The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke Volume VIII Part 23

_Copy of a Letter to Mahomed Jewar Ali Khan and Behar Ali Khan, from Mr.

Gordon._

Sirs, my indulgent friends, Remain under, &c., &c.

After compliments. I have the pleasure to acquaint you that yesterday having taken leave of you, I pa.s.sed the night at Noorgunge, and next morning, about ten or eleven o'clock, through your favor and benevolence, arrived safe at Goondah. Mir Aboo Buksh, zemindar, and Mir Rustum Ali, accompanied me.

To what extent can I prolong the praises of you, my beneficent friends?

May the Supreme Being, for this benign, compa.s.sionate, humane action, have you in His keeping, and increase your prosperity, and speedily grant me the pleasure of an interview! Until which time continue to favor me with friendly letters, and oblige me by any commands in my power to execute.

May your wishes be ever crowned with success!

My compliments, &c., &c., &c.

_Copy of a Letter from Colonel Hannay to Jewar Ali Khan and Behar Ali Khan._

Khan Saib, my indulgent friends,

Remain under the protection of the Supreme Being!

After compliments, and signifying my earnest desire of an interview, I address you.

Your friendly letter, fraught with kindness, I had the pleasure to receive in a propitious hour, and your inexpressible kindness in sending for Mir Na.s.sar Ali with a force to Taunda, for the purpose of conducting Mr. Gordon, with all his baggage, who is now arrived at Fyzabad.

This event has afforded me the most excessive pleasure and satisfaction.

May the Omnipotence preserve you, my steadfast, firm friends! The pen of friends.h.i.+p itself cannot sufficiently express your generosity and benevolence, and that of the Begum of high dignity, who so graciously has interested herself in this matter. Inclosed is an address for her, which please to forward. I hope from your friends.h.i.+p, until we meet, you will continue to honor me with an account of your health and welfare.

What further can I write?

V.--REVOLUTIONS IN FURRUCKABAD.

I. That a prince called Ahmed Khan was of a family amongst the most distinguished in Hindostan, and of a nation famous through that empire for its valor in acquiring, and its policy and prudence in well governing the territories it had acquired, called the Patans, or Afghans, of which the Rohillas were a branch. The said Ahmed Khan had fixed his residence in the city of Furruckabad, and in the first wars of this nation in India the said Ahmed Khan attached himself to the Company against Sujah Dowlah, then an enemy, now a dependant on that Company. Ahmed Khan, towards the close of his life, was dispossessed of a large part of his dominions by the prevalence of the Mahratta power; but his son, a minor, succeeded to his pretensions, and to the remainder of his dominions. The Mahrattas were expelled by Sujah ul Dowlah, the late Vizier, who, finding a want of the services of the son and successor of Ahmed Khan, called Muzuffer Jung, did not only guaranty him in the possession of what he then actually held, but engaged to restore all the other territories which had been occupied by the Mahrattas; and this was confirmed by repeated treaties and solemn oaths, by the late Vizier and by the present. But neither the late nor the present Vizier fulfilled their engagements, or observed their oaths: the former having withheld what he had stipulated to restore; and the latter not only subjecting him to a tribute, instead of restoring him to what his father had unjustly withheld, but having made a further invasion by depriving him of fifteen of his districts, levying the tribute of the whole on the little that remained, and putting the small remains of his territory under a sequestrator or collector appointed by Almas Ali Khan, who did grievously afflict and oppress the prince and territory aforesaid.

That the hards.h.i.+ps of his case being frequently represented to Warren Hastings, Esquire, he did suggest a doubt whether "that little ought to be still subject to tribute," indicating that the said tribute might be hard and inequitable,--but, whatever its justice might have been, that, "from the _earliest period_ of our connection with the present Nabob of Oude, it had invariably continued a part of the funds a.s.signed by his Excellency as a provision for the liquidation of the several public demands of _this government_ [Calcutta] upon him; and in consequence of the powers the board deemed it expedient to vest in the Resident at his court for the collection of the Company's a.s.signments, a _sezauwil_ [a sequestrator] has always been stationed to enforce by every means in his power the payment of the tribute." And the said tribute was, in consequence of this arrangement, not paid to the Nabob, but to the British Resident at Oude; and the same being therefore under the direction and for the sole use of the Company, and indeed the prince himself wholly dependent, the representatives of the said Company were responsible for the protection of the prince, and for the good government of the country.

II. That the said "Warren Hastings did, on the 22d of May, 1780, represent to the board of Calcutta the condition of the said country in the following manner.

"To the total want of all order, regularity, or _authority_ in his government [the Furruckabad government], among _other obvious causes_, it may, no doubt, be owing, that the country of Furruckabad is become _an almost entire waste, without cultivation or inhabitants_; that the capital, which but a very short time ago was distinguished as one of the most _populous and opulent_ commercial cities in Hindostan, at present exhibits nothing _but_ scenes of the most wretched poverty, desolation, and misery; and the Nabob himself, though in possession of a tract of country which with only common care is notoriously capable of yielding an annual revenue of between thirty and forty lacs [three or four hundred thousand pounds], with _no military establishment to maintain, scarcely commanding the means of bare subsistence_." And the said Warren Hastings, taking into consideration the said state of the country and its prince, and that the latter had "_preferred frequent complaints_"

(which complaints the said Hastings to that time did not lay before the board, as his duty required) "_of the hards.h.i.+ps and indignities_ to which he is subjected by the conduct of the sezauwil [sequestrator]

stationed in the country for the purpose of levying the annual tribute which he is bound by treaty to pay to the Subah of Oude," he, the said Warren Hastings, did declare himself "extremely desirous, as well from motives of _common justice_ as _due_ regard to _the rank which that chief holds among the princes of Hindostan_, of affording him relief."

And he, the said Warren Hastings, as the means of the said relief, did, with the consent of the board, order the said native sequestrator to be removed, and an English Resident, a servant of the Company, to be appointed in his room, declaring "he understood a local interference to be _indispensably necessary_ for realizing the Vizier's just demands."

III. That the said native sequestrator being withdrawn, and a Resident appointed, no complaint whatever concerning the collection of the revenue, or of any indignities offered to the prince of the country or oppression of his subjects by the said Resident, was made to the Superior Council at Calcutta; yet the said Warren Hastings did, nevertheless, in a certain paper, purporting to be a treaty made at Chunar with the Nabob of Oude, on the 19th September, 1781, at the request of the said Nabob, consent to an article therein, "That no English Resident be appointed to Furruckabad, and that the present be recalled." And the said Warren Hastings, knowing that the Nabob of Oude was ill-affected towards the said Nabob of Furruckabad, and that he was already supposed to have oppressed him, did justify his conduct on the principles and in the words following: "That, if the Nabob Muzuffer Jung _must_ endure oppression, (_and I dare not at this time propose his total relief_,) it concerns the reputation of our government to remove _our partic.i.p.ation in it_." And the said Warren Hastings making, recording, and acting upon the first of the said false and inhuman suppositions, most scandalous to this nation, namely, that princes paying money wholly for the use of the Company, and directly to its agent, for the maintenance of British troops, by whose force and power the said revenue was in effect collected, must of necessity endure oppression, and that our government at any time _dare_ not propose their _total_ relief, was an high offence and misdemeanor in the said Warren Hastings, and the rather, because in the said treaty, as well as before and after, the said Hastings, who pretended not to dare to relieve those oppressed by the Nabob of Oude, did a.s.sume a complete authority over the said Nabob himself, and did dare to oppress him.

IV. That the second principle a.s.sumed by the said Warren Hastings, as ground for voluntarily abandoning the protection of those whom he had before undertaken to relieve, _on the sole strength of his own authority_, and in full confidence of the lawful foundation thereof, and for delivering over the persons so taken into protection, under false names and pretended descriptions, to known oppression, a.s.serting that the reputation of the Company was saved by removing this apparent partic.i.p.ation, when the new as well as the old arrangements were truly and substantially acts of the British government, was disingenuous, deceitful, and used to cover unjustifiable designs: since the said Warren Hastings well knew that all oppressions exercised by the Nabob of Oude were solely, and in this instance particularly, upheld by British force, and were imputed to this nation; and because he himself, in not more than three days after the execution of this treaty, and in virtue thereof, did direct the British Resident at Oude, in orders _to which he required his most implicit obedience_, "that the ministers [the Nabob of Oude's ministers] are to choose _all_ aumils and collectors of revenue with your concurrence." And the dishonor to the Company, in thus deceitfully concurring in oppression, which they were able and were bound to prevent, is much aggravated by the said Warren Hastings's receiving from the person to whose oppression he had delivered the said prince, as a private gift or donation to himself and for his own use, a sum of money amounting to one hundred thousand pounds and upwards, which might give just ground of suspicion that the said gift from the oppressor to the person surrendering the person injured to his mercy might have had some share in the said criminal transaction.

V. That the said Warren Hastings did (in the paper justifying the said surrender of the prince put by himself under the protection of the East India Company) a.s.sert, "that it was a fact, that the Nabob Muzuffer Jung [the Nabob of Furruckabad] is equally urgent with the Nabob Vizier for the removal of a Resident," without producing, as he ought to have done, any doc.u.ment to prove his improbable a.s.sertion, namely, his a.s.sertion that the oppressed prince did apply to his known enemy and oppressor, the Nabob of Oude, (who, if he would, was not able to relieve him against the will of the English government,) rather than to that English government, which he must have conceived to be more impartial, to which he had made his former complaint, and which was alone able to relieve him.

VI. That the said Warren Hastings, in the said writing, did further convey an insinuation of an ambiguous, but, on any construction, of a suspicious and dangerous import, viz.: "It is a fact, that Mr. Shee's [the Resident's] authority over the territory of Furruckabad is in itself as much subversive of that [_of the lawful rulers_] as that of the Vizier's aumil [collector] ever was, and is the more _oppressive_ as the power from whence it is derived is greater." The said a.s.sertion proceeds upon a supposition of the illegality both of the Nabob's and the Company's government; all consideration of the _t.i.tle_ to authority being, therefore, on that supposition, put out of the question, and the whole turning only upon the _exercise_ of authority, the said Hastings's suggestion, that the oppression of government must be in proportion to its power, is the result of a false and dangerous principle, and such as it is criminal for any person intrusted with the lives and fortunes of men to entertain, much more, publicly to profess as a rule of action, as the same hath a direct tendency to make the new and powerful government of this kingdom in India dreadful to the natives and odious to the world. But if the said Warren Hastings did mean thereby indirectly to insinuate that oppressions had been actually exercised under the British authority, he was bound to inquire into these oppressions, and to animadvert on the person guilty of the same, if proof thereof could be had,--and the more, as the authority was given by _himself_, and the person exercising it was by himself also named. And the said Warren Hastings did on another occasion a.s.sert that "whether they were well or ill-founded he never had an opportunity to ascertain." But it is not true that the said Hastings did or could want such opportunity: the fact being, that the said Warren Hastings did never cause any inquiry to be made into any supposed abuses during the said Residency, but did give a pension of fifteen hundred pounds a year to the said late Resident as a compensation to him for an injury received, and did afterwards promote the Resident, as a faithful servant of the Company, (and nothing appears to show him otherwise,) to a judicial office of high trust,--thereby taking away all credit from any grounds a.s.serted or insinuated by the said Hastings for delivering the said Nabob of Furruckabad to the hand of a known enemy and oppressor, who had already, contrary to repeated treaties, deprived him of a large part of his territories.

VII. That, on the said Warren Hastings's representation of the transaction aforesaid to the Court of Directors, they did heavily and justly censure the said Warren Hastings for the same, and did convey their censure to him, recommending relief to the suffering prince, but without any order for sending a new Resident: being, as it may be supposed, prevented from taking that step by the faith of the treaty made at Chunar.

VIII. That all the oppressions foreseen by him, the said Warren Hastings, when he made the article aforesaid in the treaty of Chunar, did actually happen: for, immediately on the removal of the British Resident, the country of Furruckabad was subjected to the discretion of a certain native manager of revenue, called Almas Ali Khan, who did impoverish and oppress the country and insult the prince, and did deprive him of all subsistence from his own estates,--taking from him even his gardens and the tombs of his ancestors, and the funds for maintaining the same.

IX. That, on complaint of those proceedings, the said Hastings did of his own authority, and without communicating with his Council, direct the native collector aforesaid to be removed, and the territory of Furruckabad to be left to the sole management of its natural prince. But in a short time the said Hastings, pretending to receive many complaints purporting that the tribute to the Nabob remained wholly unpaid, and the agent to the prince of Furruckabad at the Presidency, and afterwards chief manager to the prince aforesaid, having, as the said Warren Hastings saith, "had the insolence to propagate a report that the _interference_ to which his master owed the power he then enjoyed was _purchased_ through him," he, the said Hastings, did again (but, as before, without the Council) "withdraw his protection and interference altogether," on or about the month of August, 1782, and did signify his resolution, through the Resident, Middleton, to the Nabob Vizier. But the said Hastings a.s.serts that "the consequence of this his own second dereliction of the prince of Furruckabad was _an aggravated renewal of the severities_ exercised against his government, and the reappointment of a sezauwil, with powers delegated or a.s.sumed, to the _utter extinction_ of the rights of Muzuffer Jung, and actually depriving him of the means of subsistence." And the said Hastings did receive, on the 16th of February, 1783, from the prince aforesaid, a bitter complaint of the same to the following tenor.

"The miseries which have fallen upon my country, and the poverty and distress which have been heaped upon me by the reappointment of the sezauwil, are such, that a relation of them would, I am convinced, excite the strongest feelings of compa.s.sion in your breast. But it is impossible to relate them: on one side, my country ruined and uncultivated to a degree of desolation which exceeds all description; on the other, my domestic concerns and connections involved _in such a state of distress and horror, that even the relations, the children, and the wives of my father are starving in want of daily bread, and are on the point of flying voluntary exiles from their country and from each other_."

But although the said Hastings did, on the 16th of February, receive and admit the justice of the said complaint, and did not deny the urgent necessity of redress, the said letter containing the following sentence, "If there should be _any delay_ in your acceptance of this proposal, _my existence and the existence of my family will become difficult and doubtful_,"--and although he did admit the interference to be the more urgently demanded, "as the services of the English troops have been added to enforce the authority of the sezauwil,"--and although he admits also, that, even before that time, similar complaints and applications had been made,--yet he did withhold the said letter of complaint, a minute of which he a.s.serts he had, at or about that time, prepared for the relief of the sufferer, from the Board of Council, and did not so much as propose anything relative to the same for seven months after, viz., until the 6th of October, 1783: the said letter and minute being, as he a.s.serts, "_withheld_, from causes _not necessary to mention_, from presentation." By which means the said country and prince did suffer a long continuance of unnecessary hards.h.i.+p, from which the said Hastings confessed it was his duty to relieve them, and that a British Resident was necessary at Furruckabad, "from a sense of submission to the _implied_ orders of the Court of Directors in their letter of 1783, lately received, added to _the conviction I have LONG SINCE_ entertained _of the necessity of such an appointment for the preservation of our national credit_, and the means of rescuing an ancient and respectable family from ruin."

And the said Warren Hastings did at length perform what he thought had _long since_ been necessary; and in contradiction to his engagements with the Nabob in the treaty of Chunar, and against his strong remonstrances, urging his humiliation from this measure, and the faith of the agreement, and against his own former declaration that it concerned the reputation of our government to remove our partic.i.p.ation in the oppressions which he, the said Hastings, supposed the prince of Furruckabad must undergo, did once more recommend to the Council a British Resident at Furruckabad, and the withdrawing the native sezauwil: no course being left to the said Hastings to take which was not a violation of some engagement, and a contradiction to some principle of justice and policy by him deliberately advanced and entered on record.

That Mr. Willes being appointed Resident, and having arrived at Furruckabad on the 25th of February, 1784, with instructions to inquire minutely into the state of the country and the ruling family, he, the said Resident, Willes, in obedience thereto, did fully explain to him, the Governor-General, the said Warren Hastings, (he being then out of the Company's provinces, at Lucknow, on a delegation which respected this very country, as part of the dependencies of Oude,) the situation of the province of Furruckabad; but the said Warren Hastings did not take or recommend any measure whatsoever for the relief thereof in consequence of the said representation, nor even communicate to the Council-General the said representation; and it was not until the 28th of June, 1783 [1785?], that is, sixteen months from the arrival of the Resident at his station, that anything was laid before the board relative to the regulation or relief of the distressed country aforesaid, and that not from the said Warren Hastings, but from other members of the Council: which purposed neglect of duty, joined to the preceding wilful delay of seven months in proposing the said relief originally, caused near two years' delay. And the said Warren Hastings is further culpable in not communicating to the Council Board the order which he had, of his own authority, and without any powers from them, given to the said Resident, Willes, and did thereby prevent them from taking such steps as might counteract the ill effects of the said order; which order purported, that the said Willes was not to interfere with the Nabob of Furruckabad's government, for the regulation of which he was in effect appointed to the Residency,--declaring as follows: "I rely much on your moderation and good judgment, which I hope will enable you to regulate your conduct towards the Nabob and his _servants_ in such a manner, that, _without interfering in the executive part of his government_, you may render him essential service by _your council and advice_." And this restriction the said Hastings did impose, which totally frustrated the purpose of the Resident's mission, though he well knew, and had frequently stated, the extreme imbecility and weakness of the said Nabob of Furruckabad, and his subjection to unworthy servants; and in the Minute of Consultation upon which he founded the appointment did state the Nabob of Furruckabad "as a weak and unexperienced young man, who had abandoned himself entirely to the discretion of his servants, and the restoration of his independence was followed by a _total_ breach of the engagements he had promised to fulfil, attended by pointed instances of contumacy and disrespect"; and in the said minute the said Hastings adds, (as before mentioned,) his princ.i.p.al servant and manager had propagated a report that the "_interference_" (namely, his, the said Hastings's, interference) "to which his master owed the power he then enjoyed was purchased by him," the princ.i.p.al servant aforesaid: yet he, the said Hastings, who had a.s.signed on record the character of the said Nabob, and the conduct of his servants, and the aforesaid report of his princ.i.p.al servant, so highly dishonorable to him, the said Hastings, as reasons for taking away the independency of the Nabob of Furruckabad, and the subjecting him to the oppression of the Nabob of Oude's officer, Almas Ali, did again himself establish the pretended independence of the said prince of Furruckabad, and the real independence of his corrupt and perfidious servants, not against the Nabob of Oude, but against a British Resident appointed by himself ("as a character eminently qualified for such a charge") for the correction of those evils, and for rendering the prince aforesaid an useful ally to the Company, and restoring his dominions to order and plenty.

That the said Hastings did not only disable the Resident at Furruckabad by his said prohibitory letter, but did render his very remaining at all in that station perfectly precarious by a subsequent letter, rendering him liable to dismission by the Vizier,--thereby changing the tenure of the Resident's office, and changing him from a minister of the Company, dependent on the Governor-General and Council, to a dependant upon an unresponsible power,--in this also acting without the Council, and by his own usurped authority: and accordingly the said Resident did declare, in his letter of the 24th of April, 1785, "that the situation of the country was _more_ distressful than when he [the prince of Furruckabad] addressed himself for relief in 1783, and that he was sorry to say that his appointment at Furruckabad was of no use"; that, though the old tribute could not be paid, owing to famine and other causes, it was increased by a new imposition, making the whole equal the entire _gross_ produce of the revenue; that therefore there will not be "_anything for the subsistence of the Nabob and family_." And the uncles of the said Nabob of Furruckabad, the brethren of the late Ahmed Khan, (who had rendered important services to the Company,) and their children, in a pet.i.tion to the Resident, represented that soon after the succession of Muzuffer Jung "their misery commenced. The jaghires [lands and estates] on which they subsisted were disallowed. Our distress is great: we have neither clothes nor food. Though we felt hurt at the idea of explaining our situation, yet, could we have found a mode of conveyance, we would have proceeded to Calcutta for redress. The scarcity of grain this season is an additional misfortune. With difficulty we support life. From your presence without the provinces we expect relief. It is not the custom of the Company to deprive the zemindars and jaghiredars of the means of subsistence. To your justice we look up."

This being the situation of the person and family of the Nabob of Furruckabad and his nearest relations, the state of the country and its capital, prevented from all relief by the said Warren Hastings, is described in the following words by the Resident, Willes.

"Almas Ali has taken the purgunnah of Marara at a very inadequate rent, and his aumils have seized many adjacent villages: the purgunnahs of Cocutmow and Souje are constantly plundered by his people. The collection of the ghauts near Futtyghur has been seized by the Vizier's _cutwal_, and the zemindars in four purgunnahs are so refractory as to have fortified themselves in their gurries, and to refuse all payments of revenue. This is the state of the purgunnahs. _And Furruckabad, which was once the seat of great opulence and trade, is now daily deserted by its inhabitants, its walls mouldering away, without police, without protection, exposed to the depredations of a banditti of two or three hundred robbers, who, night after night, enter it for plunder, murdering all who oppose them. The ruin that has overtaken this country is not to be wondered at, when it is considered that there has been no state, no stable government, for many years._ There has been the Nabob Vizier's authority, his ministers', the Residents' at Lucknow, the sezauwils', the camp authority, the Nabob Muzuffer Jung's, and that of twenty duans or advisers: no authority sufficiently predominant to establish any regulations for the benefit of the country, whilst each authority has been exerted, as opportunity offered, for temporary purposes.

"Such being the present _deplorable_ state of Furruckabad and its districts, in the ensuing year it will be in vain to look for revenue, if some regulations equal to the exigency be not adopted. The whole country will be divided between the neighboring powerful aumils, the refractory zemindars, and banditti of robbers; and the Patans, who might be made useful subjects, will fly from the scene of anarchy. The crisis appears now come, that either some plan of government should be resolved on, so as to form faithful subjects on the frontier, or the country be given up to its fate: and if it be abandoned, there can be little doubt but that the Mahrattas will gladly seize on a station so favorable to incursions into the Vizier's dominions, will attach to their interests the Hindoo zemindars, and possess themselves of forts, which, with little expense being made formidable, would give employment perhaps to the whole of our force, should it be ever necessary to recover them."

That the Council at Calcutta, on the representation aforesaid made by the Resident at Furruckabad, did propose and record a plan for the better government of the said country, but did delay the execution of the same until the arrangements made by the said Hastings with the Nabob Vizier should be known; but the said Hastings, as far as in him lay, did entirely set aside any plan that could be formed for that purpose upon the basis of a British Resident at Furruckabad, by engaging with the said Nabob Vizier that no British influence shall be employed within his dominions, and he has engaged to that prince not to abandon him to any other mode of relation; and he has informed the Court of Directors that the territories of the Nabob of Oude will be ruined, if Residents are sent into them, observing, that "Residents never will be sent for any other purposes than those of vengeance and corruption."

That the said Warren Hastings did declare to the Court of Directors, that in his opinion the mode of relief most effectual, and most lenient with regard to Furruckabad, would be to nominate one of the family of the prince to superintend his affairs and to secure the payments; but this plan, which appears to be most connected with the rights of the ruling family, whilst it provides against the imbecility of the natural lord, and is free from his objection to a Resident, is the only one which the said Hastings never has executed, or even proposed to execute.

That the said Hastings, by the agreements aforesaid, has left the Company in such an alternative, that they can neither relieve the said prince of Furruckabad from oppression without a breach of the engagements entered into by him, the said Hastings, with the Nabob Vizier in the name of the Company, nor suffer him to remain under the said oppression without violating all faith and all the rules of justice with regard to him. And the said Hastings hath directly made or authorized no less than six revolutions in less than five years in the aforesaid hara.s.sed province; by which frequent and rapid changes of government, all of them made in contradiction to all his own declared motives and reasons for the several acts successively done and undone in this transaction, the distresses of the country and the disorders in its administration have been highly aggravated; and in the said irregular proceedings, and in the gross and complicated violations of faith with all parties, the said Hastings is guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors.

VI.--DESTRUCTION OF THE RAJAH OF SAHLONE.

I. That the late Nabob of Oude, Sujah ul Dowlah, did (on what reasons of policy or pretences of justice is unknown) dispossess a certain native person of distinction, or eminent Rajah, residing in the country of Sahlone, "the lineal descendant of the most powerful Hindoo family in that part of Hindostan," of his patrimonial estate, and conferred the same, or part of the same, on his, the Nabob's, mother, as a jaghire, or estate, for the term of her life: and the mother of the Nabob, in order to quiet the country, and to satisfy in some measure the princ.i.p.al and other inhabitants, did allow and pay a certain pension to the said Rajah; which pension, on the general confiscation of jaghires, made at the instigation of the said Warren Hastings, and by the letting the lands so confiscated to farmers at rack-rents, was discontinued and refused to be paid; and the discontinuance of the said pension, "on account of the personal respect borne to the Rajah, (as connections with him are sought for, and thought _to confer honor_,)" did cause an universal discontent and violent commotions in the district of Sahlone, and other parts of the province of Oude, with great consequent effusion of blood, and interruption, if not total discontinuance, to the collection of the revenues in those parts, other than as the same was irregularly, and with great damage to the country, enforced by British troops.

II. That Mr. Lumsdaine, the officer employed to reduce those disordered parts of the province to submission, after several advantages gained over the Rajah and his adherents, and expelling him from the country, did represent the utter impossibility of bringing it to a permanent settlement "merely by forcible methods; as in any of his [the Rajah's]

incursions it would not be necessary to bring even a force with him, as the zemindars [landed proprietors and freeholders] are much attached to the Rajah, whom they consider as their hereditary prince, and never fail to a.s.sist him, and that his rebellion against government is not looked on as a crime": and Mr. Lumsdaine declared it "as his clear opinion, that the allowing the said Rajah a pension suitable to his rank and influence in the country would be the most certain mode of obtaining a permanent peace,"--alleging, among other cogent reasons, "that the expense of the force necessary to be employed to subdue the country might be spared, and employed elsewhere, and that the people would return to their villages with their cattle and effects, and of course government have some security for the revenue, whereas at present they have none." And the representation containing that prudent and temperate counsel, given by a military man of undoubted information and perfect experience in the local circ.u.mstances of the country, was transmitted by the Resident, Bristow, to the said Warren Hastings, who did wilfully and criminally omit to order any relief to the said Rajah in conformity to the general sense and wishes of the inhabitants, a compliance with whose so reasonable an expectation his duty in restoring the tranquillity of the country and in retrieving the honor of the English government did absolutely require; but instead of making such provision, a price was set upon his head, and several bodies of British troops being employed to pursue him, after many skirmishes and much bloodshed and mutual waste of the country, the said Rajah, honored and respected by the natives, was hunted down, and at length killed in a thicket.

FOOTNOTES:

[59] See Hastings's Letter.

[60] Sic orig.

[61] 26th Dec., 1781.

[62] 13th Jan., 1782.