Complete Works of Edmund Burke

by Edmund Burke

  VI. That it appears that the said Nabob was not bound by any treaty to the maintenance, without his consent, even of the old brigade, — the Court of Directors having, in their letter of the 15th December, 1775, approved of keeping the same in his service, “provided it was done with the free consent of the Subah, and by no means without it.” And the new brigade and temporary corps were raised on the express condition, that the expense thereof should be charged on the Nabob only “for so long a time as he should require the corps for his service.” And the Court of Directors express to the Governor-General and Council their sense of the said agreement in the following terms: “But if you intend to exert your influence first to induce the Vizier to acquiesce in your proposal, and afterwards to compel him to keep the troops in his pay during your pleasure, your intents are unjust; and a correspondent conduct would reflect great dishonor on the Company.”

  VII. That, in answer to the decent and humble representation aforesaid of the Nabob of Oude, the allegations of which, so far as they relate to the distressed state of the Nabob’s finances, and his total inability to discharge the demands made on him, were confirmed by the testimony of the English Resident at Oude, and which the said Hastings did not deny in the whole or in any part thereof, he, the said Warren Hastings, did, on pretence of certain political dangers, declare the relief desired to be “without hesitation totally inadmissible,” and did falsely and maliciously insinuate, “that the tone in which the demands of the Nabob were asserted, and the season in which they were made, did give cause for the most alarming suspicions.” And the said Warren Hastings did, in a letter to the Nabob aforesaid, written in haughty and insolent language, and without taking any notice of the distresses of the said Nabob, alleged and verified as before recited, “require and insist upon your [the Nabob’s] granting tuncaws [assignments] for the full amount of their [the Company’s] demands upon you for the current year, and on your reserving funds sufficient to answer them, even should the deficiencies of your revenues compel you to leave your own troops unprovided for, or to disband a part of them to enable you to effect it.”

  VIII. That, in a letter written at the same time to the Resident, Purling, and intended for his directions in enforcing on the Nabob the unjust demands aforesaid, the said Warren Hastings hath asserted, in direct contradiction to the treaties subsisting between the said Nabob and the Company, “that he [the Nabob] stands engaged to our government to maintain the English armies which at his own request have been formed for the protection of his dominions, and that it is our part, and not his, to judge and determine in what manner and at what time these shall be reduced and withdrawn.” And in a Minute of Consultation, when the aforesaid measure was proposed by the said Hastings to the Supreme Council, he did affirm and maintain that the troops aforesaid “had now no separate or distinct existence from ours, and may be properly said to consist of our whole military establishment, with the exception only of our European infantry; and that they could not be withdrawn without imposing on the Company the additional burden of them, or disbanding nine battalions of disciplined sepoys and three regiments of horse.”

  IX. That in the Minute of Consultation aforesaid, he, the said Warren Hastings, hath further, in justification of the violent and arbitrary proceedings aforesaid, asserted, “that the arrangement of measures between the British government and their allies, the native powers of India, must, in case of disagreement about the necessity thereof, be decided by the strongest”; and hath thereby advanced a dangerous and most indecently expressed position, subversive of the rights of allies, and tending to breed war and confusion, instead of cordiality and coöperation amongst them, and to destroy all confidence of the princes of India in the faith and justice of the English nation. And the said Hastings, having further, in the minute aforesaid, presumed to threaten to “bring to punishment, if my influence” (his, the said Hastings’s, influence) “can produce that effect, those incendiaries who have endeavored to make themselves the instruments of division between us,” hath, as far as in him lay, obstructed the performance of one of the most essential duties of a prince engaged in an unequal alliance with a presiding state, — that of representing the grievances of his subjects to that more powerful state by whose acts they suffer: leaving thereby the governing power in total ignorance of the effects of its own measures, and to the oppressed people no other choice than the alternative of an unqualified submission, or a resistance productive of consequences more fatal.

  X. That, all relief being denied to the Nabob, in the manner and on the grounds aforesaid, the demands of the Company on the said Nabob in the year following, that is to say, in the year 1780, did amount to the enormous sum of 1,400,000l. sterling, and the distress of the province did rapidly increase.

  XI. That the Nabob, on the 24th of February of the same year, did again write to the Governor-General, the said Warren Hastings, a letter, in which he expressed his constant friendship to the Company, and his submission and obedience to their orders, and asserting that he had not troubled them with any of his difficulties, trusting they would learn them from other quarters, and that he should be relieved by their friendship. “But,” he says, “when the knife had penetrated to the bone, and I was surrounded with such heavy distresses that I could no longer live in expectations, I then wrote an account of my difficulties. The answer I have received to it is such that it has given me inexpressible grief and affliction. I never had the least idea or expectation from you and the Council that you would have given your orders in so afflicting a manner, in which you never before wrote, and I could never have imagined. I have delivered up all my private papers to him [the Resident], that, after examining my receipts and expenses, he may take whatever remains. That, as I know it to be my duty to satisfy you [the Company and Council], I have not failed to obey in any instance; but requested of him that it might be done so as not to distress me in my necessary expenses. There being no other funds but those for the expenses of my mutseddies [clerks and accountants], household expenses, and servants, &c., he demanded these in such a manner, that, being remediless, I was obliged to comply with what he required. He has accordingly stopped the pensions of my old servants for thirty years, whether sepoys [soldiers], mutseddies [secretaries and accountants], or household servants, and the expenses of my family and kitchen, together with the jaghires of my grandmother, mother, and aunts, and of my brothers and dependants, which were for their support.”

  XII. That, in answer to the letter aforesaid, the Resident received from the said Warren Hastings and Council an order to persevere in the demand to its fullest extent, — that is to say, to the amount of 1,400,000l. sterling.

  XIII. That on the 15th of May the Nabob replied, complaining in an humble and suppliant manner of his distressed situation: that he had at first opposed the assigning to the use of the Company the estates of his mother, of his grandmother, of one of his uncles, and of the sons of another, but that, in obedience to the injunctions of the gentlemen of the Council, it had been done, to the amount, on the whole, of 80,000l. sterling a year, or thereabouts; that whatever effects were in the country, with even his table, his animals, and the salaries of his servants, were granted in assignments; that, besides these, if they were resolved again to compel him to give up the estates of his parents and relations, which were granted them for their maintenance, they were at the Company’s disposal; saying, “If the Council have directed you to attach them, do it: in the country no further sources remain. I have no means; for I have not a subsistence. — How long shall I dwell upon my misfortunes?”

  XIV. That the truth of the said remonstrances was not disputed, nor the tone in which they were written complained of, the same being submissive, and even abject, though the cause (his distresses) was by the said Hastings, in a great degree, and in terms the most offensive, attributed to the Nabob himself; but no relief was given, and the same unwarrantable establishments, maintained at the same ruinous expense, were kept up.

  XV. That the said
Warren Hastings, having considered as incendiaries those who advised the remonstrances aforesaid, and, to prevent the same in future, having denounced vengeance on those concerned therein, did, for the purpose of keeping in his own power all representations of the state of the court and country aforesaid, and to subject both the one and the other to his own arbitrary will, and to draw to himself and to his creatures the management of the Nabob’s revenues, in defiance of the orders of the Court of Directors, a second time recall Mr. Bristow, the Company’s Resident, from the court of Oude, — having once before recalled him, as the said Directors express themselves, “without the shadow of a charge being exhibited against him,” and having, on the occasion and time now stated, produced no specific charge against the said Resident; and he, the said Hastings, did appoint Nathaniel Middleton, Esquire, to succeed him, — it being his declared principle, that he must have a person of his own confidence in that situation.

  XVI. That the said Warren Hastings, after he had refused all relief to the distresses of the Nabob in the manner aforesaid, and had described those who advised the representation of the grievances of Oude as incendiaries, did himself, in a minute of the 21st May, 1781, describe that province “as fallen into a state of great disorder and confusion, and its resources in an extraordinary degree diminished,” — and did state, that his presence in the said province was requested by the Nabob, and that, unless some effectual measures were taken for his relief, he [the Nabob] must be under the necessity of leaving his country, and coming down to Calcutta, to represent the situation of his government. And Mr. Wheler did declare that the Governor-General’s representation of the state of that province “was but too well founded, and was convinced that it would require his utmost abilities and powers, applied and exercised on the spot, to restore it to its former good order and affluence.”

  XVII. That the said Warren Hastings, in consequence of the minute aforesaid, did grant to himself, and did procure the consent of his only colleague, Edward Wheler, Esquire, to a commission or delegation, with powers “to assist the Nabob Vizier in forming such regulations as may be necessary for the peace and good order of his government, the improvement of his revenue, and the adjustment of the mutual concerns subsisting between him and the Company.” And in the said commission or delegation he, the said Warren Hastings, did cause to be inserted certain powers and provisions of a new and dangerous nature: that is to say, reciting the business before mentioned, he did convey to himself “such authority to enforce the same as the Governor-General and Council might or could exercise on occasions in which they could be warranted to exercise the same, and to form and conclude such several engagements or treaties with the Nabob Vizier, the government of Berar, and with any chiefs or powers of Hindostan, as he should judge expedient and necessary.” Towards the conclusion of the act or instrument aforesaid are the words following, viz.: “It is hereby declared, that all such acts, and all such engagements or treaties aforesaid, shall be binding on the Governor-General and Council in the same manner, and as effectually, as if they had been done and passed by the specific and immediate concurrence and actual junction of the Governor-General and Council, in council assembled.” And the said powers were, by the said Warren Hastings, given by himself and the said Wheler, under the seal of the Company, on the 3d July, 1781.

  XVIII. That the said commission, delegating to him, the said Warren Hastings, the whole functions of the Council, is destructive to the constitution thereof, and is contrary to the Company’s standing orders, and is illegal.

  XIX. That, in virtue of those powers, and the illegal delegation aforesaid, the said Warren Hastings, after he had finished his business at Benares, did procure a meeting with the Nabob of Oude at a place called Chunar, upon the confines of the country of Benares, and did there enter into a treaty, or pretended treaty, with the said Nabob; one part of which the said Warren Hastings did pretend was drawn up from a series of requisitions presented to him by the Nabob, but which requisitions, or any copy thereof, or of any other material document relative thereto, he did not at the time transmit to the Presidency, — the said Warren Hastings informing Mr. Wheler, that the Resident, Middleton, had taken the authentic papers relative to this transaction with him to Lucknow: and it does not appear that the said Warren Hastings did ever reclaim the said papers, in order to record them at the Presidency, to be transmitted to the Court of Directors, as it was his duty to do.

  XX. That the purport of certain articles of the said treaty, on the part of the Company, was, that, in consideration of the Nabob’s inability (which inability the preamble of the treaty asserts to have been “repeatedly and urgently represented”) to support the expenses of the temporary brigade, and of three regiments of cavalry, and also of the British officers with their battalions, and of other gentlemen who were then paid by him, the several corps aforesaid, and the other gentlemen, (with the exception of the Resident’s office then on the Nabob’s list, and a regiment of sepoys for the Resident’s guard,) should, after a term of two and a half months, be no longer at his, the Nabob’s, charge: “the true meaning of this being, that no more troops than one brigade, and the pay and allowances of a regiment of sepoys,” (as aforesaid, to the Resident,) amounting in the whole to 342,000l. a year, should be paid by the Nabob; and that no officers, troops, or others, should be put upon the Nabob’s establishment, exclusive of those in the said treaty stipulated.

  XXI. That the said Warren Hastings did defend and justify the said articles, in which the troops aforesaid were to be removed from the Nabob’s establishment, by declaring as follows. “That the actual disbursements to those troops had fallen upon our own funds, and that we support a body of troops, established solely for the defence of the Nabob’s possessions, at our own expense. It is true, we charge the Nabob with this expense; but the large balance already due from him shows too justly the little prospect there was of disengaging ourselves from a burden which was daily adding to our distresses and must soon become insupportable, although it were granted that the Nabob’s debt, then suffered to accumulate, might at some future period be liquidated, and that this measure would substantially effect an instant relief to the pecuniary distresses of the Company.”

  XXII. That Nathaniel Middleton, the Resident, did also declare that he would at all times testify, “that, upon the plan of the foregoing years, the receipts from the Nabob were only a deception, and not an advantage, but an injury to the Company,” and “that a remission to the Nabob of this insufferable burden was a profit to the Company.” And the said Hastings did assert that the force of the Company was not lessened by withdrawing the temporary troops; although, when it suited the purpose of the said Hastings, in denying just relief to the distresses of the said Nabob of Oude, he had not scrupled to assert the direct contrary of the positions by him maintained in justification of the treaty of Chunar, — having in his minute aforesaid, of the 15th of December, 1779, asserted, “that these troops” (the troops maintained by the Nabob of Oude) “had no separate or distinct existence, and may be properly said to consist of our whole military establishment, with the exception only of our European infantry, and that they could not be withdrawn, without imposing on the Company the additional burden of their expense, or disbanding nine battalions of disciplined sepoys and three regiments of horse.”

  XXIII. That he, the said Warren Hastings, in justification of his agreement to withdraw the troops aforesaid from the territories and pay of the Nabob of Oude, did further declare, “that he had been too much accustomed to the tales of hostile preparation and impending invasions, against all the evidence of political probability, to regard them as any other than phantoms raised for the purpose of perpetuating or multiplying commands,” and he did trust “all ideas of danger from the neighboring powers were altogether visionary; and that, even if they had been better founded, this mode of anticipating possible evils would be more mischievous than anything they had reason to apprehend,” and that the internal state of the Nabob’s dominions
did not require the continuance of the said troops; and that the Nabob, “whose concern it was, and not ours” did affirm the same, — notwithstanding he, the said Hastings, had before, in answer to the humble supplications of the Nabob, asserted, that “it was our part, and not his, to judge and determine in what manner and at what time they should be reduced or withdrawn.”