Volume IX Part 15 (1/2)

It might have been expected, too, that, in that enlightened state of the world, influenced by the best religion, and from an improved description of that best religion, (I mean the Christian reformed religion,) that we should have done honor to Europe, to letters, to laws, to religion,--done honor to all the circ.u.mstances of which in this island we boast ourselves, at the great and critical moment of that revolution.

My Lords, it has happened otherwise. It is now left for us to repair our former errors. Resuming the history where I broke off yesterday by your indulgence to my weakness,--Surajah Dowlah was the adopted grandson of Aliverdy Khan, a cruel and ferocious tyrant, the manner of whose acquisition of power I have already stated. He came too young and unexperienced to that throne of usurpation. It was a usurpation yet green in the country, and the country felt uneasy under it. It had not the advantage of that prescriptive usage, that inveterate habit, that traditionary opinion, which a long continuance of any system of government secures to it. The only real security which Surajah Dowlah's government could possess was the security of an army. But the great aim of this prince and his predecessor was to supply the weakness of his government by the strength of his purse; he therefore ama.s.sed treasures by all ways and on all hands. But as the Indian princes, in general, are as unwisely tenacious of their treasure as they are rapacious in getting it, the more money he ama.s.sed, the more he felt the effects of poverty.

The consequence was, that their armies were unpaid, and, being unpaid or irregularly paid, were undisciplined, disorderly, unfaithful. In this situation, a young prince, confiding more in the appearances than examining into the reality of things, undertook (from motives which the House of Commons, with all their industry to discover the circ.u.mstances, have found it difficult to make out) to attack a little miserable trading fort that we had erected at Calcutta. He succeeded in that attempt only because success in that attempt was easy. A close imprisonment of the whole settlement followed,--not owing, I believe, to the direct will of the prince, but, what will always happen when the will of the prince is but too much the law, to a gross abuse of his power by his lowest servants,--by which one hundred and twenty or more of our countrymen perished miserably in a dungeon, by a fate too tragical for me to be desirous to relate, and too well known to stand in need of it.

At the time that this event happened, there was at the same time a concurrence of other events, which, from this partial and momentary weakness, displayed the strength of Great Britain in Asia. For some years before, the French and English troops began, on the coast of Coromandel, to exhibit the power, force, and efficacy of European discipline. As we daily looked for a war with France, our settlements on that coast were in some degree armed. Lord Pigot, then Governor of Madras,--Lord Pigot, the preserver and the victim of the British dominion in Asia,--detached such of the Company's force as could he collected and spared, and such of his Majesty's s.h.i.+ps as were on that station, to the a.s.sistance of Calcutta. And--to hasten this history to its conclusion--the daring and commanding genius of Clive, the patient and firm ability of Watson, the treachery of Mir Jaffier, and the battle of Pla.s.sey gave us at once the patronage of a kingdom and the command of all its treasures. We negotiated with Mir Jaffier for the viceroyal throne of his master. On that throne we seated him. And we obtained, on our part, immense sums of money. We obtained a million sterling for the Company, upwards of a million for individuals, in the whole a sum of about two millions two hundred and thirty thousand pounds for various purposes, from the prince whom we had set up. We obtained, too, the town of Calcutta more completely than we had before possessed it, and the twenty-four districts adjoining. This was the first small seminal principle of the immense territorial acquisitions we have since made in India.

Many circ.u.mstances of this acquisition I pa.s.s by. There is a sacred veil to be drawn over the beginnings of all governments. Ours in India had an origin like those which time has sanctified by obscurity. Time, in the origin of most governments, has thrown this mysterious veil over them; prudence and discretion make it necessary to throw something of the same drapery over more recent foundations, in which otherwise the fortune, the genius, the talents, and military virtue of this nation never shone more conspicuously. But whatever necessity might hide or excuse or palliate, in the acquisition of power, a wise nation, when it has once made a revolution upon its own principles and for its own ends, rests there. The first step to empire is revolution, by which power is conferred; the next is good laws, good order, good inst.i.tutions, to give that power stability. I am sorry to say that the reverse of this policy was the principle on which the gentlemen in India acted. It was such as tended to make the new government as unstable as the old. By the vast sums of money acquired by individuals upon this occasion, by the immense sudden prodigies of fortune, it was discovered that a revolution in Bengal was a mine much more easily worked and infinitely more productive than the mines of Potosi and Mexico. It was found that the work was not only very lucrative, but not at all difficult. Where Clive forded a deep water upon an unknown bottom, he left a bridge for his successors, over which the lame could hobble and the blind might grope their way. There was not at that time a knot of clerks in a counting-house, there was not a captain of a band of ragged _topa.s.ses_, that looked for anything less than the deposition of subahs and the sale of kingdoms. Accordingly, this revolution, which ought to have precluded other revolutions, unfortunately became fruitful of them; and when Lord Clive returned to Europe, to enjoy his fame and fortune in his own country, there arose another description of men, who thought that a revolution might be made upon his revolution, and as lucrative to them as his was to the first projectors. Scarcely was Mir Jaffier, Lord Olive's nabob, seated on his _musnud_, than they immediately, or in a short time, projected another revolution, a revolution which was to unsettle all the former had settled, a revolution to make way for new disturbances and new wars, and which led to that long chain of peculation which ever since has afflicted and oppressed Bengal.

If ever there was a time when Bengal should have had respite from internal revolutions, it was this. The governor forced upon the natives was now upon the throne. All the great lords of the country, both Gentoos and Mahomedans, were uneasy, discontented, and disobedient, and some absolutely in arms, and refusing to recognize the prince we had set up. An imminent invasion of the Mahrattas, an actual invasion headed by the son of the Mogul, the revenues on account of the late shock very ill collected even where the country was in some apparent quiet, an hungry treasury at Calcutta, an empty treasury at Moorshedabad,--everything demanded tranquillity, and with it order and economy. In this situation it was resolved to make a new and entirely mercenary revolution, and to set up to sale the government, secured to its present possessor by every tie of public faith and every sacred obligation which could bind or influence mankind. This second revolution forms that period in the Bengal history which had the most direct influence upon all the subsequent transactions. It introduces some of the persons who were most active in the succeeding scenes, and from that time to this has given its tone and character to the British affairs and government. It marks and specifies the origin and true principle of all the abuses which Mr.

Hastings was afterwards appointed to correct, and which the Commons charge that he continued and aggravated: namely, the venal depositions and venal exaltations of the country powers; the taking of bribes and corrupt presents from all parties in those changes; the vitiating and maiming the Company's records; the suppression of public correspondence; corrupt combinations and conspiracies; perfidy in negotiation established into principle; acts of the most atrocious wickedness justified upon purity of intention; mock-trials and collusive acquittals among the parties in common guilt; and in the end, the Court of Directors supporting the scandalous breach of their own orders. I shall state the particulars of this second revolution more at large.

Soon after the revolution which had seated Mir Jaffier on the viceroyal throne, the spirit of the Mogul empire began, as it were, to make one faint struggle before it finally expired. The then heir to that throne, escaping from the hands of those who had held his father prisoner, had put himself at the head of several chiefs collected under the standard of his house, and appeared in force on the frontiers of the provinces of Bengal and Bahar, upon both which he made some impression. This alarmed the new powers, the Nabob Mir Jaffier, and the Presidency of Calcutta; and as in a common cause, and by the terms of their mutual alliance, they took the field against him. The Nabob's eldest son and heir-apparent commanded in chief. Major Calliaud commanded the English forces under the government of Calcutta. Mr. Holwell was in the temporary possession of the Presidency. Mr. Vansittart was hourly expected to supersede him. Mr. Warren Hastings, a young gentleman about twenty-seven years of age, was Resident for the Company at the durbar, or court, of Mir Jaffier, our new-created Nabob of Bengal, allied to this country by the most solemn treaties that can bind men; for which treaties he had paid, and was then paying, immense sums of money. Mr.

Warren Hastings was the pledge in his hands for the honor of the British nation, and their fidelity to their engagements.

In this situation, Mr. Holwell, whom the terrible example of the Black Hole at Calcutta had not cured of ambition, thought an hour was not to be lost in accomplis.h.i.+ng a revolution and selling the reigning Nabob.

My Lords, there was in the house of Mir Jaffier, in his court, and in his family, a man of an intriguing, crafty, subtle, and at the same time bold, daring, desperate, b.l.o.o.d.y, and ferocious character, called Cossim Ali Khan. He was the son-in-law of Mir Jaffier; and he made no other use of this affinity than to find some means to dethrone and to murder him.

This was the person in whose school of politics Mr. Hastings made his first studies, and whose conduct he quotes as his example, and for whose friends, agents, and favorites he has always shown a marked predilection. This dangerous man was not long without finding persons who observed his talents with admiration, and who thought fit to employ him.

The Council at Calcutta was divided into two departments: one, the Council in general; the other a Select Committee, which they had arranged for the better carrying on their political affairs. But the Select Committee had no power of acting wholly without the Council at large,--at least, finally and conclusively. The Select Committee thought otherwise. Between these litigant parties for power I shall not determine on the merits,--thinking of nothing but the use that was made of the power, to whomsoever it belonged. This Secret Committee, then, without communicating with the rest of the Council, formed the plan for a second revolution. But the concurrence of Major Calliaud, who commanded the British troops, was essential to the purpose, as it could not be accomplished without force. Mr. Hastings's a.s.sistance was necessary, as it could not be accomplished without treachery.

These are the parties concerned in the intended revolution. Mr. Holwell, who considered himself in possession only of temporary power, was urged to precipitate the business; for if Mr. Vansittart should arrive before his plot could be finally put into execution, he would have all the leading advantages of it, and Mr. Holwell would be considered only as a secondary instrument. But whilst Mr. Holwell, who originally conceived this plot, urged forward the execution of it, in order that the chief share of the profits might fall to him, the Major, and possibly the Resident, held back, till they might receive the sanction of the permanent governor, who was hourly expected, with whom one of them was connected, and who was to carry with him the whole weight of the authority of this kingdom. This difference produced discussions. Holwell endeavored by his correspondence to stimulate Calliaud to this enterprise, which without him could not be undertaken at all. But Major Calliaud had different views. He concurred inwardly, as he tells us himself, in all the principles of this intended revolution, in the propriety and necessity of it. He only wished delay. But he gave such powerful, solid, and satisfactory reasons, not against the delay, but the very merits of the design itself, exposing the injustice and the danger of it, and the impossibility of mending by it their condition in any respect, as must have d.a.m.ned it in the minds of all rational men: at least it ought to have d.a.m.ned it forever in his own. But you will see that Holwell persevered in his plan, and that Major Calliaud thought two things necessary: first, not wholly to destroy the scheme, which he tells us he always approved, but to postpone the execution,--and in the mean time to delude the Nabob by the most strong, direct, and sanguine a.s.surances of friends.h.i.+p and protection that it was possible to give to man.

Whilst the projected revolution stood suspended,--whilst Mr. Holwell urged it forward, and Mr. Vansittart was expected every day to give it effect,--whilst Major Calliaud, with this design of ruining the Nabob lodged in his breast, suspended in execution, and condemned in principle, kept the fairest face and the most confidential interviews with that unfortunate prince and his son,--as the operations of the campaign relaxed, the army drew near to Moorshedabad, the capital, when a truly extraordinary scene happened, such I am sure the English annals before that time had furnished no example of, nor will, I trust, in future. I shall state it as one piece from beginning to end, reserving the events which intervened; because, as I do not produce any part of this series for the gratification of historical curiosity, the con-texture is necessary to demonstrate to your Lords.h.i.+ps the spirit of our Bengal politics, and the necessity of some other sort of judicial inquiries than those which that government inst.i.tute for themselves.

The transaction so manifestly marks the character of the whole proceeding that I hope I shall not be blamed for suspending for a moment the narrative of the steps taken towards the revolution, that you may see the whole of this episode together,--that by it you may judge of the causes which led progressively to the state in which the Company's affairs stood, when Mr. Hastings was sent for the express purpose of reforming it.

The business I am going to enter into is commonly known by the name of the Story of the Three Seals. It is to be found in the Appendix, No. 10, to the First Report of the state and condition of the East India Company, made in 1773. The word _Report_, my Lords, is sometimes a little equivocal, and may signify sometimes, not what is made known, but what remains in obscurity: the detail and evidence of many facts referred to in the Report being usually thrown into the Appendix. Many people, and I among the rest, (I take shame to myself for it,) may not have fully examined that Appendix. I was not a member of either of the India committees of 1773. It is not, indeed, till within this year that I have been thoroughly acquainted with that memorable history of the Three Seals.

The history is this. In the year 1760 the allies were in the course of operations against the son of the Mogul, now the present Mogul, who, as I have already stated, had made an irruption into the kingdom of Bahar, in order to reduce the lower provinces to his obedience. The parties opposing him were the Nabob of Bengal and the Company's troops under Major Calliaud. It was whilst they faced the common enemy as one body, this negotiation for the destruction of the Nabob of Bengal by his faithful allies of the Company was going on with diligence. At that time the Nabob's son, Meeran, a youth in the flower of his age, bold, vigorous, active, full of the politics in which those who are versed in usurpation are never wanting, commanded the army under his father, but was in reality the efficient person in all things.

About the 15th of April, 1760, as I have it from Major Calliaud's letter of that date, the Nabob came into his tent, and, with looks of the utmost embarra.s.sment, big with some design which swelled his bosom, something that was too large and burdensome to conceal, and yet too critical to be told, appeared to be in a state of great distraction. The Major, seeing him in this condition, kindly, gently, like a fast and sure friend, employed (to use his own expression) _some of those a.s.surances that tend to make men fully open their hearts_; and accordingly, fortified by his a.s.surances, and willing to disburden himself of the secret that oppressed him, he opens his heart to the commanding officer of his new friends, allies, and protectors. The Nabob, thus a.s.sured, did open himself, and informed Major Calliaud that he had just received a message from the Prince, or his princ.i.p.al minister, informing him that the Prince Royal, now the Mogul, had an intention (as, indeed, he rationally might, supposing that we were as well disposed to him as we showed ourselves afterwards) to surrender himself into the hands of him, the Nabob, but at the same time wished, as a guaranty, that the commander-in-chief of the English forces should give him security for his life and his honor, when he should in that manner surrender himself to the Nabob. I do not mean, my Lords, by surrendering, that it was supposed he intended to surrender himself prisoner of war, but as a sovereign dubious of the fidelity of those about him would put himself into the hands of his faithful subjects, of those who claimed to derive all their power, as both we and the Nabob did, under his authority. The Nabob stated to the English general, that without this English security the Prince would not deliver himself into his hands. Here he confessed he found a difficulty. For the giving this faith, if it were kept, would defeat his ultimate view, which was, when the Prince had delivered himself into his hands, in plain terms to murder him. This grand act could not be accomplished without the English general. In the first place, the Prince, without the English security, would not deliver himself into the Nabob's hands; and afterwards, without the English concurrence, he could not be murdered. These were difficulties that pressed upon the mind of the Nabob.

The English commander heard this astonis.h.i.+ng proposition without any apparent emotion. Being a man habituated to great affairs, versed in revolutions, and with a mind fortified against extraordinary events, he heard it and answered it without showing any signs of abhorrence or detestation,--at the same time with a protestation that he would indeed serve him, the Nabob, but it should be upon such terms as honor and justice could support: informing him, that an a.s.surance for the Prince's safety could not be given by him, until he had consulted Mr. Holwell, who was Governor, and his superior.

This conversation pa.s.sed in the morning. On that very morning, and whilst the transaction was hot, Major Calliaud writes to Mr. Holwell an account of it. In his letter he informs him that he made an inquiry, without stating from whom, but that he did inquire the probability of the Nabob's getting possession of the Prince from some persons, who a.s.sured him that there was no probability of the Prince's intention to deliver himself to the Nabob on any terms. Be that as it may, it is impossible not to remark that the whole transaction of the morning of the 15th of April was not very discouraging to the Nabob,--not such as would induce him to consider this most detestable of all projects as a thing utterly unfeasible, and as such to abandon it. The evening came on without anything to alter his opinion. Major Calliaud that evening came to the Nabob's tent to arrange some matters relative to the approaching campaign. The business soon ended with regard to the campaign; but the proposal of the morning to Major Calliaud, as might be expected to happen, was in effect renewed. Indeed, the form was a little different; but the substantial part remained the same. Your Lords.h.i.+ps will see what these alterations were.

In the evening scene the persons were more numerous. On the part of the Company, Major Calliaud, Mr. Lus.h.i.+ngton, Mr. Knox, and the amba.s.sador at the Nabob's court, Mr. Warren Hastings. On the part of the Moorish government, the Nabob himself, his son Meeran, a Persian secretary, and the Nabob's head spy, an officer well known in that part of the world, and of some rank. These were the persons of the drama in the evening scene. The Nabob and his son did not wait for the Prince's committing himself to their faith, which, it seems, Major Calliaud did not think likely to happen; so that one act of treachery is saved: but another opened of as extraordinary a nature. Intent and eager on the execution, and the more certain, of their design, they accepted the plan of a wicked wretch, princ.i.p.al servant of the then prime-minister to the Mogul, or themselves suggested it to him. A person called Conery, dewan or princ.i.p.al steward to Camgar Khan, a great chief in the service of the Shahzada, or Prince, (now the Great Mogul, the sovereign under whom the Company holds their charter,) had, it seems, made a proposal to the Nabob, that, if a considerable territory then held by his master was a.s.sured to him, and a reward of a lac of rupees (ten or twelve thousand, pounds) secured to him, he would for that consideration deliver the Prince, the eldest son of the Mogul, alive into the hands of the Nabob; or if that could not be effected, he engaged to murder him for the same reward. But as the a.s.sa.s.sin could not rely on the Nabob and his son for his reward for this meritorious action, and thought better of English honor and fidelity in such delicate cases, he required that Major Calliaud should set his seal to the agreement. This proposition was made to an English commander: what discourse happened upon it is uncertain.

Mr. Hastings is stated by some evidence to have acted as interpreter in this memorable congress. But Major Calliaud agreed to it without any difficulty. Accordingly, an instrument was drawn, an indenture tripart.i.te prepared by the Persian secretary, securing to the party the reward of this infamous, perfidious, murderous act. First, the Nabob put his own seal to the murder. The Nabob's son, Meeran, affixed _his_ seal.

A third seal, the most important of all, was yet wanting. A pause ensued: Major Calliaud's seal was not at hand; but Mr. Lus.h.i.+ngton was sent near half a mile to bring it. It was brought at length; and the instrument of blood and treachery was completely executed. Three seals were set to it.

This business of the three seals, by some means not quite fully explained, but (as suspected by the parties) by means of the information of Mr. Holwell, who soon after came home, was conveyed to the ears of the Court of Directors. The Court of Directors wrote out, under date of the 7th of October, 1761, within a little more than a year after this extraordinary transaction, to this effect:--that, in conjunction with the Nabob, Major Calliaud had signed a paper offering a reward of a lac of rupees, or some such sum, to several black persons, for the a.s.sa.s.sination of the Shahzada, or Prince heir-apparent,--which paper was offered to the then Chief of Patna to sign, but which he refused on account of the infamy of the measure. As it appeared in the same light to them, the Directors, they ordered a strict inquiry into it. The India Company, who here did their duty with apparent manliness and vigor, were resolved, however, to do it with gentleness, and to proceed in a manner that could not produce any serious mischief to the parties charged; for they directed the commission of inquiry to the very clan and set of people who, from a partic.i.p.ation in their common offences, stood in awe of one another,--in effect, to the parties in the transaction. Without a prosecutor, without an impartial director of the inquiry, they left it substantially to those persons to try one another for their common acts.

Here I come upon the principle which I wish most strongly to mark to your Lords.h.i.+ps: I mean collusive trials and collusive acquittals. When this matter came to be examined, according to the orders of the Court, which was on the 4th of October, 1762, the Council consisted of Peter Maguire, Warren Hastings, and Hugh Watts. Mr. Hastings had by this time accomplished the business of Resident with the Nabob, and had taken the seat to which his seniority ent.i.tled him in Council. Here a difficulty arose _in limine_. Mr. Hastings was represented to have acted as interpreter in this business; he was therefore himself an object of the inquisition; he was doubtful as evidence; he was disqualified as a judge. It likewise appeared that there might be some objection to others whose evidence was wanting, but who were themselves concerned in the guilt. Mr. Lus.h.i.+ngton's evidence would be useful, but there were two circ.u.mstances rather unlucky. First, he had put the seal to the instrument of murder; and, secondly, and what was most material, he had made an affidavit at Patna, whilst the affair was green and recent, that he had done so; and in the same affidavit had deposed that Warren Hastings was interpreter in that transaction. Here were difficulties both on him and Mr. Hastings. The question was, how to get Mr. Hastings, the interpreter, out of his interpretation, and to put him upon the seat of judgment. It was effected, however, and the manner in which it was effected was something curious. Mr. Lus.h.i.+ngton, who by this time was got completely over, himself tells you that in conferences with Major Calliaud, and by arguments and reasons by him delivered, he was persuaded to unsay his swearing, and to declare that he believed that the affidavit which he made at Patna, and while the transaction was recent or nearly recent, must be a mistake: that he _believed_ (what is amazing indeed for any belief) that not Mr. Hastings, but he himself, interpreted. Mr. Lus.h.i.+ngton completely loses his own memory, and he accepts an offered, a given memory, a memory supplied to him by a party in the transaction. By this operation all difficulties are removed: Mr.

Hastings is at once put into the capacity of a judge. He is declared by Mr. Lus.h.i.+ngton not to have been an interpreter in the transaction. After this, Mr. Hastings is himself examined. Your Lords.h.i.+ps will look at the transaction at your leisure, and I think you will consider it as a pattern for inquiries of this kind. Mr. Hastings is examined: he does not recollect. His memory also fails on a business in which it is not easy to suppose a man could be doubtful,--whether he was present or not: he thinks he was not there,--for that, if he had been there, and acted as interpreter, he could not have forgot it.

I think it is pretty nearly as I state it: if I have fallen into any error or inaccuracy, it is easily rectified; for here is the state of the transaction given by the parties themselves. On this inaccurate memory of Mr. Hastings, not venturing, however, to say positively that he was not the interpreter, or that he was not present, he is discharged from being an accomplice,--he is removed from the bar, and leaps upon the seat of justice. The court thus completed, Major Calliaud comes manfully forward to make his defence. Mr. Lus.h.i.+ngton is taken off his back in the manner we have seen, and no one person remains but Captain Knox. Now, if Captain Knox was there and a.s.senting, he is an accomplice too. Captain Knox a.s.serts, that, at the consultation about the murder, he said it was a pity to cut off so fine a young fellow in such a manner,--meaning that fine young fellow the Prince, the descendant of Tamerlane, the present reigning Mogul, from whom the Company derive their present charter. The purpose to be served by this declaration, if it had any purpose, was, that Captain Knox did not a.s.sent to the murder, and that therefore his evidence might be valid.

The defence set up by Major Calliaud was to this effect. He was apprehensive, he said, that the Nabob was alarmed at the violent designs that were formed against him by Mr. Holwell, and that therefore, to quiet his mind, (to quiet it by a proposition compounded of murder and treason,--an odd kind of mind he had that was to be quieted by such means!)--but to quiet his mind, and to show that the English were willing to go all lengths with him, to sell body and soul to him, he did put his seal to this extraordinary agreement, he put his seal to this wonderful paper. He likewise stated, that he was of opinion at the time that nothing at all sinister could happen from it, that no such murder was likely to take place, whatever might be the intention of the parties. In fact, he had very luckily said in a letter of his, written a day after the setting the seal, ”I think nothing will come of this matter, but it is no harm to try.” This experimental treachery, and these essays of conditional murder, appeared to him good enough to make a trial of; but at the same time he was afraid nothing would come of it.

In general, the whole gest of his defence comes to one point, in which he persists,--that, whatever the act might be, his mind is clear: ”My hands are guilty, but my heart is free.” He conceived that it would be very improper, undoubtedly, to do such an act, if he suspected anything could happen from it: he, however, let the thing out of his own hands; he put, it into the hands of others; he put the commission into the hands of a murderer. The fact was not denied; it was fully before these severe judges. The extenuation was the purity of his heart, and the bad situation of the Company's affairs,--the perpetual plea, which your Lords.h.i.+ps will hear of forever, and which if it will justify evil actions, they will take good care that the most nefarious of their deeds shall never want a sufficient justification. But then he calls upon his life and his character to oppose to his seal; and though he has declared that Mr. Holwell had intended ill to the Nabob, and that he approved of those measures, and only postponed them, yet he thought it necessary, he says, to quiet the fears of the Nabob; and from this motive he did an act abhorrent to his nature, and which, he says, he expressed his abhorrence of the morning after he signed it: not that he did so; but if he had, I believe it would only have made the thing so many degrees worse. Your Lords.h.i.+ps will observe, that, in this conference, as stated by himself, these reasons and apologies for it did not appear, nor did they appear in the letter, nor anywhere else, till next year, when he came upon his trial. Then it was immediately recollected that Mr.

Holwell's designs were so wicked they certainly must be known to the Nabob, though he never mentioned them in the conference of the morning or the evening of the 15th; yet such was now the weight and prevalence of them upon the Major's mind, that he calls upon Mr. Hastings to know whether the Nabob was not informed of these designs of Mr. Holwell against him. Mr. Hastings's memory was not quite correct upon the occasion. He does not recollect anything of the matter. He certainly seems not to think that he ever mentioned it to the Nabob, or the Nabob to him; but he does recollect, he thinks, speaking something to some of the Nabob's attendants upon it, and further this deponent sayeth not. On this state of things, namely, the purity of intention, the necessities of the Company, the propriety of keeping the Nabob in perfect good-humor and removing suspicions from his mind, which suspicions he had never expressed, they came to the resolution I shall have the honor to read to you: ”That the representation, given in the said defence, of the state of the affairs of the country at that time” (that is, about the month of April, 1760) ”is true and just” (that is, the bad state of the country, which we shall consider hereafter); ”that, in such circ.u.mstances, the Nabob's urgent account of his own distresses, the Colonel's desire of making him easy,” (for here is a recapitulation of the whole defence,) ”as the first thing necessary for the good of the service, and the suddenness of the thing proposed, might deprive him for a moment of his recollection, and surprise him into a measure which, as to the measure itself, he could not approve. That such only were the motives which did or could influence Colonel Calliaud to a.s.sent to the proposal is fully evinced by the deposition of Captain Knox and Mr. Lus.h.i.+ngton, that _his_ [_Calliaud's_] _conscience, at the time, never reproached him with a bad design_.”

Your Lords.h.i.+ps have heard of the testimony of a person to his own conscience; but the testimony of another man to any one's conscience--this is the first time, I believe, it ever appeared in a judicial proceeding. It is natural to say, ”My conscience acquits me of it”; but _they_ declare, that ”_his_ conscience never reproached him with a bad design, and therefore, upon the whole, they are satisfied that his intention was good, though he erred in the measure.”