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Chapter 15 – Hastings’s Administration – the Supreme Court – Proceedings in England, 1774–1784

Supreme Court and the zemindars, 1775–1780

To resume the thread of events in Bengal. The Supreme Court, established by the wisdom of Parliament in Calcutta, in 1774, was intended to

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protect the natives from the oppression of Europeans, and to give the English community the blessing of their own laws. The judges were invested with the attributes of the twelve judges in Westminster, and empowered to administer English law in all its branches. Parliament had thus, without any correct knowledge of the circumstances or wants of the new conquest, established two independent powers, but had neglected to define the sphere of their authority, and a collision between the government of the Company and the judicial officers of the Crown, became inevitable. One of the earliest acts of the Court was to hang Nundu koomar for an offence which had not been capital since the days of Munoo. The next blow fell on the zemindars. The country was slowly recovering from the confusion incident to the introduction of a novel and foreign administration, and the zemindars were but partially reconciled to the new economy. The Supreme Court, as soon as it was established, began to issue writs against them, at the suit of any one who could fee an attorney, on the strength of which they were immediately seized in their own cutcheries, or rent-courts, and dragged down to Calcutta from a distance, sometimes, of several hundred miles, and consigned to jail if they were unwilling, or unable, to furnish bail. No indemnification was given to them for the expense or disgrace they had incurred, even when their arrest was cancelled for illegality. Of English law, then the most complicated system of jurisprudence in the world, they were profoundly ignorant, and they felt that no innocence and no ingenuity was able to protect them from the new dangers which menaced them. A dark cloud hung over the country, as portentous as a Mahratta invasion.

The Court’s Interference with the Government, 1775–79

These proceedings necessarily affected the collection of the revenue, and endangered the resources of government. The disposition to withhold every payment, however just, is inherent in the native character, and the slightest pretext is sufficient to develope it. The arrest and humiliation of the

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zemindars destroyed their credit and authority, and gave their unscrupulous ryots an advantage they were not slow to improve. It had, moreover, been the immemorial custom in India to subject defaulters to coercion, without which they rarely paid their rents; but the attorneys of the Supreme Court, who had spread themselves over the country, advised the ryots and renters when arrested, to sue out a writ of habeas corpus, when they were brought down to Calcutta and discharged, leaving the landlord without rent or remedy. The criminal judicature of the country, which embraced the police of thirty millions of people, had been left in the hands of the Nabob of Moorshedabad and his judicial and executive officers. But the authority of their courts was at once annihilated by the judges of the Supreme Court, who declared that the person called Mobarik-ood-dowlah, that is, the Nabob of Moorshedabad, was a phantom, a mere man of straw, without any legal right to the exercise of any power whatsoever. In one instance, indeed, the Court proceeded so far as to issue a process of contempt against his Highness. The next blow was aimed at the government itself, though it had been established under the authority of Parliament. The judges refused to acknowledge the East India Company except as a trading body, with no other power or position than an ordinary commercial association. They interpreted the Act to signify that the government of the country by the Governor-General in Council was subject to the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, and that it would be penal for the Company, or any of its servants, to disobey any order or process emanating from it. There was no department of the state with which they did not see fit to interfere; the whole fabric of the administration was shaken to its base, and the country was threatened with universal anarchy, simply to enlarge the jurisdiction of the Crown court, and to exalt the authority of its judges.

The Cossijurah case, 1779

To enumerate the various instances of injustice and oppression to which the enforcement of these

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claims gave rise would exceed the limits of this epitome, and one must suffice as a sample. A baboo named Cossinath was instigated to bring an action in the Supreme Court in August, 1779, against his master, the raja of Cossijurah, lying to the south of Calcutta. A writ was issued on the strength of his affidavit, and the raja was required to find bail to the extent of three lacs and a half of rupees. He concealed himself to avoid the process, upon which the Court immediately despatched two sheriff’s officers, with a body of eighty-six men, of whom thirteen were European sailors, and the rest natives habited as sepoys, and all armed with muskets or swords. On their arrival at Cossijurah, they forced their way into the palace of the raja, maltreated his servants, violated the sanctity of the zenana, and desecrated his family temple, packing up the idol with other lumber in a basket, and affixing the seal of the Court to it. Hastings considered that the time had at length arrived when he could no longer delay to vindicate the authority of the government, and afford protection to the natives, whatever might be the hazard attending it. He instructed the military officer at Midnapore to intercept the whole party on their return, and march them to Calcutta, where they were immediately liberated. To prevent similar outrages which were then meditated, he likewise issued a proclamation, directing all landholders of every degree to consider themselves exempt from the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, except in the two cases of their having bound themselves by agreement to submit to it, or being British subjects. The Supreme Court then proceeded to issue a summons against the Governor-General himself and the members of the Supreme Council, but they peremptorily refused to obey it.

Sir E Impey and the Sudder Court, 1780

Petitions were now addressed to Parliament by both Europeans and natives, praying for a redress of these intolerable grievances. But as the remedy might be long in coming, the sagacity of Hastings discovered a more immediate antidote. The Provincial Councils

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established in 1773, held both revenue and civil courts; and an appeal from their decisions lay to the Sudder Dewanny Adawlut, or chief court of appeal in Calcutta, in which the Governor-General and the Council were appointed to preside, which, however, their political and administrative duties seldom allowed them to do. In April, 1780, Hastings remodelled the whole system, separated the fiscal from the civil jurisdiction, leaving the former with the Provincial courts, and entrusting the latter to the civil courts which he established in each district, with an appeal to the Sudder Dewanny. He then offered the post of chief judge of this court to Sir Elijah Impey, upon a salary of 7,000 rupees a month, which was accepted without any hesitation. This appointment, together with that of another of the Crown judges as Commissioner of the Dutch settlement of Chinsurah, which had been recently captured, at once quieted the Supreme Court, and released the Government from its embarrassments.

Remarks on this arrangement, 1780

The position in which this arrangement placed the Chief Justice, proved highly advantageous to the interests of the country. The judges of the new civil courts who were young and inexperienced, were placed under his supervision and guidance, and he was thus enabled to give form and consistency to the system of civil judicature. Though bred in all the technicalities of English law, he drew up a code of regulations for the administration of justice in the interior, comprised in ninety-five sections, brief and clear, and exactly adapted to the simplicity of native habits; and it has formed the basis of all subsequent legislation at the Bengal Presidency. But this arrangement was assailed with great animosity, both in the Court of Directors and in the House of Commons. Sir Elijah was recalled for having accepted the office, and Hastings was eventually impeached, in addition to the other crimes charged against him, for having conferred it. But, after the lapse of eighty years, the wisdom of this proceeding has been triumphantly vindicated by the Parliamentary enactment of 1860, which

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placed the Chief justice of the Supreme Court at the head of the Company’s Court of Appeal, and by amalgamating the two Courts, committed to him the duty of supervising the judicial system of the Presidency. On the receipt of the petitions from Calcutta before alluded to, Parliament passed an Act in which the functions of the Supreme Court were more distinctly defined, and it continued from that period to the hour of its extinction, to enjoy the confidence and admiration of the entire community, European and native, for the equity and impartiality of its decisions.

Cheyt Sing’s delinquency, 1780

The pecuniary difficulties of the government of Bengal were at this time most critical. There was war with Hyder, who was triumphant in the Carnatic; war with the French, with the Dutch, and with the Mahrattas. The entire expense of all these wars fell upon the treasury in Bengal; a debt of a crore of rupees had been incurred, and the credit of Government was at the lowest ebb. Hastings was under the necessity of looking to other sources than the ordinary revenues of the country for supplies, and he was induced to make an additional demand on Cheyt Sing, the raja of Benares. The grandfather of the raja had begun life with the rent of half a village, but amidst the distraction of the times, had succeeded in acquiring a territory, which yielded 50 lacs of rupees a year. The district was transferred by the Nabob Vizier to the British government in 1775, and the rajah received a sunnud from the Governor-General, which stipulated that his annual tribute should be limited to twenty-two lacs and a-half a year. Hastings’s demand was therefore stigmatised by his opponents as a breach of faith. But the tenure of Benares was more that of a feudatory than of a mere zemindar, which appears evident from the fact, that Hastings, when irritated by his opposition, threatened to reduce him to the condition of a simple zemindar, like the raja of Burdwan. By the law and constitution of India, he was liable, in cases of emergency, to be called on for extraordinary aids by his superior lord. Such payments had formerly been

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made to his liege, the Nabob of Oude, and he was equally bound to meet the requisition made upon him on the present emergency by Hastings, of 2,000 horse and five lacs of rupees. The rajah pleaded poverty, and endeavoured to evade the payment of the full amount, but Hastings had received intimation from various quarters that his hoards exceeded two crores of rupees, and he persuaded himself that the rajah’s reluctance to comply with his demands, was a crime. He determined, therefore, “to make him pay largely for his pardon, to exact a severe vengeance for his delinquency, and to draw from his guilt the means of relief to the Company’s distresses.”

Cheyt Sing’s excessive fine, 1781

Hastings was about to proceed to Benares to meet the vakeel of the raja of Berar, and negotiate a peace with the Regency at Poona. Cheyt Sing was fully apprised of his resentment, and hastened to avert it by waiting on him as he entered the province, and humbly beseeching him to accept twenty lacs of rupees. The offer was rejected with scorn, and the sum of fifty lacs peremptorily demanded. On his arrival at Benares on the 15th of August, 1781, Hastings sent the raja a statement of his complaints, and placed him under arrest, by sending four companies of sepoys to take the place of his own guards. The city of Benares, the citadel of Hindooism, and the great focus of political intrigue, had always been notorious for its turbulence. On the present occasion, the populace, roused by the indignity inflicted on the raja, rose upon the sepoys, who had brought no ammunition with them, and slaughtered both them and their officers. During this émeute, the raja himself escaped across the river to his fortified palace at Ramnugur. The situation of Hastings was perilous in the extreme; the native force on which he depended for protection was annihilated, and he, and the thirty gentlemen with him, had only their own weapons to trust to. Happily the infuriated retainers of the raja crowded tumultuously after him, and quitted the city, instead of attacking Hastings in his

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defenceless state. The whole province was speedily in a blaze of revolt, and the zemindars of Behar, who had ever been disaffected towards the English, were ripe for insurrection. It was at this critical period, while beleaguered in Benares, that Hastings exhibited his rare strength of nerve, by continuing and completing his negotiations with Sindia, as if he had been tranquilly residing in Calcutta. Equally remarkable was the confidence that Sindia manifested in the destinies of the English, by affixing his seal to the treaty, while he knew that the life of the Governor-General was in jeopardy. His situation at Benares, notwithstanding the rapid arrival of troops from different quarters, was not, however, considered defensible, and he made his escape during the night, by a window, and rowed down to Chunar.

Capture of Bidgegur, 9th Nov, 1781

The raja collected a force of 20,000 men, but did not cease to importune Hastings for a reconciliation, which was wisely rejected, lest it should be attributed to fear. The raja’s troops were successively defeated, and he took refuge in Bidgegur, but not deeming himself safe there, fled to Bundlecund with as much treasure as his elephants and camels could carry. The begums, who were left behind, surrendered the fortress on the 9th of November. In a private letter to the commander of the troops, in reference to the treasure which was supposed to be deposited in Bidgegur, Hastings had incautiously remarked, “With regard to the booty, that is rather your consideration than mine. I should be sorry that any of your officers and soldiers lost any part of the reward to which they are so well entitled.” On the strength of this communication, the officers proceeded at once to divide the booty, amounting to forty lacs of rupees, among themselves and the troops. Hastings was especially mortified at the loss of the treasure with which he had hoped to replenish the empty treasury of the Company. The officers were invited to return it, and to leave their claims to the equitable decision of the Supreme Council. but they manifested their discretion by refusing to

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trust their interests to the arbitrement of a pauper government. In extenuation of the odious proceedings of Hastings towards Cheyt Sing, it was asserted that he was disaffected to the British Government; but, in this case, Hastings would not have ventured to enter the capital with so slender an escort. Cheyt Sing was culpable in having hesitated to afford immediate aid to his liege sovereign in a great public exigency, but the imposition of a fine of fifty lacs of rupees for withholding payment of one-tenth of the sum, had an aspect of vindictiveness which it is impossible to palliate; and although Hastings was so blinded by his own judgment as to claim merit for the transaction, it has always been considered a dark spot in his administration, and it will hereafter appear that it was on this point that the question of his impeachment eventually turned. Cheyt Sing enjoyed an asylum at Gwalior for twenty-nine years. His nephew was raised to the throne, and the tribute augmented from twenty-two and a half to forty lacs a year.

The begums of Oude, 1782

The disappointment which Hastings had experienced regarding these treasures increased his embarrassment. The treasury in Calcutta was drained for the support of more than sixty thousand troops required for the war at Bombay and Madras, and money was indispensable. It was in these circumstances that the Nabob vizier waited on him at Chunar, and represented the impossibility of making good from his exhausted country the arrears of a crore and a half of rupees due to the Company, and of continuing to maintain the English troops stationed in his dominions. But these troops were indispensably necessary to their defence, and the withdrawal of them would have been immediately followed by a Mahratta invasion. He entreated Hastings to relieve him from the charge of at least one brigade, and to allow him to take possession of the wealth and the jaygeers of the begums, to enable him to discharge his obligations to the Company. Hastings subsequently affirmed that if the Vizier had not made this proposal, he himself would never

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have suggested it. At the same time, it was represented to him that the begums had abetted the rebellion, as he called it, of Cheyt Sing, and supplied him with troops and money. The charge rested chiefly on the assertion of one Colonel Hannay, who had obtained service with the Nabob vizier, and fleeced him to the extent of thirty lacs of rupees in three years. It was supported by affidavits taken before Sir Elijah Impey, the chief judge of the Supreme Court, who proceeded to Lucknow for the purpose; – a most extraordinary pilgrimage, as was justly said, for a most extraordinary purpose – yet it was utterly without foundation. But under the pressure of circumstances, Hastings brought himself round to the belief that “the begums had made war on the Company;” he yielded to the solicitation of the Vizier, and his consent to the spoliation of the princesses was duly embodied in a treaty. The Nabob returned to Lucknow, and after some little hesitation, to save appearances and to throw the odium of the transaction on the Governor-General, surrounded the palace of the begums with guards, seized and fettered the two eunuchs who were their confidential ministers, sequestered their estates, and extorted, at several times, sums to the amount of seventy-six lacs of rupees, which were paid over to the Company. To these treasures and jaygeers the begums had originally no legitimate title, as we have explained in a preceding chapter; they were state property, liable for the obligations of the state; but six years had elapsed since the Nabob – however reluctantly it matters not – had assigned them to the begums, under the official guarantee of the representative of the Governor-General. The coercive measure now adopted admits therefore of no moral extenuation. Yet so little was Hastings alive to the objectionable character of this transaction, that he ridiculed the censure which “men of virtue” might cast upon it. But the men of virtue and of political integrity in his own land have regarded it as a stain on his administration, however consonant it may have been with the Mahomedan law of

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succession, or the practice of Oriental courts. As to the barbarities practised on the begums and their servants by the Nabob, Hastings cannot be held personally answerable for them; the odium which they have fixed on his administration, was the revenge of civilization for an affiance with barbarism, for a most objectionable object.

Fyzoolla Khan, 1780

Fyzoolla Khan, the Rohilla chieftain, was, in 1774, left in possession of Rampoora and several other jaygeers, of the annual value of fifteen lacs of rupees. He devoted his attention with great zeal to the encouragement of agriculture and the improvement of the country, and with such success as to double his rent-roll in seven years, without overtaxing his subjects. He was bound by treaty not to increase his military force beyond 5,000 men, of whom 3,000 were to be at the disposal of the Nabob vizier, when he happened to be engaged in war. In November, 1780, Hastings, distracted by the intelligence of Colonel Baillie’s defeat, instructed the Vizier to demand the aid of 5,000 troops for the defence of Behar, to liberate the English regiments for service at Madras. Fyzoolla Khan, with all humility, made an offer of 2,000 horse and 1,000 foot. Hastings, who always expected prompt obedience to his requisitions, was exasperated at this hesitation, and under the alarm created by Cheyt Sing’s proceedings, assented, without adequate consideration, to the request made by the Vizier to dispossess Fyzoolla Khan of the whole of his zemindary and annex it to his own dominions: but he soon after discovered and acknowledged the error he had committed in this interpretation of the treaty, revoked the permission he had given to the Vizier, and released Fyzoolla Khan from the obligation of furnishing any quota of troops in future, on the payment of fifteen lacs of rupees.

Censure of the Directors; Hastings resigns, 1783–5

These proceedings were severely condemned by the Court of Directors who pronounced the demand on Cheyt Sing, a breach of faith, and ordered him to be restored to his estates. Under the influence

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of this vote of censure Hastings’s colleagues in Council not only withdrew their support from him, but became united in their opposition to him, and he complained, with great reason that while he was still held responsible for the safety of India, his degradation had been proclaimed at every court in India. “If,” he said, “I am to be threatened with dismission, my acts reprobated, the whole responsibility of the government thrown on me, with only an equal voice in Council, I cannot discharge my trust with credit or effect.” In a letter to the Court of Directors of the 20th of March, 1783, after appealing to them to attest the patience and temper with which he had submitted to all the indignities heaped upon him during his long service, he announced his determination to quit their service, and requested that a successor might be immediately nominated. During the year 1784 he proceeded to Lucknow, and in compliance with the requisition of the Court of Directors, restored the jaygeers to the begums, through the agency of the Nabob vizier. He adjusted all accounts between Oude and the Company, made every arrangement for the payment of the English troops employed in its defence, and then withdrew the Residency, which had become odious to the Vizier by its interference with his government, not less than by its depredations. On his return to Calcutta, Hastings addressed valedictory letters to all the princes and chiefs of India, and having laid the keys of the treasury on the table of the Council Board, and delivered the keys of the fort to his successor, Mr. Macpherson, embarked for England in February, 1785, after a most eventful administration of thirteen years.

Hastings’s reception in England, 1785

Hastings reached England on the 13th of June, and experienced the most gracious reception from the King and Queen; and even the Court of Directors greeted him with a courteous address. By one of the most influential members of the House of Lords, he was described as the Company’s great minister – the powerful Chatham of

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the east. The Ministry, with one exception, evinced the most friendly disposition towards him, and the preeminent services he had rendered to his country in the East fully justified his expectations of a peerage. But that exception was fatal to all his hopes. Mr. Pitt, the prime minister, had imbibed a vehement prejudice against him. He admitted that he was a great and wonderful man, and that the charges against him were ridiculous and absurd; but, he had committed four transgressions – he had attempted to extend the British dominions in India, which the minister highly disapproved of; he had forfeited the confidence of the native princes; he had disobeyed the orders of the Court of Directors; and he had fixed enormous salaries to offices in India. There was, moreover, an adverse resolution on the records of the House of Commons, and until it was done away with by a vote of thanks for his great services, Mr. Pitt affirmed that he could not advise his Majesty to confer any honour on him; yet the minister’s favourite colleague, Mr. Dundas, with whom that damnatory vote originated, had subsequently declared, that Hastings’s conduct was worthy of every praise he could bestow, and of every support his Majesty’s ministers could afford him; and he went so far as expressly to pronounce him the saviour of India. As to the vote of thanks, Mr. Pitt had only to propose it to the House, and it would have been carried by acclamation.

Commencement of his impeachment, 20th June, 1785

Seven days after Hastings landed in England, Mr. Burke, one of the most distinguished leaders of the Whigs, gave notice in the House of Commons that he would on a future day, make a motion regarding the conduct of a gentleman recently returned from India. But a meeting of the party was held soon after, and it was resolved, with great unanimity, to be unadvisable to embark in a crusade against him. There was therefore every reason to conclude that the menace of a prosecution would have blown over, but for the imprudence and arrogance of Major John Scott, the confidential agent and

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evil genius of Hastings. Like other retired Indians of ample fortune he had purchased a borough and entered Parliament. On the first day of the ensuing session of 1786, he rose and defied Burke to make good his threat. After this challenge, Burke had no option but to pursue his intention, and he entered upon the impeachment with all the ardour of his enthusiastic nature. His political associates, who had been lukewarm on the subject, felt themselves bound in honour to rally round and support him; and this celebrated trial is thus traced up to the mistaken zeal of Hastings’s own friend, Major Scott, who emphatically “bullied” Burke into the prosecution. His first motion was for the production of papers, but the House resolved, that he should state his case before he applied for documents to support it.

Charges against Hastings, 4th April, 1786

On the 4th of April, Burke brought forward eleven charges, to which eleven others were subsequently added. For many years he had made the politics and the people of India and their ancient history his particular study, and no man in the House has ever been more familiar with all questions relating to that country. He was a worshipper of ancient institutions and dynasties, and having followed the career of Hastings step by step, gradually contracted a feeling of personal animosity towards him, for his attempts to subvert them in the East. But all the materials of the charges were supplied by Mr. Francis, Hastings’s rancorous opponent in India, who had obtained a seat in Parliament, and determined to hunt him down with all the rancour which might have been expected from the writer of Junius’s letters. After the charges had been introduced, Hastings obtained permission to be heard in reply, and on the 1st of May appeared at the bar, bending beneath the weight of a document more prolix than even a Bengal dispatch. He read on till he was exhausted, when the clerks of the House came to his aid, and mumbled through its interminable pages, the reading of which required a second day. The only impression produced on the House was one of weariness

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and impatience; yet so ignorant was Hastings of English sensibilities as to persuade himself that the idea of the reply was conceived in a happy hour, and by a blessed inspiration, and that “it instantly turned all minds to his own way.”

The three principal charges, 1788

Of the twenty-two charges, only three were of any serious importance, and they referred to the first Rohilla war, to Cheyt Sing, and to the begums of Oude. The rest – such as that of having in six revolutions, brought the fertile and beautiful provinces of Furnickabad to a state of the most deplorable ruin, and of having impoverished and depopulated Oude, and rendered the country, which was once a garden, an uninhabited desert, – were the mere litter of Mr. Francis’s malignity. The first charge accused him of having “hired British soldiers for the purpose of extirpating the innocent and helpless people inhabiting the Rohillas.” But the first Rohilla war had received the approbation of the Court of Directors; it had taken place fourteen years before, and whatever might have been its criminality, Parliament had condoned it by subsequently reappointing Hastings Governor-General. Mr. Dundas explained that when he proposed a vote of censure to the House on this transaction, he considered it sufficient for the recall of Hastings; but he had never supposed that it involved the necessity of a prosecution. Both he and Mr. Pitt voted against the charge, and it was consequently negatived by 119 to 67. The charge of wanton cruelty and extortion against the raja of Benares, was brought forward by Fox, in a speech of surpassing ability, but he rested his argument solely on the principle that Cheyt Sing was an independent prince, no way liable to be called on for succour by the Bengal Government. Mr. Pitt, who was expected to support Hastings in this case also, resisted this opinion, and asserted that Cheyt Sing was a vassal of the Bengal empire, and owed allegiance to it, and was subject to extraordinary demands on extraordinary emergencies. But, he added, the whole of Hastings’s conduct showed that he intended to punish the raja with too much severity, inflicting

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a fine of fifty lacs for a default of only five lacs. He voted, therefore, for the motion, which was carried by 119 to 79. The adoption of this charge by the Ministry, was the turning point of the impeachment, which, after this decision, became inevitable. The third important charge, which referred to the confiscation of the treasures and estates of the begums of Oude, was entrusted to Mr. Sheridan, and the speech of six hours’ duration with which he introduced it, has been justly considered the greatest effort of oratory in ancient and modern times. Mr. Pitt, himself, described it as possessing everything that genius or art could furnish, to agitate and control the human mind. The House was enraptured by his eloquence, and gave an unusual sign of applause by clapping of bands, in which even the strangers were allowed to join without rebuke. The debate was adjourned to the next day, on the extraordinary plea that, under spell of the orator, the members had lost their self-possession. When the House resumed, Mr. Pitt came forward and asserted, that Hastings’s conduct regarding the treasures of the begums bore the strongest marks of criminality, though he did not impute to him the cruelties said to have been practised. After this declaration, the charge was supported by a majority of three to one. It was therefore resolved that Warren Hastings should be impeached before the Lords of high crimes and misdemeanours during the period of his Indian government; and as the Lords refused the use of their own chamber, Westminster Hall was ordered to be fitted up for the occasion.

Trial of Hastings 1788–1795

The trial which commenced on the 13th of February, 1788, presented the most august spectacle which had been witnessed in England for more than a century – the impeachment by the Commons of England, before the highest tribunal in the land, of the man who had consolidated the power of Great Britain in the East. The scene was one of unexampled dignity and grandeur. The Queen and the Princesses, the Prince of Wales, and his royal brothers, with their trains, led the procession.

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The peers in their ermine, were marshalled two and two according to their rank from their own chamber to the hall. But the most interesting spectacle was the galaxy of genius grouped together in the seats appropriated to the managers of the trial – Fox, and Burke, and Sheridan, and Grey, and Windham, men of imperishable renown in the annals of their country. In the presence of this illustrious assembly, Warren Hastings, who had given law to the princes and people of India for thirteen years, appeared in the position of a culprit, and was required to go down upon his knees. He was immediately commanded to rise, and accommodated with a seat; but of all the indignities which had been heaped on him in England or in India, this ignominious ceremonial was that which most acutely wounded his feelings. The Lord Chancellor, who presided in the Court, and who had been his own school-fellow at Westminster, concluded his address with much solemnity, “Conduct your defence in a manner that may befit your station and the magnitude of the charges against you, and estimate rightly the high character of those you have to answer – the Commons of Great Britain.” To which Hastings replied with great dignity, “I am come to this high tribunal, equally impressed with a confidence in my own integrity, and in the justice of the Court before which I stand.” The pleadings were opened by Burke in a speech of such transcendent power, that Hastings himself was carried away by the torrent of eloquence, and remarked that for half an hour he really considered himself the greatest miscreant in England. The management of the impeachment, for any detail of which, however, it is not possible to find space in this brief sketch, was left by Mr. Pitt in the hands of his opponents, the Whigs, and it was conducted in a spirit of rancour, which in this age of moderation, is regarded with amazement. The whole proceeding is inseparably connected with the traditions and the credit of that party, and, hence, after the lapse of three-quarters of a century, its political chief still considers that the “whole of Hastings’s policy was

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conceived in an Indian spirit of trick, perfidy, cruelty and falsehood.” To acquit Hastings of criminality would necessarily imply the severest reflection on the conduct of those who applied to him the epithets of “thief,” “tyrant,” “robber,” “cheat,” “swindler,” “sharper,” “captain-general of iniquity,” and “spider of hell,” and then expressed their regret that the English language did not afford terms more adequate to the enormity of his offences. The trial dragged on for seven years, and terminated on the 23rd of April, 1795, in his complete and honourable acquittal. It cost him ten lacs of rupees, and reduced him to poverty, but it has conferred immortality on his name.

Character and administration of Hastings,

No man acting on so great a theatre, and in circumstances of such extreme difficulty has ever had his public conduct, and his private correspondence subjected to an ordeal like that to which Hastings was exposed, and there are few who could have come out of it with such credit. In the opinion of the ablest, though most censorious of the historians of British India, “He was beyond all question the most eminent of the chief rulers whom the Company has ever employed, nor is there any one of them who would not have succumbed under the difficulties he had to encounter.” The impartial verdict of posterity has long since acquitted him of the crimes charged on him. That He was not free from blame, the preceding narrative has abundantly shown, but his offences are cast into the shade when we contemplate the grandeur of his whole career, and we may adopt the opinion of one of the most eminent statesmen of the day, “Though he was not blameless, if there was a bald place on his head it ought to be covered with laurels.” His presidency was a great epoch in the history of our Indian empire. On his arrival in Bengal, as governor, he found the Company in possession of a large and fertile territory, but without any rule of government except that which had descended to it from its commercial institutions, and no rule of policy but that which the accident of the

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day supplied. It was he who organised the administration and consolidated the political power of the British empire in the East. While he was anxious to avoid territorial acquisitions, he set his heart on extending our political influence to every court, and making the Company the leading power in India, and the arbitrer of its destinies. This task he accomplished while opposed and thwarted by his colleagues, counteracted and reviled by his superiors, and enjoying but accidental and temporary authority. While the king of England and his ministers were losing an empire in the west, he was building upon an empire in the east. To the natives of India his impeachment was an incomprehensible enigma. They had followed him to his embarkation with their regrets, and when he had been deprived of all power, and had become the butt of persecution, the princes of India, whose confidence he was said to have forfeited, hastened to offer him the spontaneous homage of their admiration. Nor to this day is he regarded in India in any other light than as one of the most moderate and most honourable, as well as the ablest of British rulers.

Select and secret committees, 1781–82

The exclusive privileges granted to the East India Company were to expire upon three years’ notice, after the 25th of March, 1780, and negotiations were therefore opened between the India house and the Treasury, towards the close of that year, which turned chiefly on two points, the right of the Crown to all territories acquired by its subjects, and the share due to the public of the advantages which the Company enjoyed. On the 9th of April, 1781, Lord North brought forward eight propositions in the House of Commons relative to the government of India, so unpalatable that the Court of Directors refused to apply for the renewal of the Charter on such terms. But the Company was strong in the House and in the country, while the Ministry was tottering. A compromise was, therefore, effected between the parties. The question of right to the territories acquired in India was left in abeyance, and the existing privileges were extended with scarcely any modification

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to a period of three years, after notice had been given on the let of March, 1791. The Company was likewise required to pay to the Treasury the sum of forty lacs of rupees in lieu of all arrears due to the nation, and three-fourths of their surplus profits, after the payment of a dividend of eight per cent., were to go to the state. In February of the year 1781, the petitions, formerly mentioned, from the inhabitants of Calcutta against the encroachments of the Supreme Court were presented to the House, and it was agreed to refer them to a Select Committee, of which Mr. Burke was the life and soul, and which is remembered by the twelve able reports drawn up by his pen and submitted to Parliament. It was these reports which for the first time diffused through the community in England a distinct view of the origin and progress of our rule in India, and of the importance of the national interests which had grown up. On the receipt of the intelligence of Hyder Ali’s irruption into the Carnatic, the Minister moved for the appointment of a Secret Committee to inquire into the cause of the war, and the state of the British possessions on that coast. Six reports were presented by this Committee, through its chairman, Mr. Dundas.

Motion for the recall of Hastings, 1782

On the 9th of April, 1782, Mr. Dundas moved that the reports be referred to a Committee of the whole House, and in a speech of three hours’ duration, denounced the conduct of the Presidencies in India, whom he charged with having plunged the nation into wars for the sake of conquest, violated the engagement of treaties, and plundered and oppressed the natives. He censured the Court of Directors for reprobating the conduct of their servants abroad only when it was not attended with profit. The House at once adopted the charges brought against Sir Thomas Rumbold, the late governor of Madras, and a bill of pains and penalties was introduced, but in consequence of the unsettled state of parties, it dropped through, leaving the black stain of his iniquities still attached to his character.

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On the 30th of May, 1782, Mr. Dundas moved for the recall of Mr. Hastings from Bengal, and Mr. Hornby from Bombay, for having in sundry instances acted in a manner repugnant to the honour and policy of the nation, and thereby brought great calamities on India, and enormous expenses on the Company. The House voted Hastings’s recall; the Court of Directors followed the example, but the Court of Proprietors, which at this time comprised men of high standing and great eminence in the country, resolved that the Court of Directors was not bound to pay any attention to the suggestions of only one branch of the legislature, and passed a vote of thanks to Hastings. This act of independence, which was resented by both parties in the House, sealed the doom of that Court. Mr. Dundas declared it to be dangerous in principle and insulting to the authority of. Parliament, and when he came into power two years subsequently, assisted in giving a death blow to its power.

Fox’s India Bill, 1783

The pecuniary embarrassments in which the Company was involved by the bills drawn for the expenses of the war in the Carnatic, damaged their position in no small degree. On the 5th of March they presented a petition to the House stating that of the sum exacted of them for the benefit of the nation, they had paid thirty lacs, but were unable to find the remainder, though it was only ten lacs, and, moreover, that they could not carry on the government of India for another twelvemonth, without the loan of a crore of rupees. Two Acts were passed for their relief; but this application, combined with the reports of the two Committees, and the damaging debates in the House, produced a deep impression on the public mind, and there was a general demand for some measure commensurate with the importance and exigency of the case. Mr. Fox, then at the head of the Coalition Ministry, was urged by the national voice to legislate for India, and he consequently brought forward his celebrated India Bill. Both Clive and Hastings had recommended to the Prime Ministers of the day,

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to Lord Chatham and Lord North, that the government of India should be conducted in the name and under the authority of the king. But Mr. Fox’s Bill went much further He proposed that all the powers of government should be transferred, for a period of four years, from the Company to a Board consisting of seven Commissioners, to be nominated in the first instance by Parliament, and afterwards by the Crown. The trade of the Company was to be managed by nine assistant-directors, to be eventually chosen by the proprietors of India Stock. Another Bill was likewise introduced for the reform of abuses in India, but its provisions were without vigour or soundness. A hobby of Mr. Francis was also adopted, and the zemindars were declared to be the hereditary proprietors of the lands of which they collected the revenue. As regarded making war or alliances with the native powers, the supreme authority in India was to be placed under more severe restrictions, and rendered more subordinate than before to the Board of Commissioners, fourteen thousand miles off, in England.

Defeat of Fox’s India Bill, 1784

The motives of Mr. Fox, in the introduction of this bill, were pure and benevolent. He really believed that it was his mission “to rescue the greatest number of the human race that ever were so grievously oppressed, from the greatest tyranny that ever was exercised.” But the bill was considered dangerous to the liberties of the nation. The patronage of India was estimated to be worth two crores of rupees a year, and, as the principle of competitive appointments had not then been discovered, it was believed that the transfer of it to the Crown, or to the minister would destroy the balance of the constitution. It was, therefore, opposed by many from the most patriotic motives. The Court of Directors, threatened with extinction, filled the country with their complaints, and asserted that after such a violation of chartered rights, no institution in England was secure. The cry was echoed in Parliament by thirty or forty of those whom the spoils of the east, or the

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jobs of the India-house, had lifted into the senate, and who presented a firm phalanx of opposition to a bill which cut off their children and connections from the prospect of similar fortunes. Every engine was set in motion to defeat this measure, yet it passed the lower House by a triumphant majority of 208 to 102. But the king had been alarmed by the assurance, that it would take the diadem from his head, and place it on the brows of Mr. Fox. He, therefore, adopted the unconstitutional course of authorizing Earl Temple to inform the peers, that he should consider any one who voted for it as no friend of his. The House of Lords therefore threw out the bill, and at midnight the king sent a messenger to the ministers, whom he cordially hated, to announce their dismissal.

Mr Pitt’s India Bill 1784

Mr. William Pitt, then twenty-four years of age, was placed at the head of the new ministry, and, after struggling for several months with an adverse House of Commons, at length appealed to the country, and obtained a majority of 160. The East India Company, then the most powerful corporation in England, had assisted him with their influence at the elections, and their interests were not forgotten when he was in power. Their chief revenue was derived from the monopoly of the tea trade. They were in arrears for duty to the extent of a crore of rupees, which they asked him to remit. The duty of 50 per cent. then levied on the importation of the article, gave encouragement to smuggling, and thereby diminished the resources of the Company. Mr. Pitt reduced it to 12½ per cent., and endeavoured to make up the loss of sixty lacs of rupees which it entailed, by an increase of the very objectionable tax on windows and light. On the 13th of August, he introduced his India Bill, in a speech in which he denounced, in no equivocal terms, the misconduct of the governors in India. He had before him the three plans for the improvement of the government, which had been drawn up during the previous three years by Lord North, Mr. Dundas and Mr. Fox, from each of which he

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borrowed some of the materials of his own bill. He proposed the appointment of a Board of Commissioners, consisting of six members of the Privy Council, with power to check, superintend and control, all the acts, operations and concerns, connected with the civil and military government, and the revenues of India. The Court of Directors were to submit to the Commissioners, not only the letters received from India, as before, but all those which were transmitted by them. All despatches and orders dictated by the Board were to be implicitly obeyed. At the same time a committee of secrecy was constituted, consisting of three Directors, through whom all important communications from the Board were to be sent; an interior cabinet was thus established at the India House, which excluded twenty-one of the Directors from all share of political power. The Court of Proprietors, which had recently set the House of Commons at defiance, was restricted from interfering with any of the decisions of the Board, and was thus reduced to utter insignificance. Two other provisions were inserted, the one to compel every officer returning from India to deliver a schedule of the property he had acquired; the other to establish a separate and august tribunal in England, for the trial of great delinquents. But these anomalous enactments were speedily abrogated. It was also declared in this bill that the pursuit of schemes of conquest was repugnant to the wish, to the honour and the policy of the British nation, and it was therefore enacted, “that it should not be lawful for the Governor-General, without the express authority and concord of the Court of Directors, or of the Secret Committee, either to declare or commence hostilities, or to enter into any treaty for making war against any of the native princes or states in India, or any treaty guaranteeing the dominions of such princes or states, except when hostilities should have been commenced, or preparations actually made for the attack of the British nation in India, or of some of the states and princes whose dominions it shall be engaged by subsisting treaties to defend.” How far this attempt to stop the growth

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of the British empire by Act of Parliament was successful, will be seen in the course of this history.

Comparison of the Bills, 1784

It is difficult to account satisfactorily for the reprobation of Mr. Fox’s bill, and the commendation bestowed on that of Mr. Pitt. In both the monopoly of the trade to India and China was left to the Company, and the Directors were to be chosen by the Proprietors. The Object of both was the same, to deprive the Court of Directors of all power in the government of India, and transfer it to the Ministry of the day, by whom, in both cases, the Commissioners were to be appointed, for the Crown meant its responsible Ministers. But, then, Mr. Pitt left to the Company the semblance of power, while he imperceptibly took away the reality. He left the Court of Directors all the trappings of greatness, their grand house, their magnificent banquets, and their vast patronage; they were still the grandest corporation in the grandest city of the world; but, there was the check-string behind the machinery, which controlled all its movements. From the passing of this bill in 1784, to the period when, in 1858, Mr. Fox’s plan was consummated, and the government of India distinctly transferred to the Crown, the administration of India was conducted under the absolute control of the President of the Board, though in the name of the Company. The government of India was a despotism at home, and a despotism abroad. The Indian Minister was, it is true, responsible to Parliament, but the responsibility became a farce, when the members rushed out of the house at the name of India. Mr. Dundas was appointed the first President of the Board, and continued for sixteen years to manage the affairs of India with ability which has never been surpassed. The office has since been considered one of inferior importance and dignity, and, with occasional exceptions, has been left to second, and even third-rate men. Indeed, there are few circumstances more striking in the history of our Indian empire, than the contrast presented by the brilliant genius of its successive Governors-General, and the dull mediocrity of those who have presided over the government at home.

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Nabob of Arcot’s debts, 1784

The first question on which the absolute power of the Indian minister was displayed, referred to the Nabob of Arcot’s debts, which had been for many years the great source of demoralization at the Madras Presidency. That prince had long been in the habit of borrowing money at an exorbitant premium and a ruinous interest, and giving assignments, called tunkaws, on the revenue of different districts. When he removed his court to Madras, the town immediately became a scene of the most scandalous intrigue and fraud, into which men of all classes, in and out of the service, plunged with reckless avidity. The traffic in loans to the Nabob was openly prosecuted without disguise or shame, and became the shortest and surest road to fortune. Civilians with 500 rupees a month rose to sudden opulence, and even the members of Council, who ought to have been the foremost to check these nefarious practises, were themselves most deeply implicated in them. Government became a mockery, when its highest dignitaries were employed in endeavouring to obtain the control of districts for their private advantage. Hastings, when he took over the revenues of the Carnatic for the prosecution of the war with Hyder, determined to deal summarily with this incubus on its resources. He proposed to deduct one-fourth from the principal, to consolidate principal and interest to a fixed date, after which all interest was to cease, and to pay off the amalgamated sum by instalments. So thoroughly aware were many of the bondholders that these transactions would not bear the light, that they came readily into the compromise, but the majority, consisting chiefly of the public servants, did not consider it their interest to cut down the great pagoda tree, and destroy all hope of future produce, and the plan fell to the ground.

Dundas’s conduct regarding the loans, 1785

The settlement of these interminable claims was considered a matter of the first importance by all the public men who had taken an active part in Indian affairs. The bills of Mr. Dundas and Mr. Fox made provision for investigating their origin and

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justice, and establishing a fund for their liquidation. Mr. Pitt’s India Bill contained the same enactment, and the Court of Directors entered upon the duty with great zeal; but before the close of 1784. Mr. Dundas took the affair out of their hands, and determined to pay off the demands without any investigation whatever. To determine the order of payment be divided them into three classes, and directed that the sum of twelve lacs of pagodas should be annually appropriated to this object, giving the precedence, however, to the private debts, over the debt due to the Company. The Court of Directors remonstrated against this preposterous arrangement, and justly pleaded their prior right to the repayment of the expenses they had incurred, almost to their own bankruptcy, in defending the Carnatic from Hyder’s invasion, and for which the Nabob had already made an assignment of seven lacs of pagodas a year. They reprobated the proposal to divert any portion of this sum to satisfy the demands of his fraudulent creditors. But the powers of government had passed out of their hands. The President of the Board of Control refused to reconsider his decision, and the subject was brought before the House in February, 1785. It was on this occasion that Mr. Burke delivered his celebrated speech on the Nabob’s debts, and consigned the Benfields, and the Atkinsons, and the whole crew of Madras extortioners, to everlasting infamy. He ascribed the singular course pursued by Mr. Dundas to the exercise of Parliamentary influence. It appeared that Paul Benfield had been enabled to make no fewer than eight members at the recent election, from funds supplied by the Nabob of Arcot, and their votes were placed at the disposal of the Ministry. “This,” exclaimed Mr. Burke, “was the golden cup of abominations; this the chalice of the fornications of rapine, usury, and oppression, which was held out by the gorgeous eastern harlot, which so many of the people – so many of the nobles had drained to the very dregs.” But so powerful was the Ministry in the House, that they did not condescend even to notice this brilliant speech. Mr. Dundas’s

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scheme of liquidation was adopted, the result of which was, to secure to Benfield the undisturbed enjoyment of a sum little short of sixty lacs of rupees, of which he had plundered the Carnatic.

Sequel of the Arcot debts, 1785

Of the three classes into which Mr. Dundas had divided the claims, the largest was the consolidated loan, as it was called, of 1777, of which the Court of Directors heard, for the first time, in the preceding year, and the amount of which was fixed, with interest, at two crores and twenty lacs of rupees. But it cost the country five crores before the last pagoda was paid off, twenty years later, whereas Hastings’s compromise, in 1781, would have discharged the whole debt for a crore and a half. To pursue this stupendous system of fraud to its closing scene, we must anticipate the events of fifty years. To prevent the recurrence of such claims, Mr. Fox’s bill made it unlawful for any servant of the Company, civil or military, to be engaged in any money transaction whatever with any protected or other native prince. Mr. Pitt did not think fit to incorporate this wise prohibition in his bill, and the consequence was, that while the liquidation of the old debt was in progress, the Nabob and his friends were engaged in fabricating fresh loans, and on the payment of the last claim in 1805, new demands to the incredible amount of thirty crores of rupees were presented. But Parliament had learnt wisdom by experience, and instead of again admitting them without inquiry, determined to subject them to the severest scrutiny. A Board of Commissioners, consisting of Bengal civilians, was appointed at Madras to investigate their validity, and another Board in London to receive appeals. The labours of these bodies were prolonged over half a century, when the genuine claims were reduced to about two crores and a half, while a sum little short of a crore had been expended in the investigation. The conduct of the Madras Presidency in the matter of these Carnatic debts, and of the Bengal Presidency in the case of Meer Cassim, and the transit duties, are the

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two dark spots in our Indian administrations, and they appear all the more scandalous when contrasted with the general integrity and justice of our proceedings.

The revenues of the Carnatic, 1785

In the next question which Mr. Dundas took in hand – the revenues of the Carnatic – his decision was equally unfortunate. The irruption of Hyder Ali into the province had constrained Hastings to demand an assignment of all the revenues of the Carnatic to provide for its defence, with the reservation of one-sixth for the expenses of the Nabob. The Nabob was obliged to submit, but, under the influence of his creditors, who refused to advance money without fresh tunkaws, he spared no exertion or artifice to defeat the arrangement, and at length sent an agent to Hastings to appeal against the measures of Lord Macartney. Hastings imprudently listened to his tale of wrong, and issued an order for the restitution of the assignment. The districts had been placed under the able management of a board of honest men, and had yielded a larger revenue than they had ever produced before; to surrender them to the Nabob would have reduced the Presidency to destitution at a time when the army was seven months in arrears. An angry discussion arose between Madras and Calcutta, but Lord Macartney at length succeeded in retaining the revenues, and his conduct received the approbation of the Court of Directors. But Mr. Dundas had not been many months at the head of the Board of Control before he ordered them to be peremptorily given back, on the ground that the war had ceased, and that “it was necessary to give to all the powers of India a strong proof of the national faith.” The Nabob had received a much larger amount of ready money from the punctual payment of his share of the revenues, than he had ever received before from the districts, and he could therefore have no interest in resuming the management of them. But it was of the highest importance to his creditors, of whom Benfield was the representative, and, at the same time, the Nabob’s chief adviser in all such matters, to regain their hold

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on the lands. Lord Macartney was resolved, if possible, not to witness the misery which the surrender of the assignment would inevitably inflict on the interests of the Madras Presidency, and he proceeded to Bengal in the hope of persuading the officiating Governor-General to suspend the execution of the order, pending a reference to England. But he found him unwilling to take on himself the responsibility of interfering with the orders of the Ministry; and the lands passed into the hands of the Nabob – and of his creditors.

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