Volume IX Part 4 (1/2)

x.x.xIII. That the demands, claims, &c., made by the said Warren Hastings upon the government of Oude in that year amounted to the enormous sum of 2,530,000_l._ sterling; which joined to the arrears to troops, and some internal failures, amounting to 255,000_l._ sterling more, the whole charge arose to 2,785,000_l._ sterling, which was considerably more than double the net produce of the Nabob's revenue,--the same only amounting to 1,450,000_l._ ”nominal revenue, never completely realized.”

x.x.xIV. That, towards providing for these extravagant demands, he, the said Warren Hastings, did direct and authorize another breach of the public faith given in the treaty of Chunar. For whereas, by the second article of the treaty aforesaid, it was left to the Nabob's discretion whether or not he should resume the landed estates, called jaghires, within his dominions, and notwithstanding the said Hastings, in defence of the said article, did declare that the Nabob should be left to the exercise of his own authority and pleasure respecting them, yet he, the said Hastings, did authorize a violent compulsion to be used towards the said Nabob for accomplis.h.i.+ng an universal confiscation of that species of landed property; and in so doing he did also compel the Nabob to break his faith with all the landholders of that description, not only in violating the a.s.surance of his own original grants, but his a.s.surance recently given, when, being pressed by the Company, he, the Nabob, had made a temporary seizure of the profits of the lands aforesaid, in the manner of a compulsory loan, for the repayment of which he gave his bonds and obligations; and although he had at the same time solemnly pledged his faith that he never would again resort to the like oppressive measure, yet he, the said Warren Hastings, did cause him to be compelled to confiscate the estates of at least sixty-seven of the princ.i.p.al persons of his country, comprehending therein his own nearest relations and the ancient friends and dependants of his family: the annual value of the said estates thus confiscated amounting to 435,000_l._ sterling, or thereabouts, upon an old valuation, but stated by the Resident, Middleton, as being found to yield considerably more.

x.x.xV. That the violent and unjust measure aforesaid, subversive of property, utterly destructive of several ancient and considerable families, and most dishonorable to the British government, did produce an universal discontent and the greatest confusion throughout the whole country,--the said confiscated lands being on this occasion put to rack-rents, and the people grievously oppressed: and to prevent a possibility of redress, at least for a considerable time, the said confiscated estates were mortgaged (it appearing otherwise impracticable to make an approach towards satisfying the exorbitant demands of the said Hastings) for a great sum to certain usurious bankers or money-dealers at Benares.

x.x.xVI. That, besides these enormous demands, which were in part made for the support of several corps of troops under British officers which by the treaty of Chunar ought to have been removed, very large extra charges not belonging to the military list of the said Nabob, and several civil charges and pensions, were continued, and others newly put on since the treaty of Chunar, namely, an allowance to Sir Eyre Coote of 15,554 rupees per month, (being upwards of 18,664_l._ sterling a year,) and an allowance to Trevor Wheler, Esquire, of 5,000 rupees per month (or 6,000_l._ sterling and upwards a year); and the whole of the settled charges, not of a military nature, to British subjects, did amount to little less than 140,000_l._ yearly, and, if other allowances not included in the estimate were added, would greatly exceed that sum, besides much more which may justly be suspected to have been paid, no part whereof had at that time been brought forward to any public account.

x.x.xVII. That the commander of one of these corps, of whose burden the said Nabob did complain, was Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Hannay, who did farm the revenues of certain districts called Baraitch and Goruckpore, which the said Hastings, in the ninth article of his instructions to Mr. Bristow, did estimate at twenty-three lacs of rupees, or 230,000_l._, per annum: but under his, the said Hannay's, management, the collections did very greatly decline; complaints were made that the countries aforesaid were hara.s.sed and oppressed, and the same did fall into confusion, and at last the inhabitants broke out into a general rebellion.

x.x.xVIII. That the far greater part of the said heavy list was authorized or ordered by him, the said Warren Hastings, for the purpose of extending his own corrupt influence: for it doth appear, that, at the time when he did pretend, in conformity to the treaty of Chunar aforesaid, to remove the Company's servants, ”_civil_ and military, from the court and service of the Vizier,” he did a.s.sert that he thereby did ”diminish _his own influence_, as well as that of his colleagues, by narrowing the line of _patronage_”; which proves that the offices, pensions, and other emoluments aforesaid, in Oude, were of _his_ patronage, as his patronage could not be diminished by taking away the said offices, &c., unless the same had been substantially of his gift.

And he did, at the time of the pretended reformation aforesaid, express both his knowledge of the existence of the said excessive and abusive establishments, and his sense of his duty in taking them away: for in agreeing to the article in the treaty of Chunar for abolis.h.i.+ng the said establishments, he did declare himself ”actuated solely by motives of _justice_ to the Nabob, and a regard to _the honor of our national character_”; and, according to his own representation, the said servants of the Company, civil and military, ”by their numbers, their influence, and the _enormous amount_ of their salaries, pensions, and emoluments, were an _intolerable_ burden on the revenues and authority of the Vizier, and exposed us to _the envy and resentment of the whole country_, by excluding the native servants and adherents of the Vizier from the rewards of their services and attachment.”

x.x.xIX. That the revenue of the country being antic.i.p.ated, mortgaged, and dilapidated, by the counsel, concurrence, connivance, and influence, and often by the direct order of the said Warren Hastings, the whole civil government, magistracy, and administration of justice gradually declined and at length totally ceased through the whole of the vast provinces which compose the territory of Oude, and no power was visible therein but that of the farmers of the revenue, attended by bodies of troops to enforce the collections; insomuch that robberies, a.s.sa.s.sinations, and acts of every description of outrage and violence were perpetrated with impunity,--and even in the capital city of Lucknow, the seat of the sovereign power, there was no court of justice whatever to take cognizance of such offences.

XL. That the said Warren Hastings, when he did interfere in the government of Oude, was obliged by his duty to interfere for the good purposes of government, and not merely for the purpose of extorting money therefrom and enriching his own dependants,--which latter purpose alone he did effect, in the manner before mentioned, but not one of the former. For the said Hastings, having procured the extraordinary powers given by and to himself by his delegation of the 3d of July, 1781, did declare the same to be for the purpose, among many others, ”of a.s.sisting the Nabob Vizier in forming such regulations as may be necessary for the peace and good order of his government and the improvement of his revenue.” And in consequence of the said powers, the said Warren Hastings did, in the treaty of Chunar, obtain an article from the Nabob by which the said Nabob did promise to attend to his advice in the reformation of his civil administration; and he did give certain instructions to the Resident, Middleton, to which he did require him to yield _the most implicit obedience_, and did in one article thereof direct him to urge the Nabob to endeavor gradually, if it could not be done at once, to establish courts of _adawlut_ [justice], and that the _darogahs_ [chief criminal magistrates], _moulavies_ [consulting or a.s.sistant lawyers], and other officers, should be selected by the ministers, with his, the Resident's, concurrence; and afterwards, in his instructions to the Resident Bristow, desiring him to pursue the same object, he declared his opinion, ”that the want of such courts, and the extreme licentiousness occasioned thereby, is one of the most disreputable defects in his Highness the Nabob's government, and that, while they do not exist, every man knows the hazard which he incurs in lending his money ”; but he did give him, the said Resident, no positive instruction concerning the same, supposing the establishment of such courts a matter of difficulty, and did therefore leave him a lat.i.tude in his proceedings therein.

XLI. That the said Resident Bristow did, however, in conformity to the said instructions, at last given with such lat.i.tude, endeavor to prevail on the said minister gradually to introduce courts of justice for the cognizance of crimes, by beginning to establish a criminal court under a native judge, to judge according to the Mahomedan law in the city of Lucknow. But Hyder Beg Khan, a minister of the said Warren Hastings's nomination, and solely dependent upon him, did elude and obstruct, and in the end totally defeat, the establishment of the same.

XLII. That the obstruction aforesaid, and the evil consequences thereof, were duly represented to the said Hastings; and though the said Hastings had made it the fourth article of a criminal charge against the Resident Middleton, ”that he did not report to the Governor-General, or to the board, the progress which he had made from time to time in his endeavors to comply with his instructions, and that, if he met with any impediments in the execution of them, he had omitted to state those impediments, and to apply for fresh orders upon them,” yet he, the said Hastings, did give no manner of support to the Resident Bristow against the said Hyder Beg Khan, and did not even answer several of his letters, the said Bristow's letters, stating the said impediments, or take any notice of his remonstrances, but did at length revoke his own instructions, declaring that he, the said Resident, should not presume to act upon the same, and yet did not furnish him with any others, upon which he might act, but did uphold the said Hyder Beg Khan in the obstruction by him given to the performance of the first and fundamental duty of all government,--namely, the administration of justice, and the protection of the lives and property of the subject against wrong and violence.

XLIII. That the said Hastings did afterwards proceed to the length of criminating the Resident Bristow aforesaid for his endeavors to establish the said necessary court, as an invasion of the rights of the Nabob's government,--when, if the Nabob in his own proper person and character, and not the aforesaid Hyder Beg, (who was a creature of the said Hastings,) had opposed the reestablishment of justice in the said country, it was the duty of the said Hastings to have pressed the same upon him by every exertion of his influence. And the said Warren Hastings, in his pretended attention to the Nabob's authority, when exercised by his, the said Hastings's, minister, to prevent the establishment of courts of justice for the protection of life and property, at the same time that he did not hesitate, in the case of the confiscation of the jaghires, and the proceedings against the mother and grandmother of the Nabob, totally to supersede his authority, and to force his inclinations in acts which overturned all the laws of property, and offered violence to all the sentiments of natural affection and duty, and accusing at the same time his instruments for not going to the utmost lengths in the execution of his said orders, is guilty of an high crime and misdemeanor.

XLIV. That the said Hastings did highly aggravate his offence in discountenancing and discouraging the reestablishment of magistracy, law, and order, in the country of Oude, inasmuch as he did in the eighth article of his instructions to the Resident order him to exercise powers which ought to have been exercised by lawful magistrates, and in a manner agreeable to law. And in the said article he did state the prevalence of rebellion in the said country of Oude,--as if rebellion could exist in a country in which there was no magistracy, and no protection for life or property, and in which the native authority had no force whatever, and in which he himself states the exercise of British authority to be an absolute usurpation; and he did accordingly direct a rigorous prosecution against the offence of rebellion under such circ.u.mstances, but ”with a fair and impartial inquiry,” when he did not permit the establishment of those courts of justice and magistracy by which alone rebellion could be prevented, or a fair and impartial inquiry relative to the same could be had; and particularly he did instruct the said Resident to obtain the Nabob's order for employing some sure means for apprehending certain zemindars, and particularly three, in the instruction named, whom he, the said Hastings, did cause to be apprehended upon what he calls good information, founded upon some facts to which he a.s.serts he has the testimony of several witnesses, ”that they had the destruction of Colonel Hannay and the officers under his command as their immediate object, and ultimately the extirpation of the English influence and power throughout all the Nabob's dominions,”

and that they did still persevere in their rebellious conduct without deviation, ”though the Nabob's, and not our government, was then the object of it”; and he did direct the said Resident, if it should appear, ”_on a fair and regular inquiry_, that their conduct towards the Nabob had been such as it had been reported to be, to insist upon the Nabob's punis.h.i.+ng them with _death_, and to treat with the same rigor every zemindar and every subject who shall be the leader in a rebellion against his authority.”

XLV. That the crime of the said Hastings, in his procedure aforesaid, was further highly aggravated by his having received information of several striking circ.u.mstances which strongly indicated the necessity of a regular magistracy and a legal judicature, from the total failure of justice, affecting not only the subjects at large, but even the reigning family itself,--as also of the causes why no legal magistracy could exist, and why the princes of the reigning family were not only exposed to the attacks of a.s.sa.s.sins, but even to a want of the protection which might be had from their servants and attendants, who were driven from their masters for want of that maintenance which the princes, their masters, could not procure even for themselves. And the circ.u.mstances aforesaid were detailed to him, the said Hastings, by the Resident, Bristow, in a letter from Lucknow, dated the 29th January, 1784, to the Governor-General, the said Warren Hastings, and the Council of Bengal, in the terms following.

”The frequent robberies and murders perpetrated in his Excellency's, the Vizier's, dominions, have been _too often_ the subject of my representations to your honorable board. From the total want of police, hardly a day elapses but I am informed of some tragical event, whereof the bare recital is shocking to humanity. About two months since, an attempt was made to a.s.sa.s.sinate Rajah Ticket Roy, the acting minister's confidential agent; but he happily escaped unhurt. Nabob Bahadur, _his Highness's brother_, has not been so fortunate, as will appear from translations of two of his letters to me, No. 1, which I have the honor to inclose for your information. Although my feelings are sensibly hurt and my compa.s.sion strongly excited by _the disgraceful and miserable state of poverty to which his Excellency's brothers are reduced_, yet, situated as I am, it is not in my power to interfere with effect. My efforts on a former occasion failed of success, _and my interposition now would only excite the resentment of the minister towards the unhappy sufferers, in consequence of their application to me, from whom ALONE, however, they hope for relief from their present distress_, which, their near connection with the Vizier considered, is both shameful and unprecedented. That no regular courts of justice have been established in this country is particularly pointed at in my instructions, as the most disreputable defect in his Highness's government; yet the minister seems determined on abolis.h.i.+ng even the shadow of so necessary an inst.i.tution. The office of Chief Justice, as held by Moulavy Morobine, was ever nugatory, but now it is sunk into the lowest contempt. The original establishment, inadequate as it was, is mouldering away, and the officers now attached to it are literally starving, as no part of their allowance has been paid for above six months past. He himself has proposed to resign his appointment, being every way precluded from a possibility of exercising the duties of it.”

XLVI. That it appears by the said letter, and the papers therewith transmitted, as well as other doc.u.ments in the said correspondence, that, in consequence of the distress brought upon the Nabob's finances, certain of the princes, his brethren, the children of Sujah ul Dowlah, the late sovereign of the country, were put upon pensions unsuitable to their birth and rank, and by the mismanagement of the minister aforesaid, (appointed by the said Warren Hastings,) for two years together no considerable part of the said inadequate pension was paid; and not being able to maintain the attendants necessary for their protection in a city in which all magistracy and justice was abolished, they were not only liable to suffer the greatest extremities of penury, but their lives were exposed to the attempts of a.s.sa.s.sins: the condition of one of the said princes, called the Nabob Bahadur, being by himself strongly expressed in three letters to the said Resident Bristow,--the first dated the 28th of December, 1783; the second, the 7th of January, 1784; and the third, the 15th of January, 1784,--which letters were duly transmitted, in the dispatch of the 29th of the same month, to Warren Hastings, Esquire, and are as follow.

”Your own servant carried you the account of what he himself was an eye-witness to, after the affair of last night. These are the particulars. About midnight my aunt received twelve wounds from a ruffian, of which she died. I also received six successive stabs, which alarmed the people of the house, who set up a shouting: whereupon the a.s.sa.s.sin run off. Besides being _without food or the means of providing any_, this misfortune has befallen me. _I am desirous of sending the coffin to your door_. It is your duty, both for the sake of G.o.d and of Christ, to execute justice, and to inquire what harm I have done to the murderer sufficient to deserve a.s.sa.s.sination, or even injury. _You now stand in the place of his Excellency the Vizier_. I request you will do me justice. What more can I say?

”P.S. I am also desirous to show you my wounds.”

_From the same, 29th [7th?] January, 1784._

”You have been duly informed of all the circ.u.mstances relative both to the murder of the innocent, and of my being wounded, as well by my former letter, as by the messenger whom you sent to inquire into the state of my health; and I have every reason to hope, from your known kindness, that you will not be deficient in seeking out the a.s.sa.s.sin. _I am at this moment overwhelmed in misfortune. Whilst the blood is flowing from my wounds, neither I nor my children nor my servants have wherewithal to procure subsistence_; nor have I it in my power either to purchase remedies or to reward the physician: _it is for the sake of G.o.d alone that he attends me_. Thus loaded with calamity upon calamity, I am unable to support life; for I find no relief from any affliction either day or night. Do you now stand in the place of my father; grant me fresh life by speedy acts of benevolence.

”For these two last years his Excellency established a pension for me of twenty thousand rupees; but I never received the full amount of it, either last year or the year before. Should it, however, be paid me, though inadequate to my desires, I shall still be enabled to support myself. From the beginning of this year to the present time I have not received a farthing, nor do I expect any; though, if you afford protection to the oppressed, all my wishes will be accomplished. I was desirous of waiting on you with my family, that you might be an eye-witness to their condition; but I was advised not to stir out on account of my wounds. What more can I say?”

_The following Extracts are made from the Third Letter from the same Prince, dated January 15, 1784._

”The particulars of the late and unforeseen misfortune with which I have been overwhelmed are not unknown unto you,--that the innocent blood of my aunt, _the prop and ruler of my family_, was shed, and in the same manner I, too, was wounded. Until now I feel the pain and affliction of my wounds; _and no person has regarded my solicitations for redress, sought after the a.s.sa.s.sin, and brought him to condign punishment, yourself excepted_.”--”In like manner as the Honorable Governor-General has adopted my brother Saadut Ali Khan for his son and relieved him from the vexation, affliction, and dependence of this place, would it be extraordinary that you also should, in your bounty and favor, consent to adopt me, who do not possess the necessaries of life, and permit me to attend you to whatever part of the world you may travel, whereby I shall at all times derive honor and advantage? Formerly us three brothers, Saadut Ali, Mirza Jungly, and I, the poor and oppressed, were, in the presence of our blessed father, whose soul rests in heaven, treated alike. Now the ministers of this government put me upon a footing with our younger brothers, who have lately left the zenanah, and whose expenses are small. On this scale, which is in every respect insufficient for my maintenance, they pay _the pitiful allowance only when it is their pleasure to do it_. My situation has for years past been increasing in wretchedness to a degree that _I am in want of daily bread, and my servants and animals are dying of hunger. My distresses are so great that I have not been able to pay a daum to the surgeons for the cure of my wounds; and they, too, are discouraged from affording me their a.s.sistance or furnis.h.i.+ng me with medicines_. How, then, is it possible for me to exist? Considering you as my patron, partic.i.p.ating in my afflictions, I have represented the circ.u.mstances concerning my situation; and I hope, from your friends.h.i.+p, that you will honor me with a favorable answer.”

XLVII. The Resident, Bristow, did also receive a strong application from three others of the brethren of the reigning sovereign, called Mirza Hyder Ali, Mirza Ennayut Ali, and Mirza Syef Ali, representing their very pitiable case, in a letter of the 9th of March, 1783, in which, among other particulars, are contained the following.

”Our situation is not fit to be represented. _For two years we have not received a hubba_ on account of our tuncaw [a.s.signment on the revenue], though the ministers have annually charged a lac of rupees, and never paid us anything. _After all, we are the sons of Sujah ul Dowlah!_ It is surprising, having such a friend as you, our situation is arrived at that pa.s.s that we should be in distress for _dry bread and clothes_.