That the said Warren Hastings does nowhere himself contend that the said resignation was not absolute, but optional, according to the true meaning and understanding of the parties in England, and so far as the acts of Lauchlan Macleane, Esquire, and the Court of Directors, were binding on him; but, on the contrary, he grounds his refusal to complete the same, not on any interpretation of the words in which the said resignation, and the other instruments aforesaid, were conceived, but rather on a disavowal (not direct, indeed, but implied) of his said agent, and of the powers under which the said agent had claimed to act in his behalf. Neither did the said Warren Hastings ground his said refusal on any objection to the particular day or period or circumstances in which the requisition of General Clavering was made, nor accompany the said refusal with any qualification in that respect, or with any intimation that he would at any future or more convenient season comply with the same,—although such an intimation might probably have induced General Clavering to waive an instant and immediate claim to the chair, and might therefore have prevented the distractions which happened, and the greater evils which impended, in consequence of the said claim of General Clavering, and the said refusal of Warren Hastings, Esquire; but the said Warren Hastings did, on the contrary, express his said refusal in such general and unqualified terms as intimated an intention to resist absolutely and altogether, both then and at any future time, the said requisition of General Clavering. And the subsequent proceedings of the said Warren Hastings do all concur in proving that such was his intention; for he did afterwards, in conformity to the advice of the judges, move a resolution in Council, "that all parties be placed in the same situation in which they stood before the receipt of the last advices from England, reserving and submitting to a decision in England the respective claims that each party may conceive they have a right to make, but not acting upon those claims till such decision shall arrive in Bengal": thereby clearly and explicitly declaring that it was not his intention to surrender the government until such decision should arrive in Bengal, which could not be expected in less time than a year and a half after the date of the said resolution; and thereby clearly and explicitly declaring that he did not consider his resignation as binding for the present. And the said intention was manifested, if possible, still more directly and expressly in a letter written by the said Warren Hastings to the Court of Directors, dated the 15th of August, 1777, being almost two months after the receipt of the said dispatches, in which the said Warren Hastings declares that "he did not hold himself bound by the notification made by Mr. Macleane, nor by any of the acts consequent of it."

That, such appearing to have been the intention of the said Warren Hastings, General Clavering was justified in immediately assuming the government, without waiting for any future act of the said Warren Hastings for the actual surrender of the said government, none such being likely to happen; and Philip Francis, Esquire, was justified in supporting General Clavering in the same on the soundest principles of justice, and on a maxim received in courts of equity, namely, that no one shall avail himself of his own wrong,—and that, if any one refuse or neglect to perform that which he is bound to do, the rights of others shall not be prejudiced thereby, but such acts shall be deemed and reputed to have been actually performed, and all the consequences shall be enforced which would have followed from such actual performance. And therefore the resolutions moved and voted in Council by the said Warren Hastings, declaring the offices of General Clavering to be vacant, were not only illegal, inasmuch as the said Warren Hastings had no authority to warrant such a declaration, even on the supposition of the acts of General Clavering being contrary to law, but the said resolutions were further highly culpable and criminal, inasmuch as the said acts done by General Clavering, which were made the pretence of that proceeding, were strictly regular and legal.

That the refusal of the said Warren Hastings to ratify the said resignation, and his disavowal of the said Lauchlan Macleane, his agent, is not justified by anything contained in his said letter to the Court of Directors, dated on the 15th of August, 1777,—the said Warren Hastings nowhere directly and positively asserting that the said Lauchlan Macleane was not his agent, and had not both full and general powers, and even particular instructions for this very act, although the said Warren Hastings uses many indirect and circuitous, but insufficient and inapplicable, insinuations to that effect. And the said letter does, on the contrary, contain a clear and express avowal that the said Lauchlan Macleane was his confidential agent, and that in that capacity he acted throughout, and particularly in this special matter, with zeal and fidelity. And the said letter does further admit in effect the instructions produced by the said Lauchlan Macleane, Esquire, confirmed by Mr. Vansittart and Mr. Stewart, and relied on and confided in by the Court of Directors, by which the said Lauchlan Macleane appeared to be specially empowered to declare the said resignation, the words of the said instruction being as follows: "That he [Mr. Hastings] will not continue in the government of Bengal, unless certain conditions therein specified can be obtained"; and the words of the said letter being as follows: "What I myself know with certainty, or can recollect at this distance of time, concerning the powers and instructions which were given to Messieurs Macleane and Graham, when they undertook to be my agents in England, I will circumstantially relate. I am in possession of two papers which were presented to those gentlemen at the time of their departure from Bengal, one of which comprises four short propositions which I required as the conditions of my being confirmed in this government." And although the said Warren Hastings does here artfully somewhat change the words of his written instructions (and which having in his possession he might as easily have given verbatim) to other words which may appear less explicit, yet they are in fact capable of only the same meaning: for, as, at the time of giving the said instructions to his agents, he was in full possession of his office, he could want no confirmation therein except his own; and, in such circumstances, "to require certain things, as the conditions of his being confirmed in his government," is tantamount to a declaration "that he will not continue in his government, unless those conditions can be obtained." And the said attempt at prevarication can serve, its author the less, as either both sentences have one and the same meaning, or, if their meaning be different, the original instructions in his own handwriting, or, in other words, the thing itself, must be preferred as evidence of its contents to a loose statement of its purport, founded, perhaps, on a loose recollection of it at a great distance of time.

That the said refusal of Warren Hastings, Esquire, was a breach of faith with the Court of Directors and his Majesty's ministers in England; as the said resignation was not merely a voluntary offer without any consideration, and therefore subject to be recalled or retracted at the pleasure of the said Warren Hastings, but ought rather to be considered as having been the result of a negotiation carried on between Mr. Macleane for the benefit of Warren Hastings, Esquire, on the one hand, and by the Court of Directors for the interests of the Company on the other: which view of the transaction will appear the more probable, when it is considered that at the time of the said resignation a strict inquiry had been carrying on by the Court of Directors into the conduct of the said Warren Hastings, and the solicitor and counsel to the Company, and other eminent counsel, had given it as their opinions, on cases stated to them, that there were grounds for suing the said Warren Hastings in the courts of law and equity, and that the Company would be entitled to recover in the said suits against Warren Hastings, Esquire, several very large sums of money taken by him in his office of Governor-General, contrary to law, and in breach of his covenants, and of his duty to the Company and the public; and the Court of Directors had also come to various severe resolutions of censure against the said Warren Hastings, and amongst others to a resolution to recall the said Warren Hastings, and remove him from his office of Governor-General, to answer for sundry great crimes and delinquencies by him committed in his said office. And on these accounts it appears probable that the said resignation was tendered and accepted as a consideration for some beneficial concessions made in consequence thereof to the said Warren Hastings in his said dangerous and desperate condition.

And the said refusal was also an act of great disrespect to the Court of Directors and to his Majesty, and, by rendering abortive their said measures, solemnly and deliberately taken, and ratified and confirmed by his Majesty, tended to bring the authority of the Court of Directors and of his Majesty into contempt.

And the said refusal was an injury to General Clavering.

And was also, or might have been, a great injury to Edward Wheler, Esquire.

And was an act of signal treachery to Lauchlan Macleane, Esquire, as also to Mr. Vansittart and Mr. Stewart, whose honors and veracity were thereby brought into question, doubt, and suspicion.

And the said refusal was prejudicial to the affairs of the servants of the Company in India, by shaking the confidence to be placed in their agents by those persons with whom it might be for their interests to negotiate on any matter of importance, and by thus subjecting the communication of persons abroad with those at home to difficulties not known before.



X.—SURGEON-GENERAL'S CONTRACT.

That the said Warren Hastings, in the year 1777, did grant to the Surgeon-General a contract for three years, for defraying every kind of hospital and medicinal expense,—not only in breach of the general orders of the Court of Directors with respect to the duration of contracts, but in direct opposition to a particular order of the Court of Directors, of the 30th of March, 1774, when they directed "that the Surgeon should not be permitted to enjoy any emolument arising from his being concerned in dieting the patients, and that the occupations of surgeon and contractor should be forthwith separated." That the said contract was in itself highly improper, and inconsistent with the good of the service; as it afforded the greatest temptation to abuse, and established a pecuniary interest in the Surgeon-General, contrary to the duties of his station and profession.



XI.—CONTRACTS FOR POOLBUNDY REPAIRS.

That the Governor-General and Council at Fort William did, on the motion and recommendation of Warren Hastings, Esquire, enter into a contract with Archibald Frazer, Esquire, on the 16th of April, 1778, for the repairs of the pools and banks in the province of Burdwan, for two years, at the rate of 120,000 sicca rupees for the first year, and 80,000 rupees for the second year.

That on the 19th of December, 1778, the said Warren Hastings did further persuade the Supreme Council to prolong the term of the above contract with Archibald Frazer for the space of three years more on the same conditions, namely, the payment of 80,000 sicca rupees for each year: to which was added a permission to Mr. Frazer to make dobunds, or special repairs, whenever he should judge them necessary, at the charge of government.

That the said contracts, both in the manner of their acceptance by the Supreme Council, without having previously advertised for proposals, and in the extent of their duration, were made in direct violation of the special orders of the Court of Directors.

That, so far from any advantage having been obtained for the Company in the terms of these contracts, in consideration of the length of time for which they were to continue, the expense of government upon this article was increased by these engagements to a very great amount.

That it appears that this contract had been held for some years before by the Rajah of Burdwan at the rate of 25,000 rupees per annum.

That the superintendent of poolbundy repairs, after an accurate and diligent survey of the bunds and pools, and the Provincial Council of Burdwan, upon the best information they could procure, had delivered it as their opinion to the Governor-General and Council, before the said agreement was entered into, that, after the heavy expense stated in Mr. Kinlock's estimate, viz., 119,405 sicca rupees, if disbursed as they recommended, the charge in future seasons would be greatly reduced, and, after one thorough and effectual repair, they conceived a small annual expense would be sufficient to keep the bunds up and prevent their going to decay.

That, whatever extraordinary and unusual damages the pools and bunds might have sustained, either from the neglect of the Rajah's officers, or from the violence of the then late rains, and the torrents thereby occasioned, to justify the expense of the first year, yet, as they were all considered and included in the estimate for that year, there could be no pretence for allowing and continuing so large and burdensome a payment as 80,000 rupees per annum for the four succeeding years.

That the said Warren Hastings did, in his minutes of the 13th of February, 1778, himself support that opinion, in the comparison to be made between Mr. Thomson's proposals, of undertaking the same service for 60,000 rupees a year for nine years, and the terms of Mr. Frazer's contracts: preferring the latter, because these were "to effect a complete repair, which could hardly be concluded in one season, and the subsequent expense would be but trifling."

Notwithstanding which, the said Warren Hastings urged and prevailed upon the Council to allow in the first year the full amount proposed by Mr. Kinlock in his estimate of the necessary repairs, and did burden the Company with what he must have deemed to be, for the greater part, an unnecessary expense of 80,000 rupees per annum for four years.

That the permission granted to Mr. Frazer to make dobunds, or new and additional embankments in aid of the old ones, whenever he should judge them necessary, at the charge of government, (the said charge to be verified by the oath of the said Frazer, without any voucher,) was a power very much to be suspected, and very improper to be intrusted to a contractor who had already covenanted to keep the old pools in perfect repair, and to construct new ones wherever the old pools had been broken down and washed away, or where the course of the rivers might have rendered new ones necessary, in consideration of the great sums stipulated to be paid to him by the government.

That the grant of the foregoing contracts, and the permission afterwards annexed to the second of the said grants, become much more reprehensible from a consideration of the circumstances of the person to whom such a grant was made.

That the due performance of the service required local knowledge and experience, which the said Archibald Frazer, being an officer in the Supreme Court of Justice, could not have possessed.



XII.—CONTRACTS FOR OPIUM.

That it appears that the opium produced in Bengal and Bahar is a considerable and lucrative article in the export trade of those provinces; that the whole produce has been for many years monopolized either by individuals or by the government; that the Court of Directors of the East India Company, in consideration of the hardship imposed on the native owners and cultivators of the lands, who were deprived of their natural right of dealing with many competitors, and compelled to sell the produce of their labor to a single monopolist, did authorize the Governor-General and Council to give up that commodity as an article of commerce.

That, while the said commodity continued to be a monopoly for the benefit of government, and managed by a contractor, the contracts for providing it were subject to the Company's fundamental regulation, namely, to be put up to auction, and disposed of to the best bidder; and that the Company particularly ordered that the commodity, when provided, should be consigned to the Board of Trade, who were directed to dispose thereof by public auction.

That in May, 1777, the said Warren Hastings granted to John Mackenzie a contract for the provision of opium, to continue three years, and without advertising for proposals. That this transaction was condemned by the Court of Directors, notwithstanding a clause had been inserted in that contract by which it was left open to the Court of Directors to annul the same at the expiration of the first or second year.

That, about the end of the year 1780, the said Warren Hastings, in contradiction to the order above mentioned, did take away the sale of the opium from the Board of Trade, though he disclaimed, at the same time, any intention of implying a censure on their management.

That in March, 1781, the said Warren Hastings did grant to Stephen Sulivan, son of Lawrence Sulivan, Chairman of the Court of Directors of the East India Company, a contract for the provision of opium, without advertising for proposals, and without even receiving any written proposals from him, the said Sulivan; that he granted this contract for four years, and at the request of the said Sulivan did omit that clause which was inserted in the preceding contract, and by which it was rendered liable to be determined by orders from the Company: the said Warren Hastings declaring, contrary to truth, that such clause was now unnecessary, as the Directors had approved the contract.

That the said Sulivan had been but a few months in Bengal when the above contract was given to him; that he was a stranger to the country, and to all the local commerce thereof, and therefore unqualified for the management of such a concern; and that the said Sulivan, instead of executing the contract himself, did, shortly after obtaining the same, assign it over to John Benn and others, and in consideration of such assignment did receive from the said Benn a great sum of money.

That from the preceding facts, as well as from sundry other circumstances of restrictions taken off (particularly by abolishing the office of inspector into the quality of the opium) and of beneficial clauses introduced, it appears that the said Warren Hastings gave this contract to the said Stephen Sulivan in contradiction to the orders of the Court of Directors, and without any regard to the interests of the India Company, for the sole purpose of creating an instant fortune for the said Sulivan at the expense of the India Company, without any claim of service or pretence of merit on his part, and without any apparent motive whatever, except that of securing or rewarding the attachment and support of his father, Lawrence Sulivan, a person of great authority and influence in the direction of the Company's affairs, and notoriously attached to and connected with the said Warren Hastings.

That the said Stephen Sulivan neither possessed nor pretended to possess any skill in the business of his contract; that he exerted no industry, nor showed or could show any exactness, in the performance of it, since he immediately sold the contract for a sum of money to another person, (for the sole purpose of which sale it must be presumed the same was given,) by which person another profit was to be made; and by that person the same was again sold to a third, by whom a third profit was to be made.

That the said Warren Hastings, at the very time when he engaged the Company in a contract for engrossing the whole of the opium produced in Bengal and Bahar in the ensuing four years on terms of such exorbitant profit to the contractor, affirmed, that "there was little prospect of selling the opium in Bengal at a reasonable price, and that it was but natural to suppose that the price of opium would fall, from the demand being lessened"; that in a letter dated the 5th of May, 1781, he informed the Directors, "that, owing to the indifferent state of the markets last season to the Eastward, and the very enhanced rates of insurance which the war had occasioned, they had not been able to dispose of the opium of the present year to so great an advantage as they expected, and that more than one half of it remained still in their warehouses." That the said Warren Hastings was guilty of a manifest breach of trust to his constituents and his employers in monopolizing, for their pretended use, an article of commerce for which he declared no purchasers had offered, and that there was little prospect of any offering, and the price of which, he said, it was but natural to suppose would fall.

That the said Warren Hastings, having, by his own act, loaded the Company with a commodity for which, either in the ordinary and regular course of public auction, or even by private contract, there was, as he affirmed, no sale, did, under pretence of finding a market for the same, engage the Company in an enterprise of great and certain expense, subject to a manifest risk, and full of disgrace to the East India Company, not only in their political character, as a great sovereign power in India, but in their commercial character, as an eminent and respectable body of merchants; and that the execution of this enterprise was accompanied with sundry other engagements with other persons, in all of which the Company's interest was constantly sacrificed to that of individuals favored by the said Warren Hastings.

That the said Warren Hastings first engaged in a scheme to export one thousand four hundred and sixty chests of opium, on the Company's account, on board a ship belonging to Cudbert Thornhill, half of which was to be disposed of in a coasting voyage, and the remainder in Canton. That, besides the freight and commission payable to the said Thornhill on this adventure, twelve pieces of cannon belonging to the Company were lent for arming the ship; though his original proposal was, that the ship should be armed at his expense. That this part of the adventure, depending for its success on a prudent and fortunate management of various sales and resales in the course of a circuitous voyage, and being exposed to such risk both of sea and enemy that all private traders had declined to be concerned in it, was particularly unfit for a great trading company, and could not be undertaken on their account with any rational prospect of advantage.

That the said Warren Hastings soon after engaged in another scheme for exporting two thousand chests of opium directly to China on the Company's account, and for that purpose accepted of an offer made by Henry Watson, the Company's chief engineer, to convey the same in a vessel of his own, and to deliver it to the Company's supra-cargoes. That, after the offer of the said Henry Watson had been accepted, a letter from him was produced at the board, in which he declared that he was unable to equip the ship with a proper number of cannon, and requested that he might be furnished with thirty-six guns from the Company's stores at Madras; with which request the board complied.

That it appears that George Williamson, the Company's auctioneer at Calcutta, having complained that by this mode of exporting the opium, which used to be sold by public auction, he lost his commission as auctioneer, the board allowed him to draw a commission of one per cent on all the opium which had been or was to be exported. That it appears that the contractor for opium (whose proper duties and emoluments as contractor ended with the delivery of the opium) was also allowed to draw a commission on the opium then shipping on the Company's account; but for what reason, or on what pretence, does not appear.

That the said Warren Hastings, in order to pay the said Stephen Sulivan in advance for the opium furnished or to be furnished by him in the first year of his contract, did borrow the sum of twenty lacs of rupees at eight per cent, or two hundred thousand pounds sterling, to be repaid by drafts to be drawn on the Company by their supra-cargoes in China, provided the opium consigned to them should arrive safe; but that, if the adventure failed, whether by the loss of the ships or otherwise, the subscribers to the above loan were to be repaid their capital and interest out of the Company's treasury in Bengal.

That the said Warren Hastings, having in this manner purchased a commodity for which he said there was no sale, and paid for it with money which he was obliged to borrow at a high interest, was still more criminal in his attempt, or pretended plan, to introduce it clandestinely into China. That the importation of opium into China is forbidden by the Chinese government; that the opium, on seizure, is burnt, the vessel that imports it confiscated, and the Chinese in whose possession it may be found for sale punished with death.

That the Governor-General and Council were well aware of the existence of these prohibitions and penalties, and did therefore inform the supra-cargoes in China, that the ship belonging to the said Henry Watson would enter the river at China as an armed ship, and would not be reported as bearing a cargo of opium, that being a contraband trade.

That, of the above two ships, the first, belonging to Cudbert Thornhill, was taken by the French; and that the second, arriving in China, did occasion much embarrassment and distress to the Company's supra-cargoes there, who had not been previously consulted on the formation of the plan, and were exposed to great difficulty and hazard in the execution of their part of it. That the ship was delayed, at a demurrage of an hundred dollars a day, for upwards of three months, waiting in vain for a better market. The factory estimate the loss to the Company, including port charges, demurrage, and factory charges allowed the captain, at sixty-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-three dollars, or about twenty thousand pounds sterling.

That the Company's factory at China, after stating the foregoing facts to the Court of Directors, conclude with the following general observation thereon. "On a review of these circumstances, with the extravagant and unusual terms of the freight, demurrage, factory charges, &c., &c., we cannot help being of opinion that private considerations have been suffered to interfere too much for any benefit that may have been intended to the Honorable Company. We hope for the Honorable Court's approbation of our conduct in this affair. The novelty and nature of the consignments have been the source of much trouble and anxiety, and, though we wished to have had it in our power to do more, we may truly say we have exceeded our expectations."

That every part of this transaction, from the monopoly with which it commenced, to the contraband dealing with which it concluded, criminates the said Warren Hastings with wilful disobedience of orders and a continued breach of trust; that every step taken in it was attended with heavy loss to the Company, and with a sacrifice of their interest to that of individuals; and that, if finally a profit had resulted to the Company from such a transaction, no profit attending it could compensate for the probable risk to which their trade in China was thereby exposed, or for the certain dishonor and consequent distrust which the East India Company must incur in the eyes of the Chinese government by being engaged in a low, clandestine traffic, prohibited by the laws of the country.



XIII.—APPOINTMENT OF R.J. SULIVAN.

That in the month of February, 1781, Mr. Richard Joseph Sulivan, Secretary to the Select Committee at Fort St. George, applied to them for leave to proceed to Calcutta on his private affairs. That, being the confidential secretary to the Select Committee at Fort St. George, and consequently possessed of all the views and secrets of the Company, as far as they related to that government, he went privately into the service of the Nabob of Arcot, and, under the pretence of proceeding to Calcutta on his private business, undertook a commission from the said Nabob to the Governor-General and Council, to negotiate with them in favor of certain projects of the said Nabob which had been reprobated by the Company.

That the said Sulivan was soon after appointed back again by the said Warren Hastings to the office of Resident at the Durbar of the said Nabob of Arcot. That it was a high crime and misdemeanor in the said Hastings to encourage so dangerous an example in the Company's service, and to interfere unnecessarily with the government of Madras in the discharge of the duties peculiarly ascribed to them by the practice and orders of the Company, for the purpose of appointing to a great and confidential situation a man who had so recently committed a breach of trust to his employers.

That the Court of Directors, in their letter to Bengal, dated the 12th of July, 1782, and received there on the 18th of February, 1783, did condemn and revoke the said appointment. That the said Directors, in theirs to Fort St. George, dated the 28th of August, 1782, and received there the 31st of January, 1783, did highly condemn the conduct of the said Sulivan, and, in order to deter their servants from practices of the same kind, did dismiss him from their service.

That the said Hastings, knowing that the said Sulivan's appointment had been condemned and revoked by the Court of Directors, and pretending that on the 15th of March, 1783, he did not know that the said Sulivan was dismissed from the Company's service, though that fact was known at Madras on the 31st of the preceding January, did recommend the said Sulivan to be ambassador at the court of Nizam Ali Khan, Subahdar of the Deccan, in defiance of the authority and orders of the Court of Directors.

That, even admitting, what is highly improbable, that the dismission of the said Sulivan from the service of the said Company was not known at Calcutta in forty-three days from Madras, the last-mentioned nomination of the said Sulivan was made at least in contempt of the censure already expressed by the Court of Directors at his former appointment to the Durbar of the Nabob of Arcot, and which was certainly known to the said Hastings.



XIV.—RANNA OF GOHUD.

That on the 2d of December, 1779, the Governor-General and Council of Fort William, at the special recommendation and instance of Warren Hastings, Esquire, then Governor-General, and contrary to the declared opinion and protest of three of the members of the Council, viz., Philip Francis and Edward Wheler, Esquires, who were present, and of Sir Eyre Coote, who was absent, (by whose absence the casting voice of the said Warren Hastings, Esquire, prevailed,) did conclude a treaty of perpetual friendship and alliance, offensive and defensive, with a Hindoo prince, called the Ranna of Gohud, for the express purpose of using the forces of the said Ranna in opposition to the Mahrattas.

That, among other articles, it was stipulated with the said Ranna by the said Warren Hastings, "that, whenever peace should be concluded between the Company and the Mahratta state, the Maha Rajah should be included as a party in the treaty which should be made for that purpose, and his present possessions, together with the fort of Gualior, which of old belonged to the family of the Maha Rajah, if it should be then in his possession, and such countries as he should have acquired in the course of war, and which it should then be stipulated to leave in his hands, should be guarantied to him by such treaty."

That, in the late war against the Mahrattas, the said Ranna of Gohud did actually join the British army under the command of Colonel Muir with two battalions of infantry and twelve hundred cavalry, and did then serve in person against the Mahrattas, thereby affording material assistance, and rendering essential service to the Company.

That, in conformity to the above-mentioned treaty, in the fourth article of the treaty of peace concluded on the 13th of October, 1781, between Colonel Muir, on the part of the English Company, and Mahdajee Sindia, the Mahratta general, the said Ranna of Gohud was expressly included.

That, notwithstanding the said express provision and agreement, Mahdajee Sindia proceeded to attack the forts and lay waste the territories of the said Ranna, and did undertake and prosecute a war against him for the space of two years, in the course of which the Ranna and his family were reduced to extreme distress, and in the end he was deprived of his forts, and the whole not only of his acquired possessions, but of his original dominions, so specially guarantied to him by the British government in both the above-mentioned treaties.

That the said Warren Hastings was duly and regularly informed of the progress of the war against the Ranna, and of every event thereof; notwithstanding which, he not only neglected in any manner to interfere therein in favor of the said Ranna, or to use any endeavors to prevent the infraction of the treaty, but gave considerable countenance and encouragement to Mahdajee Sindia in his violation of it, both by the residence of the British minister in the Mahratta camp, and by the approbation shown by the said Warren Hastings to the promises made by his agent of observing the strictest neutrality, notwithstanding he was in justice bound, and stood pledged by the most solemn and sacred engagements, to protect and preserve the said Ranna from those enemies, whose resentment he had provoked only by his adherence to the interests of the British nation.

That, in the only attempt made to sound the disposition of Mahdajee Sindia relative to a pacification between him and the Ranna of Gohud, on the 14th of May, 1783, Mr. Anderson, in obedience to the orders he had received, did clearly and explicitly declare to Bhow Bucksey, the minister of Mahdajee Sindia, the sentiments of the said Warren Hastings in the words following: "That it was so far from your [the said Hastings's] meaning to intercede in his [the said Ranna's] favor, that I only desired him to sound Sindia's sentiments, and, in case he was desirous of peace, to mention what I had said; but if he seemed to prefer carrying on the war, I begged that he would not mention a syllable of what had passed, but let the matter drop entirely."

That it afterwards appeared, in a minute of the said Hastings in Council at Fort William, on the 22d of September, 1783, that he promised, at the instance of a member of the Council, to write to Lieutenant James Anderson in favor of the Ranna of Gohud, and lay his letter before the board.

That, nevertheless, the said Hastings, professing not to recollect his said promise, did neglect to write a formal letter to Lieutenant Anderson in favor of the said Ranna of Gohud, and that the private letter, the extract of which the said Hastings did lay before the board on the 21st of October, 1783, so far from directing any effectual interference in favor of the said Ranna, or commanding his agent, the said James Anderson, to interpose the mediation of the British government to procure "honorable terms" for the said Ranna, or even "safety to his person and family," contains the bitterest invectives against him, and is expressive of the satisfaction which the said Hastings acknowledges himself to have enjoyed in the distresses of the said Ranna, the ally of the Company.

That the measures therein recommended appear rather to have been designed to satisfy Mahdajee Sindia, and to justify the conduct of the British government in not having taken a more active and a more hostile part against the said Ranna, than an intercession on his behalf.

That, though no consideration of good faith or observance of treaties could induce the said Hastings to incur the hazard of any hostile exertion of the British force for the defence or the relief of the allies of the Company, yet in the said private letter he directed, that, in case his mediation should be accepted, it should be made a specific condition, that, if the said Ranna should take advantage of Sindia's absence to renew his hostilities, we ought, in that case, on requisition, to invade the dominions of the Ranna.

That no beneficial effects could have been procured to the said Ranna by an offer of mediation delayed till Sindia no longer wanted "our assistance to crush so fallen an enemy," at the same time that no reason was given to Sindia to apprehend the danger of drawing upon himself the resentment of the British government by a disregard of their proposal and the destruction of their ally.

That it was a gross and scandalous mockery in the said Hastings to defer an application to obtain honorable terms for the Ranna, and safety for his person and family, till he had been deprived of his principal fort, in defence of which his uncle lost his life, and on the capture of which, his wife, to avoid the dishonor consequent upon falling into the hands of her enemies, had destroyed herself by an explosion of gunpowder.

That, however, it does not appear that any offer of mediation was ever actually made, or any influence exerted, either for the safety of the Ranna's person and family or in mitigation of the rigorous intentions supposed by Lieutenant Anderson[4] to have been entertained against him by Mahdajee Sindia after his surrender.

That the said Hastings, in the instructions[5] given by him to Mr. David Anderson for his conduct in negotiating the treaty of peace with the Mahrattas, expressed his determination to desert the Ranna of Gohud in the following words. "You will of course be attentive to any engagements subsisting between us and other powers, in settling the terms of peace and alliance with the Mahrattas. I except from this the Ranna of Gohud.... Leave him to settle his own affairs with the Mahrattas."

That the said Anderson appears very assiduously to have sought for grounds to justify the execution of this part of his instructions, to which, however, he was at all events obliged to conform.

That, even after his application for that purpose to the Mahrattas, whose testimony was much to be suspected, because it was their interest to accuse and their determined object to destroy the said Ranna, no satisfactory proof was obtained of his defection from the engagements he had entered into with the Company.

That, moreover, if all the charges which have been pretended against the Ranna, and have been alleged by the said Hastings in justification of his conduct, had been well founded and proved to be true, the subject-matter of those accusations and the proofs by which they wore to be supported were known to Colonel Muir before the conclusion of the treaty he entered into with Mahdajee Sindia; and therefore, whatever suspicions may have been entertained or whatever degree of criminality may have been proved against the said Ranna previous to the said treaty, from the time he was so provided for and included in the said treaty he was fully and justly entitled to the security stipulated for him by the Company, and had a right to demand and receive the protection of the British government.

That these considerations were urged by Mr. Anderson to the said Warren Hastings, in his letter of the 24th of June, 1781, and were enforced by this additional argument,—"that, in point of policy, I believe, it ought not to be our wish that the Mahrattas should ever recover the fortress of Gualior. It forms an important barrier to our own possessions. In the hands of the Ranna it can be of no prejudice to us; and notwithstanding the present prospect of a permanent peace betwixt us and the Mahrattas, it seems highly expedient that there should always remain some strong barrier to separate us, on this side of India, from that warlike and powerful nation."

That the said Warren Hastings was highly culpable in abandoning the said Ranna to the fury of his enemies, thereby forfeiting the honor and injuring the credit of the British nation in India, notwithstanding the said Hastings was fully convinced, and had professed, "that the most sacred observance of treaties, justice, and good faith were necessary to the existence of the national interests in that country," and though the said Hastings has complained of the insufficiency of the laws of this kingdom to enforce this doctrine "by the punishment of persons in the possession of power, who may be impelled by the provocation of ambition, avarice, or vengeance, stronger than the restrictions of integrity and honor, to the violation of this just and wise maxim."

That the said Hastings, in thus departing from these his own principles, with a full and just sense of the guilt he would thereby incur, and in sacrificing the allies of this country "to the provocations of ambition, avarice, or vengeance," in violation of the national faith and justice, did commit a gross and wilful breach of his duty, and was thereby guilty of an high crime and misdemeanor.



XV.—REVENUES.

PART I.

That the property of the lands of Bengal is, according to the laws and customs of that country, an inheritable property, and that it is, with few exceptions; vested in certain natives, called zemindars, or landholders, under whom other natives, called talookdars and ryots, hold certain subordinate rights of property or occupancy in the said lands. That the said natives are Hindoos, and that their rights and privileges are grounded upon the possession of regular grants, a long series of family succession, and fair purchase. That it appears that Bengal has been under the dominion of the Mogul, and subject to a Mahomedan government, for above two hundred years. That, while the Mogul government was in its vigor, the property of zemindars was held sacred, and that, either by voluntary grant from the said Mogul or by composition with him, the native Hindoos were left in the free, quiet, and undisturbed possession of their lands, on the single condition of paying a fixed, certain, and unalterable revenue, or quit-rent, to the Mogul government. That this revenue, or quit-rent, was called the aussil jumma, or original ground-rent, of the provinces, and was not increased from the time when it was first settled in 1573 to 1740, when the regular and effective Mogul government ended. That, from that time to 1765, invasions, usurpations, and various revolutions took place in the government of Bengal, in consequence of which the country was considerably reduced and impoverished, when the East India Company received from the present Mogul emperor, Shah Allum, a grant of the dewanny, or collection of the revenues. That about the year 1770 the provinces of Bengal and Bahar were visited with a dreadful famine and mortality, by which at least one third of the inhabitants perished. That Warren Hastings, Esquire, has declared, "that he had always heard the loss of inhabitants reckoned at a third, and in many places near one half of the whole, and that he knew not by what means such a loss could be recruited in four or five years, and believed it impossible." That, nevertheless, the revenue was violently kept up to its former standard,—that is, in the two years immediately preceding the appointment of the said Warren Hastings to the government of Fort William,—in consequence of which the remaining two thirds of the inhabitants were obliged to pay for the lands now left without cultivation; and that from the year 1770 to the year 1775 the country had languished, and the evil continued enhancing every day. That the said Warren Hastings, in a letter to the Secret Committee of the Court of Directors, dated 1st September, 1772, declared, "that the lands had suffered unheard-of depopulation by the famine and mortality of 1769; that the collections, violently kept up to their former standard, had added to the distress of the country, and threatened a general decay of the revenue, unless immediate remedies were applied to prevent it." That the said Warren Hastings has declared, "that, by intrusting the collections to the hereditary zemindars, the people would be treated with more tenderness, the rents more improved, and cultivation more likely to be encouraged; that they have a perpetual interest in the country; that their inheritance cannot be removed; that they are the proprietors; that the lands are their estates, and their inheritance; that, from a long continuance of the lands in their families, it is to be concluded they have riveted an authority in the district, acquired an ascendency over the minds of the ryots, and ingratiated their affections; that, from continuing the lands under the management of those who have a natural and perpetual interest in their prosperity, solid advantages might be expected to accrue; that the zemindar would be less liable to failure or deficiencies than the farmer, from the perpetual interest which the former hath in the country, and because his inheritance cannot be removed, and it would be improbable that he should risk the loss of it by eloping from his district, which is too frequently practised by a farmer when he is hard-pressed for the payment of his balances, and as frequently predetermined when he receives his farm." That, notwithstanding all the preceding declarations made by the said Warren Hastings of the loss of one third of the inhabitants and general decline of the country, he did, immediately after his appointment to the government, in the year 1772, make an arbitrary settlement of the revenues for five years at a higher rate than had ever been received before, and with a progressive and accumulating increase on each of the four last years of the said settlement.

That, notwithstanding the right of property and inheritance, repeatedly acknowledged by the said Warren Hastings to be in the zemindars and other native landholders, and notwithstanding he had declared "that the security of private property is the greatest encouragement to industry, on which the wealth of every state depends," the said Warren Hastings, nevertheless, in direct violation of those acknowledged rights and principles, did universally let the lands of Bengal in farm for five years,—thereby destroying all the rights of private property of the zemindars,—thereby delivering the management of their estates to farmers, and transferring by a most arbitrary and unjust act of power the whole landed property of Bengal from the owners to strangers. That, to accomplish this iniquitous purpose, he, the said Warren Hastings, did put the lands of Bengal up to a pretended public auction, and invited all persons to make proposals for farming the same, thereby encouraging strangers to bid against the proprietors,—in consequence of which, not only the said proprietors were ousted of the possession and management of their estates, but a great part of the lands fell into the hands of the banians, or principal black servants of British subjects connected with and protected by the government; and that the said Warren Hastings himself has since declared, that by this way the lands too generally fell into the hands of desperate or knavish adventurers.[6] That, before the measure hereinbefore described was carried into execution, the said Warren Hastings did establish certain fundamental regulations in Council, to be observed in executing the same.[7] That among these regulations it was specially and strictly ordered, that no farm should exceed the annual amount of one lac of rupees, and "that no peshcar, banian, or other servant, of whatever denomination, of the collector, or relation or dependant of any such servant, should be allowed to farm lands, nor directly or indirectly to hold a concern in any farm, nor to be security for any farmer." That, in direct violation of these his own regulations, and in breach of the public trust reposed in him, and sufficiently declared by the manifest duty of his station, if it had not been expressed and enforced by any positive institution, he, the said Warren Hastings, did permit and suffer his own banian or principal black steward, named Cantoo Baboo, to hold farms in different purgunnahs, or districts, or to be security for farms, to the amount of thirteen lac of rupees (130,000l. or upwards) per annum; and that, after enjoying the whole of those farms for two years, he was permitted by the said Warren Hastings to relinquish two of them. That on the subject of the farms held by Cantoo Baboo the said Warren Hastings has made the following declaration. "Many of his farms were taken without my knowledge, and almost all against my advice. I had no right to use compulsion or authority; nor could I with justice exclude him, because he was my servant, from a liberty allowed to all other persons in the country. The farms which he quitted he quitted by my advice, because I thought that he might engage himself beyond his abilities, and be involved in disputes, which I did not choose to have come before me as judge of them."[8] That the said declaration contains sundry false and contradictory assertions: that, if almost all the said farms were taken against his advice, it cannot be true that many of them were taken without his knowledge; that, whether Cantoo Baboo had been his servant or not, the said Warren Hastings was bound by his own regulations to prevent his holding any farms to a greater amount than one lac of rupees per annum, and that the said Cantoo Baboo, being the servant of the Governor-General, was excluded by the said regulations from holding any farms whatever; that, if (as the Directors observe) it was thought dangerous to permit the banian of a collector to be concerned in farms, the same or stronger objections would always lie against the Governor's banian being so concerned; that the said Warren Hastings had a right, and was bound by his duty, to prevent his servant from holding the same; that, in advising the said Cantoo Baboo to relinquish some of the said farms, for which he was actually engaged, he has acknowledged an influence over his servant, and has used that influence for a purpose inconsistent with his duty to the India Company, namely, to deprive them of the security of the said Cantoo Baboo's engagement for farms which on trial he had found not beneficial, or not likely to continue beneficial, to himself; and that, if it was improper that he, the said Warren Hastings, should be the judge of any disputes in which his servant might be involved on account of his farms, that reason ought to have obliged him to prevent his servant from being engaged in any farms whatever, or to have advised his said servant to relinquish the remainder of his farms, as well as those which the said Warren Hastings affirms he quitted by his advice. That on the subject of the said charge the Court of Directors of the East India Company have come to the following resolution: "Resolved, That it appears that the conduct of the late President and Council of Fort William in Bengal, in suffering Cantoo Baboo, the present Governor-General's banian, to hold farms in different purgunnahs to a large amount, or to be security for such farms, contrary to the tenor and spirit of the 17th regulation of the Committee of Revenue at Fort William, of the 14th May, 1772, and afterwards relinquishing that security without satisfaction made to the Company, was highly improper, and has been attended with considerable loss to the Company"; and that in the whole of this transaction the said Warren Hastings has been guilty of gross collusion with his servant, and manifest breach of trust to his employers.

That, whereas it was acknowledged by the said Warren Hastings, that the country, in the years 1770 and 1771, had suffered great depopulation and decay, and that the collections of those years, having been violently kept up to their former standard, had added to the distress of the country, the settlement of the revenues made by him for five years, commencing the 1st May, 1772, instead of offering any abatement or relief to the inhabitants who had survived the famine, held out to the East India Company a promise of great increase of revenue, to be exacted from the country by the means hereinbefore described. That this settlement was not realized, but fell considerably short, even in the first of the five years, when the demand was the lightest; and that on the whole of the five years the real collections fell short of the settlement to the enormous amount of two millions and a half sterling, and upwards. That such a settlement, if it had been or could have been rigorously exacted from a country already so distressed, and from a population so impaired, that, in the belief of the said Warren Hastings, it was impossible such loss could be recruited in four or five years, would have been in fact, what it appeared to be in form, an act of the most cruel and tyrannical oppression; but that the real use made of that unjust demand upon the natives of Bengal was, to oblige them to compound privately with the persons who formed the settlement, and who threatened to enforce it. That the enormous balances and remissions on that settlement arose from a general collusion between the farmers and collectors, and from a general peculation and embezzlement of the revenues, by which the East India Company was grossly imposed on, in the first instance, by a promised increase of revenue, and defrauded, in the second, not only by the failure of that increase, but by the revenues falling short of what they were in the two years preceding the said settlement to a great amount. That the said Warren Hastings, being then at the head of the government of Bengal, was a party to all the said imposition, fraud, peculation, and embezzlement, and is principally and specially answerable for the same; and that, whereas sundry proofs of the said peculation and embezzlement were brought before the Court of Directors, the said Directors (in a letter dated the 4th of March, 1778, and signed by William Devaynes and Nathaniel Smith, Esquires, now Chairman and Deputy-Chairman of the said Court, and members of this House) did declare, that, "although it was rather their wish to prevent future evils than to enter into a severe retrospection of past abuses, yet, as in some of the cases then before them they conceived there had been flagrant corruption, and in others great oppressions committed on the native inhabitants, they thought it unjust to suffer the delinquents to pass wholly unpunished, and therefore they directed the Governor-General and Council forthwith to commence a prosecution against the persons who composed the Committee of Circuit, and their representatives, and against all other proper parties"; but that the prosecutions so ordered by the Court of Directors in the year 1778 have never been brought to trial; and that the said Warren Hastings did, on the 23d of December, 1783, propose and carry it in Council, that orders should be given for withdrawing the said prosecutions,—declaring, that he was clearly of opinion that there was no ground to maintain them, and that they would only be productive of expense to the Company and unmerited vexation to the parties.

REVENUES.

PART II.

That the said Warren Hastings has on sundry occasions declared his deliberate opinion generally against all innovations, and particularly in the collection and management of the revenues of Bengal: that "he was well aware of the expense and inconvenience which ever attends innovations of all kinds, on, their first institution;[9]—that innovations are always attended with difficulties and inconveniences, and innovations in the revenue with a suspension of the collections;[10]—that the continual variations in the mode of collecting the revenue, and the continual usurpation on the rights of the people, have fixed in the minds of the ryots a rooted distrust of the ordinances of government."[11] That the Court of Directors have repeatedly declared their apprehensions "that a sudden transition from one mode to another, in the investigation and collection of their revenue, might have alarmed the inhabitants, lessened their confidence in the Company's proceedings, and been attended with other evils."[12]

That the said Warren Hastings, immediately after his appointment to the government of Fort William, in April, 1772, did abolish the office of Naib Dewan, or native collector of the revenues, then existing; that he did at the same time appoint a committee of the board to go on a circuit through the provinces, and to form a settlement of the revenues for five years; that he did then appoint sundry of the Company's servants to have the management of the collections, viz., one in each district, under the title of Collector; that he did then abolish the General Board of Revenue or Council at Moorshedabad, for the following reasons: "That, while the controlling and executive part of the revenue and the correspondence with the collectors was carried on by a council at Moorshedabad, the members of the administration at Calcutta had no opportunity of acquiring that thorough and comprehensive knowledge which could only result from practical experience; that the orders of the Court of Directors, which established a new system, which enjoined many new regulations and inquiries, could not properly be delegated to a subordinate council, and it became absolutely necessary that the business of the revenue should be conducted under the immediate observation and direction of the board."[13]—That in November, 1773, the said Warren Hastings abolished the office of Collector, and transferred the collection and management of the revenues to several councils of revenue, commonly called Provincial Councils. That on the 24th of October, 1774, the said Warren Hastings earnestly offered his advice (to the Governor-General and Council, then newly appointed by act of Parliament) for the continuation of the said system of Provincial Councils in all its parts. That the said Warren Hastings did, on the 22d of April, 1775, transmit to the Directors a formal plan for the future settlement of the revenues, and did therein declare, that, "with respect to the mode of managing the collection of the revenue and the administration of justice, none occurred to him so good as the system which was already established of Provincial Councils." That on the 18th of January, 1776, the said Warren Hastings did transmit to the Court of Directors a plan for the better administration of justice, that in this plan the establishment of the said Provincial Councils was specially provided for and confirmed, and that Warren Hastings did recommend it to the Directors to obtain the sanction of Parliament for a confirmation of the said plan. That on the 30th of April, 1776, the said Warren Hastings did transmit to the Court of Directors the draft or scheme of an act of Parliament for the better administration of justice in the provinces, in which the said establishment of Provincial Councils is again specially included, and special jurisdiction assigned to the said Councils. That the Court of Directors, in a letter dated 5th of February, 1777, did give the following instruction to the Governor-General and Council, a majority of whom, viz., Sir John Clavering, Colonel Monson, and Mr. Francis, had disapproved of the plan of Provincial Councils: "If you are fully convinced that the establishment of Provincial Councils has not answered nor is not capable of answering the purposes intended by such institutions, we hereby direct you to form a new plan for the collection of the revenues, and to transmit the same to us for our consideration."—That the said Warren Hastings, in contradiction to his own sentiments repeatedly declared, and to his own advice repeatedly and deliberately given, and in defiance of the orders of the Directors, to whom he transmitted no previous communication whatever of his intention to abolish the said Provincial Councils, did, in the beginning of the year 1781, again change the whole system of the collections of the public revenue of Bengal, as also the administration of civil and criminal justice throughout the provinces. That the said Warren Hastings, in a letter dated 5th of May, 1781, advising the Court of Directors of the said changes, has falsely affirmed, "that the plan of superintending and collecting the public revenue of the provinces through the agency of Provincial Councils had been instituted for the temporary and declared purpose of introducing another more permanent mode by an easy and gradual change"; that, on the contrary, the said Warren Hastings, from the year 1773 to the year 1781, has constantly and uniformly insisted on the wisdom of that institution, and on the necessity of never departing from it; that he has in that time repeatedly advised that the said institution should be confirmed in perpetuity by an act of Parliament; that the said total dissolution of the Provincial Councils was not introduced by any easy and gradual change, nor by any gradations whatever, but was sudden and unprepared, and instantly accomplished by a single act of power; and that the said Warren Hastings, in the place of the said Councils, has substituted a Committee of Revenue, consisting of four covenanted servants, on principles opposite to those which he had himself professed, and with exclusive powers, tending to deprive the members of the Supreme Council of a due knowledge of and inspection into the management of the territorial revenues, specially and unalienably vested by the legislature in the Governor-General and Council, and to vest the same solely and entirely in the said Warren Hastings. That the reasons assigned by the said Warren Hastings for constituting the said Committee of Revenue are incompatible with those which he professed when he abolished the subordinate Council of Revenue at Moorshedabad: that he has invested the said Committee in the fullest manner with all the powers and authority of the Governor-General and Council; that he has thereby contracted the whole power and office of the Provincial Councils into a small compass, and vested the same in four persons appointed by himself; that he has thereby taken the general transaction and cognizance of revenue business out of the Supreme Council; that the said Committee are empowered to conduct the current business of the revenue department without reference to the Supreme Council, and only report to the board such extraordinary occurrences, claims, and proposals as may require the special orders of the board; that even the instruction to report to the board in extraordinary cases is nugatory and fallacious, being accompanied with limitations which make it impossible for the said board to decide on any questions whatsoever: since it is expressly provided by the said Warren Hastings, that, if the members of the Committee differ in opinion, it is not expected that every dissentient opinion should be recorded; consequently the Supreme Council, on any reference to their board, can see nothing but the resolutions or reasons of the majority of the Committee, without the arguments on which the dissentient opinions might be founded: and since it is also expressly provided by the said Warren Hastings, that the determination of the majority of the Committee should not therefore be stayed, unless it should be so agreed by the majority,—that is, that, notwithstanding the reference to the Supreme Council, the measure shall be executed without waiting for their decision.

That the said Warren Hastings has delivered his opinion, with many arguments to support the same, in favor of long leases of the lands, in preference to annual settlements: that he has particularly declared, "that the farmer who holds his farm for one year only, having no interest in the next, takes what he can with the hand of rigor, which, even in the execution of legal claims, is often equivalent to violence; he is under the necessity of being rigid, and even cruel,—for what is left in arrear after the expiration of his power is at best a doubtful debt, if ever recoverable; he will be tempted to exceed the bounds of right, and to augment his income by irregular exactions, and by racking the tenants, for which pretences will not be wanting, where the farms pass annually from one hand to another; that the discouragements which the tenants feel from being transferred every year to new landlords are a great objection to such short leases; that they contribute to injure the cultivation and dispeople the lands; that, on the contrary, from long farms the farmer acquires a permanent interest in his lands; he will, for his own sake, lay out money in assisting his tenants in improving lands already cultivated, and in clearing and cultivating waste lands."[14] That, nevertheless, the said Warren Hastings, having left it to the discretion of the Committee of Revenue, appointed by him in 1781, to fix the time for which the ensuing settlement should be made, and the said Committee having declared, that, with respect to the period of the lease, in general, it appeared to the Committee that to limit them to one year would be the best period, he, the said Warren Hastings, approved of that limitation, in manifest contradiction to all his own arguments, professions, and declarations concerning the fatal consequences of annual leases of the lands; that in so doing the said Warren Hastings did not hold himself bound or restrained by the orders of the Court of Directors, but acted upon his own discretion; and that he has, for partial and interested purposes, exercised that discretion in particular instances against his own general settlement for one year, by granting perpetual leases of farms and zemindaries to persons specially favored by him, and particularly by granting a perpetual lease of the zemindary of Baharbund to his servant Cantoo Baboo on very low terms.

That in all the preceding transactions the said Warren Hastings did act contrary to his duty as Governor of Fort William, contrary to the orders of his employers, and contrary to his own declared sense of expediency, consistency, and justice, and thereby did harass and afflict the inhabitants of the provinces with perpetual changes in the system and execution of the government placed over them, and with continued innovations and exactions, against the rights of the said inhabitants,—thereby destroying all security to private property, and all confidence in the good faith, principles, and justice of the British government. And that the said Warren Hastings, having substituted his own instruments to be the managers and collectors of the public revenue, in the manner hereinbefore mentioned, did act in manifest breach and defiance of an act of the 13th of his present Majesty, by which the ordering and management and government of all the territorial revenues in the kingdoms of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa were vested in the Governor-General and Council, without any power of delegating the said trust and duty to any other persons; and that, by such unlawful delegation of the powers of the Council to a subordinate board appointed by himself, he, the said Warren Hastings, did in effect unite and vest in his own person the ordering, government, and management of all the said territorial revenues; and that for the said illegal act he, the said Warren Hastings, is solely answerable, the same having been proposed and resolved in Council when the Governor-General and Council consisted but of two persons present,—namely, the said Warren Hastings, and the late Edward Wheler, Esquire, and when consequently the Governor-General, by virtue of the casting voice, possessed the whole power of the government. That, in all the changes and innovations hereinbefore described, the pretence used by the said Warren Hastings to recommend and justify the same to the Court of Directors has been, that such changes and innovations would be attended with increase of revenue or diminution of expense to the East India Company; that such pretence, if true, would not have been a justification of such acts; but that such pretence is false and groundless: that during the administration of the said Warren Hastings the territorial revenues have declined; that the charges of collecting the same have greatly increased; and that the said Warren Hastings, by his neglect, mismanagement, and by a direct and intended waste of the Company's property, is chargeable with and answerable for all the said decline of revenue, and all the said increase of expense.



XVI.—MISDEMEANORS IN OUDE.

I. That the province of Oude and its dependencies were, before their connection with and subordination to the Company, in a flourishing condition with regard to culture, commerce, and population, and their rulers and principal nobility maintained themselves in a state of affluence and splendor; but very shortly after the period aforesaid, the prosperity both of the country and its chiefs began sensibly and rapidly to decline, insomuch that the revenue of the said province, which, on the lowest estimation, had been found, in the commencement of the British influence, at upwards of three millions sterling annually, (and that ample revenue raised without detriment to the country,) did not in the year 1779 exceed the sum of 1,500,000l., and in the subsequent years did fall much short of that sum, although the rents were generally advanced, and the country grievously oppressed in order to raise it.

II. That in the aforesaid year, 1779, the demands of the East India Company on the Nabob of Oude are stated by Mr. Purling, their Resident at the court of Oude, to amount to the sum of 1,360,000l. sterling and upwards, leaving (upon the supposition that the whole revenue should amount to the sum of 1,500,000l. sterling, to which it did not amount) no more than 140,000l. sterling for the support of the dignity of the household and family of the Nabob, and for the maintenance of his government, as well as for the payment of the public debts due within the province.

III. That by the treaty of Fyzabad a regular brigade of the Company's troops, to be stationed in the dominions of the Nabob of Oude, was kept up at the expense of the said Nabob; in addition to which a temporary brigade of the same troops was added to his establishment, together with several detached corps in the Company's service, and a great part of his own native Troops were put under the command of British officers.

IV. That the expense of the Company's temporary brigade increased in the same year (the year of 1779) upwards of 80,000l. sterling above the estimate, and the expense of the country troops under British officers in the same period increased upwards of 40,000l. sterling; and in addition to the aforesaid ruinous expenses, a large civil establishment was gradually, secretly, and without any authority from the Court of Directors, or record in the books of the Council-General concerning the same, formed for the Resident, and another under Mr. Wombwell, an agent for the Company; as also several pensions and allowances, in the same secret and clandestine manner, were charged on the revenues of the said Nabob for the benefit of British subjects, besides large occasional gifts to persons in the Company's service.

V. That in the month of November, 1779, the said Nabob did represent to Mr. Purling, the Company's Resident aforesaid, the distressed state of his revenues in the following terms. "During three years past, the expense occasioned by the troops in brigade, and others commanded by European officers, has much distressed the support of my household, insomuch that the allowances made to the seraglio and children of the deceased Nabob have been reduced to one fourth of what it had been, upon which they have subsisted in a very distressed manner for two years past. The attendants, writers, and servants, &c., of my court, have received no pay for two years past; and there is at present no part of the country that can be allotted to the payment of my father's private creditors, whose applications are daily pressing upon me. All these difficulties I have for these three years past struggled through, and found this consolation therein, that it was complying with the pleasure of the Honorable Company, and in the hope that the Supreme Council would make inquiry from impartial persons into my distressed situation; but I am now forced to a representation. From the great increase of expense, the revenues were necessarily farmed out at a high rate; and deficiencies followed yearly. The country and cultivation is abandoned; and this year in particular, from the excessive drought, deductions of many lacs" (stated by the Resident, in his letter to the board of the 13th of the month following, to amount to twenty-five lac, or 250,000l. sterling) "have been allowed the farmers, who were still left unsatisfied. I have received but just sufficient to support my absolute necessities, the revenues being deficient to the amount of fifteen lac [150,000l. sterling], and for this reason many of the old chieftains with their troops, and the useful attendants of the court, were forced to leave it, and there is now only a few foot and horse for the collection of my revenues; and should the zemindars be refractory, there is not left a sufficient number to reduce them to obedience." And the said Nabob did therefore pray that the assignments for the new brigade, the corps of horse, and the other detached bodies of the Company's troops might not be required from him: alleging, "that the former was not only quite useless to his government, but, moreover, the cause of much loss, both in the revenues and customs; and that the detached bodies of troops under their European officers brought nothing but confusion into the affairs of his government, and were entirely their own masters."

VI. That it appears that the said Nabob was not bound by any treaty to the maintenance, without his consent, even of the old brigade,—the Court of Directors having, in their letter of the 15th December, 1775, approved of keeping the same in his service, "provided it was done with the free consent of the Subah, and by no means without it." And the new brigade and temporary corps were raised on the express condition, that the expense thereof should be charged on the Nabob only "for so long a time as he should require the corps for his service." And the Court of Directors express to the Governor-General and Council their sense of the said agreement in the following terms: "But if you intend to exert your influence first to induce the Vizier to acquiesce in your proposal, and afterwards to compel him to keep the troops in his pay during your pleasure, your intents are unjust; and a correspondent conduct would reflect great dishonor on the Company."

VII. That, in answer to the decent and humble representation aforesaid of the Nabob of Oude, the allegations of which, so far as they relate to the distressed state of the Nabob's finances, and his total inability to discharge the demands made on him, were confirmed by the testimony of the English Resident at Oude, and which the said Hastings did not deny in the whole or in any part thereof, he, the said Warren Hastings, did, on pretence of certain political dangers, declare the relief desired to be "without hesitation totally inadmissible," and did falsely and maliciously insinuate, "that the tone in which the demands of the Nabob were asserted, and the season in which they were made, did give cause for the most alarming suspicions." And the said Warren Hastings did, in a letter to the Nabob aforesaid, written in haughty and insolent language, and without taking any notice of the distresses of the said Nabob, alleged and verified as before recited, "require and insist upon your [the Nabob's] granting tuncaws [assignments] for the full amount of their [the Company's] demands upon you for the current year, and on your reserving funds sufficient to answer them, even should the deficiencies of your revenues compel you to leave your own troops unprovided for, or to disband a part of them to enable you to effect it."

VIII. That, in a letter written at the same time to the Resident, Purling, and intended for his directions in enforcing on the Nabob the unjust demands aforesaid, the said Warren Hastings hath asserted, in direct contradiction to the treaties subsisting between the said Nabob and the Company, "that he [the Nabob] stands engaged to our government to maintain the English armies which at his own request have been formed for the protection of his dominions, and that it is our part, and not his, to judge and determine in what manner and at what time these shall be reduced and withdrawn." And in a Minute of Consultation, when the aforesaid measure was proposed by the said Hastings to the Supreme Council, he did affirm and maintain that the troops aforesaid "had now no separate or distinct existence from ours, and may be properly said to consist of our whole military establishment, with the exception only of our European infantry; and that they could not be withdrawn without imposing on the Company the additional burden of them, or disbanding nine battalions of disciplined sepoys and three regiments of horse."

IX. That in the Minute of Consultation aforesaid, he, the said Warren Hastings, hath further, in justification of the violent and arbitrary proceedings aforesaid, asserted, "that the arrangement of measures between the British government and their allies, the native powers of India, must, in case of disagreement about the necessity thereof, be decided by the strongest"; and hath thereby advanced a dangerous and most indecently expressed position, subversive of the rights of allies, and tending to breed war and confusion, instead of cordiality and cooeperation amongst them, and to destroy all confidence of the princes of India in the faith and justice of the English nation. And the said Hastings, having further, in the minute aforesaid, presumed to threaten to "bring to punishment, if my influence" (his, the said Hastings's, influence) "can produce that effect, those incendiaries who have endeavored to make themselves the instruments of division between us," hath, as far as in him lay, obstructed the performance of one of the most essential duties of a prince engaged in an unequal alliance with a presiding state,—that of representing the grievances of his subjects to that more powerful state by whose acts they suffer: leaving thereby the governing power in total ignorance of the effects of its own measures, and to the oppressed people no other choice than the alternative of an unqualified submission, or a resistance productive of consequences more fatal.

X. That, all relief being denied to the Nabob, in the manner and on the grounds aforesaid, the demands of the Company on the said Nabob in the year following, that is to say, in the year 1780, did amount to the enormous sum of 1,400,000l. sterling, and the distress of the province did rapidly increase.

XI. That the Nabob, on the 24th of February of the same year, did again write to the Governor-General, the said Warren Hastings, a letter, in which he expressed his constant friendship to the Company, and his submission and obedience to their orders, and asserting that he had not troubled them with any of his difficulties, trusting they would learn them from other quarters, and that he should be relieved by their friendship. "But," he says, "when the knife had penetrated to the bone, and I was surrounded with such heavy distresses that I could no longer live in expectations, I then wrote an account of my difficulties. The answer I have received to it is such that it has given me inexpressible grief and affliction. I never had the least idea or expectation from you and the Council that you would have given your orders in so afflicting a manner, in which you never before wrote, and I could never have imagined. I have delivered up all my private papers to him [the Resident], that, after examining my receipts and expenses, he may take whatever remains. That, as I know it to be my duty to satisfy you [the Company and Council], I have not failed to obey in any instance; but requested of him that it might be done so as not to distress me in my necessary expenses. There being no other funds but those for the expenses of my mutseddies [clerks and accountants], household expenses, and servants, &c., he demanded these in such a manner, that, being remediless, I was obliged to comply with what he required. He has accordingly stopped the pensions of my old servants for thirty years, whether sepoys [soldiers], mutseddies [secretaries and accountants], or household servants, and the expenses of my family and kitchen, together with the jaghires of my grandmother, mother, and aunts, and of my brothers and dependants, which were for their support."

XII. That, in answer to the letter aforesaid, the Resident received from the said Warren Hastings and Council an order to persevere in the demand to its fullest extent,—that is to say, to the amount of 1,400,000l. sterling.

XIII. That on the 15th of May the Nabob replied, complaining in an humble and suppliant manner of his distressed situation: that he had at first opposed the assigning to the use of the Company the estates of his mother, of his grandmother, of one of his uncles, and of the sons of another, but that, in obedience to the injunctions of the gentlemen of the Council, it had been done, to the amount, on the whole, of 80,000l. sterling a year, or thereabouts; that whatever effects were in the country, with even his table, his animals, and the salaries of his servants, were granted in assignments; that, besides these, if they were resolved again to compel him to give up the estates of his parents and relations, which were granted them for their maintenance, they were at the Company's disposal; saying, "If the Council have directed you to attach them, do it: in the country no further sources remain. I have no means; for I have not a subsistence.—How long shall I dwell upon my misfortunes?"

XIV. That the truth of the said remonstrances was not disputed, nor the tone in which they were written complained of, the same being submissive, and even abject, though the cause (his distresses) was by the said Hastings, in a great degree, and in terms the most offensive, attributed to the Nabob himself; but no relief was given, and the same unwarrantable establishments, maintained at the same ruinous expense, were kept up.

XV. That the said Warren Hastings, having considered as incendiaries those who advised the remonstrances aforesaid, and, to prevent the same in future, having denounced vengeance on those concerned therein, did, for the purpose of keeping in his own power all representations of the state of the court and country aforesaid, and to subject both the one and the other to his own arbitrary will, and to draw to himself and to his creatures the management of the Nabob's revenues, in defiance of the orders of the Court of Directors, a second time recall Mr. Bristow, the Company's Resident, from the court of Oude,—having once before recalled him, as the said Directors express themselves, "without the shadow of a charge being exhibited against him," and having, on the occasion and time now stated, produced no specific charge against the said Resident; and he, the said Hastings, did appoint Nathaniel Middleton, Esquire, to succeed him,—it being his declared principle, that he must have a person of his own confidence in that situation.

XVI. That the said Warren Hastings, after he had refused all relief to the distresses of the Nabob in the manner aforesaid, and had described those who advised the representation of the grievances of Oude as incendiaries, did himself, in a minute of the 21st May, 1781, describe that province "as fallen into a state of great disorder and confusion, and its resources in an extraordinary degree diminished,"—and did state, that his presence in the said province was requested by the Nabob, and that, unless some effectual measures were taken for his relief, he [the Nabob] must be under the necessity of leaving his country, and coming down to Calcutta, to represent the situation of his government. And Mr. Wheler did declare that the Governor-General's representation of the state of that province "was but too well founded, and was convinced that it would require his utmost abilities and powers, applied and exercised on the spot, to restore it to its former good order and affluence."

XVII. That the said Warren Hastings, in consequence of the minute aforesaid, did grant to himself, and did procure the consent of his only colleague, Edward Wheler, Esquire, to a commission or delegation, with powers "to assist the Nabob Vizier in forming such regulations as may be necessary for the peace and good order of his government, the improvement of his revenue, and the adjustment of the mutual concerns subsisting between him and the Company." And in the said commission or delegation he, the said Warren Hastings, did cause to be inserted certain powers and provisions of a new and dangerous nature: that is to say, reciting the business before mentioned, he did convey to himself "such authority to enforce the same as the Governor-General and Council might or could exercise on occasions in which they could be warranted to exercise the same, and to form and conclude such several engagements or treaties with the Nabob Vizier, the government of Berar, and with any chiefs or powers of Hindostan, as he should judge expedient and necessary." Towards the conclusion of the act or instrument aforesaid are the words following, viz.: "It is hereby declared, that all such acts, and all such engagements or treaties aforesaid, shall be binding on the Governor-General and Council in the same manner, and as effectually, as if they had been done and passed by the specific and immediate concurrence and actual junction of the Governor-General and Council, in council assembled." And the said powers were, by the said Warren Hastings, given by himself and the said Wheler, under the seal of the Company, on the 3d July, 1781.