The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 09 (of 12)

LVII. That the first object, namely, that of the limitation of the Nabob's personal expenses, and separating them from the public establishments, he, the said Hastings, did state as the first and fundamental part of his regulation, and that upon which all the others would depend,—and did declare, "that, in order to prevent the Vizier's alliance from being a clog instead of an aid to the Company, the most essential part is to limit and separate his personal disbursements from the public accounts: they must not exceed what he has received in any of the last three years." And as to the public treasury and disbursements, he, the said Hastings, did, in the said instructions, wholly withdraw them from the personal management or interference of the Nabob, and did expressly order and direct "that they should be under the sole management of the ministers, with the Resident's concurrence." And on the appointment of the Resident Bristow, in October, 1782, he, the said Hastings, did order and direct him in every point of the instructions to Middleton not revoked or qualified by his then instructions, to which he did require his, the said Resident Bristow's, "most attentive and literal obedience."

LVIII. That the said Resident Bristow did, in consequence of the renewal to him of the said instructions as aforesaid, endeavor to limit and put in order the Nabob's expenses; but he was in that particular traversed and counteracted, and in the end wholly defeated, by the minister, Hyder Beg Khân. And though the obstructions aforesaid, agreeably to the instructions given to Middleton, and to him, the said Bristow, were represented to the said Warren Hastings by the Resident aforesaid, yet the said Warren Hastings did give no kind of support to the said Resident, or take any steps towards enabling him, the said Resident, to effectuate the said necessary limitation and distribution of expenses, by himself, the said Hastings, ordered and prescribed; nor, if he disapproved the proceedings of the said Resident, did he give him any instruction for the forbearance of the same, or for the exerting his duty in any other mode; nor did he call for any illustration from him of anything doubtful in his correspondence, nor state to him any complaint made privately of his conduct, in order to receive thereon an explanation; but he did leave him to pursue at his discretion the extensive powers before described, to effect the reformation which he was directed to accomplish, under the responsibility denounced to him as aforesaid, if he should fail therein, as he was supposed to be substantially invested with all the powers of government.

LIX. That, instead of the said support or instruction, he, the said Hastings, did countenance, or more probably cause or direct, a representation to be made to him by the acting minister of the Nabob of Oude, complaining grievously of the proceedings of the Resident aforesaid, as usurpations on the Nabob's authority and indignities on his person. And although he, the said Hastings, did instruct the Resident, Bristow, to inform the said Hyder Beg Khân that he would not receive from the Nabob, as his, letters directed by the spirit of opposition, but should consider every such attempt as his, the minister's, as an insult on our government, yet he did receive as his the Nabob's own letters, and as written from the impressions on his own mind, and as the suggestions of his own judgment, letters to the same effect as those written by the minister, although he had declared upon record that the said "Nabob was a mere cipher in his, the said minister's, hands," and "that he had dared to use both the Nabob's name, and even his seal, affixed to letters either directed to the Nabob or written as from him without his knowledge," and although he did assert or record as aforesaid, that, in a letter which he had lately received from the Nabob, the minister had the presumption to make the Nabob declare that which was true to be false, and that "his making use of the Nabob in such a manner did show how thin the veil was by which he covered his own acts, and that such artifices would only tend to make them the more criminal from the falsehood and duplicity with which they were associated."

LX. That the said Hastings did act upon the letters pretended to be written by the Nabob, as well as on those actually written by the minister, without previously communicating the matter of the said complaint to the said Resident, and did give credit to the same, and coming, as aforesaid, from a person by himself, the said Hastings, charged with artifice, falsehood, and duplicity, and with abusing to his own evil purposes the name and seal of his master without his knowledge, and without any previous inquiry into the facts and circumstances; and did thereon ground an accusation against the said Resident, Bristow, before the board at Calcutta, in which he did represent the conduct of the said Bristow, in attempting to limit the household expenses of the Nabob, as an indignity "which no man living, however mean his rank in life, or dependent his condition in it, would permit to be exercised by any other, but with the want or forfeiture of every manly principle." And he did further accuse the said Bristow for that, in his proceedings in the regulation of the Nabob's household, "he should receive to himself, or Mr. Cowper for him, or a treasurer for both, (for the arrangement has never been well defined,) the money assigned for the support of the Nabob's household,—issue it as he pleased, not to the Nabob, but to the menial officers of his household,—dispose of his superfluous horses, and other cattle,—determine how many elephants were necessary to the state of the Vizier of the Empire, the number of domestics for his attendance, and pry into the kitchen for the purpose of ascertaining the quantity of victuals which ought to be dressed in it,—control the accounts of these disbursements,—and appropriate to his own use (for that the consequence was inevitable, if he chose it) the residue produced by those economical retrenchments."

LXI. That the said charge is malicious and insidious; because the attempt to introduce proper officers for the management of household expenses so considerable that the said Hastings has stated the allotment for the same at three hundred thousand pounds sterling yearly, and that other accounts have carried it to four hundred thousand pounds sterling and upwards, and to keep proper and regular accounts thereof, was a necessary regulation, and agreeable to the dignity of the Nabob, and by no means a degradation either of his person or authority, which was specially provided for in the regulations, as no expense could be incurred but by his own personal warrant under his sign manual; nor doth there appear therein anything but what is of absolute necessity to prevent embezzlement to his prejudice. And the said Hastings hath declared, in the fifth article of the instructions to the said Resident, that no administration can be properly conducted without regular offices; and that in the whole province of Oude "there was not one, the whole being engrossed by the minister": of which minister, in the fourteenth article, he declares his suspicion that the Nabob did not receive the whole and punctual payment of the sum assigned for the purpose of the household, but that some part had been by him withheld from the Nabob; and that, from private information he had lately received, he had reason to believe that this was actually the case. And the said Hastings well knew that the Nabob's household had been ill conducted, that the allowances of his servants had not been paid, that his distress was scandalous, and that his nearest relations were in a famishing condition; and the said Hastings did also well know that the household of the Nabob was provided for or neglected, not at his own discretion, but at that of the said Hyder Beg Khân; and he did, in the fourteenth article aforesaid, instruct the Resident, Bristow, to show every ostensible and external mark of respect to the Nabob, in order to induce him to become himself the mover of every act necessary for the advancing of his own interests and the discharge of his debts to the Company,—declaring, "that they never could be effected while the minister retained that ascendency over him which he at present holds by the means of a nearer and more private intercourse, and by affecting to be the mediator of his rights against the claims of our government." And the said Hastings did further well know that there was no way of ascertaining the payment of the assignments for the Nabob's household, either for the general purposes of their destination or to the particular objects to which they ought to be applied, without regular offices of receipt and of account, which might prevent the said minister, Hyder Beg Khân, or the British Resident, or any other, from embezzling or misapplying the same. But the total want of offices aforesaid in every department of government did furnish occasion of concealing all frauds, clandestine presents, or pensions to a Governor-General, Commander-in-Chief, or other servant of the Company.

LXII. That the said Warren Hastings, who did pretend so deep a concern for the indignities supposed to be suffered by the Nabob merely in the limitation and regulation of unnecessary expenses relative to his kitchen, domestics, &c., did show no attention or compassion to the said Nabob, when, in the year 1779, the said Nabob represented, that the pensions of his old servants for thirty years, the expenses of his family and kitchen, together with the jaghires of his grandmother, mother, and aunts, and of his brothers and dependants, given for their support, were not regulated, but stopped.

LXIII. That the other articles of regulation, namely, the reform of the troops in number and in arrangement, the appointment of proper collectors for the revenues, and the general constitution of offices for the executive administration, were in like manner totally defeated by the said Hyder Beg Khân. And the said Hastings did receive a charge from him, and did adopt it as his own, representing the endeavors of the Resident to act in the regulations aforesaid agreeably to the spirit of his instructions, and in confidence of the powers vested in and the responsibility imposed upon him, the said Resident, as usurpations of the authority and prerogative of the Nabob; and he, the said Hastings, did make criminal charges thereon against the said Resident, Bristow, of which charges the Council Board did, on hearing the same, and the defence of the said Bristow, fully acquit him.

LXIV. That the said Hastings, by abetting Hyder Beg Khân, a person described by him as aforesaid, in his opposition to all the plans of necessary reformation proposed by the said Hastings himself, and having suggested no other whatever in lieu thereof, to answer the purposes for which he had stipulated in the treaty of Chunar the interference of the Resident in every branch of the Nabob's government, did thereby frustrate every one of the good ends proposed by him in the said treaty of Chunar, and did grossly abuse his trust in giving the exorbitant powers before recited, and asserting them to exist in the British Resident, without suffering them even in appearance to answer any of the proper and justifiable ends for which any power or influence can or ought to exist in any government.

LXV. That there is just ground to violently presume that not only the letters in the name of the Nabob aforesaid were dictated to him by his minister, Hyder Beg Khân, in whose hands the said Hastings has described his master to be "a mere cipher," &c., but which Hyder Beg was the known instrument of the said Hastings, but that the conduct and letters of complaint of the said Hyder Beg were in effect and substance prescribed and dictated to him by the said Warren Hastings, or his secret agent, Palmer, by his direction: because it is notorious that the powers of the said Hyder Beg were solely supported by him, the said Hastings, who, according to the state of favor or displeasure in which he stood, hath frequently promised him support or threatened him with dismission and punishment, and therefore it is not to be thought that he would take so material a step as to oppose the Company's Resident, acting under the instructions of the Governor-General and Council, and to accuse him with so much confidence, and in a manner so different from the usual style of supplication on all other occasions employed by that court, if he had not been previously well assured that his writing in that manner would be pleasing to the person upon whom he solely depended for his power, his fortune, and perhaps for his life;—secondly, because, when it suited the purposes of the said Hastings on a former occasion, that is, in the year 1784 [1781?], to remove the Resident Bristow aforesaid from his office, a letter from the Nabob was laid before the Council Board at Calcutta, proposing, that, in order to prevent the effects of the said Bristow's application to Europe for redress, the said Hastings should send him drafts of letters which he, the said Nabob, would write in his own name and character to the King, to his Majesty's ministers, and to the Court of Directors, expressing himself, in the letter aforesaid, in the words following, viz., "To prevent his [Bristow's] applying to Europe, send me, if you think proper, the drafts of letters which I may write to the King, the Vizier, and the chiefs of the Company";—thirdly, that, though the said Hastings, and his secret agent, Palmer, did pretend and positively assert that they had no share in the letters aforesaid from the Nabob and his minister, there was an original note to the Nabob's letters of accusation, referring to distinct parts and specified numbers of the agent Palmer's secret correspondence with the said Warren Hastings, and the said letter, with the said reference, was, through inadvertence, laid before the board.

LXVI. That the said Warren Hastings, having thrown the government of Oude into great confusion and distress, and thereby prevented the discharge of the debt, or pretended debt, to the Company, did, by all the said intrigues, machinations, and charges, aim at the filling the said office of Resident at Oude with his own dependants or by himself personally; as it appears that he did first propose to place in the said office his secret agent, Palmer, and that afterwards, when he was not able to succeed therein, he did propose nominally to abolish the said office, but in effect to fill it by himself,—proposing to the Council and rendering himself responsible (but not in fortune) for the payment of the Company's debt within a certain given time, if he were permitted and commissioned by the Council to act for the board in that province, and did inform them that he was privately well assured that in a few days he should receive an invitation to that effect; and he did state, (as in the year 1781 he had stated as a reason for his former delegation,) "that the state of the country was so disordered in its revenue and administration, and the credit and influence of the Nabob himself so much shook by the late usurpation of his authority, and the contests which attended it, as to require the accession of an extraneous aid to restore the powers and to reanimate the constitution of his government,"—although he, the said Hastings, did for a long time before attribute the weakness of his government to an extraneous interference. And the said Council, on his engagement aforesaid, did consent thereto; and he did accordingly receive a commission, enabling him to act in the affairs of Oude, not only as the Resident might have done, but as largely as the Council-General might legally delegate their own powers.

LXVII. That the said Warren Hastings, in accepting the said commission, did subject his character and the reputation of his office to great imputations and suspicions, by taking upon himself an inferior office, out of which another had upon his intrigues been removed by a perpetual obstruction which rendered it impossible for him to perform his duty or to obey his instructions; and he did increase the said grounded suspicions by exercising that office in a government from whence it was notorious he had himself received an unlawful gift and present from the ministers, and in which he had notoriously suffered many, and had himself actually directed some, acts of peculation, by granting various pensions and emoluments, to the prejudice of the revenue of a distressed country, which he was not authorized to grant.

LXVIII. That the said Warren Hastings did proceed unto the said province of Oude under color of providing a remedy for the disorders described to be existing in the same, and for the recovery of the Company's pretended debt. And the said Warren Hastings, who had thought fit to recall the Company's Resident, appointed to that office by the Court of Directors, and to suspend his office, did, notwithstanding, of his own choice and selection, and on his own mere authority, take with him in his progress a large retinue, "and a numerous society of English gentlemen to compose his family," which he represents as necessary, although, in a letter from that very place to which he took that very numerous society, he informs the Court of Directors "that his own consequence and that of the nation he represents are independent of show." And after his arrival there, he, the said Warren Hastings, did write from Lucknow, the capital of that province, a letter, dated the 30th of April, 1784, to the Court of Directors, in which are several particulars to the following purport or tenor, and which he points out to the Directors "to be circumstances of no trivial information," namely,—"that he had found that the lands in that province, as well as in some parts more immediately under the Company, have suffered in a grievous manner, being completely exhausted of their natural moisture by the total failure of one entire season of the periodical rains," with a few exceptions, which were produced only "by the uncommon labor of the husbandman." And in a letter to Edward Wheler, Esquire, a member of the Council-General, from Benares, the 20th of September, 1784, he says, that "the public revenues had declined with the failure of the cultivation in three successive years; and all the stores of grain which the providence of the husbandmen, (as he was informed is their custom,) in defiance of the vigilance of the aumils [collectors], clandestinely reserved for their own use, were of course exhausted, in which state no person would accept of the charge of the collections on a positive engagement; nor did the rain fall till the 10th of July." And in another letter, dated from Benares, the 1st of October following, he repeats the same accounts, and that the "country could not bear further additions of expense: that it had no inlets of trade to supply the issues that were made from it" (the exceptions stated there being inconsiderable); "therefore every rupee which is drawn into your treasury [the Company's] from its circulation will accelerate the period at which its ability must cease to pay even the stipulated subsidy." Notwithstanding this state of the country, of which he was well apprised before he left Calcutta, and the poverty and distress of the prince having been frequently, but in vain, represented to him, in order to induce him to forbear his oppressive exactions, he did, in order to furnish the Council with a color for permitting him to recall the Company's Resident, and to exercise the whole powers of the Company in his own person, without any check whatsoever, or witness of his proceedings, except the persons of his own private choice, make the express and positive engagement aforesaid, which, if understood of a real and substantial discharge of debt for the relief of the total of the Company's finances, was grossly fallacious: because at the very time he must have been perfectly sensible, that, in the then state of the revenues and country of Oude, (which are in effect the Company's revenues and the Company's country,) the debt or pretended debt aforesaid, asserted to be about five hundred thousand pounds, or thereabouts, could not be paid without contracting another debt at an usurious interest, without encroaching on the necessary establishments or on private property or on the pay of the army, or without grievous oppression of the country, or all these together. And it doth appear that one hundred thousand pounds towards the said payment of debts was borrowed at Calcutta by the Nabob's agent there, but at what interest is not known; it appears also that other sums were borrowed for arrear of the interest, on which forty thousand pounds sterling appears in the Company's claims for the current year, and that various deductions were made from the jaghires restored to the Begums, as well as other parts of the Nabob's family; and it did and doth appear that an arrear is still due to the old and new brigade,—but whether the same be growing or not doth not appear: yet he hath not hesitated to assert that he had "provided for the complete discharge, in one year, of a debt contracted by the accumulation of many, and from a country whose resources have been wasted and dissipated by three successive years of drought and one of anarchy." But the said Hastings never did even realize the payments to be made in the first year, (as he confesses in the said letter,) except by an anticipation of the second; and though he states in his letter aforesaid the following facts and engagements, that is to say, "that a recovery of so large a part of your property [the Company's] will afford a seasonable and substantial relief to the necessities of your government, and enable it (for such is my confident hope) to begin on the reduction of your debt at interest before the conclusion of this year (I mean the year of this computation)." Whereas the said Warren Hastings did apply the whole produce of the revenue to the mere pay of some part of the British army in Oude; and did not mention in his correspondence that he had remitted any money whatsoever to Calcutta, nor to any other place, (except the fifty thousand pounds taken from Almas Ali Khân, and said to be remitted to Surat,) for the said "substantial relief," in consequence of the said pretended "recovery of property,"—admitting that it had been suggested to him, and not by him denied, that he had "disappointed the popular expectation by not adopting the policy which he had, on the conception of better grounds, rejected; nor did he begin the reduction of the interest debt" at the time stated, nor at any time; but the whole (he well knowing the state of the country from whence the resources aforesaid were by him promised) was a premeditated deceit and imposition on the Board of Council, his colleagues, and on the Court of Directors, his masters.

LXIX. That no traces of regulation appear to have been adopted by the said Warren Hastings during his residence at Lucknow, in conformity to the spirit and intentions of the treaty of Chunar, or of his instructions to Middleton and Bristow, or of the proposed objects of his own commission. But he did, in lieu thereof, pretend to free the Nabob's government from the interference of the Company's servants, and the usurpation (as he called it) of a Resident, and thereby to restore it to its proper tone and energy; whereas the measures he took were such as to leave no useful or responsible superintendence in the British, and no freedom in the Nabob's government: for he did confirm the sole, unparticipated, and entire administration, with all the powers annexed to the government, on the minister, Hyder Beg Khân, to whom he prevailed on the Nabob Vizier to commit the entire charge of his revenues, although he knew that his master was a cipher in his hands,—that he "had affixed his seal to letters written without his knowledge, and such as evidently tended to promote Hyder Beg Khân's influence and interest,"—that his said master did not consider him as a minister of his choice, but as an instrument of his degradation,—that "he exists as a minister by his dependence on the Calcutta government, and that the Nabob himself had no other opinion of him,—that it is by its declared and most obvious support alone that he could maintain his authority and influence." And in his instructions to his secret agent, Major Palmer, dated 6th of May, 1782, to ease his mind and remove his jealousy with regard to British interference, he did instruct him, "that much delicacy and caution will be required in your declarations on this subject, lest they should be construed to extend to an immediate change in the administration of his affairs, or the instruments of it. Their persons must be considered as sacred, while they act with the participation of our influence. This distinction the Nabob understands; nor will it be either necessary or proper to allude to it, unless he himself should first introduce the subject." And the said Hastings did assume, as to a dependant of the lowest order, to prescribe to him the conditions on which he is to hold his place,—to threaten him with scrutinies into his conduct, with dismission, with punishment,—that he was guilty of falsehood and duplicity, and that he had made his master assert what was true to be false,—that he suspected he had withheld from his master what he ought to have paid to him,—that the event of his having prevailed on the Nabob to intrust him as aforesaid was, according to his, the said Hastings's, own letter, written to the said Hyder Beg Khân himself, "an accumulation of distress, debasement, and dissatisfaction to the Nabob, and of disappointment and disgrace to me. Every measure which he had himself proposed, and to which he had solicited my assistance, has been so conducted as to give him cause of displeasure; there are no officers established by which his affairs could be regularly conducted; mean, incapable, and indigent man have been appointed aumils of the districts, without authority, and without the means of personal protection; some of them have been murdered by the zemindars, and those zemindars, instead of punishment, have been permitted to retain their zemindaries with independent authority; all the other zemindars suffered to rise up in rebellion, and to insult the authority of the sircar, without any attempt made to suppress them; and the Company's debt, instead of being discharged by the assignments, and extraordinary sources of money provided for that purpose, is likely to exceed even the amount at which it stood at the time in which the arrangement with his Excellency was concluded. The growth of these evils was early made known to me, and their effects foreboded in the same order and manner as they have since come to pass. In such a state of calamity and disgrace, I can no longer remain a passive spectator; nor would it be becoming to conceal my sentiments, or qualify the expression of them. I now plainly tell you, that you are answerable for every misfortune and defect of the Nabob Vizier's government." And after giving orders, and expressing some hopes of better behavior, he adds, "If I am disappointed, you will impose on me the painful and humiliating necessity of acknowledging to him that I have been deceived, and of recommending the examination of your conduct to his justice, both for the redress of his own and the Company's grievances, and for the injury sustained by both in their mutual connection. Do not reply to me, that what I have written is from the suggestion of your enemies; nor imagine that I have induced myself to write in such plain and declaratory terms, without a clear insight into all the consequences of it, and a fixed determination upon them."