That the said Warren Hastings by this declaration has renounced and condemned the principle on which he avowedly acted towards the Mogul in the year 1773, when he denied that the sunnuds or grants of the Mogul, if they were in the hands of another nation, would avail them anything,—and when he declared "that the sword which gave us the dominion of Bengal must be the instrument of its preservation, and that, if it should ever cease to be ours, the next proprietor would derive his right and possession from the same natural charter." That the said Warren Hastings, to answer any immediate purpose, adopts any principle of policy, however false or dangerous, without any regard to former declarations made, or to principles avowed on other occasions by himself; and particularly, that in his conduct to Shah Allum he first maintained that the grants of that prince were of no avail,—that we held the dominion of Bengal by the sword, which he has falsely declared the source of right, and the natural charter of dominion,—whereas at a later period he has declared that the sovereignty of the family of Shah Allum is universally acknowledged, and that the Company itself derives its constitutional dominion from their ostensible bounty.

III.—BENARES.

PART I.

RIGHTS AND TITLES OF THE RAJAH OF BENARES.

I. That the territory of Benares is a fruitful, and has been, not long since, an orderly, well-cultivated, and improved province, of great extent; and its capital city, as Warren Hastings, Esquire, has informed the Court of Directors, in his letter of the 21st of November, 1781, "is highly revered by the natives of the Hindoo persuasion, so that many who have acquired independent fortunes retire to close their days in a place so eminently distinguished for its sanctity"; and he further acquaints the Directors, "that it may rather be considered as the seat of the Hindoo religion than as the capital of a province. But as its inhabitants are not composed of Hindoos only, the former wealth which flowed into it from the offerings of pilgrims, as well as from the transactions of exchange, for which its central situation is adapted, has attracted numbers of Mahomedans, who still continue to reside in it with their families." And these circumstances of the city of Benares, which not only attracted the attention of all the different descriptions of men who inhabit Hindostan, but interested them warmly in whatever it might suffer, did in a peculiar manner require that the Governor-General and Council of Calcutta should conduct themselves with regard to its rulers and inhabitants, when it became dependent on the Company, on the most distinguished principles of good faith, equity, moderation, and mildness.

II. That the Rajah Bulwant Sing, late prince or Zemindar of the province aforesaid, was a great lord of the Mogul Empire, dependent on the same, through the Vizier of the Empire, the late Sujah ul Dowlah, Nabob of Oude; and the said Bulwant Sing, in the commencement of the English power, did attach himself to the cause of the English Company; and the Court of Directors of the said Company did acknowledge, in their letter of the 26th of May, 1768, that "Bulwant Sing's joining us at the time he did was of signal service, and the stipulation in his favor was what he was justly entitled to"; and they did commend "the care that had been taken [by the then Presidency] of those that had shown their attachment to them [the Company] during the war"; and they did finally express their hope and expectation in the words following: "The moderation and attention paid to those who have espoused our interests in this war will restore our reputation in Hindostan, and that the Indian powers will be convinced NO breach of treaty will ever have our sanction."

III. That the Rajah Bulwant Sing died on the 23d of August, 1770, and his son, Cheyt Sing, succeeding to his rights and pretensions, the Presidency of Calcutta (John Cartier, Esquire, being then President) did instruct Captain Gabriel Harper to procure a confirmation of the succession to his son Cheyt Sing, "as it was of the utmost political import to the Company's affairs; and that the young man ought not to consider the price to be paid to satisfy the Vizier's jealousy and avarice." And they did further declare as follows: "The strong and inviolable attachment which subsisted betwixt the Company and the father makes us most readily interpose our good offices for the son." And the young Rajah aforesaid having agreed, under the mediation of Captain Harper, to pay near two hundred thousand pounds as a gift to the said Vizier, and to increase his tribute by near thirty thousand pounds annually, a deed of confirmation was passed by the said Vizier to the said Rajah and his heirs, by which he became a purchaser, for valuable considerations, of his right and inheritance in the zemindary aforesaid. In consequence of this grant, so by him purchased, the Rajah was solemnly invested with the government in the city of Benares, "amidst the acclamations of a numerous people, and to the great satisfaction of all parties." And the said Harper, in his letter of the 8th October, 1770, giving an account of the investiture aforesaid, did express himself in these words: "I will leave the young Rajah and others to acquaint you how I have conducted myself; only thus much let me say, that I have kept a strict eye not to diminish our national honor, disinterestedness, and justice, which I will conclude has had a greater effect in securing to the Company their vast possessions than even the force of arms, however formidable, could do." The President of Calcutta testified his approbation of the said Harper's conduct in the strongest terms, that is, in the following: "Your disinterestedness has been equally distinguishable as your abilities, and both do you the greatest honor."

IV. That the agreement between the Rajah and Nabob aforesaid continued on both sides without any violation, under the sanction and guaranty of the East India Company, for three years, when Warren Hastings, Esquire, being then President, did propose a further confirmation of the said grant, and did, on the 12th of October, 1773, obtain a delegation for himself to be the person to negotiate the same: it being his opinion, as expressed in his report of October 4th, 1773, that the Rajah was not only entitled to the inheritance of his zemindary by the grants through Captain Harper, but that the preceding treaty of Allahabad, though literally expressing no more than a security personal to Bulwant Sing, did, notwithstanding, in the true sense and import thereof, extend to his posterity; "and that it had been differently understood" (that is, not literally) "by the Company, and by this administration; and the Vizier had before put it out of all dispute by the solemn act passed in the Rajah's favor on his succession to the zemindary."

V. That the Council, in their instructions to the said Governor Hastings, did empower him "to renew, in behalf of the Rajah Cheyt Sing, the stipulation which was formerly made with the Vizier in consideration of his services in 1764"; and the government was accordingly settled on the Rajah and his posterity, or to his heirs, on the same footing on which it was granted to his said father, excepting the addition aforesaid to the tribute, with an express provision "that no increase shall ever hereafter be demanded." And the grant and stipulation aforesaid was further confirmed by the said Sujah ul Dowlah, under the Company's guaranty, by the most solemn and awful form of oath known in the Mahomedan religion, inserted in the body of the deed or grant; and the said Warren Hastings, strongly impressed with the opinion of the propriety of protecting the Rajah, and of the injustice, malice, and avarice of the said Sujah Dowlah, and the known family enmity subsisting between him and the Rajah, did declare, in his report to the Council, as follows: "I am well convinced that the Rajah's inheritance, and perhaps his life, are no longer safe than while he enjoys the Company's protection, which is his due by the ties of justice and the obligations of public faith."

VI. That some time after the new confirmation aforesaid, that is to say, in the year 1774, the Governor-General and Council, which had been formed and the members thereof appointed by act of Parliament, did obtain the assignment of the sovereignty paramount of the said government by treaty with the Nabob of Oude, by which, although the supreme dominion was changed, the terms and the conditions of the tenure of the Rajah of Benares remained; as the said Nabob of Oude could transfer to the East India Company no other or greater estate than he himself possessed in or over the said zemindary. But to obviate any misconstruction on the subject, the said Warren Hastings did propose to the board, that, whatever provision might in the said treaty be made for the interest of the Company, the same should be "without an encroachment on the just rights of the Rajah, or the engagements actually subsisting with him."

VII. That the said Warren Hastings, then having, or pretending to have, an extraordinary care of the interest of the Rajah of Benares, did, on his transfer of the sovereignty, propose a new grant, to be conveyed in new instruments to the said Rajah, conferring upon him further privileges, namely, the addition of the sovereign rights of the mint, and of the right of criminal justice of life and death. And he, the said Warren Hastings, as Governor-General, did himself propose the resolution for that purpose in Council, in the following words, with remarks explanatory of the principles upon which the grants aforesaid were made, namely:—

MINUTE.

VIII. "That the perpetual and independent possession of the zemindary of Benares and its dependencies be confirmed and guarantied to the Rajah Cheyt Sing and his heirs forever, subject only to the annual payment of the revenues hitherto paid to the late Vizier, amounting to Benares Sicca Rupees 23,71,656.12, to be disposed of as is expressed in the following article: That no other demand be made on him either by the Nabob of Oude or this government; nor any kind of authority or jurisdiction be exercised by either within the districts assigned him." To which minute he, the said Warren Hastings, did subjoin the following observation in writing, and recorded therewith in the Council books, that is to say: "The Rajah of Benares, from the situation of his country, which is a frontier to the provinces of Oude and Bahar, may be made a serviceable ally to the Company, whenever their affairs shall require it. He has always been considered in this light both by the Company and the successive members of the late Council; but to insure his attachment to the Company, his interest must be connected with it, which cannot be better effected than by freeing him totally from the REMAINS of his present vassalage under the guaranty and protection of the Company, and at the same time guarding him against any apprehensions from this government, by thus pledging its faith that no encroachment shall ever be made on his rights by the Company." And the said Warren Hastings, on the 5th of July, 1775, did himself propose, among other articles of the treaty relative to this object, one of the following tenor: "That, whilst the Rajah shall continue faithful to these engagements and punctual in his payments, and shall pay due obedience to the authority of this government, no more demands shall be made upon him by the Honorable Company of ANY KIND, or, on any pretence whatsoever, shall any person be allowed to interfere with his authority, or to disturb the peace of his country." And the said article was by the other members of the Council assented to without debate.

IX. On transferring the Rajah's tribute from the Nabob to the Company, the stipulation with the Nabob was renewed on the proposition of the said Warren Hastings himself, and expressed in a yet more distinct manner, namely: "That no more demands shall be made upon him by the Honorable Company of any kind." And the said Warren Hastings, in justification of his proposal of giving the Rajah "a complete and uncontrolled authority over his zemindary," did enter on the Council book the following reasons for investing him with the same, strongly indicating the situation in which he must be left under any other circumstances, whether under the Nabob of Oude, or under the English, or under the double influence of both: "That the security of his person and possessions from the Company's protection may be rated equal to many lacs of rupees, which, though saved to him, are no loss to the government on which he depends, being all articles of invisible expense: in fees to the ministers and officers of the Nabob; in the charges of a double establishment of vackeels to both governments; in presents and charges of accommodation to the Nabob, during his residence at any place within the boundaries of his zemindary; in the frauds, embezzlements, and oppressions exercised in the mint and cutwally; besides the allowed profits of those officers, and the advantages which every man in occasional power, or in the credit of it, might make of the Rajah's known weakness, and the dread he stood in both of the displeasure of the Nabob and the ill-will of individuals among the English, who were all considered, either in their present stations or connections, or the right of succession, as members of the state of Bengal. It would be scarce possible to enumerate all the inconveniences to which the Rajah was liable in his former situation, or to estimate the precise effect which they produced on his revenue and on the gross amount of his expense; but it may be easily conceived that both were enormous, and of a nature the most likely to lessen the profits of government, instead of adding to them." And in justification of his proposal of giving the Rajah the symbols of sovereignty in the power of life and death, and in the coining of money, as pledges of his independence, he states the deplorable situation of princes reduced to dependence on the Vizier or the Company, and obliged to entertain an English Resident at their court, in the following words: "It is proposed to receive the payment of his [the Rajah's] rents at Patna, because that is the nearest provincial station, and because it would not frustrate the intention of rendering the Rajah independent. If a Resident was appointed to receive the money, as it became due, at Benares, such a Resident would unavoidably acquire an influence over the Rajah, and over his country, which would in effect render him the master of both. This consequence might not perhaps be brought completely to pass without a struggle and many appeals to the Council, which, in a government constituted like this, cannot fail to terminate against the Rajah, and, by the construction to which his opposition to the agent would be liable, might eventually draw on him severe restrictions, and end in reducing him to the mean and depraved state of a mere zemindar."

X. That, in order to satisfy the said Rajah of the intentions of the Company towards him, and of the true sense and construction of the grants to him, the said Rajah, to be made, the Governor-General (he, the said Warren Hastings) and Council did, on the 24th August, 1775, instruct Mr. Fowke, the Resident at the Rajah's court, in the following words: "It is proper to assure the Rajah, we do not mean to increase his tribute, but to require from him an exact sum; that, under the sovereignty of the Company, we are determined to leave him the free and uncontrolled management of the internal government of his country, and the collection and regulation of the revenues, so long as he adheres to the terms of his engagement; and will never demand any augmentation of the annual tribute which may be fixed."

XI. That the said Warren Hastings and the Council-General, not being satisfied with having instructed the Resident to make the representation aforesaid, to remove all suspicion that by the new grants any attempt should insidiously be made to change his former tenure, did resolve that a letter should be written by the Governor-General himself to the Rajah of Benares, to be delivered to Mr. Fowke, the Resident, together with his credentials; in which letter they declare "the board willing to continue the grant of the zemindary to him in as full and ample a manner as he possessed it from former sovereigns; and on his paying the annual tribute," &c;—and in explaining the reasons for granting to him the mint and criminal justice, they inform him that this is done in order "that he may possess an uncontrolled and free authority in the regulation and government of his zemindary."

XII. That on the 26th February, 1776, the Board and Council did order that the proper instruments should be prepared for conveying to the Rajah aforesaid the government and criminal justice and mint of Benares, with its dependencies, "in the usual form, expressing the conditions already resolved on in the several proceedings of the board." And on the same day a letter was written to the Resident at Benares, signifying that they had ordered the proper instruments to be prepared, specifying the terms concerning the remittance of the Rajah's tribute to Calcutta, as well as "the several other conditions which had been already agreed to,—and that they should forward it to him, to be delivered to the Rajah." And on the 20th of March following, the board did again explain the terms of the said tribute, in a letter to the Court of Directors, and did add, "that a sunnud [grant or patent] for his [Cheyt Sing's] zemindary should be furnished him on these and the conditions before agreed on."

XIII. That during the course of the transactions aforesaid in Council, and the various assurances given to the Rajah and the Court of Directors, certain improper and fraudulent practices were used with regard to the symbols of investiture which ought to have been given, and the form of the deeds by which the said zemindary ought to have been granted. For it appears that the original deeds were signed by the board on the 4th September, 1775, and transmitted to Mr. Fowke, the Resident at the Rajah's court, and that on the 20th of November following the Court of Directors were acquainted by the said Warren Hastings and the Council that Rajah Cheyt Sing had been invested with the sunnud (charters or patents) for his zemindary, and the kellaut, (or robes of investiture,) in all the proper forms; but on the 1st of October, 1775, the Rajah did complain to the Governor-General and Council, that the kellaut, (or robes,) with which he was to be invested according to their order, "is not of the same kind as that which he received from the late Vizier on the like occasion." In consequence of the said complaint, the board did, in their letter to the Resident of the 11th of the same month, desire him "to make inquiry respecting the nature of the kellaut, and invest him with one of the same sort, on the part of this government, instead of that which they formerly described to him." And it appears highly probable that the instruments which accompanied the said robes of investiture were made in a manner conformable to the orders and directions of the board, and the conditions by them agreed to; as the Rajah, who complained of the insufficiency of the robes, did make no complaint of the insufficiency of the instruments, or of any deviation in them from those he had formerly received from the Vizier. But a copy or duplicate of the said deeds or instruments were in some manner surreptitiously disposed of, and withheld from the records of the Company, and never were transmitted to the Court of Directors.

XIV. That several months after the said settlement and investiture, namely, on the 15th of April, 1776, the Secretary informed the Court that he had prepared a sunnud, cabbolut, and pottah (that is, a patent, an agreement, and a rent-roll) for Cheyt Sing's zemindary, and the board ordered the same to be executed; but the Resident, on receiving the same, did transmit the several objections made by the Rajah thereto, and particularly to a clause in the patent, made in direct contradiction to the engagements of the Council so solemnly and repeatedly given, by which clause the former patents are declared to be null. That, on the representation aforesaid, on the 29th July, the Secretary was ordered to prepare new and proper instruments, omitting the clause declaring the former patents to be null, and the said new patents were delivered to the Rajah; and the others, which he objected to, as well as those which had been delivered to him originally, were returned to the Presidency. But neither the first set of deeds, nor the fraudulent patent aforesaid, nor the new instruments made out on the complaint of the Rajah, omitting the exceptionable words, have been inserted in the records, although it was the particular duty of the said Warren Hastings that all transactions with the country powers should be faithfully entered, as well as to take care that all instruments transmitted to them on the faith of the Company should be honestly, candidly, and fairly executed, according to the true intent and meaning of the engagements entered into on the part of the Company,—giving by the said complicated, artificial, and fraudulent management, as well as by his said omitting to record the said material document, strong reason to presume that he did even then meditate to make some evil use of the deeds which he thus withheld from the Company, and which he did afterwards in reality make, when he found means and opportunity to effect his evil purpose.

PART II.

DESIGNS OF MR. HASTINGS TO RUIN THE RAJAH OF BENARES.

I. That the tribute transferred to the Company by the treaty with the Nabob of Oude, being 250,000l. a year sterling, and upwards, without any deductions whatsoever, was paid monthly, with such punctual exactness as had no parallel in the Company's dealings with any of the native princes or with any subject zemindar, being the only one who never was in arrears; and according to all appearance, a perfect harmony did prevail between the Supreme Council at Calcutta and the Rajah. But though the Rajah of Benares furnished no occasion of displeasure to the board, yet it since appears that the said Warren Hastings did, at some time in the year 1777, conceive displeasure against him. In that year, he, the said Warren Hastings, retracted his own act of resignation of his office, made to the Court of Directors through his agent, Mr. Macleane, and, calling in the aid of the military to support him in his authority, brought the divisions of the government, according to his own expression, "to an extremity bordering on civil violence." This extremity he attributes, in a narrative by him transmitted to the Court of Directors, and printed, not to his own fraud and prevarication, but to what he calls "an attempt to wrest from him his authority"; and in the said narrative he pretends that the Rajah of Benares had deputed an agent with an express commission to his opponent, Sir John Clavering. This fact, if it had been true, (which is not proved,) was in no sort criminal or offensive to the Company's government, but was at first sight nothing more than a proper mark of duty and respect to the supposed succession of office. Nor is it possible to conceive in what manner it could offend the said Hastings, if he did not imagine that the express commission to which in the said narrative he refers might relate to the discovery to Sir John Clavering of some practice which he might wish to conceal,—the said Clavering, whom he styles "his opponent," having been engaged, in obedience to the Company's express orders, in the discovery of sundry peculations and other evil practices charged upon the said Hastings. But although, at the time of the said pretended deputation, he dissembled his resentment, it appears to have rankled in his mind, and that he never forgave it, of whatever nature it might have been (the same never having been by him explained); and some years after, he recorded it in his justification of his oppressive conduct towards the Rajah, urging the same with great virulence and asperity, as a proof or presumption of his, the said Rajah's, disaffection to the Company's government; and by his subsequent acts, he seems from the first to have resolved, when opportunity should occur, on a severe revenge.

II. That, having obtained, in his casting vote, a majority in Council on the death of Sir John Clavering and Mr. Monson, he did suddenly, and without any previous general communication with the members of the board, by a Minute of Consultation of the 9th of July, 1778, make an extraordinary demand, namely: "That the Rajah of Benares should consent to the establishment of three regular battalions of sepoys, to be raised and maintained at his own expense"; and the said expense was estimated at between fifty and sixty thousand pounds sterling.

III. That the said requisition did suppose the consent of the Rajah,—the very word being inserted in the body of his, the said Warren Hastings's, minute; and the same was agreed to, though with some doubts on the parts of two of his colleagues, Mr. Francis and Mr. Wheler, concerning the right of making the same, even worded as it was. But Mr. Francis and Mr. Wheler, soon after, finding that the Rajah was much alarmed by this departure from the treaty, the requisition aforesaid was strenuously opposed by them. The said Hastings did, notwithstanding this opposition, persevere, and by his casting vote alone did carry the said unjust and oppressive demand. The Rajah submitted, after some murmuring and remonstrance, to pay the sum required,—but on the express condition (as has been frequently asserted by him to the said Warren Hastings without any contradiction) that the exaction should continue but for one year, and should not be drawn into precedent. He also requested that the extraordinary demand should be paid along with the instalments of his monthly tribute: but although the said Warren Hastings did not so much as pretend that the instant payment was at all necessary, and though he was urged by his before-mentioned colleagues to moderate his proceedings, he did insist upon immediate payment of the whole; and did deliver his demand in proud and insulting language, wholly unfit for a governor of a civilized nation to use towards eminent persons in alliance with and in honorable and free dependence upon its government; and did support the same with arguments full of unwarrantable passion, and with references to reports affecting merely his own personal power and consideration, which reports were not proved, nor attempted to be proved, and, if proved, furnishing reasons insufficient for his purpose, and indecent in any public proceedings. That the said Hastings did cause the said sums of money to be rigorously exacted, although no such regular battalions as he pretended to establish, as a color for his demand on the Rajah, were then raised, or any steps taken towards raising them; and when the said Rajah pleaded his inability to pay the whole sum at once, he, the said Hastings, persevering in his said outrageous and violent demeanor, did order the Resident to wait on the Rajah forthwith, and "demand of him in person, and by writing, the full payment in specie to be made to him within five days of such demand, and to declare to him, in the name of this government, that his evading or neglecting to accomplish the payment thereof within that space of time should be deemed equivalent to an absolute refusal; and in case of non-compliance with this [the Resident's] demand, we peremptorily enjoin you to refrain from all further intercourse with him": the said Hastings appearing by all his proceedings to be more disposed to bring on a quarrel with the Prince of Benares, than to provide money for any public service.

IV. That the said demand was complied with, and the whole thereof paid on the 10th of October that year. And the said Rajah did write to the said Hastings a letter, in order to mitigate and mollify him, declaring to the said Hastings that his sole reliance was on him, "and that in every instance he depended on his faith, religion, promises, and actions." But he, the said Warren Hastings, as if the being reminded of his faith and promises were an incentive to him to violate the same, although he had agreed that his demand should not be drawn into precedent, and the payment of the fifty thousand pounds aforesaid should continue only for one year, did, the very day after he had received the letter aforesaid, renew a demand of the same nature and on the same pretence, this year even less plausible than the former, of three battalions to be raised. The said Rajah, on being informed of this requisition, did remind the said Warren Hastings that he engaged in the last year that but one payment should be made, and that he should not be called upon in future, and, pleading inability to discharge the new demand, declared himself in the following words to the said Warren Hastings: "I am therefore hopeful you will be kindly pleased to excuse me the five lacs now demanded, and that nothing may be demanded of me beyond the amount expressed in the pottah."

V. That on the day after the receipt of this letter, that is, on the 28th August, 1779, he, the said Warren Hastings, made a reply to the said letter; and without any remark whatsoever on the allegation of the Rajah, stating to him his engagement, that he, the said Rajah, should not be called upon in future, he says, "I now repeat my demand, that you do, on the receipt of this, without evasion or delay, pay the five lac of rupees into the hands of Mr. Thomas Graham, who has orders to receive it from you, and, in case of your refusal, to summon the two battalions of sepoys under the command of Major Camac to Benares, that measures may be taken to oblige you to a compliance; and in this case, the whole expense of the corps, from the time of its march, will fall on you."

VI. That the said Rajah did a second and third time represent to the said Warren Hastings that he had broke his promise, and the said Hastings did in no manner deny the same, but did, in contempt thereof, as well as of the original treaty between the Company and the Rajah, order two battalions of troops to march into his territories, and in a manner the most harsh, insulting, and despotic, as if to provoke that prince to some act of resistance, did compel him to the payment of the said second unjust demand; and did extort also the sum of two thousand pounds, on pretence of the charge of the troops employed to coerce him.

VII. That the third year, that is to say, in the year 1780, the same demand was, with the same menaces, renewed, and did, as before, produce several humble remonstrances and submissive complaints, which the said Hastings did always treat as crimes and offences of the highest order; and although in the regular subsidy or tribute, which was monthly payable by treaty, fifty days of grace were allowed on each payment, and after the expiration of the said fifty days one quarter par cent only was provided as a penalty, he, the said Warren Hastings, on some short delay of payment of his third arbitrary and illegal demand, did presume of his own authority to impose a fine or mulct of ten thousand pounds on the said Rajah; and though it does not appear whether or no the same was actually levied, the said threat was soon after followed by an order from the said Hastings for the march of troops into the country of Benares, as in the preceding year.

VIII. That, these violent and insulting measures failing to provoke the Rajah, and he having paid up the whole demand, the said Warren Hastings, being resolved to drive him to extremities, did make on the said Rajah a sudden demand, over and above the ordinary tribute or subsidy of 260,000l. per annum, and over and above the 50,000l. extraordinary, to provide a body of cavalry for the service of the Bengal government.

IX. The demand, as expressed in the Minute of Consultation, and in the public instructions of the board to the Resident to make the requisition, is "for such part of the cavalry entertained in his service as he can spare"; and the demand is in this and in no other manner described by the Governor-General and Council in their letter to the Court of Directors. But in a Narrative of the said Warren Hastings's, addressed to Edward Wheler, Esquire, it appears, that, upon the Rajah's making difficulties, according to the representation of the said Hastings, relative to the said requisition, the correspondence concerning which the said Hastings hath fraudulently suppressed, he, the said Hastings, instead of adhering to the requisition of such cavalry as the Rajah could spare, and which was all that by the order of Council he was authorized to make, did, of his own private and arbitrary authority, in some letter which he hath suppressed, instruct the Resident, Markham, to make a peremptory demand for two thousand cavalry, which he well knew to be more than the Rajah's finances could support, estimating the provision for the same at 96,000l. a year at the lowest, though the expense of the same would probably have been much more: which extravagant demand the said Hastings could only have made in hopes of provoking the Rajah to some imprudent measure or passionate remonstrance. And this arbitrary demand of cavalry was made, and peremptorily insisted on, although in the original treaty with the said Rajah it was left entirely optional whether or not he should keep up any cavalry at all, and in the Minute of Consultation it was expressly mentioned to be thus optional, and that for whatsoever cavalry he, the said Rajah, should furnish, he should be paid fifteen rupees per month for each private, and so in proportion for officers: yet the demand aforesaid was made without any offer whatsoever of providing the said payment according to treaty.

X. That the said Hastings did soon after, but upon what grounds does not appear by any Minute of Council, or from any correspondence contained in his Narrative, reduce the demand to fifteen hundred, and afterwards to one thousand: by which he showed himself to be sensible of the extravagance of his first requisition.

XI. That, in consequence of these requisitions, as he asserts in his Narrative aforesaid, the Rajah "did offer two hundred and fifty horse, but sent none." But the said Hastings doth not accompany his said Narrative with any voucher or document whatever; and therefore the account given by the Rajah, and delivered to the said Warren Hastings himself, inserted by the said Warren Hastings himself in his Narrative, and in no part thereof attempted to be impeached, is more worthy of credit: that is to say,—

"With respect to the horse, you desired me in your letter to inform you of what number I could afford to station with you. I sent you a particular account of all that were in my service, amounting to one thousand three hundred horse, of which several were stationed at distant places; but I received no answer to this. Mr. Markham delivered me an order to prepare a thousand horse. In compliance with your wishes I collected five hundred horse, and a substitute for the remainder, five hundred burkundasses [matchlock-men], of which I sent you information; and I told Mr. Markham that they were ready to go to whatever place they should be sent. No answer, however, came from you on this head, and I remained astonished at the cause of it. Repeatedly I asked Mr. Markham about an answer to my letter about the horse; but he told me that he did not know the reason of no answer having been sent. I remained astonished."

XII. That the said Hastings is guilty of an high offence in not giving an answer to letters of such importance, and in concealing the said letters from the Court of Directors, as well as much of his correspondence with the Residents,—and more particularly in not directing to what place the cavalry and matchlock-men aforesaid should be sent, when the Rajah had declared they were ready to go to whatever service should be destined for them, and afterwards in maliciously accusing the Rajah for not having sent the same.

XIII. That, on the 3d of February, 1781, a new demand for the support of the three fictitious battalions of sepoys aforesaid was made by the said Warren Hastings; but whilst the Rajah was paying by instalments the said arbitrary demand, the said Rajah was alarmed with some intelligence of secret projects on foot for his ruin, and, being well apprised of the malicious and revengeful temper of the said Hastings, in order to pacify him, if possible, offered to redeem himself by a large ransom, to the amount of two hundred thousand pounds sterling, to be paid for the use of the Company. And it appears that the said alarm was far from groundless; for Major Palmer, one of the secret and confidential agents of the said Hastings, hath sworn, on the 4th of December, 1781, at the desire of the said Warren Hastings, before Sir Elijah Impey, to the following effect, that is to say: "That the said Warren Hastings had told him, the said Palmer, that he, the said Hastings, had rejected the offer of two hundred thousand pounds made by the Rajah of Benares for the public service, and that he was resolved to convert the faults committed by the Rajah into a public benefit, and would exact the sum of five hundred thousand pounds, as a punishment for his breach of engagements with the government of Bengal, and acts of misconduct in his zemindary; and if the Rajah should absolutely refuse the demand, that he would deprive him of his zemindary, or transfer the sovereignty thereof to the Nabob of Oude."

XIV. And Mr. Anderson, in his declaration from Sindia's camp, of the 4th of January, 1782, did also, at the desire of Mr. Hastings, depose (though not on oath) concerning a conversation between him and the said Hastings (but mentioning neither the time nor place where the same was held); in which conversation, after reciting the allegations of the said Hastings relative to several particulars of the delay and backwardness of the Rajah in paying the aforesaid extra demand, and his resolution to exact from the Rajah "a considerable sum of money to the relief of the Company's exigencies," he proceeds in the following words: "That, if he [the Rajah] consented, you [the said Warren Hastings] were desirous of establishing his possessions on the most permanent and eligible footing; but if he refused, you had it in your power to raise a large sum for the Company by accepting an offer which had been made for his districts by the Vizier." And the said Anderson, in the declaration aforesaid, made at the request of the said Hastings, and addressed to him, expressed himself as follows: "That you told me you had communicated our designs to Mr. Wheler [his only remaining colleague]; and I believe, but I do not positively recollect, you said he concurred in them." But no trace of any such communication or concurrence did, at the time referred to, or at any time ever after, appear on the Consultations, as it ought to have done; and the said Hastings is criminal for having omitted to enter and record the proceeding. That the said Wheler did also declare, but a considerable time after the date of the conversations aforesaid, that, "on the eve of the Governor-General's departure, the said Hastings had told him that the Rajah's offences (not stating what offences, he having paid up all the demands, ordinary and extraordinary) were declared to require early punishment; and as his wealth was great, and the Company's exigencies pressing, it was thought a measure of policy and of justice to exact from him a large pecuniary mulct for their relief. The sum to which the Governor declared his resolution to extend the fine was forty or fifty lacs; his ability to pay it was stated as a fact that could not admit of a doubt; and the two alternatives on which the Governor declared himself to have resolved were, to the best of my recollection, either a removal from his zemindary entirely, or, by taking immediate possession of all his forts, to obtain out of the treasure deposited in them the above sum for the Company."

XV. That in the declaration of the said Wheler the time of the conversation aforesaid is stated to be on the eve of the Governor's departure, and then said to be confidential; nor is it said or insinuated that he knew or ever heard thereof at a more early period, though it appears by Major Palmer's affidavit that the design of taking, not four or five, but absolutely five, hundred thousand pounds from the Rajah, was communicated to him as early as the month of June. And it does not appear by the declarations of the said Wheler he did ever casually or officially approve of the measure; which long concealment and late communication, time not being allowed to his colleague to consider the nature and consequences of such a project, or to advise any precaution concerning the same, is a high misdemeanor.

XVI. That the said Hastings, having formed a resolution to execute one of the three violent and arbitrary resolutions aforesaid,—namely, to sell the Company's sovereignty over Benares to the Nabob of Oude, or to dispossess the Rajah of his territories, or to seize upon his forts, and to plunder them of the treasure therein contained, to the amount of four or five hundred thousand pounds,—did reject the offer of two hundred thousand pounds, tendered by the said Rajah for his redemption from the injuries which he had discovered that the said Hastings had clandestinely meditated against him, although the sum aforesaid would have been a considerable and seasonable acquisition at that time: the said Hastings being determined, at a critical period, to risk the existence of the British empire, rather than fail in the gratification of his revenge against the said Rajah.

XVII. That the first of his three instituted projects, namely, the depriving the Rajah of his territories, was by himself considered as a measure likely to be productive of much odium to the British government: he having declared, whatever opinions he might entertain of its justice, "that it would have an appearance of severity, and might furnish grounds unfavorable to the credit of our government, and to his own reputation, from the natural influence which every act of rigor, exercised in the persons of men in elevated situations, is apt to impress on those who are too remote from the scene of action to judge, by any evidence of the facts themselves, of their motives or propriety." And the second attempt, the sum of money which he aimed at by attacking the fortresses of the Rajah, and plundering them of the treasure supposed to be there secured, besides the obvious uncertainty of acquiring what was thus sought, would be liable to the same imputations with the former. And with regard to the third project, namely, the sale of the Company's sovereignty to the Nabob of Oude, and his having actually received proposals for the same, it was an high offence to the Company, as presuming, without their authority or consent, to put up to sale their sovereign rights, and particularly to put them up to sale to that very person against whom the independence of the said province had been declared by the Governor-General and Council to be necessary, as a barrier for the security of the other provinces, in case of a future rupture with him.[59] It was an heinous injury to the said Rajah to attempt to change his relation without his consent, especially on account of the person to whom he was to be made over for money, by reason of the known enmity subsisting between his family and that of the Nabob, who was to be the purchaser; and it was a grievous outrage on the innocent inhabitants of the zemindary of Benares to propose putting them under a person long before described by himself to the Court of Directors "to want the qualities of the head and heart requisite for his station"; and a letter from the British Resident at Oude, transmitted to the said Court, represents him "to have wholly lost, by his oppressions, the confidence and affections of his own subjects"; and whose distresses, and the known disorders in his government, he, the said Hastings, did attribute solely to his own bad conduct and evil character; admitting also, in a letter written to Edward Wheler, Esquire, and transmitted to the Court of Directors, "that many circumstances did favor suspicion of his [the said Nabob's] fidelity to the English interest, the Nabob being surrounded by men base in their characters and improvident in their understandings, his favorites, and his companions of his looser hours. These had every cause to dread the effect of my influence on theirs; and both these, and the relations of the family, whose views of consequence and power were intercepted by our participation in the administration of his affairs, entertained a mortal hatred to our nation, and openly avowed it." And the said Hastings was well aware, that, in case the Nabob, by him described in the manner aforesaid, on making such purchase, should continue to observe the terms of his father's original covenants and engagements with the Rajah, and should pay the Company the only tribute which he could lawfully exact from the said Rajah, it was impossible that he could, for the mere naked and unprofitable rights of a sovereignty paramount, afford to offer so great a sum as the Rajah did offer to the said Hastings for his redemption from oppression; such an acquisition to the Nabob (while he kept his faith) could not possibly be of any advantage whatever to him; and that therefore, if a great sum was to be paid by the Nabob of Oude, it must be for the purpose of oppression and violation of public faith, to be perpetrated in the person of the said Nabob, to an extent and in a manner which the said Hastings was then apprehensive he could not justify to the Court of Directors as his own personal act.

PART III.

EXPULSION OF THE RAJAH OF BENARES.

I. That the said Warren Hastings, being resolved on the ruin of the Rajah aforesaid, as a preliminary step thereto, did, against the express orders of the Court of Directors, remove Francis Fowke, Esquire, the Company's Resident at the city of Benares, without any complaint or pretence of complaint whatsoever, but merely on his own declaration that he must have as a Resident at Benares a person of his own special and personal nomination and confidence, and not a man of the Company's nomination,—and in the place of the said Francis Fowke, thus illegally divested of his office, did appoint thereto another servant of the Company of his own choice.

II. That, soon after he had removed the Company's Resident, he prepared for a journey to the upper provinces, and particularly to Benares, in order to execute the wicked and perfidious designs by him before meditated and contrived: and although he did communicate his purpose privately to such persons as he thought fit to intrust therewith, he did not enter anything on the Consultations to that purpose, or record the principles, real or pretended, on which he had resolved to act, nor did he state any guilt in the Rajah which he intended to punish, or charge him, the said Rajah, with entertaining any hostile intentions, the effects of which were to be prevented by any strong measure; but, on the contrary, he did industriously conceal his real designs from the Court of Directors, and did fallaciously enter on the Consultations a minute declaratory of purposes wholly different therefrom, and which supposed nothing more than an amicable adjustment, founded on the treaties between the Company and the Rajah, investing himself by his said minute with "full power and authority to form such arrangements with the Rajah of Benares for the better government and management of his zemindary, and to perform such acts for the improvement of the interest which the Company possesses in it, as he shall think fit and consonant to the mutual engagements subsisting between the Company and the Rajah"; and for this and other purposes he did invest himself with the whole power of the Council, giving to himself an authority as if his acts had been the acts of the Council itself: which, though a power of a dangerous, unwarrantable, and illegal extent, yet does plainly imply the following limits, namely, that the acts done should be arranged with the Rajah, that is, with his consent; and, secondly, that they should be consonant to the actual engagements between the parties; and nothing appears in the minute conferring the said power, which did express or imply any authority for depriving the Rajah of his government, or selling the sovereignty thereof to his hereditary enemy, or for the plunder of his fort-treasures.

III. That the said Warren Hastings, having formed the plans aforesaid for the ruin of the Rajah, did set out on a journey to the city of Benares with a great train, but with a very small force, not much exceeding six companies of regular black soldiers, to perpetrate some of the unjust and violent acts by him meditated and resolved on; and the said Hastings was met, according to the usage of distinguished persons in that country, by the Rajah of Benares with a very great attendance, both in boats and on shore, which attendance he did apparently intend as a mark of honor and observance to the place and person of the said Hastings, but which the said Hastings did afterwards groundlessly and maliciously represent as an indication of a design upon his life; and the said Rajah came into the pinnace in which the said Hastings was carried, and in a lowly and suppliant manner, alone, and without any guard or attendance whatsoever, entreated his favor; and being received with great sternness and arrogance, he did put his turban in the lap of the said Hastings, thereby signifying that he abandoned his life and fortune to his disposal, and then departed, the said Hastings not apprehending, nor having any reason to apprehend, any violence whatsoever to his person.

IV. That the said Hastings, in the utmost security and freedom from apprehension, did pursue his journey, and did arrive at the city of Benares on the 14th of August, 1781, some hours before the Rajah, who, soon after his arrival, intended to pay him a visit of honor and respect at his quarters, but was by the said Hastings rudely and insolently forbid, until he should receive his permission. And the said Hastings, although he had previously determined on the ruin of the said Rajah, in order to afford some color of regularity and justice to his proceedings, did, on the day after his arrival, that is, on the 15th day of August, 1781, send to the Rajah a charge in writing, which, though informal and irregular, may be reduced to four articles, two general, and two more particular: the first of the general being, "That he [the Rajah] had, by the means of his secret agents, endeavored to excite disorders in the government on which he depended"; the second, "That he had suffered the daily perpetration of robberies and murders, even in the streets of Benares, to the great and public scandal of the English name."

V. That it appears that the said Warren Hastings is guilty of an high offence, contrary to the fundamental principles of justice, in the said mode of charging misdemeanors, without any specification of person or place or time or act, or any offer of specification or proofs by which the party charged may be enabled to refute the same, in order to unjustly load his reputation, and to prejudice him with regard to the articles more clearly specified.

VI. That the two specified articles relate to certain delays: the first, with regard to the payment of the sums of money unjustly extorted as aforesaid; and the second, the non-compliance with a requisition of cavalry,—which non-compliance the said Hastings (even if the said charges had been founded) did falsely, and in contradiction to all law, affirm and maintain (in his accusation against the Rajah, and addressing himself to him) "to amount to a direct charge of disaffection and infidelity to the government on which you depend": and further proceeded as follows: "I therefore judged it proper to state them [the said charges] thus fully to you in writing, and to require your answer; and this I expect immediately." That the said Hastings, stating his pretended facts to amount to a charge of the nature (as he would have it understood) of high treason, and therefore calling for an immediate answer, did wilfully act against the rules of natural justice, which requires that a convenient time should be given to answer, proportioned to the greatness of the offence alleged, and the heavy penalties which attend it; and when he did arrogate to himself a right both to charge and to judge in his own person, he ought to have allowed the Rajah full opportunity for conferring with his ministers, his doctors of law, and his accountants, on the facts charged, and on the criminality inferred in the said accusation of disloyalty and disaffection, or offences of that quality.

VII. That the said Rajah did, under the pressure of the disadvantages aforesaid, deliver in, upon the very evening of the day of the charge, a full, complete, and specific answer to the two articles therein specified; and did allege and offer proof that the whole of the extraordinary demands of the said Hastings had been actually long before paid and discharged; and did state a proper defence, with regard to the cavalry, even supposing him bound (when he was not bound) to furnish any. And the said Rajah did make a direct denial of the truth, of the two general articles, and did explain himself on the same in as satisfactory a manner and as fully as their nature could permit, offering to enter into immediate trial of the points in issue between him and the said Hastings, in the remarkable words following. "My enemies, with a view to my ruin, have made false representations to you. Now that, happily for me, you have yourself arrived at this place, you will be able to ascertain all the circumstances: first, relative to the horse; secondly, to my people going to Calcutta; and thirdly, the dates of the receipts of the particular sums above mentioned. You will then know whether I have amused you with a false representation, or made a just report to you." And in the said answer the said Rajah complained, but in the most modest terms, of an injury to him of the most dangerous and criminal nature in transactions of such moment, namely, his not receiving any answer to his letters and petitions, and concluded in the following words. "I have never swerved in the smallest degree from my duty to you. It remains with you to decide on all these matters. I am in every case your slave. What is just I have represented to you. May your prosperity increase!"

VIII. That the said Warren Hastings was bound by the essential principles of natural justice to attend to the claim made by the Rajah to a fair and impartial trial and inquiry into the matter of accusation brought against him by the said Hastings, at a time and place which furnished all proper materials and the presence of all necessary witnesses; but the said Hastings, instead of instituting the said inquiry and granting trial, did receive an humble request for justice from a great prince as a fresh offence, and as a personal insult to himself, and did conceive a violent passion of anger and a strong resentment thereat, declaring that he did consider the said answer as not only unsatisfactory in substance, but offensive in style. "This answer you will perceive to be not only unsatisfactory in substance, but offensive in style, and less a vindication of himself than a recrimination on me. It expresses no concern for the causes of complaint contained in my letter, or desire to atone for them, nor the smallest intention to pursue a different line of conduct. An answer couched nearly in terms of defiance to requisitions of so serious a nature I could not but consider as a strong indication of that spirit of independency which the Rajah has for some years past assumed, and of which indeed I had early observed other manifest symptoms, both before and from the instant of my arrival." Which representation is altogether and in all parts thereof groundless and injurious; as the substance of the answer is a justification proper to be pleaded, and the style, if in anything exceptionable, it is in its extreme humility, resulting rather from an unmanly and abject spirit than from anything of an offensive liberty; but being received as disrespectful by the said Hastings, it abundantly indicates the tyrannical arrogance of the said Hastings, and the depression into which the natives are sunk under the British government.

IX. That the said Warren Hastings, pretending to have been much alarmed at the offensive language of the said Rajah's defence, and at certain appearances of independency which he had observed, not only on former occasions, but since his arrival at Benares, (where he had been but little more than one day,) and which appearances he never has specified in any one instance, did assert that he conceived himself indispensably obliged to adopt some decisive plan; and without any farther inquiry or consultation (which appears) with any person, did, at ten o'clock of the very night on which he received the before-mentioned full and satisfactory as well as submissive answer, send an order to the British Resident (then being a public minister representing the British government at the court of the said Rajah, and as such bound by the law of nations to respect the prince at whose court he was Resident, and not to attempt anything against his person or state, and who ought not, therefore, to have been chosen by the said Hastings, and compelled to serve in that business) that he should on the next morning arrest the said prince in his palace, and keep him in his custody until further orders; which said order being conceived in the most peremptory terms, the Rajah was put under arrest, with a guard of about thirty orderly sepoys, with their swords drawn; and the particulars thereof were reported to him as follows.

"HONORABLE SIR,—I this morning, in obedience to your orders of last night, proceeded with a few of my orderlies, accompanied by Lieutenant Stalker, to Shewalla Ghaut, the present residence of Rajah Cheyt Sing, and acquainted him it was your pleasure he should consider himself in arrest; that he should order his people to behave in a quiet and orderly manner, for that any attempt to rescue him would be attended with his own destruction. The Rajah submitted quietly to the arrest, and assured me, that, whatever were your orders, he was ready implicitly to obey; he hoped that you would allow him a subsistence, but as for his zemindary, his forts, and his treasure, he was ready to lay them at your feet, and his life, if required. He expressed himself much hurt at the ignominy which he affirmed must be the consequence of his confinement, and entreated me to return to you with the foregoing submission, hoping that you would make allowances for his youth and inexperience, and in consideration of his father's name release him from his confinement, as soon as he should prove the sincerity of his offers, and himself deserving of your compassion and forgiveness."

X. That a further order was given, that every servant of the Rajah's should be disarmed, and a certain number only left to attend him under a strict watch. In a quarter of an hour after this conversation, two companies of grenadier sepoys were sent to the Rajah's palace by the said Hastings; and the Rajah, being dismayed by this unexpected and unprovoked treatment, wrote two short letters or petitions to the said Hastings, under the greatest apparent dejection at the outrage and dishonor he had suffered in the eyes of his subjects, (all imprisonment of persons of rank being held in that country as a mark of indelible infamy, and he also, in all probability, considering his imprisonment as a prelude to the taking away his life,) and in the first of the said petitions he did express himself in this manner: "Whatever may be your pleasure, do it with your own hands; I am your slave. What occasion can there be for a guard?" And in the other: "My honor was bestowed upon me by your Highness. It depends on you alone to take away or not to take away the country out of my hands. In case my honor is not left to me, how shall I be equal to the business of the government? Whoever, with his hands in a supplicating posture, is ready with his life and property, what necessity can there be for him to be dealt with in this way?"

XI. That, according to the said Hastings's narrative of this transaction, he, the said Hastings, on account of the apparent despondency in which these letters were written, "thought it necessary to give him some encouragement," and therefore wrote him a note of a few lines, carelessly and haughtily expressed, and little calculated to relieve him from his uneasiness, promising to send to him a person to explain particulars, and desiring him "to set his mind at rest, and not to conceive any terror or apprehension." To which an answer of great humility and dejection was received.

XII. That the report of the Rajah's arrest did cause a great alarm in the city, in the suburbs of which the Rajah's palace is situated, and in the adjacent country. The people were filled with dismay and anger at the outrage and indignity offered to a prince under whose government they enjoyed much ease and happiness. Under these circumstances the Rajah desired leave to perform his ablutions; which was refused, unless he sent for water, and performed that ceremony on the spot. This he did. And soon after some of the people, who now began to surround the palace in considerable numbers, attempting to force their way into the palace, a British officer, commanding the guard upon the Rajah, struck one of them with his sword. The people grew more and more irritated; but a message being sent from the Rajah to appease them, they continued, on this interposition, for a while quiet. Then the Rajah retired to a sort of stone pavilion, or bastion, to perform his devotions, the guard of sepoys attending him in this act of religion. In the mean time a person of the meanest station, called a chubdar, at best answering to our common beadle or tipstaff, was sent with a message (of what nature does not appear) from Mr. Hastings, or the Resident, to the prince under arrest: and this base person, without regard to the rank of the prisoner, or to his then occupation, addressed him in a rude, boisterous manner, "passionately and insultingly," (as the said Rajah has without contradiction asserted,) "and, reviling him with a loud voice, gave both him and his people the vilest abuse"; and the manner and matter being observable and audible to the multitude, divided only by an open stone lattice from the scene within, a firing commenced from without the palace; on which the Rajah again interposed, and did what in him lay to suppress the tumult, until, an English officer striking him with a sword, and wounding him on the hand, the people no longer kept any measures, but broke through the inclosure of the palace. The insolent tipstaff was first cut down, and the multitude falling upon the sepoys and the English officers, the whole, or nearly the whole, were cut to pieces: the soldiers having been ordered to that service without any charges for their pieces. And in this tumult, the Rajah, being justly fearful of falling into the hands of the said Hastings, did make his escape over the walls of his palace, by means of a rope formed of his turban tied together, into a boat upon the river, and from thence into a place of security; abandoning many of his family to the discretion of the said Hastings, who did cause the said palace to be occupied by a company of soldiers after the flight of the Rajah.

XIII. That the Rajah, as soon as he had arrived at a place of refuge, did, on the very day of his flight, send a suppliant letter to the said Hastings, filled with expressions of concern (affirmed by the said Hastings to be slight expressions) for what had happened, and professions (said by the said Hastings to be indefinite and unapplied) of fidelity: but the said Warren Hastings, though bound by his duty to hear the said Rajah, and to prevent extremities, if possible, being filled with insolence and malice, did not think it "becoming of him to make any reply to it; and that he thought he ordered the bearer of the letter to be told that it required none."

XIV. That this letter of submission having been received, the said Rajah, not discouraged or provoked from using every attempt towards peace and reconciliation, did again apply, on the very morning following, to Richard Johnson, Esquire, for his interposition, but to no purpose; and did likewise, with as little effect, send a message to Cantoo Baboo, native steward and confidential agent of the said Hastings, which was afterwards reduced into writing, "to exculpate himself from any concern in what had passed, and to profess his obedience to his will [Hastings's] in whatever way he should dictate." But the said Hastings, for several false and contradictory reasons by him assigned, did not take any advantage of the said opening, attributing the same to artifice in order to gain time; but instead of accepting the said submissions, he did resolve upon flight from the city of Benares, and did suddenly fly therefrom in great confusion.

XV. That the said Hastings did persevere in his resolutions not to listen to any submission or offer of accommodation whatsoever, though several were afterwards made through almost every person who might be supposed to have influence with him, but did cause the Rajah's troops to be attacked and fallen upon, though they only acted on the defensive, (as the Rajah has without contradiction asserted,) and thereby, and by his preceding refusal of propositions of the same nature, and by other his perfidious, unjust, and tyrannical acts by him perpetrated and done, and by his total improvidence in not taking any one rational security whatsoever against the inevitable consequences of those acts, did make himself guilty of all the mutual slaughter and devastation which ensued, as well as, in his opinion, of the imminent danger of the total subversion of the British power in India by the risk of his own person, which he asserts that it did run,—as also "that it ought not to be thought that he attributed too much consequence to his personal safety, when he supposed the fate of the British empire in India connected with it, and that, mean as its substance may be, its accidental qualities were equivalent to those which, like the characters of a talisman in the Arabian mythology, formed the essence of the state itself, representation, title, and the estimate of the public opinion; that, had he fallen, such a stroke would be universally considered as decisive of the national fate; every state round it would have started into arms against it, and every subject of its own dominion would, according to their several abilities, have become its enemy": and that he knew and has declared, that, though the said stroke was not struck, that great convulsions did actually ensue from his proceedings, "that half the province of Oude was in a state of as complete rebellion as that of Benares," and that invasions, tumults, and insurrections were occasioned thereby in various other parts.

XVI. That the said Warren Hastings, after he had collected his forces from all parts, did, with little difficulty or bloodshed, subsequent to that time, on the part of his troops, and in a few days, entirely reduce the said province of Benares; and did, after the said short and little resisted hostility, in cold blood, issue an order for burning a certain town, in which he accused the people at large of having killed, "upon what provocation he knows not," certain wounded sepoys, who were prisoners: which order, being generally given, when it was his duty to have made some inquiry concerning the particular offenders, but which he did never make, or cause to be made, was cruel, inhuman, and tended to the destruction of the revenues of the Company; and that this, and other acts of devastation, did cause the loss of two months of the collections.

XVII. That the said Warren Hastings did not only refuse the submissions of the said Rajah, which were frequently repeated through various persons after he had left Benares, and even after the defeat of certain of the Company's forces, but did proscribe and except him from the pardons which he issued after he had satisfied his vengeance on the province of Benares.

XVIII. That the said Warren Hastings did send to a certain castle, called Bidzigur, the residence of a person of high rank, called Panna, the mother of the Rajah of Benares, with whom his wife, a woman described by the said Hastings "to be of an amiable character," and all the other women of the Rajah's family, and the survivors of the family of his father, Bulwant Sing, did then reside, a body of troops to dispossess them of her said residence, and to seize upon her money and effects, although she did not stand, even by himself, accused of any offence whatsoever,—pretending, but not proving, and not attempting to prove, then nor since, that the treasures therein contained were the property of the Rajah, and not her own; and did, in order to stimulate the British soldiery to rapine and outrage, issue to them several barbarous orders, contrary to the practice of civilized nations, relative to their property, movable and immovable, attended with unworthy and unbecoming menaces, highly offensive to the manners of the East and the particular respect there paid to the female sex,—which letters and orders, as well as the letters which he had received from the officers concerned, the said Hastings did unlawfully suppress, until forced by the disputes between him and the said officers to discover the same: and the said orders are as follow.

"I am this instant favored with yours of yesterday. Mine of the same date [22d October, 1781] has before this time acquainted you with my resolutions and sentiments respecting the Rannee [the mother of the Rajah Cheyt Sing]. I think every demand she has made to you, except that of safety and respect for her person, is unreasonable. If the reports brought to me are true, your rejecting her offers, or any negotiations with her, would soon obtain you possession of the fort upon your own terms. I apprehend that she will contrive to defraud the captors of a considerable part of the booty by being suffered to retire without examination. But this is your consideration, and not mine. I should be very sorry that your officers and soldiers lost ANY PART of the reward to which they are so well entitled; but I cannot make any objection, as you must be the best judge of the expediency of the promised indulgence to the Rannee. What you have engaged for I will certainly ratify; but as to permitting the Rannee to hold the purgunnah of Hurluk, or any other in the zemindary, without being subject to the authority of the zemindar, or any lands whatever, or indeed making any conditions with her for a provision, I will never consent to it." And in another letter to the same person, dated Benares, 3d of November, 1781, in which he, the said Hastings, consents that the said woman of distinction should be allowed to evacuate the place and to receive protection, he did express himself as follows. "I am willing to grant her now the same conditions to which I at first consented, provided that she delivers into your possession, within twenty-four hours from the time of receiving your message, the fort of Bidzigur, with the treasure and effects lodged therein by Cheyt Sing or any of his adherents, with the reserve only, as above mentioned, of such articles as you shall think necessary to her sex and condition, or as you shall be disposed of yourself to indulge her with. If she complies, as I expect she will, it will be your part to secure the fort and the property it contains for the benefit of yourself and detachment. I have only further to request that you will grant an escort, if Panna should require it, to conduct her here, or wherever she may choose to retire to. But should she refuse to execute the promise she has made, or delay it beyond the term of twenty-four hours, it is my positive injunction that you immediately put a stop to any further intercourse or negotiation with her, and on no pretext renew it. If she disappoints or trifles with me, after I have subjected my duan to the disgrace of returning ineffectually, and of course myself to discredit, I shall consider it as a wanton affront and indignity which I can never forgive, nor will I grant her any conditions whatever, but leave her exposed to those dangers which she has chosen to risk rather than trust to the clemency and generosity of our government. I think she cannot be ignorant of these consequences, and will not venture to incur them; and it is for this reason I place a dependence on her offers, and have consented to send my duan to her."

XIX. That the castle aforesaid being surrendered upon terms of safety, and on express condition of not attempting to search their persons, the woman of rank aforesaid, her female relations and female dependants, to the number of three hundred, besides children, evacuated the said castle; but the spirit of rapacity being excited by the letters and other proceedings of the said Hastings, the capitulation was shamefully and outrageously broken, and, in despite of the endeavors of the commanding officer, the said woman of high condition, and her female dependants, friends, and servants, were plundered of the effects they carried with them, and which were reserved to them in the capitulation of their fortress, and in their persons were otherwise rudely and inhumanly dealt with by the licentious followers of the camp: for which outrages, represented to the said Hastings with great concern by the commanding officer, Major Popham, he, the said Hastings, did afterwards recommend a late and fruitless redress.

XX. That the Governor-General, Warren Hastings, in exciting the hopes of the military by declaring them well entitled to the plunder of the fortress aforesaid, the residence of the mother and other women of the Rajah of Benares, and by wishing the troops to secure the same for their own benefit, did advise and act in direct contradiction to the orders of the Court of Directors, and to his own opinion of his public duty, as well as to the truth and reality thereof,—he having some years before entered in writing the declaration which follows.

"The very idea of prize-money suggests to my remembrance the former disorders which arose in our army from this source, and had almost proved fatal to it. Of this circumstance you must be sufficiently apprised, and of the necessity for discouraging every expectation of this kind amongst the troops. It is to be avoided like poison. The bad effects of a similar measure were but too plainly felt in a former period, and our honorable masters did not fail on that occasion to reprobate with their censure, in the most severe terms, a practice which they regarded as the source of infinite evils, and which, if established, would in their judgment necessarily bring corruption and ruin on their army."

XXI. That the said Hastings, after he had given the license aforesaid, and that in consequence thereof the booty found in the castle, to the amount of 23,27,813 current rupees, was distributed among the soldiers employed in its reduction, the said Hastings did retract his declaration of right, and his permission to the soldiers to appropriate to themselves the plunder, and endeavored, by various devices and artifices, to explain the same away, and to recover the spoil aforesaid for the use of the Company; and wholly failing in his attempts to resume by a breach of faith with the soldiers what he had unlawfully disposed of by a breach of duty to his constituents, he attempted to obtain the same as a loan, in which attempt he also failed; and the aforesaid money being the only part of the treasures belonging to the Rajah, or any of his family, that had been found, he was altogether frustrated in the acquisition of every part of that dishonorable object which alone he pretended to, and pursued through a long series of acts of injustice, inhumanity, oppression, violence, and bloodshed, at the hazard of his person and reputation, and, in his own opinion, at the risk of the total subversion of the British empire.

XXI. That the said Warren Hastings, after the commission of the offences aforesaid, being well aware that he should be called to an account for the same, did, by the evil counsel and agency of Sir Elijah Impey, Knight, his Majesty's chief-justice, who was then out of the limits of his jurisdiction, cause to be taken at Benares, before or by the said Sir Elijah Impey, and through the intervention, not of the Company's interpreter, but of a certain private interpreter of his, the said Hastings's, own appointment, and a dependant on him, called Major Davy, several declarations and depositions by natives of Hindostan,—and did also cause to be taken before the said Sir Elijah Impey several attestations in English, made by British subjects, and which were afterwards transmitted to Calcutta, and laid before the Council-General,—some of which depositions were upon oath, some upon honor, and others neither upon oath nor honor, but all or most of which were of an irregular and irrelevant nature, and not fit or decent to be taken by a British magistrate, or to be transmitted to a British government.

XXIII. That one of the said attestations (but not on oath) was made by a principal minister of the Nabob of Oude, to whom the said Hastings had some time before proposed to sell the sovereignty of that very territory of Benares; and that one other attestation (not upon oath) was made by a native woman of distinction, whose son he, the said Hastings, did actually promote to the government of Benares, vacated by the unjust expulsion of the Rajah aforesaid, and who in her deposition did declare that she considered the expelled Rajah as her enemy, and that he never did confer with her, or suffer her to be acquainted with any of his designs.

XXIV. That, besides the depositions of persons interested in the ruin of the Rajah, others were made by persons who then received pensions from him, the said Hastings; and several of the affidavits were made by persons of mean condition, and so wholly illiterate as not to be able to write their names.

XXV. That he, the said Hastings, did also cause to be examined by various proofs and essays, the result of which was delivered in upon honor, the quality of certain military stores taken by the British troops from the said Rajah of Benares; and upon the report that the same were of a good quality, and executed by persons conversant in the making of good military stores, although the cannon was stated by the same authority to be bad, he, the said Warren Hastings, from the report aforesaid, did maliciously, and contrary to the principles of natural and legal reason, infer that the insurrection which had been raised by his own violence and oppression, and rendered for a time successful by his own improvidence, was the consequence of a premeditated design to overturn the British empire in India, and to exterminate therefrom the British nation; which design, if it had been true, the said Hastings might have known, or rationally conjectured, and ought to have provided against. And if the said Hastings had received any credible information of such design, it was his duty to lay the same before the Council Board, and to state the same to the Rajah, when he was in a condition to have given an answer thereto or to observe thereon, and not, after he had proscribed and driven him from his dominions, to have inquired into offences to justify the previous infliction of punishment.

XXVI. That it does not appear, that, in taking the said depositions, there was any person present on the part of the Rajah to object to the competence or credibility or relevancy of any of the said affidavits or other attestations, or to account, otherwise than as the said deponents did account, for any of the facts therein stated; nor were any copies thereof sent to the said Rajah, although the Company had a minister at the place of his residence, namely, in the camp of the Mahratta chief Sindia, so as to enable him to transmit to the Company any matters which might induce or enable them to do justice to the injured prince aforesaid. And it does not appear that the said Hastings has ever produced any witness, letter, or other document, tending to prove that the said Rajah ever did carry on any hostile negotiation whatever with any of those powers with whom he was charged with a conspiracy against the Company, previous to the period of the said Hastings's having arrested him in his palace, although he, the said Hastings, had various agents at the courts of all those princes,—and that a late principal agent and near relation of a minister of one them, the Rajah of Berar, called Benaram Pundit, was, at the time of the tumult at Benares, actually with the said Hastings, and the said Benaram Pundit was by him highly applauded for his zeal and fidelity, and was therefore by him rewarded with a large pension on those very revenues which he had taken from the Rajah Cheyt Sing, and if such a conspiracy had previously existed, the Mahratta minister aforesaid must have known, and would have attested it.

XXVII. That it appears that the said Warren Hastings, at the time that he formed his design of seizing upon the treasures of the Rajah of Benares, and of deposing him, did not believe him guilty of that premeditated project for driving the English out of India with which he afterwards thought fit to charge him, or that he was really guilty of any other great offence: because he has caused it to be deposed, that, if the said Rajah should pay the sum of money by him exacted, "he would settle his zemindary upon him on the most eligible footing"; whereas, if he had conceived him to have entertained traitorous designs against the Company, from whom he held his tributary estate, or had been otherwise guilty of such enormous offences as to make it necessary to take extraordinary methods for coercing him, it would not have been proper for him to settle upon such a traitor and criminal the zemindary of Benares, or any other territory, upon the most eligible, or upon any other footing whatever: whereby the said Hastings has by his own stating demonstrated that the money intended to have been exacted was not as a punishment for crimes, but that the crimes were pretended for the purpose of exacting money.

XXVIII. That the said Warren Hastings, in order to justify the acts of violence aforesaid to the Court of Directors, did assert certain false facts, known by him to be such, and did draw from them certain false and dangerous inferences, utterly subversive of the rights of the princes and subjects dependent on the British nation in India, contrary to the principles of all just government, and highly dishonorable to that of Great Britain: namely, that the "Rajah of Benares was not a vassal or tributary prince, and that the deeds which passed between him and the board, upon the transfer of the zemindary in 1775, were not to be understood to bear the quality and force of a treaty upon optional conditions between equal states; that the payments to be made by him were not a tribute, but a rent; and that the instruments by which his territories were conveyed to him did not differ from common grants to zemindars who were merely subjects; but that, being nothing more than a common zemindar and mere subject, and the Company holding the acknowledged rights of his former sovereign, held an absolute authority over him; that, in the known relations of zemindar to the sovereign authority, or power delegated by it, he owed a personal allegiance and an implicit and unreserved obedience to that authority, at the forfeiture of his zemindary, and even of his life and property." Whereas the said Hastings did well know, that, whether the payments from the Rajah were called rent or tribute, having been frequently by himself called the one and the other, and that of whatever nature the instruments by which he held might have been, he did not consider him as a common zemindar or landholder, but as far independent as a tributary prince could be: for he did assign as a reason for receiving his rent rather within the Company's province than in his own capital, that it would not "frustrate the intention of rendering the Rajah independent; that, if a Resident was appointed to receive the money as it became due at Benares, such a Resident would unavoidably acquire an influence over the Rajah, and over his country, which would in effect render him the master of both; that this consequence might not, perhaps, be brought completely to pass without a struggle, and many appeals to the Council, which, in a government constituted like this, cannot fail to terminate against the Rajah, and, by the construction to which his opposition to the agent would be liable, might eventually draw on him severe restrictions, and end in reducing him to the mean and depraved state of a zemindar."

XXIX. And the said Hastings, in the said Minute of Consultation, having enumerated the frauds, embezzlements, and oppressions which would ensue from the Rajah's being in the dependent state aforesaid, and having obviated all apprehensions from giving to him the implied symbols of dominion, did assert, "that, without such appearance, he would expect from every change of government additional demands to be made upon him, and would of course descend to all the arts of intrigue and concealment practised by other dependent Rajahs, which would keep him indigent and weak, and eventually prove hurtful to the Company; but that, by proper encouragement and protection, he might prove a profitable dependant, an useful barrier, and even a powerful ally to the Company; but that he would be neither, if the conditions of his connection with the Company were left open to future variations."

XXX. That, if the fact had been true that the Rajah of Benares was merely an eminent landholder or any other subject, the wicked and dangerous doctrine aforesaid, namely, that he owed a personal allegiance and an implicit and unreserved obedience to the sovereign authority, at the forfeiture of his zemindary, and even of his life and property, at the discretion of those who held or fully represented the sovereign authority, doth leave security neither for life nor property to any persons residing under the Company's protection; and that no such powers, nor any powers of that nature, had been delegated to the said Warren Hastings by any provisions of the act of Parliament appointing a Governor-General and Council at Fort William in Bengal.

XXXI. That the said Warren Hastings did also advance another dangerous and pernicious principle in justification of his violent, arbitrary, and iniquitous actings aforesaid: namely, "that, if he had acted with an unwarrantable rigor, and even injustice, towards Cheyt Sing, yet, first, if he did believe that extraordinary means were necessary, and those exerted with a strong hand, to preserve the Company's interests from sinking under the accumulated weight that oppressed them, or, secondly, if he saw a political necessity for curbing the overgrown power of a great member of their dominion, and to make it contribute to the relief of their pressing exigencies, that his error would be excusable, as prompted by an excess of zeal for their [the Company's] interest, operating with too strong a bias on his judgment; but that much stronger is the presumption, that such acts are founded on just principles than that they are the result of a misguided judgment." That the said doctrines are, in both the members thereof, subversive of all the principles of just government, by empowering a governor with delegated authority, in the first case, on his own private belief concerning the necessities of the state, not to levy an impartial and equal rate of taxation suitable to the circumstances of the several members of the community, but to select any individual from the same as an object of arbitrary and unmeasured imposition,—and, in the second case, enabling the same governor, on the same arbitrary principles, to determine whose property should be considered as overgrown, and to reduce the same at his pleasure.

PART IV.

SECOND REVOLUTION IN BENARES.

That the said Warren Hastings, after he had, in the manner aforesaid, unjustly and violently expelled the Rajah Cheyt Sing, the lord or zemindar of Benares, from his said lordship or zemindary, did, of his own mere usurped authority, and without any communication with the other members of the Council of Calcutta, appoint another person, of the name of Mehip Narrain, a descendant by the mother from the late Rajah, Bulwant Sing, to the government of Benares; and on account or pretence of his youth and inexperience (the said Mehip Narrain not being above twenty years old) did appoint his father, Durbege Sing, to act as his representative or administrator of his affairs; but did give a controlling authority to the British Resident over both, notwithstanding his declarations before mentioned of the mischiefs likely to happen to the said country from the establishment of a Resident, and his opinion since declared in a letter to the Court of Directors, dated from this very place (Benares) the 1st of October, 1784, to the same or stronger effect, in case "agents are sent into the country, and armed with authority for the purposes of vengeance and corruption,—for to no other will they be applied."

That the said Warren Hastings did, by the same usurped authority, entirely set aside all the agreements made between the late Rajah and the Company (which were real agreements with the state of Benares, in the person of the lord or prince thereof, and his heirs); and without any form of trial, inquisition, or other legal process, for forfeiture of the privileges of the people to be governed by magistrates of their own, and according to their natural laws, customs, and usages, did, contrary to the said agreement, separate the mint and the criminal justice from the said government, and did vest the mint in the British Resident, and the criminal justice in a Mahomedan native of his own appointment; and did enhance the tribute to be paid from the province, from two hundred and fifty thousand pounds annually, limited by treaty, or thereabouts, to three hundred and thirty thousand pounds for the first year, and to four hundred thousand for every year after; and did compel the administrator aforesaid (father to the Rajah) to agree to the same; and did, by the same usurped authority, illegally impose, and cause to be levied, sundry injudicious and oppressive duties on goods and merchandise, which did greatly impair the trade of the province, and threaten the utter ruin thereof; and did charge several pensions on the said revenues, of his own mere authority; and did send and keep up various bodies of the Company's troops in the said country; and did perform sundry other acts with regard to the said territory, in total subversion of the rights of the sovereign and the people, and in violation of the treaties and agreements aforesaid.

That the said Warren Hastings, being absent, on account of ill health, from the Presidency of Calcutta, at a place called Nia Serai, about forty miles distant therefrom, did carry on a secret correspondence with the Resident at Benares, and, under color that the instalments for the new rent or tribute were in arrear, did of his own authority make, in about one year, a second revolution in the government of the territory aforesaid, and did order and direct that Durbege Sing aforesaid, father of the Rajah, and administrator of his authority, should be deprived of his office and of his lands, and thrown into prison, and did threaten him with death: although he, the said Warren Hastings, had, at the time of the making his new arrangement, declared himself sensible that the rent aforesaid might require abatement; although he was well apprised that the administrator had been for two months of his administration in a weak and languid state of body, and wholly incapable of attending to the business of the collections; though a considerable drought had prevailed in the said province, and did consequently affect the regularity and produce of the collections; and though he had other sufficient reason to believe that the said administrator had not himself received from the collectors of government and the cultivators of the soil the rent in arrear: yet he, the said Warren Hastings, without any known process, or recording any answer, defence, plea, exculpation, or apology from the party, or recording any other grounds of rigor against him, except the following paragraph of a letter from the Resident, not only gave the order as aforesaid, but did afterwards, without laying any other or better ground before the Council-General, persuade them to, and did procure from them, a confirmation of the aforesaid cruel and illegal proceedings, the correspondence concerning which had not been before communicated: he pleading his illness for not communicating the same, though that illness did not prevent him from carrying on correspondence concerning the deposition of the said administrator, and other important affairs in various places.

That in the letter to the Council requiring the confirmation of his acts aforesaid the said Warren Hastings did not only propose the confinement of the said administrator at Benares, although by his imprisonment he must have been in a great measure disabled from recovering the balances due to him, and for the non-payment of which he was thus imprisoned, but did propose, as an alternative, his imprisonment at a remote fortress, out of the said territory, and in the Company's provinces, called Chunar: desiring them to direct the Resident at Benares "to exact from Baboo Durbege Sing every rupee of the collections which it shall appear that he has made and not brought to account, and either to confine him at Benares, or to send him a prisoner to Chunar, and to keep him in confinement until he shall have discharged the whole of the amount due from him." And the said Warren Hastings did assign motives of passion and personal resentment for the said unjust and rigorous proceedings, as follows: "I feel myself, and may be allowed on such an occasion to acknowledge it, personally hurt at the ingratitude of this man, and at the discredit which his ill conduct has thrown on my appointment of him. He has deceived me; he has offended against the government which I then represented." And as a further reason for depriving him of his jaghire, (or salary out of land,) he did insinuate in the said letter, but without giving or offering any proof, "that the said Rajah had been guilty of little and mean peculations, although the appointments assigned to him had been sufficient to free him from the temptations thereto."