by Edmund Burke
The propagators of the calumnies against that House of Parliament have been indefatigable in exaggerating the supposed injury done to the East India Company by the suspension of the authorities which they have in every instance abused, — as if power had been wrested by wrong and violence from just and prudent hands; but they have, with equal care, concealed the weighty grounds and reasons on which that House had adopted the most moderate of all possible expedients for rescuing the natives of India from oppression, and for saving the interests of the real and honest proprietors of their stock, as well as that great national, commercial concern, from imminent ruin.
The ministers aforesaid have also caused it to be reported that the House of Commons have confiscated the property of the East India Company. It is the reverse of truth. The whole management was a trust for the proprietors, under their own inspection, (and it was so provided for in the bill,) and under the inspection of Parliament. That bill, so far from confiscating the Company’s property, was the only one which, for several years past, did not, in some shape or other, affect their property, or restrain them in the disposition of it.
It is proper that his Majesty and all his people should be informed that the House of Commons have proceeded, with regard to the East India Company, with a degree of care, circumspection, and deliberation, which has not been equalled in the history of Parliamentary proceedings. For sixteen years the state and condition of that body has never been wholly out of their view. In the year 1767 the House took those objects into consideration, in a committee of the whole House. The business was pursued in the following year. In the year 1772 two committees were appointed for the same purpose, which examined into their affairs with much diligence, and made very ample reports. In the year 1773 the proceedings were carried to an act of Parliament, which proved ineffectual to its purpose. The oppressions and abuses in India have since rather increased than diminished, on account of the greatness of the temptations, and convenience of the opportunities, which got the better of the legislative provisions calculated against ill practices then in their beginnings; insomuch that, in 1781, two committees were again instituted, who have made seventeen reports. It was upon the most minute, exact, and laborious collection and discussion of facts, that the late House of Commons proceeded in the reform which they attempted in the administration of India, but which has been frustrated by ways and means the most dishonorable to his Majesty’s government, and the most pernicious to the Constitution of this kingdom. His Majesty was so sensible of the disorders in the Company’s administration, that the consideration of that subject was no less than six times recommended to this House in speeches from the throne.
The result of the Parliamentary inquiries has been, that the East India Company was found totally corrupted, and totally perverted from the purposes of its institution, whether political or commercial; that the powers of war and peace given by the charter had been abused, by kindling hostilities in every quarter for the purposes of rapine; that almost all the treaties of peace they have made have only given cause to so many breaches of public faith; that countries once the most flourishing are reduced to a state of indigence, decay, and depopulation, to the diminution of our strength, and to the infinite dishonor of our national character; that the laws of this kingdom are notoriously, and almost in every instance, despised; that the servants of the Company, by the purchase of qualifications to vote in the General Court, and, at length, by getting the Company itself deeply in their debt, have obtained the entire and absolute mastery in the body by which they ought to have been ruled and coerced. Thus their malversations in office are supported, instead of being checked by the Company. The whole of the affairs of that body are reduced to a most perilous situation; and many millions of innocent and deserving men, who are under the protection of this nation, and who ought to be protected by it, are oppressed by a most despotic and rapacious tyranny. The Company and their servants, having strengthened themselves by this confederacy, set at defiance the authority and admonitions of this House employed to reform them; and when this House had selected certain principal delinquents, whom they declared it the duty of the Company to recall, the Company held out its legal privileges against all reformation, positively refused to recall them, and supported those who had fallen under the just censure of this House with new and stronger marks of countenance and approbation.
The late House, discovering the reversed situation of the Company, by which the nominal servants are really the masters, and the offenders are become their own judges, thought fit to examine into the state of their commerce; and they have also discovered that their commercial affairs are in the greatest disorder; that their debts have accumulated beyond any present or obvious future means of payment, at least under the actual administration of their affairs; that this condition of the East India Company has begun to affect the sinking fund itself, on which the public credit of the kingdom rests, — a million and upwards being due to the customs, which that House of Commons whose intentions towards the Company have been so grossly misrepresented were indulgent enough to respite. And thus, instead of confiscating their property, the Company received without interest (which in such a case had been before charged) the use of a very large sum of the public money. The revenues are under the peculiar care of this House, not only as the revenues originate from us, but as, on every failure if the funds set apart for the support of the national credit, or to provide for the national strength and safety, the task of supplying every deficiency falls upon his Majesty’s faithful Commons, this House must, in effect, tax the people. The House, therefore, at every moment, incurs the hazard of becoming obnoxious to its constituents.
The enemies of the late House of Commons resolved, if possible, to bring on that event. They therefore endeavored to misrepresent the provident means adopted by the House of Commons for keeping off this invidious necessity, as an attack on the rights of the East India Company: for they well knew, that, on the one hand, if, for want of proper regulation and relief, the Company should become insolvent, or even stop payment, the national credit and commerce would sustain a heavy blow; and that calamity would be justly imputed to Parliament, which, after such long inquiries, and such frequent admonitions from his Majesty, had neglected so essential and so urgent an article of their duty: on the other hand, they knew, that, wholly corrupted as the Company is, nothing effectual could be done to preserve that interest from ruin, without taking for a time the national objects of their trust out of their hands; and then a cry would be industriously raised against the House of Commons, as depriving British subjects of their legal privileges. The restraint, being plain and simple, must be easily understood by those who would be brought with great difficulty to comprehend the intricate detail of matters of fact which rendered this suspension of the administration of India absolutely necessary on motives of justice, of policy, of public honor, and public safety.
The House of Commons had not been able to devise a method by which the redress of grievances could be effected through the authors of those grievances; nor could they imagine how corruptions could be purified by the corrupters and the corrupted; nor do we now conceive how any reformation can proceed from the known abettors and supporters of the persons who have been guilty of the misdemeanors which Parliament has reprobated, and who for their own ill purposes have given countenance to a false and delusive state of the Company’s affairs, fabricated to mislead Parliament and to impose upon the nation.
Your Commons feel, with a just resentment, the inadequate estimate which your ministers have formed of the importance of this great concern. They call on us to act upon the principles of those who have not inquired into the subject, and to condemn those who with the most laudable diligence have examined and scrutinized every part of it. The deliberations of Parliament have been broken; the season of the year is unfavorable; many of us are new members, who must be wholly unacquainted with the subject, which lies remote from the ordinary course of general information.
We a
re cautioned against an infringement of the Constitution; and it is impossible to know what the secret advisers of the crown, who have driven out the late ministers for their conduct in Parliament, and have dissolved the late Parliament for a pretended attack upon prerogative, will consider as such an infringement. We are not furnished with a rule, the observance of which can make us safe from the resentment of the crown, even by an implicit obedience to the dictates of the ministers who have advised that speech; we know not how soon those ministers may be disavowed, and how soon the members of this House, for our very agreement with them, may be considered as objects of his Majesty’s displeasure. Until by his Majesty’s goodness and wisdom the late example is completely done away, we are not free.
We are well aware, in providing for the affairs of the East, with what an adult strength of abuse, and of wealth and influence growing out of that abuse, his Majesty’s Commons had, in the last Parliament, and still have, to struggle. We are sensible that the influence of that wealth, in a much larger degree and measure than at any former period, may have penetrated into the very quarter from whence alone any real reformation can be expected.
If, therefore, in the arduous affairs recommended to us, our proceedings should be ill adapted, feeble, and ineffectual, — if no delinquency should be prevented, and no delinquent should be called to account, — if every person should be caressed, promoted, and raised in power, in proportion to the enormity of his offences, — if no relief should be given to any of the natives unjustly dispossessed of their rights, jurisdictions, and properties, — if no cruel and unjust exactions should be forborne, — if the source of no peculation or oppressive gain should be cut off, — if, by the omission of the opportunities that were in our hands, our Indian empire should fall into ruin irretrievable, and in its fall crush the credit and overwhelm the revenues of this country, — we stand acquitted to our honor and to our conscience, who have reluctantly seen the weightiest interests of our country, at times the most critical to its dignity and safety, rendered the sport of the inconsiderate and unmeasured ambition of individuals, and by that means the wisdom of his Majesty’s government degraded in the public estimation, and the policy and character of this renowned nation rendered contemptible in the eyes of all Europe.
It passed in the negative.
ARTICLES OF CHARGE OF HIGH CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS AGAINST WARREN HASTINGS, ESQUIRE
For years Burke pursued impeachment efforts against Warren Hastings, formerly Governor-General of Bengal, that resulted in his famous trial in 1786. His interaction with the British dominion of India began well before Hastings’ impeachment trial. For two decades prior to the impeachment, Parliament had dealt with the Indian issue. This trial was the pinnacle of years of unrest and deliberation. In 1781 Burke was first able to analyse the issues surrounding the East India Company when he was appointed Chairman of the Commons Select Committee on East Indian Affairs—from that point until the end of the trial, India was Burke’s primary concern. This committee was charged “to investigate alleged injustices in Bengal, the war with Hyder Ali, and other Indian difficulties”. As Burke and the committee focused their attention on these matters, a second ‘secret’ committee was formed to assess the same issues. Both committee reports were written by Burke. Among other purposes, the reports conveyed to the Indian princes that Britain would not wage war on them, along with demanding that the HEIC recall Hastings. This was Burke’s first call for substantive change regarding imperial practices. When addressing the whole House of Commons regarding the committee report, Burke described the Indian issue as one that “began ‘in commerce’ but ‘ended in empire.’“
On 28 February 1785, Burke delivered the famous speech, The Nabob of Arcot’s Debts, wherein he condemned the damage to India by the East India Company. In the province of the Carnatic the Indians had constructed a system of reservoirs to make the soil fertile in a naturally dry region, and centred their society on the husbandry of water. Burke agrued that the advent of British dominion, and in particular the conduct of the East India Company, had destroyed much that was good in these traditions and that, as a consequence of this, and the lack of new customs to replace them, the Indians were suffering. He set about establishing a set of British expectations, whose moral foundation would, in his opinion, warrant the empire.
On 4 April 1786, Burke presented the Commons with the Article of Charge of High Crimes and Misdemeanours against Hastings. The impeachment in Westminster Hall, which did not begin until 14 February 1788, would be regarded by some as the first major public discursive event of its kind in England, bringing the morality and duty of imperialism to the forefront of public perception. Burke was already known for his eloquent rhetorical skills and his involvement in the trial only enhanced its popularity and significance. Burke’s indictment, fuelled by emotional indignation, branded Hastings a ‘captain-general of iniquity’; who never dined without ‘creating a famine’; whose heart was ‘gangrened to the core’, and who resembled both a ‘spider of Hell’ and a ‘ravenous vulture devouring the carcasses of the dead’. The House of Commons eventually impeached Hastings, but subsequently, the House of Lords acquitted him of all charges.
Warren Hastings (1732-1818), the English statesman was the first Governor of the Presidency of Fort William (Bengal), the head of the Supreme Council of Bengal, and thereby the first de facto Governor-General of India from 1773 to 1785.
CONTENTS
I. — ROHILLA WAR.
II. — SHAH ALLUM.
III. — BENARES.
PART I. RIGHTS AND TITLES OF THE RAJAH OF BENARES.
PART II. DESIGNS OF MR. HASTINGS TO RUIN THE RAJAH OF BENARES.
PART III. EXPULSION OF THE RAJAH OF BENARES.
PART IV. SECOND REVOLUTION IN BENARES.
PART V. THIRD REVOLUTION IN BENARES.
IV. — PRINCESSES OF OUDE.
V. — REVOLUTIONS IN FURRUCKABAD.
VI. — DESTRUCTION OF THE RAJAH OF SAHLONE.
Edmund Burke by John Henry Robinson, after Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1774
ARTICLES OF CHARGE
OF
HIGH CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS
AGAINST
WARREN HASTINGS, ESQUIRE
LATE GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF BENGAL:
PRESENTED TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS
IN APRIL AND MAY, 1786.
ARTICLES I.-VI.
I. — ROHILLA WAR.
That the Court of Directors of the East India Company, from a just sense of the danger and odium incident to the extension of their conquests in the East Indies, and from an experience of the disorders and corrupt practices which intrigues and negotiations to bring about revolutions among the country powers had produced, did positively and repeatedly direct their servants in Bengal not to engage in any offensive war whatsoever. That the said Court laid it down as an invariable maxim, which ought ever to be maintained, that they were to avoid taking part in the political schemes of any of the country princes, — and did, in particular, order and direct that they should not engage with a certain prince called Sujah ul Dowlah, Nabob of Oude, and Vizier of the Empire, in any operations beyond certain limits in the said orders specially described.
That Warren Hastings, Esquire, then Governor of Fort William in Bengal, did, with other members of the Council, declare his clear understanding of the true intent and meaning of the said positive and repeated orders and injunctions, — did express to the Court of Directors his approbation of the policy thereof, — did declare that he adopted the same with sincerity and satisfaction, and that he was too well aware of the ruinous tendency of all schemes of conquest ever to adopt them, or ever to depart from the absolute line of self-defence, unless impelled to it by the most obvious necessity, — did signify to the Nabob of Oude the said orders, and his obligation to yield punctual obedience thereto, — and did solemnly engage and promise to the Court of Directors, with the unanimous concurrence of the whole Council, “that no object or consideration should either tempt or compel
him to pass the political line which they [the Directors] had laid down for his operations with the Vizier,” assuring the Court of Directors that he “scarce saw a possible advantage which could compensate the hazard and expense to be incurred by a contrary conduct,” — that he did frequently repeat the same declarations, or declarations to the same effect, particularly in a letter to the Nabob himself, of the 22d of November, 1773, in the following words: “The commands of my superiors are, as I have repeatedly informed you, peremptory, that I shall not suffer their arms to be carried beyond the line of their own boundaries, and those of your Excellency, their ally.”
That the said Warren Hastings, in direct contradiction to the said orders, and to his own sense of their propriety and coercive authority, and in breach of his express promises and engagements, did, in September, 1773, enter into a private engagement with the said Nabob of Oude, who was the special object of the prohibition, to furnish him, for a stipulated sum of money to be paid to the East India Company, with a body of troops for the declared purpose of “thoroughly extirpating the nation of the Rohillas”: a nation from whom the Company had never received, or pretended to receive or apprehend, any injury whatsoever; whose country, in the month of February, 1773, by an unanimous resolution of the said Warren Hastings and his Council, was included in the line of defence against the Mahrattas; and from whom the Nabob never complained of an aggression or act of hostility, nor pretended a distinct cause of quarrel, other than the non-payment of a sum of money in dispute between him and that people.