several
matters of fact, as they have been successively disclosed, I have not at any time attempted to trouble you on the merits of the subject, and very little on
any of the points whicli incidentally arose in the
course of our proceedings. But I should be sorry
to be found totally silent upon this day. Our inquiries are now come to their final issue. It is now to
be determined whether the three years of laborious
Parliamentary research, whether the twenty years of
patient Indian suffering, are to produce a substantial
reform in our Eastern administration; or whether
our knowledge of the grievances has abated our zeal
for the correction of them, and our very inquiry into
the evil was only a pretext to eluide the remedy
which is demanded from us by humanity, by justice,
and by every principle of true policy. Depend upon
it, this business cannot be indifferent to our fame.
It will turn out a matter of great disgrace or great
VOL. II. 28
? ? ? ? 434 SPEECH ON MR. FOX'S EAST INDIA BILL.
glory to the whole British nation. We are on a conspicuous stage, and the world marks our demeanor.
I am therefore a little concerned to perceive the
spirit and temper in which the debate has been all
along pursued upon one side of the House. The
declamation of the gentlemen who oppose the bill
has been abundant and vehement; but they have
been reserved and even silent about the fitness or
unfitness of the plan to attain the direct object it has
in view. By some gentlemen it is taken up (by way
of exercise, I presume) as a point of law, on a question
of private property and corporate franchise; by others it is regarded as the petty intrigue of a faction at court, and argued merely as it tends to set this man
a little higher or that a little lower in situation and
power. All the void has been filled up with invectives against coalition, with allusions to the loss of America, with the activity and inactivity of ministers. The total silence of these gentlemen concerning the interest and well-being of the people of India,
and concerning the interest which this nation has in
the commerce and revenues of that country, is a
strong indication of the value which they set upon
these objects.
It has been a little painful to me to observe the
intrusion into this important debate of such company
as quo warranto, and mandamus, and certiorari: as if
we were on a trial about mayors and aldermen and
capital burgesses, or engaged in a suit concerning
the borough of Penryn, or Saltash, or St. Ives, or St.
Mawes. Gentlemen have argued with as much heat
and passion as if the first things in the world were
at stake; and their topics are such as belong only to
matter of the lowest and meanest litigation. It is
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON MR. FOX'S EAST INDIA BILL. 435
not right, it is not worthy of us, in this manner to
depreciate the value, to degrade the majesty, of this
grave deliberation of policy and empire.
For my part, I have thought myself bound, when a
matter of this extraordinary weight came before me,
not to consider (as some gentlemen are so fond of
doing) whether the bill originated from a Secretary of
State for the Home Department or from a Secretary
for the Foreign, from a minister of influence or a minister of the people, from Jacob or from Esau. * I asked myself, and I asked myself nothing else, what
part it was fit for a member of Parliament, who
has supplied a mediocrity of talents by the extreme
of diligence, and who has thought himself obliged by
the research of years to wind himself into the inmost recesses and labyrinths of the Indian detail, -
what part, I say, it became such a member of Parliament to take, when a minister of state, in conformity to a recommendation from the throne, has brought
before us a system for the better government of the
territory and commerce of the East. In this light,
and in this only, I will trouble you with my sentiments.
It is not only agreed, but demanded, by the right
honorable gentleman, l and by those who act with
him, that a whole system ought to be produced; that
it ought not to be an half-measure; that it ought to
be no palliative, but a legislative provision, vigorous,
substantial, and effective. - I believe that no man
who understands the subject can doubt for a moment
that those must be the conditions of anything deserving the name of a reform in the Indian government; that anything short of them would not only be delu* An allusion made by Mr. Powis. t Mr. Pitt.
? ? ? ? 436 SPEECH ON MR. FOX'S EAST INDIA BILL.
sive, but, in this matter, which admits no medium,
noxious in the extreme.
To all the conditions proposed by his adversaries
the mover of the bill perfectly agrees; and on his
performance of them he rests his cause. On the other
hand, not the least objection has been taken with
regard to the efficiency, the vigor, or the completeness of the scheme. I am therefore warranted to assume, as a thing admitted, that the bills accomplish what both sides of the House demand as essential.
The end is completely answered, so far as the direct
and immediate object is concerned.
But though there are no direct, yet there are various collateral objections made: objections from the
effects which this plan of reform for Indian administration may have on the privileges of great public
bodies in England; from its probable influence on
the constitutional rights, or on the freedom and integrity, of the several branches of the legislature.
Before I answer these objections, I must beg leave
to observe, that, if we are not able to contrive some
method of governing India well, which will not of
necessity become the means of governing Great Britain ill, a ground is laid for their eternal separation,
but none for sacrificing the people of that country to
our Constitution. I am, however, far from being persuaded that any such incompatibility of interest does
at all exist. On the contrary, I am certain that every
means effectual to preserve India from oppression is
a guard to preserve the British Constitution from its
worst corruption. To show this, I will consider the
objections, which, I think, are, four.
1st, That the bill is an attack on the chartered
rights of men.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON MR. FOX'S EAST INDIA BILL. 437
2ndly, That it increases the influence of the crown.
3rdly, That it does not increase, but diminishes, the
influence of the crown, in order to promote the interests of certain ministers and their party.
4thly, That it deeply affects the national credit.
As to the first of these objections, I must observe
that the phrase of "the chartered rights of men" is
full of affectation, and very unusual in the discussion
of privileges conferred by charters of the present description. But it is not difficult to discover what end that ambiguous mode of expression, so often reiterated, is meant to answer.
The rights of men --that is to say, the natural
rights of mankind - -are indeed sacred things; and
if any public measure is proved mischievously to affect
them, the objection ought to be fatal to that measure,
even if no charter at all could be set up against it.
If these natural rights are further affirmed and declared by express covenants, if they are clearly defined and secured against chicane, against power and authority, by written instruments and positive engage ments, they are in a still better condition: they partake not only of the sanctity of the object so secured, but of that solemn public faith itself which secures an
object of such importance. Indeed, this formal recognition, by the sovereign power, of an original right
in the subject, can never be subverted, but by rooting
up the holding radical principles of government, and
even of society itself. The charters which we call by
distinction great are public instruments of this nature: I mean the charters of King John and King
Henry the Third. The things secured by these instruments may, without any deceitful ambiguity, be very fitly called the chartered rights of men.
? ? ? ? 438 SPEECH'ON MIR. FOX'S EAST INDIA BILL.
These charters have made the very name of a char.
ter dear to the heart of every Englishman. But, Sir,
there may be, and there are, charters, not only different in nature, but formed on principles the very reverse of those of the Great Charter. Of this kind is the charter of the East India Company. Magna Charta is a charter to restrain power and to destroy monopoly.
The East India charter is a charter to establish
monopoly and to create power. Political power and
commercial monopoly are not the rights of men; and
the rights to them derived from charters it is fallacious
and sophistical to call " the chartered rights of men. "
These chartered rights (to speak of such charters and
of their effects in terms of the greatest possible moderation) do at least suspend the natural rights of mankind at large, and in their very frame and constitution are liable to fall into a direct violation of
them.
It is a charter of this latter description (that is to
say, a charter of power and monopoly) which is affected by the bill before you. The bill, Sir, does without question affect it: it does affect it essentially and
substantially. But, having stated to you of what
description the chartered rights are which this bill
touches, I feel no difficulty at all in acknowledging
the existence of those chartered rights in their fullest
extent. They belong to the Company in the surest
manner, and they are secured to that body by every
sort of public sanction. They are stamped by the
faith of the king; they are stamped by the faith of
Parliament: they have been bought for money, for
money honestly and fairly paid; they have been
bought for valuable consideration, over and over
again.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON MR. FOX'S EAST INDIA BILL. 439
I therefore freely admit to the East India Company
their claim to exclude their fellow-subjects from the
commerce of half the globe. I admit their claim to
administer an annual territorial revenue of seven
millions sterling, to command an army of sixty thousand men, and to dispose (under the control of a sovereign, imperial discretion, and with the due observance of the natural and local law) of the lives and fortunes of thirty millions of their fellow-creatures. All this they possess by charter, and by Acts
of Parliament, (in my opinion,) without a shadow of
controversy.
Those who carry the rights and claims of the Company the furthest do not contend for more than this; and all this I freely grant. But, granting all this,
they must grant to me, in my turn, that all political
power which is set over men, and that all privilege
claimed or exercised in exclusion of them, being
wholly artificial, and for so much a derogation from
the natural equality of mankind at large, ought to
be some way or other exercised ultimately for their
benefit.
If this is true with regard to every species of political dominion and every description of commercial privilege, none of which can be original, self-derived
rights, or grants for the mere private benefit of the
holders, then such rights, or privileges, or whatever
else you choose to call them, are all in the strictest
sense a trust: and it is of the very essence of every
trust to be rendered accountable, -and even totally to
cease, when it substantially varies from the purposes
for which alone it could have a lawful existence.
This I conceive, Sir, to be true of trusts of power
vested in the highest hands, and of such as seem to
? ? ? ? 440 SPEECH ON MR. FOX' S EAST INDIA BILL.
hold of no human creature. But about the applica.
tion of this principle to subordinate derivative trusts
I do not see how a controversy can be maintained. To
whom, then, would I make the East India Company
accountable? Why, to Parliament, to be sure, -- to
Parliament, from whom their trust was derived, - to
Parliament, which alone is capable of comprehending
the magnitude of its object, and its abuse, and alone
capable of an effectual legislative remedy. The very
charter, which is held out to exclude Parliament fromn
correcting malversation with regard to the high trust
vested in the Company, is the very thing which at once
gives a title and imposes a duty on us to interfere with
effect, whelever power and authority originating from
ourselves are perverted from their purposes, and become instruments of wrong and violence.
If Parliament, Sir, had nothing to do with this
charter, we might have some sort of Epicurean excuse to stand aloof, indifferent spectators of what passes in the Company's name in India and in London. But if we are the very cause of the evil, we are in a special manner engaged to the redress; and for
us passively to bear with oppressions committed under
the sanction of our own authority is in truth and
reason for this House to be an active accomplice in
the abuse.
That the power, notoriously grossly abused, has
been bought from us is very certain. But this cir-. cumstance, which is urged against the bill, becomes an additional motive for our interference, lest we
should be thought to have sold the blood of millions
of men for the base consideration of money. We
sold, I admit, all that we had to sell, - that is, our
authority, not our control. We had not a right to
make a market of our duties.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON MR. FOX'S EAST INDIA BILL. 441
I ground myself, therefore, on this principle: --
that, if the abuse is proved, the contract is broken, and
we reinter into all our rights, that is, into the exercise of all our duties. Our own authority is, indeed, as much a trust originally as the Company's authority is a trust derivatively; and it is the use we make of the resumed power that must justify or condemn
us in the resumption of it. When we have perfected
the plan laid before us by the right honorable mover,
the world will then see what it is we destroy, and
what it is we create. By that test we stand or fall;
and by that test I trust that it will be found, in the
issue, that we are going to supersede a charter abused
to the full extent of all the powers which it could
abuse, and exercised in the plenitude of despotism,
tyranny, and corruption, --and that in one and the
same plan we provide a real chartered security for
the rights of men, cruelly violated under that charter.
This bill, and those connected with it, are intended
to form the Magna Charta of Hindostan. Whatever
the Treaty of Westphalia is to the liberty of the princes
and free cities of the Empire, and to the three religions there professed, - whatever the Great Charter, the Statute of Tallage, the Petition of Right, and the
Declaration of Right are to Great Britain, these bills
are to the people of India. Of this benefit I am certain their condition is capable: and when I know
that they are capable of more, my vote shall most
assuredly'be for our giving to the full extent of their
capacity of receiving; and no charter of dominion
shall stand as a bar in my way to their charter of
safety and protection.
The strong admission I have made of the Company's
rights (I am conscious of it) binds me to do a great
? ? ? ? 442 SPEECH ON MR. FOX'S EAST INDIA BILL.
deal. I do not presume to condemn those who argue
a priori against the propriety of leaving such extensive political powers in the hands of a company of merchants. I know much is, and much more may
be, said against such a system. But, with my particular ideas and sentiments, I cannot go that way to work. I feel an insuperable reluctance in giving my
hand to destroy any established institution of government, upon a theory, however plausible it may be. My experience in life teaches me nothing clear upon
the subject. I have known merchants with the sentiments and the abilities of great statesmen, and I have seen persons in the rank of statesmen with the con
ceptions and character of peddlers. Indeed, my observation has furnished me with nothing that is to be found in any habits of life or education, which tends
wholly to disqualify men for the functions of government, but that by which the power of exercising those functions is very frequently obtained: I mean a spirit
and habits of low cabal and intrigue; which I have
cnever, in. one instance, seen united with a capacity
for sound and manly policy.
To justify us in taking the administration of their
affairs out of the hands of the East India Company,
on my principles, I must see several conditions. 1st,
The object affected by the abuse should be great and
important. 2nd, The abuse affecting this great object ought to be a great abuse. 3d, It ought to be habitual, and not accidental. 4th, It ought to be
utterly incurable in the body as it now stands constituted. All this ought to be made as visible to me as the light of the sun, before I should strike off an atom
of their charter. A right honorable gentleman* has
* Mr. Pitt.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON MR. FOX'S EAST INDIA BILL. 443
said, and said, I tliink, but once, and that very slightly,
(whatever his original demand for a plan might seem
to require,) that" there are abuses in the Company's
government. " If that were all, the scheme of the
mover of this bill, the scheme of his learned friend,
and his own scheme of reformation, (if he has any,)
are all equally needless. There are, and must be,
abuses in all governments. It amounts to no more.
than a nugatory proposition. But before I consider
of what nature these abuses are, of which the gentleman speaks so very lightly, permit me to recall to your recollection the map of the country which this
abused chartered right affects. This I shall do, that
you may judge whether in that map I call discover
anything like the first of my conditions: that is,
whether the object affected by the abuse of the East
India Company's power be of importance sufficient
to justify the measure and means of reform applied
to it in this bill.
With very few, and those inconsiderable - intervals,
the British dominion, either in the Company's name,
or in the names of princes absolutely dependent upon the Company, extends from the mountains that separate India from Tartary to Cape Comorin, that
is, one-and-twenty degrees of latitude!
In the northern parts it is a solid mass of land,
about eight hundred miles in length, and four or five
hundred broad. As you go southward, it becomes
narrower for a space. It afterwards dilates; but,
narrower or broader, you possess the whole eastern
and northeastern coast of that vast country, quite
from the borders of Pegu. - Bengal, Bahar, and
Orissa, with Benares, (now unfortunately in our immediate possession,) measure 161,9,78 square Englisl!
? ? ? ? 4'44 SPEECH ON MR. FOX S EAST INDIA BILL.
miles: a territory considerably larger than the whole
kingdom of France. Oude, with its dependent provinces, is 53,286 square miles: not a great deal less
than England. The Carinatic, with Tanjore and the
Circars, is 65,948 square miles: very considerably
larger than England. And the whole of the Company's dominions, comprehending Bombay and Salsette,
amounts to 281,412 square miles: which forms a
territory larger than ally European dominion, Russia
and Turkey excepted. Through all that vast extent
of country there is not a man who eats a mouthful
of rice but by permission of the East India Company.
So far with regard to the extent.
The population of
this great empire is not easy to be calculated. When
the countries of which it is composed came into our
possession, they were all eminently peopled, and eminently productive, - though at that time consideras
bly declined from their ancient prosperity. But since
they are come into our hands! ! However, if we,make the. period of our estimate immediately before
the utter desolation of the Carnatic, and if we allow
for the havoc which our government had even then
made in these regions, we cannot, in my opinion,
rate the population at much less than thirty millions
of souls: more than four times the niumber of persons in the island of Great Britain.
My next inquiry to that of the number is the quality and description of the inhabitants. This multitude of men does not consist of an abject and barbarous populace; much less of gangs of savages, like the Guaranies and Chliquitos, who wander on the waste
borders of the River of Amazons or the Plate; but a
people for ages ciyilized and cultivated, - cultivated
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON MR. FOX'S EAST INDIA BILL. 445
oy all the arts of polished life, whilst we were yet in
the woods. There have been (and still the skeletons
remain) princes once of great dignity, authority,
and opulence. There are to be found the chiefs of
tribes and nations. There is to be found an ancient
and venerable priesthood, the depository of their laws,
learning, and history, the guides of the people whilst
living and their consolation in death; a nobility of'
great antiquity and renown; a multitude of cities,
not exceeded in population and trade by those of the
first class in Europe; merchants and bankers, individual houses of whom have once vied in capital with
the Bank of England, whose credit had often supported a tottering state, and preserved their governments in the midst of war and desolation; millions of ingenious manufacturers and mechanics; millions
of the most diligent, and not the least intelligent,
tillers of the earth. Here are to be found almost
all the religions professed by men, - the Braminical,
the Mussulman, the Eastern and the Western Christian.
If I were to take the whole aggregate of our possessions there, I should compare it, as the nearest
parallel I can find, with the Empire of Germany.
Our immediate possessions I should compare with
the Austrian dominions: and they would not suffer
in the comparison. The Nabob of Oude might stand
for the King of Prussia; the Nabob of Arcot I would
compare, as superior in territory, and equal in revenue, to the Elector of Saxony. Cheit Sing, the
Rajah of Benares, might well rank with the Prince
of Hesse, at least; and the Rajah of Tanjore (though
hardly equal in extent of dominion, superior in revenue) to the Elector of Bavaria. The polygars and
? ? ? ? 446 SPEECH ON MR. FOX'S EAST INDIA BILL.
the Northern zemindars, and other great chiefs, might
well class with the rest of the princes, dukes, counts,
marquises, and bishops in the Empire; all of whom I
mention to honor, and surely without disparagement
to any or all of those most respectable princes and
grandees.
All this vast mass, composed of so many orders and
classes of men, is again infinitely diversified by manners, by religion, by hereditary employment, through all their possible combinations. This renders the
handling of India a matter in an high degree critical
and delicate. But, oh, it has been handled rudely
indeed! Even some of the reformers seem to have
forgot that they had anything to do but to regulate the tenants of a manor, or the shopkeepers of
the next county town.
It is an empire of this extent,. of this complicated
nature, of this dignity and importance, that I have
compared to Germany and the German government,
-not for an'exact resemblance, but as a sort of a
middle term, by which India might be approximated
to our understandings, and, if possible, to our feelings,
in order to awaken something of sympathy for the
unfortunate natives, of which I am afraid we are not
perfectly susceptible, whilst we look at this very remote object through a false and cloudy medium.
My second condition necessary to justify me in
touching the charter is, whether the Company's
abuse of their trust with regard to this great object be an abuse of great atrocity. I shall beg
your permission to consider their conduct in two
lights: first the political, and then the commercial.
Their political conduct (for distinctness) I divide
again into two heads: the external, in which I mean
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON MR. FOX'S EAST INDIA BILL. 447
to comprehend their conduct in their federal capacity, as it relates to powers and states independent, or that not long since were such; the other internal, -
namely, their conduct to the countries' either immediately subject to the Company, or to those who, under the apparent government of native sovereigns,
are in a state much lower and much more miserable
than common subjection.
The attention, Sir, which I wish to preserve to
method will not be considered as unnecessary or affected. Nothing else can help me to selection out
of the infinite mass of materials which have passed
under my eye, or can keep my mind steady to the
great leading points I have in view.
With regard, therefore, to'the. abuse of the external federal trust, r engage myself to you to make
good these three positions. First, I say, that from
Mount Imaus, (or whatever else you call that large
range of mountains that walls the northern frontier
of India,) where it touches us in the latitude of
twenty-nine, to Cape Comorin, in the latitude of
eight, that there is not a single prince, state, or potentate, great or small, in India, with whom they have come into contact, whom they have not sold: I say
sold, though sometimes they have not been able to
deliver according to their bargain. Secondly, I say,
that there is not a single treaty they have ever made
which they have not broken. . Thirdly, I say, that
there is not a single prince or state, who ever put
any trust in the Company, who is not utterly ruined;
and that none are in any degree secure or flourishing,
but in the exact proportion to their settled distrust
and irreconcilable enmity to this nation.
These assertions are uliversal: I say, in the fall
? ? ? ? 448 SPEECH ON MR. FOX' S EAST INDIA BILL.
sense, universal. They regard the external and political trust only; but I shall produce others fully
equivalent in the internal. For the present, I shall
content myself with explaining my meaning; and if
I am called on for proof, whilst these bills are depending, (which I believe I shall not,) I will put my finger on the appendixes to the Reports, or on papers of record in the House or the Committees, which I have
distinctly present to my memory, and which I think
I can lay before you at half an hour's warning.
The first potentate sold by the Company for money
was the Great Mogul, - the descendant of Tamerlane.
This high personage, as high as human veneration
can look at, is by every account amiable in his manners, respectable for his piety, according to his mode,
and accomplished in all the Oriental literature. All
this, and the title derived under his charter to all
that we hold in India, could not save him from the
general sale. Money is coined in his name; in his
name justice is administered; he is prayed for in
every temple through the countries we possess;- but
he was sold.
It is impossible, Mr. Speaker, not to pause here
for a moment, to reflect on the inconstancy of human greatness, and the stupendous revolutions that
have happened in our age of wonders. Could it be
believed, when I entered into existence, or when you,
a younger man, were born, that on this day, in this
House, we should be employed in discussing the conduct of those British subjects who had disposed of the
power and person of the Grand Mogul? This is no
idle speculation. Awful lessons are taught by it, and
by other events, of which it is not yet too late to
profit.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON MR. FOX'S EAST INDIA BILL. 449
This is hardly a digression: but I return to the
sale of the Mogul. Two districts, Corah and Allahabad, out of his immense grants, were reserved as a royal demesne to the donor of a kingdom, and the
rightful sovereign of so many nations. - After withholding the tribute of 260,0001. a year, which the Company was, by the charter they had received from
this prince, under the most solemn obligation to pay,
these districts were sold to his chief minister, Sujah
ul) Dowlah; and what may appear to some the. worst
part: of the transaction, these two districts were sold
for' scarcely two years' purchase. The descendant of.
Tamerlane now stands in need almost of the common
necessaries of life; and in this situation we do not
even allow him, as bounty, the smallest portion of
what we owe him in justice.
The next sale was that of the whole nation of the
Rohillas, which the grand salesman, without a pretence of quarrel, and contrary to his own declared sense of duty and rectitude, sold to the same Sujah
ul Dowlah. He sold the people to utter extirpation,
for the sum of fbur hundred thousand pounds. Faithfully was- the bargain performed on our side. Hlafiz Rhamet, the most eminent of their chiefs, one of the
bravest men of his time, and as famous throughout
the East for the elegance of his literature and the
spirit of his poetical compositions (by which he supported the name of Hafiz) as for his courage, was invaded with an army of an hundred thousand men,
and an English brigade. This man, at the head of
inferior forces, was slain valiantly fighting for his
country. His head was cut off, and delivered for
money to a barbarian. His wife and children, persons of that rank, were seen begging an handful of VOL. II. 29
? ? ? ? 450 SPEECH ON MR. FOX'S EAST INDIA BILL.
rice through the English camp. The whole nation,
with inconsiderable exceptions, was slaughtered or
banished. The country was laid waste with fire and
sword; and that land, distinguished above most others by the cheerful face of paternal government and protected labor, the chosen seat of cultivation and
plenty, is now almost throughout a dreary desert,
covered with rushes, and briers, and jungles full of
wild beasts.
The British officer who commanded in the delivery
of the people thus sold felt some compunction at
his employment. Hee represented these enormous
excesses to the President of Bengal, for which he
received a severe reprimand from the civil governor;
and I much doubt whether the breach caused by the
conflict between the compassion of the military and
the firmness of the civil governor be closed at this
hour.
In Bengal, Surajah Dowlah was sold to Mir Jaffier;
Mir Jaffier was sold to Mir Cossim; and Mir Cossim
was sold to Mir Jaffier again. The succession to Mir
Jaffier was sold to his eldest son; --another son of
Mir Jaffier, Mobarech ul Dowlah, was sold to his
step-mother. / The Ma-hratta Empire was sold to Ragobah; and Ragobah was sold and delivered to the Peishwa of the Mahrattas. Both Ragobah and the
Peishwa of the Mahrattas were offered to sale to the
Rajah of Berar. Scindia, the chief of Malwa, was offered to sale to the same Rajah; and the Subah of the Deccan was sold to;the great trader, Mahomet All,
Nabob of Arcot. To the same Nabob of Arcot they
sold iHyder Ali and the kingdom of Mysore. To
Mahomet Ali they twice sold the kingdom of Tanjore.
To the same Mahomet Ali they sold at least twelve
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON MR. FOX'S EAST INDIA BILL. 451
sovereign princes, called the Polygars. But to keep
things even, the territory of Tinnevelly, belonging _to
their nabob, they would have sold to the Dutch; and
to conclude the account of sales, their great customer,
the Nabob of Arcot himself, and his lawful succession,
has been sold to his second son, Amir ul Omrah, whose
character, views, and conduct are in the accounts
upon your table. It remains with you whether they
shall finally perfect this last bargain.
All these bargains and sales were regularly attended with the waste and havoc of the country, - always
by the buyer, and sometimes by the object of the
sale. This was explained to you by the honorable
mover, when he stated the mode of paying debts due
from the country powers to the Company. An honorable gentleman, who is not now in his place, objected to his jumping near two thousand miles for an example. But the southern example is perfectly applicable to the northern claim, as the northern is to
the southern; for, throughout the whole space of
these two thousand miles, take your stand where you:
will, the proceeding is perfectly uniform, and what is
done in one part will apply exactly to the other.
My second assertion is, that the Company never
has made a treaty which they have not broken. This
position is so connected with that of the sales of provinces and kingdoms, with the negotiation of universal
distraction in every part of India, that a very minute
detail may well be spared on this point. It has not
yet been contended, by any enemy to the reform, that
they have observed any public agreement. When I
hear that they have done so in any one instance,
(which- hitherto, I confess, I never heard alleged,) I
shall speak to the particular treaty. The Governor
? ? ? ? 452 SPEECH ON MR. FOX'S EAST INDIA BILL.
General has even amused himself and the Court of
Directors in a very singular letter to that board, in
which he admits he has not been very delicate with
regard to public faith; and he goes so far as to state
a regular estimate of the sums which the Company
would have lost, or never acquired, if the rigid ideas
of public faith entertained by his colleagues had been
observed. The learned; gentleman * over against me
has, indeed, saved me much trouble. On a former
occasion, he obtained no small credit for the clear
and forcible manner in which he stated, what we have
not forgot, and I hope he has not forgot, that universal, systematic breach of treaties which had made the British faith proverbial in the East.
It only remains, Sir, for me just to recapitulate
some heads. - The treaty with the Mogul, by which
we stipulated to pay him 260,0001. annually, was
broken. This treaty they have broken, and not paid
him a shilling. They broke their treaty with him,
in which they stipulated to pay 400,0001. a year to
the Subah of'Bengal. They agreed with the Mogul,
for services admitted to have been performed, to pay
Nudjif Cawn a pension. They broke this article with
the rest, and stopped also this small pension. They
broke their treaties with the Nizam, and with HIyder
Ali. As to the Mahrattas, they had so many cross
treaties with the states-general of that nation, and
with each of the chiefs, that it was notorious that no
one of these agreements could be kept without grossly
violating the rest. It was observed, that, if'the terms
of these several treaties had been kept, two British
armies would at one and the same time have met in
the field to cut each other's throats. The wars which
* Mr. Dundas, Lord Advocate of Scotland.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON MR. FOX'S EAST INDIA BILL. 453
desolate India originated from a most atrocious violation of public faith on our part. In the midst of profound peace, the Company's troops invaded the Mahratta territories, and surprised the island and fortress of Salsette. . The Mahrattas nevertheless yielded to a
treaty of, peace. by which solid advantages were procured, to the Company. :But this treaty, like every
other treaty, was soon violated by the Company.
Again the Companyfinvaded the Mahratta dominions.
The disaster that ensued gave occasion to a new
treaty. The whole, army of the Company was obliged
in effect to surrender to this injured, betrayed, and
insulted. people. Justly irritated, however, as they
were, the terms which they prescribed were reasonable and moderate, and their. treatment of their captive invaders of the most distinguished humanity.
But- the humanity of the Mahrattas was ofno power
whatsoever to prevail on the Company to attend to the
observance of:the. terms dictated by their moderation.
The war was renewed with greater vigor than ever;
and such was their insatiable lust of plunder, that
they never would have given, ear to any terms of
peace, if HEder Ali had not broke through the Ghauts,
and, rushing like a torrent into the Carnatic, swept
away everything in his career. This was in consequence of that confederacy which by a sort of miracle
united the most discordant powers for our destruction, as a nation in which no other could put anytrust, and who were the declared enemies of the: human species.
It is very remarkable that. the late controversy between the several presidencies, and between them and
the Court of Directors, with relation to these wars and
treaties, has. not been, which of the parties might be
? ? ? ? 454 SPEECH ON MR. FOX'S EAST INDIA BILL.
defended for his share in them, but on which of the
parties the guilt of all this load of perfidy should be
fixed. But I am content to admit all these proceedings to be perfectly regular, to be full of honor and
good faith; and wish to fix your attention solely to
that single transaction which the advocates of this
system select for so transcendent a merit as to cancel
the guilt of all the rest of their proceedings: I mean
the late treaties with the Mahrattas.
I make no observation on the total cession of territory, by which they surrendered all they had obtained
by their unhappy successes in war, and almost all they
had obtained under the treaty of Poorunder. The
restitution was proper, if it had been voluntary and
seasonable. I attach on the spirit of the treaty, the
dispositions it showed, the provisions it made for a
general peace, and the faith kept with allies and confederates, - in order that the House may form a judgment, from this chosen piece, of the use which has been made (and is likely to be made, if things continue in the same hands) of the trust of the federal
powers of this country. :
It was the wish of -almost every Englishman that
the Mahratta peace might lead to a general one; because the Mahratta war was only a part of a general
confederacy formed against us, on account of the universal abhorrence of our conduct which prevailed in
every state, and almost in every house in India. Mr.
Hastings was obliged to pretend some sort of acquiescence in this general and rational desire. He therefore consented, in order to satisfy the point of honor of the Mahrattas, that an article should be inserted to
admit Hyder Ali to accede to the pacification. But
observe, Sir, the spirit of this man, - which, if it were
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON MR. FOX'S EAST INDIA BILL. 455
not made manifest by a thousand things, and particularly by his proceedings with regard to Lord Macartney, would be sufficiently manifest by this. What sort of article, think you, does he require this essential head of a solemn treaty of general pacification to
be? In his instruction to Mr. Anderson, he desires
him to admit " a vague article" in favor of Hyder.
Evasion and fraud were the declared basis of the
treaty. These vague articles, intended for a more
vague performance, are the things which have damned
our reputation in India.
Hardly was this vague article inserted, than, without waiting for any act on the part of Hyder, Mr.
Hastings enters into a-negotiation with the Mahratta
chief, Scindia, for a partition of the territories of the
prince who was one of the objects to be secured by
*the treaty.
(DECEMBER 1, 1783)
UPON'HE QUESTION FOR THE SPEAKER'S LEAVING THE
CHAIR IN ORDER FOR THE HOUSE TO RESOLVE ITSELF INTO A COMMITTEE ON
MR. FOX'S EAST INDIA BILL.
? ? ? ? SPEECH.
MR. SPEAKER, - I thank you for pointing to
me. I really wished much to engage your
attention in an early stage of the debate. I have
been long very deeply, though perhaps ineffectually, engaged in the preliminary inquiries, which
have continued without intermission for some years.
Though I have felt, with some degree of sensibility,
the natural and inevitable impressions of the several
matters of fact, as they have been successively disclosed, I have not at any time attempted to trouble you on the merits of the subject, and very little on
any of the points whicli incidentally arose in the
course of our proceedings. But I should be sorry
to be found totally silent upon this day. Our inquiries are now come to their final issue. It is now to
be determined whether the three years of laborious
Parliamentary research, whether the twenty years of
patient Indian suffering, are to produce a substantial
reform in our Eastern administration; or whether
our knowledge of the grievances has abated our zeal
for the correction of them, and our very inquiry into
the evil was only a pretext to eluide the remedy
which is demanded from us by humanity, by justice,
and by every principle of true policy. Depend upon
it, this business cannot be indifferent to our fame.
It will turn out a matter of great disgrace or great
VOL. II. 28
? ? ? ? 434 SPEECH ON MR. FOX'S EAST INDIA BILL.
glory to the whole British nation. We are on a conspicuous stage, and the world marks our demeanor.
I am therefore a little concerned to perceive the
spirit and temper in which the debate has been all
along pursued upon one side of the House. The
declamation of the gentlemen who oppose the bill
has been abundant and vehement; but they have
been reserved and even silent about the fitness or
unfitness of the plan to attain the direct object it has
in view. By some gentlemen it is taken up (by way
of exercise, I presume) as a point of law, on a question
of private property and corporate franchise; by others it is regarded as the petty intrigue of a faction at court, and argued merely as it tends to set this man
a little higher or that a little lower in situation and
power. All the void has been filled up with invectives against coalition, with allusions to the loss of America, with the activity and inactivity of ministers. The total silence of these gentlemen concerning the interest and well-being of the people of India,
and concerning the interest which this nation has in
the commerce and revenues of that country, is a
strong indication of the value which they set upon
these objects.
It has been a little painful to me to observe the
intrusion into this important debate of such company
as quo warranto, and mandamus, and certiorari: as if
we were on a trial about mayors and aldermen and
capital burgesses, or engaged in a suit concerning
the borough of Penryn, or Saltash, or St. Ives, or St.
Mawes. Gentlemen have argued with as much heat
and passion as if the first things in the world were
at stake; and their topics are such as belong only to
matter of the lowest and meanest litigation. It is
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON MR. FOX'S EAST INDIA BILL. 435
not right, it is not worthy of us, in this manner to
depreciate the value, to degrade the majesty, of this
grave deliberation of policy and empire.
For my part, I have thought myself bound, when a
matter of this extraordinary weight came before me,
not to consider (as some gentlemen are so fond of
doing) whether the bill originated from a Secretary of
State for the Home Department or from a Secretary
for the Foreign, from a minister of influence or a minister of the people, from Jacob or from Esau. * I asked myself, and I asked myself nothing else, what
part it was fit for a member of Parliament, who
has supplied a mediocrity of talents by the extreme
of diligence, and who has thought himself obliged by
the research of years to wind himself into the inmost recesses and labyrinths of the Indian detail, -
what part, I say, it became such a member of Parliament to take, when a minister of state, in conformity to a recommendation from the throne, has brought
before us a system for the better government of the
territory and commerce of the East. In this light,
and in this only, I will trouble you with my sentiments.
It is not only agreed, but demanded, by the right
honorable gentleman, l and by those who act with
him, that a whole system ought to be produced; that
it ought not to be an half-measure; that it ought to
be no palliative, but a legislative provision, vigorous,
substantial, and effective. - I believe that no man
who understands the subject can doubt for a moment
that those must be the conditions of anything deserving the name of a reform in the Indian government; that anything short of them would not only be delu* An allusion made by Mr. Powis. t Mr. Pitt.
? ? ? ? 436 SPEECH ON MR. FOX'S EAST INDIA BILL.
sive, but, in this matter, which admits no medium,
noxious in the extreme.
To all the conditions proposed by his adversaries
the mover of the bill perfectly agrees; and on his
performance of them he rests his cause. On the other
hand, not the least objection has been taken with
regard to the efficiency, the vigor, or the completeness of the scheme. I am therefore warranted to assume, as a thing admitted, that the bills accomplish what both sides of the House demand as essential.
The end is completely answered, so far as the direct
and immediate object is concerned.
But though there are no direct, yet there are various collateral objections made: objections from the
effects which this plan of reform for Indian administration may have on the privileges of great public
bodies in England; from its probable influence on
the constitutional rights, or on the freedom and integrity, of the several branches of the legislature.
Before I answer these objections, I must beg leave
to observe, that, if we are not able to contrive some
method of governing India well, which will not of
necessity become the means of governing Great Britain ill, a ground is laid for their eternal separation,
but none for sacrificing the people of that country to
our Constitution. I am, however, far from being persuaded that any such incompatibility of interest does
at all exist. On the contrary, I am certain that every
means effectual to preserve India from oppression is
a guard to preserve the British Constitution from its
worst corruption. To show this, I will consider the
objections, which, I think, are, four.
1st, That the bill is an attack on the chartered
rights of men.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON MR. FOX'S EAST INDIA BILL. 437
2ndly, That it increases the influence of the crown.
3rdly, That it does not increase, but diminishes, the
influence of the crown, in order to promote the interests of certain ministers and their party.
4thly, That it deeply affects the national credit.
As to the first of these objections, I must observe
that the phrase of "the chartered rights of men" is
full of affectation, and very unusual in the discussion
of privileges conferred by charters of the present description. But it is not difficult to discover what end that ambiguous mode of expression, so often reiterated, is meant to answer.
The rights of men --that is to say, the natural
rights of mankind - -are indeed sacred things; and
if any public measure is proved mischievously to affect
them, the objection ought to be fatal to that measure,
even if no charter at all could be set up against it.
If these natural rights are further affirmed and declared by express covenants, if they are clearly defined and secured against chicane, against power and authority, by written instruments and positive engage ments, they are in a still better condition: they partake not only of the sanctity of the object so secured, but of that solemn public faith itself which secures an
object of such importance. Indeed, this formal recognition, by the sovereign power, of an original right
in the subject, can never be subverted, but by rooting
up the holding radical principles of government, and
even of society itself. The charters which we call by
distinction great are public instruments of this nature: I mean the charters of King John and King
Henry the Third. The things secured by these instruments may, without any deceitful ambiguity, be very fitly called the chartered rights of men.
? ? ? ? 438 SPEECH'ON MIR. FOX'S EAST INDIA BILL.
These charters have made the very name of a char.
ter dear to the heart of every Englishman. But, Sir,
there may be, and there are, charters, not only different in nature, but formed on principles the very reverse of those of the Great Charter. Of this kind is the charter of the East India Company. Magna Charta is a charter to restrain power and to destroy monopoly.
The East India charter is a charter to establish
monopoly and to create power. Political power and
commercial monopoly are not the rights of men; and
the rights to them derived from charters it is fallacious
and sophistical to call " the chartered rights of men. "
These chartered rights (to speak of such charters and
of their effects in terms of the greatest possible moderation) do at least suspend the natural rights of mankind at large, and in their very frame and constitution are liable to fall into a direct violation of
them.
It is a charter of this latter description (that is to
say, a charter of power and monopoly) which is affected by the bill before you. The bill, Sir, does without question affect it: it does affect it essentially and
substantially. But, having stated to you of what
description the chartered rights are which this bill
touches, I feel no difficulty at all in acknowledging
the existence of those chartered rights in their fullest
extent. They belong to the Company in the surest
manner, and they are secured to that body by every
sort of public sanction. They are stamped by the
faith of the king; they are stamped by the faith of
Parliament: they have been bought for money, for
money honestly and fairly paid; they have been
bought for valuable consideration, over and over
again.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON MR. FOX'S EAST INDIA BILL. 439
I therefore freely admit to the East India Company
their claim to exclude their fellow-subjects from the
commerce of half the globe. I admit their claim to
administer an annual territorial revenue of seven
millions sterling, to command an army of sixty thousand men, and to dispose (under the control of a sovereign, imperial discretion, and with the due observance of the natural and local law) of the lives and fortunes of thirty millions of their fellow-creatures. All this they possess by charter, and by Acts
of Parliament, (in my opinion,) without a shadow of
controversy.
Those who carry the rights and claims of the Company the furthest do not contend for more than this; and all this I freely grant. But, granting all this,
they must grant to me, in my turn, that all political
power which is set over men, and that all privilege
claimed or exercised in exclusion of them, being
wholly artificial, and for so much a derogation from
the natural equality of mankind at large, ought to
be some way or other exercised ultimately for their
benefit.
If this is true with regard to every species of political dominion and every description of commercial privilege, none of which can be original, self-derived
rights, or grants for the mere private benefit of the
holders, then such rights, or privileges, or whatever
else you choose to call them, are all in the strictest
sense a trust: and it is of the very essence of every
trust to be rendered accountable, -and even totally to
cease, when it substantially varies from the purposes
for which alone it could have a lawful existence.
This I conceive, Sir, to be true of trusts of power
vested in the highest hands, and of such as seem to
? ? ? ? 440 SPEECH ON MR. FOX' S EAST INDIA BILL.
hold of no human creature. But about the applica.
tion of this principle to subordinate derivative trusts
I do not see how a controversy can be maintained. To
whom, then, would I make the East India Company
accountable? Why, to Parliament, to be sure, -- to
Parliament, from whom their trust was derived, - to
Parliament, which alone is capable of comprehending
the magnitude of its object, and its abuse, and alone
capable of an effectual legislative remedy. The very
charter, which is held out to exclude Parliament fromn
correcting malversation with regard to the high trust
vested in the Company, is the very thing which at once
gives a title and imposes a duty on us to interfere with
effect, whelever power and authority originating from
ourselves are perverted from their purposes, and become instruments of wrong and violence.
If Parliament, Sir, had nothing to do with this
charter, we might have some sort of Epicurean excuse to stand aloof, indifferent spectators of what passes in the Company's name in India and in London. But if we are the very cause of the evil, we are in a special manner engaged to the redress; and for
us passively to bear with oppressions committed under
the sanction of our own authority is in truth and
reason for this House to be an active accomplice in
the abuse.
That the power, notoriously grossly abused, has
been bought from us is very certain. But this cir-. cumstance, which is urged against the bill, becomes an additional motive for our interference, lest we
should be thought to have sold the blood of millions
of men for the base consideration of money. We
sold, I admit, all that we had to sell, - that is, our
authority, not our control. We had not a right to
make a market of our duties.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON MR. FOX'S EAST INDIA BILL. 441
I ground myself, therefore, on this principle: --
that, if the abuse is proved, the contract is broken, and
we reinter into all our rights, that is, into the exercise of all our duties. Our own authority is, indeed, as much a trust originally as the Company's authority is a trust derivatively; and it is the use we make of the resumed power that must justify or condemn
us in the resumption of it. When we have perfected
the plan laid before us by the right honorable mover,
the world will then see what it is we destroy, and
what it is we create. By that test we stand or fall;
and by that test I trust that it will be found, in the
issue, that we are going to supersede a charter abused
to the full extent of all the powers which it could
abuse, and exercised in the plenitude of despotism,
tyranny, and corruption, --and that in one and the
same plan we provide a real chartered security for
the rights of men, cruelly violated under that charter.
This bill, and those connected with it, are intended
to form the Magna Charta of Hindostan. Whatever
the Treaty of Westphalia is to the liberty of the princes
and free cities of the Empire, and to the three religions there professed, - whatever the Great Charter, the Statute of Tallage, the Petition of Right, and the
Declaration of Right are to Great Britain, these bills
are to the people of India. Of this benefit I am certain their condition is capable: and when I know
that they are capable of more, my vote shall most
assuredly'be for our giving to the full extent of their
capacity of receiving; and no charter of dominion
shall stand as a bar in my way to their charter of
safety and protection.
The strong admission I have made of the Company's
rights (I am conscious of it) binds me to do a great
? ? ? ? 442 SPEECH ON MR. FOX'S EAST INDIA BILL.
deal. I do not presume to condemn those who argue
a priori against the propriety of leaving such extensive political powers in the hands of a company of merchants. I know much is, and much more may
be, said against such a system. But, with my particular ideas and sentiments, I cannot go that way to work. I feel an insuperable reluctance in giving my
hand to destroy any established institution of government, upon a theory, however plausible it may be. My experience in life teaches me nothing clear upon
the subject. I have known merchants with the sentiments and the abilities of great statesmen, and I have seen persons in the rank of statesmen with the con
ceptions and character of peddlers. Indeed, my observation has furnished me with nothing that is to be found in any habits of life or education, which tends
wholly to disqualify men for the functions of government, but that by which the power of exercising those functions is very frequently obtained: I mean a spirit
and habits of low cabal and intrigue; which I have
cnever, in. one instance, seen united with a capacity
for sound and manly policy.
To justify us in taking the administration of their
affairs out of the hands of the East India Company,
on my principles, I must see several conditions. 1st,
The object affected by the abuse should be great and
important. 2nd, The abuse affecting this great object ought to be a great abuse. 3d, It ought to be habitual, and not accidental. 4th, It ought to be
utterly incurable in the body as it now stands constituted. All this ought to be made as visible to me as the light of the sun, before I should strike off an atom
of their charter. A right honorable gentleman* has
* Mr. Pitt.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON MR. FOX'S EAST INDIA BILL. 443
said, and said, I tliink, but once, and that very slightly,
(whatever his original demand for a plan might seem
to require,) that" there are abuses in the Company's
government. " If that were all, the scheme of the
mover of this bill, the scheme of his learned friend,
and his own scheme of reformation, (if he has any,)
are all equally needless. There are, and must be,
abuses in all governments. It amounts to no more.
than a nugatory proposition. But before I consider
of what nature these abuses are, of which the gentleman speaks so very lightly, permit me to recall to your recollection the map of the country which this
abused chartered right affects. This I shall do, that
you may judge whether in that map I call discover
anything like the first of my conditions: that is,
whether the object affected by the abuse of the East
India Company's power be of importance sufficient
to justify the measure and means of reform applied
to it in this bill.
With very few, and those inconsiderable - intervals,
the British dominion, either in the Company's name,
or in the names of princes absolutely dependent upon the Company, extends from the mountains that separate India from Tartary to Cape Comorin, that
is, one-and-twenty degrees of latitude!
In the northern parts it is a solid mass of land,
about eight hundred miles in length, and four or five
hundred broad. As you go southward, it becomes
narrower for a space. It afterwards dilates; but,
narrower or broader, you possess the whole eastern
and northeastern coast of that vast country, quite
from the borders of Pegu. - Bengal, Bahar, and
Orissa, with Benares, (now unfortunately in our immediate possession,) measure 161,9,78 square Englisl!
? ? ? ? 4'44 SPEECH ON MR. FOX S EAST INDIA BILL.
miles: a territory considerably larger than the whole
kingdom of France. Oude, with its dependent provinces, is 53,286 square miles: not a great deal less
than England. The Carinatic, with Tanjore and the
Circars, is 65,948 square miles: very considerably
larger than England. And the whole of the Company's dominions, comprehending Bombay and Salsette,
amounts to 281,412 square miles: which forms a
territory larger than ally European dominion, Russia
and Turkey excepted. Through all that vast extent
of country there is not a man who eats a mouthful
of rice but by permission of the East India Company.
So far with regard to the extent.
The population of
this great empire is not easy to be calculated. When
the countries of which it is composed came into our
possession, they were all eminently peopled, and eminently productive, - though at that time consideras
bly declined from their ancient prosperity. But since
they are come into our hands! ! However, if we,make the. period of our estimate immediately before
the utter desolation of the Carnatic, and if we allow
for the havoc which our government had even then
made in these regions, we cannot, in my opinion,
rate the population at much less than thirty millions
of souls: more than four times the niumber of persons in the island of Great Britain.
My next inquiry to that of the number is the quality and description of the inhabitants. This multitude of men does not consist of an abject and barbarous populace; much less of gangs of savages, like the Guaranies and Chliquitos, who wander on the waste
borders of the River of Amazons or the Plate; but a
people for ages ciyilized and cultivated, - cultivated
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON MR. FOX'S EAST INDIA BILL. 445
oy all the arts of polished life, whilst we were yet in
the woods. There have been (and still the skeletons
remain) princes once of great dignity, authority,
and opulence. There are to be found the chiefs of
tribes and nations. There is to be found an ancient
and venerable priesthood, the depository of their laws,
learning, and history, the guides of the people whilst
living and their consolation in death; a nobility of'
great antiquity and renown; a multitude of cities,
not exceeded in population and trade by those of the
first class in Europe; merchants and bankers, individual houses of whom have once vied in capital with
the Bank of England, whose credit had often supported a tottering state, and preserved their governments in the midst of war and desolation; millions of ingenious manufacturers and mechanics; millions
of the most diligent, and not the least intelligent,
tillers of the earth. Here are to be found almost
all the religions professed by men, - the Braminical,
the Mussulman, the Eastern and the Western Christian.
If I were to take the whole aggregate of our possessions there, I should compare it, as the nearest
parallel I can find, with the Empire of Germany.
Our immediate possessions I should compare with
the Austrian dominions: and they would not suffer
in the comparison. The Nabob of Oude might stand
for the King of Prussia; the Nabob of Arcot I would
compare, as superior in territory, and equal in revenue, to the Elector of Saxony. Cheit Sing, the
Rajah of Benares, might well rank with the Prince
of Hesse, at least; and the Rajah of Tanjore (though
hardly equal in extent of dominion, superior in revenue) to the Elector of Bavaria. The polygars and
? ? ? ? 446 SPEECH ON MR. FOX'S EAST INDIA BILL.
the Northern zemindars, and other great chiefs, might
well class with the rest of the princes, dukes, counts,
marquises, and bishops in the Empire; all of whom I
mention to honor, and surely without disparagement
to any or all of those most respectable princes and
grandees.
All this vast mass, composed of so many orders and
classes of men, is again infinitely diversified by manners, by religion, by hereditary employment, through all their possible combinations. This renders the
handling of India a matter in an high degree critical
and delicate. But, oh, it has been handled rudely
indeed! Even some of the reformers seem to have
forgot that they had anything to do but to regulate the tenants of a manor, or the shopkeepers of
the next county town.
It is an empire of this extent,. of this complicated
nature, of this dignity and importance, that I have
compared to Germany and the German government,
-not for an'exact resemblance, but as a sort of a
middle term, by which India might be approximated
to our understandings, and, if possible, to our feelings,
in order to awaken something of sympathy for the
unfortunate natives, of which I am afraid we are not
perfectly susceptible, whilst we look at this very remote object through a false and cloudy medium.
My second condition necessary to justify me in
touching the charter is, whether the Company's
abuse of their trust with regard to this great object be an abuse of great atrocity. I shall beg
your permission to consider their conduct in two
lights: first the political, and then the commercial.
Their political conduct (for distinctness) I divide
again into two heads: the external, in which I mean
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON MR. FOX'S EAST INDIA BILL. 447
to comprehend their conduct in their federal capacity, as it relates to powers and states independent, or that not long since were such; the other internal, -
namely, their conduct to the countries' either immediately subject to the Company, or to those who, under the apparent government of native sovereigns,
are in a state much lower and much more miserable
than common subjection.
The attention, Sir, which I wish to preserve to
method will not be considered as unnecessary or affected. Nothing else can help me to selection out
of the infinite mass of materials which have passed
under my eye, or can keep my mind steady to the
great leading points I have in view.
With regard, therefore, to'the. abuse of the external federal trust, r engage myself to you to make
good these three positions. First, I say, that from
Mount Imaus, (or whatever else you call that large
range of mountains that walls the northern frontier
of India,) where it touches us in the latitude of
twenty-nine, to Cape Comorin, in the latitude of
eight, that there is not a single prince, state, or potentate, great or small, in India, with whom they have come into contact, whom they have not sold: I say
sold, though sometimes they have not been able to
deliver according to their bargain. Secondly, I say,
that there is not a single treaty they have ever made
which they have not broken. . Thirdly, I say, that
there is not a single prince or state, who ever put
any trust in the Company, who is not utterly ruined;
and that none are in any degree secure or flourishing,
but in the exact proportion to their settled distrust
and irreconcilable enmity to this nation.
These assertions are uliversal: I say, in the fall
? ? ? ? 448 SPEECH ON MR. FOX' S EAST INDIA BILL.
sense, universal. They regard the external and political trust only; but I shall produce others fully
equivalent in the internal. For the present, I shall
content myself with explaining my meaning; and if
I am called on for proof, whilst these bills are depending, (which I believe I shall not,) I will put my finger on the appendixes to the Reports, or on papers of record in the House or the Committees, which I have
distinctly present to my memory, and which I think
I can lay before you at half an hour's warning.
The first potentate sold by the Company for money
was the Great Mogul, - the descendant of Tamerlane.
This high personage, as high as human veneration
can look at, is by every account amiable in his manners, respectable for his piety, according to his mode,
and accomplished in all the Oriental literature. All
this, and the title derived under his charter to all
that we hold in India, could not save him from the
general sale. Money is coined in his name; in his
name justice is administered; he is prayed for in
every temple through the countries we possess;- but
he was sold.
It is impossible, Mr. Speaker, not to pause here
for a moment, to reflect on the inconstancy of human greatness, and the stupendous revolutions that
have happened in our age of wonders. Could it be
believed, when I entered into existence, or when you,
a younger man, were born, that on this day, in this
House, we should be employed in discussing the conduct of those British subjects who had disposed of the
power and person of the Grand Mogul? This is no
idle speculation. Awful lessons are taught by it, and
by other events, of which it is not yet too late to
profit.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON MR. FOX'S EAST INDIA BILL. 449
This is hardly a digression: but I return to the
sale of the Mogul. Two districts, Corah and Allahabad, out of his immense grants, were reserved as a royal demesne to the donor of a kingdom, and the
rightful sovereign of so many nations. - After withholding the tribute of 260,0001. a year, which the Company was, by the charter they had received from
this prince, under the most solemn obligation to pay,
these districts were sold to his chief minister, Sujah
ul) Dowlah; and what may appear to some the. worst
part: of the transaction, these two districts were sold
for' scarcely two years' purchase. The descendant of.
Tamerlane now stands in need almost of the common
necessaries of life; and in this situation we do not
even allow him, as bounty, the smallest portion of
what we owe him in justice.
The next sale was that of the whole nation of the
Rohillas, which the grand salesman, without a pretence of quarrel, and contrary to his own declared sense of duty and rectitude, sold to the same Sujah
ul Dowlah. He sold the people to utter extirpation,
for the sum of fbur hundred thousand pounds. Faithfully was- the bargain performed on our side. Hlafiz Rhamet, the most eminent of their chiefs, one of the
bravest men of his time, and as famous throughout
the East for the elegance of his literature and the
spirit of his poetical compositions (by which he supported the name of Hafiz) as for his courage, was invaded with an army of an hundred thousand men,
and an English brigade. This man, at the head of
inferior forces, was slain valiantly fighting for his
country. His head was cut off, and delivered for
money to a barbarian. His wife and children, persons of that rank, were seen begging an handful of VOL. II. 29
? ? ? ? 450 SPEECH ON MR. FOX'S EAST INDIA BILL.
rice through the English camp. The whole nation,
with inconsiderable exceptions, was slaughtered or
banished. The country was laid waste with fire and
sword; and that land, distinguished above most others by the cheerful face of paternal government and protected labor, the chosen seat of cultivation and
plenty, is now almost throughout a dreary desert,
covered with rushes, and briers, and jungles full of
wild beasts.
The British officer who commanded in the delivery
of the people thus sold felt some compunction at
his employment. Hee represented these enormous
excesses to the President of Bengal, for which he
received a severe reprimand from the civil governor;
and I much doubt whether the breach caused by the
conflict between the compassion of the military and
the firmness of the civil governor be closed at this
hour.
In Bengal, Surajah Dowlah was sold to Mir Jaffier;
Mir Jaffier was sold to Mir Cossim; and Mir Cossim
was sold to Mir Jaffier again. The succession to Mir
Jaffier was sold to his eldest son; --another son of
Mir Jaffier, Mobarech ul Dowlah, was sold to his
step-mother. / The Ma-hratta Empire was sold to Ragobah; and Ragobah was sold and delivered to the Peishwa of the Mahrattas. Both Ragobah and the
Peishwa of the Mahrattas were offered to sale to the
Rajah of Berar. Scindia, the chief of Malwa, was offered to sale to the same Rajah; and the Subah of the Deccan was sold to;the great trader, Mahomet All,
Nabob of Arcot. To the same Nabob of Arcot they
sold iHyder Ali and the kingdom of Mysore. To
Mahomet Ali they twice sold the kingdom of Tanjore.
To the same Mahomet Ali they sold at least twelve
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON MR. FOX'S EAST INDIA BILL. 451
sovereign princes, called the Polygars. But to keep
things even, the territory of Tinnevelly, belonging _to
their nabob, they would have sold to the Dutch; and
to conclude the account of sales, their great customer,
the Nabob of Arcot himself, and his lawful succession,
has been sold to his second son, Amir ul Omrah, whose
character, views, and conduct are in the accounts
upon your table. It remains with you whether they
shall finally perfect this last bargain.
All these bargains and sales were regularly attended with the waste and havoc of the country, - always
by the buyer, and sometimes by the object of the
sale. This was explained to you by the honorable
mover, when he stated the mode of paying debts due
from the country powers to the Company. An honorable gentleman, who is not now in his place, objected to his jumping near two thousand miles for an example. But the southern example is perfectly applicable to the northern claim, as the northern is to
the southern; for, throughout the whole space of
these two thousand miles, take your stand where you:
will, the proceeding is perfectly uniform, and what is
done in one part will apply exactly to the other.
My second assertion is, that the Company never
has made a treaty which they have not broken. This
position is so connected with that of the sales of provinces and kingdoms, with the negotiation of universal
distraction in every part of India, that a very minute
detail may well be spared on this point. It has not
yet been contended, by any enemy to the reform, that
they have observed any public agreement. When I
hear that they have done so in any one instance,
(which- hitherto, I confess, I never heard alleged,) I
shall speak to the particular treaty. The Governor
? ? ? ? 452 SPEECH ON MR. FOX'S EAST INDIA BILL.
General has even amused himself and the Court of
Directors in a very singular letter to that board, in
which he admits he has not been very delicate with
regard to public faith; and he goes so far as to state
a regular estimate of the sums which the Company
would have lost, or never acquired, if the rigid ideas
of public faith entertained by his colleagues had been
observed. The learned; gentleman * over against me
has, indeed, saved me much trouble. On a former
occasion, he obtained no small credit for the clear
and forcible manner in which he stated, what we have
not forgot, and I hope he has not forgot, that universal, systematic breach of treaties which had made the British faith proverbial in the East.
It only remains, Sir, for me just to recapitulate
some heads. - The treaty with the Mogul, by which
we stipulated to pay him 260,0001. annually, was
broken. This treaty they have broken, and not paid
him a shilling. They broke their treaty with him,
in which they stipulated to pay 400,0001. a year to
the Subah of'Bengal. They agreed with the Mogul,
for services admitted to have been performed, to pay
Nudjif Cawn a pension. They broke this article with
the rest, and stopped also this small pension. They
broke their treaties with the Nizam, and with HIyder
Ali. As to the Mahrattas, they had so many cross
treaties with the states-general of that nation, and
with each of the chiefs, that it was notorious that no
one of these agreements could be kept without grossly
violating the rest. It was observed, that, if'the terms
of these several treaties had been kept, two British
armies would at one and the same time have met in
the field to cut each other's throats. The wars which
* Mr. Dundas, Lord Advocate of Scotland.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON MR. FOX'S EAST INDIA BILL. 453
desolate India originated from a most atrocious violation of public faith on our part. In the midst of profound peace, the Company's troops invaded the Mahratta territories, and surprised the island and fortress of Salsette. . The Mahrattas nevertheless yielded to a
treaty of, peace. by which solid advantages were procured, to the Company. :But this treaty, like every
other treaty, was soon violated by the Company.
Again the Companyfinvaded the Mahratta dominions.
The disaster that ensued gave occasion to a new
treaty. The whole, army of the Company was obliged
in effect to surrender to this injured, betrayed, and
insulted. people. Justly irritated, however, as they
were, the terms which they prescribed were reasonable and moderate, and their. treatment of their captive invaders of the most distinguished humanity.
But- the humanity of the Mahrattas was ofno power
whatsoever to prevail on the Company to attend to the
observance of:the. terms dictated by their moderation.
The war was renewed with greater vigor than ever;
and such was their insatiable lust of plunder, that
they never would have given, ear to any terms of
peace, if HEder Ali had not broke through the Ghauts,
and, rushing like a torrent into the Carnatic, swept
away everything in his career. This was in consequence of that confederacy which by a sort of miracle
united the most discordant powers for our destruction, as a nation in which no other could put anytrust, and who were the declared enemies of the: human species.
It is very remarkable that. the late controversy between the several presidencies, and between them and
the Court of Directors, with relation to these wars and
treaties, has. not been, which of the parties might be
? ? ? ? 454 SPEECH ON MR. FOX'S EAST INDIA BILL.
defended for his share in them, but on which of the
parties the guilt of all this load of perfidy should be
fixed. But I am content to admit all these proceedings to be perfectly regular, to be full of honor and
good faith; and wish to fix your attention solely to
that single transaction which the advocates of this
system select for so transcendent a merit as to cancel
the guilt of all the rest of their proceedings: I mean
the late treaties with the Mahrattas.
I make no observation on the total cession of territory, by which they surrendered all they had obtained
by their unhappy successes in war, and almost all they
had obtained under the treaty of Poorunder. The
restitution was proper, if it had been voluntary and
seasonable. I attach on the spirit of the treaty, the
dispositions it showed, the provisions it made for a
general peace, and the faith kept with allies and confederates, - in order that the House may form a judgment, from this chosen piece, of the use which has been made (and is likely to be made, if things continue in the same hands) of the trust of the federal
powers of this country. :
It was the wish of -almost every Englishman that
the Mahratta peace might lead to a general one; because the Mahratta war was only a part of a general
confederacy formed against us, on account of the universal abhorrence of our conduct which prevailed in
every state, and almost in every house in India. Mr.
Hastings was obliged to pretend some sort of acquiescence in this general and rational desire. He therefore consented, in order to satisfy the point of honor of the Mahrattas, that an article should be inserted to
admit Hyder Ali to accede to the pacification. But
observe, Sir, the spirit of this man, - which, if it were
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON MR. FOX'S EAST INDIA BILL. 455
not made manifest by a thousand things, and particularly by his proceedings with regard to Lord Macartney, would be sufficiently manifest by this. What sort of article, think you, does he require this essential head of a solemn treaty of general pacification to
be? In his instruction to Mr. Anderson, he desires
him to admit " a vague article" in favor of Hyder.
Evasion and fraud were the declared basis of the
treaty. These vague articles, intended for a more
vague performance, are the things which have damned
our reputation in India.
Hardly was this vague article inserted, than, without waiting for any act on the part of Hyder, Mr.
Hastings enters into a-negotiation with the Mahratta
chief, Scindia, for a partition of the territories of the
prince who was one of the objects to be secured by
*the treaty.
