Complete Works of Edmund Burke

by Edmund Burke

  My Lords, I think I have read enough to you for our present purpose, — referring your Lordships for fuller information to your Minutes, page 1086, which I beg you to read with the greatest attention.

  I must again beg your Lordships to remark, that, though Mr. Hastings has the impudence still to pretend that he wishes for the restoration of order and justice in the country, yet, instead of writing to Munny Begum upon the business, whom he knew to be the very object complained of, and whose eunuchs are expressly mentioned in the complaint, he writes to the Nabob, whom he knew to be a pageant in his own court and government, and whose name was not even mentioned in this last complaint. Not one word is said, even in this letter to the Nabob, of Munny Begum or of her eunuchs. My Lords, when you consider his tacit support of the authors of the grievance, and his ostensible application for redress to the man who he knew never authorized and could not redress the grievance, you must conclude that he meant to keep the country in the same state for his own corrupt purposes. In this state the country in fact continued; Munny Begum and her eunuchs continued to administer and squander the Company’s money, as well as the Nabob’s; robberies and murders continued to prevail throughout the country. No appearance was left of order, law, or justice, from one end of Bengal to the other.

  The account of this state of things was received by the Court of Directors with horror and indignation. On the 27th of May, 1779, they write, as you will find in page 1063 of your printed Minutes, a letter to their government at Calcutta, condemning their proceedings and the removal of Mahomed Reza Khân, and they order that Munny Begum shall be displaced, and Mahomed Reza Khân restored again to the seat of justice.

  Mr. Francis, upon the arrival of these reiterated orders, moved in Council for an obedience to them. Mr. Hastings, notwithstanding he had before his eyes all the horrible consequences that attended his new arrangement, still resists that proposition. By his casting voice in the Council he counter-orders the orders of the Court of Directors, and sanctions a direct disobedience to their authority, by a resolution that Mahomed Reza Khân should not be restored to his employment, but that this Sudder ul Huk Khân, who still continued in the condition already described, should remain in the possession of his office. I say nothing of Sudder ul Huk Khân; he seems to be very well disposed to do his duty, if Mr. Hastings’s arrangements had suffered him to do it; and indeed, if Mahomed Reza Khân had been reinstated, and no better supported by Mr. Hastings than Sudder ul Huk Khân, he could probably have kept the country in no better order, though, perhaps, his name, and the authority and weight which still adhered to him in some degree, might have had some influence.

  My Lords, you have seen his defiance of the Company; you have seen his defiance of all decency; you see his open protection of prostitutes and robbers of every kind ravaging Bengal; you have seen this defiance of the authority of the Court of Directors flatly, directly, and peremptorily persisted in to the last. Order after order was reiterated, but his disobedience arose with an elastic spring in proportion to the pressure that was upon it.

  My Lords, here there was a pause. The Directors had been disobeyed; and you might suppose that he would have been satisfied with this act of disobedience. My Lords, he was resolved to let the native governments of the country know that he despised the orders of the Court of Directors, and that, whenever he pretended to obey them, in reality he was resolved upon the most actual disobedience. An event now happened, the particulars of which we are not to repeat here. Disputes, conducted, on Mr. Francis’s side, upon no other principle, that we can discover, but a desire to obey the Company’s orders, and to execute his duty with fidelity and disinterestedness, had arisen between him and Mr. Hastings. Mr. Francis, about the time we have been speaking of, finding resistance was vain, reconciles himself to him, — but on the most honorable terms as a public man, namely, that he should continue to follow and obey the laws, and to respect the authority of the Court of Directors. Upon this reconciliation, it was agreed that Mahomed Reza Khân should be restored to his office. For this purpose Mr. Hastings enters a minute, and writes to the Nabob an ostensible letter. But your Lordships will here see an instance of what I said respecting a double current in all Mr. Hastings’s proceedings. Even when he obeys or pretends to obey the Company’s orders, there is always a private channel through which he defeats them all.

  Letter from Mr. Hastings to the Nabob Mobarek ul Dowlah, written the 10th of February, 1780.

  “The Company, whose orders are peremptory, have directed that Mahomed Reza Khân shall be restored to the offices he held in January, 1778. It is my duty to represent this to your Excellency, and to recommend your compliance with their request, that Mahomed Reza Khân may be invested with the offices assigned to him under the nizamut by the Company.”

  Your Lordships see here that Mr. Hastings informs the Nabob, that, having received peremptory orders from the Company, he restores and replaces Mahomed Reza Khân. Mahomed Reza Khân, then, is in possession, — and in possession by the best of all titles, the orders of the Company. But you will also see the manner in which he evades his duty, and vilifies in the eyes of these miserable country powers the authority of the Directors. He is prepared, as usual, with a defeasance of his own act; and the manner in which that defeasance came to our knowledge is this. We knew nothing of this private affair, till Mr. Hastings, in his answer before the House of Commons, finding it necessary to destroy the validity of some of his own acts, brought forward Sir John D’Oyly. He was brought forward before us, not as a witness in his own person for the defence of Mr. Hastings, but as a narrator who had been employed by Mr. Hastings as a member of that Council which, as you have heard, drew up his defence. My Lords, you have already seen the public agency of this business, you have heard read the public letter sent to the Nabob: there you see the ostensible part of the transaction. Now hear the banian, Sir John D’Oyly, give an account of his part in it, extracted from Mr. Hastings’s defence before the House of Commons.

  “I was appointed Resident [at the Court of the Nabob] on the resignation of Mr. Byam Martin, in the month of January, 1780, and took charge about the beginning of February of the same year. The substance of the instructions I received was, to endeavor, by every means in my power, to conciliate the good opinion and regard of the Nabob and his family, that I might be able to persuade him to adopt effectual measures for the better regulation of his expenses, which were understood to have greatly exceeded his income; that I might prevent his forming improper connections, or taking any steps derogatory to his rank, and by every means in my power support his credit and dignify in the eyes of the world; and with respect to the various branches of his family, I was instructed to endeavor to put a stop to the dissensions which had too frequently prevailed amongst them. The Nabob, on his part, was recommended to pay the same attention to my advice as he would have done to that of the Governor-General in person. Some time, I think, in the month of February of the same year, I received a letter from Mr. Hastings, purporting that the critical situation of affairs requiring the union and utmost exertion of every member of the government to give vigor to the acts necessary for its relief, he had agreed to an accommodation with Mr. Francis; but to effect this point he had been under the necessity of making some painful sacrifices, and particularly that of the restoration of Mahomed Reza Khân to the office of Naib Subah, a measure which he knew must be highly disagreeable to the Nabob, and which nothing but the urgent necessity of the case should have led him to acquiesce in; that he relied on me to state all these circumstances in the most forcible manner to the Nabob, and to urge his compliance, assuring him that it should not continue longer than until the next advices were received from the Court of Directors.”

  Here Mr. Hastings himself lets us into the secrets of his government. He writes an ostensible letter to the Nabob, declaring that what he does is in conformity to the orders of the Company. He writes a private letter, in which he directs his agent to assure the Nabob that what he had done was
not in compliance with the orders of the Company, but in consequence of the arrangement he had made with Mr. Francis, which arrangement he thought necessary for the support of his own personal power. His design, in thus explaining the transaction to the Nabob, was in order to prevent the native powers from looking to any other authority than his, and from having the least hopes of redress of their complaints from the justice of this country or from any legal power in it. He therefore tells him that Mahomed Reza Khân was replaced, not in obedience to the orders of the Company, but to gratify Mr. Francis. If he quarrels with Mr. Francis, he makes that a reason for disobeying the orders of his masters; if he agrees with him, he informs the people concerned in the transaction, privately, that he acts, not in consequence of the orders that he has received, but from other motives. But that is not all. He promises that he will take the first opportunity to remove Mahomed Reza Khân from his office again. Thus the country is to be re-plunged into the same distracted and ruined state in which it was before. And all this is laid open fully and distinctly before you. You have it on the authority of Sir John D’Oyly. Sir John D’Oyly is a person in the secret; and one man who is in the secret is worth a thousand ostensible persons.

  Mahomed Reza Khân, I must now tell you, was accordingly reinstated in all his offices, and the Nabob was reduced to the situation, as Mr. Hastings upon another occasion describes it, of a mere cipher. But mark what followed, — mark what this Sir John D’Oyly is made to tell you, or what Mr. Hastings tells you for him: for whether Sir John D’Oyly has written this for Mr. Hastings, or Mr. Hastings for Sir John D’Oyly, I do not know; because they seem, as somebody said of two great friends, that they had but one will, one bed, and one hat between them. These gentlemen who compose Mr. Hastings’s Council have but one style of writing among them; so that it is impossible for you to determine by which of the masters of this Roman school any paper was written, — whether by D’Oyly, by Shore, or by Hastings, or any other of them. They have a style in common, a kind of bank upon which they have a general credit; and you cannot tell to whose account anything is to be placed.

  But to proceed. — Sir John D’Oyly says there, that the Nabob is reduced again to a cipher. Now hear what he afterwards says. “About the month of June, 1781, Mr. Hastings, being then at Moorshedabad, communicated to me his intention of performing his promise to the Nabob, by restoring him to the management of his own affairs,” — that is to say, by restoring Munny Begum again, and by turning out Mahomed Reza Khân. Your Lordships see that he communicated privately his intentions to Sir John D’Oyly, without communicating one word of them to his colleagues in the Supreme Council, and without entering any minute in the records of the Council, by which it could be known to the Directors.

  Lastly, in order to show you in what manner the Nabob was to be restored to his power, I refer your Lordships to the order he gave to Sir John D’Oyly for investigating the Nabob’s accounts, and for drawing up articles of instructions for the Nabob’s conduct in the management of his affairs. You will there see clearly how he was restored: that is to say, that he was taken out of the hands of the first Mussulman in that country, the man most capable of administering justice, and whom the Company had expressly ordered to be invested with that authority, and to put him into the hands of Sir John D’Oyly. Is Sir John D’Oyly a Mussulman? Is Sir John D’Oyly fit to be at the head of such a government? What was there that any person could see about him, that entitled him to or made him a fit person to be intrusted with this power, in defiance of the Company’s orders? And yet Mahomed Reza Khân, who was to have the management of the Nabob’s affairs, was himself put under the most complete and perfect subjection to this Sir John D’Oyly. But, in fact, Munny Begum had the real influence in everything. Sir John D’Oyly himself was only Mr. Hastings’s instrument there to preserve it, and between them they pillaged the Nabob in the most shocking manner, and must have done so to the knowledge of Mr. Hastings. A letter written at this time by Mr. Hastings to the Nabob discovers the secret beyond all power of evasion.

  Instructions from the Governor-General to the Nabob Mobarek ul Dowlah, respecting his Conduct in the Management of his Affairs.

  “9th. These I make the conditions of the compliance which the Governor-General and Council have yielded to your late requisition. It is but just that you should possess what is your acknowledged right; but their intention would be defeated, and you would be in a worse situation, if you were to be left a prey, without a guide, until you have acquired experience, (which, to the strength and goodness of your understanding, will be the work but of a short period,) to the rapacity, frauds, and artifices of mankind. You have offered to give up the sum of four lacs of rupees to be allowed the free use of the remainder of your stipend. This we have refused, because it would be contrary to justice. You should consider this as a proof of the sincerity of the above arrangements which have been recommended to you, and of their expediency to your real interests; and your attention to them will be a means of reconciling the Company to the resolution which we have taken, and which will be reported to them in a light very hurtful both to you and to us, if an improper effect should attend it. These I have ordered Sir John D’Oyly to read in your presence, and to explain them to you, that no part of them may escape your notice; and he has my positive orders to remonstrate to you against every departure from them. Upon all these occasions, I hope and expect that you will give him a particular and cordial attention, and regard what he shall say as if said by myself; for I know him to be a person of the strictest honor and integrity. I have a perfect reliance on him; and you cannot have a more attached or more disinterested counsellor. Although I desire to receive your letters frequently, yet, as many matters will occur which cannot so easily be explained by letter as by conversation, I desire that you will on such occasions give your orders to him respecting such points as you may desire to have imparted to me; and I, postponing every other concern, will give you an immediate and the most satisfactory reply concerning them.”

  My Lords, here is a man who is to administer his own affairs, who has arrived at sufficient age to supersede the counsel and advice of the great Mahometan doctors and the great nobility of the country, and he is put under the most absolute guardianship of Sir John D’Oyly. But Mr. Hastings has given Sir John D’Oyly a great character. I cannot confirm it, because I can confirm the character of none of Mr. Hastings’s instruments. They must stand forth here, and defend their own character before you.

  Your Lordships will now be pleased to advert to another circumstance in this transaction. You see here 40,000l. a year offered by this man for his redemption. “I will give you,” he says, “40,000l. a year to have the management of my own affairs.” Good heavens! Here is a man, who, according to Mr. Hastings’s assertion, had an indisputable right to the management of his own affairs, but at the same time was notoriously so little fit to have the management of them as to be always under some corrupt tyranny or other, offers 40,000l. a year out of his own revenues to be left his own master, and to be permitted to have the disposal of the remainder. Judge you of the bribery, rapine, and peculation which here stare you in the face. Judge of the nature and character of that government for the management of which 40,000l., out of 160,000l. a year of its revenue, is offered by a subordinate to the supreme authority of the country. This offer shows that at this time the Nabob had it not himself. Who had it? Sir John D’Oyly; he is brought forward as the person to whom is given the management of the whole. Munny Begum had the management before. But, whether it be an Englishman, a Mussulman, a white man or a black man, a white woman or a black woman, it is all Warren Hastings.

  With respect to the four lacs of rupees, he gets Sir John D’Oyly, in the narrative that he makes before the House of Commons, positively to deny in the strongest manner, and he says the Nabob would give oath of it, that the Nabob never gave a commission to any one to make such an offer. That such an offer was made had been long published and long in print, with the remarks such as I
have made upon it in the Ninth Report of the Select Committee; that the Committee had so done was well known to Mr. Hastings and Sir John D’Oyly; not one word on the part of Mr. Hastings, not one word on the part of Sir John D’Oyly was said to contradict it, until the appearance of the latter before the House of Commons. But, my Lords, there is something much more serious in this transaction. It is this, — that the evidence produced by Mr. Hastings is the evidence of witnesses who are mere phantoms; they are persons who could not, under Mr. Hastings’s government, eat a bit of bread but upon his own terms, and they are brought forward to give such evidence as may answer his purposes.

  You would naturally have imagined, that, in the House of Commons, where clouds of witnesses had been before produced by the friends and agents of Mr. Hastings, he would then have brought forward Sir John to contradict this reported offer; but not a word from Sir John D’Oyly. At last he is examined before the Committee of Managers. He refuses to answer. Why? Because his answers might criminate himself. My Lords, every answer that most of them have been required to make they are sensible they cannot make without danger of criminating themselves, being all involved in the crimes of the prisoner. He has corrupted and ruined the whole service; there is not one of them that dares appear and give a fair and full answer in any case, as you have seen in Mr. Middleton, and many others at your bar. “I will not answer this question,” they say, “because it tends to criminate myself.” How comes it that the Company’s servants are not able to give evidence in the affairs of Mr. Hastings, without its tending to criminate themselves?