by Edmund Burke
XLVI. That, probably from the Nabob’s known and avowed reluctance to lend himself to the perpetration of the oppressive and iniquitous proceedings of the representative of the British government, the scandalous plan aforesaid was not carried into execution; and all the rigors practised upon the chief ministers of the ladies aforesaid at Lucknow being found ineffectual, and the princess mother having declared herself ready to deliver up everything valuable in her possession, which Behar Ali Khân, one of her confidential ministers aforesaid, only could come at, the said change of prison was agreed to, — but not until the Nabob’s mother aforesaid had engaged to pay for the said change of prison a sum of ten thousand pounds, (one half of which was paid on the return of the eunuchs,) and that “she would ransack the zenanah [women’s apartments] for kincobs, muslins, clothes, &c., &c., &c., and that she would even allow a deduction from the annual allowance made to her for her subsistence in lieu of her jaghire.”
XLVII. That, soon after the return of the aforesaid ministers to the place of their imprisonment at Fyzabad, bonds for the five thousand pounds aforesaid, and goods, estimated, according to the valuation of a merchant appointed to value the same, at the sum of forty thousand pounds, even allowing them to sell greatly under their value, were delivered to the commanding officer at Fyzabad; and the said commanding officer did promise to the Begum to visit Lucknow with such proposals as he hoped would secure the small balance of fifteen thousand pounds remaining of the unjust exaction aforesaid. But the said Resident, Middleton, did, in his letter of the 17th of the said month, positively refuse to listen to any terms before the final discharge of the whole of the demand, and did positively forbid the commanding officer to come to Lucknow to make the proposal aforesaid in the terms following. “As it is not possible to listen to any terms from the Begums before the final discharge of their conditional agreement for fifty-five lacs, your coming here upon such an agency can only be loss of time in completing the recovery of the balance of 6,55,000, for which your regiment was sent to Fyzabad. I must therefore desire you will leave no efforts, gentle or harsh, unattempted to complete this, before you move from Fyzabad; and I am very anxious that this should be as soon as possible, as I want to employ your regiment upon other emergent service, now suffering by every delay.”
XLVIII. That the goods aforesaid were sent to Lucknow, and disposed of in a manner unknown; and the harsh and oppressive measures aforesaid being still continued, the Begum did, about the middle of October, 1782, cause to be represented to the said Middleton as follows. “That her situation was truly pitiable, — her estate sequestered, her treasury ransacked, her cojahs prisoners, and her servants deserting daily from want of subsistence. That she had solicited the loan of money, to satisfy the demands of the Company, from every person that she imagined would or could assist her with any; but that the opulent would not listen to her adversity. She had hoped that the wardrobe sent to Lucknow might have sold for at least one half of the Company’s demands on her; but even jewelry and goods, she finds from woful experience, lose their value the moment it is known they come from her. That she had now solicited the loan of cash from Almas Ali Khân, and if she failed in that application, she had no hopes of ever borrowing a sum equal to the demand”: — an hope not likely to be realized, as the said Almas Ali was then engaged for a sum of money to be raised for the Company’s use on the security of their confiscated lands, the restoration of which could form the only apparent security for a loan.
XLIX. That this remonstrance produced no effect on the mind of the aforesaid Resident, — who, being about this time removed from his Residency, did, in a letter to his successor, Mr. Bristow, dated 23d October, 1782, in effect recommend a perseverance in the cruel and oppressive restraints aforesaid as a certain means of recovering the remainder of the extorted bond, and that the lands with which the princesses aforesaid had been endowed should not be restored to them.
L. That the said Warren Hastings was duly apprised of all the material circumstances in the unjust proceedings aforesaid, but did nothing to stop the course they were in, or to prevent, relieve, or mitigate the sufferings of the parties affected by them: on the contrary, he did, in his letter of the 25th of January, 1782, to the Resident, Middleton, declare, that the Nabob having consented to the “resumption of the jaghires held by the Begums, and to the confiscation of their treasures, and thereby involved my own name and the credit of the Company in a participation of both measures, I have a right to require and insist on the complete execution of them; and I look to you for their execution, declaring that I shall hold you accountable for it.” And it appears that he did write to the Nabob a letter in the same peremptory manner; but the said letter has been suppressed.
LI. That he, the said Hastings, farther did manifest the concern he took in, and the encouragement which he gave to the proceedings aforesaid, by conferring honors and distinctions upon the ministers of the Nabob, whom he, the Nabob, did consider as having in the said proceedings disobeyed him and betrayed him, and as instruments in the dishonor of his family and the usurpation of his authority. That the said ministers did make addresses to the said Hastings for that purpose (which addresses the said Hastings hath suppressed); and the Resident, Middleton, did, with his letter of the 11th of February, 1782, transmit the same, and did in the said letter acquaint the said Hastings “that the ministers of the Nabob had incurred much odium on account of their participation in his measures, and that they were not only considered by the party of the dispossessed jaghiredars, and the mother and uncle of the Nabob, but by the Nabob himself, as the dependants of the English government, which they certainly are, and it is by its declared and most obvious support alone that they can maintain the authority and influence which is indispensably necessary.” And the said Middleton did therefore recommend “that they should be honored with some testimony of his [the said Hastings’s] approbation and favor.” And he, the said Warren Hastings, did send kellauts, or robes of honor, (the most public and distinguished mode of acknowledging merit known in India,) to the said ministers, in testimony of his approbation of their late services.
LII. That the said Hastings did not only give the aforesaid public encouragement to the ministers of the Nabob to betray and insult their master and his family in the manner aforesaid, but, when the said Nabob did write several letters to him, the said Hastings, expressive of his dislike of being used as an instrument in the dishonorable acts aforesaid, and refusing to be further concerned therein, he, the said Warren Hastings, did not only suppress and hide the said letters from the view of the Court of Directors, but in his instructions to the Resident, Bristow, did attribute them to Hyder Beg Khân, minister to the Nabob, (whom in other respects he did before and ever since support against his master,) and did express himself with great scorn and contempt of the said Nabob, and with much asperity against the said minister: affirming, in proud and insolent terms, that he had, “by an abuse of his influence over the Nabob, — he, the Nabob himself, being (as he ever must be in the hands of some person) a mere cipher in his [the said minister’s], — dared to make him [the Nabob] assume a very unbecoming tone of refusal, reproach, and resentment, in opposition to measures recommended by ME, and even to acts done by MY authority”: the said Hastings, in the instruction aforesaid, particularizing the resumption of the jaghires, and the confiscation of the treasures that had been so long suffered to remain in the hands of his, the Nabob’s, mother. But the letters of the Nabob, which in the said instructions he refers to as containing an opposition to the measures recommended by him, and which he asserts was conveyed in a very unbecoming tone of refusal, reproach, and resentment, he, the said Hastings, hath criminally withheld from the Company, contrary to their orders, and to his duty, — and the more, as the said letters must tend to show in what manner the said Nabob did feel the indignities offered to his mother, and the manner in which the said ministers, notwithstanding their known dependence on the English government, did express their sense of the part whic
h their sovereign was compelled to act in the said disgraceful measures. And in farther instructions to him, the said new Resident, he did declare his approbation of the evil acts aforesaid, as well as his resolution of compelling the Nabob to those rigorous proceedings against his parent from which he had long shown himself so very averse, in the following words. “The severities which have been increased towards the Begums were most justly merited by the advantage which they took of the troubles in which I was personally involved last year, to create a rebellion in the Nabob’s government, and to complete the ruin which they thought was impending on ours. If it is the Nabob’s desire to forget and to forgive their past offence, I have no objection to his allowing them, in pension, the nominal amount of their jaghires; but if he shall ever offer to restore their jaghires to them, or to give them any property in land, after the warning which they have given him by the dangerous abuse which they formerly made of his indulgence, you must remonstrate in the strongest terms against it; you must not permit such an event to take place, until this government shall have received information of it, and shall have had time to interpose its influence for the prevention of it.” And the said Warren Hastings, who did in the manner aforesaid positively refuse to admit the Nabob to restore to his mother and grandmother any part of their landed estates for their maintenance, did well know that the revenues of the said Nabob were at that time so far applied to the demands of the Company, (by him, the said Warren Hastings, aggravated beyond the whole of what they did produce,) or were otherwise so far applied to the purposes of several of the servants of the Company, and others, the dependants of him, the said Hastings, that none of the pensions or allowances, assigned by the said Nabob in lieu of the estates confiscated, were paid, or were likely to be discharged, with that punctuality which was necessary even to the scanty subsistence of the persons to which they were in name and appearance applied. For,
LIII. That, so early as the 6th March, 1782, Captain Leonard Jaques, who commanded the forces on duty for the purpose of distressing the several women in the palaces at Fyzabad, did complain to the Resident, Richard Johnson, in the following words. “The women belonging to the Khord Mohul (or lesser palace) complain of their being in want of every necessary of life, and are at last driven to that desperation that they at night get on the top of the zenanah, make a great disturbance, and last night not only alarmed the sentinels posted in the garden, but threw dirt at them; they threaten to throw themselves from the walls of the zenanah, and also to break out of it. Humanity obliges me to acquaint you of this matter, and to request to know if you have any directions to give me concerning it. I also beg leave to acquaint you I sent for Letafit Ali Khân, the cojah who has the charge of them, and who informs me it is well grounded, — that they have sold everything they had, even to the clothes from their backs, and now have no means of subsisting.”
LIV. That the distresses of the said women grew so urgent on the night of the said 6th of March, the day when the letter above recited was written, that Captain Leonard Jaques aforesaid did think it necessary to write again, on the day following, to the British Resident in the following words. “I beg leave to address you again concerning the women in the Khord Mohul [the lesser palace]. Their behavior last night was so furious, that there seemed the greatest probability of their proceeding to the uttermost extremities, and that they would either throw themselves from the walls or force open the doors of the zenanah. I have made every inquiry concerning the cause of their complaints, and find from Letafit Ali Khân that they are in a starving condition, having sold all their clothes and necessaries, and now have not wherewithal to support nature; and as my instructions are quite silent on this head, I should be glad to know how to proceed, in case they were to force the doors of the zenanah, as I suspect it will happen, should no subsistence be very quickly sent to them.”
LV. That, in consequence of these representations, it appears that the said Resident, Richard Johnson, did promise that an application should be made to certain of the servants of the Nabob Vizier to provide for their subsistence.
LVI. That Captain Jaques being relieved from the duty of imprisoning the women of Sujah ul Dowlah, the late sovereign of Oude, an ally of the Company, who dwelt in the said lesser palace, and Major Gilpin being appointed to succeed, the same malicious design of destroying the said women, or the same scandalous neglect of their preservation and subsistence, did still continue; and Major Gilpin found it necessary to apply to the new Resident, Bristow, in a letter of the 30th of October, 1782, as follows.
LVII. “SIR, — Last night, about eight o’clock, the women in the Khord Mohul [lesser palace] or zenanah [women’s apartment] under the charge of Letafit Ali Khân, assembled on the tops of the buildings, crying in a most lamentable manner for food, — that for the last four days they had got but a very scanty allowance, and that yesterday they had got none.
LVIII. “The melancholy cries of famine are more easily imagined than described; and from their representation I fear the Nabob’s agents for that business are very inattentive. I therefore think it requisite to make you acquainted with the circumstance, that his Excellency, the Nabob, may cause his agents to be more circumspect in their conduct towards these poor unhappy women.”
LIX. That, although the Resident, Bristol, did not then think himself authorized to remove the guard, he did apply to the minister of the Nabob, who did promise some relief to the women of the late Nabob, confined in the lesser palace; but apprehending, with reason, that the minister aforesaid might not be more ready or active in making the necessary provision for them than on former occasions, he did render himself personally responsible to Major Gilpin for the repayment of any sum, equal to one thousand pounds sterling, which he might procure for the subsistence of the sufferers. But whatever relief was given, (the amount thereof not appearing,) the same was soon exhausted; and the number of persons to be maintained in the said lesser palace being eight hundred women, the women of the late sovereign, Sujah ul Dowlah, and several of the younger children of the said sovereign prince, besides their attendants, Major Gilpin was obliged, on the 15th of November following, again to address the Resident by a representation of this tenor.
“SIR, — The repeated cries of the women in the Khord Mohul Zenanah for subsistence have been truly melancholy.
LX. “They beg most piteously for liberty, that they may earn their daily bread by laborious servitude, or to be relieved from their misery by immediate death.
LXI. “In consequence of their unhappy situation, I have this day taken the liberty of drawing on you in favor of Ramnarain, at ten days’ sight, for twenty Son Kerah rupees, ten thousand of which I have paid to Cojah Letafit Ali Khân, under whose charge that zenanah is.”
LXII. That, notwithstanding all the promises and reiterated engagements of the minister, Hyder Beg Khân, the ladies of the palace aforesaid fell again into extreme distress; and the Resident did again complain to the said minister, who was considered to be, and really and substantially was, the minister of the Governor-General, Warren Hastings, aforesaid, and not of the Nabob, (the said Nabob being, according to the said Hastings’s own account, “a cipher in his [the said minister’s] hands,”) that the funds allowed for their subsistence were not applied to their support. But notwithstanding all these repeated complaints and remonstrances, and the constant promise of amendment on the part of his, the said Hastings’s, minister, the supply was not more plentiful or more regular than before.
LXIII. That the said Resident, Bristow, finding by experience the inefficacy of the courses which had been pursued with regard to the mother and grandmother of the reigning prince of Oude, and having received a report from Major Gilpin, informing him that all which could be done by force had been done, and that the only hope which remained for realizing the remainder of the money, unjustly exacted as aforesaid, lay in more lenient methods, he, the said Resident, did, of his own authority, order the removal of the guard from the palaces, the troops being long and much want
ed for the defence of the frontier, and other material services, — and did release the said ministers of the said women of rank, who had been confined and put in irons, and variously distressed and persecuted, as aforerecited, for near twelve months.
LXIV. That the manner in which the said inhuman acts of rapacity and violence were felt, both by the women of high rank concerned, and by all the people, strongly appears in the joy expressed on their release, which took place on the 5th of December, 1782, and is stated in two letters of that date from Major Gilpin to the Resident, in the words following.
LXV. “I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 2d instant, and in consequence immediately enlarged the prisoners Behar Ali Khân and Jewar Ali Khân from their confinement: a circumstance that gave the Begums, and the city of Fyzabad in general, the greatest satisfaction.
LXVI. “In tears of joy Behar and Jewar Ali Khân expressed their sincere acknowledgments to the Governor-General, his Excellency the Nabob Vizier, and to you, Sir, for restoring them to that invaluable blessing, liberty, for which they would ever retain the most grateful remembrance; and at their request I transmit you the inclosed letters.
LXVII. “I wish you had been present at the enlargement of the prisoners. The quivering lips, with the tears of joy stealing down the poor men’s cheeks, was a scene truly affecting.
LXVIII. “If the prayers of these poor men will avail, you will, at the LAST TRUMP, be translated to the happiest regions in heaven.”
LXIX. And the Resident, Bristow, knowing how acceptable the said proceeding would be to all the people of Oude, and the neighboring independent countries, did generously and politically, (though not truly,) in his letter to the princess mother attribute the said relief given to herself, and the release of her ministers, to the humanity of the said Warren Hastings, agreeably to whose orders he pretended to act: asserting, that he, the said Hastings, “was the spring from whence she was restored to her dignity and consequence.” And the account of the proceedings aforesaid was regularly transmitted to the said Warren Hastings on the 30th of December, 1782, with the reasons and motives thereto, and a copy of the report of the officer concerning the inutility of further force, attended with sundry documents concerning the famishing, and other treatment, of the women and children of the late sovereign: but the same appear to have made no proper impression on the mind of the said Warren Hastings; for no answer whatsoever was given to the said letter until the 3d of March, 1783, when the said Hastings, writing in his own character and that of the Council, did entirely pass by all the circumstances before recited, but did give directions for the renewal of measures of the like nature and tendency with those which (for several of the last months at least of the said proceeding) had been employed with so little advantage to the interest and with so much injury to the reputation of the Company, his masters, in whose name he acted, — expressing himself in the said letter of the 3d of March, 1783, as follows: “We desire you will inform us what means have been taken for recovering the balance [the pretended balance of the extorted money] due from the Begums [princesses] at Fyzabad; and if necessary, you must recommend it to the Vizier to enforce the most effectual means for that purpose.” And the Resident did, in his answer to the board, dated 31st March, 1783, on this peremptory order, again detail the particulars aforesaid to the said Warren Hastings, referring him to his former correspondence, stating the utter impossibility of proceeding further by force, and mentioning certain other disgraceful and oppressive circumstances, and in particular, that the Company did not, in plundering the mother of the reigning prince of her wearing apparel and beasts of carriage, receive a value in the least equal to the loss she suffered: the elephants having no buyer but the Nabob, and the clothes, which had last been delivered to Middleton at a valuation of thirty thousand pounds, were so damaged by ill keeping in warehouses, that they could not be sold, even for six months’ credit, at much more than about eight thousand pounds; by which a loss in a single article was incurred of twenty-two thousand pounds out of the fifty, for the recovery of which (supposing it had been a just debt) such rigorous means had been employed, after having actually received upwards of five hundred thousand pounds in value to the Company, and extorted much more in loss to the suffering individuals. And the said Bristow, being well acquainted with the unmerciful temper of the said Hastings, in order to leave no means untried to appease him, not contented with the letter to the Governor-General and Council, did on the same day write another letter to him particularly, in which he did urge several arguments, the necessity of using of which to the said Hastings did reflect great dishonor on this nation, and on the Christian religion therein professed, namely: “That he had experienced great embarrassment in treating with her [the mother of the reigning prince]; for, as the mother of the Vizier, the people look up to her with respect, and any hard measures practised against women of her high rank create discontent, and affect our national character.” And the said Resident, after condemning very unjustly her conduct, added, “Still she is the mother of the prince of the country, and the religious prejudices of Mussulmen prevail too strongly in their minds to forget her situation.”