Two letters addressed to General Lord Harris

Front matter

TWO LETTERS, TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE GENERAL LORD HARRIS. (Price Five Shillings.) TWO LETTERS, ADDRESSED TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE GENERAL LORD HARRIS. BY MAJOR-GENERAL MACAULAY. LONDON : PRINTED BY ELLERTON AND HENDERSON, JOHNSON'S COURT, FLEET STREET. SOLD BY J. HATCHARD, BOOKSELLER TO THE QUEEN, 190, PICCADILLY. 1816. TO THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY, K.G. K.P. and K.C. These Letters, ln vindication of a public Officer of his Lordship's Government in India, who, during seven eventful years, was uniformly ho noured by his Lordship's high approbation of his public conduct — In the course of which vindication, he finds himself called upon to assert and defend (against an attack upon them, by an important branch of the Government of this Country,) those elevated and pure public principles, the practical diffusion and enforcement of which shed such a bright lustre round his Lordship's administration of the affairs of our Indian Empire, and will be likely to constitute an æra in the annals of that Empire, not less important, perhaps, if less splendid, than the great and wise measure of the conquest and settle ment of the Kingdom of Mysore — a measure which was solely and exclusively, in its conception, and in every stage of its progress, his Lordship's own measure — These Letters are, with sentiments of the highest admira tion and gratitude, most respectfully inscribed.

IT will be observed, that, in the following Letters, the facts of the case which forms their subject are not summed up. The argument is there fore left incomplete and imperfects but this, for very obvious reasons, was unavoidable. The object of the Writer is accomplished, if he should have succeeded in making out a case, prim a facie, so strong, as to lead to an inquiry by Parlia ment, or by Government. He fills no office of Official Reporter, nor is he seated in the Chair of Judgment.

Letter I

My dear Lord, ON my return from the continents the papers relating to the case of Major Hart, late commissary of grain to the army that, under your Lordship's command, achieved the conquest of Seringapatam, were sent to me. I had long been aware of the attempts made by Major Hart, with what propriety your Lord ship best knows, to represent some of my un avoidable proceedings in his case as flowing from unworthy motives; but, until I had read the whole of the papers, I was unapprised of the extent to which these attempts had been carried. Some years past, while I was yet in India, your Lordship generously stepped forward to repel the aspersions then unjustly cast upon my character by Major Hart: you voluntarily and kindly addressed a letter to the Court of B Directors upon the occasion. It is now twenty four years since first we became acquainted; and I am persuaded that my sentiments and principles are well and intimately known to you.

I can with truth say (I merely state the fact, and make no boast of it), that throughout the whole course of my career in India, I en joyed the good opinion and friendship of all whom I had opportunities of being acquainted with, who were distinguished and respected for talents or for virtue, either in the civil or mili tary service of the Company. I therefore owe it to your Lordship, and my numerous friends in England and in India, no less than to myself, to bear myself clear from every unworthy im putation : " it is a demand of justice — it is a de " monstration of gratitude." I propose, with this view, offering some observations upon the whole of the questions at issue in the case of Major Hart; and to whom can they be addressed with so much propriety in the first instance as to your Lordship ?

I have, however, to request, that, after perusal, your Lordship would do me the honour to transmit them to the Honourable the Court of Directors. The shortness of time allowed for writing this letter will, I hope, be admitted as an excuse for repetitions, and want of due arrangement and connection. Major Hart and his friends cannot, with any show of justice, complain of my want of forbearance. For upwards of fifteen years I have patiently endured calumny and obloquy. I well knew, indeed, in nearly the words of an eminent lawyer, now high in official station, that isa man do but take care of his own character, it matters little, as to the ultimate issue, if he be calumniated from January to January; but in this particular matter, having no personal quarrel with Major Hart, I prescribed to myself, as is well known to my friends, the rule of abstaining from the discussion of the merits of his case, lest it might tend to pre judice the attainment of his object, which, for reasons that I shall hereafter explain, I rather sought to forward than to obstruct.

Of this conduct, however, he has taken an ungenerous advantage ; and he now, injudiciously indeed for his purpose, but, as will be admitted no doubt by your Lordship, imperatively imposes upon me the necessity of coming forward. I can truly say, that in Major Hart's case I have had pa tience and pity too. But, before I proceed, I am bound to rescue your Lordship from the effects of an inference that has been unfairly drawn from your letter to Major Hart of the 6th of July, 1814, as if in this letter you designed to recal any one of the sentiments which you expressed in reprobation of the original transaction, by the Commissary of Grain, in your letter to the Governor-General in Council, dated the 1 9th of June, 1799. You do nothing more, in your letter of July, 1814, than admit what I believe was never denied by the Court of Directors, or by any one, that the carrying of grain bona fide for public or private followers, in our Indian armies, is not only justifiable in principle, but meritorious in practice.

But this, as will be more fully shewn hereafter, can operate in no way as a justification of the transaction of Major Hart. On the 22d of April, 1799, when I came into your tent on the heights overlooking the capital of Mysore, and there made known to you, and to Colonel Wellesley (now the Duke of Wellington), who was present, the tenor of the message delivered to me indirectly on the behalf of Major Hart, what would have been our feelings, under the mingled emotions ex cited by the communication, if any one bad then ventured to predict that at some future period this commissary, in the possession of a concealed hoard of grain, amounting to the enormous quantity of upwards of two hundred thousand rations*, or more than ten days' pro- * Half a seer of rice being a ration. vision for twenty thousand men, in violation, as it appeared to us, of all right principle, should find in the Board of Controul, which was specially appointed by Parliament to be a check on delinquency, and to correct abuses in India, an advocate both anxious and forward to justify such acknowledged irregularity !

The Report produced on this subject, with the sanction of the President of that Board*, under date the 25th of May, 1801, is perhaps one of the most remarkable documents that ever emanated from public men. It is so obviously unsound in principle, and so palpably sophis tical in its reasoning, as to lead one involun tarily to suspect, or rather to hope, that it never could have been designed by its framers to form the substratum of a public proceeding. I scarcely can refer to one paragraph in it that does not rest on a fallacy or a sophism. . I trust, however, that I shall not be under stood as intending any personal offence to the gentlemen whose names appear affixed to that Report. They cannot but see and feel that my observations respecting it are called forth by a necessity altogether beyond my controul ; the whole of the proceedings in Major Hart's case, since its appearance, being in fact bottomed * The late Lord Melville, -upon it, as a species of authoritative decision by competent, and, it was to be presumed, im partial judges.

But high as these gentlemen stand in station in the state, they happily in this favoured country owe a responsibility to public opinion,from which no man, however distinguish ed, can be exempted, " for glory or for shame." That great man, the late Mr. Burke, has ob served; " It is possible that particular persons', " in high judicial and political situations, may, " by force of an unusual strain of virtue, be " placed far above the influence of those cir " cumstances which in ordinary cases are known " to make an impression on the human mind.'" I can easily figure to myself such eminent men as the great Lord Chatham, or Lord Grenville, or Mr. Burke, or Marquis Wel lesley, or Mr. Wilberforce, frowning at delusive principles, when attempted to be substituted for true ; and invariably pursuing, in public life, without undue favour or affection, that course of conduct only which is recommended by conscience and by glory.

I can also bring before myself any one of these statesmen, pre ferring rather to put his hand in the fire than subscribe to any principle that should operate as an encouragement to a departure in practice from the strict rules of integrity and virtue in the conduct of public affairs. But let me suppose that any of the great characters named could have been of the Board of Controul when such a report as that in question obtained sanction ; must they not, like the members of all boards, and of all public bodies in this kingdom, not withstanding their transcendent talents and their general maintenance of sound principles, have, owed the same responsibility to public opinion, and been liable to account at that bar for their conduct equally with Mr. W. Dundas and Mr. Wallace? i It is not my intention, at present, to analyse, paragraph by paragraph, that Report ; for such analysis would, it is obvious, be a superfluous repetition of many of the observations em ployed in the examination of Major Hart's own case and statements, — the collateral positions in the Report being grounded upon that gentle man's statements.

The main inferences that appear to be fairly deducible from the Report are two; namely, that the governments in India misunderstood and mistated their own regulations, — and that no opinion or conclusion respecting Major Hart's conduct, in the transaction for which he was punished, is entitled to credit or attention, if op posed to the assertions of Major Hart himself. Major Hart has represented a statement given by me, of date the 8th of March 1800, as the cause of his suspension. This misrepre sentation of fact is more than insinuated in the Report of 1801, from the Board of Controul ; but that any person who had attentively read the papers, and was competent to form a judgment on the bearing and tendency of evidence, should have been led into a belief that his punishment by suspension from the service was occasioned, or in the least affected, by that statement, cannot but appear strange to your Lordship.

The order for the suspen sion of Major Hart is dated Fort William, the 4th of February, 1800; so that a statement, dated the 8th of the following month, is repre sented as having produced the order of the month preceding its date. Is this putting too forced a construction upon the subject ? Let Major Hart himself reply. In his letter to the Court of Directors, dated the 15th of Novem ber, 1800, he thus begins: " Since I had the honour to address you, " under date the 31st of October, I have had " communicated to me by Mr. Willis, under " your permission, a statement delivered by " Major Macaulay to the Madras Government, " which, as it immediately preceded the order " for my suspension, leaves no doubt either as " to the origin of the order, or of the source of " the harsh terms in which it is conveyed."

The whole of this paragraph is fallacious. The statement from me preceded, not the or der for the suspension, but simply the promul gation of that order to the army : the suspen sion would have been equally promulgated, had no statement from me been produced. The order is dated the 4th of February, the state ment is of date the 8th of March, and the publication of the order takes place on the 20th. The reason for delaying the publication of the order, on its receipt, at Madras, will be found in the letter of the Governor-General in Council to the Madras Government. " Unless," it says, " any circumstances of alleviation in favour of " Major Hart should appear in the examination " of Major Macaulay, we direct that the con " duct of Major Hart be publicly censured by " your Lordship in General Orders ; and that " that officer be suspended from the Company's " service, until the pleasure of the Honourable " the Court of Directors shall be known."

Your Lordship, I am sure, will agree in opinion with me, that in this part of the question no misre presentation can any longer prevail. Had my statement preceded the order for suspension by the Supreme Government, or had any part whatsoever been taken by me, in any mode or form, in the affair of Major Hart, from the day that an examination into his conduct c commenced, until the day he was sentenced and ordered to be publicly censured and sus pended, then, and in such case, there might have existed a colourable pretence, however untenable in truth and fair inference, for an in sinuation against me. But to add one word more on so clear a point cannot surely be necessary. As to the note, dated March 1814, from me to Major Hart, respecting that statement of which he has made so unfair a use; a full, and, I am confident, a completely satisfactory explanation, will be given either at the close of this letter, or in a separate letter, should this run too much into length.

The naked publication of that note, unaccompanied by the notes that passed at the time between him and me, and between me and his friend Mr. Colt, for his information, is a pro ceeding, the merits of which your Lordship will be able duly to appreciate hereafter. In its present unexplained state, that note does look like an insinuation against the pure and high minded integrity of that most honourable and upright man, the late Mr. Webbe. I could perhaps have patiently submitted to any sinister use that might be attempted to be drawn by Major Hart from this or any other act of mine, in its application to myself, trusting to the candour and justice of my friends, with re ference to past character; but the inference which is left to be drawn from it in disparage ment of my friend, when Major Hart held in his hands my disclaimer of all injurious inference, is perhaps without a parallel in unfairness.

Fortunate, indeed, it is for Major Hart that I was not called down to Madras and examined. Had that measure taken place, I assert, without fear of contradiction on the part of any ho nourable man conversant in such matters, that we should never have witnessed the very extraordinary spectacle of a writ of mandamus issu ing from the Court of King's Bench, to compel payment to Major Hart for this grain. It was well known at Madras, and in the army; at least it was well known to Major Hart, and to every officer at the head of a de partment; that to me was confided by your Lordship the charge of regulating and arrang ing the supplies of every kind required for the great armies assembling under your command for the siege of Seringapatam : and this charge was not confined to the force assembled in the vicinity of Madras, but extended to that mov ing from Hyderabad, and from the coast of Malabar.

Not only was the quantity to be provided and carried, whether by the public or by Binjarries or others, subject to my super intendance and directions; but the price even to be paid for such grain as should be delivered by the inhabitants, or from the public stores to dealers in grain or others, was regulated by me under authority from your Lordship. The correspondence that passed upon this subject is no where recorded on the Company's records ; but the book that contains a large portion of my share in it, after havirg escaped various accidents and perils, is now in my possession. On the 4th of February, 1799, I wrote as follows to Captain (now Sir John) Malcolm, who was moving down from Hyderabad in charge of the Nizam's contingent: " The markets of this army will always be " free and open ; duties are unknown: but an " attention to the troops and followers requires " some regulation, by way of preventing undue " exactions.

The price of grain in the bazars " is usually regulated by the price it bears in " the circumjacent country : the Binjarries will " undoubtedly be permitted to sell for whatever " they can get, when there is no standard to " which resort can be had, unless circumstances " should render it expedient for the General " to purchase the whole of their grain for the " public; in which case they may rest assured " of having a proportionate compensation for " the distance and the risk." And on the 13th I wrote to Sir John Mal colm — " Could you send immediately to Vellore " any carriage cattle, whether dealers on their " own account or for hire, to take up some " rice, and bring it on ? The Company sell " it at 27 seers (the rupee) at Vellore, and buy " it at Kistnagerry at 17." Passing over many intermediate letters, I shall proceed to one to Colonel Read, of the 22d of February :— " The principal bullock agent (now Sir Tho " mas Dallas), notwithstanding his great exer " tions, found himself deficient to the number " of nearly 7000 carriage cattle.

His informa " tion led us to believe that he might be able " to complete the departments before we moved " from Vellore ; but such was the disappoint " ment, that on the evening before our move " the General was under the necessity of leaving " S000 bags of rice upon the ground, and turn " ing over that number of bullocks to theCom " missary-general of ordnance and stores. " The quantum of rice in the Commissary of " Grain's custody, with the number of men en " titled to receive it, when issued, could have <t a et ti a a tt a a a a it ii <t a a a been given to you in a second ; but that, also, has been subject to fluctuation. " Since the late French corps in the Nizam's service has been modelled, and has agreed to receive British officers, they have entitled themselves to an issue of rice equally with our own.

" It appears, therefore, that by a rough estimate the numbers will stand as follows : Europeans - 5,000 Native Troops, Gun Lascars, and ■) . ,. ft _ _ " Pioneers ------- S Col. Robert's Detachment ... 5,883 Late French Corps, and Major Grant's 6,000 " Total 31,938 " The Commissary of Grain has got 12,000 bullock load of rice, or 864,000 seers; which, at one seer per man per day, gives 27 days' rice, and, consequently, at half a seer per man, 54 days. I calculate that we may start from Rayacottah the 1st of March : we must therefore provide for " March 31 days " April 30 " May 31 " Total 92 days, at least. " If the siege of Seringapatam be prosecuted, " the place must fall in all May, or probably !" not this season. " You know, however, that unless the follow " ers of an army be fed as well as the fighting '' men, the consequences may be serious: when, " therefore, I said that too much could not be " done, I said so from a conviction, that starving " a war in any shape is the worst sort of eco " nomy.

There is reason to believe that the " supplies now collecting by you will cover " our wants. " I am happy to acquaint you, that Major " General Floyd, with three regiments of ca " valry, and the whole of our left wing, move " forward to-morrow morning, to take up such " a position as in your judgment may be best " adapted to afford general protection to your " Binjarries and supplies. " On farther consideration, it would appear " practicable to prevail on the native troops to " carry eight seers, instead of six, at starting. " Can you send forward that additional quan " tity?" On the 23d of February, I wrote to Colonel Read- " I perceive, by report from Macleod this " evening, that grain of all kinds abounds in " the route of the army." And again, on the 27th, to Colonel Read : " I had before written M you, that grain of all kinds abounded within " our camp."

On the 26th, I had written to Major-General Floyd as follows : — " My dear Sir, " The General has desired me to ac- " knowledge the receipt of your letter to the " Adjutant-General of the 25th instant, and " to express his surprise at Captain Leonard's " having neglected to obtain the signature of " the Commissary of Grain to the indent for " gram, which he could not but know wa3 a " necessary and indispensable voucher to the " Commissary's servant for the issue of any " grain in his master's custody. " Whatever inconvenience arises from this " delay and disappointment, would appear " solely to be attributed to this omission on " the part of Captain Leonard. The General " would hope that the other gram agents, who " may have indented upon Major Hart, have " shewn more attention, and that their bullocks " will return either laden or empty.

" Major Hart's letter is sent to you ; and I " have written to Mr. Skarden, at Vellore, to " send off the bullocks directly for Kistnager'ry, " although it be wholly impossible for them to " reach the regiment in time. " The General wishes you to turn in your " mind the expediency of commencing to mix a " little dry grain with the gram for the feed of " the horses. Grant, of the body guard, who " did not lose one horse from sickness the whole fi of last war, generally fed his troop on raggey." Under these circumstances, then, of my close relation to the departments of supply, when taken in reference with my strong sense of the equivocal nature of Major Hart's grain transac tion; had I been called down to the Presidency for examination, can your Lordship doubt that a more detailed exposition of the subject must have appeared on the records, such as could have left no room for future cavil or dispute ?

Major Hart received, from the public stores of Madras, on the 22d of January, 1799, twenty garce of rice. That rice would, no doubt, have reached the camp at Vellore, on or about the 1st of February; that is, about two days after your Lordship arrived there to take the immediate command of the army. Major Hart alleges, that he distributed to his followers all this public grain (a quantity not far short of two hundred thousand rations!) in February; and that, in the course of that month, the whole stock was actually consumed. r*> From the first day of February, until the last, his tent was pitched in the head-quarter line, within a few paces of your Lordship's. For the first fourteen days in February we remained at Vellore, the bazars overflowing with grain; and from day to day, during that time, no subject whatever engaged more anxiously our attention than this of grain, and provisions to be carried forward : and no public officer presented him self more frequently at your Lordship's tent and mine, than Major Hart.

But did he ever intimate a syllable of his having found it necessary, in that period, amidst abundant supplies, to make an issue of rice to his followers ? To me he certainly did not; and I answer with equal confidence for your Lordship. But not only is it true that Major Hart gave no such intimation ; it must be in the judgment of your Lordship that any intimation of the kind would have appeared to you an absurdity so flagrant as must, in all probability, have led to the dis qualification of Major Hart, and removal from his situation. It will also have been seen, by my letters to Colonel Read, if the notoriety of the fact required any confirmation, that, in the last half of February also, grain abounded in the route of the army. It is, therefore, altogether inexplicable, how Major Hart came to issue, in the course of the month of February, to his followers, when grain of all sorts abounded in the bazars, the whole of the twenty garce of rice served out to him at Madras, to be used in scarcity only; on what day in February he commenced issuing (for it cannot rationally be presumed that he made any issues prior to the 1 4th of the month, the day of our forward advance from Vellore); and, moreover, how it happened that his issues in February were so profuse and wasteful, as to expend on his grain followers nearly two hun dred thousand rations, or nearly twenty days' provisions for ten thousand men, while there was no want of grain.

The rice served out to Major Hart was public rice, and for a public purpose. It was a sacred public trust; and had I been called down to Ma dras for examination, Major Hart must, probably, have explained why, when he expended, as he stated, in February, in a season of plenty, these two hundred thousand rations, to be used only in periods of scarcity, he abstained from any report of the measure to your Lordship or to me, and abstained from any application for a fresh supply, while there was so much time and faci lity for procuring it. Is it possible for any ingenuity to devise a justification for Majof Hart's neglecting to report to us, in clear con-formity to the dictates and obligations of public principle and duty, the very important circum stance of the expenditure of this public grain ?; I do not admit 'of any right in Major Hart to dispose of this rice wantonly at his discretion, or to issue one ration of it without a report of the circumstance to your Lordship; and I call upon your Lordship, in the most serious man ner, to say what must have been the course of proceeding towards this officer, if, on the day we entered the enemy's country, information had been received by you of the unauthorised issue of the whole of his public store?

Let me beg your Lordship to recal to mind the stern look, and indignant tone, with which Marquis Cornwallis would have received similar information concerning the behaviour of a com missary in his army, had such a circumstance occurred when he commanded. — Certainly, if there be one feature in this case more extraordinary than another, it is the guarded and per severing silence of Major Hart on the subject. Nay, so well did he succeed in keeping his secret, that, when he afterwards, in camp before Seringapatam, made a tender of private grain for sale, I, for one, although charged with the superintendance of his department, was either ignorant of, or had forgotten, the deli very to him of a store of rice for the use of his followers, made at Madras by the Military Board. Had I then been aware of it, it will readily occur to your Lordship, that the pro ceedings on the tender might have assumed another shape.

It has been observed, that Major Hart, when he expended, as he alleges, his stock of public grain, abstained from any application for a fresh supply. His own account of this matter, as given in his letter of the 31st of October, 1800, to the Court of Directors, is well deserv ing of your Lordship's attention. After de scribing that the rice delivered out to him by the storekeeper at Madras was distributed, and actually consumed, so early as the month of February, he adds:> — " Finding that no more " rice could conveniently be obtained from the " public store, I employed agents to collect it " from the bazars at Madras ,- and I continued " to. purchase what rice could be obtained at " the different country bazars near which the " army passed." Upon this two questions obviously occur, the solution of which will be likely to put the sub ject in a point of view that shall carry conviction on its merits home to every understanding.

The first question is this: — In what way, or from whom, did Major Hart find that no more rice could conveniently be obtained from the public stores? — He here admits, and with great propriety, that if rice could be got from the public store, it was his duty there to apply for it. But he found, he says, that no more rice could conveniently be obtained from thence. If he found this from me, or from your Lord ship, let him now. establish the point by reference to letter, or other authentic evidence. I have.no knowledge or recollection of any in convenience that would have attended an issue of rice from the public store of Vellore, or of Arnee, or from stores in the Bara Mahal, for a legitimate object: so far from it, indeed, that I find, in my letter-book, recorded instructions both to the storekeeper of Vellore, and to the commissary in the ceded districts, of date the 23d of February, and the 5th of March, direct ing them to deliver rice to various persons there designated, Binjarries and others, in any quantities, for which application, in the pre scribed form, should be made.