Complete Works of Edmund Burke

by Edmund Burke

  That the said Warren Hastings did recommend to the Council, for a remedy of the disorders and calamities which had arisen from his own acts, dispositions, and appointments, that the administrator aforesaid should be instantly removed from his office, — attributing the aforesaid “irregularities, and many others, solely to him,” although, on his own representation, it does appear that he was the sole cause of the irregularities therein described. Neither does it appear that the administrator, so by the said Hastings nominated and removed, was properly charged and called to answer for the said recited irregularities, or for the many others not recited, but attributed solely to him; nor has any plea or excuse from him been transmitted to the board, or to the Court of Directors; but he was, at the instance of the said Hastings, deprived of his said office, contrary to the principles of natural justice, in a violent and arbitrary manner; which proceeding, combined with the example made of his predecessor, must necessarily leave to the person who should succeed to the said office no distinct principle upon which he might act with safety. But in comparing the consequences of the two delinquencies charged, the failure of the payment of the revenues (from whatever cause it may arise) is more likely to be avoided than any severe course towards the inhabitants: as the former fault was, besides the deprivation of office, attended with two imprisonments, with a menace of death, and an actual death, in disgrace, poverty, and insolvency; whereas the latter, namely, the oppression, and thereby the total ruin, of the country, charged on the second administrator, was only followed by loss of office, — although, he, the said Warren Hastings, did farther assert (but with what truth does not appear) that the collection of the last administrator had fallen much short of the revenue of the province.

  That the said Warren Hastings himself was sensible that the frequent changes by him made would much disorder the management of the revenues, and seemed desirous of concealing his intentions concerning the last change until the time of its execution. Yet it appears, by a letter from the British Resident, dated the 23d of June, 1784, “that a very strong report prevailed at Benares of his [the said Hastings’s] intentions of appointing a new Naib for the approaching year, and that the effect is evident which the prevalence of such an idea amongst the aumils would probably have on the cultivation at this particular time. The heavy mofussil kists [harvest instalments] have now been collected by the aumils; the season of tillage is arrived; the ryots [country farmers] must be indulged, and even assisted by advances; and the aumil must look for his returns in the abundance of the crop, the consequence of this early attention to the cultivation. The effect is evident which the report of a change in the first officer of the revenue must have on the minds of the aumils, by leaving them at an uncertainty of what they have in future to expect; and in proportion to the degree of this uncertainty, their efforts and expenses in promoting the cultivation will be languid and sparing. In compliance with the Naib’s request, I have written to all the aumils, encouraging and ordering them to attend to the cultivation of their respective districts; but I conceive I should be able to promote this very desirable intention much more effectually, if you will honor me with the communication of your intentions on this subject. At the same time I cannot help just remarking, that, if a change is intended, the sooner it takes place, the more the bad effects I have described will be obviated.”

  That the Council, having received the proposition for the removal of the administrator aforesaid, did also, in a letter to him, the said Hastings, condemn the frequent changes by him made in the administration of the collections of Benares, — but did consent to such alterations as might be made without encroaching on the rights established by his, the said Hastings’s, agreement in the year 1781, and did desire him to transmit to them his plan for a new administration.

  That the said Hastings did transmit a plan, which, notwithstanding the evils which had happened from the former frequent changes, he did propose as a temporary expedient for the administration of the revenues of the said province, — in which no provision was made for the reduction or remission of revenue as exigences might require, or for the extraction of the circulating specie from the said province, or for the supply of the necessary advances for cultivation, nor for the removal or prevention of any of the grievances by him before complained of, other than an inspection by the Resident and the chief criminal magistrate of Benares, and other regulations equally void of effect and authority, — and which plan Mr. Stables, one of the Supreme Council, did altogether reject; but the same was approved of as a temporary expedient, with some exceptions, by two other members of the board, Mr. Wheler and Mr. Macpherson, declaring the said Warren Hastings responsible for the temporary expediency of the same.

  That the said Warren Hastings, in the plan aforesaid, having strongly objected to the appointment of any European collectors, that is to say, of any European servants of the Company being concerned in the same, declaring that there had been sufficient experience of the ill effects of their being so employed in the province of Bengal, — by which the said Hastings did either in loose and general terms convey a false imputation upon the conduct of the Company’s servants employed in the collection of the revenues of Bengal, or he was guilty of a criminal neglect of duty in not bringing to punishment the particular persons whose evil practices had given rise to such a general imputation on British subjects and servants of the Company as to render them unfit for service in other places.

  That the said Warren Hastings, having in the course of three years made three complete revolutions in the state of Benares, by expelling, in the first instance, the lawful and rightful governor of the same, under whose care and superintendence a large and certain revenue, suitable to the abilities of the country, and consistent with its prosperity, was paid with the greatest punctuality, and by afterwards displacing two effective governors or administrators of the province, appointed in succession by himself, and, in consequence of the said appointments and violent and arbitrary removals, the said province “being left in effect without a government,” except in one city only, and having, after all, settled no more than a temporary arrangement, is guilty of an high crime and misdemeanor in the destruction of the country aforesaid.

  IV. — PRINCESSES OF OUDE.

  I. That the reigning Nabob of Oude, commonly called Asoph ul Dowlah, (son and successor to Sujah ul Dowlah,) 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 dependant 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 all 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.

  III. That the provinces aforesaid, having been at the time of their first connection with the Company in an improved and flourishing condition, and yielding a revenue of more than three millions of pounds sterling, 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 a
nd submissive terms, supplicate the said Warren Hastings to be relieved from a body of troops whose licentious behavior 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.

  V. That the said Nabob, laboring 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 six hundred and thirty thousand pounds 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 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 honorable maintenance of his women, and a numerous offspring, and their dependants: the said family 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 guarantied by the Governor-General and Council of Bengal: and a treaty was accordingly agreed to, executed by the Nabob, and guarantied 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, he did, contrary to justice and equity and the security of property, as well as to public faith and the sanction of the Company’s guaranty, under the color 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 guarantied 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 guarantied 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 Mahomedan law, or taking publicly the opinions of any person conversant therein.

  X. That, in order to give further color to the acts of ill 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, consisting 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 honor, 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.