Chapter IV: Part 4

Our wonderful minister, as you all know, formed a new plan, a plan _insigne, recens, indictum ore alio_, a plan for supporting the freedom of our Constitution by court intrigues, and for removing its corruptions by Indian delinquency. To carry that bold, paradoxical design into execution, sufficient funds and apt instruments became necessary. You are perfectly sensible that a Parliamentary reform occupies his thoughts day and night, as an essential member in this extraordinary project. In his anxious researches upon this subject, natural instinct, as well as sound policy, would direct his eyes and settle his choice on Paul Benfield. Paul Benfield is the grand Parliamentary reformer, the reformer to whom the whole choir of reformers bow, and to whom even the right honorable gentleman himself must yield the palm: for what region in the empire, what city, what borough, what county, what tribunal in this kingdom is not full of his labors? Others have been only speculators; he is the grand practical reformer; and whilst the Chancellor of the Exchequer pledges in vain the man and the minister, to increase the provincial members, Mr. Benfield has auspiciously and practically begun it. Leaving far behind him even Lord Camelford's generous design of bestowing Old Sarum on the Bank of England, Mr. Benfield has thrown in the borough of Cricklade to reinforce the county representation. Not content with this, in order to station a steady phalanx for all future reforms, this public-spirited usurer, amidst his charitable toils for the relief of India, did not forget the poor, rotten Constitution of his native country. For her, he did not disdain to stoop to the trade of a wholesale upholsterer for this House,--to furnish it, not with the faded tapestry figures of antiquated merit, such as decorate, and may reproach, some other houses, but with real, solid, living patterns of true modern virtue. Paul Benfield made (reckoning himself) no fewer than eight members in the last Parliament. What copious streams of pure blood must he not have transfused into the veins of the present!

But what is even more striking than the real services of this new-imported patriot is his modesty. As soon as he had conferred this benefit on the Constitution, he withdrew himself from our applause. He conceived that the duties of a member of Parliament (which with the elect faithful, the true believers, the _Islam_ of Parliamentary reform, are of little or no merit, perhaps not much better than specious sins) might he as well attended to in India as in England, and the means of reformation to Parliament itself be far better provided. Mr. Benfield was therefore no sooner elected than he set off for Madras, and defrauded the longing eyes of Parliament. We have never enjoyed in this House the luxury of beholding that minion of the human race, and contemplating that visage which has so long reflected the happiness of nations.

It was therefore not possible for the minister to consult personally with this great man. What, then, was he to do? Through a sagacity that never failed him in these pursuits, he found out, in Mr. Benfield's representative, his exact resemblance. A specific attraction, by which he gravitates towards all such characters, soon brought our minister into a close connection with Mr. Benfield's agent and attorney, that is, with the grand contractor, (whom I name to honor,) Mr. Richard Atkinson,--a name that will be well remembered as long as the records of this House, as long as the records of the British Treasury, as long as the monumental debt of England, shall endure.

This gentleman, Sir, acts as attorney for Mr. Paul Benfield. Every one who hears me is well acquainted with the sacred friendship and the steady mutual attachment that subsists between him and the present minister. As many members as chose to attend in the first session of this Parliament can best tell their own feelings at the scenes which were then acted. How much that honorable gentleman was consulted in the original frame and fabric of the bill, commonly called Mr. Pitt's India Bill, is matter only of conjecture, though by no means difficult to divine. But the public was an indignant witness of the ostentation with which the measure was made his own, and the authority with which he brought up clause after clause, to stuff and fatten the rankness of that corrupt act. As fast as the clauses were brought up to the table, they were accepted. No hesitation, no discussion. They were received by the new minister, not with approbation, but with implicit submission. The reformation may be estimated by seeing who was the reformer. Paul Benfield's associate and agent was held up to the world as legislator of Hindostan. But it was necessary to authenticate the coalition between the men of intrigue in India and the minister of intrigue in England by a studied display of the power of this their connecting link. Every trust, every honor, every distinction, was to be heaped upon him. He was at once made a Director of the India Company, made an alderman of London, and to be made, if ministry could prevail, (and I am sorry to say how near, how very near, they were prevailing,) representative of the capital of this kingdom. But to secure his services against all risk, he was brought in for a ministerial borough. On his part, he was not wanting in zeal for the common cause. His advertisements show his motives, and the merits upon which he stood. For your minister, this worn-out veteran submitted to enter into the dusty field of the London contest; and you all remember that in the same virtuous cause he submitted to keep a sort of public office or counting-house, where the whole business of the last general election was managed. It was openly managed by the direct agent and attorney of Benfield. It was managed upon Indian principles and for an Indian interest. This was the golden cup of abominations,--this the chalice of the fornications of rapine, usury, and oppression, which was held out by the gorgeous Eastern harlot,--which so many of the people, so many of the nobles of this land had drained to the very dregs. Do you think that no reckoning was to follow this lewd debauch? that no payment was to be demanded for this riot of public drunkenness and national prostitution? Here, you have it here before you! The principal of the grand election-manager must be indemnified; accordingly, the claims of Benfield and his crew must be put above all inquiry.

For several years Benfield appeared as the chief proprietor, as well as the chief agent, director, and controller of this system of debt. The worthy chairman of the Company has stated the claims of this single gentleman on the Nabob of Arcot as amounting to five hundred thousand pound.[58] Possibly at the time of the chairman's state they might have been as high. Eight hundred thousand pound had been mentioned some time before;[59] and, according to the practice of shifting the names of creditors in these transactions, and reducing or raising the debt itself at pleasure, I think it not impossible that at one period the name of Benfield might have stood before those frightful figures. But my best information goes to fix his share no higher than four hundred thousand pounds. By the scheme of the present ministry for adding to the principal twelve per cent from the year 1777 to the year 1781, four hundred thousand pounds, that smallest of the sums ever mentioned for Mr. Benfield, will form a capital of 592,000_l._ at six per cent. Thus, besides the arrears of three years, amounting to 106,500_l._, (which, as fast as received, may be legally lent out at twelve per cent,) Benfield has received, by the ministerial grant before you, an annuity of 35,520_l._ a year, charged on the public revenues.

Our mirror of ministers of finance did not think this enough for the services of such a friend as Benfield. He found that Lord Macartney, in order to frighten the Court of Directors from the project of obliging the Nabob to give soucar security for his debt, assured them, that, if they should take that step, Benfield[60] would infallibly be the soucar, and would thereby become the entire master of the Carnatic. What Lord Macartney thought sufficient to deter the very agents and partakers with Benfield in his iniquities was the inducement to the two right honorable gentlemen to order this very soucar security to be given, and to recall Benfield to the city of Madras from the sort of decent exile into which he had been relegated by Lord Macartney. You must therefore consider Benfield as soucar security for 480,000_l._ a year, which, at twenty-four per cent, (supposing him contented with that profit,) will, with the interest of his old debt, produce an annual income of 149,520_l._ a year.

Here is a specimen of the new and pure aristocracy created by the right honorable gentleman,[61] as the support of the crown and Constitution against the old, corrupt, refractory, natural interests of this kingdom; and this is the grand counterpoise against all odious coalitions of these interests. A single Benfield outweighs them all: a criminal, who long since ought to have fattened the region kites with his offal, is by his Majesty's ministers enthroned in the government of a great kingdom, and enfeoffed with an estate which in the comparison effaces the splendor of all the nobility of Europe. To bring a little more distinctly into view the true secret of this dark transaction, I beg you particularly to advert to the circumstances which I am going to place before you.

The general corps of creditors, as well as Mr. Benfield himself, not looking well into futurity, nor presaging the minister of this day, thought it not expedient for their common interest that such a name as his should stand at the head of their list. It was therefore agreed amongst them that Mr. Benfield should disappear, by making over his debt to Messrs. Taylor, Majendie, and Call, and should in return be secured by their bond.

The debt thus exonerated of so great a weight of its odium, and otherwise reduced from its alarming bulk, the agents thought they might venture to print a list of the creditors. This was done for the first time in the year 1783, during the Duke of Portland's administration. In this list the name of Benfield was not to be seen. To this strong negative testimony was added the further testimony of the Nabob of Arcot. That prince[62] (or rather Mr. Benfield for him) writes to the Court of Directors a letter[63] full of complaints and accusations against Lord Macartney, conveyed in such terms as were natural for one of Mr. Benfield's habits and education to employ. Amongst the rest he is made to complain of his Lordship's endeavoring to prevent an intercourse of politeness and sentiment between him and Mr. Benfield; and to aggravate the affront, he expressly declares Mr. Benfield's visits to be only on account of respect and of gratitude, as no pecuniary transaction subsisted between them.

Such, for a considerable space of time, was the outward form of the loan of 1777, in which Mr. Benfield had no sort of concern. At length intelligence arrived at Madras, that this debt, which had always been renounced by the Court of Directors, was rather like to become the subject of something more like a criminal inquiry than of any patronage or sanction from Parliament. Every ship brought accounts, one stronger than the other, of the prevalence of the determined enemies of the Indian system. The public revenues became an object desperate to the hopes of Mr. Benfield; he therefore resolved to fall upon his associates, and, in violation of that faith which subsists among those who have abandoned all other, commences a suit in the Mayor's Court against Taylor, Majendie, and Call, for the bond given to him, when he agreed to disappear for his own benefit as well as that of the common concern. The assignees of his debt, who little expected the springing of this mine, even from such an engineer as Mr. Benfield, after recovering their first alarm, thought it best to take ground on the real state of the transaction. They divulged the whole mystery, and were prepared to plead that they had never received from Mr. Benfield any other consideration for the bond than a transfer, in trust for himself, of his demand on the Nabob of Arcot. An universal indignation arose against the perfidy of Mr. Benfield's proceeding; the event of the suit was looked upon as so certain, that Benfield was compelled to retreat as precipitately as he had advanced boldly; he gave up his bond, and was reinstated in his original demand, to wait the fortune of other claimants. At that time, and at Madras, this hope was dull indeed; but at home another scene was preparing.

It was long before any public account of this discovery at Madras had arrived in England, that the present minister and his Board of Control thought fit to determine on the debt of 1777. The recorded proceedings at this time knew nothing of any debt to Benfield. There was his own testimony, there was the testimony of the list, there was the testimony of the Nabob of Arcot, against it. Yet such was the ministers' feeling of the true secret of this transaction, that they thought proper, in the teeth of all these testimonies, to give him license to return to Madras. Here the ministers were under some embarrassment. Confounded between their resolution of rewarding the good services of Benfield's friends and associates in England, and the shame of sending that notorious incendiary to the court of the Nabob of Arcot, to renew his intrigues against the British government, at the time they authorize his return, they forbid him, under the severest penalties, from any conversation with the Nabob or his ministers: that is, they forbid his communication with the very person on account of his dealings with whom they permit his return to that city. To overtop this contradiction, there is not a word restraining him from the freest intercourse with the Nabob's second son, the real author of all that is done in the Nabob's name; who, in conjunction with this very Benfield, has acquired an absolute dominion over that unhappy man, is able to persuade him to put his signature to whatever paper they please, and often without any communication of the contents. This management was detailed to them at full length by Lord Macartney, and they cannot pretend ignorance of it.[64]

I believe, after this exposure of facts, no man can entertain a doubt of the collusion of ministers with the corrupt interest of the delinquents in India. Whenever those in authority provide for the interest of any person, on the real, but concealed state of his affairs, without regard to his avowed, public, and ostensible pretences, it must be presumed that they are in confederacy with him, because they act for him on the same fraudulent principles on which he acts for himself. It is plain that the ministers were fully apprised of Benfield's real situation, which he had used means to conceal, whilst concealment answered his purposes. They were, or the person on whom they relied was, of the cabinet council of Benfield, in the very depth of all his mysteries. An honest magistrate compels men to abide by one story. An equitable judge would not hear of the claim of a man who had himself thought proper to renounce it. With such a judge his shuffling and prevarication would have damned his claims; such a judge never would have known, but in order to animadvert upon, proceedings of that character.

I have thus laid before you, Mr. Speaker, I think with sufficient clearness, the connection of the ministers with Mr. Atkinson at the general election; I have laid open to you the connection of Atkinson with Benfield; I have shown Benfield's employment of his wealth in creating a Parliamentary interest to procure a ministerial protection; I have set before your eyes his large concern in the debt, his practices to hide that concern from the public eye, and the liberal protection which he has received from the minister. If this chain of circumstances does not lead you necessarily to conclude that the minister has paid to the avarice of Benfield the services done by Benfield's connections to his ambition, I do not know anything short of the confession of the party that can persuade you of his guilt. Clandestine and collusive practice can only be traced by combination and comparison of circumstances. To reject such combination and comparison is to reject the only means of detecting fraud; it is, indeed, to give it a patent and free license to cheat with impunity.

I confine myself to the connection of ministers, mediately or immediately, with only two persons concerned in this debt. How many others, who support their power and greatness within and without doors, are concerned originally, or by transfers of these debts, must be left to general opinion. I refer to the reports of the Select Committee for the proceedings of some of the agents in these affairs, and their attempts, at least, to furnish ministers with the means of buying General Courts, and even whole Parliaments, in the gross.[65]

I know that the ministers will think it little less than acquittal, that they are not charged with having taken to themselves some part of the money of which they have made so liberal a donation to their partisans, though the charge may be indisputably fixed upon the corruption of their politics. For my part, I follow their crimes to that point to which legal presumptions and natural indications lead me, without considering what species of evil motive tends most to aggravate or to extenuate the guilt of their conduct. But if I am to speak my private sentiments, I think that in a thousand cases for one it would be far less mischievous to the public, and full as little dishonorable to themselves, to be polluted with direct bribery, than thus to become a standing auxiliary to the oppression, usury, and peculation of multitudes, in order to obtain a corrupt support to their power. It is by bribing, not so often by being bribed, that wicked politicians bring rum on mankind. Avarice is a rival to the pursuits of many. It finds a multitude of checks, and many opposers, in every walk of life. But the objects of ambition are for the few; and every person who aims at indirect profit, and therefore wants other protection than innocence and law, instead of its rival, becomes its instrument. There is a natural allegiance and fealty due to this domineering, paramount evil, from all the vassal vices, which acknowledge its superiority, and readily militate under its banners; and it is under that discipline alone that avarice is able to spread to any considerable extent, or to render itself a general, public mischief. It is therefore no apology for ministers, that they have not been bought by the East India delinquents, but that they have only formed an alliance with them for screening each other from justice, according to the exigence of their several necessities. That they have done so is evident; and the junction of the power of office in England with the abuse of authority in the East has not only prevented even the appearance of redress to the grievances of India, but I wish it may not be found to have dulled, if not extinguished, the honor, the candor, the generosity, the good-nature, which used formerly to characterize the people of England. I confess, I wish that some more feeling than I have yet observed for the sufferings of our fellow-creatures and fellow-subjects in that oppressed part of the world had manifested itself in any one quarter of the kingdom, or in any one large description of men.

That these oppressions exist is a fact no more denied than it is resented as it ought to be. Much evil has been done in India under the British authority. What has been done to redress it? We are no longer surprised at anything. We are above the unlearned and vulgar passion of admiration. But it will astonish posterity, when they read our opinions in our actions, that, after years of inquiry, we have found out that the sole grievance of India consisted in this, that the servants of the Company there had not profited enough of their opportunities, nor drained it sufficiently of its treasures,--when they shall hear that the very first and only important act of a commission specially named by act of Parliament is, to charge upon an undone country, in favor of a handful of men in the humblest ranks of the public service, the enormous sum of perhaps four millions of sterling money.

It is difficult for the most wise and upright government to correct the abuses of remote, delegated power, productive of unmeasured wealth, and protected by the boldness and strength of the same ill-got riches. These abuses, full of their own wild native vigor, will grow and flourish under mere neglect. But where the supreme authority, not content with winking at the rapacity of its inferior instruments, is so shameless and corrupt as openly to give bounties and premiums for disobedience to its laws,--when it will not trust to the activity of avarice in the pursuit of its own gains,--when it secures public robbery by all the careful jealousy and attention with which it ought to protect property from such violence,--the commonwealth then is become totally perverted from its purposes; neither God nor man will long endure it; nor will it long endure itself. In that case, there is an unnatural infection, a pestilential taint, fermenting in the constitution of society, which fever and convulsions of some kind or other must throw off, or in which the vital powers, worsted in an unequal struggle, are pushed back upon themselves, and, by a reversal of their whole functions, fester to gangrene, to death,--and instead of what was but just now the delight and boast of the creation, there will be cast out in the face of the sun a bloated, putrid, noisome carcass, full of stench and poison, an offence, a horror, a lesson to the world.

In my opinion, we ought not to wait for the fruitless instruction of calamity to inquire into the abuses which bring upon us ruin in the worst of its forms, in the loss of our fame and virtue. But the right honorable gentleman[66] says, in answer to all the powerful arguments of my honorable friend, "that this inquiry is of a delicate nature, and that the state will suffer detriment by the exposure of this transaction." But it is exposed; it is perfectly known in every member, in every particle, and in every way, except that which may lead to a remedy. He knows that the papers of correspondence are printed, and that they are in every hand.

He and delicacy are a rare and a singular coalition. He thinks that to divulge our Indian politics may be highly dangerous. He! the mover, the chairman, the reporter of the Committee of Secrecy! he, that brought forth in the utmost detail, in several vast, printed folios, the most recondite parts of the politics, the military, the revenues of the British empire in India! With six great chopping bastards,[67] each as lusty as an infant Hercules, this delicate creature blushes at the sight of his new bridegroom, assumes a virgin delicacy; or, to use a more fit, as well as a more poetic comparison, the person so squeamish, so timid, so trembling lest the winds of heaven should visit too roughly, is expanded to broad sunshine, exposed like the sow of imperial augury, lying in the mud with all the prodigies of her fertility about her, as evidence of her delicate amours,--

Triginta capitum fœtus enixa jacebat,
Alba, solo recubans, albi circum ubera nati.

Whilst discovery of the misgovernment of others led to his own power, it was wise to inquire, it was safe to publish: there was then no delicacy; there was then no danger. But when his object is obtained, and in his imitation he has outdone the crimes that he had reprobated in volumes of reports and in sheets of bills of pains and penalties, then concealment becomes prudence, and it concerns the safety of the state that we should not know, in a mode of Parliamentary cognizance, what all the world knows but too well, that is, in what manner he chooses to dispose of the public revenues to the creatures of his politics.

The debate has been long, and as much so on my part, at least, as on the part of those who have spoken before me. But long as it is, the more material half of the subject has hardly been touched on: that is, the corrupt and destructive system to which this debt has been rendered subservient, and which seems to be pursued with at least as much vigor and regularity as ever. If I considered your ease or my own, rather than the weight and importance of this question, I ought to make some apology to you, perhaps some apology to myself, for having detained your attention so long. I know on what ground I tread. This subject, at one time taken up with so much fervor and zeal, is no longer a favorite in this House. The House itself has undergone a great and signal revolution. To some the subject is strange and uncouth; to several, harsh and distasteful; to the relics of the last Parliament it is a matter of fear and apprehension. It is natural for those who have seen their friends sink in the tornado which raged during the late shift of the monsoon, and have hardly escaped on the planks of the general wreck, it is but too natural for them, as soon as they make the rocks and quicksands of their former disasters, to put about their new-built barks, and, as much as possible, to keep aloof from this perilous lee shore.

But let us do what we please to put India from our thoughts, we can do nothing to separate it from our public interest and our national reputation. Our attempts to banish this importunate duty will only make it return upon us again and again, and every time in a shape more unpleasant than the former. A government has been fabricated for that great province; the right honorable gentleman says that therefore you ought not to examine into its conduct. Heavens! what an argument is this! We are not to examine into the conduct of the Direction, because it is an old government; we are not to examine into this Board of Control, because it is a new one. Then we are only to examine into the conduct of those who have no conduct to account for. Unfortunately, the basis of this new government has been laid on old, condemned delinquents, and its superstructure is raised out of prosecutors turned into protectors. The event has been such as might be expected. But if it had been otherwise constituted, had it been constituted even as I wished, and as the mover of this question had planned, the better part of the proposed establishment was in the publicity of its proceedings, in its perpetual responsibility to Parliament. Without this check, what is our government at home, even awed, as every European government is, by an audience formed of the other states of Europe, by the applause or condemnation of the discerning and critical company before which it acts? But if the scene on the other side of the globe, which tempts, invites, almost compels, to tyranny and rapine, be not inspected with the eye of a severe and unremitting vigilance, shame and destruction must ensue. For one, the worst event of this day, though it may deject, shall not break or subdue me. The call upon us is authoritative. Let who will shrink back, I shall be found at my post. Baffled, discountenanced, subdued, discredited, as the cause of justice and humanity is, it will be only the dearer to me. Whoever, therefore, shall at any time bring before you anything towards the relief of our distressed fellow-citizens in India, and towards a subversion of the present most corrupt and oppressive system for its government, in me shall find a weak, I am afraid, but a steady, earnest, and faithful assistant.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Right Honorable Henry Dundas.

[2] Sir Thomas Rumbold, late Governor of Madras.

[3] Appendix, No. 1.

[4] The whole of the net Irish hereditary revenue is, on a medium of the last seven years, about 330,000_l._ yearly. The revenues of all denominations fall short more than 150,000_l._ yearly of the charges. On the _present_ produce, if Mr. Pitt's scheme was to take place, he might gain from seven to ten thousand pounds a year.

[5] Mr. Smith's Examination before the Select Committee. Appendix, No. 2.

[6] Appendix, No. 2.

[7] Fourth Report, Mr. Dundas's Committee, p. 4.

[8] A witness examined before the Committee of Secrecy says that eighteen per cent was the usual interest, but he had heard that more had been given. The above is the account which Mr. B. received.

[9] Mr. Dundas.

[10] For the threats of the creditors, and total subversion of the authority of the Company in favor of the Nabob's power and the increase thereby of his evil dispositions, and the great derangement of all public concerns, see Select Committee Fort St. George's letters, 21st November, 1769, and January 31st, 1770; September 11, 1772; and Governor Bourchier's letters to the Nabob of Arcot, 21st November, 1769, and December 9th, 1769.

[11] "He [the Nabob] is in a great degree the cause of our present inability, by diverting the revenues of the Carnatic through _private channels_." "Even this peshcush [the Tanjore tribute], circumstanced as he and we are, he has assigned over to others, _who now set themselves in opposition to the Company_."--Consultations, October 11, 1769, on the 12th communicated to the Nabob.

[12] Nabob's letter to Governor Palk. Papers published by the Directors in 1775; and papers printed by the same authority, 1781.

[13] See papers printed by order of a General Court in 1780, pp. 222 and 224; as also Nabob's letter to Governor Dupré, 19th July, 1771: "I have taken up loans by which I have suffered a loss of _upwards of a crore of pagodas_ [four millions sterling] _by interest on an heavy interest_." Letter 15th January, 1772: "Notwithstanding I have taken much trouble, and have made many payments to my creditors, yet the load of my debt, _which became so great by interest and compound interest_, is not cleared."

[14] The Nabob of Arcot.

[15] Appendix, No. 3.

[16] See Mr. Dundas's 1st, 2d, and 3d Reports.

[17] See further Consultations, 3d February, 1778.

[18] Mr. Dundas's 1st Report, pp. 26, 29, and Appendix, No. 2, 10, 18, for the mutinous state and desertion of the Nabob's troops for want of pay. See also Report IV. of the same committee.

[19] Memorial from the creditors to the Governor and Council, 22d January, 1770.

[20] In the year 1778, Mr. James Call, one of the proprietors of this specific debt, was actually mayor. (Appendix to 2d Report of Mr. Dundas's committee, No. 65.) The only proof which appeared on the inquiry instituted in the General Court of 1781 was an affidavit of _the lenders themselves_, deposing (what nobody ever denied) that they had _engaged_ and _agreed_ to pay--not that they _had_ paid--the sum of 160,000_l._ This was two years after the transaction; and the affidavit is made before George Proctor, mayor, an attorney for certain of the old creditors.--Proceedings of the President and Council of Fort St. George, 22d February, 1779.

[21] Right Honorable Henry Dundas.

[22] Appendix to the 4th Report of Mr. Dundas's committee, No 15.

[23] "No sense of the common danger, in case of a war, can prevail on him [the Nabob of Arcot] to furnish the Company with what is absolutely necessary to assemble an army, though it is beyond a doubt that money to a large amount is now hoarded up in his coffers at Chepauk; and tunkaws are granted to _individuals_, upon some of his most _valuable countries_, for payment of part of those debts which he has contracted, and _which certainly will not bear inspection, as neither debtor nor creditors have ever had the confidence to submit the accounts to our examination_, though they expressed a wish to consolidate the debts under the auspices of this government, agreeably to a plan they had formed."--Madras Consultations, 20th July, 1778. Mr. Dundas's Appendix to 2nd Report, 143. See also last Appendix to ditto Report, No. 376, B.

[24] Transcriber's note: Footnote missing in original text.

[25] Lord Pigot

[26] In Sir Thomas Rumbold's letter to the Court of Directors, March 15th, 1778, he represents it as higher, in the following manner:--"How shall I paint to you my astonishment, on my arrival here, when I was informed, that, independent of this four lacs of pagodas [the Cavalry Loan], independent of the Nabob's debt to his old creditors, and the money due to the Company, he had contracted a debt to the enormous amount of sixty-three lacs of pagodas [2,520,000_l._]. I mention this circumstance to you _with horror_; for the creditors being in general _servants of the Company_ renders my task, on the part of the Company, _difficult and invidious_." "I have freed the sanction of this government from so _corrupt_ a transaction. It is in my mind the most venal of all proceedings to give the Company's protection to debts that cannot bear the light; and though it appears exceedingly alarming, that a country on which you are to depend for resources should be so involved as to be nearly three years' revenue in debt,--in a country, too, where one year's revenue can never be called _secure_, by men who know anything of the politics of this part of India." "I think it proper to mention to you, that, although _the Nabob reports his private debt to amount to upwards of sixty lacs_, yet I understand that it is not quite so much." Afterwards Sir Thomas Rumbold recommended this debt to the favorable attention of the Company, but without any sufficient reason for his change of disposition. However, he went no further.

[27] Nabob's proposals, November 25th, 1778; and memorial of the creditors, March 1st, 1779.

[28] Nabob's proposals to his new consolidated creditors, November 25th, 1778.

[29] Paper signed by the Nabob, 6th January, 1780.

[30] Kistbundi to July 31, 1780.

[31] Governor's letter to the Nabob, 25th July, 1779.

[32] Report of the Select Committee, Madras Consultations, January 7, 1771. See also papers published by the order of the Court of Directors in 1776; and Lord Macartney's correspondence with Mr. Hastings and the Nabob of Arcot. See also Mr. Dundas's Appendix, No 376, B. Nabob's propositions through Mr. Sulivan and Assam Khân, Art. 6, and indeed the whole.

[33] "The principal object of the expedition is, to get money from Tanjore to pay the Nabob's debt: if a surplus, to be applied in discharge of the Nabob's debts to his private creditors." (Consultations, March 20, 1771; and for further lights, Consultations, 12th June, 1771.) "We are alarmed lest this debt to _individuals_ should have been the _real_ motive for the aggrandizement of Mahomed Ali [the Nabob of Arcot], and that _we are plunged into a war_ to put him in possession of the Mysore revenues _for the discharge of the debt_."--Letter from the Directors, March 17, 1769.

[34] Letter from the Nabob, May 1st, 1768; and ditto, 24th April, 1770, 1st October; ditto, 16th September, 1772, 16th March, 1773.

[35] Letter from the Presidency at Madras to the Court of Directors, 27th June, 1769.

[36] Mr. Dundas's committee. Report L, Appendix, No. 29.

[37] Appendix, No. 4, Report of the Committee of Assigned Revenue.

[38] Mr. Barnard's map of the Jaghire

[39] See Report IV., Mr. Dundas's committee, p. 46.

[40] Interest is rated in India by the month.

[41] Mr. Dundas's committee. Rep. I. p. 9, and ditto, Rep. IV. 69, where the revenue of 1777 stated only at 22 lacs,--30 lacs stated as the revenue, "_supposing_ the Carnatic to be _properly_ managed."

[42] See Appendix, No. 4, statement in the Report of the Committee of Assigned Revenue.

[43] The province of Tinnevelly.

[44] Appendix, No. 5.

[45] See extract of their letter in the Appendix, No. 9.

[46] "It is certain that the incursion of a _few_ of Hyder's horse into the Jaghire, in 1767, cost the Company upwards of pagodas 27,000, _in allowances for damages_."--Consultations, February 11th, 1771.

[47] Proceeding at Madras, 11th February, 1769, and throughout the correspondence on this subject; particularly Consultations, October 4th, 1769, and the creditors' memorial, 20th January, 1770.

[48] Appendix, No. 7.

[49] For some part of these usurious transactions, see Consultation, 28th January, 1781; and for the Nabob's excusing his oppressions on account of these debts, Consultation, 26th November, 1770. "Still I undertook, first, the payment of the money belonging to the Company, who are my kind friends, and by borrowing, and _mortgaging my jewels, &c._, by _taking from every one of my servants_, in proportion to their circumstances, by _fresh severities_ also on my country, _notwithstanding its distressed state_, as you know."--The Board's remark is as follows: after controverting some of the facts, they say, "That his countries are oppressed is most certain, but not from real necessity; _his debts, indeed, have afforded him a constant pretence_ for using severities and cruel oppressions."

[50] See Consultation, 28th January, 1781, where it is asserted, and not denied, that the Nabob's farmers of revenue seldom continue for three months together. From this the state of the country may be easily judged of.

[51] In Mr. Fox's speech.

[52] The amended letter, Appendix, No. 9.

[53] Appendix, No. 8.

[54] Mr. Petrie's evidence before the Select Committee, Appendix, No. 7.

[55] Appendix, No. 7.

[56] Mr. Dundas.

[57] See Report IV., Committee of Secrecy, pp. 73 and 74; and Appendix, in sundry places.

[58] Mr. Smith's protest.

[59] Madras correspondence on this subject.

[60] Appendix, No 6.

[61] Right Honorable William Pitt.

[62] Appendix, No. 10.

[63] Dated 13th October. For further illustration of the style in which these letters were written, and the principles on which they proceed, see letters from the Nabob to the Court of Directors, dated August 16th and September 7th, 1783, delivered by Mr. James Macpherson, minister to the Nabob, January 14, 1784. Appendix, No. 10.

[64] Appendix, No. 6.

[65] Second Report of Select (General Smith's) Committee.

[66] Mr. Dundas.

[67] Six Reports of the Committee of Secrecy.

APPENDIX.

* * * * *

No. 1.

CLAUSES OF MR PITT'S BILL.

Referred to from p. 17.

_Appointing Commissioners to inquire into the Fees, Gratuities, Perquisites, Emoluments, which are, or have been lately, received in the several Public Offices therein mentioned; to examine into any Abuses which may exist in the same, &c._

And be it further enacted, that it shall and may be lawful to and for the said commissioners, or any two of them, and they are hereby empowered, authorized, and required, _to examine upon oath_ (which oath they, or any two of them, are hereby authorized to administer) the several persons, of _all_ descriptions, belonging to any of the offices or departments before mentioned, and _all other persons_ whom the said commissioners, or any two of them, shall think fit to examine, touching _the business_ of each office or department, and _the fees, gratuities, perquisites, and emoluments taken therein_, and touching all other matters and things necessary for the execution of the powers vested in the said commissioners by this act; _all which persons_ are hereby required and directed punctually to attend the said commissioners, _at such time and place as they, or any two of them, shall appoint, and also to observe and execute such orders and directions_ as the said commissioners, or any two of them, shall make or give for the purposes before mentioned.

And be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, that the said commissioners, or any two of them, shall be and are hereby empowered to examine into any corrupt and fraudulent practices, or other misconduct, committed by any person or persons concerned in the management of any of the offices or departments hereinbefore mentioned; and for the better execution of this present act, the said commissioners, or _any two of them, are hereby authorized to meet and sit, from time to time, in such place or places as they shall find most convenient, with, or without adjournment, and to send their precept or precepts, under their hands and seals, for any person or persons whatsoever, and for such books, papers, writings, or records, as they shall judge necessary for their information, relating to any of the offices or departments hereinbefore mentioned; and all bailiffs, constables, sheriffs, and other his Majesty's officers, are hereby required to obey and execute such orders and precepts aforesaid as shall be sent to them, or any of them, by the said commissioners, or any two of them, touching the premises._

* * * * *

No. 2.

Referred to from p. 22.

NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS.

Mr. George Smith being asked, Whether the debts of the Nabob of Arcot have increased since he knew Madras? he said, Yes, they have. He distinguishes his debts into two sorts: those contracted before the year 1766, and those contracted from that year to the year in which he left Madras.--Being asked, What he thinks is the original amount of the old debts? he said, Between twenty-three and twenty-four lacs of pagodas, as well as he can recollect.--Being asked, What was the amount of that debt when he left Madras? he said, Between four and five lacs of pagodas, as he understood.--Being asked, What was the amount of the new debt when he left Madras? he said, In November, 1777, that debt amounted, according to the Nabob's own account, and published at Chepauk, his place of residence, to sixty lacs of pagodas, independent of the old debt, on which debt of sixty lacs of pagodas the Nabob did agree to pay an interest of twelve per cent per annum.--Being asked, Whether this debt was approved of by the Court of Directors? he said, He does not know it was.--Being asked, Whether the old debt was recognized by the Court of Directors? he said, Yes, it has been; and the Court of Directors have sent out repeated orders to the President and Council of Madras to enforce its recovery and payment.--Being asked, If the interest upon the new debt is punctually paid? he said, It was not during his residence at Madras, from 1777 to 1779, in which period he thinks no more than five per cent interest was paid, in different dividends of two and one per cent.--Being asked, What is the usual course taken by the Nabob concerning the arrears of interest? he said, Not having ever lent him moneys himself, he cannot fully answer as to the mode of settling the interest with him.

Being asked, Whether he has reason to believe the sixty lacs of pagodas was all principal money really and truly advanced to the Nabob of Arcot, or a fictitious capital, made up of obligations given by him, where no money or goods were received, or which was increased by the uniting into it a greater interest than the twelve per cent expressed to be due on the capital? he said, He has no reason to believe that the sum of sixty lacs of pagodas was lent in money or goods to the Nabob, because that sum he thinks is of more value than all the money, goods, and chattels in the settlement; but he does not know in what mode or manner this debt of the Nabob's was incurred or accumulated.--Being asked, Whether it was not a general and well-grounded opinion at Madras, that a great part of this sum was accumulated by obligations, and was for services performed or to be performed for the Nabob? he said, He has heard that a part of this debt was given for the purposes mentioned in the above question, but he does not know that it was so.--Being asked, Whether it was the general opinion of the settlement? he said, He cannot say that it was the general opinion, but it was the opinion of a considerable part of the settlement.--Being asked, Whether it was the declared opinion of those that were concerned in the debt, or those that were not? he said, It was the opinion of both parties, at least such of them as he conversed with.--Being asked, Whether he has reason to believe that the interest really paid by the Nabob, upon obligations given, or money lent, did not frequently exceed twelve per cent? he said, Prior to the 1st of August, 1774, he had had reason to believe that a higher interest than twelve per cent was paid by the Nabob on moneys lent to him; but from and after that period, when the last act of Parliament took place in India, he does not know that more than twelve per cent had been paid by the Nabob, or received from him.--Being asked, Whether it is not his opinion that the Nabob has paid more than twelve per cent for money due since the 1st of August, 1774? he said, He has heard that he has, but he does not know it.--Being asked, Whether he has been told so by any considerable and weighty authority, that was like to know? he said, He has been so informed by persons who he believes had a very good opportunity of knowing it.--Being asked, Whether he was ever told so by the Nabob of Arcot himself? he said, He does not recollect that the Nabob of Arcot directly told him so, but from what he said he did infer that he paid a higher interest than twelve per cent.

Mr. Smith being asked, Whether, in the course of trade, he ever sold anything to the Nabob of Arcot? he said, In the year 1775 he did sell to the Nabob of Arcot pearls to the amount of 32,500 pagodas, for which the Nabob gave him an order or tankah on the country of Tanjore, payable in six months, without interest.--Being asked, Whether, at the time he asked the Nabob his price for the pearls, the Nabob beat down that price, as dealers commonly do? he said, No; so far from it, he offered him more than he asked by 1000 pagodas, and which he rejected.--Being asked, Whether, in settling a transaction of discount with the Nabob's agent, he was not offered a greater discount than 12_l._ per cent? he said, In discounting a soucar's bill for 180,000 pagodas, the Nabob's agent did offer him a discount of twenty-four per cent per annum, saving that it was the usual rate of discount paid by the Nabob; but which he would not accept of, thinking himself confined by the act of Parliament limiting the interest of moneys to twelve per cent, and accordingly he discounted the bill at twelve per cent per annum only.--Being asked, Whether he does not think those offers were made him because the Nabob thought he was a person of some consequence in the settlement? he said, Being only a private merchant, he apprehends that the offer was made to him more from its being a general practice than from any opinion of his importance.

* * * * *

No. 3.

Referred to from p. 38.

_A Bill for the Better Government of the Territorial Possessions and Dependencies in India_.

[ONE OF MR FOX'S INDIA BILLS.]

And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that the Nabob of Arcot, the Rajah of Tanjore, or any other native protected prince in India, shall not assign, mortgage, or pledge any territory or land whatsoever, or the produce or revenue thereof, to any British subject whatsoever; neither shall it be lawful to and for any British subject whatsoever to take or receive any such assignment, mortgage, or pledge; and the same are hereby declared to be null and void; and all payments or deliveries of produce or revenue, under any such assignment, shall and may be recovered back, by such native prince paying or delivering the same, from the person or persons receiving the same, or his or their representatives.

* * * * *

No. 4.

Referred to from pp. 64 and 73.

(COPY.)

27th May, 1782.

_Letter from the Committee of Assigned Revenue, to the President and Select Committee, dated 27th May, 1782; with Comparative Statement, and Minute thereon._

To the Right Honorable LORD MACARTNEY, K.B., President, and Governor, &c., Select Committee of Fort St. George.

MY LORD, AND GENTLEMEN,--

Although we have, in obedience to your commands of the 5th January, regularly laid before you our proceedings at large, and have occasionally addressed you upon such points as required your resolutions or orders for our guidance, we still think it necessary to collect and digest in a summary report those transactions in the management of the assigned revenue which have principally engaged our attention, and which, upon the proceeding, are too much intermixed with ordinary occurrences to be readily traced and understood.

Such a report may be formed with the greater propriety at this time, when your Lordship, &c., have been pleased to conclude your arrangements for the rent of several of the Nabob's districts. Our aim in it is briefly to explain the state of the Carnatic at the period of the Nabob's assignment,--the particular causes which existed to the prejudice of that assignment, after it was made,--and the measures which your Lordship, &c., have, upon our recommendation, adopted for removing those causes, and introducing a more regular and beneficial system of management in the country.

Hyder Ali having entered the Carnatic with his whole force, about the middle of July, 1780, and employed fire and sword in its destruction for near eighteen months before the Nabob's assignment took place, it will not be difficult to conceive the state of the country at that period. In those provinces which were fully exposed to the ravages of horse, scarce a vestige remained either of population or agriculture: such of the miserable inhabitants as escaped the fury of the sword were either carried into the Mysore country or left to struggle under the horrors of famine. The Arcot and Trichinopoly districts began early to feel the effects of this desolating war. Tinnevelly, Madura, and Ramnadaporum, though little infested with Hyder's troops, became a prey to the incursions of the Polygars, who stripped them of the greatest part of the revenues. Ongole, Nellore, and Palnaud, the only remaining districts, had suffered, but in a small degree.

The misfortunes of war, however, were not the only evils which the Carnatic experienced. The Nabob's aumildars, and other servants, appear to have taken advantage of the general confusion to enrich themselves. A very small part of the revenue was accounted for; and so high were the ordinary expenses of every district, that double the apparent produce of the whole country would not have satisfied them.

In this state, which we believe is no way exaggerated, the Company took charge of the assigned countries. Their prospect of relief from the heavy burdens of the war was, indeed, but little advanced by the Nabob's concession; and the revenues of the Carnatic seemed in danger of being irrecoverably lost, unless a speedy and entire change of system could be adopted.

On our minutes of the 21st January we treated the subject of the assignment at some length, and pointed out the mischiefs which, in addition to the effects of the war, had arisen from what we conceived to be wrong and oppressive management. We used the freedom to suggest an entire alteration in the mode of realizing the revenues. We proposed a considerable and immediate reduction of expenses, and a total change of the principal aumildars who had been employed under the Nabob.

Our ideas had the good fortune to receive your approbation; but the removal of the Nabob's servants being thought improper at that particular period of the collections, we employed our attention chiefly in preserving what revenue was left the country, and acquiring such materials as might lead to a more perfect knowledge of its former and present state.

These pursuits, as we apprehended, met with great obstructions from the conduct of the Nabob's servants. The orders they received were evaded under various pretexts; no attention was paid to the strong and repeated applications made to them for the accounts of their management; and their attachment to the Company's interest appeared, in every instance, so feeble, that we saw no prospect whatever of success, but in the appointment of renters under the Company's sole authority.