The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 10 (of 12)

But, my Lords, it is necessary that I should show to you something more, because, prima fronte, this is some exculpation of Mr. Hastings: for, if he was only a partaker in a general misconduct, it was rather vitium loci et vitium temporis than vitium hominis. This might be said in his exculpation. But I am next to show your Lordships the means which the Company took for removing this grievance; and that Mr. Hastings's peculiar trust, the great specific ground of his appointment, was a confidence that he would eradicate this very evil, of which we are going to prove that he has been one of the principal promoters. I wish your Lordships to advert to one particular circumstance,—namely, that the two persons who were bidders at this time, and at this auction of government, for the favor and countenance of the Presidency at Calcutta, were Mahomed Reza Khân and Rajah Nundcomar. I wish your Lordships to recollect this by-and-by, when we shall bring before you the very same two persons, who, in the same sort of transaction, and in circumstances exactly similar, or very nearly so, were candidates for the favor of Mr. Hastings.

My Lords, our next step will be to show you that the Company in 1768 had made a covenant expressly forbidding the taking of presents of above 400l. value in each present by the Governor-General. I take it for granted, this will not be much litigated. They renewed and enforced that with other covenants and other instructions; and at last came an act of Parliament, in the clearest, the most definite, the most specific words that all the wisdom of the legislature, intent upon the eradication of this evil, could use, to prevent the receiving of presents.

My Lords, I think it is necessary to state, that there has been some little difficulty concerning this word, presents. Bribery and extortion have been covered by the name of presents, and the authority and practice of the East has been adduced as a palliation of the crime. My Lords, no authority of the East will be a palliation of the breach of laws enacted in the West: and to those laws of the West, and not the vicious customs of the East, we insist upon making Mr. Hastings liable. But do not your Lordships see that this is an entire mistake? that there never was any custom of the East for it? I do not mean vicious practices and customs, which it is the business of good laws and good customs to eradicate. There are three species of presents known in the East,—two of them payments of money known to be legal, and the other perfectly illegal, and which has a name exactly expressing it in the manner our language does. It is necessary that your Lordships should see that Mr. Hastings has made use of a perversion of the names of authorized gifts to cover the most abominable and prostituted bribery. The first of those presents is known in the country by the name of peshcush: this peshcush is a fine paid, upon the grant of lands, to the sovereign, or whoever grants them. The second is the nuzzer, or nuzzerana, which is a tribute of acknowledgment from an inferior to a superior. The last is called reshwat, in the Persian language,—that is to say, a bribe, or sum of money clandestinely and corruptly taken,—and is as much distinguished from the others as, in the English language, a fine or acknowledgment is distinguished from a bribe. To show your Lordships this, we shall give in evidence, that, whenever a peshcush or fine is paid, it is a sum of money publicly paid, and paid in proportion to the grant,—and that the sum is entered upon the very grant itself. We shall prove the nuzzer is in the same manner entered, and that all legal fees are indorsed upon the body of the grant for which they are taken: and that they are no more in the East than in the West any kind of color or pretence for corrupt acts, which are known by the circumstance of their being clandestinely taken, and which are acknowledged and confessed to be illegal and corrupt. Having stated that Mr. Hastings, in some of the evidence that we shall produce, endeavors to confound these three things, I am only to remark that the nuzzer is generally a very small sum of money, that it sometimes amounts to one gold mohur, that sometimes it is less, and that, in all the records of the Company, I have never known it exceed one gold mohur, or about thirty-five shillings,—passing by the fifty gold mohurs which were given to Mr. Hastings by Cheyt Sing, and a hundred gold mohurs which were given to the Mogul, as a nuzzer, by Mahomed Ali, Nabob of Arcot.

The Company, seeing that this nuzzer, though small in each sum, might amount at last to a large tax upon the country, (and it did so in fact,) thought proper to prohibit any sum of money to be taken upon any pretext whatever; and the Company in the year 1775 did expressly explode the whole doctrine of peshcush, nuzzer, and every other private lucrative emolument, under whatever name, to be taken by the Governor-General, and did expressly send out an order that that was the construction of the act, and that he was not even to take a nuzzer. Thus we shall show that that act had totally cut up the whole system of bribery and corruption, and that Mr. Hastings had no sort of color whatever for taking the money which we shall prove he has taken.

I know that positive prohibitions, that acts of Parliament, that covenants, are things of very little validity indeed, as long as all the means of corruption are left in power, and all the temptations to corrupt profit are left in poverty. I should really think that the Company deserved to be ill served, if they had not annexed such appointments to great trusts as might secure the persons intrusted from the temptations of unlawful emolument, and, what in all cases is the greatest security, given a lawful gratification to the natural passions of men. Matrimony is to be used, as a true remedy against a vicious course of profligate manners; fair and lawful emoluments, and the just profits of office, are opposed to the unlawful means which might be made use of to supply them. For, in truth, I am ready to agree, that for any man to expect a series of sacrifices without a return in blessings, to expect labor without a prospect of reward, and fatigue without any means of securing rest, is an unreasonable demand in any human creature from another. Those who trust that they shall find in men uncommon and heroic virtues are themselves endeavoring to have nothing paid them but the common returns of the worst parts of human infirmity. And therefore I shall show your Lordships that the Company did provide large, ample, abundant means for supporting the Governor-General,—that Lord Clive, in the year 1765, and the Council with him, of which Mr. Sumner, I am glad and proud to say, was one, did fix such an allowance as they thought a sufficient security to the Governor-General against the temptations attendant upon his situation; and therefore, after they had fixed this sum, they say, "that, although by this means the Governor will not be able to amass a million or half a million in the space of two or three years, yet he will acquire a very handsome independency, and be in that very situation which a man of honor and true zeal for the service would wish to possess. Thus situated, he may defy all opposition in Council; he will have nothing to ask, nothing to propose, but what he wishes for the advantage of his employers; he may defy the law, because there can be no foundation for a bill of discovery; and he may defy the obloquy of the world, because there can be nothing censurable in his conduct. In short, if stability can be insured to such a government as this, where riches have been acquired in abundance in a small space of time, by all ways and means, and by men with or without capacities, it must be effected by a Governor thus restricted,"—that is, a Governor restricted from every emolument but that of his salary. I must remark, that this salary and these emoluments were not settled upon the vague speculations of men taking the measure of their necessities for India from the manners of England; but it was fixed by the Council themselves,—fixed in India,—fixed by those who knew and were in the situation of the Governor-General, and who knew what was necessary to support his dignity and to preserve him from the temptation of corruption: and they have laid open to you such a body of advantages arising from it as would lead any man, who had a regard to his honor or conscience, to think himself happy in having such a provision made for him, and at the same time every temptation to act corruptly removed far from him.

The emoluments of the office, though reduced from the original plan which Lord Clive had proposed, may be computed at near 30,000l. a year, when Mr. Hastings was President: 22,000l. in certain money, and the rest in other advantages. Whatever it was, I have shown that it was thought sufficient by those who were the best judges, and who, in carving for others, were carving for themselves their own allowance at the time. But, my Lords, I am to give a better opinion of the sufficiency of that provision to guard against the temptation, out of Mr. Hastings's own mouth. He says, in his letter to the Court of Directors, "Although I disclaim the consideration of my own interest in these speculations, and flatter myself that I proceed upon more liberal grounds, yet I am proud to avow the feelings of an honest ambition that stimulates me to aspire at the possession of my present station for years to come. Those who know my natural turn of mind will not ascribe this to sordid views. A very few years' possession of the government would undoubtedly enable me to retire with a fortune amply fitted to the measure of my desires, were I to consult only my ease: but in my present situation I feel my mind expand to something greater; I have catched the desire of applause in public life."

Here Mr. Hastings confesses that the emoluments affixed to office were not only sufficient for the purposes and ends which the nature of his office demanded, and the support of present dignity, but that they were sufficient to secure him, in a very few years, a comfortable retreat; but his object in wishing to hold his office long was to catch applause in public life. What an unfortunate man is he, who has so often told us, in so many places, and through so many mouths, that, after fourteen years' possession of an office which was to make him a comfortable fortune in a few years, he is at length bankrupt in fortune, and for his applause in public life is now at your Lordships' bar, and his accuser is his country! This, my Lords, is to be unfortunate: but there are some misfortunes that never do or ever can arrive but through crimes. He was a deserter from the path of honor. At the turning of the two ways he made a glorious choice,—he caught at the applause of ambition: which though I am ready to consent is not virtue, yet surely a generous ambition for applause for public services in life is one of the best counterfeits of virtue, and supplies its place in some degree; and it adds a lustre to real virtue, where it exists as the substratum of it. Human nature, while it is made as it is, never can wholly repudiate it for its imperfection, because there is something yet more perfect. But what shall we say to the deserter of that cause, who, having glory and honor before him, has chosen to plunge himself into the downward road to sordid riches?

My Lords, I have shown the grievances that existed. I have shown the means that existed to put Mr. Hastings beyond a temptation to those practices of which we accuse him, even in his own opinion,—if he will not follow his example in the House of Commons, and disavow this letter, as he has done his defence before them, and say he never wrote it. That situation which was to afford him a comfortable fortune in a few years he has held for many years, and therefore he has not one excuse to make for himself; but I shall show your Lordships much greater and stronger proofs, that will lean heavy upon him in the day of your sentence. The first, the peculiar, trust that was put in him, was to redress all those grievances.

My Lords, I have stated to you the condition of India in 1765. You may suppose that the means that were taken, the regulations that were made by the Company at that period of time, had operated their effect, and that by the beginning of the year 1772, when Mr. Hastings came first to his government, these evils did not then require, perhaps, so vigorous an example, or so much diligence in putting an end to them; but, my Lords, I have to show you a very melancholy truth, that, notwithstanding all these means, the Company was of opinion that all these disorders had increased, and accordingly they say, without entering into all the grievous circumstances of this letter, which was wrote on the 10th of April, 1773, "We wish we could refute the observation, that almost every attempt made by us and our administration at your Presidency for reforming abuses has rather increased them, and added to the misery of a country we are so anxious to protect and cherish." They say, that, "when oppression pervades the whole country, when youths have been suffered with impunity to exercise sovereign jurisdiction over the natives, and to acquire rapid fortunes by monopolizing of commerce, it cannot be a wonder to us or yourselves that Dadney merchants do not come forward to contract with the Company, that the manufactures find their way through foreign channels, or that our investments are at once enormously dear and of a debased quality. It is evident, then, that the evils which have been so destructive to us lie too deep for any partial plans to reach or correct; it is therefore our resolution to aim at the root of those evils, and we are happy in having reason to believe that in every just and necessary regulation we shall meet with the approbation and support of the legislature, who consider the public as materially interested in the Company's prosperity."

This is to show your Lordships that Mr. Hastings was armed with great powers to correct great abuses, and that there was reposed in him a special trust for that purpose. And now I shall show, by the twenty-fifth paragraph of the same letter, that they intrusted Mr. Hastings with this very great power from some particular hope they had, not only of his abstaining himself, which is a thing taken for granted, but of his restraining abuses through every part of the service; and therefore they say, "that, in order to effectuate this great end, the first step must be to restore perfect obedience and due subordination to your administration. Our Governor and Council must reassume and exercise their delegated powers upon every just occasion,—punish delinquents, cherish the meritorious, discountenance that luxury and dissipation which, to the reproach of government, prevailed in Bengal. Our President, Mr. Hastings, we trust, will set the example of temperance, economy, and application; and upon this, we are sensible, much will depend. And here we take occasion to indulge the pleasure we have in acknowledging Mr. Hastings's services upon the coast of Coromandel, in constructing with equal labor and ability the plan which has so much improved our investments there; and as we are persuaded he will persevere in the same laudable pursuit through every branch of our affairs in Bengal, he, in return, may depend on the steady support and favor of his employers." Here are not only laws to restrain abuse, here are not only salaries to prevent the temptation to it, but here are praises to animate and encourage him, here is what very few men, even bad in other respects, have resisted,—here is a great trust put in him, to call upon him with particular vigor and exertion to prevent all abuses through the settlement, and particularly these abuses of corruption. Much trust is put in his frugality, his order, his management of his private affairs; and from thence they hope that he would not ruin his own fortune, but improve it by honorable means, and teach the Company's servants the same order and management, in order to free them from temptation to rapacity in their own particular situations. There have been known to be men, otherwise corrupt and vicious, who, when great trust was put in them, have called forth principles of honor latent in their minds; and men who were nursed, in a manner, in corruption have been not only great reformers by institution, but greater reformers by the example of their own conduct. Then I am to show, that, soon after his coming to that government, there were means given him instantly of realizing those hopes and expectations, by putting into his hands several arduous and several difficult commissions.

My Lords, in the year 1772 the Company had received alarming advices of many disorders throughout the country: there were likewise, at the same time, circumstances in the state of the government upon which they thought it necessary to make new regulations. The famine which prevailed in and devastated Bengal, and the ill use that was made of that calamity to aggravate the distress for the advantage of individuals, produced a great many complaints, some true, some exaggerated, but universally spread, as I believe is in the memory of those who are not very young among us. This obliged the Company to a very serious consideration of an affair which dishonored and disgraced their government, not only at home, but through all the countries in Europe, much more than perhaps even more grievous and real oppressions that were exercised under them. It had alarmed their feelings, it had been marked, and had called the attention of the public upon them in an eminent manner.

Your Lordships remember the death of Jaffier Ali Khân, the first of those subahs who introduced the English power into Bengal. He died about four or five years before this period. He was succeeded by two of his sons, who succeeded to one another in a very rapid succession. The first was the person of whom we have read an account to you. He was the natural son of the Nabob by a person called Munny Begum, who, for the corrupt gifts the circumstances of which we have recited, had, in prejudice of the lawful issue of the Nabob, been raised to the musnud; but as bastard slips, it is said in King Richard, (an abuse of a Scripture phrase,) do not take deep root, this bastard slip, Nujim ul Dowlah, shortly died, and the legitimate son, Syef ul Dowlah, succeeded him. After him another legitimate son, Mobarek ul Dowlah, succeeded in a minority. When I say succeeded, I wish your Lordships to understand that there is no regular succession in the office of subah or viceroy of the kingdom; but, in general, succession has been considered, and persons have been put in that place upon some principles resembling a regular succession. That regular succession had been broken in favor of a natural son, and the mother of that natural son did obtain the superiority in the female part of the family for a time.

In consequence of these two circumstances, namely, the famine, and the abuses that were supposed to arise from it, and from the circumstance of the minority of Mobarek ul Dowlah, who now reigns or appears to reign,—in consequence of these two circumstances, the Company gave two sets of orders.

The first order related to Mahomed Reza Khân, who was (as your Lordships remember I took, in the beginning of this affair, means of explaining) lord-deputy of the province under the native government, the English holding the dewanny,—and deputy dewan, or high-steward, under the name of the English, and had the command of the whole revenue; and who was accused before the Company (the channel of which accusation we now learn) of having aggravated that famine by a monopoly for his own benefit. The Company, upon these loose and general charges, ordered that he should be divested of his office, that he should be brought down to Calcutta, and there be obliged to render an account of his conduct.

The next regulation they made was concerning the effective government of the country, which was become vacant by the removal of Mahomed Reza Khân. The offices which he held were in effect these: he was guardian to the Nabob by the appointment of the Company; he had the care and management of his family; he had the care of the public justice; and he represented that shadow of government to foreign nations which it was the policy of the Company, at that time, to keep up. This was the person whom Mr. Hastings was ordered to remove; in consequence of which removal all these offices were to be supplied,—of guardian of the Nabob's person and manager of his family, of chief magistrate, and of representative of the fallen dignity of the native government to the foreign nations which traded to Bengal.

To these orders was added an instruction of a very remarkable nature, which was a third trust that was given to Mr. Hastings: that during the Nabob's minority he should reduce the annual allowance, which was thirty-two lacs, to sixteen; and that to prevent the abuse of this restricted sum, and to prevent its being directed by the minister's authority to other purposes than that for which the Company allowed it, (that is to say, allowed him out of what was his own,) of these sixteen lacs an account was to be regularly kept, as a check upon the person so appointed, which account was ordered to be transmitted to Calcutta, and to be sent to England.

Now we are to show your Lordships what Mr. Hastings's conduct was upon all these occasions; and for this we mean to produce testimony recorded in the Company's books, and authentic documents taken from the public offices of that country. At the same time I do admit that there never was a positive testimony that did not stand something in need of the support of presumption: for, as we know that witnesses may be perjured, and as we know that documents can be forged, we have recourse to a known principle in the laws of all countries, that circumstances cannot lie; and therefore, if the testimony that is given was ever so clear and positive, yet, if it is contrary to the circumstances of the country, if it is contrary to the circumstances of the facts to which it alludes, if the deposition is totally adverse and alien to the characters of the persons, then I will say, that, though the testimonies should be many, though they should be consistent, and though they should be clear, yet they will still leave some degree of hesitation and doubt upon every mind timorous in the execution of justice, as every mind ought to be. If, for instance, ten witnesses were to swear that the Chief-Justice of England, that the Lord High-Chancellor, or the Archbishop of Canterbury, was seen, in the robes of his function, at noonday, robbing upon the highway, it is not the clearness, the weight, the authority of testimonies, that could make me believe it; I should attribute it to any cause, either corruption, mistake, error, or madness, rather than believe that fact. Why? Because it is totally alien to the character of the persons, the situation, the circumstances, and to all the rules of probability. But if, on the contrary, the crime charged has a perfect relation with the person, with his known conduct, with his known habits, with the situation and circumstances of the place that he is in, and with the very corrupt inherent nature of the act that he does, then much less proof than we are able to produce will serve; and according to the nature and strength of the presumptions arising from the inherent nature of a vicious principle and vicious motives in the act, will be strengthened the weakest evidence, or, if it comes to a sufficient height, the whole burden of proof will be turned upon the party accused. And thus we shall think ourselves bound to show your Lordships, in every step of this proceeding, that there is an inherent presumption of corruption in every act. We shall show the presumptions which preceded, we shall show the presumptions which accompanied the proof; and these, with the subsequent presumptions, will make it impossible to disbelieve them. Such a body of proof was never given upon any such occasion: and it is such proof as will prevail against the whole voice of corruption, that amazing, active, diligent, spreading voice, which has been made, by buzzing in every part of this country, sometimes to sound like the public voice; it will put it to silence, by showing that your Lordships have proceeded upon the strongest evidence, active and passive.

First, Mr. Hastings received a positive order to seize upon Mahomed Reza Khân. That order he executed with a military promptitude of obedience, which will show your Lordships what are the services which are congenial to his own mind, and which find in him always a ready acquiescence, a faithful agent, and a spirited instrument in the execution. The very day after he received the order, he sent up, privately, without communicating with the Council, from whom he was not ordered to keep this proceeding a secret,—he sent up, and found that great and respectable man and respectable magistrate, who was in all those high offices which I have stated: and if I was to compare them to circumstances and situations in this country, I should say he had united in himself the character of First Lord of the Treasury, the character of Chief-Justice, the character of Lord High-Chancellor, and the character of Archbishop of Canterbury: a man of great gravity, dignity, and authority, and advanced in years; had once 100,000l. a year for the support of his dignity, and had at that time 50,000l. This man, sitting in his garden, reposing himself after the toils of his situation, (for he was one of the most laborious men in the world,) was suddenly arrested, and, without a moment's respite, dragged down to Calcutta, and there by Mr. Hastings (exceeding the orders of the Company) confined near two years under a guard of soldiers. Mr. Hastings kept this great man for several months without even attempting the trial upon him. How he tried him afterwards your Lordships may probably in the course of this business inquire; and you will then judge, from the circumstances of that trial, that, as he was not tried for his crime, so neither was he acquitted for his innocence;—but at present I leave him in that situation. Mr. Hastings, unknown to the Council, having executed the orders of the Company in the last degree of rigor to this unhappy man, keeps him in that situation, without a trial, under a guard, separated from his country, disgraced and dishonored, and by Mr. Hastings's express order not suffered either to make a visit or receive a visitor.

There was another commission for Mr. Hastings contained in these orders. The Company, because they were of opinion that justice could not be easily obtained while the first situations of the country were filled with this man's adherents, desired Mr. Hastings to displace them: leaving him a very large power, and confiding in his justice, prudence, and impartiality not to abuse a trust of such delicacy. But we shall prove to your Lordships that Mr. Hastings thought it necessary to turn out, from the highest to the lowest, several hundreds of people, for no other reason than that they had been put in their employments by that very man whom the English government had formerly placed there. If we were to insist that we could not possibly try Mr. Hastings, or come at his wickedness, until we had eradicated his influence in Bengal, and left not one man in it who was during his government in any place or office whatever, yet, though we should readily admit that we could not do the whole without it, at the same time, rather than make a general massacre of every person presumed to be under his influence, we would leave some of his crimes unproved. He did avow and declare, that, unless he turned all these persons out of their offices, he could never hope to come at the truth of any charges against Mahomed Reza Khân, against whom no specific charge had been made. Yet, upon loose and general charges, did he seize upon this man, confine him in this manner, and every person who derived any place or authority from him, high or low, was turned out. Mr. Hastings had in the Company's orders something to justify him in rigor, but he had likewise a prudential power over that rigor; and he not only treated this man in the manner described, but every human creature connected with him, as if they had been all guilty, without any charge whatever against them. These are his reasons for taking this extraordinary step.

"I pretend not to enter into the views of others. My own were these. Mahomed Reza Khân's influence still prevailed generally throughout the country. In the Nabob's household, and at the capital, it was scarce affected by his present disgrace. His favor was still courted, and his anger dreaded. Who, under such discouragements, would give information or evidence against him? His agents and creatures filled every office of the nizamut and dewanny. How was the truth of his conduct to be investigated by these? It would be superfluous to add other arguments to show the necessity of prefacing the inquiry by breaking his influence, removing his dependants, and putting the direction of all the affairs which had been committed to his care into the hands of the most powerful or active of his enemies."

My Lords, if we of the House of Commons were to desire and to compel the East India Company, or to address the crown, to remove, according to their several situations and several capacities, every creature that had been put into office by Mr. Hastings, because we could otherwise make no inquiry into his conduct, should we not be justified by his own example in insisting upon the removal of every creature of the reigning power before we could inquire into his conduct? We have not done that, though we feel, as he felt, great disadvantages in proceeding in the inquiry while every situation in Bengal is notoriously held by his creatures,—always excepting the first of all, but which we could show is nothing under such circumstances. Then what do I infer from this,—from his obedience to the orders of the Company, carried so much beyond necessity, and prosecuted with so much rigor,—from the inquiry being suspended for so long a time,—from every person in office being removed from his situation,—from all these precautions being used as prefatory to the inquiry, when he himself says, that, after he had used all these means, he found not the least benefit and advantage from them? The use I mean to make of this is, to let your Lordships see the great probability and presumption that Mr. Hastings, finding himself in the very selfsame situation that had occurred the year before, when Nundcomar was sold to Mahomed Reza Khân, of selling Mahomed Reza Khân to Nundcomar, made a corrupt use of it, and that, as Mahomed Reza Khân was not treated with severity for his crimes, so neither was he acquitted for his innocence. The Company had given Mr. Hastings severe orders, and very severely had he executed them. The Company gave him no orders not to institute a present inquiry; but he, under pretence of business, neglected that inquiry, and suffered this man to languish in prison to the utter ruin of his fortune.