The works and correspondence of...Edmund Burke

Contents

VOL. VII.

VAGE

Articles of Charge against "Warren Hastings, Esq. (continued) . . 1 Speeches in the Impeachment of "Warren Hastings, Esq 271

I

That the reigning nabob of Oude, commonly called Asoph ul Dowla (son and successor to Sujah ul Dowla), by taking into or continuing in his pay certain bodies of regular British troops, and by having afterwards admitted the British resident at his court into the management of all his affairs, foreign and domestic, and particularly into the administration of his finances, did gradually become in substance and effect, as well as in general repute and estimation, a dependent on, or vassal of, the East India Company ; and was, and is, so much under the control of the governor-general and council of Bengal, that, in the opinion of aU the native powers, the English name and character is concerned in every act of his government.

II

That Warren Hastings, Esquire, contrary to law, and to his duty, and in disobedience to the orders of the East India Company, arrogating to himself the nomination of the resident at the court of Oude, as his particular agent and representative, and rejecting the resident appointed by the company, and obtruding upon them a person of his own choice, did from that time render himself in a particular manner responsible for the good government of the provinces composing the dominions of the nabob of Oude.

B 2

III

That the provinces aforesaid, having been at the time of their first connexion with the company in an improved and flourishing condition, and yielding a revenue of more than three millions of pounds sterhng, or thereabouts, did soon after that period begin sensibly to decline ; and the subsidy of the British troops stationed in that province, as well as other sums of money due to the company by treaty ran considerably in arrear ; although the prince of the country, during the time these arrears accrued, was otherwise in distress, and had been obliged to reduce all his establishments.

IV

That the prince aforesaid, or nabob of Oude, did, in humble and submissive terms, supplicate the said Warren Hastings to be relieved from a body of troops, whose licentious behaviour he complained of, and who were stationed in his country without any obligation by treaty to maintain them ; pleading the failure of harvest and the prevalence of famine in his country ; a compliance with which request by the said Warren Hastings was refused in unbecoming, offensive, and insulting language.

That the said nabob, labouring under the aforesaid and other burdens, and being continually urged for payment, was advised to extort, and did extort, from his mother and grandmother, under the pretext of loans (and sometimes without that appearance), various great sums of money, amounting in the whole to 6-30,000^. sterling, or thereabouts ; alleging in excuse the rigorous demands of the East India Company, for whose use the said extorted money had been demanded, and to which a considerable part of it had been applied.

VI

That the two female parents of the nabob aforesaid were among the women of the greatest rank, family, and distinction in Asia ; and were left by the deceased nabob, the son of the one, and the husband of the other, in charge of a certain considerable part of his treasures in money and other valuable movables, as well as certain landed estates, called jaghires, in order to the support of their own dignity, and the honourable maintenance of his women, and a numerous ofispring, and their dependants ; the said family

AGAINST WARREN HASTINGS, ESQ. O

amounting in the whole to two thousand persons, who were by the said nabob, at his death, recommended in a particular manner to the care and protection of the said Warren Hastings.

VII

That on the demand of the nabob of Oude on his parents for the last of the sums, which completed the six hundred and thirty thousand pounds aforesaid, they the said parents did positively refuse to pay any part of the same to their son for the use of the company, until he should agree to certain terms to be stipulated in a regular treaty ; and among other particulars to secure them in the remainder of their possessions, and also on no account or pretence to make any further demands or claims on them ; and, well knowing from whence all his claims and exactions had arisen, they demanded that the said treaty, or family compact, should be guaranteed by the governor-general and council of Bengal ; and a treaty was accordingly agreed to, executed by the nabob, and guaranteed by John Bristow, Esquire, the resident at Oude, under the authority, and with the express consent, of the said Warren Hastings and the council-general, and, in consequence thereof, the sum last required was paid, and discharges given to the nabob for all the money which he had borrowed from his own mother and the mother of his father.

That the distresses and disorders in the nabob's government, and his debt to the company continuing to increase, notwithstanding the violent methods before mentioned taken to augment his resources, the said Warren Hastings, on the 21st of May, and on the 31st July, 1781, (he and Mr. Wheler being the only remaining members of the council-general, and he having the conclusive and casting-voice, and thereby being in effect the whole council,) did, in the name and under the authority of the board, resolve on a journey to the upper provinces, in order to a personal interview with the nabob of Oude, towards the settlement of his distressed affairs ; and did give to himself a delegation of the powers of the said council, in direct violation of the company's orders, forbidding such delegation.

VIII

That the said Warren Hastings, having by his appointment met the nabob of Oude near a place called Chunar, and possessing an entire and absolute command over the said prince, did, contrary to justice and equity, and the security of property as well as to public faith, and the sanction of the company's guarantee, under the colour of a treaty, which treaty was conducted secretly without a written document of any part of the proceeding (except the pretended treaty itself), authorize the said nabob to seize upon, and confiscate to his own profit, the landed estates, called jaghires, of his parents, kindred, and principal nobility ; only stipulating a pension to the net amount of the rent of the said lands as an equivalent, and that equivalent to such only whose lands had been guaranteed to them by the company ; but provided neither in the said pretended treaty, nor in any subsequent act, the least security for the payment of the said pension to those for whom such pension was ostensibly reserved ; and, for the others, not so much as a show of indemnity ; — to the extreme scandal of the British government, which, valuing itself upon a strict regard to property, did expressly authorize, if it did not command, an attack upon that right, unprecedented in the despotic governments of India.

IX

That the said Warren Hastings, in order to cover the violent and unjust proceedings aforesaid, did assert a claim of right in the same nabob to all the possessions of his said mother and grandmother, as belonging to him by the Mahomedan law ; and this pretended claim was set up by the said Warren Hastings, after the nabob had, by a regular treaty ratified and guaranteed by the said Hastings as governor-general, renounced and released all demands on them. And this false pretence of a legal demand was taken up and acted upon by the said Warren Hastings, without laying the said question on record before the council-general, or giving notice to the persons to be affected thereby, to support their rights before any of the principal magistrates and expounders of the ^lahomedan law, or taking publicly the opinions of any person conversant therein.

X

That in order to give further colour to the acts of HI faith and violence aforesaid, the said Warren Hastings did cause to be taken at Lucknow, and other places, before divers persons, and particularly before Sir Elijah Impey, Knight, his majesty's chief justice, acting extra-judicially, and not within the limits of his jurisdiction, several passionate, careless, irrelevant, and irregular affidavits, consistmg of matter not fit to be deposed on oath; of reports, conjectures, and hearsays; some of the persons swearing to the said hearsays having declined to declare from whom they heard the accounts at second-hand sworn to ; the said affidavits in general tending to support the calumnious charge of the said Warren Hastings, namely, that the aged women before mentioned had formed or engaged in a plan for the deposition of their son and sovereign, and the utter extirpation of the English nation: and neither the said charge against persons, whose dependence was principally, if not wholly, on the good faith of this nation, and highly affecting the honour, property, and even lives, of women of the highest condition ; nor the affidavits intended to support the same, extra-judicially taken ex parte, and without notice, by the said Sir Elijah Impey, and others, were at any time communicated to the parties charged, or to any agent for them ; nor were they called upon to answer, nor any explanation demanded of them.

XI

That the article afifecting private property secured by public acts, in the said pretended treaty, contains nothing more than a general permission, given by the said Warren Hastings, confiscating such jaghires, or landed estates, with the modifications therein contained, " as he [the nabob] may find necessary ;■" but does not directly point at, or express by name, any of the landed possessions of the nabob's mother. But soon after the signing of the said pretended treaty (that is, on the 29th of November, 1781), it did appear that a principal object thereof was to enable the nabob to seize upon the estates of his female parents aforesaid, which had been guaranteed to them by the East India Company. And although in the treaty, or pretended treaty, aforesaid, nothing more is purported than to give a simple permission to the nabob to seize upon and confiscate the estates, leaving the execution or non-execution of the same wholly to his discretion, yet it appears, by several letters from Nathaniel Middleton, Esquire, the resident at the court of Oude, of the 6th, 7th, and 9th of December, 1781, that no such discretion, as expressed in the treaty, was left, or intended to be left, with him the said nabob ; but that the said article ought practically to have a construction of a directly contrary tendency ; that instead of considering the article as originating from the nabob, and containing a power provided in his favour, which he did not possess before, the confiscation of the jaghires aforesaid was to be considered as a measure from the English, and to be intended for their benefit, and as such, that the execution was to be forced upon him ; and the execution thereof was accordingly forced upon him.

And the resident, Middleton, on the nabob's refusal to act in contradiction to his sworn engagement guaranteed by the East India Company, and in the undutiful and unnatural manner required, did totally supersede his authority in his own dominions, considering himself as empowered so to act by the instructions of the said Hastings, although he had reason to apprehend a general insurrection in consequence thereof, and that he found it necessary to remove his family, " which he did not wish to retain there, in case of a rupture with the nabob, or the necessity of employing the British forces in the reduction of his aumils and troops ;" and he did accordingly, as sovereign, issue his own edicts and warrants, in defiance of the resistance of the nabob, in the manner by him described in the lett-ers aforesaid, in a letter of 6th December, 1781, that is to say, " Finding the nabob wavering in his determination about the resumption of the jaghires, I this day, in presence of and with the minister's concurrence, ordered the necessary perwannahs to be written to the several aumils for that purpose ; and it was my firm resolution to have dispatched them this evening, with proper people to see them punctually and implicitly carried into execution ; but before they were all transcribed I received a message from the nabob, who had been informed by the minister of the resolution I had taken, entreating that I would withhold the perwannahs until to-morrow morning, when he would attend me, and afford me satisfaction on this point.

As the loss of a few hours in the dispatch of the perwannahs appeared of Uttle moment, and as it is possible the nabob, seeing that the business will at all events be done, may make it an act of his own, I have consented to indulge him in his requests ; but, be the result of our interview whatever it may, nothing shall prevent the orders being issued to-morrow, either by him or myself, with the concurrence of the ministers. Your pleasiu-e respecting the begums I have learnt from Sir Elijah; and the measure heretofore proposed will soon follow the resumption of the jaghires. From both, or indeed from the former alone, I have no doubt of the complete liquidation of the company's balance." And also in another letter of the 7th December, 1781, " I had the honour to address you yesterday, informing you of the steps I had taken in regard to the resumption of the jaghires. This morning the vizier cams to ms according to his agreement, hut seemingly vnthout any iririention or desire to yield me satisfaction on the subject under discussion ; for after a great deal of conversation, consistinq on his part of trifling evasion, and pueri,le excuses for withholding his assent to the mmsure, though at the same time professing the most implicit submission to your wishes, I found myself withmt any other resource than the one of employing that exclusive authority, with which I consider your instructions to vest me: I therefore declared to the nabob, in presence of the minister and Mr. Johnson, who I desired might hear witness of the conversation, that I construed his rejection of the measure proposed as a hreach of his solemn promise to you, and an unwillingness to yield that assistance, which was evidently in his power, towards liquidating his heavy accumulating debt to the company, and that I must in consequence determine in my own justification, to issue immediately the perwannahs, which had only been withheld in the sanguine hope that he would be prevailed upon to make that his own act, which nothing but the most urgent necessity could force me to maJce mine.

He left me without any reply ; but afterwards sent for his minister, and authorized him to give me hopes that my requisition would be complied with ; on which I expressed my satisfaction, but declared that I could admit of no further delays ; and unless I received his excellency's formal acquiescence before the evening, I should then most assuredly issue my perwannahs ; which / have accordingly done, not having had any assurances from his excellency that could justify a further suspension. I shall, as soon as possible, inform you of the effects of the perwannahs, which, in many parts, I am apprehensive it will be found necessary to enforce with military aid. I am not, however, entirely without hopes that the nabob, when he sees the inefficacy of further opposition, may alter his conduct, and prevent the confusion and disagreeable consequences lohich would be too likely to result from the prosecution of a measxire of such importance without his concurrence. His excellency talks of going to Fyzabad, for the purpose heretofore mentioned, in three or four days ; / wish he may be serious in his intention, and you may rest assured / shall spare no pains to keep him to it.'"" And further, in a letter of the 9 th December, 1781 : " I had the honour to address you on. the 7th instant, informing you of the conversation which had passed between the nabob and me, on the subject of resuming the jaghires, and the step I had taken in consequence. His excellency appeared to be very much hurt and incensed at the measure ; and loudly complains of the treacliery of his ministers ; first, in giving you any hopes that such a measure would be adopted ; and secondly, in their promising me their whole support in carrying it through: but, as I apprehend, rather than suffer it to appear that the point had been carried in opposition to his will, he at length yielded to a nominal acquiescence, and has this day issued his own perwannahs to that effect: declaring, however, at the same time, both to me and his ministers, that it is an act of compulsion. I hope to be able in a few days, in consequence of this measure, to transmit you an account of the actual value and produce of the jaghires, opposed to the nominal amount at which they stand rated on the books of the sircar."

XII

That the said Warren Hastings, instead of expressmg any disapprobation of the proceedings aforesaid, in violation of the rights secured by treaty with the mother and grandmother of the reigning prince of Oude, and not less in violation of the sovereign rights of the nabob himself, did by frequent messages stimulate the said ISIiddleton to a perseverance in, and to a rigorous execution of, the same ; and in his letter from Benares of the 25th December, 178], did " express doubts of his firmness and activity, and above aU, of his recollection of his instructions, and their importance; and that, if he could not rely on his own [power] and the means he possessed for performing those services, he would free Mm [the said Middleton] from the charges, and would proceed himself to Lucknow, and would Ai»ise^ undertake them."

XIII

That very doubtful credit is to be given to any letters written by the said Middleton to the said Warren Hastings, when they answer the purposes which the said Warren Hastings had evidently in view, the said iliddleton having written to him in the following manner from Lucknow, .30th December, 1761 :

XIV. " ily dear Sir

" I have this day answered your pvhUc letter in the form you seem to expect. I hope there is nothing in it that may appear to you too pointed. If you vnsh the matter to he otherwise mtderstood than 1 have taien tip and stated it, I need not say I shall he ready to conform to whatever you may prescribe, and to taie upon myself any share of the hlame of the {hitherto) non-performance of the stipulations made on behalf of the nahoh. Though I do assure you I myself represented to his excellency and the mioisters, conceiving it to be your desire, that the apparent assumption of the reins of his government (for in that light he undoubtedly considered it at the first view) as specified in the agreement executed by him, was not meant to be fuUy and UteraUy enforced, but that it was necessary you should hate something to show on your side, as the company were deprived of a benefit unthout a requital; and upon the faith of this assurance alone, I believe I may safely affirm his excellency's objections to signing the treaty were given up. If I have understood the matter wrong, or misconceived your design, I am truly sorry for it ; hoKvter, it is not too late to correct the error ; and I am ready to undertake, and, God tcillinei.

AGAINST WAREEN nASTINGS, ESQ. 11

io carry through, whatever you may, on receipt of my public letter, tell ms is your final resolved

XV

That it appears, but on his the said Middleton's sole authority, in a letter from the said Middleton, dated Lucknow, 2nd December, 1781, that the nabob of Oude, wishing to evade the measure of resuming the jaghires aforesaid, did send a message to him, purpoi-ting, " that if the measure proposed was intended to procure the payment of the balance due to the company, he could better and more expeditiously effect that object by taking from his mother the treasures of his father, which he did assert to be in her hands, and to which he did claim a right : and that it would be sufficient, that he the said Hastings would hint his opinion upon it, without giving a formal sanction to the measure proposed ; and that whatever his resolution upon the subject should be, it would be expedient to keep it secret ;" adding " the resumption of the jaghires it is necessary to suspend till I have your answer to this letter"