I must beg pardon for having omitted to lay before your Lordships in its proper place a most extraordinary paper, which will show you in what manner judicial inquiries are conducted, upon what grounds charges are made, by what sort of evidence they are supported, and, in short, to what perils the lives and fortunes of men are subjected in that country. This paper is in the printed Minutes, page 1608. It was given in agreeably to the retrograde order which they have established in their judicial proceedings. It was produced to prove the truth of a charge of rebellion which was made some months before the paper in evidence was known to the accuser.

"To the Honorable Warren Hastings.

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

Here, then, is evidence of evidence given to Mr. Markham by Mr. Balfour, from Lucknow, in the month of November, 1781, long after the transaction at Benares. But what was this evidence? "I communicated," he says, "the substance of a conversation said to have passed." Observe, said: not a conversation that had passed to his knowledge or recollection, but what his informant said had passed. He adds, this conversation was reported to him by a person whom he won't name, but in whom, he says, he had some confidence. This anonymous person, in whom he had put some confidence, was not himself present at the conversation; he only reports to him that it was said by somebody else that such a conversation had taken place. This conversation, which somebody told Colonel Balfour he had heard was said by somebody to have taken place, if true, related to matters of great importance; still the mode of its communication was left to Mr. Markham, and that gentleman did not bring it forward till some months after. Colonel Balfour proceeds to say,—"Some days after this conversation was said to have happened," (your Lordships will observe it is always, "was said to have happened,") "I was informed by the same person that the Rajah had received a message from one of the Begums at Fyzabad, (I think it was from Sujah ul Dowlah's widow,) advising him not to comply with the demands of government, and encouraging him to expect support in case of his resisting." He next adds,—"This also, I believe," (observe, he says he is not quite sure of it,) "I communicated to Mr. Markham; but not being perfectly certain," (of a matter the immediate knowledge of which, if true, was of the highest importance to his country,) "I now think it my duty to remove the possibility of your remaining unacquainted with, a circumstance which may not be unconnected with the present conduct of the Rajah."

Here is a man that comes with information long after the fact deposed to, and, after having left to another the communication of his intelligence to the proper authority, that other neglects the matter. No letter of Mr. Markham's appears, communicating any such conversation to Mr. Hastings: and, indeed, why he did not do so must appear very obvious to your Lordships; for a more contemptible, ridiculous, and absurd story never was invented. Does Mr. Balfour come forward and tell him who his informant was? No. Does he say, "He was an informant whom I dare not name, upon account of his great consequence, and the great confidence I had in him"? No. He only says slightly, "I have some confidence in him." It is upon this evidence of a reporter of what another is said to have said, that Mr. Hastings and his Council rely for proof, and have thought proper to charge the Rajah, with having conceived rebellious designs soon after the time when Mr. Hastings had declared his belief that no such designs had been formed.

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

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

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

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

I need not state to your Lordships what you know to be the true principles of British policy in matters of this nature. When there has been provocation, you ought to be ready to listen to terms of reconciliation, even after war has been made. This you ought to do, to show that you are placable; such policy as this would doubtless be of the greatest benefit and advantage to you. Look to the case of Sujah Dowlah. You had, in the course of a war with him, driven him from his country; you had not left him in possession of a foot of earth in the world. The Mogul was his sovereign, and, by his authority, it was in your power to dispose of the vizierate, and of every office of state which Sujah Dowlah held under the emperor: for he hated him mortally, and was desirous of dispossessing him of everything. What did you do? Though he had shed much English blood, you reestablished him in all his power, you gave him more than he before possessed; and you had no reason to repent your generosity. Your magnanimity and justice proved to be the best policy, and was the subject of admiration from one end of India to the other. But Mr. Hastings had other maxims and other principles. You are weak, he says, and therefore you ought never to forgive. Indeed, Mr. Hastings never does forgive. The Rajah was weak, and he persecuted him; Mr. Hastings was weak, and he lost his prey. He went up the country with the rapacity, but not with the talons and beak, of a vulture. He went to look for plunder; but he was himself plundered, the country was ravaged, and the prey escaped.

After the escape of Cheyt Sing, there still existed in one corner of the country some further food for Mr. Hastings's rapacity. There was a place called Bidjegur, one of those forts which Mr. Hastings declared could not be safely left in the possession of the Rajah; measures were therefore taken to obtain possession of this place, soon after the flight of its unfortunate proprietor. And what did he find in it? A great and powerful garrison? No, my Lords: he found in it the wives and family of the Rajah; he found it inhabited by two hundred women, and defended by a garrison of eunuchs and a few feeble militia-men. This fortress was supposed by him to contain some money, which he hoped to lay hold of when all other means of rapacity had escaped him. He first sends (and you have it on your minutes) a most cruel, most atrocious, and most insulting message to these unfortunate women; one of whom, a principal personage of the family, we find him in the subsequent negotiation scandalizing in one minute, and declaring to be a woman of respectable character in the next,—treating her by turns as a prostitute and as an amiable woman, as best suited the purposes of the hour. This woman, with two hundred of her sex, he found in Bidjegur. Whatever money they had was their own property; and as such Cheyt Sing, who had visited the place before his flight, had left it for their support, thinking that it would be secure to them as their property, because they were persons wholly void of guilt, as they must needs have been. This money the Rajah might have carried off with him; but he left it them, and we must presume that it was their property; and no attempt was ever made by Mr. Hastings to prove otherwise. They had no other property that could be found. It was the only means of subsistence for themselves, their children, their domestics, and dependants, and for the whole female part of that once illustrious and next to royal family.

But to proceed. A detachment of soldiers was sent to seize the forts [fort?]. Soldiers are habitually men of some generosity; even when they are acting in a bad cause, they do not wholly lose the military spirit. But Mr. Hastings, fearing that they might not be animated with the same lust of plunder as himself, stimulated them to demand the plunder of the place, and expresses his hopes that no composition would be made with these women, and that not one shilling of the booty would be allowed them. He does not trust to their acting as soldiers who have their fortunes to make; but he stimulates and urges them not to give way to the generous passions and feelings of men.

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

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

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

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

[Mr. Burke here read the proclamation.]

From the date of this proclamation it appears that the surrender of the fort was clearly within the time given to those who had been guilty of the most atrocious acts of rebellion to repair to their homes and enjoy an indemnity. These women had never quitted their homes, nor had they been charged with rebellion, and yet they were cruelly excluded from the general indemnity; and after the army had taken unconditional possession of the fort, they were turned out of it, and ordered to the quarters of the commanding officer, Major Popham. This officer had received from Mr. Hastings a power to rob them, a power to plunder them, a power to distribute the plunder, but no power to give them any allowance, nor any authority even to receive them.

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Here the account was read.]

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

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

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

I shall undertake, my Lords, when this court meets again, to develop the consequences of this wicked proceeding. I shall then show you that that part of the Rajah's family which he left behind him, and which Mr. Hastings pretended to take under his protection, was also ruined, undone, and destroyed; and that the once beautiful country of Benares, which he has had the impudence to represent as being still in a prosperous condition, was left by him in such a state as would move pity in any tyrant in the world except the one who now stands before you.

FOOTNOTES:

[98] Hedaya, Vol. II. p. 621.



SPEECH

IN

GENERAL REPLY.

THIRD DAY: TUESDAY, JUNE 3, 1794.

My Lords,—We are called, with an awful voice, to come forth and make good our charge against the prisoner at your bar; but as a long time has elapsed since your Lordships heard that charge, I shall take the liberty of requesting my worthy fellow Manager near me to read that part to your Lordships which I am just now going to observe upon, that you may be the better able to apply my observations to the letter of the charge.

[Mr. Wyndham reads.]

"That the said Warren Hastings, having, as aforesaid, expelled the said Cheyt Sing from his dominions, did, of his own usurped authority, and without any communication with or any approbation given by the other members of the Council, nominate and appoint Rajah Mehip Narrain to the government of the provinces of Benares, and did appoint his father, Durbege Sing, as administrator of his authority, and did give to the British Resident, William Markham, a controlling authority over both; and did farther abrogate and set aside all treaties and agreements which subsisted between the state of Benares and the British nation; and did arbitrarily and tyrannically, of his mere authority, raise the tribute to the sum of four hundred thousand pounds sterling, or thereabouts; did further wantonly and illegally impose certain oppressive duties upon goods and merchandise, to the great injury of trade and ruin of the provinces; and did farther dispose of, as his own, the property within the said provinces, by granting the same, or parts, thereof, in pensions to such persons as he thought fit.

"That the said Warren Hastings did, some time in the year 1782, enter into a clandestine correspondence with William Markham, Esquire, the then Resident at Benares, which said Markham had been by him, the said Warren Hastings, obtruded into the said office, contrary to the positive orders of the Court of Directors; and, in consequence of the representations of the said Markham, did, under pretence that the new excessive rent or tribute was in arrear, and that the affairs of the provinces were likely to fall into confusion, authorize and impower him, by his own private authority, to remove the said Durbege Sing from his office and deprive him of his estate.

"That the said Durbege Sing was, by the private orders and authorities given by the said Warren Hastings, and in consequence of the representations aforesaid, violently thrown into prison, and cruelly confined therein, under pretence of the non-payment of the arrears of the tribute aforesaid.

"That the widow of Bulwant Sing, and the Rajah Mehip Narrain, did pointedly accuse the said Markham of being the sole cause of any delay in the payment of the tribute aforesaid, and did offer to prove the innocence of the said Durbege Sing, and also to prove that the faults ascribed to him were solely the faults of the said Markham; yet the said Warren Hastings did pay no regard whatever to the said representations, nor make any inquiry into the truth of the same, but did accuse the said widow of Bulwant Sing and the Rajah aforesaid of gross presumption for the same; and, listening to the representations of the person accused, (viz., the Resident Markham,) did continue to confine the said Durbege Sing in prison, and did invest the Resident Markham with authority to bestow his office upon whomsoever he pleased.

"That the said Markham did bestow the said office of administrator of the provinces of Benares upon a certain person named Jagher Deo Seo, who, in order to gratify the arbitrary demands of the said Warren Hastings, was obliged greatly to distress and harass the unfortunate inhabitants of the said provinces.

"That the said Warren Hastings did, some time in the year 1784, remove the said Jagher Deo Seo from the said office, under pretence of certain irregularities and oppressions; which irregularities and oppressions are solely imputable to him, the said Warren Hastings.

"That the consequences of all these violent changes and arbitrary acts were the total ruin and desolation of the country, and the flight of the inhabitants: the said Warren Hastings having found every place abandoned at his approach, even by the officers of the very government which he established, and seeing nothing but traces of devastation in every village, the provinces in effect without a government, the administration misconducted, the people oppressed, trade discouraged, and the revenue in danger of a rapid decline.

"All which destruction, devastation, oppression, and ruin are solely imputable to the abovementioned and other arbitrary, illegal, unjust, and tyrannical acts of him, the said Warren Hastings, who, by all and every one of the same, was and is guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors."

[Mr. Burke proceeded.]

My Lords, you have heard the charge; and you are now going to see the prisoner at your bar in a new point of view. I will now endeavor to display him in his character of a legislator in a foreign land, not augmenting the territory, honor, and power of Great Britain, and bringing the acquisition under the dominion of law and liberty, but desolating a flourishing country, that to all intents and purposes was our own,—a country which we had conquered from freedom, from tranquillity, order, and prosperity, and submitted, through him, to arbitrary power, misrule, anarchy, and ruin. We now see the object of his corrupt vengeance utterly destroyed, his family driven from their home, his people butchered, his wife and all the females of his family robbed and dishonored in their persons, and the effects which husband and parents had laid up in store for the subsistence of their families, all the savings of provident economy, distributed amongst a rapacious soldiery. His malice is victorious. He has well avenged, in the destruction of this unfortunate family, the Rajah's intended visit to General Clavering; he has well avenged the suspected discovery of his bribe to Mr. Francis.

"Thou hast it now, King, Cawdor, Glamis, all!"

Let us see, my Lords, what use he makes of this power,—how he justifies the bounty of Fortune, bestowing on him this strange and anomalous conquest. Anomalous I call it, my Lords, because it was the result of no plan in the cabinet, no operation in the field. No act or direction proceeded from him, the responsible chief, except the merciless orders, and the grant to the soldiery. He lay skulking and trembling in the fort of Chunar, while the British soldiery entitled themselves to the plunder which he held out to them. Nevertheless, my Lords, he conquers; the country is his own; he treats it as his own. Let us, therefore, see how this successor of Tamerlane, this emulator of Genghis Khan, governs a country conquered by the talents and courage of others, without assistance, guide, direction, or counsel given by himself.

My Lords, I will introduce his first act to your Lordships' notice in the words of the charge.

"The said Warren Hastings did, some time in the year 1782, enter into a clandestine correspondence with William Markham, Esquire, the then Resident at Benares; which said Markham had been by him, the said Warren Hastings, obtruded into the said office, contrary to the positive orders of the Court of Directors."

This unjustifiable obtrusion, this illegal appointment, shows you at the very outset that he defies the laws of his country,—most positively and pointedly defies them. In attempting to give a reason for this defiance, he has chosen to tell a branch of the legislature from which originated the act which wisely and prudently ordered him to pay implicit obedience to the Court of Directors, that he removed Mr. Fowke from Benares, contrary to the orders of the Court, on political grounds; because, says he, "I thought it necessary the Resident there should be a man of my own nomination and confidence. I avow the principle, and think no government can subsist without it. The punishment of the Rajah made no part of my design in Mr. Fowke's removal or Mr. Markham's appointment, nor was his punishment an object of my contemplation at the time I removed Mr. Fowke to appoint Mr. Markham: an appointment of my own choice, and a signal to notify the restoration of my own authority; as I had before removed Mr. Fowke and appointed Mr. Graham for the same purpose."

Here, my Lords, he does not even pretend that he had any view whatever, in this appointment of Mr. Markham, but to defy the laws of his country. "I must," says he, "have a man of my own nomination, because it is a signal to notify the restoration of my own authority, as I had before removed Mr. Fowke for the same purpose."

I must beg your Lordships to keep in mind that the greater part of the observations with which I shall trouble you have a reference to the principles upon which this man acts; and I beseech you to remember always that you have before you a question and an issue of law; I beseech you to consider what it is that you are disposing of,—that you are not merely disposing of this man and his cause, but that you are disposing of the laws of your country.

You, my Lords, have made, and we have made, an act of Parliament in which the Council at Calcutta is vested with a special power, distinctly limited and defined. He says, "My authority is absolute. I defy the orders of the Court of Directors, because it is necessary for me to show that I can disregard them, as a signal of my own authority." He supposes his authority gone while he obeys the laws; but, says he, "the moment I got rid of the bonds and barriers of the laws," (as if there had been some act of violence and usurpation that had deprived him of his rightful powers,) "I was restored to my own authority." What is this authority to which he is restored? Not an authority vested in him by the East India Company; not an authority sanctioned by the laws of this kingdom. It is neither of these, but the authority of Warren Hastings; an inherent divine right, I suppose, which he has thought proper to claim as belonging to himself; something independent of the laws, something independent of the Court of Directors, something independent of his brethren of the Council. It is "my own authority."

And what is the signal by which you are to know when this authority is restored? By his obedience to the Court of Directors?—by his attention to the laws of his country?—by his regard to the rights of the people? No, my Lords, no: the notification of the restoration of this authority is a formal disobedience of the orders of the Court of Directors. When you find the laws of the land trampled upon, and their appointed authority despised, then you may be sure that the authority of the prisoner is reestablished.

There is, my Lords, always a close connection between vices of every description. The man who is a tyrant would, under some other circumstances, be a rebel; and he that is a rebel would become a tyrant. They are things which originally proceed from the same source. They owe their birth to the wild, unbridled lewdness of arbitrary power. They arise from a contempt of public order, and of the laws and institutions which curb mankind. They arise from a harsh, cruel, and ferocious disposition, impatient of the rules of law, order, and morality: and accordingly, as their relation varies, the man is a tyrant, if a superior, a rebel, if an inferior. But this man, standing in a middle point between the two relations, the superior and inferior, declares himself at once both a rebel and a tyrant. We therefore naturally expect, that, when he has thrown off the laws of his country, he will throw off all other authority. Accordingly, in defiance of that authority to which he owes his situation, he nominates Mr. Markham to the Residency at Benares, and therefore every act of Mr. Markham is his. He is responsible,—doubly responsible to what he would have been, if in the ordinary course of office he had named this agent. Every governor is responsible for the misdemeanors committed under his legal authority for which he does not punish the delinquent; but the prisoner is doubly responsible in this case, because he assumed an illegal authority, which can be justified only, if at all, by the good resulting from the assumption.

Having now chosen his principal instrument and his confidential and sole counsellor, having the country entirely in his hand, and every obstacle that could impede his course swept out of the arena, what does he do under these auspicious circumstances? You would imagine, that, in the first place, he would have sent down to the Council at Calcutta a general view of his proceedings, and of their consequences, together with a complete statement of the revenue; that he would have recommended the fittest persons for public trusts, with such other measures as he might judge to be most essential to the interest and honor of his employers. One would have imagined he would have done this, in order that the Council and the Court of Directors might have a clear view of the whole existing system, before he attempted to make a permanent arrangement for the administration of the country. But, on the contrary, the whole of his proceedings is clandestinely conducted; there is not the slightest communication with the Council upon the business, till he had determined and settled the whole. Thus the Council was placed in a complete dilemma,—either to confirm all his wicked and arbitrary acts, (for such we have proved them to be,) or to derange the whole administration of the country again, and to make another revolution as complete and dreadful as that which he had made.

The task which the Governor-General had imposed upon himself was, I admit, a difficult one; but those who pull down important ancient establishments, who wantonly destroy modes of administration and public institutions under which a country has prospered, are the most mischievous, and therefore the wickedest of men. It is not a reverse of fortune, it is not the fall of an individual, that we are here talking of. We are, indeed, sorry for Cheyt Sing and Durbege Sing, as we should be sorry for any individual under similar circumstances.

It is wisely provided in the constitution of our heart, that we should interest ourselves in the fate of great personages. They are therefore made everywhere the objects of tragedy, which addresses itself directly to our passions and our feelings. And why? Because men of great place, men of great rank, men of great hereditary authority, cannot fall without a horrible crash upon all about them. Such towers cannot tumble without ruining their dependent cottages.

The prosperity of a country, that has been distressed by a revolution which has swept off its principal men, cannot be reestablished without extreme difficulty. This man, therefore, who wantonly and wickedly destroyed the existing government of Benares, was doubly bound to use all possible care and caution in supplying the loss of those institutions which he had destroyed, and of the men whom he had driven into exile. This, I say, he ought to have done. Let us now see what he really did do.

He set out by disposing of all the property of the country as if it was his own. He first confiscated the whole estates of the Baboos, the great nobility of the country, to the amount of six lacs of rupees. He then distributed the lands and revenue of the country according to his own pleasure; and as he had seized the lands without our knowing why or wherefore, so the portion which he took away from some persons he gave to others, in the same arbitrary manner, and without any assignable reason.

When we were inquiring what jaghires Mr. Hastings had thought proper to grant, we found, to our astonishment, (though it is natural that his mind should take this turn,) that he endowed several charities with jaghires. He gave a jaghire to some Brahmins to pray for the perpetual prosperity of the Company, and others to procure the prayers of the same class of men for himself. I do not blame his Gentoo piety, when I find no Christian piety in the man: let him take refuge in any superstition he pleases. The crime we charge is his having distributed the lands of others at his own pleasure. Whether this proceeded from piety, from ostentation, or from any other motive, it matters not. We contend that he ought not to have distributed such land at all,—that he had no right to do so; and consequently, the gift of a single acre of land, by his own private will, was an act of robbery, either from the public or some individual.

When he had thus disturbed the landed property of Benares, and distributed it according to his own will, he thought it would be proper to fix upon a person to govern the country; and of this person he himself made the choice. It does not appear that the people could have lost, even by the revolt of Cheyt Sing, the right which was inherent in them to be governed by the lawful successor of his family. We find, however, that this man, by his own authority, by the arbitrary exercise of his own will and fancy, did think proper to nominate a person to succeed the Rajah who had no legal claims to the succession. He made choice of a boy about nineteen years old; and he says he made that choice upon the principle of this boy's being descended from Bulwant Sing by the female line. But he does not pretend to say that he was the proper and natural heir to Cheyt Sing; and we will show you the direct contrary. Indeed, he confesses the contrary himself; for he argues, in his defence, that, when a new system was to be formed with the successor of Cheyt Sing who was not his heir, such successor had no claim of right.

But perhaps the want of right was supplied by the capacity and fitness of the person who was chosen. I do not say that this does or can for one moment supersede the positive right of another person; but it would palliate the injustice in some degree. Was there in this case any palliative matter? Who was the person chosen by Mr. Hastings to succeed Cheyt Sing? My Lords, the person chosen was a minor: for we find the prisoner at your bar immediately proceeded to appoint him a guardian. This guardian he also chose by his own will and pleasure, as he himself declares, without referring to any particular claim or usage,—without calling the Pundits to instruct him, upon whom, by the Gentoo laws, the guardianship devolved.

I admit, that, in selecting a guardian, he did not, in one respect, act improperly; for he chose the boy's father, and he could not have chosen a better guardian for his person. But for the administration of his government qualities were required which this man did not possess. He should have chosen a man of vigor, capacity, and diligence, a man fit to meet the great difficulties of the situation in which he was to be placed.

Mr. Hastings, my Lords, plainly tells you that he did not think the man's talents to be extraordinary, and he soon afterwards says that he had a great many incapacities. He tells you that he has a doubt whether he was capable of realizing those hopes of revenue which he (Mr. Hastings) had formed. Nor can this be matter of wonder, when we consider that he had ruined and destroyed the ancient system, the whole scheme and tenor of public offices, and had substituted nothing for them but his own arbitrary will. He had formed a plan of an entire new system, in which the practical details had no reference to the experience and wisdom of past ages. He did not take the government as he found it; he did not take the system of offices as it was arranged to his hand; but he dared to make the wicked and flagitious experiment which I have stated,—an experiment upon the happiness of a numerous people, whose property he had usurped and distributed in the manner which has been laid before your Lordships. The attempt failed, and he is responsible for the consequences.

How dared he to make these experiments? In what manner can he be justified for playing fast and loose with the dearest interests, and perhaps with the very existence, of a nation? Attend to the manner in which he justifies himself, and you will find the whole secret let out. "The easy accumulation of too much wealth," he says, "had been Cheyt Sing's ruin; it had buoyed him up with extravagant and ill-founded notions of independence, which I very much wished to discourage in the future Rajah. Some part, therefore, of the superabundant produce in the country I turned into the coffers of the sovereign by an augmentation of the tribute."—Who authorized him to make any augmentation of the tribute? But above all, who authorized him to augment it upon this principle?—"I must take care the tributary prince does not grow too rich; if he gets rich, he will get proud."—This prisoner has got a scale like that in the almanac,—"War begets poverty, poverty peace," and so on. The first rule that he lays down is, that he will keep the new Rajah in a state of poverty; because, if he grows rich, he will become proud, and behave as Cheyt Sing did. You see the ground, foundation, and spirit of the whole proceeding. Cheyt Sing was to be robbed. Why? Because he is too rich. His successor is to be reduced to a miserable condition. Why? Lest he should grow rich and become troublesome. The whole of his system is to prevent men from growing rich, lest, if they should grow rich, they should grow proud, and seek independence. Your Lordships see that in this man's opinion riches must beget pride. I hope your Lordships will never be so poor as to cease to be proud; for, ceasing to be proud, you will cease to be independent.

Having resolved that the Rajah should not grow rich, for fear he should grow proud and independent, he orders him to pay forty lacs of rupees, or 400,000l., annually to the Company. The tribute had before been 250,000l., and he all at once raised it to 400,000l. Did he previously inform the Council of these intentions? Did he inform them of the amount of the gross collections of the country, from any properly authenticated accounts procured from any public office?

I need not inform your Lordships, that it is a serious thing to draw out of a country, instead of 250,000l., an annual tribute of 400,000l. There were other persons besides the Rajah concerned in this enormous increase of revenue. The whole country is interested in its resources being fairly estimated and assessed; for, if you overrate the revenue which it is supposed to yield to the great general collector, you necessitate him to overrate every under-collector, and thereby instigate them to harass and oppress the people. It is upon these grounds that we have charged the prisoner at your bar with having acted arbitrarily, illegally, unjustly, and tyrannically: and your Lordships will bear in mind that these acts were done by his sole authority, which authority we have shown to have been illegally assumed.

My Lords, before he took the important steps which I have just stated, he consulted no one but Mr. Markham, whom he placed over the new Rajah. The Rajah was only nineteen years old: but Mr. Markham undoubtedly had the advantage of him in this respect, for he was twenty-one. He had also the benefit of five months' experience of the country: an abundant experience, to be sure, my Lords, in a country where it is well known, from the peculiar character of its inhabitants, that a man cannot anywhere put his foot without placing it upon some trap or mine, until he is perfectly acquainted with its localities. Nevertheless, he puts the whole country and a prince of nineteen, as appears from the evidence, into the hands of Mr. Markham, a man of twenty-one. We have no doubt of Mr. Markham's capacity; but he could have no experience in a country over which he possessed a general controlling power. Under these circumstances, we surely shall not wonder, if this young man fell into error. I do not like to treat harshly the errors into which a very young person may fall: but the man who employs him, and puts him into a situation for which he has neither capacity nor experience, is responsible for the consequences of such an appointment; and Mr. Hastings is doubly responsible in this case, because he placed Mr. Markham as Resident merely to show that he defied the authority of the Court of Directors.

But, my Lords, let us proceed. We find Mr. Hastings resolved to exact forty lacs from the country, although he had no proof that such a tribute could be fairly collected. He next assigns to this boy, the Rajah, emoluments amounting to about 60,000l. a year. Let us now see upon what grounds he can justify the assignment of these emoluments. I can perceive none but such as are founded upon the opinion of its being necessary to the support of the Rajah's dignity. Now, when Mr. Markham, who is the sole ostensible actor in the management of the new Rajah, as he had been a witness to the deposition of the former, comes before you to give an account of what he thought of Cheyt Sing, who appears to have properly supported the dignity of his situation, he tells you that about a lac or a lac and a half (10,000l. or 15,000l.) a year was as much as Cheyt Sing could spend. And yet this young creature, settled in the same country, and who was to pay 400,000l. a year, instead of 250,000l., tribute to the Company, was authorized by Mr. Hastings to collect and reserve to his own use 60,000l. out of the revenue. That is to say, he was to receive four times as much as was stated by Mr. Hastings, on Mr. Markham's evidence, to have been necessary to support him.

Your Lordships tread upon corruption everywhere. Why was such a large revenue given to the young Rajah to support his dignity, when, as they say, Cheyt Sing did not spend above a lac and half in support of his,—though it is known he had great establishments to maintain, that he had erected considerable buildings adorned with fine gardens, and, according to them, had made great preparations for war?

We must at length imagine that they knew the country could bear the impost imposed upon it. I ask, How did they know this? We have proved to you, by a paper presented here by Mr. Markham, that the net amount of the collections was about 360,000l. This is their own account, and was made up, as Mr. Markham says, by one of the clerks of Durbege Sing, together with his Persian moonshee, (a very fine council to settle the revenues of the kingdom!) in his private house. And with this account before them, they have dared to impose upon the necks of that unhappy people a tribute of 400,000l., together with an income for the Rajah of 60,000l. These sums the Naib, Durbege Sing, was bound to furnish, and left to get them as he could. Your Lordships will observe that I speak of the net proceeds of the collections. We have nothing to do with the gross amount. We are speaking of what came to the public treasury, which was no more than I have stated; and it was out of the public treasury that these payments were to be made, because there could be no other honest way of getting the money.

But let us now come to the main point, which is to ascertain what sums the country could really bear. Mr. Hastings maintains (whether in the speech of his counsel or otherwise I do not recollect) that the revenue of the country was 400,000l., that it constantly paid that sum, and flourished under the payment. In answer to this, I refer your Lordships, first, to Mr. Markham's declaration, and the Wassil Baakee, which is in page 1750 of the printed Minutes. I next refer your Lordships to Mr. Duncan's Reports, in page 2493. According to Mr. Duncan's public estimate of the revenue of Benares, the net collections of the very year we are speaking of, when Durbege Sing had the management, and when Mr. Markham, his Persian moonshee, and a clerk in his private house, made their estimates without any documents, or with whatever documents, or God only knows, for nothing appears on the record of the transaction,—the collections yielded in that year but 340,000l., that is, 20,000l. less than Mr. Markham's estimate. But take it which way you will, whether you take it at Mr. Markham's 360,000l., or at Mr. Duncan's 340,000l., your Lordships will see, that, after reserving 60,000l. for his own private expenses, the Rajah could not realize a sum nearly equal to the tribute demanded.

Your Lordships have also in evidence before you an account of the produce of the country for I believe full five years after this period, from which it appears that it never realized the forty lacs, or anything like it,—yielding only thirty-seven and thirty-nine lacs, or thereabouts, which is 20,000l. short of Mr. Markham's estimate, and 160,000l. short of Mr. Hastings's. On what data could the prisoner at your bar have formed this estimate? Where were all the clerks and mutsuddies, where were all the men of business in Benares, who could have given him complete information upon the subject? We do not find the trace of any of them; all our information is Mr. Markham's moonshee, and some clerk of Durbege Sing's employed in Mr. Markham's private counting-house, in estimating revenues of a country.

The disposable revenue was still further reduced by the jaghires which Mr. Hastings granted, but to what amount does not appear. He mentions the increase in the revenue by the confiscation of the estates of the Baboos, who had been in rebellion. This he rates at six lacs. But we have inspected the accounts, we have examined them with that sedulous attention which belongs to that branch of the legislature that has the care of the public revenues, and we have not found one trace of this addition. Whether these confiscations were ever actually made remains doubtful; but if they were made, the application or the receipt of the money they yielded does not appear in any account whatever. I leave your Lordships to judge of this.

But it may be said that Hastings might have been in an error. If he was in an error, my Lords, his error continued an extraordinary length of time. The error itself was also extraordinary in a man of business: it was an error of account. If his confidential agent, Mr. Markham, had originally contributed to lead him into the error, he soon perceived it. He soon informed Mr. Hastings that his expectations were erroneous, and that he had overrated the country. What, then, are we to think of his persevering in this error? Mr. Hastings might have formed extravagant and wild expectations, when he was going up the country to plunder; for we allow that avarice may often overcalculate the hoards that it is going to rob. If a thief is going to plunder a banker's shop, his avarice, when running the risk of his life, may lead him to imagine there is more money in the shop than there really is. But when this man was in possession of the country, how came he not to know and understand the condition of it better? In fact, he was well acquainted with it; for he has declared it to be his opinion that forty lacs was an overrated calculation, and that the country could not continue to pay this tribute at the very time he was imposing it. You have this admission in page 294 of the printed Minutes; but in the very face of it he says, if the Rajah will exert himself, and continue for some years the regular payment, he will then grant him a remission. Thus the Rajah was told, what he well knew, that he was overrated, but that at some time or another he was to expect a remission. And what, my Lords, was the condition upon which he was to obtain this promised indulgence? The punctual payment of that which Mr. Hastings declares he was not able to pay,—and which he could not pay without ruining the country, betraying his own honor and character, and acting directly contrary to the duties of the station in which Mr. Hastings had placed him. Thus this unfortunate man was compelled to have recourse to the most rigorous exaction, that he might be enabled to satisfy the exorbitant demand which had been made upon him.

But let us suppose that the country was able to afford the sum at which it was assessed, and that nothing was required but vigor and activity in the Rajah. Did Mr. Hastings endeavor to make his strength equal to the task imposed on him? No: the direct contrary. In proportion as he augmented the burdens of this man, in just that proportion he took away his strength and power of supporting these burdens. There was not one of the external marks of honor which attended the government of Cheyt Sing that he did not take away from the new Rajah; and still, when this new man came to his new authority, deprived of all external marks of consequence, and degraded in the opinion of his subjects, he was to extort from his people an additional revenue, payable to the Company, of fifteen lacs of rupees more than was paid by the late Rajah in all the plenitude of undivided authority. To increase this difficulty still more, the father and guardian of this inexperienced youth was a man who had no credit or reputation in the country. This circumstance alone was a sufficient drawback from the weight of his authority; but Mr. Hastings took care that he should be divested of it altogether; for, as our charge states, he placed him under the immediate direction of Mr. Markham, and consequently Mr. Markham was the governor of the country. Could a man with a reduced, divided, contemptible authority venture to strike such bold and hardy strokes as would be efficient without being oppressive? Could he or any other man, thus bound and shackled, execute such vigorous and energetic measures as were necessary to realize such an enormous tribute as was imposed upon this unhappy country?

My Lords, I must now call your attention to another circumstance, not mentioned in the charge, but connected with the appointment of the new Rajah, and of his Naib, Durbege Sing, and demonstrative of the unjust and cruel treatment to which they were exposed. It appears from a letter produced here by Mr. Markham, (upon which kind of correspondence I shall take the liberty to remark hereafter,) that the Rajah lived in perpetual apprehension of being removed, and that a person called Ussaun Sing was intended as his successor. Mr. Markham, in one part of his correspondence, tells you that the Rajah did not intend to hold the government any longer. Why? Upon a point of right, namely, that he did not possess it upon the same advantageous terms as Cheyt Sing; but he tells you in another letter, (and this is a much better key to the whole transaction,) that he was in dread of that Ussaun Sing whom I have just mentioned. This man Mr. Hastings kept ready to terrify the Rajah; and you will, in the course of these transactions, see that there is not a man in India, of any consideration, against whom Mr. Hastings did not keep a kind of pretender, to keep him in continual awe. This Ussaun Sing, whom Mr. Hastings brought up with him to Benares, was dreaded by Cheyt Sing not less than by his successor. We find that he was at first nominated Naib or acting governor of the country, but had never been put in actual possession of this high office, and Durbege Sing was appointed to it. Although Ussaun Sing was thus removed, he continued his pretensions, and constantly solicited the office. Thus the poor man appointed by Mr. Hastings, and actually in possession, was not only called upon to perform tasks beyond his strength, but was overawed by Mr. Markham, and terrified by Ussaun Sing, (the mortal enemy of the family,) who, like an accusing fiend, was continually at his post, and unceasingly reiterating his accusations. This Ussaun Sing was, as Mr. Markham tells you, one of the causes of the Rajah's continued dejection and despondency. But it does not appear that any of these circumstances were ever laid before the Council; the whole passed between Mr. Hastings and Mr. Markham.

Mr. Hastings having by his arbitrary will thus disposed of the revenue and of the landed property of Benares, we will now trace his further proceedings and their effects. He found the country most flourishing in agriculture and in trade; but not satisfied with the experiment he had made upon the government, upon the revenues, upon the reigning family, and upon all the landed property, he resolved to make as bold and as novel an experiment upon the commercial interests of the country. Accordingly he entirely changed that part of the revenue system which affects trade and commerce, the life and soul of a state. Without any advice that we know of, except Mr. Markham's, he sat down to change in every point the whole commercial system of that country; and he effected the change upon the same arbitrary principles which he had before acted upon, namely, his own arbitrary will. We are told, indeed, that he consulted bankers and merchants; but when your Lordships shall have learned what has happened from this experiment, you will easily see whether he did resort to proper sources of information or not. You will see that the mischief which has happened has proceeded from the exercise of arbitrary power. Arbitrary power, my Lords, is always a miserable creature. When a man once adopts it as the principle of his actions, no one dares to tell him a truth, no one dares to give him any information that is disagreeable to him; for all know that their life and fortune depend upon his caprice. Thus the man who lives in the exercise of arbitrary power condemns himself to eternal ignorance. Of this the prisoner at your bar affords us a striking example. This man, without advice, without assistance, and without resource, except in his own arbitrary power, stupidly ignorant in himself, and puffed up with the constant companion of ignorance, a blind presumption, alters the system of commercial imposts, and thereby ruined the whole trade of the country, leaving no one part of it undestroyed.

Let me now call your Lordships' attention to his assumption of power, without one word of communication with the Council at Calcutta, where the whole of these trading regulations might and ought to have been considered, and where they could have been deliberately examined and determined upon. By this assumption the Council was placed in the situation which I have before described: it must either confirm his acts, or again undo everything which had been done. He had provided not only against resistance, but almost against any inquiry into his wild projects. He had by his opium contracts put all vigilance asleep, and by his bullock and other contracts he had secured a variety of concealed interests, both abroad and at home. He was sure of the ratification of his acts by the Council, whenever he should please to inform them of his measures; and to his secret influence he trusted for impunity in his career of tyranny and oppression.

In bringing before you his arbitrary mode of imposing duties, I beg to remind your Lordships, that, when I examined Mr. Markham concerning the imposing of a duty of five per cent instead of the former duty of two, I asked him whether that five per cent was not laid on in such a manner as utterly to extinguish the trade, and whether it was not in effect and substance five times as much as had been paid before. What was his answer? Why, that many plans, which, when considered in the closet, look specious and plausible, will not hold when they come to be tried in practice, and that this plan was one of them. The additional duties, said he, have never since been exacted. But, my Lords, the very attempt to exact them utterly ruined the trade of the country. They were imposed upon a visionary theory, formed in his own closet, and the result was exactly what might have been anticipated. Was it not an abominable thing in Mr. Hastings to withhold from the Council the means of ascertaining the real operation of his taxes? He had no knowledge of trade himself; he cannot keep an account; he has no memory. In fact, we find him a man possessed of no one quality fit for any kind of business whatever. We find him pursuing his own visionary projects, without knowing anything of the nature or [of?] the circumstances under which the trade of the country was carried on. These projects might have looked very plausible: but when you come to examine the actual state of the trade, it is not merely a difference between five and two per cent, but it becomes a different mode of estimating the commodity, and it amounts to five times as much as was paid before. We bring this as an exemplification of this cursed mode of arbitrary proceeding, and to show you his total ignorance of the subject, and his total indifference about the event of the measure he was pursuing. When he began to perceive his blunders, he never took any means whatever to put the new regulations which these blunders had made necessary into execution, but he left all this mischievous project to rage in its full extent.

I have shown your Lordships how he managed the private property of the country, how he managed the government, and how he managed the trade. I am now to call your Lordships' attention to some of the consequences which have resulted from the instances of management, or rather gross mismanagement, which have been brought before you. Your Lordships will recollect that none of these violent and arbitrary measures, either in their conception or in the progress of their execution, were officially made known to the Council; and you will observe, as we proved, that the same criminal concealment existed with respect to the fatal consequences of these acts.

After the flight of Cheyt Sing, the revenues were punctually paid by the Naib, Durbege Sing, month by month, kist by kist, until the month of July, and then, as the country had suffered some distress, the Naib wished this kist, or instalment, to be thrown on the next month. You will ask why he wished to burden this month beyond the rest. I reply, The reason was obvious: the month of August is the last of the year, and he would, at its expiration, have the advantage of viewing the receipts of the whole year, and ascertaining the claim of the country to the remission of a part of the annual tribute which Mr. Hastings had promised, provided the instalments were paid regularly. It was well known to everybody that the country had suffered very considerably by the revolt, and by a drought which prevailed that year. The Rajah, therefore, expected to avail himself of Mr. Hastings's flattering promise, and to save by the delay the payment of one of the two kists. But mark the course that was taken. The two kists were at once demanded at the end of the year, and no remission of tribute was allowed. By the promise of remission Mr. Hastings tacitly acknowledged that the Rajah was overburdened; and he admits that the payment of the July kist was postponed at the Rajah's own desire. He must have seen the Rajah's motive for desiring delay, and he ought to have taken care that this poor man should not be oppressed and ruined by this compliance with requests founded on such motives.

So passed the year 1781. No complaints of arrears in Durbege Sing's payments appear on record before the month of April, 1782; and I wish your Lordships seriously to advert to the circumstances attending the evidence respecting these arrears, which has been produced for the first time by the prisoner in his defence here at your bar. This evidence does not appear in the Company's records; it does not appear in the book of the Benares correspondence; it does not appear in any documents to which the Commons could have access; it was unknown to the Directors, unknown to the Council, unknown to the Residents, Mr. Markham's successors, at Benares, unknown to the searching and inquisitive eye of the Commons of Great Britain. This important evidence was drawn out of Mr. Markham's pocket, in the presence of your Lordships. It consists of a private correspondence which he carried on with Mr. Hastings, unknown to the Council, after Durbege Sing had been appointed Naib, after the new government had been established, after Mr. Hastings had quitted that province, and had apparently wholly abandoned it, and when there was no reason whatever why the correspondence should not be public. This private correspondence of Mr. Markham's, now produced for the first time, is full of the bitterest complaints against Durbege Sing. These clandestine complaints, these underhand means of accomplishing the ruin of a man, without the knowledge of his true and proper judges, we produce to your Lordships as a heavy aggravation of our charge, and as a proof of a wicked conspiracy to destroy the man. For if there was any danger of his falling into arrears when the heavy accumulated kists came upon him, the Council ought to have known that danger; they ought to have known every particular of these complaints: for Mr. Hastings had then carried into effect his own plans.

I ought to have particularly marked for your Lordships' attention this second era of clandestine correspondence between Mr. Hastings and Mr. Markham. It commenced after Mr. Hastings had quitted Benares, and had nothing to do with it but as Governor-General: even after his extraordinary, and, as we contend, illegal, power had completely expired, the same clandestine correspondence was carried on. He apparently considered Benares as his private property; and just as a man acts with his private steward about his private estate, so he acted with the Resident at Benares. He receives from him and answers letters containing a series of complaints against Durbege Sing, which began in April and continued to the month of November, without making any public communication of them. He never laid one word of this correspondence before the Council until the 29th of November, and he had then completely settled the fate of this Durbege Sing.

This clandestine correspondence we charge against him as an act of rebellion; for he was bound to lay before the Council the whole of his correspondence relative to the revenue and all the other affairs of the country. We charge it not only as rebellion against the orders of the Company and the laws of the land, but as a wicked plot to destroy this man, by depriving him of any opportunity of defending himself before the Council, his lawful judges. I wish to impress it strongly on your Lordships' minds, that neither the complaints of Mr. Markham nor the exculpations of Durbege Sing were ever made known till Mr. Markham was examined in this hall.

The first intimation afforded the Council of what had been going on at Benares from April, 1782, at which time, Mr. Markham says, the complaints against Durbege Sing had risen to serious importance, was in a letter dated the 27th of November following. This letter was sent to the Council from Nia Serai, in the Ganges, where Mr. Hastings had retired for the benefit of the air. During the whole time he was in Calcutta, it does not appear upon the records that he had ever held any communication with the Council upon the subject. The letter is in the printed Minutes, page 298, and is as follows.

"The Governor-General.—I desire the Secretary to lay the accompanying letters from Mr. Markham before the board, and request that orders may be immediately sent to him concerning the subjects contained in them. It may be necessary to inform the board, that, on repeated information from Mr. Markham, which indeed was confirmed to me beyond a doubt by other channels, and by private assurances which I could trust, that the affairs of that province were likely to fall into the greatest confusion from the misconduct of Baboo Durbege Sing, whom I had appointed the Naib, fearing the dangerous consequences of a delay, and being at too great a distance to consult the members of the board, who I knew could repose that confidence in my local knowledge as to admit of this occasional exercise of my own separate authority, I wrote to Mr. Markham the letter to which he alludes, dated the 29th of September last, of which I now lay before the board a copy. The first of the accompanying letters from Mr. Markham arrived at a time when a severe return of my late illness obliged me, by the advice of my physicians, to leave Calcutta for the benefit of the country air, and prevented me from bringing it earlier before the notice of the board."

I have to remark upon this part of the letter, that he claims for himself an exercise of his own authority. He had now no delegation, and therefore no claim to separate authority. He was only a member of the board, obliged to do everything according to the decision of the majority, and yet he speaks of his own separate authority; and after complimenting himself, he requests its confirmation. The complaints of Mr. Markham had been increasing, growing, and multiplying upon him, from the month of April preceding, and he had never given the least intimation of it to the board until he wrote this letter. This was at so late a period that he then says, "The time won't wait for a remedy; I am obliged to use my own separate authority"; although he had had abundant time for laying the whole matter before the Council.

He next goes on to say,—"It had, indeed, been my intention, but for the same cause, to have requested the instructions of the board for the conduct of Mr. Markham in the difficulties which he had to encounter immediately after the date of my letter to him, and to have recommended the substance of it for an order to the board." He seems to have promised Mr. Markham, that, if the violent act which Mr. Markham proposed, and which he, Mr. Hastings, ordered, was carried into execution, an authority should be procured from the board. He, however, did not get Mr. Markham such an authority. Why? Because he was resolved, as he has told you, to act by his own separate authority; and because, as he has likewise told you, that he disobeys the orders of the Court of Directors, and defies the laws of his country, as a signal of his authority.

Now what does he recommend to the board? That it will be pleased to confirm the appointment which Mr. Markham made in obedience to his individual orders, as well as the directions which he had given him to exact from Baboo Durbege Sing with the utmost rigor every rupee of the collections, and either to confine him at Benares or send him to Chunar and imprison him there until the whole of his arrears were paid up. Here, then, my Lords, you have, what plainly appears in every act of Mr. Hastings, a feeling of resentment for some personal injury. "I feel myself," says he, "and may be allowed on such an occasion to acknowledge it, personally hurt at the ingratitude of this man, and the discredit which his ill conduct has thrown on my appointment of him. The Rajah himself, scarcely arrived at the verge of manhood, was in understanding but little advanced beyond the term of childhood; and it had been the policy of Cheyt Sing to keep him equally secluded from the world and from business." This is the character Mr. Hastings gives of a man whom he appointed to govern the country. He goes on to say of Durbege Sing,—"As he was allowed a jaghire of a very liberal amount, to enable him to maintain a state and consequence suitable both to the relation in which he stood to the Rajah and the high office which had been assigned to him, and sufficient also to free him from the temptation of little and mean peculations, it is therefore my opinion, and I recommend, that Mr. Markham be ordered to divest him of his jaghire, and reunite it to the malguzaree, or the land paying its revenue through the Rajah to the Company. The opposition made by the Rajah and the old Ranny, both equally incapable of judging for themselves, do certainly originate from some secret influence which ought to be checked by a decided and peremptory declaration of the authority of the board, and a denunciation of their displeasure at their presumption. If they can be induced to yield the appearance of a cheerful acquiescence in the new arrangement, and to adopt it as a measure formed with their participation, it would be better than that it should be done by a declared act of compulsion; but at all events it ought to be done." My Lords, it had been already done: the Naib was dismissed; he was imprisoned; his jaghire was confiscated: all these things were done by Mr. Hastings's orders. He had resolved to take the whole upon himself; he had acted upon that resolution before he addressed this letter to the board.

Thus, my Lords, was this unhappy man punished without any previous trial, or any charges, except the complaints of Mr. Markham, and some other private information which Mr. Hastings said he had received. Before the poor object of these complaints could make up his accounts, before a single step was taken, judicially or officially, to convict him of any crime, he was sent to prison, and his private estates confiscated.

My Lords, the Commons of Great Britain claim from you, that no man shall be imprisoned till a regular charge is made against him, and the accused fairly heard in his defence. They claim from you, that no man shall be imprisoned on a matter of account, until the account is settled between the parties. And claiming this, we do say that the prisoner's conduct towards Durbege Sing was illegal, unjust, violent, and oppressive. The imprisonment of this man was clearly illegal on the part of Mr. Hastings, as he acted without the authority of the Council, and doubly oppressive, as the imprisoned man was thereby disabled from settling his account with the numberless sub-accountants whom he had to deal with in the collection of the revenue.

Having now done with these wicked, flagitious, abandoned, and abominable acts, I shall proceed to the extraordinary powers given by Mr. Hastings to his instrument, Mr. Markham, who was employed in perpetrating these acts, and to the very extraordinary instructions which he gave this instrument for his conduct in the execution of the power intrusted to him. In a letter to Mr. Markham, he says,—

"I need not tell you, my dear Sir, that I possess a very high opinion of your abilities, and that I repose the utmost confidence in your integrity." He might have had reason for both, but he scarcely left to Mr. Markham the use of either. He arbitrarily imposed upon him the tasks which he wished him to execute, and he engaged to bear out his acts by his own power. "From your long residence at Benares," says he, "and from the part you have had in the business of that zemindary, you must certainly best know the men who are most capable and deserving of public employment. From among these I authorize you to nominate a Naib to the Rajah, in the room of Durbege Sing, whom, on account of his ill conduct, I think it necessary to dismiss from that office. It will be hardly necessary to except Ussaun Sing from the description of men to whom I have limited your choice, yet it may not be improper to apprise you that I will on no terms consent to his being Naib. In forming the arrangements consequent upon this new appointment, I request you will, as far as you can with propriety, adopt those which were in use during the life of Bulwant Sing,—so far, at least, as to have distinct offices for distinct purposes, independent of each other, and with proper men at the head of each; so that one office may detect or prevent any abuses or irregularities in the others, and together form a system of reciprocal checks. Upon that principle, I desire you will in particular establish, under whatever names, one office of receipts, and another of treasury. The officers of both must be responsible for the truth and regularity of their respective accounts, but not subject in the statement of them to the control or interference of the Rajah or Naib; nor should they be removable at pleasure, but for manifest misconduct only. At the head of one or other of these offices I could wish to see the late Buckshee, Rogoober Dyall. His conduct in his former office, his behavior on the revolt of Cheyt Sing, and particularly at the fall of Bidjegur, together with his general character, prove him worthy of employment, and of the notice of our government. It is possible that he may have objections to holding an office under the present Rajah: offer him one, however, and let him know that you do so by my directions." He then goes on to say,—"Do not wholly neglect the Rajah; consult with him in appearance, but in appearance only. His situation requires that you should do that much; but his youth and inexperience forbid that you should do more."

You see, my Lords, he has completely put the whole government into the hands of a man who had no name, character, or official situation, but that of the Company's Resident at that place. Let us now see what is the office of a Resident. It is to reside at the court of the native prince, to give the Council notice of the transactions that are going on there, and to take care that the tribute be regularly paid, kist by kist. But we have seen that Mr. Markham, the Resident at Benares, was invested by Mr. Hastings with supreme authority in this unhappy country. He was to name whoever he pleased to its government, with the exception of Ussaun Sing, and to drive out the person who had possessed it under an authority which could only be revoked by the Council. Thus Mr. Hastings delegated to Mr. Markham an authority which he himself did not really possess, and which could only be legally exercised through the medium of the Council.

With respect to Durbege Sing, he adds,—"He has dishonored my choice of him." My choice of him! "It now only remains to guard against the ill effects of his misconduct, to detect and punish it. To this end I desire that the officers to be appointed in consequence of these instructions do, with as much accuracy and expedition as possible, make out an account of the receipts, disbursements, and transactions of Durbege Sing, during the time he has acted as Naib of the zemindary of Benares; and I desire you will, in my name, assure him, that, unless he pays at the limited time every rupee of the revenue due to the Company, his life shall answer for the default. I need not caution you to provide against his flight, and the removal of his effects." He here says, my Lords, that he will detect and punish him; but the first thing he does, without any detection, even before the accounts he talks of are made up, and without knowing whether he has got the money or not, he declares that he will have every rupee paid at the time, or otherwise the Naib's life shall pay for it.

Is this the language of a British governor,—of a person appointed to govern by law nations subject to the dominion and under the protection of this kingdom? Is he to order a man to be first imprisoned and deprived of his property, then, for an inquiry to be made, and to declare, during that inquiry, that, if every rupee of a presumed embezzlement be not paid up, the life of his victim shall answer for it? And accordingly this man's life did answer for it,—as I have already had occasion to mention to your Lordships.

I will now read Mr. Markham's letter to the Council, in which he enters into the charges against Durbege Sing, after this unhappy man had been imprisoned.

Benares, 24th of October, 1782.—"I am sorry that my duty obliges me to mention to your Honorable Board my apprehensions of a severe loss accruing to the Honorable Company, if Baboo Durbege Sing is continued in the Naibut during the present year. I ground my fears on the knowledge I have had of his mismanagement, the bad choice he has made of his aumils, the mistrust which they have of him, and the several complaints which have been preferred to me by the ryots of almost every purgunnah in the zemindary. I did not choose to waste the time of your Honorable Board in listening to my representations of his inattention to the complaints of oppression which were made to him by his ryots, as I hoped that a letter he received from the Honorable Governor-General would have had weight sufficient to have made him more regular in his business, and more careful of his son's interest."

My Lords, think of the condition of your government in India! Here is a Resident at Benares exercising power not given to him by virtue of his office, but given only by the private orders of the prisoner at your bar. And what is it he does? He says, he did not choose to trouble the Council with a particular account of his reasons for removing a man who possessed an high office under their immediate appointment. The Council was not to know them: he did not choose to waste the time of their honorable board in listening to the complaints of the people. No: the honorable board is not to have its time wasted in that improper manner; therefore, without the least inquiry or inquisition, the man must be imprisoned, and deprived of his office; he must have all his property confiscated, and be threatened with the loss of his life.

These are crimes, my Lords, for which the Commons of Great Britain knock at the breasts of your consciences, and call for justice. They would think themselves dishonored forever, if they had not brought these crimes before your Lordships, and with the utmost energy demanded your vindictive justice, to the fullest extent in which it can be rendered.

But there are some aggravating circumstances in these crimes, which I have not yet stated. It appears that this unhappy and injured man was, without any solicitation of his own, placed in a situation the duties of which even Mr. Hastings considered it impossible for him to execute. Instead of supporting him with the countenance of the supreme government, Mr. Hastings did everything to lessen his weight, his consequence, and authority. And when the business of the collection became embarrassed, without any fault of his, that has ever yet been proved, Mr. Markham instituted an inquiry. What kind of inquiry it was that would or could be made your Lordships will judge. While this was going on, Mr. Markham tells you, that, in consequence of orders which he had received, he first put him into a gentle confinement. Your Lordships know what that confinement was; and you know what it is for a man of his rank to be put into any confinement. We have shown he was thereby incapable of transacting business. His life had been threatened, if he should not pay in the balance of his accounts within a short limited time; still he was subjected to confinement, while he had money accounts to settle with the whole country. Could a man in gaol, dishonored and reprobated, take effectual means to recover the arrears which he was called upon to pay? Could he, in such a situation, recover the money which was unpaid to him, in such an extensive district as Benares? Yet Mr. Markham tells the Council he thought proper "that Durbege Sing should be put under a gentle confinement, until I shall receive your Honorable Board's orders for any future measures." Thus Mr. Markham, without any orders from the Council, assumed an authority to do that which we assert a Resident at Benares had no right to do, but to which he was instigated by Mr. Hastings's recommendation that Durbege Sing should be prevented from flight.

Now, my Lords, was it to be expected that a man of Durbege Sing's rank should suffer these hardships and indignities, and at the same time kiss the rod and say, "I have deserved it all"? We know that all mankind revolts at oppression, if it be real; we know that men do not willingly submit to punishment, just or unjust; and we find that Durbege Sing had near relatives, who used for his relief all the power which was left them,—that of remonstrating with his oppressors. Two arzees, or petitions, were presented to the Council, of which we shall first call your Lordships' attention to one from the dowager princess of Benares, in favor of her child and of her family.

From the Ranny, widow of Bulwant Sing. Received the 15th of December, 1782.

"I and my children have no hopes but from your Highness, and our honor and rank are bestowed by you. Mr. Markham, from the advice of my enemies, having protected the farmers, would not permit the balances to be collected. Baboo Durbege Sing frequently before desired that gentleman to show his resentment against the people who owed balances, that the balances might be collected, and to give ease to his mind for the present year, conformably to the requests signed by the presence, that he might complete the bundobust. But that gentleman would not listen to him, and, having appointed a mutsuddy and tahsildar, employs them in the collections of the year, and sent two companies of sepoys and arrested Baboo Durbege Sing upon this charge, that he had secreted in his house many lacs of rupees from the collections, and he carried the mutsuddies and treasurer with their papers to his own presence. He neither ascertained this matter by proofs, nor does he complete the balance of the sircar from the jaidads of the balances: right or wrong, he is resolved to destroy our lives. As we have no asylum or hope except from your Highness, and as the Almighty has formed your mind to be a distributor of justice in these times, I therefore hope from the benignity of your Highness, that you will inquire and do justice in this matter, and that an aumeen may be appointed from the presence, that, having discovered the crimes or innocence of Baboo Durbege Sing, he may report to the presence. Further particulars will be made known to your Highness by the arzee of my son Rajah Mehip Narrain Bahadur."

Arzee from Rajah Mehip Narrain Bahadur. Received 15th December, 1782.

"I before this had the honor of addressing several arzees to your presence; but, from my unfortunate state, not one of them has been perused by your Highness, that my situation might be fully learnt by you. The case is this. Mr. Markham, from the advice of my enemies, having occasioned several kinds of losses, and given protection to those who owed balances, prevented the balance from being collected,—for this reason, that, the money not being paid in time, the Baboo might be convicted of inability. From this reason, all the owers of balances refused to pay the malwajib of the sircar. Before this, the Baboo had frequently desired that gentleman to show his resentment against the persons who owed the balances, that the balances might be paid, and that his mind might be at ease for the present year, so that the bundobust of the present year might be completed,—adding, that, if, next year, such kinds of injuries, and protection of the farmers, were to happen, he should not be able to support it."

I am here to remark to your Lordships, that the last of these petitions begins by stating, "I before this have had the honor of addressing several arzees to your presence; but, from my unfortunate state, not one of them has been perused by your Highness." My Lords, if there is any one right secured to the subject, it is that of presenting a petition and having that petition noticed. This right grows in importance in proportion to the power and despotic nature of the governments to which the petitioner is subject: for where there is no sort of remedy from any fixed laws, nothing remains but complaint, and prayers, and petitions. This was the case in Benares: for Mr. Hastings had destroyed every trace of law, leaving only the police of the single city of Benares. Still we find this complaint, prayer, and petition was not the first, but only one of many, which Mr. Hastings took no notice of, entirely despised, and never would suffer to be produced to the Council; which never knew anything, until this bundle of papers came before them, of the complaint of Mr. Markham against Durbege Sing, or of the complaint of Durbege Sing against Mr. Markham.

Observe, my Lords, the person that put Durbege Sing in prison was Mr. Markham; while the complaint in the arzee is, that Mr. Markham was himself the cause of the very failure for which he imprisoned him. Now what was the conduct of Mr. Hastings as judge? He has two persons before him: the one in the ostensible care of the revenue of the country; the other his own agent, acting under his authority. The first is accused by the second of default in his payments; the latter is complained of by the former, who says that the occasion of the accusation had been furnished by him, the accuser. The judge, instead of granting redress, dismisses the complaints against Mr. Markham with reprehension, and sends the complainant to rot in prison, without making one inquiry, or giving himself the trouble of stating to Mr. Markham the complaints against him, and desiring him to clear himself from them. My Lords, if there were nothing but this to mark the treacherous and perfidious nature of his conduct, this would be sufficient.

In this state of things, Mr. Hastings thus writes.

"To Mr. Markham. The measures which you have taken with Baboo Durbege Sing are perfectly right and proper, so far as they go; and we now direct that you exact from him, with the utmost rigor, every rupee of the collections which it shall appear that he has made and not brought to account, and either confine him at Benares, or send him prisoner to Chunar, and keep him in confinement until he shall have discharged the whole of the amount due from him."

He here employs the very person against whom the complaint is made to imprison the complainant. He approves the conduct of his agent without having heard his defence, and leaves him, at his option, to keep his victim a prisoner at Benares, or to imprison him in the fortress of Chunar, the infernal place to which he sends the persons whom he has a mind to extort money from.

Your Lordships will be curious to know how this debt of Durbege Sing stood at the time of his imprisonment. I will state the matter to your Lordships briefly, and in plain language, referring you for the particulars of the account to the papers which are in your Minutes. It appears from them, that, towards the end of the yearly account in 1782, a kist or payment of eight lacs (about 80,000l.), the balance of the annual tribute, was due. In part of this kist, Durbege Sing paid two lacs (20,000l.). Of the remaining six lacs (60,000l.), the outstanding debts in the country due to the revenue, but not collected by the Naib, amounted to four lacs (40,000l.). Thus far the account is not controverted by the accusing party. But Mr. Markham asserts that he shall be able to prove that the Naib had also actually received the other two lacs (20,000l.), and consequently was an actual defaulter to that amount, and had, upon the whole, suffered the annual tribute to fall six lacs in arrear. The Naib denies the receipt of the two lacs just mentioned, and challenges inquiry; but no inquiries appear to have been made, and to this hour Mr. Markham has produced no proof of the fact. With respect to the arrear of the tribute money which appeared on the balance of the whole account, the Naib defended himself by alleging the distresses of the country, the diminution of his authority, and the want of support from the supreme government in the collection of the revenues; and he asserts that he has assets sufficient, if time and power be allowed him for collecting them, to discharge the whole balance due to the Company. The immediate payment of the whole balance was demanded, and Durbege Sing, unable to comply with the demand, was sent to prison. Thus stood the business, when Mr. Markham, soon after he had sent the Naib to prison, quitted the Residency. He was succeeded by Mr. Benn, who acted exactly upon the same principle. He declares that the six lacs demanded were not demanded upon the principle of its having been actually collected by him, but upon the principle of his having agreed to pay it. "We have," say Mr. Hastings's agents to the Naib, "we have a Jew's bond. If it is in your bond, we will have it, or we will have a pound of your flesh: whether you have received it or not is no business of ours." About this time some hopes were entertained by the Resident that the Naib's personal exertions in collecting the arrears of the tribute might be useful. These hopes procured him a short liberation from his confinement. He was let out of prison, and appears to have made another payment of half a lac of rupees. Still the terms of the bond were insisted on, although Mr. Hastings had allowed that these terms were extravagant, and only one lac and a half of the money which had been actually received remained unpaid. One would think that common charity, that common decency, that common regard to the decorum of life would, under such circumstances, have hindered Mr. Hastings from imprisoning him again. But, my Lords, he was imprisoned again; he continued in prison till Mr. Hastings quitted the country; and there he soon after died,—a victim to the enormous oppression which has been detailed to your Lordships.