Complete Works of Edmund Burke

by Edmund Burke

  LI. That the indigent condition before related of the other brothers of the Nabob was also duly transmitted to the said Warren Hastings; but he did never order or direct any steps whatsoever to be taken towards the relief of the family of a reigning prince, who were daily in danger of perishing by famine through the effect of his measures, and those of a person whom he supported in power against the will and inclinations of the said prince and his family.

  LII. That the foregoing instances of the penury, distress, dispersion, and exile of the reigning family, as well as the general disorder in all the affairs of Oude, did strongly enforce the necessity of a proper use of the British influence (the only real government then existing) in the province aforesaid for a regulation of the economy of the Vizier’s court, as well as for the proper administration of the public concerns, civil and military, which were in the greatest disorder; and the said Warren Hastings was under obligation to provide for the same, and did himself understand it to be his duty so to do, and that he was therein warranted by the spirit of the treaty of Chunar, as well as by other universal powers of control, and even of supersession, supposed by him to exist in the relation between the British government and that of Oude; and accordingly he did, in his instructions to the Resident Middleton, to which he required his most implicit obedience, direct him to an interference in and control upon all the affairs concerning the revenues, the military arrangements, and all the other branches of the Nabob’s government.

  LIII. That, upon his recall of the said Middleton, he, in his instructions to the Resident Bristow, dated 23d of October, 1781 [1782?], did at large set forth the situation of the court and government of Oude, the situation and character of the Nabob, of the acting minister, and of the British Resident at that court, and did plainly, distinctly, and without reserve, describe the extent of the authority to be exercised by the last of these persons, as well as the unqualified compliance to be expected from the two former. And he did accordingly declare, that, “from the nature of our connection with the government of Oude, and from the Nabob’s incapacity, a necessity will forever exist, while we have the claim of a subsidy upon the resources of his country, of exercising an influence, and frequently substituting it ENTIRELY in the place of an avowed and constitutional authority, in the administration of his [the Nabob’s] government”; and he did further in the said instructions, namely, in instruction the fourth, direct the said Resident in the words following: “I must have recourse to you for the introduction of a new system in that government; nor can I omit, whilst I express my reliance on you for that purpose, to repeat the sentiments which I expressed in the verbal instructions which I gave you at your departure, that there can be no medium in the relation between the Resident and the minister, but either the Resident must be the slave and vassal of the minister, or the minister at the absolute disposal of the Resident.” And he, the said Hastings, did state, in the same article of the instructions aforesaid, that, though the conduct of the said Hyder Beg Khân had been highly reprehensible, and that he was much displeased thereat, he would prefer him to any other, on account of his ability and knowledge of business, with the following proviso,— “If he would submit to hold his office on such conditions as I require. He exists by his dependence on the influence of our government. It must be advisable to try him by the mode of conciliation; at the same time that in your final conversation with him it will be necessary to declare to him, in the plainest terms, the footing and condition on which he shall be permitted to retain his place, with the alternative of a dismission, and a scrutiny into his conduct, if he refuses it. In the first place, I will not receive from the Nabob, as his, letters dictated by the spirit of opposition; but shall consider every such attempt as an insult on our government. In the second place, I shall expect that nothing is done in his official character but with your knowledge and participation.”

  LIV. That the said Hastings having described, in the manner aforesaid, the relative situation of the Resident and the minister, he did state also the relative situation of the said minister and his master, the Nabob, declaring, “that the minister did hold without control the unparticipated and entire administration, with all the powers annexed to that government, — the Nabob being, as he ever must be in the hands of some person, a mere cipher in his” (the minister’s). And having thus stated the subordination of the minister to the Resident, and the subordination of the Nabob to the minister, he did naturally declare, “that the first share of the responsibility would rest upon the said Resident” And he did further declare, “that the other conditions did follow distinctly in their places, because he did consider the Resident as responsible for them.”

  LV. That, for the direction of the Resident in the exercise of so critical a trust, wherein all the true and substantial powers of government were in an inverted relation and proportion to the official and ostensible authorities, and in which the said Hastings did suppose the necessity constantly existing for exercising an influence, and frequently for substituting entirely the British authority “in the place of the avowed and constitutional government,” he, the said Hastings, did properly leave to the Resident a discretionary power for his deviation from any part of his instructions, — interposing a caution for his security and direction, that, as much as he could, he would leave the subject free for his, the said Hastings’s, correction of it, and would instantly inform him or the board, according to the degree of its importance, with his reasons for it.

  LVI. That, besides the institution of the courts of justice, as before recited, four other principal objects in the reformation of the affairs of Oude were expressly recommended to the Residents Middleton and Bristow, and must be understood to be the conditions upon which the said Hastings must have meant to have it understood that the acting minister of Oude was to hold his employment: namely, the limitation of the Nabob’s personal expenses; the reduction of the Nabob’s troops in number, and the change in arrangement; the appointment of proper collectors for the revenues; and the appointment of proper officers for all parts of the executive administration.

  LVII. That the first object, namely, that of the limitation of the Nabob’s personal expenses, and separating them from the public establishments, he, the said Hastings, did state as the first and fundamental part of his regulation, and that upon which all the others would depend, — and did declare, “that, in order to prevent the Vizier’s alliance from being a clog instead of an aid to the Company, the most essential part is to limit and separate his personal disbursements from the public accounts: they must not exceed what he has received in any of the last three years.” And as to the public treasury and disbursements, he, the said Hastings, did, in the said instructions, wholly withdraw them from the personal management or interference of the Nabob, and did expressly order and direct “that they should be under the sole management of the ministers, with the Resident’s concurrence.” And on the appointment of the Resident Bristow, in October, 1782, he, the said Hastings, did order and direct him in every point of the instructions to Middleton not revoked or qualified by his then instructions, to which he did require his, the said Resident Bristow’s, “most attentive and literal obedience.”

  LVIII. That the said Resident Bristow did, in consequence of the renewal to him of the said instructions as aforesaid, endeavor to limit and put in order the Nabob’s expenses; but he was in that particular traversed and counteracted, and in the end wholly defeated, by the minister, Hyder Beg Khân. And though the obstructions aforesaid, agreeably to the instructions given to Middleton, and to him, the said Bristow, were represented to the said Warren Hastings by the Resident aforesaid, yet the said Warren Hastings did give no kind of support to the said Resident, or take any steps towards enabling him, the said Resident, to effectuate the said necessary limitation and distribution of expenses, by himself, the said Hastings, ordered and prescribed; nor, if he disapproved the proceedings of the said Resident, did he give him any instruction for the forbearance of the same, or for the ex
erting his duty in any other mode; nor did he call for any illustration from him of anything doubtful in his correspondence, nor state to him any complaint made privately of his conduct, in order to receive thereon an explanation; but he did leave him to pursue at his discretion the extensive powers before described, to effect the reformation which he was directed to accomplish, under the responsibility denounced to him as aforesaid, if he should fail therein, as he was supposed to be substantially invested with all the powers of government.

  LIX. That, instead of the said support or instruction, he, the said Hastings, did countenance, or more probably cause or direct, a representation to be made to him by the acting minister of the Nabob of Oude, complaining grievously of the proceedings of the Resident aforesaid, as usurpations on the Nabob’s authority and indignities on his person. And although he, the said Hastings, did instruct the Resident, Bristow, to inform the said Hyder Beg Khân that he would not receive from the Nabob, as his, letters directed by the spirit of opposition, but should consider every such attempt as his, the minister’s, as an insult on our government, yet he did receive as his the Nabob’s own letters, and as written from the impressions on his own mind, and as the suggestions of his own judgment, letters to the same effect as those written by the minister, although he had declared upon record that the said “Nabob was a mere cipher in his, the said minister’s, hands,” and “that he had dared to use both the Nabob’s name, and even his seal, affixed to letters either directed to the Nabob or written as from him without his knowledge,” and although he did assert or record as aforesaid, that, in a letter which he had lately received from the Nabob, the minister had the presumption to make the Nabob declare that which was true to be false, and that “his making use of the Nabob in such a manner did show how thin the veil was by which he covered his own acts, and that such artifices would only tend to make them the more criminal from the falsehood and duplicity with which they were associated.”

  LX. That the said Hastings did act upon the letters pretended to be written by the Nabob, as well as on those actually written by the minister, without previously communicating the matter of the said complaint to the said Resident, and did give credit to the same, and coming, as aforesaid, from a person by himself, the said Hastings, charged with artifice, falsehood, and duplicity, and with abusing to his own evil purposes the name and seal of his master without his knowledge, and without any previous inquiry into the facts and circumstances; and did thereon ground an accusation against the said Resident, Bristow, before the board at Calcutta, in which he did represent the conduct of the said Bristow, in attempting to limit the household expenses of the Nabob, as an indignity “which no man living, however mean his rank in life, or dependent his condition in it, would permit to be exercised by any other, but with the want or forfeiture of every manly principle.” And he did further accuse the said Bristow for that, in his proceedings in the regulation of the Nabob’s household, “he should receive to himself, or Mr. Cowper for him, or a treasurer for both, (for the arrangement has never been well defined,) the money assigned for the support of the Nabob’s household, — issue it as he pleased, not to the Nabob, but to the menial officers of his household, — dispose of his superfluous horses, and other cattle, — determine how many elephants were necessary to the state of the Vizier of the Empire, the number of domestics for his attendance, and pry into the kitchen for the purpose of ascertaining the quantity of victuals which ought to be dressed in it, — control the accounts of these disbursements, — and appropriate to his own use (for that the consequence was inevitable, if he chose it) the residue produced by those economical retrenchments.”

  LXI. That the said charge is malicious and insidious; because the attempt to introduce proper officers for the management of household expenses so considerable that the said Hastings has stated the allotment for the same at three hundred thousand pounds sterling yearly, and that other accounts have carried it to four hundred thousand pounds sterling and upwards, and to keep proper and regular accounts thereof, was a necessary regulation, and agreeable to the dignity of the Nabob, and by no means a degradation either of his person or authority, which was specially provided for in the regulations, as no expense could be incurred but by his own personal warrant under his sign manual; nor doth there appear therein anything but what is of absolute necessity to prevent embezzlement to his prejudice. And the said Hastings hath declared, in the fifth article of the instructions to the said Resident, that no administration can be properly conducted without regular offices; and that in the whole province of Oude “there was not one, the whole being engrossed by the minister”: of which minister, in the fourteenth article, he declares his suspicion that the Nabob did not receive the whole and punctual payment of the sum assigned for the purpose of the household, but that some part had been by him withheld from the Nabob; and that, from private information he had lately received, he had reason to believe that this was actually the case. And the said Hastings well knew that the Nabob’s household had been ill conducted, that the allowances of his servants had not been paid, that his distress was scandalous, and that his nearest relations were in a famishing condition; and the said Hastings did also well know that the household of the Nabob was provided for or neglected, not at his own discretion, but at that of the said Hyder Beg Khân; and he did, in the fourteenth article aforesaid, instruct the Resident, Bristow, to show every ostensible and external mark of respect to the Nabob, in order to induce him to become himself the mover of every act necessary for the advancing of his own interests and the discharge of his debts to the Company, — declaring, “that they never could be effected while the minister retained that ascendency over him which he at present holds by the means of a nearer and more private intercourse, and by affecting to be the mediator of his rights against the claims of our government.” And the said Hastings did further well know that there was no way of ascertaining the payment of the assignments for the Nabob’s household, either for the general purposes of their destination or to the particular objects to which they ought to be applied, without regular offices of receipt and of account, which might prevent the said minister, Hyder Beg Khân, or the British Resident, or any other, from embezzling or misapplying the same. But the total want of offices aforesaid in every department of government did furnish occasion of concealing all frauds, clandestine presents, or pensions to a Governor-General, Commander-in-Chief, or other servant of the Company.

  LXII. That the said Warren Hastings, who did pretend so deep a concern for the indignities supposed to be suffered by the Nabob merely in the limitation and regulation of unnecessary expenses relative to his kitchen, domestics, &c., did show no attention or compassion to the said Nabob, when, in the year 1779, the said Nabob represented, that the pensions of his old servants for thirty years, the expenses of his family and kitchen, together with the jaghires of his grandmother, mother, and aunts, and of his brothers and dependants, given for their support, were not regulated, but stopped.

  LXIII. That the other articles of regulation, namely, the reform of the troops in number and in arrangement, the appointment of proper collectors for the revenues, and the general constitution of offices for the executive administration, were in like manner totally defeated by the said Hyder Beg Khân. And the said Hastings did receive a charge from him, and did adopt it as his own, representing the endeavors of the Resident to act in the regulations aforesaid agreeably to the spirit of his instructions, and in confidence of the powers vested in and the responsibility imposed upon him, the said Resident, as usurpations of the authority and prerogative of the Nabob; and he, the said Hastings, did make criminal charges thereon against the said Resident, Bristow, of which charges the Council Board did, on hearing the same, and the defence of the said Bristow, fully acquit him.

  LXIV. That the said Hastings, by abetting Hyder Beg Khân, a person described by him as aforesaid, in his opposition to all the plans of necessary reformation proposed by the said Hastings himself, and having suggested n
o other whatever in lieu thereof, to answer the purposes for which he had stipulated in the treaty of Chunar the interference of the Resident in every branch of the Nabob’s government, did thereby frustrate every one of the good ends proposed by him in the said treaty of Chunar, and did grossly abuse his trust in giving the exorbitant powers before recited, and asserting them to exist in the British Resident, without suffering them even in appearance to answer any of the proper and justifiable ends for which any power or influence can or ought to exist in any government.

  LXV. That there is just ground to violently presume that not only the letters in the name of the Nabob aforesaid were dictated to him by his minister, Hyder Beg Khân, in whose hands the said Hastings has described his master to be “a mere cipher,” &c., but which Hyder Beg was the known instrument of the said Hastings, but that the conduct and letters of complaint of the said Hyder Beg were in effect and substance prescribed and dictated to him by the said Warren Hastings, or his secret agent, Palmer, by his direction: because it is notorious that the powers of the said Hyder Beg were solely supported by him, the said Hastings, who, according to the state of favor or displeasure in which he stood, hath frequently promised him support or threatened him with dismission and punishment, and therefore it is not to be thought that he would take so material a step as to oppose the Company’s Resident, acting under the instructions of the Governor-General and Council, and to accuse him with so much confidence, and in a manner so different from the usual style of supplication on all other occasions employed by that court, if he had not been previously well assured that his writing in that manner would be pleasing to the person upon whom he solely depended for his power, his fortune, and perhaps for his life; — secondly, because, when it suited the purposes of the said Hastings on a former occasion, that is, in the year 1784 [1781?], to remove the Resident Bristow aforesaid from his office, a letter from the Nabob was laid before the Council Board at Calcutta, proposing, that, in order to prevent the effects of the said Bristow’s application to Europe for redress, the said Hastings should send him drafts of letters which he, the said Nabob, would write in his own name and character to the King, to his Majesty’s ministers, and to the Court of Directors, expressing himself, in the letter aforesaid, in the words following, viz., “To prevent his [Bristow’s] applying to Europe, send me, if you think proper, the drafts of letters which I may write to the King, the Vizier, and the chiefs of the Company”; — thirdly, that, though the said Hastings, and his secret agent, Palmer, did pretend and positively assert that they had no share in the letters aforesaid from the Nabob and his minister, there was an original note to the Nabob’s letters of accusation, referring to distinct parts and specified numbers of the agent Palmer’s secret correspondence with the said Warren Hastings, and the said letter, with the said reference, was, through inadvertence, laid before the board.