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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)




Your Lordships have heard of the testimony of a person to his own
conscience; but the testimony of another man to any one's
conscience--this is the first time, I believe, it ever appeared in a
judicial proceeding. It is natural to say, "My conscience acquits me of
it"; but _they_ declare, that "_his_ conscience never reproached him
with a bad design, and therefore, upon the whole, they are satisfied
that his intention was good, though he erred in the measure."

I beg leave to state one thing that escaped me: that the Nabob, who was
one of the parties to the design, was, at the time of the inquiry, a
sort of prisoner or an exile at Calcutta; that his _moonshee_ was there,
or might have been had; and that his spy was likewise there; and that
they, though parties to this transaction, were never called to account
for it in any sense or in any degree, or to show how far it was
_necessary_ to quiet the Nabob's mind.

The accomplices, by acquitting him upon _their_ testimony to _his
conscience_, did their business nobly. But the good Court of Directors,
who were so easily satisfied, so ready to condemn at the first
proposition and so ready afterwards to acquit, put the last finishing
hand of a master to it. For the accomplices acquit him of evil
intentions and excuse his act. The Court of Directors, disapproving
indeed the measure, but receiving the testimony of his conscience in
justification of his conduct, and taking up the whole ground, honorably
acquit him, and commend this action as an instance of heroic zeal in
their service.

The great end and purpose for which I produce this to your Lordships is
to show you the necessity there is for other inquiries, other trials,
other acquittals of parties, than those made by a collusive clan abroad,
or by the Directors at home, who had required the parties to inquire of
themselves, and to take the testimony of the judges at second-hand, as
to the conscience of the party accused, respecting acts which neither
they nor any man living can look upon but with horror.

I have troubled your Lordships with the story of the Three Seals, as a
specimen of the then state of the service, and the politics of the
servants, civil and military, in the horrid abuses which then prevailed,
and which render at length the most rigorous reformation necessary. I
close this episode to resume the proceedings at the second revolution.

This affair of the three seals was, we have seen, to quiet the fears of
the Nabob. His fears it was indeed necessary to quiet; for your
Lordships will see that the man whose fears were to be set asleep by
Major Calliaud's offering him, in a scheme for murdering his sovereign,
an odd sort of opiate, made up of blood and treason, was now in a fair
way of being murdered himself by the machinations of him whose seal was
set to his murderous security of peace, and by those his accomplices,
Holwell and Hastings: at least they resolved to put him in a situation
in which his murder was in a manner inevitable, as you will see in the
sequel of the transaction. Now the plan proceeds. The parties continued
in the camp; but there was another _remora_. To remove a nabob and to
create a revolution is not easy: houses are strong who have sons grown
up with vigor and fitness for the command of armies. They are not easily
overturned by removing the principal, unless the secondary is got rid
of: and if this _remora_ could be removed, everything was going on in a
happy way in the business. This plan, which now (that is, about the
month of July) began to get into great ripeness and forwardness, Mr.
Holwell urged forward, Mr. Vansittart being hourly expected.

I do not know whether I am going to state a thing, though it is upon the
records, which will not have too theatrical an appearance for the grave
state in which we are. But here it is,--the difficulty, the knot, and
the solution, as recorded by the parties themselves. It was the object
of this bold, desperate, designing man, Cossim All Khan, who aimed at
everything, and who scrupled not to do anything in attaining what he
aimed at, to be appointed the lieutenant of the Nabob Jaffier Ali, and
thus to get possession of his office during his lifetime under that
name, with a design of murdering him: for that office, according to many
usages of that country, totally supersedes the authority of the first
magistrate, renders him a cipher in his hand, gives the administration
of his affairs and command of his troops to the lieutenant. It was a
part of his plan, that he was, after his appointment to the lieutenancy,
to be named to the succession of the Nabob, who had several other
children; but the eldest son stood in the way.

But as things hastened to a crisis, this difficulty was removed in the
most extraordinary and providential unheard-of manner, by the most
extraordinary event that, I believe, is recorded in history. Just in the
nick of time, in the moment of projection, on the 3d of July, this
Prince Meeran, in the flower of his age, bold, active, enterprising,
lying asleep in his tent, is suddenly, without any one's knowing it,
without any alarm or menace in the heavens that ever was heard of or
mentioned, without any one whatever being hurt or even alarmed in the
camp, killed with a flash of lightning. My Lords, thus was the Gordian
knot cut. This prince dies of a flash of lightning, and Mr. Lushington
(of whom you have heard) comes in the morning with his hair standing
erect, comes frightened into the presence of Major Calliaud, and, with
the utmost alarm, tells him of a circumstance that was afterwards to
give them so much pleasure. The alarm was immediately communicated to
the Major, who was seized with a fright; and fearing lest the army
should mutiny upon the death of their chief, it was contrived, in a
manner that I believe was most difficult to contrive, that what might
have excited a general mutiny was concealed by the ability, the good
conduct, and dexterity of Major Calliaud for seven days together, till
he led the army out of the place of danger. Thus a judgment fell upon
one of the (innocent) murderers in the scene of the Three Seals. This
man, who was probably guilty in his conscience as well as in act, thus
fell by that most lucky, providential, and most useful flash of
lightning.

There were at that time, it seems, in Calcutta, a wicked, skeptical set
of people, who somehow or other believed that _human_ agency was
concerned in this elective flash, which came so very opportunely, and
which was a favor so thankfully acknowledged. These wicked, ill-natured
skeptics disseminated reports (which I am sure I do not mean to charge
or prove, leaving the effect of them to you) very dishonorable, I
believe, to Cossim Ali Khan in the business, and to some Englishmen who
were concerned.

The difficulty of getting rid of Meeran being thus removed, Mr.
Vansittart comes upon the scene. I verily believe he was a man of good
intentions, and rather debauched by that amazing flood of iniquity which
prevailed at that time, or hurried and carried away with it. In a few
days he sent for Major Calliaud. All his objections vanish in _an
instant_: like that flash of lightning, everything is _instant_. The
Major agrees to perform his part. They send for Cossim Ali Khan and Mr.
Hastings; they open a treaty and conclude it with him, leaving the
management of it to two persons, Mr. Holwell and another person, whom we
have heard of, an Armenian, called Coja Petruse, who afterwards played
his part in another illustrious scene. By this Petruse and Mr. Holwell
the matter is settled. The moment Mr. Holwell is raised to be a
Secretary of State, the revolution is accomplished. By it Cossim Ali
Khan is to have the lieutenancy at present, and the succession.
Everything is put into his hands, and he is to make for it large
concessions, which you will hear of afterwards, to the Company. Cossim
Ali Khan proposed to Mr. Holwell, what would have been no bad supplement
to the flash of lightning, the murder of the Nabob; but Mr. Holwell was
a man of too much honor and conscience to suffer that. He instantly flew
out at it, and declared the whole business should stop, unless the
affair of the murder was given up. Accordingly things were so settled.
But if he gave the Nabob over to an intended murderer, and delivered his
person, treasure, and everything into his hands, Cossim Ali Khan might
have had no great reason to complain of being left to the execution of
his own projects in his own way. The treaty was made, and amounted to
this,--that the Company was to receive three great provinces: for here,
as we proceed, you will have an opportunity of observing, with the
progress of these plots, one thing which has constantly and uniformly
pervaded the whole of these projects, and which the persons concerned in
them have avowed as a principle of their actions,--that they were first
to take care of the Company's interest, then of their own; that is,
first to secure to the Company an enormous bribe, and under the shadow
of that bribe to take all the little emoluments they could to
themselves. Three great, rich, southern provinces, maritime, or nearly
maritime, Burdwan, Midnapoor, and Chittagong, were to be dissevered from
the Subah and to be ceded to the Company. There were other minor
stipulations, which it is not necessary at present to trouble you with,
signed, sealed, and executed at Calcutta between these parties with the
greatest possible secrecy. The lieutenancy and the succession were
secured to Cossim Ali, and he was likewise to give somewhere about the
sum of 200,000_l._ to the gentlemen who were concerned, as a reward for
serving him so effectually, and for serving their country so well.
Accordingly, these stipulations, actual or understood, (for they were
eventually carried into effect,) being settled, a commission of
delegation, consisting chiefly of Mr. Vansittart and Major Calliaud, was
sent up to Moorshedabad: the new Governor taking this opportunity of
paying the usual visit of respect to the Nabob, and in a manner which a
new Governor coming into place would do, with the detail of which it is
not necessary to trouble you. Mr. Hastings was at this time at the
durbar; and having everything prepared, and the ground smoothed, they
first endeavored to persuade the Nabob to deliver over the power
negotiated for into the hands of their friend Cossim Ali Khan. But when
the old man, frightened out of his wits, asked, "What is it he has bid
for me?" and added, "I will give half as much again to save myself; pray
let me know what my price is,"--he entreated in vain. They were true,
firm, and faithful to their word and their engagement. When he saw they
were resolved that he should be delivered into the hands of Cossim Ali
Khan, he at once surrenders the whole to him. They instantly grasp it.
He throws himself into a boat, and will not remain at home an hour, but
hurries down to Calcutta to leave his blood at our door, if we should
have a mind to take it. But the life of the Nabob was too great a stake
(partly as a security for the good behavior of Cossim Ali Khan, and
still more for the future use that might be made of him) to be thrown
away, or left in the hands of a man who would certainly murder him, and
who was very angry at being refused the murder of his father-in-law. The
price of this second revolution was, according to their shares in it, (I
believe I have it here,) somewhere about 200,000_l._ This little
effusion to private interest settled the matter, and here ended the
second revolution in the country: effected, indeed, without bloodshed,
but with infinite treachery, with infinite mischief, consequent to the
dismemberment of the country, and which had nearly become fatal to our
concerns there, like everything else in which Mr. Hastings had any
share.

This prince, Cossim Ali Khan, the friend of Mr. Hastings, knew that
those who could give could take away dominion. He had scarcely got upon
the throne, procured for him by our public spirit and his own
iniquities, than he began directly and instantly to fortify himself, and
to bend all his politics against those who were or could be the donors
of such fatal gifts. He began with the natives who were in their
interest, and cruelly put to death, under the eye of Mr. Hastings and
his clan, all those who, by their moneyed wealth or landed
consideration, could give any effect to their dispositions in favor of
those ambitious strangers. He removed from Moorshedabad higher up into
the country, to Monghir, in order to be more out of our view. He kept
his word pretty well, but not altogether faithfully, with the gentlemen;
and though he had no money, for his treasury was empty, he gave
obligations which are known by the name of _jeeps_--(the Indian
vocabulary will by degrees become familiar to your Lordships, as we
develop the modes and customs of the country). As soon as he had done
this, he began to rack and tear the provinces that were left to him, to
get as much from them as should compensate him for the revenues of those
great provinces he had lost; and accordingly he began a scene of
extortion, horrible, nefarious, without precedent or example, upon
almost all the landed interest of that country. I mention this, because
he is one of those persons whose governments Mr. Hastings, in a paper
called his Defence, delivered in to the House of Commons, has produced
as precedents and examples which he has thought fit to follow, and which
he thought would justify him in the conduct he has pursued. This Cossim
Ali Khan, after he had acted the tyrant on the landed interest, fell
upon the moneyed interest. In that country there was a person called
Juggut Seit. There were several of the family, who were bankers to such
a magnitude as was never heard of in the world. Receivers of the public
revenue, their correspondence extended all over Asia; and there are
those who are of opinion that the house of Juggut Seit, including all
its branches, was not worth less than six or seven millions sterling.
This house became the prey of Cossim Ali Khan; but Mr. Holwell had
predicted that _it should be delivered over to Satan to be buffeted_
(his own pious expression). He predicted the misfortunes that should
befall them; and we chose a Satan to buffet them, and who did so buffet
them, by the murder of the principal persons of the house, and by
robbing them of great sums of their wealth, that I believe such a scene
of nefarious tyranny, destroying and cutting up the root of public
credit in that country, was scarce ever known. In the mean time Cossim
was extending his tyranny over all who were obnoxious to him; and the
persons he first sought were those traitors who had been friends to the
English. Several of the principal of these he murdered. There was in the
province of Bahar a man named Ramarain; he had got the most positive
assurances of English faith; but Mr. Macguire, a member of the Council,
on the receipt of five thousand gold mohurs, or something more than
8,000_l._ sterling, delivered him up to be first imprisoned, then
tortured, then robbed in consequence of the torture, and finally
murdered, by Cossim Ali Khan. In this way Cossim Ali Khan acted, while
our government looked on. I hardly choose to mention to you the fate of
a certain native in consequence of a dispute with Mr. Mott, a friend of
Mr. Hastings, which is in the Company's records,--records which are
almost buried by their own magnitude from the knowledge of this country.
In a contest with this native for his house and property, some scuffle
having happened between the parties, the one attempting to seize and the
other to defend, the latter made a complaint to the Nabob, who was in an
entire subjection at that time to the English, and who ordered this
unfortunate man, on account of this very scuffle, arising from
defending his property, to be blown off from the mouth of a cannon. In
short, I am not able to tell your Lordships of all the nefarious
transactions of this man, whom the intrigues of Mr. Holwell and Mr.
Hastings had set upon the throne of Bengal. But there is a circumstance
in this business that comes across here, and will tend to show another
grievance that vexed that country, which vexed it long, and is one of
the causes of its chief disasters, and which, I fear, is not so
perfectly extirpated but that some part of its roots may remain in the
ground at this moment.

Commerce, which enriches every other country in the world, was bringing
Bengal to total ruin. The Company, in former times, when it had no
sovereignty or power in the country, had large privileges under their
_dustuck_, or permit: their goods passed, without paying duties, through
the country. The servants of the Company made use of this dustuck for
their own private trade, which, while it was used with moderation, the
native government winked at in some degree; but when it got wholly into
private hands, it was more like robbery than trade. These traders
appeared everywhere; they sold at their own prices, and forced the
people to sell to them at their own prices also. It appeared more like
an army going to pillage the people, under pretence of commerce, than
anything else. In vain the people claimed the protection of their own
country courts. This English army of traders in their march ravaged
worse than a Tartarian conqueror. The trade they carried on, and which
more resembled robbery than commerce, anticipated the resources of the
tyrant, and threatened to leave him no materials for imposition or
confiscation. Thus this miserable country was torn to pieces by the
horrible rapaciousness of a double tyranny. This appeared to be so
strong a case, that a deputation was sent to him at his new capital,
Monghir, to form a treaty for the purpose of giving some relief against
this cruel, cursed, and oppressive trade, which was worse even than the
tyranny of the sovereign. This trade Mr. Vansittart, the President about
this time, that is, in 1763, who succeeded to Mr. Holwell, and was in
close union of interests with the tyrant Cossim Ali Khan, by a treaty
known by the name of the treaty of Monghir, agreed very much to suppress
and to confine within something like reasonable bounds. There never was
a doubt on the face of that treaty, that it was a just, proper, fair
transaction. But as nobody in Bengal did then believe that rapine was
ever forborne but in favor of bribery, the persons who lost every
advantage by the treaty of Monghir, when they thought they saw corrupt
negotiation carrying away the prizes of unlawful commerce, and were
likely to see their trade crippled by Cossim Ali Khan, fell into a most
violent fury at this treaty; and as the treaty was made without the
concurrence of the rest of the Council, the Company's servants grew
divided: one part were the advocates of the treaty, the other of the
trade. The latter were universally of opinion that the treaty was bought
for a great sum of money. The evidence we have on our records of the
sums of money that are stated to have been paid on this occasion has
never been investigated to the bottom; but we have it on record, that a
great sum (70,000_l._) was paid to persons concerned in that
negotiation. The rest were exceedingly wroth to see themselves not
profiting by the negotiation, and losing the trade, or likely to be
excluded from it; and they were the more so, because, as we have it upon
our journals, during all that time the trade of the negotiators was not
proscribed, but a purwannah was issued by Cossim Ali Khan, that the
trade of his friends Mr. Vansittart and Mr. Hastings should not be
subject to the general regulations. This filled the whole settlement
with ill blood; but in the regulation itself (I put the motive and the
secret history out of the case) undoubtedly Mr. Hastings and Mr.
Vansittart were on the right side. They had shown to a demonstration the
mischief of this trade. However, as the other party were strong, and did
not readily let go their hold of this great advantage, first,
dissensions, murmurs, various kinds of complaints, and ill blood arose.
Cossim Ali was driven to the wall; and having at the same time made what
he thought good preparations, a war broke out at last. And how did it
break out? This Cossim Ali Khan signalized his first acts of hostility
by an atrocity committed against the faith of treaties, against the
rules of war, against every principle of honor. This intended murderer
of his father-in-law, whom Mr. Hastings had assisted to raise to the
throne of Bengal, well knowing his character and his disposition, and
well knowing what such a man was capable of doing,--this man massacred
the English wherever he met them. There were two hundred, or
thereabouts, of the Company's servants, or their dependants, slaughtered
at Patna with every circumstance of the most abominable cruelty. Their
limbs were cut to pieces. The tyrant whom Mr. Hastings set up cut and
hacked the limbs of British subjects in the most cruel and perfidious
manner, threw them into wells, and polluted the waters of the country
with British blood. Immediately war is declared against him in form.
That war sets the whole country in a blaze; and then other parties begin
to appear upon the scene, whose transactions you will find yourselves
deeply concerned in hereafter.

As soon as war was declared against Cossim, it was necessary to resolve
to put up another Nabob, and to have another revolution: and where do
they resort, but to the man whom, for his alleged tyranny, for his
incapacity, for the numberless iniquities he was said to have committed,
and for his total unfitness and disinclination to all the duties of
government, they had dethroned? This very man they take up again, to
place on the throne from which they had about two years before removed
him, and for the effecting of which they had committed so many
iniquities. Even this revolution was not made without being paid for.
According to the usual order of procession, in which the youngest walk
first, first comes the Company; and the Company had secured to it in
perpetuity those provinces which Cossim Ali Khan had ceded, as it was
thought, rather in the way of mortgage than anything else. Then, under
the name of compensation for sufferings to the people concerned in the
trade, and in the name of donation to an army and a navy which had
little to do in this affair, they tax him--what sum do you think? They
tax that empty and undone treasury of that miserable and undone country
500,000_l._ for a private emolument to themselves,--for the compensation
for this iniquitous trade,--for the compensation for abuses of which he
was neither the author nor the abettor, they tax this miserable prince
500,000_l._ That sum was given to individuals. Now comes the Company at
home, which, on hearing this news, was all inflamed. The Directors were
on fire. They were shocked at it, and particularly at this donation to
the army and navy. They resolved they would give it no countenance and
support. In the mean time the gentlemen did not trouble their heads upon
that subject, but meant to exact and get their 500,000_l._ as they
could.

Here was a third revolution, bought at this amazing sum, and this poor,
miserable prince first dragged from Moorshedabad to Calcutta, then
dragged back from Calcutta to Moorshedabad, the sport of fortune and the
plaything of avarice. This poor man is again set up, but is left with no
authority: his troops limited,--his person, everything about him, in a
manner subjugated,--a British Resident the master of his court: he is
set up as a pageant on this throne, with no other authority but what
would be sufficient to give a countenance to presents, gifts, and
donations. That authority was always left, when all the rest was taken
away. One would have thought that this revolution might have satisfied
these gentlemen, and that the money gained by it would have been
sufficient. No. The partisans of Cossim Ali wanted another revolution.
The partisans of the other side wished to have something more done in
the present. They now began to think that to depose Cossim instantly,
and to sell him to another, was too much at one time,--especially as
Cossim Ali was a man of vigor and resolution, carrying on a fierce war
against them. But what do you think they did? They began to see, from
the example of Cossim Ali, that the lieutenancy, the ministry of the
king, was a good thing to be sold, and the sale of that might turn out
as good a thing as the sale of the prince.

For this office there were two rival candidates, persons of great
consideration, in Bengal: one, a principal Mahomedan, called Mahomed
Reza Khan, a man of high authority, great piety in his own religion,
great learning in the law, of the very first class of Mahomedan
nobility; but at the same time, on all these accounts, he was abhorred
and dreaded by the Nabob, who necessarily feared that a man of Mahomed
Reza Khan's description would be considered as better entitled and
fitter for his seat, as Nabob of the provinces. To balance him, there
was another man, known by the name of the Great Rajah Nundcomar. This
man was accounted the highest of his caste, and held the same rank among
the Gentoos that Mahomed Reza Khan obtained among the Mahomedans. The
prince on the throne had no jealousy of Nundcomar, because he knew,
that, as a Gentoo, he could not aspire to the office of Subahdar. For
that reason he was firmly attached to him; he might depend completely on
his services; he was _his_ against Mahomed Reza Khan, and against the
whole world. There was, however, a flaw in the Nabob's title, which it
was necessary should be hid. And perhaps it lay against Mahomed Reza
Khan as well as him. But it was a source of apprehension to the Nabob,
and contributed to make him wish to keep all Mahomedan influence at a
distance. For he was a Syed, that is to say, a descendant of Mahomet,
and as such, though of the only acknowledged nobility among Mussulmen,
would be by that circumstance excluded, by the known laws of the Mogul
empire, from being Subahdar in any of the Mogul provinces, in case the
revival of the constitution of that empire should ever again take place.