Chapter X: Part 10

It is mentioned and supposed in the observations upon this case, though no circumstances relative to the persons or the nature of the visit are stated, that this expense was something which he might have charged to the Company and did not. It is first supposed by the learned counsel who made the observation, that it was a public, allowed, and acknowledged thing; then, that he had not charged the Company anything for it. I have looked into that business. In the first place, I see no such custom; and if there was such a custom, there was the most abusive misemployment of it. I find that in that year there was paid from the Company's cash account to the Governor's travelling charges (and he had no other journey at that end of the year) thirty thousand rupees, which is about 3,000_l._; and when we consider that he was in the receipt of near 30,000_l._, besides the nuzzers, which amount to several thousand a year, and that he is allowed 3,000_l._ by the Company for his travelling expenses, is it right to charge upon the miserable people whom he was defrauding of their bread 16,000_l._ for his entertainment?

I find that there are also other great sums relative to the expenses of the Committee of Circuit, which he was upon. How much of them is applicable to him I know not. I say, that the allowance of three thousand pounds was noble and liberal; for it is not above a day or two's journey to Moorshedabad, and by his taking his road by Kishenagur he could not be longer. He had a salary to live upon, and he must live somewhere; and he was actually paid three thousand pounds for travelling charges for three months, which was at the rate of twelve thousand pounds a year: a large and abundant sum.

If you once admit that a man for an entertainment shall take sixteen thousand pounds, there never will be any bribe, any corruption, that may not be justified: the corrupt man has nothing to do but to make a visit, and then that very moment he may receive any sum under the name of this entertainment; that moment his covenants are annulled, his bonds and obligations destroyed, the act of Parliament repealed, and it is no longer bribery, it is no longer corruption, it is no longer peculation; it is nothing but thanks for obliging inquiries, and a compliment according to the mode of the country, by which he makes his fortune.

What hinders him from renewing that visit? If you support this distinction, you will teach the Governor-General, instead of attending his business at the capital, to make journeys through the country, putting every great man of that country under the most ruinous contributions; and as this custom is in no manner confined to the Governor-General, but extends, as it must upon that principle, to every servant of the Company in any station whatever, then, if each of them were to receive an entertainment, I will venture to say that the greatest ravage of an hostile army could not, indeed, destroy the country more entirely than the Company's servants by such visits.

Your Lordships will see that there are grounds for suspicion, not supported with the same evidence, but with evidence of great probability, that there was another entertainment given at the expense of another lac of rupees; and there is also great probability that Mr. Hastings received two lac of rupees, and Mr. Middleton another lac. The whole of the Nabob's revenues would have been exhausted by these two men, if they had stayed there a whole year: and they stayed three months. Nothing will be secured from the Company's servants, so long as they can find, under this name, or under pretence of any corrupt custom of the country, a vicious excuse for this corrupt practice. The excuse is worse than the thing itself. I leave it, then, with your judgment to decide whether you will or not, if this justification comes before you, establish a principle which would put all Bengal in a worse situation than an hostile army could do, and ruin all the Company's servants by sending them from their duty to go round robbing the whole country under the name of entertainments.

My Lords, I have now done with this first part,--namely, the presumption arising from his refusal to make any defence, on pretence that the charge brought against him might be referred to a court of justice, and from the non-performance of his promise to give satisfaction to his employers,--and when that pretence was removed, still refusing to give that satisfaction, though suffering as he did under a load of infamy and obloquy, and though urged to give it by persons of the greatest character. I have stated this to your Lordships as the strongest presumption of guilt, and that this presumption is strengthened by the very excuse which he fabricated for a part of his bribes, when he knew that the proof of them was irresistible, and that this excuse is a high aggravation of his guilt,--that this excuse is not supported by law, that it is not supported by reason, that it does not stand with his covenant, but carries with it a manifest proof of corruption, and that it cannot be justified by any principle, custom, or usage whatever. My Lords, I say I have done with the presumption arising from his conduct as it regarded the fact specifically charged against him, and with respect to the relation he stood in to the Court of Directors, and from the attempt he made to justify that conduct. I believe your Lordships will think both one and the other strong presumptions of his criminality, and of his knowledge that the act he was doing was criminal.

I have another fact to lay before your Lordships, which affords a further presumption of his guilt, and which will show the mischievous consequences of it; and I trust your Lordships will not blame me for going a little into it. Your Lordships know we charge that the appointment of such a woman as Munny Begum to the guardianship of the Nabob, to the superintendency of the civil justice of the country, and to the representation of the whole government, was made for no other purpose than that through this corrupt woman sixteen thousand pounds a year, the whole tattered remains of the Nabob's grandeur, might be a prey to Mr. Hastings: it could be for no other. Now your Lordships would imagine, that, after this, knowing he was already grievously suspected, he would have abstained from giving any further ground for suspicion by a repetition of the same acts through the same person; as no other reason could be furnished for such acts, done directly contrary to the order of his superiors, but that he was actuated by the influence of bribery. Your Lordships would imagine, that, when this Munny Begum was removed upon a charge of corruption, Mr. Hastings would have left her quiet in tranquil obscurity, and that he would no longer have attempted to elevate her into a situation which furnished against himself so much disgrace and obloquy to himself, and concerning which he stood charged with a direct and positive act of bribery. Your Lordships well know, that, upon the deposition of that great magistrate, Mahomed Reza Khân, this woman was appointed to supply his place. The Governor-General and Council (the majority of them being then Sir John Clavering, Colonel Monson, and Mr. Francis) had made a provisional arrangement for the time, until they should be authorized to fill up the place in a proper manner. Soon after, there came from Europe a letter expressing the satisfaction which the Court of Directors had received in the acquittal of Mahomed Reza Khân, expressing a regard for his character, an high opinion of his abilities, and a great disposition to make him some recompense for his extreme sufferings; and accordingly they ordered that he should be again employed. Having no exact ideas of the state of employments in that country, they made a mistake in the specific employment for which they named him; for, being a Mahometan, and the head of the Mahometans in that country, he was named to an office which must be held by a Gentoo. But the majority I have just named, who never endeavored by any base and delusive means to fly from their duty, or not to execute it at all, because they were desired to execute it in a way in which they could not execute it, followed the spirit of the order; and finding that Mahomed Reza Khân, before his imprisonment and trial, had been in possession of another employment, they followed the spirit of the instructions of the Directors and replaced him in that employment: by which means there was an end put to the government of Munny Begum, the country reverted to its natural state, and men of the first rank in the country were placed in the first situations in it. The seat of judicature was filled with wisdom, gravity, and learning, and Munny Begum sunk into that situation into which a woman who had been engaged in the practices that she had been engaged in naturally would sink at her time of life. Mr. Hastings resisted this appointment. He trifled with the Company's orders on account of the letter of them, and endeavored to disobey the spirit of them. However, the majority overbore him; they put Mahomed Reza Khân into his former situation; and as a proof and seal to the honor and virtue of their character, there was not a breath of suspicion that they had any corrupt motive for this conduct. They were odious to many of the India House here; they were odious to that corrupt influence which had begun and was going on to ruin India; but in the face of all this odium, they gave the appointment to Mahomed Reza Khân, because the act contained in itself its own justification. Mr. Hastings made a violent protest against it, and resisted it to the best of his power, always in favor of Munny Begum, as your Lordships will see. Mr. Hastings sent this protest to the Directors; but the Directors, as soon as the case came before them, acknowledged their error, and praised the majority of the Council, Sir John Clavering, Colonel Monson, and Mr. Francis, for the wise and honorable part they had taken upon the occasion, by obeying the spirit and not the letter,--commended the act they had done,--confirmed Mahomed Reza Khân in his place,--and to prevent that great man from being any longer the sport of fortune, any longer the play of avarice between corrupt governors and dancing-girls, they gave him the pledged faith of the Company that he should remain in that office as long as his conduct deserved their protection: it was a good and an honorable tenure. My Lords, soon afterwards there happened two lamentable deaths,--first of Colonel Monson, afterwards of General Clavering. Thus Mr. Hastings was set loose: there was an inspection and a watch upon his conduct, and no more. He was then just in the same situation in which he had stood in 1772. What does he do? Even just what he did in 1772. He deposes Mahomed Reza Khân, notwithstanding the Company's orders, notwithstanding their pledged faith; he turns him out, and makes a distribution of two lacs and a half of rupees, the salary of that great magistrate, in the manner I will now show your Lordships. He made an arrangement consisting of three main parts: the first was with regard to the women, the next with regard to the magistracy, the last with regard to the officers of state of the household.

The first person that occurred to Mr. Hastings was Munny Begum; and he gave her, not out of that part of the Nabob's allowance which was to support the seraglio, but out of the allowance of this very magistrate, just as if such a thing had been done here out of the salary of a Lord Chancellor or a Lord Chief-Justice,--out of these two lacs and a half of rupees, that is, about twenty-four or twenty-five thousand pounds a year, he ordered an allowance to be made to Munny Begum of 72,000 rupees per annum, or 7,200_l._ a year; for the Nabob's own mother, whom he thrust, as usual, into a subordinate situation, he made an allowance of 3,000_l._; to the Sudder ul Huk Khân, which is, translated into English, the Lord Chief-Justice, he allowed the same sum that he did to the dancing-girl, (which was very liberal in him, and I am rather astonished to find it,) namely, 7,200_l._ a year. And who do you think was the next public officer he appointed? It was the Rajah Gourdas, the son of Nundcomar, and whose testimony he has attempted both before and since this occasion to weaken. To him, however, he gave an employment of 6,000_l._ a year, as if to make through the son some compensation to the manes of the father. And in this manner he distributes, with a wild and liberal profusion, between magistrates and dancing-girls, the whole spoil of Mahomed Reza Khân, notwithstanding the Company's direct and positive assurance given to him. Everything was done, at the same time, to put, as it was before, into the hands of this dancing-girl the miserable Nabob's whole family; and that the fund for corruption might be large enough, he did not take the money for this dancing-girl out of the Nabob's separate revenue, of which he and the dancing-girl had the private disposal between them.

Now upon what pretence did he do all this? The Nabob had represented to Mr. Hastings that he was now of age,--that he was an independent, sovereign prince,--that, being independent and sovereign in his situation, and being of full age, he had a right to manage his own concerns himself; and therefore he desired to be admitted to that management. And, indeed, my Lords, ostensibly, and supposing him to have been this independent prince, and that the Company had no authority or had never exercised any authority over him through Mr. Hastings, there might be a good deal said in favor of this request. But what was the real state of the case? The Nabob was a puppet in the hands of Mr. Hastings and Munny Begum; and you will find, upon producing the correspondence, that he confesses that she was the ultimate object and end of this request.

I think this correspondence, wherein a son is made to petition, in his own name, for the elevation of a dancing-girl, his step-mother, above himself and everybody else, will appear to your Lordships such a curiosity as, I believe, is not to be found in the state correspondence of the whole world. The Nabob begins thus:--"The excellency of that policy by which her Highness the Begum" (meaning Munny Begum) "(may her shadow be far extended!) formerly, during the time of her administration, transacted the affairs of the nizamut in the very best and most advantageous manner, was, by means of the delusions of enemies disguised under the appearance of friends, hidden from me. Having lately seriously reflected on my own affairs, I am convinced that it was the effect of maternal affection, was highly proper, and for my interest,--and that, except the said Begum is again invested with the administration, the regulation and prosperity of this family, which is in fact her own, cannot be effected. For this cause, from the time of her suspension until now, I have passed my time, and do so still, in great trouble and uneasiness. As all affairs, and particularly the happiness and prosperity of this family, depend on your pleasure, I now trouble you, in hopes that you, likewise concurring in this point, will be so kind as to write in fit and proper terms to her Highness the Begum, that she will always, as formerly, employ her authority in the administration of the nizamut and the affairs of this family."

This letter, my Lords, was received upon the 23d of August; and your Lordships may observe two things in it: first, that, some way or other, this Nabob had been (as the fact was) made to express his desire of being released from his subjection to the Munny Begum, but that now he has got new lights, all the mists are gone, and he now finds that Munny Begum is not only the fittest person to govern him, but the whole country. This young man, whose incapacity is stated, and never denied, by Mr. Hastings, and by Lord Cornwallis, and by all the rest of the world who know him, begins to be charmed with the excellency of the policy of Munny Begum. Such is his violent impatience, such the impossibility of his existing an hour but under the government of Munny Begum, that he writes again on the 25th of August, (he had really the impatience of a lover,) and within five days afterwards writes again,--so impatient, so anxious and jealous is this young man to be put under the government of an old dancing-woman. He is afraid lest Mr. Hastings should imagine that some sinister influence had prevailed upon him in so natural and proper a request. He says, "Knowing it for my interest and advantage that the administration of the affairs of the nizamut should be restored to her Highness the Munny Begum, I have already troubled you with my request, that, regarding my situation with an eye of favor, you will approve of this measure. I am credibly informed that some one of my enemies, from selfish views, has, for the purpose of oversetting this measure, written you that the said Begum procured from me by artifice the letter I wrote you on this subject. This causes me the greatest astonishment. Please to consider, that artifice and delusion are confined to cheats and impostors, and can never proceed from a person of such exalted rank, who is the head and patron of all the family of the deceased Nabob, my father,--and that to be deluded, being a proof of weakness and folly, can have no relation to me, except the inventor of this report considers me as void of understanding, and has represented me to the gentlemen as a blockhead and an idiot. God knows how harshly such expressions appear to me; but, as the truth or falsehood has not yet been fully ascertained, I have therefore suspended my demand of satisfaction. Should it be true, be so kind as to inform me of it, that the person may be made to answer for it."

My Lords, here is a very proper demand. The Nabob is astonished at the suspicion, that such a woman as Munny Begum, whose trade in youth had been delusion, should be capable of deluding anybody. Astonishing it certainly was, that a woman who had been a deluder in youth should be suspected to be the same in old age, and that he, a young man, should be subject to her artifices. "They must suspect me to be a great blockhead," he says, "if a man of my rank is to be deluded." There he forgot that it is the unhappy privilege of great men to be cheated, to be deluded, much more than other persons; but he thought it so impossible in the case of Munny Begum, that he says, "Produce me the traitor that could suppose it possible for me to be deluded, when I call for this woman as the governor of the country. I demand satisfaction." I rather wonder that Mr. Hastings did not inform him who it was that had reported so gross and improbable a tale, and deliver him up to the fury of the Nabob.

Mr. Hastings is absolutely besieged by him; for he receives another letter upon the 3d of September. Here are four letters following one another quick as post expresses with horns sounding before them. "Oh, I die, I perish, I sink, if Munny Begum is not put into the government of the country!--I therefore desire to have her put into the government of the country, and that you will not keep me longer in this painful suspense, but will be kindly pleased to write immediately to the Munny Begum, that she take on herself the administration of the affairs of the nizamut, which is, in fact, her own family, without the interference of any other person whatever: by this you will give me complete satisfaction." Here is a correspondence more like an amorous than a state correspondence. What is this man so eager about, what in such a rage about, that he cannot endure the smallest delay of the post with common patience? Why, lest this old woman (who is not his mother, and with whom he had no other tie of blood) should not be made mistress of himself and the whole country! However, in a very few months afterwards he himself is appointed by Mr. Hastings to the government; and you may easily judge by the preceding letters who was to govern. It would be an affront to your Lordships' judgment to attempt to prove who was to govern, after he had desired to put the whole government of affairs into the hands of Munny Begum.

Now, Munny Begum having obtained this salary, and being invested with this authority, and made in effect the total and entire governor of the country, as I have proved by the Nabob's letters, let us see the consequences of it; and then I desire to know whether your Lordships can believe that in all this haste, which, in fact, is Mr. Hastings's haste and impatience, (for we shall prove that the Nabob never did or could take a step but by his immediate orders and directions,)--whether your Lordships can believe that Mr. Hastings would incur all the odium attending such transactions, unless he had some corrupt consideration.

My Lords, very soon after these appointments were made, consisting of Munny Begum at the head of the affairs, the Lord Chief-Justice under her, and under her direction, and Rajah Gourdas as steward of the household, the first thing we hear is, just what your Lordships expect to hear upon such a case, that this unfortunate chief-justice, who was a man undoubtedly of but a poor, low disposition, but, I believe, a perfectly honest, perfectly well-intentioned man, found it absolutely impossible for him to execute his office under the direction of Munny Begum; and accordingly, in the month of September following, he sends a complaint to Mr. Hastings, "that certain bad men had gained an ascendency over the Nabob's temper, by whose instigation he acts." After complaining of the slights he receives from the Nabob, he adds, "Thus they cause the Nabob to treat me, sometimes with indignity, at others with kindness, just as they think proper to advise him: their view is, that, by compelling me to displeasure at such unworthy treatment, they may force me either to relinquish my station, or to join with them, and act by their advice, and appoint creatures of their recommendation to the different offices, from which they might draw profit to themselves." This is followed by another letter, in which he shows who those corrupt men were that had gained the ascendency over the Nabob's temper,--namely, the eunuchs of Munny Begum: one of them her direct instrument in bribery with Mr. Hastings. What you would expect from such a state of things accordingly happened. Everything in the course of justice was confounded; all official responsibility destroyed; and nothing but a scene of forgery, peculation, and knavery of every kind and description prevailed through the country, and totally disturbed all order and justice in it. He says, "The Begum's ministers, before my arrival, with the advice of their counsellors, caused the Nabob to sign a receipt, in consequence of which they received at two different times near fifty thousand rupees, in the name of the officers of the Adawlut, Foujdarry, &c., from the Company's circar; and having drawn up an account-current in the manner they wished, they got the Nabob to sign it, and then sent it to me." In the same letter he asserts "that these people have the Nabob entirely in their power."

My Lords, you see here Mr. Hastings enabling the corrupt eunuchs of this wicked old woman to draw upon the Company's treasury at their pleasure, under forged papers of the Nabob, for just such moneys as they please, under the name and pretence of giving it to the officers of justice, but which they distribute among themselves as they think fit. This complaint was soon followed by another, and they furnish, first, the strongest presumptive proof of the corrupt motives of Mr. Hastings; and, secondly, they show the horrible mischievous effects of his conduct upon the country.

In consequence of the first complaint, Mr. Hastings directs this independent Nabob not to concern himself any longer with the Foujdarry. The Nabob, who had before declared that the superintendence of all the offices belonged to him, and was to be executed by himself, or under his orders, instantly obeys Mr. Hastings, and declares he will not interfere in the business of the courts any more. Your Lordships will observe further that the complaint is not against the Nabob, but against the creatures and the menial servants of Munny Begum: and yet it is the Nabob he forbids to interfere in this business; of the others he takes no notice; and this is a strong proof of the corrupt dealings of Mr. Hastings with this woman. When the whole country was fallen into confusion under the administration of this woman, and under her corrupt ministers, men base-born and employed in the basest offices, (the men of the household train of the women of rank in that country are of that description,) he writes to the Nabob again, and himself confesses the mischiefs that had arisen from his corrupt arrangements.

"At your Excellency's request, I sent Sudder ul Huk Khân to take on him the administration of the affairs of the Adawlut and Foujdarry, and hoped by that means not only to have given satisfaction to your Excellency, but that through his abilities and experience these affairs would have been conducted in such manner as to have secured the peace of the country and the happiness of the people; and it is with the greatest concern I learn that this measure is so far from being attended with the expected advantages, that the affairs both of the Foujdarry and Adawlut are in the greatest confusion imaginable, and daily robberies and murders are perpetrated throughout the country. This is evidently owing to the want of a proper authority in the person appointed to superintend them. I therefore addressed your Excellency on the importance and delicacy of the affairs in question, and of the necessity of lodging full power in the hands of the person chosen to administer them. In reply to which your Excellency expressed sentiments coincident with mine. Notwithstanding which, your dependants and people, actuated by selfish and avaricious views, have by their interference so impeded the business as to throw the whole country into a state of confusion, from which nothing can retrieve it but an unlimited power lodged in the hands of the superintendent. I therefore request that your Excellency will give the strictest injunctions to all your dependants not to interfere in any manner with any matter relative to the affairs of the Adawlut and Foujdarry, and that you will yourself relinquish all interference therein, and leave them entirely to the management of Sudder ul Huk Khân. This is absolutely necessary to restore the country to a state of tranquillity."

My Lords, what evidence do we produce to your Lordships of the consequences of Mr. Hastings's corrupt measures? His own. He here gives you the state into which the country was thrown by the criminal interference of the wicked woman whom he had established in power, totally superseding the regular judicial authority of the country, and throwing everything into confusion. As usual, there is such irregularity in his conduct, and his crimes are so multiplied, that all the contrivances of ingenuity are unable to cover them. Now and then he comes and betrays himself; and here he confesses you his own weakness, and the effects of his own corruption: he had appointed Munny Begum to this office of power, he dare not say a word to her upon her abuse of it, but he lays the whole upon the Nabob. When the Chief-Justice complains that these crimes were the consequence of Munny Begum's interference, and were committed by her creatures, why did he not say to the Nabob, "The Begum must not interfere; the Begum's eunuchs must not interfere"? He dared not: because that woman had concealed all the bribes but one from public notice to gratify him; she and Yatibar Ali Khân, her minister, who had the principal share in this destruction of justice and perversion of all the principal functions of government, had it in their power to discover the whole. Mr. Hastings was obliged, in consequence of that concealment, to support her and to support him. Every evil principle was at work. He bought a mercenary silence to pay the same back to them. It was a wicked silence, the concealment of their common guilt. There was at once a corrupt gratitude operating mutually by a corrupt influence on both, and a corrupt fear influencing the mind of Mr. Hastings, which did not permit him to put an end to this scene of disorder and confusion, bought at the expense of twenty-four thousand pounds a year to the Company. You will hereafter see what use he makes of the evidence of Yatibar Ali Khân, and of this woman, for concealing their guilt.

Your Lordships will observe that the virtuous majority, whose reign was but short, and two of whom died of grief and vexation under the impediments which they met with from the corruptions and oppositions of Mr. Hastings, (their indirect murderer,--for it is well known to the world that their hearts were thus broken,) put their conduct out of all suspicion. For they ordered an exact account to be kept by Mahomed Reza Khân,--though, certainly, if any person in the country could be trusted, he, upon his character, might; but they did not trust him, because they knew the Company did not suffer them to trust any man: they ordered an exact account to be kept by him of the Nabob's expenses, which finally must be the Company's expenses; they ordered the account to be sent down yearly, to be controlled, if necessary, whilst the means of control existed.--What was Mr. Hastings's conduct? He did not give the persons whom he appointed any order to produce any account, though their character and circumstances were such as made an account ten thousand times more necessary from them than from those from whom it had been in former times by the Company strictly exacted. So that his not ordering any account to be given of the money that was to be expended leaves no doubt that the appointment of Munny Begum was in pursuance of his old system of bribery, and that he maintained her in office, to the subversion of public justice, for the purpose of robbing, and of continuing in the practice of robbing, the country.

But though this continued longer than was for the good of the country, yet it did not continue absolutely and relatively long; because the Court of Directors, as soon as they heard of this iniquitous appointment, which glared upon them in all the light of its infamy, immediately wrote the strongest, the most decided, and the most peremptory censure upon him, attributing his acts, every one of them, to the same causes to which I attribute them. As a proof that the Court of Directors saw the thing in the very light in which I represent it to your Lordships, and indeed in which every one must see it, you will find that they reprobate all his idle excuses,--that they reprobate all the actors in the scene,--that they consider everything to have been done, not by the Nabob, but by himself,--that the object of the appointment of Munny Begum was _money_, and that the consequence of that appointment was the robbery of the Nabob's treasury. "We by no means approve your late proceedings, on the application of the Nabob Mobarek ul Dowlah for the removal of the Naib Subahdar. The requisition of Mobarek ul Dowlah was improper and unfriendly; because he must have known that the late appointment of Mahomed Reza Khân to the office of Naib Subahdar had been marked with the Company's special approbation, and that the Court of Directors had assured him of their favor so long as a firm attachment to the Company's interest and a proper discharge of the duties of his station should render him worthy of their protection. We therefore repeat our declaration, that to require the dismission of a prime-minister thus circumstanced, without producing the smallest proof of his infidelity to the Company, or venturing to charge him with one instance of maladministration in the discharge of his public duty, was improper and inconsistent with the friendship subsisting between the Nabob of Bengal and the Company." And further on they say,--"The Nabob having intimated that he had repeatedly stated the trouble and uneasiness which he had suffered from the naibship of the nizamut being vested in Mahomed Reza Khân, we observe one of the members of your board desired the Nabob's repeated letters on the subject might be read, but this reasonable request was overruled, on a plea of saving the board's time, which we can by no means admit as a sufficient objection. The Nabob's letters of the 25th and 30th August, of the 3d September and 17th November, leave us no doubt of the true design of this extraordinary business being to bring forward Munny Begum, and again to invest her with improper power and influence, notwithstanding our former declaration, that so great a part of the Nabob's allowance had been embezzled or misapplied under her superintendence."

At present I do not think it necessary, because it would be doing more than enough, it would be slaying the slain, to show your Lordships what Mr. Hastings's motives were in acting against the sense of the East India Company, appointed by an act of Parliament to control him,--that he did it for a corrupt purpose, that all his pretences were false and fraudulent, and that he had his own corrupt views in the whole of the proceeding. But in the statement which I have given of this matter, I beg your Lordships to observe the instruments with which Mr. Hastings acts. The great men of that country, and particularly the Subahdar himself, the Nabob, are and is in so equivocal a situation, that it afforded him two bolting-holes, by which he is enabled to resist the authority of the Company, and exercise an arbitrary authority of his own: for, though the Nabob has the titles of high sovereignty, he is the lowest of all dependants; he appears to be the master of the country,--he is a pensioner of the Company's government.

When Mr. Hastings wants him to obey and answer his corrupt purposes, he finds him in the character of a pensioner: when he wants his authority to support him in opposition to the authority of the Company, immediately he invests him with high sovereign powers, and he dare not execute the orders of the Company for fear of doing some act that will make him odious in the eyes of God and man. We see how he appointed all officers for him, and forbade his interference in all affairs. When the Company see the impropriety and the guilt of these acts, and order him to rescind them, and appoint again Mahomed Reza Khân, he declares he will not, that he cannot do it in justice, but that he will consent to send him the order of the Company, but without backing it with any order of the board: which, supposing even there had been no private communication, was, in other words, commanding him to disobey it. So this poor man, who a short time before was at the feet of Mr. Hastings, whom Mr. Hastings declared to be a pageant, and swore in a court of justice that he was but a pageant, and followed that affidavit with long declarations in Council that he was a pageant in sovereignty, and ought in policy ever to be held out as such,--this man he sets up in opposition to the Company, and refuses to appoint Mahomed Reza Khân to the office which was guarantied to him by the express faith of the Company, pledged to his support. Will any man tell me that this resistance, under such base, though plausible pretences, could spring from any other cause than a resolution of persisting systematically in his course of corruption and bribery through Munny Begum?

But there is another circumstance that puts this in a stronger light. He opposes the Nabob's mock authority to the authority of the Company, and leaves Mahomed Reza Khân unemployed, because, as he says, he cannot in justice execute orders from the Company (though they are his undoubted masters) contrary to the rights of the Nabob. You see what the rights of the Nabob were: the rights of the Nabob were, to be governed by Munny Begum and her scandalous ministers. But, however, we now see him exalted to be an independent sovereign; he defies the Company at the head of their armies and their treasury; that name that makes all India shake was defied by one of its pensioners. My Lords, human greatness is an unstable thing. This man, so suddenly exalted, was as soon depressed; and the manner of his depression is as curious as that of his exaltation by Mr. Hastings, and will tend to show you the man most clearly.

Mr. Francis, whose conduct all along was directed by no other principles than those which were in conformity with the plan adopted by himself and his virtuous colleagues, namely, an entire obedience to the laws of his country, and who constantly had opposed Mr. Hastings, upon principles of honor, and principles of obedience to the authority of the Company under which he acted, had never contended for any one thing, in any way, or in any instance, but obedience to them, and had constantly asserted that Mahomed Reza Khân ought to be put into employment. Mr. Hastings as constantly opposed him; and the reason he gave for it was, that it was against the direct rights of the Nabob, and that they were rights so sacred that they could not be infringed even by the sovereign authority of the Company ordering him to do it. He had so great an aversion to the least subtraction of the Nabob's right, that, though expressly commanded by the Court of Directors, he would not suffer Mahomed Reza Khân to be invested with his office under the Company's authority. The Nabob was too sovereign, too supreme, for him to do it. But such is the fate of human grandeur, that a whimsical event reduced the Nabob to his state of pageant again, and made him the mere subject of--you will see whom. Mr. Hastings found he was so embarrassed by his disobedience to the spirit of the orders of the Company, and by the various wild projects he had formed, as to make it necessary for him, even though he had a majority in the Council, to gain over at any price Mr. Francis. Mr. Francis, frightened by the same miserable situation of affairs, (for this happened at a most dangerous period,--the height of the Mahratta war,) was willing likewise to give up his opposition to Mr. Hastings, to suspend the execution of many rightful things, and to concede them to the public necessity. Accordingly he agreed to terms with Mr. Hastings. But what was the price of that concession? Any base purpose, any desertion of public duty? No: all that he desired of Mr. Hastings was, that he should obey the orders of the Company; and among other acts of the obedience required was this, that Mahomed Reza Khân should be put into his office.

You have heard how Mr. Hastings opposed the order of the Company, and on what account he opposed it. On the 1st of September he sent an order to the Nabob, now become his subject, to give up this office to Mahomed Reza Khân: an act which he had before represented as a dethroning of the Nabob. The order went on the 1st of September, and on the 3d this great and mighty prince, whom all earth could not move from the assertion of his rights, gives them all up, and Mahomed Reza Khân is invested with them. So there all his pretences were gone. It is plain that what had been done before was for Munny Begum, and that what he now gave up was from necessity: and it shows that the Nabob was the meanest of his servants; for in truth he ate his daily bread out of the hands of Mr. Hastings, through Munny Begum.

Mahomed Reza Khân was now invested again with his office; but such was the treachery of Mr. Hastings, that, though he wrote to the Nabob that this was done in consequence of the orders of the Company, he did clandestinely, according to his usual mode, assure the Nabob that Mahomed Reza Khân should not hold the place longer than till he heard from England. He then wrote him another letter, that he should hold it no longer than while he submitted to his present necessity, (thus giving up to his colleague what he refused to the Company,) and engaged, privately, that he would dismiss Mahomed Reza Khân again. And accordingly, the moment he thought Mr. Francis was not in a condition to give him trouble any longer, that moment he again turned out Mahomed Reza Khân from that general superintendence of affairs which the Company gave him, and deposed him as a minister, leaving him only a very confined authority as a magistrate.

All these changes, no less than four great revolutions, if I may so call them, were made by Mr. Hastings for his own corrupt purposes. This is the manner in which Mr. Hastings has played with the most sacred objects that man ever had a dealing with: with the government, with the justice, with the order, with the dignity, with the nobility of a great country: he played with them to satisfy his own wicked and corrupt purposes through the basest instrument.

Now, my Lords, I have done with these presumptions of corruption with Munny Begum, and have shown that it is not a slight crime, but that it is attended with a breach of public faith, with a breach of his orders, with a breach of the whole English government, and the destruction of the native government, of the police, the order, the safety, the security, and the justice of the country,--and that all these are much concerned in this cause. Therefore the Commons stand before the face of the world, and say, We have brought a cause, a great cause, a cause worthy the Commons of England to prosecute, and worthy the Lords to judge and determine upon.

I have now nothing further to state than what the consequences are of Mr. Hastings taking bribes,--that Mr. Hastings's taking of bribes is not only his own corruption, but the incurable corruption of the whole service. I will show, first, that he was named in 1773 to put an end to that corruption. I will show that he did not,--that he knowingly and willingly connived at it,--and that that connivance was the principal cause of all the disorders that have hitherto prevailed in that country. I will show you that he positively refused to obey the Company's order to inquire into and to correct the corruptions that prevailed in that country; next, that he established an avowed system of connivance, in order to gain over everything that was corrupt in the country; and that, lastly, to secure it, he gave up all the prosecutions, and enervated and took away the sole arm left to the Company for the assertion of authority and the preservation of good morals and purity in their service.

My Lords, here is a letter, in the year 1773, in which the Court of Directors had, upon his own representation, approved some part of his conduct. He is charmed with their approbation; he promises the greatest things; but I believe your Lordships will see, from the manner in which he proceeds at that very instant, that a more deliberate system, for not only being corrupt himself, but supporting corruption in others, never was exhibited in any public paper.

"While I indulge the pleasure which I receive from the past successes of my endeavors, I own I cannot refrain from looking back with a mixture of anxiety on the omissions by which I am sensible I may since have hazarded the diminution of your esteem. All my letters addressed to your Honorable Court, and to the Secret Committee, repeat the strongest promises of prosecuting the inquiries into the conduct of your servants which you had been pleased to commit particularly to my charge. You will readily perceive that I must have been sincere in those declarations; since it would have argued great indiscretion to have made them, had I foreseen my inability to perform them. I find myself now under the disagreeable necessity of avowing that inability; at the same time I will boldly take upon me to affirm, that, on whomsoever you might have delegated that charge, and by whatever powers it might have been accompanied, it would have been sufficient to occupy the entire attention of those who were intrusted with it, and, even with all the aids of leisure and authority, would have proved ineffectual. I dare appeal to the public records, to the testimony of those who have opportunities of knowing me, and even to the detail which the public voice can report of the past acts of this government, that my time has been neither idly nor uselessly employed: yet such are the cares and embarrassments of this various state, that, although much may be done, much more, even in matters of moment, must necessarily remain neglected. To select from the miscellaneous heap which each day's exigencies present to our choice those points on which the general welfare of your affairs most essentially depends, to provide expedients for future advantages and guard against probable evils, are all that your administration can faithfully promise to perform for your service with their united labors most diligently exerted. They cannot look back without sacrificing the objects of their immediate duty, which are those of your interests, to endless researches, which can produce no real good, and may expose your affairs to all the ruinous consequences of personal malevolence, both here and at home."

My Lords, this is the first man, I believe, that ever took credit for his sincerity from his breach of his promises. "I could not," he says, "have made these promises, if I had not thought that I could perform them. Now I find I cannot perform them, and you have in that non-performance and in that profession a security for my sincerity when I promised them." Upon this principle, any man who makes a promise has nothing to do afterwards, but to say that he finds himself (without assigning any particular cause for it) unable to perform it,--not only to justify himself for his non-performance, but to justify himself and claim credit for sincerity in his original profession. The charge was given him specially, and he promised obedience, over and over, upon the spot, and in the country, in which he was no novice, for he had been bred in it: it was his native country in one sense, it was the place of his renewed nativity and regeneration. Yet this very man, as if he was a novice in it, now says, "I promised you what I now find I cannot perform." Nay, what is worse, he declares no man could perform it, if he gave up his whole time to it. And lastly, he says, that the inquiry into these corruptions, even if you succeeded in it, would do more harm than good. Now was there ever an instance of a man so basely deserting a duty, and giving so base a reason for it? His duty was to put an end to corruption in every channel of government. It cannot be done. Why? Because it would expose our affairs to malignity and enmity, and end, perhaps, to our disadvantage. Not only will he connive himself, but he advises the Company to do it. For fear of what? For fear that their service was so abandoned and corrupt, that the display of the evil would tend more to their disreputation than all their attempts to reform it would tend to their service.

Mr. Hastings should naturally have imagined that the law was a resource in this desperate case of bribery. He tells you, that in "that charge of oppression, though they were supported by the cries of the people and the most authentic representations, it is yet impossible in most cases to obtain legal proofs." Here is a system of total despair upon the business, which I hope and believe is not a desperate one, and has not proved a desperate one, whenever a rational attempt has been made to pursue it. Here you find him corrupt, and you find, in consequence of that corruption, that he screens the whole body of corruption in India, and states an absolute despair of any possibility, by any art or address, of putting an end to it. Nay, he tells you, that, if corruption did not exist, if it was not connived at, that the India Company could not exist. Whether that be a truth or not I cannot tell; but this I know, that it is the most horrible picture that ever was made of any country. It might be said that these were excuses for omissions,--sins of omission he calls them. I will show that they were systematic, that Mr. Hastings did uniformly profess that he would connive at abuses, and contend that abuses ought to be connived at. When the whole mystery of the iniquity, in which he himself was deeply concerned, came to light,--when it appeared that all the Company's orders were contravened,--that contracts were given directly contrary to their orders, and upon principles subversive of their government, leading to all manner of oppression and ruin to the country,--what was Mr. Hastings's answer? "I must here remark, that the majority ... I had not the power of establishing it."[5] Then he goes on and states other cases of corruption, at every one of which he winks. Here he states another reason for his connivance. "Suppose again," (for he puts another supposition, and these suppositions are not hypotheses laid down for argument, but real facts then existing before the Council examining into grievances,)--"suppose again, that any person had benefited himself ... unprofitable discussion."[6]