Chapter VII: Front Matter (7)

Mr. Hastings, by his confidence in the support derived from this source, or from the habits of independent power, is carried to such a length as to consider a motion to obey the Court of Directors as a degradation of the executive government in his person. He looks upon a claim under that authority, and a complaint that it has produced no effect, as a piece of daring insolence which he is ashamed that the board has suffered. The behavior which your Committee consider as so intemperate and despotic he regards as a culpable degree of patience and forbearance. Major Scott, his agent, enters so much into the principles of Mr. Hastings's conduct as to tell your Committee that in his opinion Lord Clive would have sent home Mr. Bristow a prisoner upon such an occasion. It is worthy of remark, that, in the very same breath that Mr. Hastings so heavily condemns a junior officer in the Company's service (not a _servant_ of the Council, as he hazards to call him, but _their fellow-servant_) for merely complaining of a supposed injury and requiring redress, he so far forgets his own subordination as to reject the orders of the Court of Directors even as an _argument_ in favor of appointing a person to an office, to presume to censure _his_ undoubted masters, and to accuse them of having been "in a habit of casting reproaches upon him, and heaping indignities on _his_ station." And it is to be observed, that this censure was not for the purpose of seeking or obtaining redress for any injury, but appeared rather as a reason for refusing to obey their lawful commands. It is plainly implied in that minute, that no servant of the Company, in Mr. Bristow's rank, would dare to act in such a manner, if he had not by indirect means obtained a premature fortune. This alone is sufficient to show the situation of the Company's servants in the subordinate situations, when the mere claim of a right, derived from the sovereign legal power, becomes fatal not only to the objects which they pursue, but deeply wounds that reputation both for ability and integrity by which alone they are to be qualified for any other.

If anything could add to the disagreeable situation of those who are submitted to an authority conducted on such principles, it is this: The Company has ordered that no complaint shall be made in Europe against any of the Council without being previously communicated to them: a regulation formed upon grave reasons; and it was certainly made in _favor_ of that board. But if a person, having ground of complaint against the Council, by making use of the mode prescribed in favor of that very Council, and by complaining to themselves, commits an offence for which he may be justly punished, the Directors have not regulated the mode of complaint, they have actually forbidden it; they have, on that supposition, renounced their authority; and the whole system of their officers is delivered over to the arbitrary will of a few of their chief servants.

During the whole day of that deliberation things wore a decided face. Mr. Hastings stood to his principles in their full extent, and seemed resolved upon unqualified disobedience. But as the debate was adjourned to the day following, time was given for expedients; and such an expedient was hit upon by Mr. Hastings as will, no doubt, be unexpected by the House; but it serves to throw new lights upon the motives of all his struggles with the authority of the legislature.

The next day the Council met upon the adjournment. Then Mr. Hastings proposed, as a compromise, a division of the object in question. One half was to be surrendered to the authority of the Court of Directors, the other was reserved for his dignity. But the choice he made of his own share in this partition is very worthy of notice. He had taken his _sole_ ground of objection against Mr. Bristow on the supposed ill effect that such an appointment would have on the minds of the Indian powers. He said, "that these powers could have no dependence on his fulfilling his engagements, _or maintaining the faith of treaties_ which he might offer for their acceptance, if they saw him treated with such contempt." Mr. Bristow's appearing in a political character was the _whole_ of his complaint; yet, when he comes to a voluntary distribution of the duties of the office, he gives Mr. Bristow those very political negotiations of which but the day before he had in such strong terms declared him personally incapable, whose appointment he considered to be fatal to those negotiations, and which he then spoke of as a measure in _itself_ such as the bitterest adversary to Great Britain would have proposed. But having thus yielded his whole ground of ostensible objection, he reserved to his own appointment the entire management of the pecuniary trust. Accordingly he named Mr. Bristow for the former, and Mr. Middleton for the latter. On his own principles he ought to have done the very reverse. On every justifiable principle he ought to have done so; for a servant who for a long time resists the orders of his masters, and when he reluctantly gives way obeys them by halves, ought to be remarkably careful to make his actions correspond with his words, and to put himself out of all suspicion with regard to the purity of his motives. It was possible that the political reasons, which were solely assigned against Mr. Bristow's appointment, might have been the real motives of Mr. Hastings's opposition. But these he totally abandons, and holds fast to the pecuniary department. Now, as it is notorious that most of the abuses of India grow out of money-dealing, it was peculiarly unfit for a servant, delicate with regard to his reputation, to require a _personal_ and confidential agent in a situation merely official, in which secrecy and personal connections could be of no possible use, and could only serve to excite distrust. Matters of account cannot be made too public; and it is not the most confidential agent, but the most responsible, who is the fittest for the management of pecuniary trusts. That man was the fittest at once to do the duty, and to remove all suspicions from the Governor-General's character, whom, by not being of his appointment, he could not be supposed to favor for private purposes, who must naturally stand in awe of his inspection, and whose misconduct could not possibly be imputable to him. Such an agency in a pecuniary trust was the very last on which Mr. Hastings ought to have risked his disobedience to the orders of the Direction,--or, what is even worse for his motives, a direct contradiction to all the principles upon which he had attempted to justify that bold measure.

The conduct of Mr. Hastings in the affair of Mahomed Reza Khân was an act of disobedience of the same character, but wrought by other instruments. When the Duanné (or universal perception, and management of the revenues) of Bengal was acquired to the Company, together with the command of the army, the Nabob, or governor, naturally fell into the rank rather of a subject than that even of a dependent prince. Yet the preservation of such a power in such a degree of subordination, with the criminal jurisdiction, and the care of the public order annexed to it, was a wise and laudable policy. It preserved a portion of the government in the hands of the natives; it kept them in respect; it rendered them quiet on the change; and it prevented that vast kingdom from wearing the dangerous appearance, and still more from sinking into the terrible state, of a country of conquest. Your Committee has already reported the manner in which the Company (it must be allowed, upon pretences that will not bear the slightest examination) diverted from its purposes a great part of the revenues appropriated to the country government; but they were very properly anxious that what remained should be well administered. In the lifetime of General Clavering and Colonel Monson, Mahomed Reza Khân, a man of rank among the natives, was judged by them the fittest person to conduct the affairs of the Nabob, as his Naib, or deputy: an office well known in the ancient constitution of these provinces, at a time when the principal magistrates, by nature and situation, were more efficient. This appointment was highly approved, and in consequence confirmed, by the Court of Directors. Mr. Hastings and Mr. Barwell, however, thought proper to remove him. To the authority of the Court of Directors they opposed the request of the Nabob, stating that he was arrived at the common age of maturity, and stood _in no need of a deputy to manage his affairs_. On former occasions Mr. Hastings conceived a very low opinion of the condition of the person whom he thus set up against the authority of his masters. "On a former occasion," as the Directors tell him, "and to serve a very different purpose, he had not scrupled to declare it as visible as the sun that the Nabob was a mere pageant, without even _the shadow of authority_." But on this occasion he became more substantial. Mr. Hastings and Mr. Barwell yielded to his representation that a deputy was not necessary, and accordingly Mahomed Reza Khân was removed from his office.

However, lest any one should so far mistrust their understanding as to conceive them the dupes of this pretext, they who had disobeyed the Company's orders under color that _no deputy was necessary_ immediately appoint another deputy. This independent prince, who, as Mr. Hastings said, "had an incontestable right to his situation, and that it was his by inheritance," suddenly shrunk into his old state of insignificance, and was even looked upon in so low a light as to receive a severe reprimand from Mr. Hastings for _interposing_ in the duties of his (the deputy's) office.

The Company's orders, censuring this transaction in the strongest terms, and ordering Mahomed Reza Khân to be immediately restored to the office of Naib Subahdar, were received in Calcutta in November, 1779. Mr. Hastings acted on this with the firmness which he had shown on other occasions; but in his principles he went further. Thinking himself assured of some extraordinary support, suitable to the open and determined defiance with which he was resolved to oppose the lawful authority of his superiors, and to exercise a despotic power, he no longer adhered to Mr. Barwell's distinction of the orders which had a tendency to bring his government into disrepute. This distinction afforded sufficient latitude to disobedience; but here he disdained all sorts of colors and distinctions. He directly set up an independent right to administer the government according to his pleasure; and he went so far as to bottom his claim to act independently of the Court of Directors on the very statute which commanded his obedience to them.

He declared roundly, "that he should _not_ yield to the authority of the Court of Directors in _any_ instance in which it should require his concession of the rights which he held under an act of Parliament." It is too clear to stand in need of proof, that he neither did or could hold any authority that was not subject, in every particle of it, and in every instance in which it could be exercised, to the orders of the Court of Directors.

He therefore refused to back the Company's orders with any requisition from himself to the Nabob, but merely suffered them to be transmitted to him, leaving it to him to do just as he thought proper. The Nabob, who called Mr. Hastings "his patron, and declared he would never do anything without his consent and approbation," perfectly understood this kind of signification. For the second time the Nabob recovered from his trance of pageantry and insignificance, and collected courage enough to write to the Council in these terms: "I administer the affairs of the Nizamut, (the government,) which are the affairs of _my own family_, by _my own authority_, and shall do so; and I never can _on any account agree_ to the appointment of the Nabob Mahomed Reza Khân to the Naib Subahship." Here was a second independent power in Bengal. This answer from that power proved as satisfactory as it was resolute. No further notice was taken of the orders of the Court of Directors, and Mahomed Reza Khân found their protection much more of a shadow than the pageant of power of which he aspired to be the representative.

This act of disobedience differs from the others in one particular which, in the opinion of your Committee, rather aggravates than extenuates the offence. In the others, Messrs. Hastings and Barwell took the responsibility on themselves; here they held up the pretext of the country government. However, they obtained thereby one of the objects which they appear to have systematically pursued. As they had in the other instances shown to the British servants of the Company that the Directors were not able to protect them, here the same lesson was taught to the natives. Whilst the matter lay between the native power and the servants, the former was considered by Mr. Hastings in the most contemptible light. When the question was between the servants and the Court of Directors, the native power was asserted to be a self-derived, hereditary, uncontrollable authority, and encouraged to act as such.

In this manner the authority of the British legislature was at that time treated with every mark of reprobation and contempt. But soon after a most unexpected change took place, by which the persons in whose favor the Court of Directors had in vain interposed obtained specific objects which had been refused to them; things were, however, so well contrived, that legal authority was nearly as much affronted by the apparent compliance with their orders as by the real resistance they had before met with. After long and violent controversies, an agreement took place between Mr. Hastings and Mr. Francis. It appears that Mr. Hastings, embarrassed with the complicated wars and ruinous expenses into which his measures had brought him, began to think of procuring peace at home. The agreement originated in a conversation held on Christmas-Day, 1779, between Major Scott, then aide-de-camp, and now agent, to Mr. Hastings, and Mr. Ducarrel, a gentleman high in the Company's service at Calcutta. Mr. Scott, in consequence of this conversation, was authorized to make overtures to Mr. Francis through Mr. Ducarrel: to declare Mr. Hastings tired of controversy; expressing his wish to have the Mahratta war entirely left to him; that there were certain points _he could not give up_; that he could _not_ (for reasons he then assigned) _submit_ to the restoration of Mr. Fowke, Mahomed Reza Khân, and Mr. Bristow; that _he had not the smallest personal objection to them_, and would willingly provide for them in any other line. Mr. Francis in this treaty insisted on those very points which Mr. Hastings declared he could never give up, and that his conditions were the Company's orders,--that is, the restoration of the persons whom they had directed to be restored. The event of this negotiation was, that Mr. Hastings at length submitted to Mr. Francis, and that Mr. Fowke and Mahomed Reza Khân were reinstated in their situations.

Your Committee observe on this part of the transaction of Mr. Hastings, that as long as the question stood upon his obedience to his lawful superiors, so long he considered the restoration of these persons as a gross indignity, the submitting to which would destroy all his credit and influence in the country; but when it was to accommodate his own occasions in a treaty with a fellow-servant, all these difficulties instantly vanish, and he finds it perfectly consistent with his dignity, credit, and influence, to do for Mr. Francis what he had refused to the strict and reiterated injunctions of the Court of Directors. Tranquillity was, however, for a time restored by this measure, though it did not continue long. In about three months an occasion occurred in which Mr. Francis gave some opposition to a measure proposed by Mr. Hastings, which brought on a duel, upon the mischievous effects of which your Committee have already made their observations.

The departure of Mr. Francis soon after for Europe opened a new scene, and gave rise to a third revolution. Lest the arrangement with the servants of the Company should have the least appearance of being mistaken for obedience to their superiors, Mr. Francis was little more than a month gone, when Mr. Fowke was again recalled from Benares, _and Mr. Bristow soon after from Oude_. In these measures Mr. Hastings has combined the principles of disobedience which he had used in all the cases hitherto stated. In his Minute of Consultation on this recall he refers to his former Minutes; and he adds, that he has "a recent motive in the necessity of removing any circumstance which may contribute to lessen his _influence_ in the effect of any negotiations in which he may be engaged in the prosecution of his intended visit to Lucknow." He here reverts to his old plea of preserving his influence; not content with this, as in the case of Mahomed Reza Khân he had called in the aid of the Nabob of Bengal, he here calls in the aid of the Nabob of Oude, who, on reasons exactly tallying with those given by Mr. Hastings, desires that Mr. Bristow may be removed. The true weight of these requisitions will appear, if not sufficiently apparent from the known situation of the parties, by the following extract of a letter from this Nabob of Oude to his agent at Calcutta, desiring him to acquaint Mr. Hastings, that, "if it is proper, I will write to the king [of Great Britain], and the vizier [one of his Majesty's ministers], and the chief of the Company, _in such a manner as he shall direct, and in the words that he shall order_, that Mr. Bristow's views may be thwarted there." There is no doubt of the entire coöperation of the Nabob Asoph ul Dowlah in all the designs of Mr. Hastings, and in thwarting the views of any persons who place their reliance on the authority of this kingdom.

As usual, the Court of Directors appear in their proper order in the procession. After this third act of disobedience with regard to the same person and the same office, and after calling the proceedings unwarrantable, "_in order to vindicate and uphold their own authority, and thinking it a duty incumbent on them to maintain the authority of the Court of Directors_," they again order Mr. Bristow to be reinstated, and Mr. Middleton to be recalled: in this circle the whole moves with great regularity.

The extraordinary operations of Mr. Hastings, that soon after followed in every department which was the subject of all these acts of disobedience, have made them appear in a light peculiarly unpropitious to his cause. It is but too probable, from his own accounts, that he meditated some strong measure, both at Benares and at Oude, at the very time of the removal of those officers. He declares he knew that his conduct in those places was such as to lie very open to malicious representations; he must have been sensible that he was open to such representations from the beginning; he was therefore impelled by every motive which ought to influence a man of sense by no means to disturb the order which he had last established.

Of this, however, he took no care; but he was not so inattentive to the satisfaction of the sufferers, either in point of honor or of interest. This was most strongly marked in the case of Mr. Fowke. His reparation to that gentleman, in point of honor, is as full as possible. Mr. Hastings "declared, that he approved his character and his conduct in office, and believed that he might _depend_ upon _his exact and literal obedience and fidelity_ in the execution of the functions annexed to it." Such is the character of the man whom Mr. Hastings a second time removed from the office to which he told the Court of Directors, in his letter of the 3rd of March, 1780, he had appointed him in conformity to their orders. On the 14th of January, 1781, he again finds it an indispensable obligation in him to exercise powers "_inherent_ in the constitution of his government." On this principle he claimed "the right of nominating the agent of his own choice to the Residence of Benares; that it is a representative situation: that, speaking for myself _alone_, it may be _sufficient_ to say, that Mr. Francis Fowke is not _my_ agent; _that I cannot give him my confidence_; that, while he continues at Benares, he stands as a screen between the Rajah and this government, instead of an instrument of control; that the Rajah himself, and every chief in Hindostan, will regard it as the pledge and foundation of his independence." Here Mr. Hastings has got back to his old principles, where he takes post as on strong ground. This he declares "to be his objection to Mr. Fowke, and that it is insuperable." The very line before this paragraph he writes of this person, to whom he _could_ not give his _confidence_, that "he believed he might _depend_ upon _his fidelity_, and his exact and literal obedience." Mr. Scott, who is authorized to defend Mr. Hastings, supported the same principles before your Committee by a comparison that avowedly reduces the Court of Directors to the state of a party against their servants. He declared, that, in his opinion, "it would be just as _absurd_ to _deprive him_ of the power of nominating his ambassador at Benares as it would be to force on _the ministry_ of this country an ambassador from _the opposition_." Such is the opinion entertained in Bengal, and that but too effectually realized, of the relation between the principal servants of the Company and the Court of Directors.

So far the reparation, in point of honor, to Mr. Fowke was complete. The reparation in point of interest your Committee do not find to have been equally satisfactory; but they do find it to be of the most extraordinary nature, and of the most mischievous example. Mr. Fowke had been deprived of a place of rank and honor,--the place of a public _Vackeel_, or representative. The recompense provided for him is a succession to a contract. Mr. Hastings moved, that, on the expiration of Colonel Morgan's contract, he should be appointed agent to all the boats employed for the military service of that establishment, with a commission of _fifteen per cent on all disbursements in that office_,--permitting Mr. Fowke, at the same time, to draw his allowance of an hundred pounds a month, as Resident, until the expiration of the contract, and for three months after.

Mr. Hastings is himself struck, as every one must be, with so extraordinary a proceeding, the principle of which, he observes, "is liable to _one_ material objection." That one is material indeed; for, no limit being laid down for the expense in which the percentage is to arise, it is the direct interest of the person employed to make his department as expensive as possible. To this Mr. Hastings answers, that "he is convinced by experience it will be better performed"; and yet he immediately after subjoins, "This _defect_ can _only_ be corrected by the probity of the person intrusted with so important a charge; and I am willing to have it understood, as a proof of _the confidence I repose in Mr. Fowke_, that I have proposed his appointment, in opposition _to a general principle_, to a trust so constituted."

In the beginning of this very Minute of Consultation, Mr. Hastings removes Mr. Fowke from the Residency of Benares because "he cannot give him his confidence"; and yet, before the pen is out of his hand, he violates one of the soundest general principles in the whole system of dealing, in order to give a proof of the confidence he reposes in that gentleman. This apparent gross contradiction is to be reconciled but by one way,--which is, that confidence with Mr. Hastings comes and goes with his opposition to legal authority. Where that authority recommends any person, his confidence in him vanishes; but to show that it is the authority, and not the person, he opposes, when that is out of sight, there is no rule so sacred which is not to be violated to manifest his real esteem and perfect trust in the person whom he has rejected. However, by overturning general principles to compliment Mr. Fowke's integrity, he does all in his power to corrupt it; at the same time he establishes an example that must either subject all future dealings to the same pernicious clause, or which, being omitted, must become a strong implied charge on the integrity of those who shall hereafter be excluded from a trust so constituted.

It is not foreign to the object of your Committee, in this part of their observations, which relates to the obedience to orders, to remark upon the manner in which the orders of the Court of Directors with regard to this kind of dealing in contracts are observed. These orders relate to contracts; and they contain two standing regulations.

1st, That all contracts shall be publicly advertised, and that the most reasonable proposals shall be accepted.

2ndly, That two contracts, those of provisions and for carriage bullocks, shall be only annual.

These orders are undoubtedly some correctives to the abuses which may arise in this very critical article of public dealing. But the House will remark, that, if the business usually carried on by contracts can be converted at pleasure into agencies, like that of Mr. Fowke, all these regulations perish of course, and there is no direction whatsoever for restraining the most prodigal and corrupt bargains for the public.

Your Committee have inquired into the observance of these necessary regulations, and they find that they have, like the rest, been entirely contemned, and contemned with entire impunity. After the period of Colonel Monson's death, and Mr. Hastings and Mr. Barwell obtaining the lead in the Council, the contracts were disposed of without at all advertising for proposals. Those in 1777 were given for three years; and the gentlemen in question growing by habit and encouragement into more boldness, in 1779 the contracts were disposed of for five years: and this they did at the eve of the expiration of their own appointment to the government. This increase in the length of the contracts, though contrary to orders, might have admitted some excuse, if it had been made, even in appearance, the means of lessening the expense. But the advantages allowed to the contractors, instead of being diminished, were enlarged, and in a manner far beyond the proportion of the enlargement of terms. Of this abuse and contempt of orders a judgment may be formed by the single contract for supplying the army with draught and carriage bullocks. As it stood at the expiration of the contract in 1779, the expense of that service was about one thousand three hundred pounds a month. By the new contract, given away in September of that year, the service was raised to the enormous sum of near six thousand pounds a month. The monthly increase, therefore, being four thousand seven hundred pounds, it constitutes a total increase of charges for the Company, in the five years of the contract, of no less a sum than two hundred and thirty-five thousand pounds. Now, as the former contract was, without doubt, sufficiently advantageous, a judgment may be formed of the extravagance of the present. The terms, indeed, pass the bounds of all allowance for negligence and ignorance of office.

The case of Mr. Belli's contract for supplying provisions to the Fort is of the same description; and what exceedingly increases the suspicion against this profusion, in contracts made in direct violation of orders, is, that they are always found to be given in favor of persons closely connected with Mr. Hastings in his family, or even in his actual service.

The principles upon which Mr. Hastings and Mr. Barwell justify this disobedience, if admitted, reduce the Company's government, so far as it regards the Supreme Council, to a mere patronage,--to a mere power of nominating persons to or removing them from an authority which, is not only despotic with regard to those who are subordinate to it, but in all its acts entirely independent of the legal power which is nominally superior. These are principles directly leading to the destruction of the Company's government. A correspondent practice being established, (as in this case of contracts, as well as others, it has been,) the means are furnished of effectuating this purpose: for the common superior, the Company, having no power to regulate or to support their own appointments, nor to remove those whom they wish to remove, nor to prevent the contracts from being made use of against their interest, all the English in Bengal must naturally look to the next in authority; they must depend upon, follow, and attach themselves to him solely; and thus a party may be formed of the whole system of civil and military servants for the support of the subordinate, and defiance of the supreme power.

Your Committee being led to attend to the abuse of contracts, which are given upon principles fatal to the subordination of the service, and in defiance of orders, revert to the disobedience of orders in the case of Mahomed Reza Khân.

This transaction is of a piece with those that preceded it. On the 6th of July, 1781, Mr. Hastings announced to the board the arrival of a messenger and introduced a requisition from the young Nabob Mobarek ul Dowlah, "that he might be _permitted to dispose of his own stipend, without being made to depend on the will of another_." In favor of this requisition Mr. Hastings urged various arguments:--that the Nabob could no longer be deemed a minor;--that he was twenty-six years of age, and father of many children;--that his understanding was much improved _of late_ by an attention to his education;--that these circumstances gave him a claim to the uncontrolled exercise of domestic authority; and it might reasonably be supposed that he would pay a greater regard to a just economy in his own family than had been observed by those who were aliens to it. For these reasons Mr. Hastings recommended to the board that Mahomed Reza Khân should be immediately divested of the office of superintendent of the Nabob's household, _and that the Nabob Mobarek ul Dowlah should be intrusted with the exclusive and entire receipts and disbursements of his stipend, and the uncontrolled management and regulation of his household_. Thus far your Committee are of opinion, that the conclusion corresponds with the premises; for, supposing the fact to be established or admitted, that the Nabob, in point of age, capacity, and judgment, was qualified to act for himself, it seems reasonable that the management of his domestic affairs should not be withheld from him. On this part of the proceeding your Committee will only observe, that, if it were strictly true that the Nabob's understanding had been much improved _of late_ by an attention to his education, (which seems an extraordinary way of describing the qualifications of a man of six-and-twenty, the father of many children,) the merit of such improvement must be attributed to Mahomed Reza Khân, who was the only person of rank and character connected with him, or who could be supposed to have any influence over him. Mr. Hastings himself reproaches the Nabob with _raising mean men to be his companions_, and tells him plainly, _that some persons, both of bad character and base origin, had found the means of insinuating themselves into his company and constant fellowship_. In such society it is not likely that either the Nabob's morals or his understanding could have been _much improved_; nor could it be deemed prudent to leave him without any check upon his conduct. Mr. Hastings's opinion on this point may be collected from what he did, but by no means from what he said, on the occasion.

The House will naturally expect to find that the Nabob's request was granted, and that the resolution of the board was conformable to the terms of Mr. Hastings's recommendation. Yet the fact is directly the reverse. Mr. Hastings, after advising _that the Nabob should be intrusted with the exclusive and entire receipts and disbursements of his stipend_, immediately corrects that advice, _being aware that so sudden and unlimited a disposal of a large revenue might at first encourage a spirit of dissipation in the Nabob_,--and reserves to _himself_ a power of establishing, _with the Nabob's consent_, such a plan for the regulation and equal distribution of the Nabob's expenses _as should be adapted to the dissimilar appearances of preserving his interests and his independence at the same time_. On the same complicated principles the subsequent resolution of the board professes to allow the Nabob the management of his stipend and expenses,--with _an hope_, however, (which, considering the relative situation of the parties, could be nothing less than an injunction,) that he would submit to such a plan _as should be agreed on between him_ and the Governor-General.

The drift of these contradictions is sufficiently apparent. Mahomed Reza Khân was to be divested of his office at all events, and the management of the Nabob's stipend committed to other hands. To accomplish the first, the Nabob is said to be "now arrived at that time of life when a man may be supposed capable, _if ever_, of managing his own concerns." When this principle has answered the momentary purpose for which it was produced, we find it immediately discarded, and an opposite resolution formed on an opposite principle, viz., that he shall _not_ have the management of his own concerns, _in consideration of his want of experience_.

Mr. Hastings, on his arrival at Moorshedabad, gives Mr. Wheler an account of his interview with the Nabob, and of the Nabob's implicit submission to his advice. The principal, if not the sole, object of the whole operation appears from the result of it. Sir John D'Oyly, a gentleman in whom Mr. Hastings places particular confidence, succeeds to the office of Mahomed Reza Khân, and to the same control over the Nabob's expenses. Into the hands of this gentleman the Nabob's stipend was _to be immediately paid, as every intermediate channel would be an unavoidable cause of delay_; and to _his_ advice the Nabob was required to give the same attention as if it were given by Mr. Hastings himself. One of the conditions prescribed to the Nabob was, that he should admit no Englishman to his presence without previously consulting Sir John D'Oyly; _and he must forbid any person of that nation to be intruded without his introduction_. On these arrangements it need only be observed, that a measure which sets out with professing to relieve the Nabob from a state of _perpetual pupilage_ concludes with delivering not only his fortune, but his person, to the custody of a particular friend of Mr. Hastings.

The instructions given to the Nabob contain other passages that merit attention. In one place Mr. Hastings tells him, "You have offered to give up the sum of four lacs of rupees to be allowed the free use of the remainder; but this we have refused." In another he says, that, "_as many matters will occur which cannot be so easily explained by letter as by conversation_, I desire that you will on such occasions give your orders to Sir John D'Oyly respecting such points as you may desire to have imparted to _me_." The offer alluded to in the first passage does not appear in the Nabob's letters, therefore must have been in conversation, and declined by Mr. Hastings without consulting his colleague. A refusal of it might have been proper; but it supposes a degree of incapacity in the Nabob not to be reconciled to the principles on which Mahomed Reza Khân was removed from the management of his affairs. Of the matters alluded to in the second, and which, it is said, _could not be so easily explained by letters as in conversation_, no explanation is given. Your Committee will therefore leave them, as Mr. Hastings has done, to the opinion of the House.

As soon as the Nabob's requisition was communicated to the board, it was moved and resolved that Mahomed Reza Khân should be divested of his office; and the House have seen in what manner it was disposed of. The Nabob had stated various complaints against him:--that he had dismissed the old established servants of the Nizamut, and filled their places with his own dependants;--that he had _regularly received_ the stipend of the Nizamut from the Company, yet had kept the Nabob involved in debt and distress, and exposed to the clamors of his creditors, and sometimes even in want of a dinner. All these complaints were recorded at large in the proceedings of the Council; but it does not appear that they were ever communicated to Mahomed Reza Khân, or that he was ever called upon, in any shape, to answer them. This circumstance inclines your Committee to believe that all of these charges were groundless,--especially as it appears on the face of the proceedings, that the chief of them were not well founded. Mr. Hastings, in his letter to Mr. Wheler, urges the absolute necessity of the monthly payment of the Nabob's stipend _being regularly made_, and says, that, to relieve the Nabob's present wants, he had directed the Resident to raise an immediate supply on the credit of the Company, to be repaid from the first receipts. From hence your Committee conclude that the monthly payments had _not_ been regularly made, and that whatever distresses the Nabob might have suffered must have been owing to the Governor-General and Council, not to Mahomed Reza Khân, who, for aught that appears to the contrary, paid away the stipend as fast as he received it. Had it been otherwise, that is, if Mahomed Reza Khân had reserved a balance of the Nabob's money in his hands, he should, and undoubtedly he would, have been called upon to pay it in; and then there would have been no necessity for raising an immediate supply by other means.

The transaction, on the whole, speaks very sufficiently for itself. It is a gross instance of repeated disobedience to repeated orders; and it is rendered particularly offensive to the authority of the Court of Directors by the frivolous and contradictory reasons assigned for it. But whether the Nabob's requisition was reasonable or not, the Governor-General and Council were precluded by a special instruction from complying with it. The Directors, in their letter of the 14th of February, 1779, declare, that a resolution of Council, (taken by Mr. Francis and Mr. Wheler, in the absence of Mr. Barwell,) viz., "that the Nabob's letter should be referred to _them_ for _their_ decision, and that no resolution should be taken in Bengal on his requisitions without their special orders and instructions," was very proper. They prudently reserved to themselves the right of deciding on such questions; but they reserved it to no purpose. In England the authority is purely formal. In Bengal the power is positive and real. When they clash, their opposition serves only to degrade the authority that ought to predominate, and to exalt the power that ought to be dependent.

* * * * *

Since the closing of the above Report, many material papers have arrived from India, and have been laid before your Committee. That which they think it most immediately necessary to annex to the Appendix to this Report is the resolution of the Council-General to allow to the members of the Board of Trade resident in Calcutta a charge of five per cent on the sale in England of the investment formed upon their second plan, namely, that plan which had been communicated to Lord Macartney. The investment on this plan is stated to be raised from 800,000_l._ to 1,000,000_l._ sterling.

It is on all accounts a very memorable transaction, and tends to bring on a heavy burden, operating in the nature of a tax laid by their own authority on the goods of their masters in England. If such a compensation to the Board of Trade was necessary on account of their engagement to take no further (that is to say, no unlawful) emolument, it implies that the practice of making such unlawful emolument had formerly existed; and your Committee think it very extraordinary that the first notice the Company had received of such a practice should be in taxing them for a compensation for a partial abolition of it, secured on the parole of honor of those very persons who are supposed to have been guilty of this unjustifiable conduct. Your Committee consider this engagement, if kept, as only a partial abolition of the implied corrupt practice: because no part of the compensation is given to the members of the Board of Trade who reside at the several factories, though their means of abuse are without all comparison greater; and if the corruption was supposed so extensive as to be bought off at that price where the means were fewer, the House will judge how far the tax has purchased off the evil.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See the Secret Committee's Reports on the Mahratta War.

[2] Vide Secret Committee Reports.

[3] Vide Select Committee Reports, 1781

[4] The sale, to the amount of about one hundred thousand pounds annually, of the export from Great Britain ought to be deducted from this million.

[5] Estimate of the Sale Amount and Net Proceeds in England of the Cargoes to be sent from Bengal, agreeable to the Plan received by Letter dated the 8th April, 1782.

This calculation supposes the eighty lac investments will be equal to the tonnage of five ships.

[B] 2. To custom £320,000 |[A] 1. By sale amount of
[C] 3. " freight 200,000 | piece-goods and
[D] 4. " 5 per cent duty on | raw silk £1,300,000
£1,300,000 65,000 | Discount 61/2 per
[E] 5. " 2 do. warehouse | cent allowed the
room do. 26,000 | buyers 84,500
7 do. commission |
on £604,500 42,315 |
---------- |
£653,315 |
[F] 6. " Balance 562,185 |
---------- | ----------
£1,215,500 | £1,215,500

[A] 1. The sale amount is computed on an average of the sales of the two last years' imports.

[B] 2. The custom is computed on an average of what was paid on piece-goods and raw silk of said imports, adding additional imposts.

[C] 3. The ships going out of this season, (1782,) by which the above investment is expected to be sent home, are taken up at 47_l._ 5_s._ per ton, for the homeward cargo; this charge amounts to 35,815_l._ each ship; the additional wages to the men, which the Company pay, and a very small charge for demurrage, will increase the freight, &c., to 40,000_l._ per ship, agreeable to above estimate.

[D] 4. The duty of five per cent is charged by the Company on the gross sale amount of all private trade licensed to be brought from India: the amount of this duty is the only benefit the Company are likely to receive from the subscription investment.

[E] 5. This charge is likewise made on private trade goods, and is little, if anything, more than the real expense the Company are at on account of the same; therefore no benefit will probably arise to the Company from it on the sale of the said investment.

[F] 6. This is the sum which will probably be realized in England, and is only equal to 1_s._ 6_d._ per rupee, on the eighty lacs subscribed.

[6] Vide Mr. Francis's plan in Appendix, No. 14, to the Select Committee's Sixth Report.

[7] The whole sum has not been actually raised; but the deficiency is not very considerable.

[8] Fourth Report, page 106.

[9] Par. 36. Vide Fourth Report from Com. of Secrecy in 1773, Appendix, No. 45.

[10] Vide Sel. Letter to Bengal, 17 May, 1766, Par. 36, in Fourth Report from Com. of Secrecy, in 1773, Appendix, No. 45.

[11] Ibid. Par. 37.

[12] Vide Committee's Fifth Report, page 21, and Appendix to that Report, No. 12.

[13] 1st and 5th April, 1779.

ELEVENTH REPORT

OF THE

SELECT COMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS

ON

THE AFFAIRS OF INDIA.

WITH EXTRACTS FROM THE APPENDIX.

November 18, 1783.

ELEVENTH REPORT

From the SELECT COMMITTEE appointed to take into
consideration the state of the administration of justice in
the provinces of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa, and to report the
same, as it shall appear to them, to the House, with their
observations thereupon; and who were instructed to consider
how the British possessions in the East Indies may be held
and governed with the greatest security and advantage to this
country, and by what means the happiness of the native
inhabitants may be best protected.

Your Committee, in the course of their inquiry into the obedience yielded by the Company's Servants to the orders of the Court of Directors, (the authority of which orders had been strengthened by the Regulating Act of 1773,) could not overlook one of the most essential objects of that act and of those orders, namely, _the taking of gifts and presents_. These pretended free gifts from the natives to the Company's servants in power had never been authorized by law; they are contrary to the covenants formerly entered into by the President and Council, they are strictly forbidden by the act of Parliament, and forbidden upon grounds of the most substantial policy.

Before the Regulating Act of 1773, the allowances made by the Company to the Presidents of Bengal were abundantly sufficient to guaranty them against anything like a necessity for giving into that pernicious practice. The act of Parliament which appointed a Governor-General in the place of a President, as it was extremely particular in enforcing the prohibition of those presents, so it was equally careful in making an ample provision for supporting the dignity of the office, in order to remove all excuse for a corrupt increase of its emoluments.

Although evidence on record, as well as verbal testimony, has appeared before your Committee of presents to a large amount having been received by Mr. Hastings and others before the year 1775, they were not able to find distinct traces of that practice in him or any one else for a few years.

The inquiries set on foot in Bengal, by order of the Court of Directors, in 1775, with regard to all corrupt practices, and the vigor with which they were for some time pursued, might have given a temporary check to the receipt of presents, or might have produced a more effectual concealment of them, and afterwards the calamities which befell almost all who were concerned in the first discoveries did probably prevent any further complaint upon the subject; but towards the close of the last session your Committee have received much of new and alarming information concerning that abuse.

The first traces appeared, though faintly and obscurely, in a letter to the Court of Directors from the Governor-General, Mr. Hastings, written on the 29th of November, 1780.[14] It has been stated in a former Report of your Committee,[15] that on the 26th of June, 1780, Mr. Hastings being very earnest in the prosecution of a particular operation in the Mahratta war, in order to remove objections to that measure, which were made on account of the expense of the contingencies, he offered to _exonerate_ the Company from that "charge." Continuing his Minute of Council, he says, "That sum" (a sum of about 23,000_l._) "I have already deposited, within a small amount, in the hands of the sub-treasurer; and I _beg_ that the board will _permit_ it to be accepted for that service." Here he offers in his own person; he deposits, or pretends that he deposits, in his own person; and, with the zeal of a man eager to pledge his private fortune in support of his measures, he prays that his offer may be accepted. Not the least hint that he was delivering back to the Company money of their own, which he had secreted from them. Indeed, no man ever made it a request, much less earnestly entreated, "begged to be permitted," to pay to any persons, public or private, money that was their own.

It appeared to your Committee that the money offered for that service, which was to forward the operations of a detachment under Colonel Camac in an expedition against one of the Mahratta chiefs, was not accepted. And your Committee, having directed search to be made for any sums of money paid into the Treasury by Mr. Hastings for this service, found, that, notwithstanding his assertion of having deposited "two lacs of rupees, or within a trifle of that sum, in the hands of the sub-treasurer," no entry whatsoever of that or any other payment by the Governor-General was made in the Treasury accounts at or about that time.[16] This circumstance appeared very striking to your Committee, as the non-appearance in the Company's books of the article in question must be owing to one or other of these four causes:--That the assertion of Mr. Hastings, of his having paid in near two lacs of rupees at that time, was not true; or that the sub-treasurer may receive great sums in deposit without entering them in the Company's Treasury accounts; or that the Treasury books themselves are records not to be depended on; or, lastly, that faithful copies of these books of accounts are not transmitted to Europe. The defect of an entry corresponding with Mr. Hastings's declaration in Council can be attributed only to one of these four causes,--of which the want of foundation in his recorded assertion, though very blamable, is the least alarming.

On the 29th of November following, Mr. Hastings communicated to the Court of Directors some sort of notice of this transaction.[17] In his letter of that date he varies in no small degree the aspect under which the business appeared in his Minute of Consultation of the 26th of June. In his letter he says to the Directors, "The subject is now become obsolete; the fair hopes which I had built upon the prosecution of the Mahratta war have been blasted by the dreadful calamities which have befallen your Presidency of Fort St. George, and changed the object of our pursuit from the _aggrandizement_ of your power to its preservation." After thus confessing, or rather boasting, of his motives to the Mahratta war, he proceeds: "My present reason for reverting to my own conduct on the occasion which I have mentioned" (namely, his offering a sum of money for the Company's service) "is to obviate _the false conclusions or purposed misrepresentations_ which may be made of it, either as an artifice of _ostentation_ or the effect of _corrupt influence_, by assuring you that the money, _by whatever means it came into my possession, was not my own_, that I had myself _no right_ to it, nor would or could have received it but for the occasion which prompted me to avail myself _of the accidental means_ which were at that instant afforded me of accepting and converting it to the property and use of the Company: and with this brief apology I shall dismiss the subject."

The apology is brief indeed, considering the nature of the transaction; and what is more material than its length or its shortness, it is in all points unsatisfactory. The matter becomes, if possible, more obscure by his explanation. Here was money received by Mr. Hastings, which, according to his own judgment, he had no right to receive; it was money which, "but for the occasion that prompted him, he could not have accepted"; it was money which came into his, and from his into the Company's hands, by ways and means undescribed, and from persons unnamed: yet, though apprehensive of false conclusions and purposed misrepresentations, he gives his employers no insight whatsoever into a matter which of all others stood in the greatest need of a full and clear elucidation.

Although he chooses to omit this essential point, he expresses the most anxious solicitude to clear himself of the charges that might be made against him, of the artifices of ostentation, and of corrupt influence. To discover, if possible, the ground for apprehending such imputations, your Committee adverted to the circumstances in which he stood at the time: they found that this letter was dispatched about the time that Mr. Francis took his passage for England; his fear of misrepresentation may therefore allude to something which passed in conversation between him and that gentleman at the time the offer was made.