Mr. Sheridan proceeded to shew in how many instances, and at what critical times the sincere friendship of the Begums had distinguished itself, and been exerted in our favour. In that critical moment, when after the affair of Captain Gordon, the interests of Mr. Hastings were, according to his own account, almost desperate; during the whole time, from the 22d of August to the 22d of September, when with a prodigality of truth he truly confessed that the situation of himself and his small party was desperate; — when the hoarded vengeance of Heaven was about to burst, and seemed to wait only for the completion of his guilt in the attempt on Cheit Sing, to break on his head, and precipitate him to ruin — what did they do? Instead of seizing on the crisis to carry into effect any scheme they might have engendered against him — instead of accomplishing his overthrow, which with their aid would at that moment have been certain, these women, with a nobleness worthy of the sex, though ill applied as to the object, came forward to share in, not to contribute to his fall.
So much as to the first head of charge against the Begums. — The second charge, that of their assisting the Jaghiredars, he should say but little on. We learned in February 1782, of the Begums having countenanced the resistance. — True — And they now gave this presumed countenance discovered in February 1782, as a reason which operated to the ruin of the Princesses in November 1781. He took notice also of the curious circumstance of Mr. Middleton’s sending back the troops at the desire of the Nabob; but stating that having done so, the Nabob must pay an extraordinary price in future, as these troops might be employed against his own Aumeels.
He now came to the third charge, said to be established by those affidavits. — That the Begums had been the principal movers of all the commotions in Oude; and here he confessed he thought there was such a body of damning evidence as required only to be stated, and which would render all elucidation unnecessary. The commotions in Oude were simply and solely to be attributed to the English gentlemen. The Nabob’s description of their rapacity and violence was itself a full extention of all that was now to be attributed to the poor old women. He gave a very particular account of their depredations. They had but one argument, consisting of two words. They wanted all the money that could possibly be raised in the country, by violence, by extortion, by rapine, or by stealth, but for two purposes, to pay the army, and fee the administration of Justice. He stated the various steps which had been taken by the Nabob, to deliver his devoted country from their violence, and particularly from the vulture grasp of Colonel Hannay, until at length, as Major Naylor wrote, a gentleman, whose soul possessed the qualities of his species, “the inhabitants, whose meek natures no irritation had been theretofore able to provoke, were at length goaded into tumult; and in their despair, that meekness, that yielding, and womanish softness which characterized every action, changed to a persevering obstinacy that was not to be subdued.” — So that on the banks of the Ganges where the insurrection happened, the routed would not fly, the wounded would not suffer themselves to be cured. — Here again we had opened to us another vein of the richest and purest eloquence, and which in daring to touch, we are sensible we shall debase.
If, exclaims Mr. Sheridan, if a stranger had at this time (in 1782) gone into the kingdom of Oude, ignorant of what had happened since the death of Sujah Dowla, that man who with a savage heart had still great lines of character, and who with all his ferocity in war, had still with a cultivating hand preserved to his country the riches which it derived from benignant skies, and a prolific soil — if this stranger, ignorant of all that had happened in the short interval, and observing the wide and general devastation, and all the horrors of the scene — of plains uncloathed and brown — of vegetation burnt up and extinguished — of villages depopulated and in ruin — of temples unroofed and perishing — of reservoirs broken down and dry — he would naturally enquire, what war has thus laid waste the fertile fields of this once beautiful and opulent country — what civil dissensions have happened thus to tear asunder, and separate the happy societies that once possessed those villages — What disputed succession — What religious rage has, with unholy violence, demolished those temples, and disturbed servant, but unobtruding piety, in the exercise of its duties — What merciless enemy has thus spread the horrors of fire and sword — What severe visitation of Providence has thus dried up the fountains, and taken from the face of the earth every vestige of green? — Or rather, what monsters have stalked over the country, tainting and poisoning with pestiferous breath, what the voracious appetite could not devour? — To such question, what must be the answer? No wars have ravaged these lands and depopulated these villages — No civil discords have been felt — No disputed succession — No religious rage — No merciless enemy — No affliction of Providence, which, while it scourged for the moment, cut off the sources of resuscitation — No voracious and poisoning monsters — No — All this has been accomplished by the friendship, generosity, and kindness of the English nation — They have embraced us with their protecting arms — and, lo, these are the fruits of their alliance. What then, shall we be told, that under such circumstances, the exasperated feelings of a whole people, thus goaded and spurred on to clamour and resistance, were excited by the poor and feeble influence of the Begums! When we hear from Capt. Naylor the description that he gives of the paroxysm, fever, and delirium, into which despair had thrown the natives, when on the banks of the polluted Ganges, panting for death, they tore more widely open the lips of their gaping wounds, to accelerate their dissolution, and while their blood was issuing, presented their ghastly eyes to Heaven, breathing their last and fervent prayer that the dry earth might not be suffered to drink their blood, but that it might rise up to the throne of God, and rouse the eternal Providence to avenge the wrongs of their country. Will it be said that all this was brought about by the incantations of these Begums in their secluded Zenana? or that they could inspire this enthusiasm and this despair into the breasts of a people who felt no grievance, and had suffered no torture? What motive then could have such influence in their bosoms? What motive! That which Nature, the common parent, plants in the bosom of man, and which, though it may be less active in the Indian than in the Englishman, is still congenial with, and makes a part of his being. — That feeling which tells him, that man was never made to be the property of man; but that when in the pride and insolence of power, one human creature dares to tyrannize over another, it is a power usurped, and resistance is a duty. — That feeling which tells him that all power is delegated for the good, not for the injury of the people, and that when it is converted from the original purpose, the compact is broken, and the power is to be resumed. — That principle which tells him that resistance to power usurped is not merely a duty which he owes to himself, and to his neighbour, but a duty which he owes to his God in asserting and maintaining the rank which he gave him in his creation! — To that common God, who, where he gives the form of man, whatever may be the complexion, gives also the feelings and the rights of man. — That principle, which neither the rudeness of ignorance can stifle, nor the enervation of resinement extinguish! — That principle which makes it base for a man to suffer when he ought to act; which tending to preserve to the species the original designations of Providence, spurns at the arrogant distinctions of man, and vindicates the independent quality of his race.
Mr. Sheridan, after this, proceeded to say, that he thought an attentive perusal of all the circumstances, as he had endeavoured to exhibit them to the view of their Lordships, would satisfy them of the innocence of the Begums. But he was sensible that the proof of their innocence carried with it no conclusive proof of the guilt of the prisoner; and this was the next object of his speech. In a close chain of argument, he proved that the rebellion was not projected — was not even in the imagination of Mr. Hastings, until their ruin had been determined; that the rebellion was an afterthought, and was taken up as a means of justification, in the consciousness that justification was necessary. To prove this, he shewed, that
he never wrote to the Council until the month of February; that though he wrote letters to Mr. Wheeler, and though, in his famous narrative, he called the God of Truth to witness that he had made no concealment, he concealed every particle, both of the rebellion and of the plunder, until he had been able to make up the body of rant and craft, rhapsody and enigma, which he produced under the title of “A Narrative of the Transactions.” He shewed, that his pretended reasons for the concealment of five months, were direct fallacies; and having taken pains to elucidate these points, he said, that it had been a practice with Mr. Hastings to hold himself out as a preternatural being, gifted with good fortune, or else the peculiar favourite of Heaven, and that Providence never failed to take up and carry, by wise but hidden means, every project of his to its destined end. In this blasphemous way did the prisoner at the bar libel the course of Providence. Thus, according to him, when his corruptions and briberies were on the eve of exposure, Providence inspired the heart of Nundcomar to commit a low base crime, in order to save Mr. Hastings from ruin. Thus also, when in his attempts on Cheyt `Sing, and his plunder of the Begums, Providence stepped in, and inspired the one with resistance, and the other with rebellion, to forward his purposes. Thus did he arrogantly hold himself forth as a man, not only the favourite of Providence, but as one for whose sake Providence departed from the eternal course of its own wise dispensations. Thus did he presume to say, that he was honoured and assisted in the administration of office by inspired felonies, heaven born armies, and providential treasons! arraigning that Providence whose works are goodness, and whose ways are right.
It seemed, through the whole of his defence upon this charge, that Mr. Hastings, sensible that truth would undo him, thought that falsehood of any nature would serve his turn. In this view he had drawn together a set of falsehoods, without consistency, and without connection, not knowing, or not remembering, that there is nothing which requires so much care in the fabrication as a system of lies. The series must be regular and unbroken; but his falsehoods were eternally at variance, and demolished one another. Indeed, in all his conduct he seemed to be actuated but by one principle — to do things contrary to the established form. This architecture militated against the first principles of the art. He begun with the frieze and the capital, and laid the base of the column at the top. Thus having his house turned up-side down, he plumed himself on the novelty of his idea, till it came trembling about his ears. His fortification was equal to his architecture. He raised a rampart on a spot which the enemy might command: he meant to surround himself with a fosse, but left an opening for the assailant. He built on a precipice, and encamped on a mine.
Perhaps it might be said, that that guilt could not be great, where the veil with which it was covered was so thin. He was not of this opinion. His honourable and exalted friend, who had opened generally to their Lordships the articles of Impeachment, and whose name he never could mention but with the respect and admiration due to his virtue and his talents; whose proud disdain of vice could only be equalled by the ability with which he corrected it; whose eloquence was not transitory, as happily there were portions of it that would be felt and admired, when all of the assembly then present would be mute, and most of them forgotten — his honourable friend had said, in opening the charges, “that there was something in the nature and conformation of vice, which made it inconsistent with prudence.” He could not agree implicitly with his honourable friend in this sentiment. If the true definition of prudence were the discrete management and conduct of a purpose to its successful end, he thought he could imagine to himself instances in which this species of prudence might be discovered in minds distinguished by the atrocity of their acts. When he observed the actions of a Philip of Macedon, of a Caesar, of a Cromwell, he could perceive great guilt successfully conducted to its end, if not by legitimate prudence, at least by consummate craft. It was therefore his opinion, that the doctrine of his honourable friend held true only in those minds which could not be satisfied with the indulgence of a single crime; where, instead of one base master-passion having the complete sway, to which all the faculties were subject, and on which alone the mind was bent, there was a combustion and rivalry among a number of bad passions; where pride, vanity, avarice, lust of power, cruelty, and so forth, all at once actuated the human soul, and distracted its functions, — all of them clamouring for destruction, and each in it own barbarous jargon preferring its claim, — all dissonant and tumultuous, — all of them struggling for pre-eminence and each counteracting the other. In such a mind, undoubtedly, great crimes could never be accompanied by prudence. There was a fortunate disability, occasioned by the contention, that rescued the human species from the villainy of the intention. Such was the original denunciation of Nature. — Not so was it with the pure passions: in the breast where they resided, the harmony was never interrupted by the number; a perfect and substantial agreement gave an accession of vigour to each, and spreading their influence in every direction, like the divine intelligence and benignity from which they flowed, all of them filling their several spaces, some in their larger, some in their more contracted orbits, moving by sweet consent in their allotted place, — they secured true glory and happiness to the individual by whom they were possessed, and extended it to the community of which he was a member.
Mr. Sheridan was then proceeding to shew, that the Nabob had violated the covenant of Nature, in rising up against his mother; but that to this shameless outrage he was driven by the tyranny of the prisoner, who, as he had before said, had made him a slave, to compel him to become — a monster!
[Adjourned to Tuesday.]
MR. SHERIDAN’S SPEECH CONTINUED.
TUESDAY, JUNE THE 10th.
MR. SHERIDAN began without any other preface than this, that relying on the indulgence with which he had been hitherto so largely honored, he would resume his speech, he said, where he had stopped on the preceding day, without taking up any of their Lordships time in preliminary matter. He had left off with that part of the body of evidence which proved the abject state of vassalage in which the Nabob was held, and by which it was, in his opinion, rendered manifest, that every act of his, particularly those strong acts in which he violated every obligation of a son, were done not merely at the instigation, but absolutely at the command of the prisoner. It would not be difficult to prove, that if he had been independent he certainly would not have committed those acts, and this he should be able to demonstrate to their Lordships. But first he begged leave to say, that in the perpetration of those shameful and atrocious crimes which made the subject of the present charge, there were three principal, and three subordinate actors. The three principal, or rather the one great and leading principal, with his two chief coadjutors, were Mr. Hastings, Mr. Middleton, and Sir Elijah Impey. — The three subordinate actors were Colonel Hannay, Hyder Beg Cawn, and Ali Abram Cawn. Before he proceeded to shew that every one of the acts were forcibly imposed on the Nabob, he made some observations on part of the evidence of Sir Elijah Impey. He had given as a reason for not having at any time after he took the affidavits, conversed with Mr. Hastings on the subject to which they alluded, that he quitted Chunar the next day, and that therefore he had not had an opportunity of seeing, in order to converse with him on that or any subject. Mr. Sheridan shewed, from letters written by Sir Elijah and Mr. Hastings, that they had quitted Chunar in company, and had continued together for some time. Sir Elijah had stated also, that he had delivered the affidavits into the hands of Mr. Hastings, and knew nothing of them afterwards. Mr. Sheridan shewed that Major Davie had received the Persian affidavits from Sir Elijah to translate on the 12th of December, although Sir Elijah had said that he gave them to Mr. Hastings previous to his quitting Chunar, which was on the 1st of December. Mr. Sheridan said, he took notice of these facts just to shew the respect that was to be paid to the testimony of Sir Elijah.
With regard to the affidavits as a body of evidence, the whole was mere hearsay and rumour. Captain Scott, who by be
ing in the country where the scene of the rebellion was said to lye, had had a good opportunity of knowing the facts, was not examined, and the testimony of Hoolas Roy, who of all others was the best informed on the subject, was suppressed. That his affidavit was taken was manifest, and he called on the prisoner to say where this affidavit was concealed, and why it was withheld. Mr. Sheridan said, that in the celebrated letter written by Mr. Hastings, dated the 19th of December, his own knowledge of the transactions was the most confused and contradictory that could be imagined. He enumerated the various contradictions of that letter. — He said that Mr. Hastings had made a number of curious assertions in regard to the plunder of the treasures, and resumption of the jaghires. — The proposition was first made to him, that the treasures should be taken as an alternative for the jaghires, but in making that proposition it was said, that they belonged of right to the Nabob. — Mr. Hastings took it in the first sense, as he called it; that was, he determined to seize on the treasures, not as an alternative for the jaghires, but to take them first because the proposition was made, and to take the jaghires afterwards. He was very anxious to have it believed that the proposition came from the Nabob, although, by the whole tenor of Mr. Middleton’s letters, confidential as well as public, it was demonstrated with what difficulty they were able to extort from him his consent to the violence. Mr. Sheridan adverted to the curious letter written by Mr. Hastings to Mr. Middleton and Mr. Johnson, saying that the treaty made by him with the Nabob at Chunar, from its favourable tendency, had given rise to suspicions that money had been taken to procure it, and calling on them to exculpate themselves. — Upon which they with great formality declared on their honours, and before God, that they had neither received any bribe, nor had an idea of any; which declaration, made with so much solemnity, satisfied Mr. Hastings, arising a little perhaps from the consciousness that he had the money in his pocket. Mr. Sheridan proceeded to shew, that so far from these acts being done at the instigation of the Nabob, it was with the utmost difficulty that they could receive from him a formal sanction, and on this subject several letters were read by Mr. Adam, and in particular he reconciled the letters written by Middleton on the 1st and 6th of December, by saying that in regard to the seizure of the treasure of the Begums he only required a hint from Mr. Hastings, but as the resumption of the jaghires was likely to be a service of danger, there nothing less than a public order would satisfy Mr. Middleton. After arguing this point with dexterity, Mr. Sheridan came to the extraordinary letters of Mr. Middleton, dated on the 30th of December, wherein they are intended for the confidential and private use of Mr. Hastings; he denied the truth of what he had said in his public dispatch, which was to be submitted to the Council, and saying at the same time that if Mr. Hastings wished him to say any thing, or to give any other colour to the proceedings, he was ready to do it. Mr. Sheridan, after placing this disgraceful subserviency in so glaring a point of view, requested Mr. Adam to read other letters necessary to illustrate this part of the charge, and to shew the anxious pains and solicitude of Mr. Hastings to establish something like an excuse for the turpitude of his conduct.
Delphi Complete Works of Richard Brinsley Sheridan Page 83