Volume VIII Part 23 (1/2)
_Copy of a Letter to Mahomed Jewar Ali Khan and Behar Ali Khan, from Mr.
Gordon._
Sirs, my indulgent friends, Remain under, &c., &c.
After compliments. I have the pleasure to acquaint you that yesterday having taken leave of you, I pa.s.sed the night at Noorgunge, and next morning, about ten or eleven o'clock, through your favor and benevolence, arrived safe at Goondah. Mir Aboo Buksh, zemindar, and Mir Rustum Ali, accompanied me.
To what extent can I prolong the praises of you, my beneficent friends?
May the Supreme Being, for this benign, compa.s.sionate, humane action, have you in His keeping, and increase your prosperity, and speedily grant me the pleasure of an interview! Until which time continue to favor me with friendly letters, and oblige me by any commands in my power to execute.
May your wishes be ever crowned with success!
My compliments, &c., &c., &c.
_Copy of a Letter from Colonel Hannay to Jewar Ali Khan and Behar Ali Khan._
Khan Saib, my indulgent friends,
Remain under the protection of the Supreme Being!
After compliments, and signifying my earnest desire of an interview, I address you.
Your friendly letter, fraught with kindness, I had the pleasure to receive in a propitious hour, and your inexpressible kindness in sending for Mir Na.s.sar Ali with a force to Taunda, for the purpose of conducting Mr. Gordon, with all his baggage, who is now arrived at Fyzabad.
This event has afforded me the most excessive pleasure and satisfaction.
May the Omnipotence preserve you, my steadfast, firm friends! The pen of friends.h.i.+p itself cannot sufficiently express your generosity and benevolence, and that of the Begum of high dignity, who so graciously has interested herself in this matter. Inclosed is an address for her, which please to forward. I hope from your friends.h.i.+p, until we meet, you will continue to honor me with an account of your health and welfare.
What further can I write?
V.--REVOLUTIONS IN FURRUCKABAD.
I. That a prince called Ahmed Khan was of a family amongst the most distinguished in Hindostan, and of a nation famous through that empire for its valor in acquiring, and its policy and prudence in well governing the territories it had acquired, called the Patans, or Afghans, of which the Rohillas were a branch. The said Ahmed Khan had fixed his residence in the city of Furruckabad, and in the first wars of this nation in India the said Ahmed Khan attached himself to the Company against Sujah Dowlah, then an enemy, now a dependant on that Company. Ahmed Khan, towards the close of his life, was dispossessed of a large part of his dominions by the prevalence of the Mahratta power; but his son, a minor, succeeded to his pretensions, and to the remainder of his dominions. The Mahrattas were expelled by Sujah ul Dowlah, the late Vizier, who, finding a want of the services of the son and successor of Ahmed Khan, called Muzuffer Jung, did not only guaranty him in the possession of what he then actually held, but engaged to restore all the other territories which had been occupied by the Mahrattas; and this was confirmed by repeated treaties and solemn oaths, by the late Vizier and by the present. But neither the late nor the present Vizier fulfilled their engagements, or observed their oaths: the former having withheld what he had stipulated to restore; and the latter not only subjecting him to a tribute, instead of restoring him to what his father had unjustly withheld, but having made a further invasion by depriving him of fifteen of his districts, levying the tribute of the whole on the little that remained, and putting the small remains of his territory under a sequestrator or collector appointed by Almas Ali Khan, who did grievously afflict and oppress the prince and territory aforesaid.
That the hards.h.i.+ps of his case being frequently represented to Warren Hastings, Esquire, he did suggest a doubt whether ”that little ought to be still subject to tribute,” indicating that the said tribute might be hard and inequitable,--but, whatever its justice might have been, that, ”from the _earliest period_ of our connection with the present Nabob of Oude, it had invariably continued a part of the funds a.s.signed by his Excellency as a provision for the liquidation of the several public demands of _this government_ [Calcutta] upon him; and in consequence of the powers the board deemed it expedient to vest in the Resident at his court for the collection of the Company's a.s.signments, a _sezauwil_ [a sequestrator] has always been stationed to enforce by every means in his power the payment of the tribute.” And the said tribute was, in consequence of this arrangement, not paid to the Nabob, but to the British Resident at Oude; and the same being therefore under the direction and for the sole use of the Company, and indeed the prince himself wholly dependent, the representatives of the said Company were responsible for the protection of the prince, and for the good government of the country.
II. That the said ”Warren Hastings did, on the 22d of May, 1780, represent to the board of Calcutta the condition of the said country in the following manner.
”To the total want of all order, regularity, or _authority_ in his government [the Furruckabad government], among _other obvious causes_, it may, no doubt, be owing, that the country of Furruckabad is become _an almost entire waste, without cultivation or inhabitants_; that the capital, which but a very short time ago was distinguished as one of the most _populous and opulent_ commercial cities in Hindostan, at present exhibits nothing _but_ scenes of the most wretched poverty, desolation, and misery; and the Nabob himself, though in possession of a tract of country which with only common care is notoriously capable of yielding an annual revenue of between thirty and forty lacs [three or four hundred thousand pounds], with _no military establishment to maintain, scarcely commanding the means of bare subsistence_.” And the said Warren Hastings, taking into consideration the said state of the country and its prince, and that the latter had ”_preferred frequent complaints_”
(which complaints the said Hastings to that time did not lay before the board, as his duty required) ”_of the hards.h.i.+ps and indignities_ to which he is subjected by the conduct of the sezauwil [sequestrator]
stationed in the country for the purpose of levying the annual tribute which he is bound by treaty to pay to the Subah of Oude,” he, the said Warren Hastings, did declare himself ”extremely desirous, as well from motives of _common justice_ as _due_ regard to _the rank which that chief holds among the princes of Hindostan_, of affording him relief.”
And he, the said Warren Hastings, as the means of the said relief, did, with the consent of the board, order the said native sequestrator to be removed, and an English Resident, a servant of the Company, to be appointed in his room, declaring ”he understood a local interference to be _indispensably necessary_ for realizing the Vizier's just demands.”
III. That the said native sequestrator being withdrawn, and a Resident appointed, no complaint whatever concerning the collection of the revenue, or of any indignities offered to the prince of the country or oppression of his subjects by the said Resident, was made to the Superior Council at Calcutta; yet the said Warren Hastings did, nevertheless, in a certain paper, purporting to be a treaty made at Chunar with the Nabob of Oude, on the 19th September, 1781, at the request of the said Nabob, consent to an article therein, ”That no English Resident be appointed to Furruckabad, and that the present be recalled.” And the said Warren Hastings, knowing that the Nabob of Oude was ill-affected towards the said Nabob of Furruckabad, and that he was already supposed to have oppressed him, did justify his conduct on the principles and in the words following: ”That, if the Nabob Muzuffer Jung _must_ endure oppression, (_and I dare not at this time propose his total relief_,) it concerns the reputation of our government to remove _our partic.i.p.ation in it_.” And the said Warren Hastings making, recording, and acting upon the first of the said false and inhuman suppositions, most scandalous to this nation, namely, that princes paying money wholly for the use of the Company, and directly to its agent, for the maintenance of British troops, by whose force and power the said revenue was in effect collected, must of necessity endure oppression, and that our government at any time _dare_ not propose their _total_ relief, was an high offence and misdemeanor in the said Warren Hastings, and the rather, because in the said treaty, as well as before and after, the said Hastings, who pretended not to dare to relieve those oppressed by the Nabob of Oude, did a.s.sume a complete authority over the said Nabob himself, and did dare to oppress him.
IV. That the second principle a.s.sumed by the said Warren Hastings, as ground for voluntarily abandoning the protection of those whom he had before undertaken to relieve, _on the sole strength of his own authority_, and in full confidence of the lawful foundation thereof, and for delivering over the persons so taken into protection, under false names and pretended descriptions, to known oppression, a.s.serting that the reputation of the Company was saved by removing this apparent partic.i.p.ation, when the new as well as the old arrangements were truly and substantially acts of the British government, was disingenuous, deceitful, and used to cover unjustifiable designs: since the said Warren Hastings well knew that all oppressions exercised by the Nabob of Oude were solely, and in this instance particularly, upheld by British force, and were imputed to this nation; and because he himself, in not more than three days after the execution of this treaty, and in virtue thereof, did direct the British Resident at Oude, in orders _to which he required his most implicit obedience_, ”that the ministers [the Nabob of Oude's ministers] are to choose _all_ aumils and collectors of revenue with your concurrence.” And the dishonor to the Company, in thus deceitfully concurring in oppression, which they were able and were bound to prevent, is much aggravated by the said Warren Hastings's receiving from the person to whose oppression he had delivered the said prince, as a private gift or donation to himself and for his own use, a sum of money amounting to one hundred thousand pounds and upwards, which might give just ground of suspicion that the said gift from the oppressor to the person surrendering the person injured to his mercy might have had some share in the said criminal transaction.