Complete Works of Edmund Burke

by Edmund Burke

  XII. That the said Warren Hastings did attempt to justify his publication of the said libellous letter to and against the Court of Directors by asserting therein that these resolutions (meaning the resolutions of the Court of Directors relative to the Rajah of Benares) “were either published or intended for publication”: evidently proving that he did take this unwarrantable course without any sufficient assurance that the ground and motive by him assigned had any existence.

  XX. — MAHRATTA WAR AND PEACE.

  I. That by an act passed in 1773 it was expressly ordered and provided, “that it should not be lawful for any President and Council of Madras, Bombay, or Bencoolen, for the time being, to make any orders for commencing hostilities, or declaring or making war, against any Indian princes or powers, or for negotiating or concluding any treaty of peace, or other treaty, with any such Indian princes or powers, without the consent and approbation of the Governor-General and Council first had and obtained, except in such cases of imminent necessity as would render it dangerous to postpone such hostilities or treaties until the orders from the Governor-General and Council might arrive.” That, nevertheless, the President and Council of Bombay did, in December, 1774, without the consent and approbation of the Governor-General and Council of Fort William, and in the midst of profound peace, commence an unjust and unprovoked war against the Mahratta government, did conclude a treaty with a certain person, a fugitive from that government, and proscribed by it, named Ragonaut Row, or Ragoba, and did, under various base and treacherous pretences, invade and conquer the island of Salsette, belonging to the Mahratta government.

  II. That Warren Hastings, on the first advices received in Bengal of the above transactions, did condemn the same in the strongest terms, — declaring that “the measures adopted by the Presidency of Bombay had a tendency to a very extensive and indefinite scene of troubles, and that their conduct was unseasonable, impolitic, unjust, and unauthorized.” And the Governor-General and Council, in order to put a stop to the said unjust hostilities, did appoint an ambassador to the Peshwa, or chief of the Mahratta state, resident at Poonah; and the said ambassador did, after a long negotiation, conclude a definitive treaty of peace with the said Peshwa on terms highly honorable and beneficial to the East India Company, who by the said treaty obtained from the Mahrattas a cession of considerable tracts of country, the Mahratta share of the city of Baroach, twelve lacs of rupees for the expenses of the said unjust war, and particularly the island of Salsette, of which the Presidency of Bombay had possessed themselves by surprise and treachery. That, in return for these extraordinary concessions, the articles principally insisted on by the Mahrattas, with a view to their own future tranquillity and internal quiet, were, that no assistance should he given to any subject or servant of the Peshwa that should cause disturbances or rebellion in the Mahratta dominions, and particularly that the English should not assist Ragonaut Row, to whom the Mahrattas agreed to allow five lacs of rupees a year, or a jaghire to that amount, and that he should reside at Benares. That, nevertheless, the Presidency of Bombay did receive and keep Ragonaut Row at Bombay, did furnish him with a considerable establishment, and continue to carry on secret intrigues and negotiations with him, thereby giving just ground of jealousy and distrust to the Mahratta state. That the late Colonel John Upton, by whom the treaty of Poorunder was negotiated and concluded, did declare to the Governor-General and Council, “that, while Ragonaut Row resides at Bombay in expectation of being supported, the ministers can place no confidence in the Council there, which must now be productive of the greatest inconveniencies, and perhaps in the end of fatal consequences.” That the said Warren Hastings, concurring with his Council, which then consisted of Sir John Clavering, Richard Barwell, and Philip Francis, Esquires, did, on the 18th of August, 1777, declare to the Presidency of Bombay, that “he could see no reason to doubt that the presence of Ragoba at Bombay would continue to be an insuperable bar to the completion of the treaty concluded with the Mahratta government; nor could any sincere cordiality and good understanding be established with them, as long as he should appear to derive encouragement and support from the English.” That Sir John Clavering died soon after, and that the late Edward Wheler, Esquire, succeeded to a seat in the Supreme Council. That on the 29th of January, 1778, the Governor-General and Council received a letter from the Presidency of Bombay, dated 12th December, 1777, in which they declared, “that they had agreed to give encouragement to a party formed in Ragoba’s favor, and flattered themselves they should meet with the hearty concurrence of the Governor-General and Council in the measures they might be obliged to pursue in consequence.” That the party so described was said to consist of four principal persons in the Mahratta state, on whose part some overtures had been made to Mr. William Lewis, the Resident of Bombay at Poonah, for the assistance of the Company to bring Ragoba to Poonah. That the said Warren Hastings, immediately on the receipt of the preceding advices, did propose and carry it in Council, by means of his casting voice, and against the remonstrances, arguments, and solemn protest of two members of the Supreme Council, that the sanction of that government should be given to the plan which the President and Council of Bombay had agreed to form with the Mahratta government; and also that a supply of money (to the amount of ten lacs of rupees) should be immediately granted to the President and Council of Bombay for the support of their engagements above mentioned; and also that a military force should be sent to the Presidency of Bombay. That in defence of these resolutions the said Warren Hastings did falsely pretend and affirm, “that the resolution of the Presidency of Bombay was formed on such a case of imminent necessity as would have rendered it dangerous to postpone the execution of it until the orders from the Governor-General and Council might arrive; and that the said Presidency of Bombay were warranted by the treaty of Poorunder to join in a plan for conducting Ragonaut Row to Poonah on the application of the ruling part of the Mahratta state”: whereas the main object of the said treaty on the part of the Mahrattas, and to obtain which they made many important concessions to the India Company, was, that the English should withdraw their forces, and give no assistance to Ragoba, and that he should be excluded forever from any share in their government, being a person universally held in abhorrence in the Mahratta empire; and if it had been true (instead of being, as it was, notoriously false) that the ruling part of the administration of the Mahratta state solicited the return of Ragonaut Row to Poonah, his return in that case might have been effected by acts of their own, without the interposition of the English power, and without our interference in their affairs. That it was the special duty of the said Warren Hastings, derived from a special trust reposed in him and power committed to him by Parliament, to have restrained, as by law he had authority to do, the subordinate Presidency of Bombay from entering into hostilities with the Mahrattas, or from making engagements the manifest tendency of which was to enter into those hostilities, and to have put a stop to them, if any such had been begun; that he was bound by the duty of his office to preserve the faith of the British government, pledged in the treaty of Poorunder, inviolate and sacred, as well as by the special orders and instructions of the East India Company to fix his attention to the preservation of peace throughout India: all which important duties the said Warren Hastings did wilfully violate, in giving the sanction of the Governor-General and Council to the dangerous, faithless, and ill-concerted projects of the President and Council of Bombay hereinbefore mentioned, from which the subsequent Mahratta war, with all the expense, distress, and disgraces which have attended it, took their commencement; and that the said Warren Hastings, therefore, is specially and principally answerable for the said war, and for all the consequences thereof. That in a letter dated the 20th of January, 1778, the President and Council of Bombay informed the Governor-General and Council, that, in consequence of later intelligence received from Poonah, they had immediately resolved that nothing further could be done, unless Saccaram Baboo, the principal in the late treaty
(of Poorunder) joined in making a formal application to them. That no such application was ever made by that person. That the said Warren Hastings, finding that all this pretended ground for engaging in an invasion of the Mahratta government had totally failed, did then pretend to give credit to, and to be greatly alarmed by, the suggestions of the President and Council of Bombay, that the Mahrattas were negotiating with the French, and had agreed to give them the port of Choul, on the Malabar coast, and did affirm that the French had obtained possession of that port. That all these suggestions and assertions were false, and, if they had been true, would have furnished no just occasion for attacking either the Mahrattas or the French, with both of whom the British nation was then at peace. That the said Warren Hastings did then propose and carry the following resolution in Council, against the protest of two members thereof, that, “for the purpose of granting you [the Presidency of Bombay] the most effectual support in our power, we have resolved to assemble a strong military force near Calpee, the commanding officer of which is to be ordered to march by the most practicable route to Bombay, or to such other place as future occurrences and your directions to him may render it expedient”; and with respect to the steps said to be taking by the French to obtain a settlement on the Malabar coast, the said Warren Hastings did declare to the Presidency of Bombay, “that it was the opinion of the Governor-General and Council that no time ought to be lost in forming and carrying into execution such measures as might most effectually tend to frustrate such dangerous designs.” That the said Warren Hastings, therefore, instead of fixing his attention to the preservation of peace throughout India, as it was his duty to have done, did continue to abet, encourage, and support the dangerous projects of the Presidency of Bombay, and did thereby manifest a determined intention to disturb the peace of India, by the unfortunate success of which intention, and by the continued efforts of the said Hastings, the greatest part of India has been for several years involved in a bloody and calamitous war. That both the Court of Directors and Court of Proprietors did specially instruct the said Warren Hastings, in all his measures, “to make the safety and prosperity of Bengal his principal object,” and did heavily censure the said Warren Hastings for having employed their troops at a great distance from Bengal in a war against the Rohillas, which the House of Commons have pronounced to be iniquitous, and did on that occasion expressly declare, “that they disapproved of all such distant expeditions as might eventually carry their forces to any situation too remote to admit of their speedy and safe return to the protection of their own provinces, in case of emergency.” That the said Warren Hastings nevertheless ordered a detachment from the Bengal army to cross the Jumna, and to proceed across the peninsula by a circuitous route through the diamond country of Bundelcund, and through the dominions of the Rajah of Berar, situated in the centre of Hindostan, and did thereby strip the provinces subject to the government of Fort William of a considerable part of their established defence, and did thereby disobey the general instructions and positive orders of the Court of Directors, (given upon occasion of a crime of the same nature committed by the said Hastings,) and was guilty of a high crime and misdemeanor.

  That the said Warren Hastings, having taken the measures hereinbefore described for supporting those of the Presidency of Bombay, did, on the 23d of March, 1778, “invest the said Presidency with authority to form a new alliance with Ragoba, and to engage with him in any scheme which they should deem expedient and safe for retrieving his affairs.” That the said Hastings was then in possession of a letter from the Court of Directors, dated the 4th of July, 1777, containing a positive order to the Presidency of Bombay in the following words. “Though that treaty” (meaning the treaty of Poorunder) “is not, upon the whole, so agreeable to us as we could wish, still we are resolved strictly to adhere to it on our parts. You must therefore be particularly vigilant, while Ragoba is with you, to prevent him from forming any plan against what is called the ministerial party at Poonah; and we hereby positively order you not to engage with him in any scheme whatever in retrieving his affairs, without the consent of the Governor-General and Council, or the Court of Directors.” That the said Ragoba neither did or could form any plan for his restoration but what was and must be against the ministerial party at Poonah, who held and exercised the regency of that state in the infancy of the Peshwa; and that, supposing him to have formed any other scheme, in conjunction with Bombay, for retrieving his affairs, the said Hastings, in giving a previous general authority to the Presidency of Bombay to engage with Ragoba in any scheme for that purpose, without knowing what such scheme might be, and thereby relinquishing and transferring to the discretion of a subordinate government that superintendence and control over all measures tending to create or provoke a war which the law had exclusively vested in the Governor-General and Council, was guilty of a high crime and misdemeanor.

  That the said Warren Hastings, having first declared that the measures taken by him were for the support of the engagements made by the Presidency of Bombay in favor of Ragoba, did afterwards, when it appeared that those negotiations were entirely laid aside, declare that his apprehension of the consequence of a pretended intrigue between the Mahrattas and the French was the sole motive of all the late measures taken for the support of the Presidency of Bombay; but that neither of the preceding declarations contained the true motives and objects of the said Hastings, whose real purpose, as it appeared soon after, was, to make use of the superiority of the British power in India to carry on offensive wars, and to pursue schemes of conquest, impolitic and unjust in their design, ill-concerted in the execution, and which, as this House has resolved, have brought great calamities on India, and enormous expenses on the East India Company.

  That the said Warren Hastings, on the 22d of June, 1778, made the following declaration in Council. “Much less can I agree, that, with such superior advantages as we possess over every power which can oppose us, we should act merely on the defensive. On the contrary, if it be really true that the British arms and influence have suffered so severe a check in the Western world, it is more incumbent on those who are charged with the interests of Great Britain in the East to exert themselves for the retrieval of the national loss. We have the means in our power, and, if they are not frustrated by our own dissensions, I trust that the event of this expedition will yield every advantage for the attainment of which it was undertaken.”

  That, in pursuance of the principles avowed in the preceding declaration, the said Warren Hastings, on the 9th of July, 1778, did propose and carry it in Council, that an embassy should be sent from Bengal to Moodajee Boosla, the Rajah of Berar, — falsely asserting that the said Rajah “was, by interest and inclination, likely to join in an alliance with the British government, and suggesting that two advantages might be offered to him as the inducements to it: first, the support of his pretensions to the sovereign power” (viz., of the Mahratta empire); “second, the recovery of the captures made on his dominions by Nizam Ali.” That the said Hastings, having already given full authority to the Presidency of Bombay to engage the British faith to Ragonaut Row to support him in his pretensions to the government or to the regency of the Mahratta empire, was guilty of a high crime and misdemeanor in proposing to engage the same British faith to support the pretensions of another competitor for the same object; and that, in offering to assist the Rajah of Berar to recover the captures made on his dominions by the Nizam, the said Hastings did endeavor, as far as depended on him, to engage the British nation in a most unjust and utterly unprovoked war against the said Nizam, between whom and the East India Company a treaty of peace and friendship did then subsist, unviolated on his part, — notwithstanding the said Hastings well knew that it made part of the East India Company’s fundamental policy to support that prince against the Mahrattas, and to consider him as one of the few remaining chiefs who were yet capable of coping with the Mahrattas, and that it was the Company’s true interest to preserve a good understanding with him. That,
by holding out such offers to the Rajah of Berar, the said Hastings professed to hope that the Rajah would ardently catch at the objects presented to his ambition: and although the said Hastings did about this time lay it down as a maxim that there is always a greater advantage in receiving solicitations than in making advances, he nevertheless declared to the said Rajah that in the whole of his conduct he had departed from the common line of policy, and had made advances where others in his situation would have waited for solicitation. That the said unjust and dangerous projects did not take effect, because the Rajah of Berar refused to join or be concerned therein; yet so earnest was the said Hastings for the execution of those projects, that in a subsequent letter he daringly and treacherously assured the Rajah, “that, if he had accepted of the terms offered him by Colonel Goddard, and concluded a treaty with the government of Bengal upon them, he should have held the obligation of it superior to that of any engagement formed by the government of Bombay, and should have thought it his duty to maintain it, &c., against every consideration even of the most valuable interests and safety of the English possessions intrusted to his charge.” That all the offers of the said Hastings were rejected with slight and contempt by the Rajah of Berar; but the same being discovered, and generally known throughout India, did fill the chief of the princes and states of India with a general suspicion and distrust of the ambitious designs and treacherous principles of the British government, and with an universal hatred of the British nation. That the said princes and states were thereby so thoroughly convinced of the necessity of uniting amongst themselves to oppose a power which kept no faith with any of them, and equally threatened them all, that, renouncing all former enmities against each other, they united in a common confederacy against the English, viz.: the Peshwa, as representative of the Mahratta state, and Moodajee Boosla, the Rajah of Berar, that is, the principal Hindoo powers of India, on one side; and Hyder Ali, and the Nizam of the Deccan, that is, the principal Mahomedan powers of India, on the other: and that in consequence of this confederacy Hyder Ali invaded, overran, and ruined the Carnatic; and that Moodajee Boosla, instead of ardently catching at the objects presented to his ambition by the said Hastings, sent an army to the frontiers of Bengal, — which army the said Warren Hastings was at length forced to buy off with twenty-six lacs of rupees, or 300,000l. sterling, after a series of negotiations with the Mahratta chiefs who commanded that army, founded and conducted on principles so dishonorable to the British name and character, that the Secret Committee of the House of Commons, by whom the rest of the proceedings in that business were reported to the House, have upon due consideration thought it proper to leave out the letter of instructions to Mr. Anderson, viz., those given by the said Warren Hastings to the representative of the British government, and concerning which the said committee have reported in the following terms: “The schemes of policy by which the Governor-General seems to have dictated the instructions he gave to Mr. Anderson” (the gentleman deputed) “will also appear in this document, as well respecting the particular succession to the rauje, as also the mode of accommodating the demand of chout, the establishment of which was apparently the great aim of Moodajee’s political manoeuvres, while the Governor-General’s wish to defeat it was avowedly more intent on the removal of a nominal disgrace than on the anxiety or resolution to be freed from an expensive, if an unavoidable incumbrance.”