by Edmund Burke
So far as to the objects of the spoil. The instrument chosen by Mr. Hastings to despoil the relict of Sujah Dowlah was her own son, the reigning Nabob of Oude. It was the pious hand of a son that was selected to tear from his mother and grandmother the provision of their age, the maintenance of his brethren, and of all the ancient household of his father. [Here a laugh, from some young members.] The laugh is seasonable, and the occasion decent and proper.
By the last advices, something of the sum extorted remained unpaid. The women, in despair, refuse to deliver more, unless their lands are restored, and their ministers released from prison; but Mr. Hastings and his council, steady to their point, and consistent to the last in their conduct, write to the resident to stimulate the son to accomplish the filial acts he had brought so near to their perfection. “We desire,” say they in their letter to the resident, (written so late as March last,) “that you will inform us if any, and what means, have been taken for recovering the balance due from the Begum [Princess] at Fyzabad; and that, if necessary, you recommend it to the vizier to enforce the most effectual means for that purpose.”
What their effectual means of enforcing demands on women of high rank and condition are I shall show you, Sir, in a few minutes, when I represent to you another of these plots and rebellions, which always in India, though so rarely anywhere else, are the offspring of an easy condition and hoarded riches.
Benares is the capital city of the Indian religion. It is regarded as holy by a particular and distinguished sanctity; and the Gentoos in general think themselves as much obliged to visit it once in their lives as the Mahometans to perform their pilgrimage to Mecca. By this means that city grew great in commerce and opulence; and so effectually was it secured by the pious veneration of that people, that in all wars and in all violences of power there was so sure an asylum both for poverty and wealth, (as it were under a divine protection,) that the wisest laws and best assured free constitution could not better provide for the relief of the one or the safety of the other; and this tranquillity influenced to the greatest degree the prosperity of all the country, and the territory of which it was the capital. The interest of money there was not more than half the usual rate in which it stood in all other places. The reports have fully informed you of the means and of the terms in which this city and the territory called Ghazipoor, of which it was the head, came under the sovereignty of the East India Company.
If ever there was a subordinate dominion pleasantly circumstanced to the superior power, it was this. A large rent or tribute, to the amount of two hundred and sixty thousand pounds a year, was paid in monthly instalments with the punctuality of a dividend at the Bank. If ever there was a prince who could not have an interest in disturbances, it was its sovereign, the Rajah Cheit Sing. He was in possession of the capital of his religion, and a willing revenue was paid by the devout people who resorted to him from all parts. His sovereignty and his independence, except his tribute, was secured by every tie. His territory was not much less than half of Ireland, and displayed in all parts a degree of cultivation, ease, and plenty, under his frugal and paternal management, which left him nothing to desire, either for honor or satisfaction.
This was the light in which this country appeared to almost every eye. But Mr. Hastings beheld it askance. Mr. Hastings tells us that it was reported of this Cheit Sing, that his father left him a million sterling, and that he made annual accessions to the hoard. Nothing could be so obnoxious to indigent power. So much wealth could not be innocent. The House is fully acquainted with the unfounded and unjust requisitions which were made upon this prince. The question has been most ably and conclusively cleared up in one of the reports of the select committee, and in an answer of the Court of Directors to an extraordinary publication against them by their servant, Mr. Hastings. But I mean to pass by these exactions as if they were perfectly just and regular; and having admitted them, I take what I shall now trouble you with only as it serves to show the spirit of the Company’s government, the mode in which it is carried on, and the maxims on which it proceeds.
Mr. Hastings, from whom I take the doctrine, endeavors to prove that Cheit Sing was no sovereign prince, but a mere zemindar, or common subject, holding land by rent. If this be granted to him, it is next to be seen under what terms he is of opinion such a landholder, that is a British subject, holds his life and property under the Company’s government. It is proper to understand well the doctrines of the person whose administration has lately received such distinguished approbation from the Company. His doctrine is,— “That the Company, or the person delegated by it, holds an absolute authority over such zemindars; — that he [such a subject] owes an implicit and unreserved obedience to its authority, at the forfeiture even of his life and property, at the DISCRETION of those who held or fully represented the sovereign authority; — and that these rights are fully delegated to him, Mr. Hastings.”
Such is a British governor’s idea of the condition of a great zemindar holding under a British authority; and this kind of authority he supposes fully delegated to him, — though no such delegation appears in any commission, instruction, or act of Parliament. At his discretion he may demand of the substance of any zemindar, over and above his rent or tribute, even, what he pleases, with a sovereign authority; and if he does not yield an implicit, unreserved obedience to all his commands, he forfeits his lands, his life, and his property, at Mr. Hastings’s discretion. But, extravagant, and even frantic, as these positions appear, they are less so than what I shall now read to you; for he asserts, that, if any one should urge an exemption from more than a stated payment, or should consider the deeds which passed between him and the Board “as bearing the quality and force of a treaty between equal states,” he says, “that such an opinion is itself criminal to the state of which he is a subject; and that he was himself amenable to its justice, if he gave countenance to such a belief.” Here is a new species of crime invented, that of countenancing a belief, — but a belief of what? A belief of that which the Court of Directors, Hastings’s masters, and a committee of this House, have decided as this prince’s indisputable right.
But supposing the Rajah of Benares to be a mere subject, and that subject a criminal of the highest form; let us see what course was taken by an upright English magistrate. Did he cite this culprit before his tribunal? Did he make a charge? Did he produce witnesses? These are not forms; they are parts of substantial and eternal justice. No, not a word of all this. Mr. Hastings concludes him, in his own mind, to be guilty: he makes this conclusion on reports, on hearsays, on appearances, on rumors, on conjectures, on presumptions; and even these never once hinted to the party, nor publicly to any human being, till the whole business was done.
But the Governor tells you his motive for this extraordinary proceeding, so contrary to every mode of justice towards either a prince or a subject, fairly and without disguise; and he puts into your hands the key of his whole conduct:— “I will suppose, for a moment, that I have acted with unwarrantable rigor towards Cheit Sing, and even with injustice. — Let my MOTIVE be consulted. I left Calcutta, impressed with a belief that extraordinary means were necessary, and those exerted with a steady hand, to preserve the Company’s interests from sinking under the accumulated weight which oppressed them. I saw a political necessity for curbing the overgrown power of a great member of their dominion, and for making it contribute to the relief of their pressing exigencies.” This is plain speaking; after this, it is no wonder that the Rajah’s wealth and his offence, the necessities of the judge and the opulence of the delinquent, are never separated, through the whole of Mr. Hastings’s apology. “The justice and policy of exacting a large pecuniary mulct.” The resolution “to draw from his guilt the means of relief to the Company’s distresses.” His determination “to make him pay largely for his pardon, or to execute a severe vengeance for past delinquency.” That “as his wealth was great, and the Company’s exigencies pressing, he thought it a measure of justice and policy t
o exact from him a large pecuniary mulct for their relief.”— “The sum” (says Mr. Wheler, bearing evidence, at his desire, to his intentions) “to which the Governor declared his resolution to extend his fine was forty or fifty lacs, that is, four or five hundred thousand pounds; and that, if he refused, he was to be removed from his zemindary entirely; or by taking possession of his forts, to obtain, out of the treasure deposited in them, the above sum for the Company.”
Crimes so convenient, crimes so politic, crimes so necessary, crimes so alleviating of distress, can never be wanting to those who use no process, and who produce no proofs.
But there is another serious part (what is not so?) in this affair. Let us suppose that the power for which Mr. Hastings contends, a power which no sovereign ever did or ever can vest in any of his subjects, namely, his own sovereign authority, to be conveyed by the act of Parliament to any man or body of men whatsoever; it certainly was never given to Mr. Hastings. The powers given by the act of 1773 were formal and official; they were given, not to the Governor-General, but to the major vote of the board, as a board, on discussion amongst themselves, in their public character and capacity; and their acts in that character and capacity were to be ascertained by records and minutes of council. The despotic acts exercised by Mr. Hastings were done merely in his private character; and, if they had been moderate and just, would still be the acts of an usurped authority, and without any one of the legal modes of proceeding which could give him competence for the most trivial exertion of power. There was no proposition or deliberation whatsoever in council, no minute on record, by circulation or otherwise, to authorize his proceedings; no delegation of power to impose a fine, or to take any step to deprive the Rajah of Benares of his government, his property, or his liberty. The minutes of consultation assign to his journey a totally different object, duty, and destination. Mr. Wheler, at his desire, tells us long after, that he had a confidential conversation with him on various subjects, of which this was the principal, in which Mr. Hastings notified to him his secret intentions; “and that he bespoke his support of the measures which he intended to pursue towards him (the Rajah).” This confidential discourse, and bespeaking of support, could give him no power, in opposition to an express act of Parliament, and the whole tenor of the orders of the Court of Directors.
In what manner the powers thus usurped were employed is known to the whole world. All the House knows that the design on the Rajah proved as unfruitful as it was violent. The unhappy prince was expelled, and his more unhappy country was enslaved and ruined; but not a rupee was acquired. Instead of treasure to recruit the Company’s finances, wasted by their wanton wars and corrupt jobs, they were plunged into a new war, which shook their power in India to its foundation, and, to use the Governor’s own happy simile, might have dissolved it like a magic structure, if the talisman had been broken.
But the success is no part of my consideration, who should think just the same of this business, if the spoil of one rajah had been fully acquired, and faithfully applied to the destruction of twenty other rajahs. Not only the arrest of the Rajah in his palace was unnecessary and unwarrantable, and calculated to stir up any manly blood which remained in his subjects, but the despotic style and the extreme insolence of language and demeanor, used to a person of great condition among the politest people in the world, was intolerable. Nothing aggravates tyranny so much as contumely. Quicquid superbia in contumeliis was charged by a great man of antiquity, as a principal head of offence against the Governor-General of that day. The unhappy people were still more insulted. A relation, but an enemy to the family, a notorious robber and villain, called Ussaun Sing, kept as a hawk in a mew, to fly upon this nation, was set up to govern there, instead of a prince honored and beloved. But when the business of insult was accomplished, the revenue was too serious a concern to be intrusted to such hands. Another was set up in his place, as guardian to an infant.
But here, Sir, mark the effect of all these extraordinary means, of all this policy and justice. The revenues, which had been hitherto paid with such astonishing punctuality, fell into arrear. The new prince guardian was deposed without ceremony, — and with as little, cast into prison. The government of that once happy country has been in the utmost confusion ever since such good order was taken about it. But, to complete the contumely offered to this undone people, and to make them feel their servitude in all its degradation and all its bitterness, the government of their sacred city, the government of that Benares which had been so respected by Persian and Tartar conquerors, though of the Mussulman persuasion, that, even in the plenitude of their pride, power, and bigotry, no magistrate of that sect entered the place, was now delivered over by English hands to a Mahometan; and an Ali Ibrahim Khân was introduced, under the Company’s authority, with power of life and death, into the sanctuary of the Gentoo religion. After this, the taking off a slight payment, cheerfully made by pilgrims to a chief of their own rites, was represented as a mighty benefit.
It remains only to show, through the conduct in this business, the spirit of the Company’s government, and the respect they pay towards other prejudices, not less regarded in the East than those of religion: I mean the reverence paid to the female sex in general, and particularly to women of high rank and condition. During the general confusion of the country of Ghazipoor, Panna, the mother of Cheit Sing, was lodged with her train in a castle called Bidgé Gur, in which were likewise deposited a large portion of the treasures of her son, or more probably her own. To whomsoever they belonged was indifferent: for, though no charge of rebellion was made on this woman, (which was rather singular, as it would have cost nothing,) they were resolved to secure her with her fortune. The castle was besieged by Major Popham.
There was no great reason to apprehend that soldiers ill paid, that soldiers who thought they had been defrauded of their plunder on former services of the same kind, would not have been sufficiently attentive to the spoil they were expressly come for; but the gallantry and generosity of the profession was justly suspected, as being likely to set bounds to military rapaciousness. The Company’s first civil magistrate discovered the greatest uneasiness lest the women should have anything preserved to them. Terms tending to put some restraint on military violence were granted. He writes a letter to Mr. Popham, referring to some letter written before to the same effect, which I do not remember to have seen; but it shows his anxiety on this subject. Hear himself:— “I think every demand she has made on you, except that of safety and respect to her person, is unreasonable. If the reports brought to me are true, your rejecting her offers, or any negotiation, would soon obtain you the fort upon your own terms. I apprehend she will attempt to defraud the captors of a considerable part of their booty, by being suffered to retire without examination. But this is your concern, not mine. I should be very sorry that your officers and soldiers lost any part of the reward to which they are so well entitled; but you must be the best judge of the promised indulgence to the Ranny: what you have engaged for I will certainly ratify; but as to suffering the Ranny to hold the purgunna of Hurlich, or any other zemindary, without being subject to the authority of the zemindar, or any lands whatsoever, or indeed making any condition with her for a provision, I will never consent.”
Here your Governor stimulates a rapacious and licentious soldiery to the personal search of women, lest these unhappy creatures should avail themselves of the protection of their sex to secure any supply for their necessities; and he positively orders that no stipulation should be made for any provision for them. The widow and mother of a prince, well informed of her miserable situation, and the cause of it, a woman of this rank became a suppliant to the domestic servant of Mr. Hastings, (they are his own words that I read,) “imploring his intercession that she may be relieved from the hardships and dangers of her present situation, and offering to surrender the fort, and the treasure and valuable effects contained in it, provided she can be assured of safety and protection to her person and honor, and to
that of her family and attendants.” He is so good as to consent to this, “provided she surrenders everything of value, with the reserve only of such articles as you shall think necessary to her condition, or as you yourself shall be disposed to indulge her with. — But should she refuse to execute the promise she has made, or delay it beyond the term of twenty-four hours, it is my positive injunction that you immediately put a stop to any further intercourse or negotiation with her, and on no pretext renew it. If she disappoints or trifles with me, after I have subjected my duan to the disgrace of returning ineffectually, and of course myself to discredit, I shall consider it as a wanton affront and indignity which I can never forgive; nor will I grant her any conditions whatever, but leave her exposed to those dangers which she has chosen to risk, rather than trust to the clemency and generosity of our government. I think she cannot be ignorant of these consequences, and will not venture to incur them; and it is for this reason I place a dependence on her offers, and have consented to send my duan to her.” The dreadful secret hinted at by the merciful Governor in the latter part of the letter is well understood in India, where those who suffer corporeal indignities generally expiate the offences of others with their own blood. However, in spite of all these, the temper of the military did, some way or other, operate. They came to terms which have never been transmitted. It appears that a fifteenth per cent of the plunder was reserved to the captives, of which the unhappy mother of the Prince of Benares was to have a share. This ancient matron, born to better things [A laugh from certain young gentlemen] — I see no cause for this mirth. A good author of antiquity reckons among the calamities of his time “nobilissimarum fæminarum exilia et fugas.” I say, Sir, this ancient lady was compelled to quit her house, with three hundred helpless women and a multitude of children in her train. But the lower sort in the camp, it seems, could not be restrained. They did not forget the good lessons of the Governor-General. They were unwilling “to be defrauded of a considerable part of their booty by suffering them to pass without examination.” — They examined them, Sir, with a vengeance; and the sacred protection of that awful character, Mr. Hastings’s maître d’hôtel, could not secure them from insult and plunder. Here is Popham’s narrative of the affair: —