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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)




IV. That the said resolutions being transmitted to the said Warren
Hastings, he, the said Warren Hastings, did write, and cause to be
printed and published, a certain false, insolent, malicious, and
seditious libel, purporting to be a letter from him, the said Warren
Hastings, to the Court of Directors, dated Fort William, 20th March,
1783, "calculated," as the Directors truly affirm, "to bring contempt,
as well as an odium, on the Court of Directors, for their conduct on
that occasion"; and the said libel had a direct tendency to excite a
spirit of disobedience to the lawful government of this nation in India
through all ranks of their service.

V. That he, the said Warren Hastings, among other insolent and
contumacious charges and aspersions on the Court of Directors, did
address them in the printed letter aforesaid as follows. "I deny that
Rajah Cheyt Sing was a native prince of India. Cheyt Sing is the son of
a collector of the revenue of that province, which his arts, and the
misfortunes of his master, enabled him to convert to a permanent and
hereditary possession. This man, whom _you have thus ranked among the
princes_ of India, will be astonished, when he hears it, at an elevation
so unlooked for, nor less at the independent rights which _your_
commands have assigned him,--rights which are _so foreign to his
conceptions, that I doubt whether he will know in what language to
assert them, unless_ the example which _you have thought it consistent
with justice, however opposite to policy, to show, of becoming his
advocates against your own interests, should inspire any of your own
servants to be his advisers and instructors_." And he did further, to
bring into contempt the authority of the Company, and to excite a
resistance to their lawful orders, frame a supposition that the Court of
Directors had intended the restoration of the Rajah of Benares, and on
that ground did presume in the said libel to calumniate, in
disrespectful and contumelious terms, the policy of the Court of
Directors, as well as the person whom he did conceive to be the object
of their protection, as followeth. "Of the consequences of such a policy
I forbear to speak. _Most happily, the wretch whose hopes may be excited
by the appearances in his favor is ill qualified to avail himself of
them_, and _the force which is stationed in the province of Benares is
sufficient to suppress any symptoms of internal sedition_; but it cannot
fail to create distrust and suspense in the minds both of the rulers and
of the people, and such a state is always productive of disorder. But it
is not in this partial consideration that I dread the effects of your
commands; it is in your proclaimed indisposition against the first
executive member of your first government in India. I almost shudder at
the reflection of what might have happened, had these denunciations
against your own minister, in favor of a man universally considered in
this part of the world as justly attainted for his crimes, the murderer
of your servants and soldiers, and the rebel to your authority, arrived
two months earlier."

VI. That the said Warren Hastings did also presume to censure and
asperse the Court of Directors for the moderate terms in which they had
expressed their displeasure against him, as putting him under the
necessity of stating in his defence a strong accusation against himself,
and as implying in the said Court a consciousness that he was not guilty
of the offences charged upon him,--being, as he asserts, in the
resolutions of the Court of Directors, "arraigned and prejudged of _a
violation of national faith, in acts of such complicated aggravation_,
that, _if they were true_, no punishment SHORT OF DEATH could atone for
the injury which the interest and credit of the public had sustained in
them"; and he did therefore censure the said Court for applying no
stronger or more criminating epithets than those of "improper,
unwarrantable, and highly impolitic," to an offence so by them charged,
and by him described. And though it be true that the expressions
aforesaid are much too reserved for the purpose of duly characterizing
the offences of the said Hastings, yet was it _in him_ most indecent to
libel the Court of Directors for the same; and his implication, from the
tenderness of the epithets and descriptions aforesaid used towards him,
was not only indecent, but ungrounded, malicious, and scandalous,--he
having himself highly, though truly, aggravated "the charge of the
injuries done by him to the Rajah of Benares," in order to bring the
said Directors into contempt and suspicion, the paragraphs in the said
libel being as follow.--"Here I must crave leave to say, that the terms
'improper, unwarrantable, and highly impolitic' are much too gentle, as
deductions from such premises; and as every reader of the latter will
obviously feel, as he reads, the deductions which inevitably belong to
them, I will add, that the strict performance of solemn engagements on
one part, followed by acts directly subversive of them and by total
dispossession on the other, stamps on the perpetrators of the latter the
guilt of the greatest possible violation of faith and justice."--"There
is an appearance of tenderness in this deviation from plain
construction, of which, however meant, I have a right to complain;
because it imposes on me the necessity of framing the terms of the
accusation against myself, which you have only not made, but have stated
the leading arguments to it so strongly, that no one who reads these can
avoid making it, _or not know it to have been intended_."

VII. That the said Hastings, being well aware that his own declarations
did contain the clearest condemnation of his own conduct from his own
pen, did in the said libel attempt to overturn, frustrate, and render of
none effect all the proofs to be given of prevarication, contradiction,
and of opposition of action to principle, which can be used against men
in public trust, and did contend that the same could not be used against
him; and as if false assertions could be justified by factious motives,
he did endeavor to do away the authority of his own _deliberate,
recorded_ declarations, entered by him _in writing_ on the Council-Books
of the Presidency; for, after asserting, _but not attempting to prove_,
that his declarations were consistent with his conduct, he writes in the
said libel as follows: For "were it otherwise, they were not to be made
the rules of my conduct; and God forbid that every expression dictated
by the impulse of present emergency, and unpremeditatedly uttered in the
heat of party contention, should impose upon me the obligation of a
fixed principle, and be applied to every variable occasion!"

VIII. That the said Hastings, in order to draw the lawful dependence of
the servants of the Company from the Court of Directors to a factious
dependence on himself, did, in the libel aforesaid, treat the acts and
appointments of their undoubted authority, when exercised in opposition
to his arbitrary will, as ruinous to their affairs, in the following
terms. "It is as well known to the Indian world as to the Court of
English Proprietors, that the first declaratory instruments of the
dissolution of my influence, in the year 1774, were Mr. John Bristow and
Mr. Francis Fowke. By your ancient and known constitution the Governor
has been ever held forth and understood to possess the ostensible
powers of government; all the correspondence with foreign princes is
conducted in his name; and every person resident with them for the
management of your political concerns is understood to be _more
especially his_ representative, and of _his_ choice: and such ought to
be the rule; for how otherwise can they trust an agent nominated against
the will of _his_ principal? When the state of this administration was
such as seemed to _admit of_ the appointment of Mr. Bristow to the
Residency of Lucknow without _much_ diminution of _my own_ influence, I
gladly seized the occasion to show my readiness to submit to your
commands; I proposed his nomination; he was nominated, and declared to
_be the agent of my own choice_. Even this effect of my caution _is
defeated by your absolute command for his reappointment independent of
me, and with the supposition that I should be adverse to it_.--I am now
wholly deprived of my official powers, both in the province of Oude, and
in the zemindary of Benares."

IX. That, further to emancipate others and himself from due obedience to
the Court of Directors, he did, in the libel aforesaid, enhance his
services, which, without specification or proof, he did suppose in the
said libel to be important and valuable, by representing them as done
under their displeasure, and doth attribute his not having done more to
their opposition, as followeth. "It is now a complete period of eleven
years since I first received the first nominal charge of your affairs;
in the course of it I have _invariably_ had to contend, not with
ordinary difficulties, but such as most _unnaturally_ arose _from the
opposition of those very powers from which I primarily derived my
authority, and which were required for the support of it_. My exertions,
though applied to an unvaried and consistent line of action, have been
occasional and desultory; yet I please myself with the hope, that, in
the annals of your dominion, which shall be written after the extinction
of recent prejudices, this term of its administration will appear not
the least conducive to the interests of the Company, nor the least
reflective of the honor of the British name: and allow me to suggest the
instructive reflection of _what good might have been done, and what evil
prevented, had due support been given to that administration which has
performed such eminent and substantial services without it_."

And the said Hastings, further to render the authority of the said Court
perfectly contemptible, doth, in a strain of exultation for his having
escaped out of a measure in which by his guilt he had involved the
Company in a ruinous war, and out of which it had escaped by a sacrifice
of almost all the territories before acquired (from that enemy which he
had made) either by war or former treaties, and by the abandoning the
Company's allies to their mercy, attribute the said supposed services to
his acting in such a manner as had on former occasions excited their
displeasure, in the following words. "Pardon, Honorable Sirs, this
digressive exultation. I cannot suppress the pride which I feel in this
successful achievement of a measure so fortunate for your interests and
the national honor; for that pride is the source of my zeal, so
frequently exerted in your support, and never more happily than in those
instances _in which I have departed from the prescribed and beaten path
of action, and assumed a responsibility which has too frequently drawn
on me the most pointed effects of your displeasure_. But however I may
yield to my private feelings in thus enlarging on the subject, my motive
in introducing it was immediately connected with its context, and was to
contrast _the actual state of your political affairs, derived from a
happier influence, with that which might have attended an earlier
dissolution of it_": and he did value himself upon "the _patience_ and
temper with which he had submitted to all the indignities which have
been heaped upon him" (meaning, by the said Court of Directors) "in this
long service"; and he did insolently attribute to an unusual strain of
zeal for their service, that he "_persevered_ in the VIOLENT MAINTENANCE
OF HIS OFFICE."

X. That, in order further to excite the spirit of disobedience in the
Company's servants to the lawful authority set over them, he, the said
Warren Hastings, did treat contemptuously and ironically the supposed
disposition of the Company's servants to obey the orders of the Court of
Directors, in the words following. "The recall of Mr. Markham, who was
known to be the public agent of my own nomination at Benares, and the
reappointment of Mr. Francis Fowke by your order, contained in the same
letter, would place it [the restoration of Cheyt Sing] beyond a doubt.
_This order has been obeyed; and whenever you shall be pleased to order
the restoration of Cheyt Sing, I will venture to promise the same ready
and exact submission in the other members of the Council._" And he did,
in the postscript of the said letter, and as on recollection, endeavor
to make a reparation of honor to his said colleagues, as if his
expressions aforesaid had arisen from animosity to them, as follows.
"Upon a careful revisal of what I have written, I fear that an
expression which I have used, respecting the probable conduct of the
board in the event of orders being received for the restoration of Cheyt
Sing, may be construed as intimating a sense of dissatisfaction applied
to transactions already past.--It is not my intention to complain of any
one."

XI. That the said Hastings, in the acts of injury aforesaid to the Rajah
of Benares, did assume and arrogate to himself an illegal authority
therein, and did maintain that the acts done in consequence of that
measure were not revocable by any subsequent authority, in the following
words. "If you should proceed to order the restoration of Cheyt Sing to
the zemindary, from which, _by the powers which I legally possessed_,
and conceive myself legally _bound to assert_ against any _subsequent
authority to the contrary_ derived from _the same common source_, he was
dispossessed for crimes of the greatest enormity, and your Council shall
resolve to execute the order, I will instantly give up my station and
the service."

XII. That the said Warren Hastings did attempt to justify his
publication of the said libellous letter to and against the Court of
Directors by asserting therein that these resolutions (meaning the
resolutions of the Court of Directors relative to the Rajah of Benares)
"were _either_ published or _intended_ for publication": evidently
proving that he did take this unwarrantable course without any
sufficient assurance that the ground and motive by him assigned had any
existence.




XX.--MAHRATTA WAR AND PEACE.


I. That by an act passed in 1773 it was expressly ordered and provided,
"that it should not be lawful for any President and Council of Madras,
Bombay, or Bencoolen, for the time being, to make any orders for
commencing hostilities, or declaring or making war, against any Indian
princes or powers, or for negotiating or concluding any treaty of peace,
or other treaty, with any such Indian princes or powers, without the
consent and approbation of the Governor-General and Council first had
and obtained, except in such cases of _imminent necessity_ as would
render it dangerous to postpone such hostilities or treaties until the
orders from the Governor-General and Council might arrive." That,
nevertheless, the President and Council of Bombay did, in December,
1774, without the consent and approbation of the Governor-General and
Council of Fort William, and in the midst of profound peace, commence an
unjust and unprovoked war against the Mahratta government, did conclude
a treaty with a certain person, a fugitive from that government, and
proscribed by it, named Ragonaut Row, or Ragoba, and did, under various
base and treacherous pretences, invade and conquer the island of
Salsette, belonging to the Mahratta government.

II. That Warren Hastings, on the first advices received in Bengal of the
above transactions, did condemn the same in the strongest
terms,--declaring that "the measures adopted by the Presidency of Bombay
had a tendency to a very extensive and indefinite scene of troubles, and
that their conduct was unseasonable, impolitic, unjust, and
unauthorized." And the Governor-General and Council, in order to put a
stop to the said unjust hostilities, did appoint an ambassador to the
Peshwa, or chief of the Mahratta state, resident at Poonah; and the said
ambassador did, after a long negotiation, conclude a definitive treaty
of peace with the said Peshwa on terms highly honorable and beneficial
to the East India Company, who by the said treaty obtained from the
Mahrattas a cession of considerable tracts of country, the Mahratta
share of the city of Baroach, twelve lacs of rupees for the expenses of
the said unjust war, and particularly the island of Salsette, of which
the Presidency of Bombay had possessed themselves by surprise and
treachery. That, in return for these extraordinary concessions, the
articles principally insisted on by the Mahrattas, with a view to their
own future tranquillity and internal quiet, were, that _no assistance
should he given to any subject or servant of the Peshwa that should
cause disturbances or rebellion in the Mahratta dominions_, and
particularly that the English _should not assist Ragonaut Row_, to whom
the Mahrattas agreed to allow five lacs of rupees a year, or a jaghire
to that amount, and that he should reside at Benares. That,
nevertheless, the Presidency of Bombay did receive and keep Ragonaut Row
at Bombay, did furnish him with a considerable establishment, and
continue to carry on secret intrigues and negotiations with him, thereby
giving just ground of jealousy and distrust to the Mahratta state. That
the late Colonel John Upton, by whom the treaty of Poorunder was
negotiated and concluded, did declare to the Governor-General and
Council, "that, while Ragonaut Row resides at Bombay in expectation of
being supported, the ministers can place no confidence in the Council
there, which must now be productive of the greatest inconveniencies, and
perhaps in the end of fatal consequences." That the said Warren
Hastings, concurring with his Council, which then consisted of Sir John
Clavering, Richard Barwell, and Philip Francis, Esquires, did, on the
18th of August, 1777, declare to the Presidency of Bombay, that "he
could see no reason to doubt that the presence of Ragoba at Bombay would
continue to be _an insuperable bar_ to the completion of the treaty
concluded with the Mahratta government; nor could any sincere cordiality
and good understanding be established with them, as long as he should
appear to derive encouragement and support from the English." That Sir
John Clavering died soon after, and that the late Edward Wheler,
Esquire, succeeded to a seat in the Supreme Council. That on the 29th of
January, 1778, the Governor-General and Council received a letter from
the Presidency of Bombay, dated 12th December, 1777, in which they
declared, "that they had agreed to give encouragement to a _party_
formed in Ragoba's favor, and flattered themselves they should meet with
the hearty concurrence of the Governor-General and Council in the
measures they might be obliged to pursue in consequence." That the
_party_ so described was said to consist of four principal persons in
the Mahratta state, on whose part _some overtures_ had been made to Mr.
William Lewis, the Resident of Bombay at Poonah, _for the assistance of
the Company to bring Ragoba to Poonah_. That the said Warren Hastings,
immediately on the receipt of the preceding advices, did propose and
carry it in Council, by means of his casting voice, and against the
remonstrances, arguments, and solemn protest of two members of the
Supreme Council, that the _sanction_ of that government should be given
to the plan which the President and Council of Bombay had agreed to form
with the Mahratta government; and also that a supply of money (to the
amount of ten lacs of rupees) should be immediately granted to the
President and Council of Bombay _for the support of their engagements
above mentioned_; and also that a military force should be sent to the
Presidency of Bombay. That in defence of these resolutions the said
Warren Hastings did falsely pretend and affirm, "that the resolution of
the Presidency of Bombay was formed on such a case of _imminent
necessity_ as would have rendered it dangerous to postpone the execution
of it until the orders from the Governor-General and Council might
arrive; and that the said Presidency of Bombay _were warranted by the
treaty of Poorunder_ to join in a plan for conducting Ragonaut Row to
Poonah on the application of the ruling part of the Mahratta state":
whereas the main object of the said treaty on the part of the Mahrattas,
and to obtain which they made many important concessions to the India
Company, was, that the English should withdraw their forces, and give no
assistance to Ragoba, and that he should be excluded forever from any
share in their government, being a person _universally held in
abhorrence_ in the Mahratta empire; and if it had been true (instead of
being, as it was, notoriously false) that _the ruling part_ of the
administration of the Mahratta state solicited the return of Ragonaut
Row to Poonah, his return in that case might have been effected by acts
of their own, without the interposition of the English power, and
without our interference in their affairs. That it was the special duty
of the said Warren Hastings, derived from a special trust reposed in him
and power committed to him by Parliament, to have restrained, as by law
he had authority to do, the subordinate Presidency of Bombay from
entering into hostilities with the Mahrattas, or from making engagements
the manifest tendency of which was to enter into those hostilities, and
to have put a stop to them, if any such had been begun; that he was
bound by the duty of his office to preserve the faith of the British
government, pledged in the treaty of Poorunder, inviolate and sacred, as
well as by the special orders and instructions of the East India Company
_to fix his attention to the preservation of peace throughout India_:
all which important duties the said Warren Hastings did wilfully
violate, in giving the _sanction_ of the Governor-General and Council to
the dangerous, faithless, and ill-concerted projects of the President
and Council of Bombay hereinbefore mentioned, from which the subsequent
Mahratta war, with all the expense, distress, and disgraces which have
attended it, took their commencement; and that the said Warren Hastings,
therefore, is specially and principally answerable for the said war, and
for all the consequences thereof. That in a letter dated the 20th of
January, 1778, the President and Council of Bombay informed the
Governor-General and Council, that, in consequence of later intelligence
received from Poonah, they had _immediately resolved that nothing
further could be done, unless Saccaram Baboo, the principal in the late
treaty_ (of Poorunder) _joined in making a formal application to them_.
That no such application was ever made by that person. That the said
Warren Hastings, finding that all this pretended ground for engaging in
an invasion of the Mahratta government had totally failed, did then
pretend to give credit to, and to be greatly alarmed by, the suggestions
of the President and Council of Bombay, that the Mahrattas were
negotiating with the French, and had agreed to give them the port of
Choul, on the Malabar coast, and did affirm that the French _had
obtained possession of that port_. That all these suggestions and
assertions were false, and, if they had been true, would have furnished
no just occasion for attacking either the Mahrattas or the French, with
both of whom the British nation was then at peace. That the said Warren
Hastings did then propose and carry the following resolution in Council,
against the protest of two members thereof, that, "for the purpose of
granting you [the Presidency of Bombay] the most effectual support in
our power, we have resolved to assemble a strong military force near
Calpee, the commanding officer of which is to be ordered to march by the
most practicable route to Bombay, or to such other place as future
occurrences and your directions to him may render it expedient"; and
with respect to the _steps_ said to be taking _by the French to obtain a
settlement on the Malabar coast_, the said Warren Hastings did declare
to the Presidency of Bombay, "that it was the opinion of the
Governor-General and Council that no time ought to be lost in forming
and carrying into execution such measures as might most effectually tend
to frustrate such dangerous designs." That the said Warren Hastings,
therefore, instead of fixing his attention to the preservation of peace
throughout India, as it was his duty to have done, did continue to abet,
encourage, and support the dangerous projects of the Presidency of
Bombay, and did thereby manifest a determined intention to disturb the
peace of India, by the unfortunate success of which intention, and by
the continued efforts of the said Hastings, the greatest part of India
has been for several years involved in a bloody and calamitous war. That
both the Court of Directors and Court of Proprietors did specially
instruct the said Warren Hastings, in all his measures, "to make the
safety and prosperity of Bengal his principal object," and did heavily
censure the said Warren Hastings for having employed their troops at a
great distance from Bengal in a war against the Rohillas, which the
House of Commons have pronounced to be _iniquitous_,[17] and did on that
occasion expressly declare, "that they disapproved of all such distant
expeditions as might eventually carry their forces to any situation too
remote to admit of their speedy and safe return to the protection of
their own provinces, in case of emergency."[18] That the said Warren
Hastings nevertheless ordered a detachment from the Bengal army to cross
the Jumna, and to proceed across the peninsula by a circuitous route
through the diamond country of Bundelcund, and through the dominions of
the Rajah of Berar, situated in the centre of Hindostan, and did thereby
strip the provinces subject to the government of Fort William of a
considerable part of their established defence, and did thereby disobey
the general instructions and positive orders of the Court of Directors,
(given upon occasion of a crime of the same nature committed by the said
Hastings,) and was guilty of a high crime and misdemeanor.