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

That among the various instances of profusion by which the civil establishment of Fort William was increased to the enormous annual sum hereinbefore mentioned, it appears that a Salt Office was created, of six commissioners, whose annual emoluments were as follows, viz.:—

That a Board of Revenue was created by the said Warren Hastings, consisting of five commissioners, whose annual emoluments were as follows, viz.:—

That David Anderson, Esquire, first member of the said board, did not execute the duties, though he received the emoluments of the said office: having acted, for the greatest part of the time, as ambassador to Mahdajee Sindia, with a further salary of 4,280l. a year, making in all 15,230l. a year. That the said Warren Hastings did create an office of Agent-Victualler to the garrison of Fort William, whose profits, on an average of three years, were 15,970l. per annum. That this agency was held by the Postmaster-General, who in that capacity received 2,200l. a year from the Company, and who was actually no higher than a writer in the service. That the person who held these lucrative offices, viz., John Belli, was private secretary to the said Warren Hastings.

That the said Warren Hastings created a nominal office of Resident at Goa, where the Company never had a Resident, nor business of any kind to transact, and gave the said nominal office to a person who was not a covenanted servant of the Company, with an allowance of 4,280l. a year.

That these instances are proofs of a criminal profusion and high breach of trust to the India Company in the said Warren Hastings, under whose government, and by means of whose special power, derived from the effect of his casting voice, all the said waste and profusion did take place.

That at the end of the year 1780, when, as the Court of Directors affirm, the Company were in the utmost distress for money, and almost every department in arrear, and when it appears that there was a great scarcity and urgent want of grain at Fort St. George, the said Warren Hastings did accept of a proposal made to him by James Peter Auriol, then Secretary to the Council, to supply the Presidency of Fort St. George with rice and other articles, and did appoint the said Auriol to be the agent for supplying all the other Presidencies with those articles; that the said Warren Hastings declared that the intention of the appointment "was most likely to be fulfilled by a liberal consideration of it," and therefore allowed the said Auriol a commission of fifteen per cent on the whole of his disbursements, thereby rendering it the direct interest of the said Auriol to make his disbursements as great as possible; that the chance of capture by the enemy, or danger of the sea, was to be at the risk of the India Company, and not of the said Auriol; that the said Warren Hastings declared personally to the said Auriol, "that this post was intended as a reward for his long and faithful services." That the President and Council of Bombay did remonstrate against what they called the enormous amount of the charges of the rice with which they wore supplied, which they state to be nine rupees a bag at Calcutta, when they themselves could have contracted for its delivery at Bombay, free of all risk and charges, at five rupees and three sixteenths per bag; and that even at Madras, where the distress and demand was greatest, the supplies of grain by private traders, charged to the Company, were nineteen per cent cheaper than that supplied by the said Auriol, exclusive of the risk of the sea and of capture by the enemy. That it is stated by the Court of Directors, that the agent's commission on a supply of a single year (the said commission being not only charged on the prime cost of the rice, but also on the freight and all other charges) would amount to pounds sterling 26,873, and by the said Auriol himself is admitted to amount to 18,292l. That William Larkins, the Accountant-General at Port William, having been ordered to examine the accounts of the said agent, did report to the Governor-General and Council, that he found them to be correct in the additions and calculations; and that then the said Larkins adds the following declaration: "The agent being upon honor with respect to the sums charged in his accounts for the cost of the articles supplied, I did not think myself authorized to require any voucher of the sums charged for the demurrage of sloops, either as to the time of detention or the rate of the charge, or of those for the articles lost in going down the river; and on that ground I thought myself equally bound to admit the sums acknowledged as received for the sales of goods returned, without requiring vouchers of the rates at which they were sold." That in this transaction the said Warren Hastings has been guilty of a high breach of trust and duty, in the unnecessary expenditure of the Company's money, and in subjecting the Company to a profusion of expense, at all times wholly unjustifiable, but particularly at the time when that expense was incurred. That the said Warren Hastings was guilty of breach of orders, as well as breach of trust, in not advertising generally for proposals; in not contracting indifferently for the supplies with such merchants as might offer to furnish them on the lowest terms; in giving an enormous commission to an agent, and that commission not confined to the prime cost of the articles, but to be computed on the whole of his charges; in accepting of the honor of the said agent as a sufficient voucher for the cost of the articles supplied, and for all charges whatever on which his commission was to be computed; and finally, in giving a lucrative agency for the supply of a distressed and starving province as a reward to a Secretary of State, whose labors in that capacity ought to have been rewarded by an avowed public salary, and not otherwise. That, after the first year of the said agency was expired, the said Warren Hastings did agree, that, for the future, the commission to be drawn by the said agent should be reduced to five per cent, which the Governor-General and Council then declared to be the customary, amount drawn by merchants; but that even in this reduction of the commission the said Warren Hastings was guilty of a deception, and did not in fact reduce the commission from fifteen to five per cent, having immediately after resolved that he, the agent, should be allowed the current interest of Calcutta upon all his drafts on the Treasury from the day of their dates, until they should be completely liquidated; that the legal interest of money in Bengal is twelve per cent per annum, and the current interest from eight to ten per cent.

VIII.—PRESENTS

That, before the appointment of the Governor-General and Council of Fort William by act of Parliament, the allowances made by the East India Company to the Presidents of that government were abundantly sufficient; and that the said Presidents in general, and the said Warren Hastings particularly, was restrained by a specific covenant and indenture, which he entered into with the Company, from accepting any gifts, rewards, or gratuities whatsoever, on any account or pretence whatsoever. That in the Regulating Act passed in the year 1773, which appointed the said Warren Hastings, Esquire, Governor-General of Fort William in Bengal, a salary of twenty-five thousand pounds a year was established for him, to which the Court of Directors added, "that he should enjoy their principal houses, with the plate and furniture, both in town and country, rent-free." That the same law which created the office and provided the salary of the said Warren Hastings did expressly, and in the clearest and most comprehensive terms that could be devised, prohibit him from receiving any present, gift, or donation, in any manner or on any account whatsoever; and that the said Warren Hastings perfectly understood the meaning, and acknowledged the binding force of this prohibition, before he accepted of the office to which it was annexed: he knew, and had declared, that the prohibition was positive and decisive; that it admitted neither of refinement or misconstruction; and that in his opinion an opposition would be to incur the penalty.

That, notwithstanding the covenants and engagements above mentioned, it appears in the recorded proceedings of the Governor-General and Council of Fort William, that sundry charges have been brought against the said Warren Hastings for gifts or presents corruptly taken by him before the promulgation of the act of 1773 in India, and that these charges were produced at the Council Board in the presence of the said Warren Hastings. That, in March, 1775, the late Rajah Nundcomar, a native Hindoo, of the highest caste in his religion, and of the highest rank in society, by the offices which he had held under the country government, did lay before the Council an account of various sums of money paid by him to the said Warren Hastings, amounting to forty thousand pounds and upwards, for offices and employments corruptly disposed of by the said Warren Hastings, and did offer and engage to prove and establish the same by sufficient evidence. That this account is stated with a minute particularity and precision; the date of each payment, down to that of small sums, is specified; the various coins in which such payments were severally made are distinguished; and the different persons through whose hands the money passed into those of the said Warren Hastings are named. That such particularity on the face of such a charge, supposing it false, is favorable to the party wrongfully accused, and exposes the accuser to an instant and easy detection: for, though, as the said Warren Hastings himself has observed on another occasion, "papers may be forged, and evidences may appear in numbers to attest them, yet it must always be an easy matter to detect the falsity of any forged paper produced by examining the witnesses separately, and subjecting them to a subsequent cross-examination, in which case, if false, they will not be able to persevere in one regular, consistent story "; whereas, if no advantage be taken of such particularity in the charge to detect the falsehood thereof, and if no attempt to disprove it, and no defence whatever be made, a presumption justly and reasonably arises in favor of the truth of such charge. That the said Warren Hastings, instead of offering anything in his defence, declared that he would not suffer Nundcomar to appear before the board at his accuser; that he attempted to indict his said accuser for a conspiracy, in which he failed; and that the said Rajah Nundcomar was soon after, and while his charge against the said Warren Hastings was depending before the Council, indicted upon an English penal statute, which does not extend even to Scotland,1 before the Supreme Court of Judicature, for an offence said to have been committed several years before, and not capital by the laws of India, and was condemned and executed. That the evidence of this man, not having been encountered at the time when it might and ought to have been by the said Warren Hastings, remains justly in force against him, and is not abated by the capital punishment of the said Nundcomar, but rather confirmed by the time and circumstances in which the accuser of the said Warren Hastings suffered death. That one of the offices for which a part of the money above mentioned is stated to have been paid to the said Warren Hastings was given by him to Munny Begum, the widow of the late Mir Jaffier, Nabob of Bengal, whose son, by another woman, holds that title at present. That the said Warren Hastings had been instructed by the Court of Directors of the East India Company to appoint "a minister to transact the political affairs of the government, and to select for that purpose some person well qualified for the affairs of government, to be the minister and guardian of the Nabob's minority." That for these offices, and for the execution of the several duties belonging to them, the said Warren Hastings selected and appointed the said Munny Begum, a woman evidently unqualified for and incapable of such offices, and restrained from acting in such capacities by her necessary seclusion from the world and retirement in a seraglio. That, a considerable deficiency or embezzlement appearing in this woman's account of the young Nabob's stipend, she voluntarily declared, by a writing under her seal, that she had given fifteen thousand pounds to the said Warren Hastings for an entertainment,—which declaration corresponds with and confirms that part of the charge produced by Rajah Nundcomar to which it relates. That neither this nor any other part of the said charge has been at any time directly denied or disputed by the said Warren Hastings, though made to his face, and though he was repeatedly accused by his colleagues, who were appointed by Parliament at the same time with himself, of peculation of every sort. That, instead of promoting a strict inquiry into his conduct for the clearance of his innocence and honor, he did repeatedly endeavor to elude and stifle all inquiry by attempting to dissolve the meetings of the Council at which such charges were produced, and by other means, and has not since taken any steps to disprove or refute the same. That the said Warren Hastings, so long ago as September, 1775, assured the Court of Directors, "that it was his fixed determination most fully and liberally to explain every circumstance of his conduct on the points on which he had been injuriously arraigned, and to afford them the clearest conviction of his own integrity, and of the propriety of his motives for declining a present defence of it"; and having never since given to the Court of Directors any explanation whatever, much less the full and liberal explanation he had promised so repeatedly, has thereby abandoned even that late and protracted defence which he himself must have thought necessary to be made at some time or other, and which he would be thought to have deferred to a period more suitable and convenient than that in which the facts were recent, and the impression of these and other charges of the same nature against him was fresh and unimpaired in the minds of men.

That on the 30th of March, 1775, a member of the Council produced and laid before the board a petition from Mir Zein Abul Deen, (formerly farmer of a district, and who had been in creditable stations,) setting forth, that Khân Jehan Khân, then Phousdar of Hoogly, had obtained that office from the said Warren Hastings, with a salary of seventy-two thousand sicca rupees a year, and that the said Phousdar had given a receipt of bribe to the patron of the city, meaning Warren Hastings, to pay him annually thirty-six thousand rupees a year, and also to his banian, Cantoo Baboo, four thousand rupees a year, out of the salary above mentioned. That by the thirty-fifth article of the instructions given to the Governor-General and Council, they are directed "immediately to cause the strictest inquiry to be made into all oppressions which might have been committed either against the natives or Europeans, and into all abuses that might have prevailed in the collection of the revenues, or any part of the civil government of the Presidency, and to communicate to the Directors all information which they might be able to obtain relative thereto, or to any dissipation or embezzlement of the Company's money." That the above petition and instruction having been read in Council, it was moved that the petitioner should be ordered to attend the next day to make good his charge. That the said Warren Hastings declared, "that it appeared to him to be the purpose of the majority to make him the sole object of their personal attacks; that they had taken their line, and might pursue it; that he should have other remarks to make upon this transaction, but, as they would be equally applicable to many others which in the course of this business were likely to be brought before the board, he should say no more on the subject";—and he objected to the motion. That by the preceding declaration the said Warren Hastings did admit that many other charges were likely to be brought against him, and that such charges would be of a similar nature to the first, viz., a corrupt bargaining for the disposal of a great office, since he declared that his remarks on that transaction would be equally applicable to the rest; and that, by objecting to the motion for the personal attendance of the accuser, he resisted and disobeyed the Company's instructions, and did, as far as depended on his power, endeavor to obstruct and prevent all inquiry into the charge. That in so doing he failed in his duty to the Company, he disobeyed their express orders, and did leave the charge against himself without a reply, and even without a denial, and with that unavoidable presumption against his innocence which lies against every person accused who not only refuses to plead, but, as far as his vote goes, endeavors to prevent an examination of the charge, and to stifle all inquiry into the truth of it. That, the motion having been nevertheless carried, the said Warren Hastings did, on the day following, declare, "that he could not sit to be confronted with such accusers, nor suffer a judicial inquiry into his conduct at the board of which he was president, and declared the meeting of the board dissolved." That the board continued to sit and examine witnesses, servants of the Phousdar, on oath and written evidence, being letters under the hand and seal of the Phousdar, all directly tending to prove the charge: viz., that, out of the salary of seventy-two thousand rupees a year paid by the Company, the said Phousdar received but thirty-two thousand, and that the remainder was received by the said Warren Hastings and his banian. That the Phousdar, though repeatedly ordered to attend the board, did, under various pretences, decline attending, until the 19th of May, when, the letters stated be his, that is, under his hand and seal, being shown to him, it was proposed by a member of the board that he should be asked whether he had any objection to swear to the truth of such answers as he might make to the questions proposed by the board; that the said Warren Hastings objected to his being put to his oath; that the question was nevertheless put to him, in consequence of a resolution of the board; that he first declined to swear, under pretence that it was a matter of serious consequence to his character to take an oath, and, when it was finally left to his option, he declared, "Mean people might swear, but that his character would not allow him,—that he could not swear, and had rather subject himself to a loss." That the evidence in support of the charge, being on oath, was in this manner left uncontradicted. That it was admitted by the said Warren Hastings, that neither Mussulmen or Hindoos are forbidden by the precepts of their religion to swear; that it is not true, as the said Warren Hastings asserted, that it was repugnant to the manners either of Hindoos or Mussulmen; and that, if, under such pretences, the natives were to be exempted from taking an oath, when examined by the Governor and Council, all the inquiries pointed out to them by the Company's instructions might stop or be defeated. That no valid reason was or could be assigned why the said Phousdar should not be examined on oath; that the charge was not against himself; and that, if any questions had been put to him, tending to make him accuse himself, he might have declined to answer them. That, if he could have safely sworn to the innocence of the said Warren Hastings, from whom he received his employment, he was bound in gratitude as well as justice to the said Warren Hastings to have consented to be examined on oath; that, not having done so, and having been supported and abetted in his refusal by the said Warren Hastings himself, whose character and honor, were immediately at stake, the whole of the evidence for the truth of the charge remains unanswered, and in full force against the said Warren Hastings, who on this occasion recurred to the declaration he had before made to the Directors, viz., "that he would most fully and liberally explain every circumstance of his conduct," but has never since that time given the Directors any explanation whatsoever of his said conduct. And finally, that, when the Court of Directors, in January, 1776, referred the question (concerning the legality of the power assumed and repeatedly exercised by the said Warren Hastings, of dissolving the Council at his pleasure) to the late Charles Sayer, then standing counsel of the East India Company, the said Charles Sayer declared his opinion in favor of the power, but concerning the use and exercise of it in the cases stated did declare his opinion in the following words: "I believe he, Warren Hastings, is the first governor that ever dissolved a council inquiring into his behavior, when he was innocent." Before he could summon three councils, and dissolve them, he had time fully to consider what would be the result of such conduct, to convince everybody beyond a doubt of his conscious guilt.—That, by a resolution of a majority of the Council, constituting a lawful act of the Governor-General and Council, the said Khân Jehan Khân was dismissed from the office of Phousdar of Hoogly for a contempt of the authority of the board; that, within a few weeks after the death of the late Colonel Monson, the number of the Council being then even, and all questions being then determined by the Governor-General's casting voice, the said Warren Hastings did move and carry it in Council, that the said Khân Jehan Khân should be restored to his office; and that restoration, not having been preceded, accompanied, or followed by any explanation or defence whatsoever, or even by a denial of the specific and circumstantial charge of collusion with the said Khân Jehan Khân, has confirmed the truth of the said charge.

That, besides the sums charged to have been paid to the said Warren Hastings by the said Nundcomar and Munny Begum and Khân Jehan Khân, and besides the sum of one hundred and ten thousand pounds already mentioned to have been accepted without hesitation by him, as a present on the part of the Nabob of Oude and that of his ministers, the circumstances of which have been particularly reported to the House of Commons, it appears by the confession of the said Warren Hastings, that he has at different times since the promulgation of the act of 1773, received various other sums, contrary to the express prohibition of the said act, and his own declared sense of the evident intent and obligation thereof.—That in the month of June, 1780, the said Warren Hastings made to the Council what he called "a very unusual tender, by offering to exonerate the Company from the expense of a particular measure, and to take it upon himself; declaring that he had already deposited two lacs of rupees [or twenty-three thousand pounds] in the hands of the Company's sub-treasurer for that service." That in a subsequent letter, dated the 29th of November, 1780, he informed the Court of Directors, that "this money, by whatever means it came into their possession, was not his own"; but he did not then, nor has he at any time since, made known to the Court of Directors from whom or on what account he received that money, as it was his duty to have done in the first instance, and notwithstanding the said Directors signified to him their expectation that he should communicate to them "immediate information of the channel by which this money came into his possession, with a complete illustration of the cause or causes of so extraordinary an event." But, from evidence examined in England, it has been discovered that this money was received by the said Warren Hastings from Cheyt Sing, the Rajah of Benares, who was soon after dispossessed of all his property and driven from his country and government by the said Warren Hastings. That, notwithstanding the declaration made by the said Warren Hastings, that he had actually deposited the sum above mentioned in the hands of the Company's sub-treasurer for their service, it does not appear that "any entry whatsoever of that or any other payment by the Governor-General was made in the Treasury accounts at or about the time," nor is there any trace in the Company's books of its being actually paid into their treasury. It appears, then, by the confession of the said Warren Hastings, that this money was received by him; but it does not appear that he has converted it to the property and use of the Company.