The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke Volume XI Part 15

In expectation of danger, he seized the person of the Rajah, and he pretends that the Rajah suffered no disgrace from his arrest. But, my Lords, we have proved, what was stated by the Rajah, and was well known to Mr. Hastings, that to imprison a person of elevated station, in that country, is to subject him to the highest dishonor and disgrace, and would make the person so imprisoned utterly unfit to execute the functions of government ever after.

I have now to state to your Lords.h.i.+ps a transaction which is worse than his wantonly playing with the safety of the Company, worse than his exacting sums of money by fraud and violence. My Lords, the history of this transaction must be prefaced by describing to your Lords.h.i.+ps the duty and privileges attached to the office of _Naib_. A Naib is an officer well known in India, as the administrator of the affairs of any government, whenever the authority of the regular holder is suspended.

But, although the Naib acts only as a deputy, yet, when the power of the princ.i.p.al is totally superseded, as by imprisonment or otherwise, and that of the Naib is subst.i.tuted, he becomes the actual sovereign, and the princ.i.p.al is reduced to a mere pensioner. I am now to show your Lords.h.i.+ps whom Mr. Hastings appointed as Naib to the government of the country, after he had imprisoned the Rajah.

Cheyt Sing had given him to understand through Mr. Markham, that he was aware of the design of suspending him, and of placing his government in the hands of a Naib whom he greatly dreaded. This person was called Ussaun Sing; he was a remote relation of the family, and an object of their peculiar suspicion and terror. The moment Cheyt Sing was arrested, he found that his prophetic soul spoke truly; for Mr. Hastings actually appointed this very man to be his master. And who was this man? We are told by Mr. Markham, in his evidence here, that he was a man who had dishonored his family,--he was the disgrace of his house,--that he was a person who could not be trusted; and Mr. Hastings, in giving Mr. Markham full power afterwards to appoint Naibs, expressly excepted this Ussaun Sing from all trust whatever, as a person totally unworthy of it. Yet this Ussaun Sing, the disgrace and calamity of his family, an incestuous adulterer, and a supposed issue of a guilty connection, was declared Naib. Yes, my Lords, this degraded, this wicked and flagitious character, the Rajah's avowed enemy, was, in order to heighten the Rajah's disgrace, to embitter his ruin, to make destruction itself dishonorable as well as destructive, appointed this [his?] Naib. Thus, when Mr. Hastings had imprisoned the Rajah, in the face of his subjects, and in the face of all India, without fixing any term for the duration of his imprisonment, he delivered up the country to a man whom he knew to be utterly undeserving, a man whom he kept in view for the purpose of frightening the Rajah, and whom he was obliged to depose on account of his misconduct almost as soon as he had named him, and to exclude specially from all kind of trust. We have heard of much tyranny, avarice, and insult in the world; but such an instance of tyranny, avarice, and insult combined has never before been exhibited.

We are now come to the last scene of this flagitious transaction. When Mr. Hastings imprisoned the Rajah, he did not renew his demand for the 500,000_l._, but he exhibited a regular charge of various pretended delinquencies against him, digested into heads, and he called on him, in a dilatory, irregular way of proceeding, for an answer. The man, under every difficulty and every distress, gave an answer to every particular of the charge, as exact and punctilious as could have been made to articles of impeachment in this House.

I must here request your Lords.h.i.+ps to consider the order of these proceedings. Mr. Hastings, having determined upon the utter ruin and destruction of this unfortunate prince, endeavored, by the arrest of his person, by a contemptuous disregard to his submissive applications, by the appointment of a deputy who was personally odious to him, and by the terror of still greater insults, he endeavored, I say, to goad him on to the commission of some acts of resistance sufficient to give a color of justice to that last dreadful extremity to which he had resolved to carry his malignant rapacity. Failing in this wicked project, and studiously avoiding the declaration of any terms upon which the Rajah might redeem himself from these violent proceedings, he next declared his intention of seizing his forts, the depository of his victim's honor, and of the means of his subsistence. He required him to deliver up his accounts and accountants, together with all persons who were acquainted with the particulars of his effects and treasures, for the purpose of transferring those effects to such persons as he (Mr.

Hastings) chose to nominate.

It was at this crisis of aggravated insult and brutality that the indignation which these proceedings had occasioned in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the Rajah's subjects burst out into an open flame. The Rajah had retired to the last refuge of the afflicted, to offer up prayers to his G.o.d and our G.o.d, when a vile _chubdar_, or tipstaff, came to interrupt and insult him. His alarmed and loyal subjects felt for a beloved sovereign that deep interest which we should all feel, if our sovereign were so treated. What man with a spark of loyalty in his breast, what man regardful of the honor of his country, when he saw his sovereign imprisoned, and so notorious a wretch appointed his deputy, could be a patient witness of such wrongs? The subjects of this unfortunate prince did what we should have done,--what all who love their country, who love their liberty, who love their laws, who love their property, who love their sovereign, would have done on such an occasion. They looked upon him as their sovereign, although degraded. They were unacquainted with any authority superior to his, and the phantom of tyranny which performed these oppressive acts was unaccompanied by that force which justifies submission by affording the plea of necessity. An unseen tyrant and four miserable companies of sepoys executed all the horrible things that we have mentioned. The spirit of the Rajah's subjects was roused by their wrongs, and encouraged by the contemptible weakness of their oppressors. The whole country rose up in rebellion, and surely in justifiable rebellion. Every writer on the Law of Nations, every man that has written, thought, or felt upon the affairs of government, must write, know, think, and feel, that a people so cruelly scourged and oppressed, both in the person of their chief and in their own persons, were justified in their resistance. They were roused to vengeance, and a short, but most b.l.o.o.d.y war followed.

We charge the prisoner at your bar with all the consequences of this war. We charge him with the murder of our sepoys, whom he sent unarmed to such a dangerous enterprise. We charge him with the blood of every man that was shed in that place; and we call him, as we have called him, a tyrant, an oppressor, and a murderer. We call him murderer in the largest and fullest sense of the word; because he was the cause of the murder of our English officers and sepoys, whom he kept unarmed, and unacquainted with the danger to which they would be exposed by the violence of his transactions. He sacrificed to his own nefarious views every one of those lives, as well as the lives of the innocent natives of Benares, whom he designedly drove to resistance by the weakness of the force opposed to them, after inciting them by tyranny and insult to that display of affection towards their sovereign which is the duty of all good subjects.

My Lords, these are the iniquities which we have charged upon the prisoner at your bar; and I will next call your Lords.h.i.+ps' attention to the manner in which these iniquities have been pretended to be justified. You will perceive a great difference in the manner in which this prisoner is tried, and of which he so much complains, and the manner in which he dealt with the unfortunate object of his oppression.

The latter thus openly appeals to his accuser. "You are," says he, "upon the spot. It is happy for me that you are so. You can now inquire into my conduct." Did Mr. Hastings so inquire? No, my Lords, we have not a word of any inquiry; he even found fresh matter of charge in the answer of the Rajah, although, if there is any fault in this answer, it is its extremely humble and submissive tone. If there was anything faulty in his manner, it was his extreme humility and submission. It is plain he would have almost submitted to anything. He offered, in fact, 220,000_l._ to redeem himself from greater suffering. Surely no man going into rebellion would offer 220,000_l._ of the treasure which would be so essential to his success; nor would any government that was really apprehensive of rebellion call upon the suspected person to arm and discipline two thousand horse. My Lords, it is evident no such apprehensions were entertained; nor was any such charge made until punishment had commenced. A vague accusation was then brought forward, which was answered by a clear and a natural defence, denying some parts of the charge, evading and apologizing for others, and desiring the whole to be inquired into. To this request the answer of the Governor-General was, "That won't do; you shall have no inquiries." And why? "Because I have arbitrary power, you have no rights, and I can and will punish you without inquiry." I admit, that, if his will is the law, he may take [make?] the charge before punishment or the punishment before the charge, or he may punish without making any charge. If his will is the law, all I have been saying amounts to nothing. But I have endeavored to let your Lords.h.i.+ps see that in no country upon the earth is the will of a despot law. It may produce wicked, flagitious, tyrannical acts; but in no country is it law.

The duty of a sovereign in cases of rebellion, as laid down in the Hedaya, agrees with the general practice in India. It was usual, except in cases of notorious injustice and oppression, whenever a rebellion or a suspicion of a rebellion existed, to admonish the rebellious party and persuade him to return to his duty. Causes of complaint were removed and misunderstandings explained, and, to save the effusion of blood, severe measures were not adopted until they were rendered indispensable.

This wise and provident law is or ought to be the law in all countries: it was in fact the law in that country, but Mr. Hastings did not attend to it. His unfortunate victim was goaded to revolt and driven from his subjects, although he endeavored by message after message to reconcile this cruel tyrant to him. He is told in reply, "You have shed the blood of Englishmen, and I will never be reconciled to you." Your Lords.h.i.+ps will observe that the reason he gives for such an infernal determination (for it cannot be justly qualified by any other word) is of a nature to make tyranny the very foundation of our government. I do not say here upon what occasion people may or may not resist; but surely, if ever there was an occasion on which people, from love to their sovereign and regard to their country, might take up arms, it was this. They saw a tyrant violent in his demands and weak in his power. They saw their prince imprisoned and insulted, after he had made every offer of submission, and had laid his turban three times in the lap of his oppressor. They saw him, instead of availing himself of the means he possessed of cutting off his adversary, (for the life of Mr. Hastings was entirely in his power,) betaking himself to flight. They then thronged round him, took up arms in his defence, and shed the blood of some of his insulters. Is this resistance, so excited, so provoked, a plea for irreconcilable vengeance?

I must beg pardon for having omitted to lay before your Lords.h.i.+ps in its proper place a most extraordinary paper, which will show you in what manner judicial inquiries are conducted, upon what grounds charges are made, by what sort of evidence they are supported, and, in short, to what perils the lives and fortunes of men are subjected in that country.

This paper is in the printed Minutes, page 1608. It was given in agreeably to the retrograde order which they have established in their judicial proceedings. It was produced to prove the truth of a charge of rebellion which was made some months before the paper in evidence was known to the accuser.

"_To the Honorable Warren Hastings._

"Sir,--About the month of November last, I communicated to Mr.

Markham the substance of a conversation said to have pa.s.sed between Rajah Cheyt Sing and Saadut Ali, and which was reported to me by a person in whom I had some confidence. The mode of communicating this intelligence to you I left entirely to Mr. Markham. In this conversation, which was private, the Rajah and Saadut Ali were said to have talked of Hyder Ali's victory over Colonel Baillie's detachment, to have agreed that they ought to seize this opportunity of consulting their own interest, and to have determined to watch the success of Hyder's arms. Some days after this conversation was said to have happened, I was informed by the same person that the Rajah had received a message from one of the Begums at Fyzabad, (I think it was from Sujah ul Dowlah's widow,) advising him not to comply with the demands of government, and encouraging him to expect support in case of his resisting. This also, I believe, I communicated to Mr. Markham; but not being perfectly certain, I now think it my duty to remove the possibility of your remaining unacquainted with a circ.u.mstance which may not be unconnected with the present conduct of the Rajah."

Here, then, is evidence of evidence given to Mr. Markham by Mr. Balfour, from Lucknow, in the month of November, 1781, long after the transaction at Benares. But what was this evidence? "I communicated," he says, "the substance of a conversation said to have pa.s.sed." Observe, _said_: not a conversation that had pa.s.sed to his knowledge or recollection, but what his informant said had pa.s.sed. He adds, this conversation was reported to him by a person whom he won't name, but in whom, he says, he had some confidence. This anonymous person, in whom he had put some confidence, was not himself present at the conversation; he only reports to him that it was _said_ by somebody else that such a conversation had taken place.

This conversation, which somebody told Colonel Balfour he had heard was said by somebody to have taken place, if true, related to matters of great importance; still the mode of its communication was left to Mr.

Markham, and that gentleman did not bring it forward till some months after. Colonel Balfour proceeds to say,--"Some days after this conversation was said to have happened," (your Lords.h.i.+ps will observe it is always, "was said to have happened,") "I was informed by the same person that the Rajah had received a message from one of the Begums at Fyzabad, (I think it was from Sujah ul Dowlah's widow,) advising him not to comply with the demands of government, and encouraging him to expect support in case of his resisting." He next adds,--"This also, I believe," (observe, he says he is not quite sure of it,) "I communicated to Mr. Markham; but not being perfectly certain," (of a matter the immediate knowledge of which, if true, was of the highest importance to his country,) "I now think it my duty to remove the possibility of your remaining unacquainted with, a circ.u.mstance which may not be unconnected with the present conduct of the Rajah."

Here is a man that comes with information long after the fact deposed to, and, after having left to another the communication of his intelligence to the proper authority, that other neglects the matter. No letter of Mr. Markham's appears, communicating any such conversation to Mr. Hastings: and, indeed, why he did not do so must appear very obvious to your Lords.h.i.+ps; for a more contemptible, ridiculous, and absurd story never was invented. Does Mr. Balfour come forward and tell him who his informant was? No. Does he say, "He was an informant whom I dare not name, upon account of his great consequence, and the great confidence I had in him"? No. He only says slightly, "I have some confidence in him."

It is upon this evidence of a reporter of what another is _said_ to have _said_, that Mr. Hastings and his Council rely for proof, and have thought proper to charge the Rajah, with having conceived rebellious designs soon after the time when Mr. Hastings had declared his belief that no such designs had been formed.

Mr. Hastings has done with his charge of rebellion what he did with his declaration of arbitrary power: after he had vomited it up in one place, he returns to it in another. He here declares (after he had recorded his belief that no rebellion was ever intended) that Mr. Markham was in possession of information which he might have believed, if it had been communicated to him. Good heavens! when you review all these circ.u.mstances, and consider the principles upon which this man was tried and punished, what must you think of the miserable situation of persons of the highest rank in that country, under the government of men who are disposed to disgrace and ruin them in this iniquitous manner!

Mr. Balfour is in Europe, I believe. How comes it that he is not produced here to tell your Lords.h.i.+ps who was his informer, and what he knows of the transaction? They have not produced him, but have thought fit to rely upon this miserable, beggarly semblance of evidence, the very production of which was a crime, when brought forward for the purpose of giving color to acts of injustice and oppression. If you ask, Who is this Mr. Balfour? He is a person who was a military collector of revenue in the province of Rohilcund: a country now ruined and desolated, but once the garden of the world. It was from the depth of that horrible devastating system that he gave this ridiculous, contemptible evidence, which if it can be equalled, I shall admit that there is not one word we have said that you ought to attend to.

Your Lords.h.i.+ps are now enabled to sum up the amount and estimate the result of all this iniquity. The Rajah himself is punished, he is ruined and undone; but the 500,000_l._ is not gained. He has fled his country; but he carried his treasures with him. His forts are taken possession of; but there was nothing found in them. It is the report of the country, and is so stated by Mr. Hastings, that he carried away with him in gold and silver to the value of about 400,000_l._; and thus that sum was totally lost, even as an object of plunder, to the Company. The author of the mischief lost his favorite object by his cruelty and violence. If Mr. Hastings had listened to Cheyt Sing at first,--if he had answered his letters, and dealt civilly with him,--if he had endeavored afterwards to compromise matters,--if he had _told_ him what his demands were,--if, even after the rebellion had broken out, he had demanded and exacted a fine,--the Company would have gained 220,000_l._ at least, and perhaps a much larger sum, without difficulty. They would not then have had 400,000_l._ carried out of the country by a tributary chief, to become, as we know that sum has become, the plunder of the Mahrattas and our other enemies. I state to you the account of the profit and loss of tyranny: take it as an account of profit and loss; forget the morality, forget the law, forget the policy; take it, I say, as a matter of profit and loss. Mr. Hastings lost the subsidy; Mr.

Hastings lost the 220,000_l._ which was offered him, and more that he might have got. Mr. Hastings lost it all; and the Company lost the 400,000_l._ which he meant to exact. It was carried from the British dominions to enrich its enemies forever.

This man, my Lords, has not only acted thus vindictively himself, but he has avowed the principle of revenge as a general rule of policy, connected with the security of the British government in India. He has dared to declare, that, if a native once draws his sword, he is not to be pardoned; that you never are to forgive any man who has killed an English soldier. You are to be implacable and resentful; and there is no maxim of tyrants, which, upon account of the supposed weakness of your government, you are not to pursue. Was this the conduct of the Mogul conquerors of India? and must this _necessarily_ be the policy of their Christian successors? I pledge myself, if called upon, to prove the contrary. I pledge myself to produce, in the history of the Mogul empire, a series of pardons and amnesties for rebellions, from its earliest establishments, and in its most distant provinces.

I need not state to your Lords.h.i.+ps what you know to be the true principles of British policy in matters of this nature. When there has been provocation, you ought to be ready to listen to terms of reconciliation, even after war has been made. This you ought to do, to show that you are placable; such policy as this would doubtless be of the greatest benefit and advantage to you. Look to the case of Sujah Dowlah. You had, in the course of a war with him, driven him from his country; you had not left him in possession of a foot of earth in the world. The Mogul was his sovereign, and, by his authority, it was in your power to dispose of the vizierate, and of every office of state which Sujah Dowlah held under the emperor: for he hated him mortally, and was desirous of dispossessing him of everything. What did you do?

Though he had shed much English blood, you reestablished him in all his power, you gave him more than he before possessed; and you had no reason to repent your generosity. Your magnanimity and justice proved to be the best policy, and was the subject of admiration from one end of India to the other. But Mr. Hastings had other maxims and other principles. You are weak, he says, and therefore you ought never to forgive. Indeed, Mr.

Hastings never does forgive. The Rajah was weak, and he persecuted him; Mr. Hastings was weak, and he lost his prey. He went up the country with the rapacity, but not with the talons and beak, of a vulture. He went to look for plunder; but he was himself plundered, the country was ravaged, and the prey escaped.

After the escape of Cheyt Sing, there still existed in one corner of the country some further food for Mr. Hastings's rapacity. There was a place called Bidjegur, one of those forts which Mr. Hastings declared could not be safely left in the possession of the Rajah; measures were therefore taken to obtain possession of this place, soon after the flight of its unfortunate proprietor. And what did he find in it? A great and powerful garrison? No, my Lords: he found in it the wives and family of the Rajah; he found it inhabited by two hundred women, and defended by a garrison of eunuchs and a few feeble militia-men. This fortress was supposed by him to contain some money, which he hoped to lay hold of when all other means of rapacity had escaped him. He first sends (and you have it on your minutes) a most cruel, most atrocious, and most insulting message to these unfortunate women; one of whom, a princ.i.p.al personage of the family, we find him in the subsequent negotiation scandalizing in one minute, and declaring to be a woman of respectable character in the next,--treating her by turns as a prost.i.tute and as an amiable woman, as best suited the purposes of the hour. This woman, with two hundred of her s.e.x, he found in Bidjegur.

Whatever money they had was their own property; and as such Cheyt Sing, who had visited the place before his flight, had left it for their support, thinking that it would be secure to them as their property, because they were persons wholly void of guilt, as they must needs have been. This money the Rajah might have carried off with him; but he left it them, and we must presume that it was their property; and no attempt was ever made by Mr. Hastings to prove otherwise. They had no other property that could be found. It was the only means of subsistence for themselves, their children, their domestics, and dependants, and for the whole female part of that once ill.u.s.trious and next to royal family.

But to proceed. A detachment of soldiers was sent to seize the forts [fort?]. Soldiers are habitually men of some generosity; even when they are acting in a bad cause, they do not wholly lose the military spirit.

But Mr. Hastings, fearing that they might not be animated with the same l.u.s.t of plunder as himself, stimulated them to demand the plunder of the place, and expresses his hopes that no composition would be made with these women, and that not one s.h.i.+lling of the booty would be allowed them. He does not trust to their acting as soldiers who have their fortunes to make; but he stimulates and urges them not to give way to the generous pa.s.sions and feelings of men.

He thus writes from Benares, the 22d of October, 1781, ten o'clock in the morning. "I am this instant favored with yours of yesterday; mine to you of the same date has before this time acquainted you with my resolutions and sentiments respecting the Ranny. I think every demand she has made to you, except that of safety and respect for her person, is unreasonable. If the reports brought to me are true, your rejecting her offers, or any negotiation with her, would soon obtain you possession of the fort upon your own terms. I apprehend that she will contrive to defraud the captors of a considerable part of the booty by being suffered to retire without examination; but this is your consideration, and not mine. I should be sorry that your officers and soldiers lost any part of the reward to which they are so well ent.i.tled; but I cannot make any objection, as you must be the best judge of the expediency of the promised indulgence to the Ranny. What you have engaged for I will certainly ratify; but as to permitting the Ranny to hold the purgunnah of Hurluk, or any other in the zemindary, without being subject to the authority of the zemindar, or any lands whatever, or indeed making any conditions with her for a provision, I will never consent to it."

My Lords, you have seen the principles upon which this man justifies his conduct. Here his real nature, character, and disposition break out.

These women had been guilty of no rebellion; he never charged them with any crime but that of having wealth; and yet you see with what ferocity he pursues everything that belonged to the destined object of his cruel, inhuman, and more than tragic revenge. "If," says he, "you have made an agreement with them, and will insist upon it, I will keep it; but if you have not, I beseech you not to make any. Don't give them anything; suffer no stipulations whatever of a provision for them. The capitulation I will ratify, provided it contains no article of future provision for them." This he positively forbade; so that his bloodthirsty vengeance would have sent out these two hundred innocent women to starve naked in the world.

But he not only declares that the money found in the fort is the soldiers', he adds, that he should be sorry, if they lost a s.h.i.+lling of it. So that you have here a man not only declaring that the money was theirs, directly contrary to the Company's positive orders upon other similar occasions, and after he had himself declared that prize-money was poison to soldiers, but directly inciting them to insist upon their right to it.

A month had been allowed by proclamation for the submission of all persons who had been in rebellion, which submission was to ent.i.tle them to indemnity. But, my Lords, he endeavored to break the public faith with these women, by inciting the soldiers to make no capitulation with them, and thus depriving them of the benefit of the proclamation, by preventing their voluntary surrender.

[_Mr. Burke here read the proclamation._]

From the date of this proclamation it appears that the surrender of the fort was clearly within the time given to those who had been guilty of the most atrocious acts of rebellion to repair to their homes and enjoy an indemnity. These women had never quitted their homes, nor had they been charged with rebellion, and yet they were cruelly excluded from the general indemnity; and after the army had taken unconditional possession of the fort, they were turned out of it, and ordered to the quarters of the commanding officer, Major Popham. This officer had received from Mr.

Hastings a power to rob them, a power to plunder them, a power to distribute the plunder, but no power to give them any allowance, nor any authority even to receive them.

In this disgraceful affair the soldiers showed a generosity which Mr.

Hastings neither showed nor would have suffered, if he could have prevented it. They agreed amongst themselves to give to these women three lacs of rupees, and some trifle more; and the rest was divided as a prey among the army. The sum found in the fort was about 238,000_l._, not the smallest part of which was in any way proved to be Cheyt Sing's property, or the property of any person but the unfortunate women who were found in the possession of it.

The plunder of the fort being thus given to the soldiers, what does Mr.

Hastings next do? He is astonished and stupefied to find so much unprofitable violence, so much tyranny, and so little pecuniary advantage,--so much bloodshed, without any profit to the Company. He therefore breaks his faith with the soldiers; declares, that, having no right to the money, they must refund it to the Company; and on their refusal, he inst.i.tuted a suit against them. With respect to the three lacs of rupees, or 30,000_l._, which was to be given to these women, have we a sc.r.a.p of paper to prove its payment? is there a single receipt or voucher to verify their having received one sixpence of it? I am rather inclined to think that they did receive it, or some part of it; but I don't know a greater crime in public officers than to have no kind of vouchers for the disposal of any large sums of money which pa.s.s through their hands: but this, my Lords, is the great vice of Mr.

Hastings's government.

I have briefly taken notice of the claim which Mr. Hastings thought proper to make, on the part of the Company, to the treasure found in the fort of Bidjegur, after he had instigated the army to claim it as the right of the captors. Your Lords.h.i.+ps will not be at a loss to account for this strange and barefaced inconsistency. This excellent Governor foresaw that he would have a bad account of this business to give to the contractors in Leadenhall Street, who consider laws, religion, morality, and the principles of state policy of empires as mere questions of profit and loss. Finding that he had dismal accounts to give of great sums expended without any returns, he had recourse to the only expedient that was left him. He had broken his faith with the ladies in the fort, by not suffering his officers to grant them that indemnity which his proclamation offered. Then, finding that the soldiers had taken him at his word, and appropriated the treasure to their own use, he next broke his faith with them. A constant breach of faith is a maxim with him. He claims the treasure for the Company, and inst.i.tutes a suit before Sir Elijah Impey, who gives the money to the Company, and not to the soldiers. The soldiers appeal; and since the beginning of this trial, I believe even very lately, it has been decided by the Council that the letter of Mr. Hastings was not, as Sir Elijah Impey pretended, a mere private letter, because it had "Dear Sir," in it, but a public order, authorizing the soldiers to divide the money among themselves.

Thus 200,000_l._ was distributed among the soldiers; 400,000_l._ was taken away by Cheyt Sing, to be pillaged by all the Company's enemies through whose countries he pa.s.sed; and so ended one of the great sources from which this great financier intended to supply the exigencies of the Company, and recruit their exhausted finances.

By this proceeding, my Lords, the national honor is disgraced, all the rules of justice are violated, and every sanction, human and divine, trampled upon. We have, on one side, a country ruined, a n.o.ble family destroyed, a rebellion raised by outrage and quelled by bloodshed, the national faith pledged to indemnity, and that indemnity faithlessly withheld from helpless, defenceless women; while the other side of the picture is equally unfavorable. The East India Company have had their treasure wasted, their credit weakened, their honor polluted, and their troops employed against their own subjects, when their services were required against foreign enemies.

My Lords, it only remains for me, at this time, to make a few observations upon some proceedings of the prisoner respecting the revenue of Benares. I must first state to your Lords.h.i.+ps that in the year 1780 he made a demand upon that country, which, by his own account, if it had been complied with, would only have left 23,000_l._ a year for the maintenance of the Rajah and his family. I wish to have this account read, for the purpose of verifying the observations which I shall have to make to your Lords.h.i.+ps.

[_Here the account was read._]

I must now observe to your Lords.h.i.+ps, that Mr. Markham and Mr. Hastings have stated the Rajah's net revenue at forty-six lacs: but the accounts before you state it at forty lacs only. Mr. Hastings had himself declared that he did not think the country could safely yield more, and that any attempt to extract more would be ruinous.

Your Lords.h.i.+ps will observe that the first of these estimates is unaccompanied with any doc.u.ment whatever, and that it is contradicted by the papers of receipt and the articles of account, from all of which it appears that the country never yielded more than forty lacs during the time that Mr. Hastings had it in his possession; and you may be sure he squeezed as much out of it as he could. He had his own Residents,--first Mr. Markham, then Mr. Fowke, then Mr. Grant; they all went up with a design to make the most of it. They endeavored to do so; but they never could screw it up to more than forty lacs by all the violent means which they employed. The ordinary subsidy, as paid at Calcutta by the Rajah, amounted to twenty-two lacs; and it is therefore clearly proved by this paper, that Mr. Hastings's demand of fifty lacs (500,000_l._), joined to the subsidies, was more than the whole revenue which the country could yield. What h.o.a.rded treasure the Rajah possessed, and which Mr. Hastings says he carried off with him, does not appear. That it was any considerable sum is more than Mr. Hastings knows, more than can be proved, more than is probable. He had not, in his precipitate flight, any means, I think, of carrying away a great sum. It further appears from these accounts, that, after the payment of the subsidy, there would only have been left 18,000_l._ a year for the support of the Rajah's family and establishments.

Your Lords.h.i.+ps have now a standard, not a visionary one, but a standard verified by accurate calculation and authentic accounts. You may now fairly estimate the avarice and rapacity of this man, who describes countries to be enormously rich in order that he may be justified in pillaging them. But however insatiable the prisoner's avarice may be, he has other objects in view, other pa.s.sions rankling in his heart, besides the l.u.s.t of money. He was not ignorant, and we have proved it by his own confession, that his pretended expectation of benefit to the Company could not be realized; but he well knew that by enforcing his demands he should utterly and effectually ruin a man whom he mortally hated and abhorred,--a man who could not, by any sacrifices offered to the avarice, avert the cruelty of his implacable enemy. As long as truth remains, as long as figures stand, as long as two and two are four, as long as there is mathematical and arithmetical demonstration, so long shall his cruelty, rage, ravage, and oppression remain evident to an astonished posterity.

I shall undertake, my Lords, when this court meets again, to develop the consequences of this wicked proceeding. I shall then show you that that part of the Rajah's family which he left behind him, and which Mr.

Hastings pretended to take under his protection, was also ruined, undone, and destroyed; and that the once beautiful country of Benares, which he has had the impudence to represent as being still in a prosperous condition, was left by him in such a state as would move pity in any tyrant in the world except the one who now stands before you.

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