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The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) written by Edmund Burke

E >> Edmund Burke >> The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12)




LXX. That the aforesaid being the tenure of the power of the said
minister, and such his character, as given by the said Warren Hastings
himself, who did originally compel the Nabob to receive him, who did
constantly support him against the Nabob, his master, as well as against
the Company's Resident,--the delivering over to such a person his
master, his family, his country, and the care of the British interests
therein, without control or public inspection, was an high crime and
misdemeanor.

LXXI. That the next person whom the said Hastings did invest with power
in the said country was a certain opulent and powerful native manager of
revenue, called Almas Ali Khan, closely connected with the said Hyder
Beg Khan, and to whom the said Hyder Beg Khan, as the said Hastings has
admitted, "had intrusted the _greatest_ part of his revenues, without
any pledge or security for his fidelity." And afterwards the said
Hastings charges the said Almas Ali with an intention of removing from
the Nabob's dominions: he states, "as taking with him," and therefore
being possessed of, "an immense treasure, the fruits of his
embezzlements and oppressions, and an army raised for its protection."

LXXII. That the said Warren Hastings was, or pretended to be, impressed
with the evil character, dangerous designs, and immoderate power of the
said Almas Ali; that he did insert among his instructions to the
Resident Bristow an order of a dangerous and unwarrantable nature, in
which, upon his, the said Hastings's, simple allegation of offences, not
accurately described or specified, with regard either to the fact, the
nature of the offence, or the proof, he was required to urge the Nabob
to put him to death, with many qualifications in the said instructions,
full of fraud and duplicity, calculated to insnare the said Resident
Bristow, and to throw upon him the responsibility of the conduct of the
said Almas Ali Khan, if he should continue at large contrary to his
orders, or to subject him, the said Resident, to the shame and scandal
of apprehending and putting him to death by means which, in the
circumstances, must necessarily be such as would be construed into
treachery, and he, the said Almas Ali Khan, being from nature and
situation suspicious and watchful, and being at that very time in the
collection, or farmer of the most important part of the revenues, with
an extensive jurisdiction annexed, and at the head of fourteen thousand
of his own troops, and having been recently accepted by the Resident
Middleton as security for large sums of money advanced by the bankers of
Benares to the use of the East India Company; which orders (if the said
Resident would or could have executed them) must have raised an
universal alarm among all the considerable men of the country concerned
in the government, and would have been a means of subverting the public
credit of the Company, by the murder of a person engaged for very great
sums of money that had been advanced for their use. And the said
instruction is as followeth.

"If any engagement shall actually subsist between them at the time you
have charge of the Residency, it must, however exceptionable, be
faithfully observed; but if he has been guilty of any criminal offence
to the Nabob, his master, for which no immunity is provided in the
engagement, or he shall break any one of the conditions of it, I do most
strictly enjoin you, and it must be your special care to endeavor,
_either by force or surprise_, to secure his person and bring him to
justice. By bringing him to justice I mean, that you urge the Nabob, on
due conviction, _to punish him with death_, as a necessary example to
deter others from the commission of the like crimes; nor must you desist
till this is effected. I cannot prescribe the means; but to guard myself
against the obloquy to which I may be exposed by a forced
misconstruction of this order by those who may hereafter be employed in
searching our records for cavils and informations against me, I think it
proper to forbid and protest against the use of any _fraudulent artifice
or treachery to accomplish the end which I have prescribed_; and as you
alone are privy to the order, you will of course observe the greatest
secrecy, that it may not transpire: but I repeat my recommendation of
it, as one of the first and most essential duties of your office."

LXXIII. That, among the reasons assigned for putting to death the said
Almas Ali, which the said Hastings did recommend directly and repeatedly
to the Resident, "as one of the first and most essential duties of his
office," was, in substance, "that, by his extensive trust with regard to
the revenues, he had been permitted to acquire independency; that the
means thereof had been long seen and the effects thereof foretold by
every person acquainted with the state of government, except those
immediately interested in it"; and he, the said Warren Hastings, did
also charge the said Almas Ali with embezzlement of the revenues and
oppression of the people; and nothing appears to disprove the same, but
much to give ground to a presumption that the said Almas Ali did
grievously abuse the power committed to him, as farmer and collector of
the revenue, to the great oppression of the inhabitants of the countries
which had been rented to him by Hyder Beg Khan with the knowledge and
consent of the said Warren Hastings.

LXXIV. That the Resident, Bristow, declining the violent attempt on the
life of Almas Ali deceitfully ordered by the said Warren Hastings, did,
on weighty reasons, drawn from the spirit of the said Hastings's own
instructions, recommend that his, the said Almas Ali Khan's, farms of
revenue, or a great part of them, should be, on the expiration of his
lease, taken out of his hands, as being too extensive, and supplying the
means of a dangerous power in the country; but yet he, the said Warren
Hastings, did not only continue him in the possession of the said
revenues, but did give to him a new lease thereof for the term of five
years. And on this renovation and increase of trust, the said Warren
Hastings did not consent to produce the informer upon whose credit he
had made his charge of capital crimes on the said Almas Ali, and had
directed him to be put to death, or call upon him to make good his
charges; but, instead of this, totally changing his relation to the said
Almas Ali, did himself labor to procure from all parts attestations to
prove him not guilty of the perfidy and disloyalty of which the said
Hastings himself appears to have been to that very time his sole
accuser, as he hath since been his most anxious advocate: but though he
did use many endeavors to acquit Almas Ali of his intended flight, yet
concerning his embezzlements and oppressions, the most important of all
charges relative to that of the revenue and collection, he, the said
Hastings, hath made no inquiry whatever; by which it might appear that
he was not as fully guilty thereof as he had always represented him to
be. But some time after he, the said Warren Hastings, had arrived at
Lucknow, in the year 1784, he suggested to the said Almas Ali Khan the
_advance_ to the Company's use of a sum of money amounting to fifty
thousand pounds or thereabouts; and the said suggested advance was (as
the said Warren Hastings asserts, no witness or document of the
transaction appearing) "cheerfully and without hesitation complied with,
considering it as an _evidence seasonably_ offered for the general
refutation of the charges of perfidy and disloyalty": which practice of
charging wealthy persons with treason and disloyalty, and afterwards
acquitting them on the payment of a sum of money, is highly scandalous
to the honor, justice, and government of Great Britain; and the offence
is highly aggravated by the said Hastings's declaration to the Court of
Directors that the charges against Almas Ali Khan have been too
laboriously urged against him, and carried at one time to such an excess
as had nearly driven him to abandon his country "_for the preservation
of his life and honor_," and thus to give a "color to the charges
themselves," when he, the said Warren Hastings, did well know that he
himself did consider as a crime, and did make it an article in a formal
accusation against the Resident Middleton, that he did not inform him,
the said Hastings, of the supposed treasons of Almas Ali Khan, and of
his design to abandon the country, when he himself did most laboriously
urge the charges against him, and when no attempt appears to have been
made against the life of the said Almas Ali Khan except by the said
Warren Hastings himself.

LXXV. That the sum of fifty thousand pounds sterling, or thereabouts,
publicly taken by the said Warren Hastings, as an _advance_ for the use
of the Company, if given as a consideration or fine, on account of the
renewal for a long term of civil authority and military command, and the
collection of the revenues to an immense amount, the same being at least
eight hundred thousand pounds sterling yearly, was so totally inadequate
to the interest granted, that it may justly be presumed it was not on
that, or on any public ground or condition, that the said Hastings did
delegate, out of all reach of resumption or correction, a lease of
boundless power and enormous profit, for so long a term, to a known
oppressor of the country.

LXXVI. That Warren Hastings, being at Lucknow in consequence of his
deputation aforesaid, did, in his letter from that city, dated 30th of
April, 1784, recommend to the Court of Directors, "as his _last and
ultimate hope_, that their wisdom would put a _final_ period to _the
ruinous and disreputable system_ of interference, whether _avowed or
secret_, in the affairs of the Nabob of Oude, and withdraw _forever the
influence_ by which it is maintained," and that they ought to confine
their views to the sole maintenance of the old brigade stationed in Oude
by virtue of the first treaty with the reigning Nabob, expressing
himself in the following words to the Court of Directors. "If you
transgress that line, you may extend _the distribution of patronage, and
add to the fortunes of individuals_, and to the nominal riches of Great
Britain; but your _own_ interests will suffer by it; and _the ruin of a
great and once flourishing nation will he recorded as the work of your
administration, with an everlasting reproach to the British name_. To
this reasoning I shall join _the obligations of justice and good faith,
which cut off every pretext for your exercising any power or authority
in this country, as long as the sovereign of it fulfils the engagements
he has articled with you_."

LXXVII. That it appears by the extraordinary recommendation aforesaid,
asserted by him, the said Hastings, to be enforced by the
"_obligations of justice and good faith_," that the said Warren
Hastings, at the time of writing the said letter, had made an
agreement to withdraw the British interference, represented by him as
a "ruinous and disreputable system," out of the dominions of the Nabob
of Oude. But the instrument itself, in which the said agreement is
made, (if at all existing,) does not appear; nor hath the said
Hastings transmitted any documents relative to the said treaty, which
is a neglect highly criminal,--especially as he has informed the
Company, in his letter from Benares, "that he has promised the Nabob
that he will not abandon him to the _chance_ of any other mode of
relation, and most confidently given him assurance of _the
ratification and confirmation_ of that which he [the said Hastings]
had established between his government and the Company": the said
_confident assurance_ being given to an agreement never produced, and
made without any sort of authority from the Court of Directors,--an
agreement precluding, on the one hand, the operation of the discretion
of his masters in the conduct of their affairs, or, on the other,
subjecting them to the hazard of an imputation on their faith, by
breaking an engagement confidently made in their name, though without
their consent, by the first officer of their government.

That the said Hastings, further to preclude the operation of such
discretionary conduct in the administration of this kingdom as
circumstances might call for, has informed the Directors that he has
gone so far as even to condition the existence of the revenue itself
with the exclusion of the Company, his masters, from all interference
whatsoever: for in his letter to Mr. Wheler, dated Benares, 20th
September, 1784, are the following words. "The aumils [collectors]
demanded that a clause should be inserted in their engagements, that
they were to be in full force for the complete term of their leases,
_provided that no foreign authority_ was exercised over them,--or, in
other words, _that their engagements were to cease whenever they should
be interrupted in their functions by the interference of an English
agent_. This requisition was officially notified to me by the acting
minister, and referred to me in form by the Nabob Vizier, for my
_previous_ consent to it. I encouraged it, and I gave my consent to
it." And the said Hastings has been guilty of the high presumption to
inform his said masters, that he has taken that course to compel them
not to violate the assurances given by him in their name: "There is one
condition" (namely, the above condition) "which _essentially connects
the confirmation of the settlement itself with the interests of the
Company_."

LXXVIII. That the said Warren Hastings, who did show an indecent
distrust of the Company's faith, did endeavor, before that time, at
other times, namely, in his instructions to his secret agent, Major
Palmer, dated the 6th of May, 1782, to limit the confidence to be
reposed in the British government to the duration of his own power, in
the following words in the fifth article. "It is very much my desire to
impress the Nabob with a _thorough_ confidence in the faith and justice
of our government,--that is to say, _in my own_, while I am at the head
of it: I cannot be answerable for the acts of others independent of me."

LXXIX. That the said Warren Hastings did, in his letter, dated Benares,
the 1st of October, 1784, to the Court of Directors, write, "that, if
they [the Directors] manifested no _symptoms_ of an (1.) _intended_
interference, the objects of his engagements will be obtained; (2.) but
if a different policy shall be adopted,--if new agents are sent into the
country, and armed with authority for the purposes of vengeance or
corruption (_for to no other will they be applied_),--if new demands are
made on the Nabob Vizier, (4.) and accounts overcharged on one side,
with a wide latitude taken on the other, to swell his debt beyond the
means of payment,--(5.) if political dangers are portended, to ground on
them the plea of burdening his country with unnecessary defences and
enormous subsidies,--(6.) or if, even abstaining from _direct
encroachment on the Nabob's rights_, your government shall show but _a
degree of personal kindness to the partisans_ of the late usurpation, or
by any constructive indication of partiality and dissatisfaction
_furnish_ grounds for the _expectation_ of an _approaching_ change of
system,--I am sorry to say, that all my labors will prove abortive."

LXXX. That all the measures deprecated in future by the said Warren
Hastings, with a reference to former conduct, in his several letters
aforesaid, being (so far as the same are intelligible) six in number,
have been all of them the proper acts and measures of the said Warren
Hastings himself. For he did himself first of all introduce, and did
afterwards continue and support, that interference which he now informs
the Court of Directors "is ruinous and disreputable, and which the very
_symptoms_ of an _intention_ to renew" he considers in the highest
degree dangerous; he did direct, with a controlling and absolute
authority, in every department of government, and in every district in
the dominions of the Nabob of Oude. Secondly, the appointment of agents,
which was eminently the act of his own administration: he not only
retaining many agents in the country of Oude, both "_secret and
avowed_," but also sending some of them, in defiance to the orders of
that very Court of Directors, to whom, in his said letter of the 1st of
October, 1784, he assigns "vengeance and corruption" as the only motives
that can produce such appointments. Thirdly, that he, the said Warren
Hastings, did instruct one of the said agents, and did charge him upon
pain of "_a dreadful responsibility_," to perform sundry acts of
violence against persons of the highest distinction and nearest relation
to the prince; which acts were justly liable to the imputation of
"_vengeance_" in the execution, and which he, in his reply to the
defence of Middleton to one of his charges, did declare to be liable to
the suspicion of "_corruption_ in the relaxation." Fourthly, that he did
raise new demands on the Vizier, "and overcharge accounts on one side
and take a wide latitude on the other," by sending up a new and before
unheard-of overcharge of four hundred thousand pounds and upwards, not
made by the Resident or admitted by the Vizier, and, by adding the same,
did swell his debt "beyond the means of payment"; and did even insert,
as the ninth article of his charge against Middleton, "his omitting to
take any notice of the additional balance of Rupees 26,48,571, stated by
the Accountant-General to be due from the Vizier on the 30th of April,
1780," to which he did add fourteen lac more, making together the above
sum. Fifthly, that he, the said Warren Hastings, did assign "political
dangers," in his minute of the 13th December, 1779, for burdening the
said Nabob of Oude "with unnecessary defences and enormous subsidies,"
with regard to which he then declared, that "it was _our_ part, not
_his_ [the Nabob's], to judge and to determine." And, sixthly, that he
did not only show the _design_, but the _fact_, of personal kindness to
the partisans of what he here calls, as well as in another letter, and
in one Minute of Consultation, a "late usurpation,"--he having rewarded
the principal and most obnoxious of the instruments of the said late
usurpation, (if such it was,) Richard Johnson, Esquire, with an
honorable and profitable embassy to the court of the Nizam.

LXXXI. That the said Warren Hastings, therefore,--by assuming an
authority which he himself did consider as an _usurpation_, and by acts
in virtue of that usurped authority, done in his own proper person and
by agents appointed by himself, and proceeding (though with some
mitigation, for which one of them was by him censured and accused) under
his own express and positive orders and instructions, and thereby
establishing, as he himself observed, "a system of interference,
disreputable and ruinous, which could only be subservient to promote
patronage, private interest, private embezzlement, corruption, and
vengeance," to the public detriment of the Company, "and to the ruin of
a once flourishing nation, and eternally reproachful to the British
name," and for the evil effects of which system, "as his sole and
ultimate hope" and remedy, he recommends an entire abdication, forever,
not only of all power and authority, but even of the interference and
influence of Great Britain,--is guilty of an high crime and misdemeanor.

LXXXII. That the said Warren Hastings, in his letter from Chunar of the
29th of November, 1781, has represented that very influence and
interference, which in three public papers he denominates "_a late
usurpation_" as being authorized by a regular treaty and agreement,
voluntarily made with the Nabob himself, at a place called Chunar, on
the 19th of September, 1781, a copy of which hath been transmitted to
the Court of Directors,--and that three persons were present at the
execution of the same, two whereof were Middleton and Johnson, his
agents and Residents at Oude, the third the minister of the Nabob. And
he did, in his paper written to the Council-General, and transmitted to
the Court of Directors, not only declare that the said interference was
agreed to by the said Nabob, and sealed with his seal, but would be
highly beneficial to him: assuring the said Council, "that, if the
Resident performed his duty in the execution of his [the said
Hastings's] instructions, the Nabob's part of the engagement will prove
of still greater benefit to him than to our government, in whose behalf
it was exacted; and that the _participation_ which is allowed our
Resident in the _inspection_ of the public treasure will secure the
receipt of the Company's demands, whilst _the influence which our
government will ALWAYS possess over the public minister of the Nabob,
and the authority of our own_, will be an effectual means of securing an
attentive and faithful discharge of their several trusts, both towards
the Company and the Vizier."

LXXXIII. And the said Warren Hastings did not only settle a plan, of
which the agency and interference aforesaid was a part, and assert the
beneficial consequences thereof, but did also record, that the same "was
a great public measure, constituted on a large and _established system_,
and destructive, in its instant effects, of the interest and fortune of
many patronized individuals"; and in consequence of the said treaty, he,
the said Warren Hastings, did authorize and positively require his agent
aforesaid to interfere in and control and regulate _all the Nabob's
affairs whatsoever_: and the said Warren Hastings having made for the
Company, and in its name, an acquisition of power and authority, even if
it had been abused by others, he ought to have remedied the abuse, and
brought the guilty to condign punishment, instead of making another
treaty without their approbation, consent, or knowledge, and to this
time not communicated to them, by which it appears he has annulled the
former treaty, and the authority thereby acquired to the Company, as a
grievance and usurpation, to which, from the general corruption of their
service, no other remedy could be applied than a formal renunciation of
their power and influence: for which said actings and doings the said
Warren Hastings is guilty of an high crime and misdemeanor.

LXXXIV. That the Company's army in India is an object requiring the most
vigilant and constant inspection, both to the happiness of the natives,
the security of the British power, and to its own obedience and
discipline, and does require that inspection in proportion as it is
removed from the principal seat of government; and the number and
discipline of the troops kept up by the native princes, along with
British troops, is also of great moment and importance to the same ends.
That Warren Hastings, Esquire, pretending to pursue the same, did, in
virtue of an authority acquired by the treaty of Chunar aforesaid, give
strict orders, and to which he did demand _a most implicit obedience_,
that _all_ officers of the Nabob's army should be appointed "with _the
concurrence of the Resident_," and supposing the case that persons of
obnoxious description or of known disaffection to the British government
should be appointed, (of which he left the Resident to be the judge,)
he did direct in the following words: "You are in such case to
remonstrate against it; and if the Vizier should persist in his choice,
you are peremptorily, _and in my name_, to oppose it as _a breach of his
agreement_"; and he did also direct that the "_mootiana_ [or soldiers
employed for the collection of revenue] should be reformed, and reduced
into one corps for the whole service, and that _no_ infantry should be
left in the Nabob's service but what may be necessary for his
bodyguard"; and he did further order and direct as follows: "That in
quelling disturbances the commander of the forces should assist you [the
said Resident] on the requisition of the Vizier communicated through you
to him [the said commander], _or at your own tingle application_. It is
directed that the regiment ordered for the immediate protection of your
office and person at Lucknow shall be relieved every three months, and
during its stay there shall act solely and exclusively under your
orders." And it appears in the course of the Company's correspondence,
that the country troops under the Nabob's sole direction would be
ill-disciplined and unserviceable, if not worse, and therefore the said
Warren Hastings did order that "no infantry should be kept in his
service"; yet it appears that the said Warren Hastings did make an
arrangement for a body of native troops wholly out of the control or
inspection of the British government, and left a written order in the
hands of Major Palmer (one of _his_ agents, who had been continued
there, though the Company was not permitted to employ any) to be
transmitted to Colonel Cumming as soon as an adequate force shall be
provided _for the defence of the Nabob's frontier_ by detachments from
_the Nabob's own battalions_,--the said Colonel Cumming's forces, whom
the others were to supersede and replace, consisting wholly of infantry,
and which, being intended for the same service, were probably of the
same constitution.