Volume XII Part 9 (1/2)
”And the said Warren Hastings further says, that in certain letters written by David Anderson, Esquire, and John Bristow, Esquire, it was represented that the said Mirza Jungli did apply to the said Bristow, through the said Anderson, then on an emba.s.sy in the camp of the said Sindia, and that in consequence thereof the said Bristow did, amongst other things, apply to the said Nabob Vizier for a certain allowance to be made for the said Mirza, and for the regular payment thereof, and that a certain allowance was accordingly settled by the said Vizier on the said Mirza; and the said Warren Hastings says, that information of the above transactions was transmitted to the Board of Council, and that a letter from the said Vizier was received on the 23d of August, 1782, containing certain representations of the distresses of himself and his family; and he admits that no order was made by him, the said Warren Hastings, for the provision of any of the said family, or for the return of the said Mirza; but the said Warren Hastings denies that he was guilty of any cruelty, inhumanity, or corruption, or of any misconduct whatsoever, in the matters aforesaid.”
Continuation of the charge:--
”That some time in or about the month of December, 1783, the Nabob Bahadur, another of the brothers of the said Nabob of Oude, did represent to the said Bristow, that he, the said Nabob Bahadur, had not received a farthing of his allowance for the current year, and was without food; and being wounded by an a.s.sa.s.sin, who had also murdered his aunt in the very capital of Oude, the said Nabob Bahadur had not a daum to pay the surgeon, who attended him for the love of G.o.d alone. That at or about the period of this said representation the said Bristow was recalled, and the said Warren Hastings proceeded up to Lucknow, but did not inquire into the said representations transmitted by the said Bristow to Calcutta, nor did order any relief.”
Mr. Hastings's answer to the part of the charge last read:--
”And the said Warren Hastings further says, that on the 29th of January, 1784, after the recall of the said Bristow, he, the said Bristow, did transmit to the Governor-General and Council two letters, one dated 28th of December, 1783, the other 7th of January, 1784, purporting to be written by the said Nabob Bahadur, addressed to him, the said Bristow, to the effect in the said article stated; and the said Warren Hastings admits, that, when at Lucknow, he did not inst.i.tute any inquiry into the supposed transaction in the said 17th article stated, or make any order concerning the said Bahadur, and he denies that it was his duty so to do.”
Here is the name of this Nabob from a list of the jaghiredars stated by Mr. Purling, page 485 printed Minutes. Amongst the names of jaghiredars, the times when granted, and the amount of the jaghires, there occurs that of the Nabob Bahadur, with a grant of a jaghire of the amount of 20,000 rupees.
[The _Lord Chancellor_ here remarked, that what had been just read was matter of the 17th article of the charge and parts of the answer to it, and that, upon looking back to the former proceedings, it has escaped his attention, if any matter contained in the 17th article had been made matter of the charge; that it therefore seemed to him that it could not be brought in upon a reply, not having been made matter of the charge originally.
_Mr. Burke._ My Lords, I have to say to this, that I believe you have heard these facts made matter of charge by the House of Commons, that I conceive they have been admitted by the prisoner, and that the Commons have nothing to do with the proofs of anything in their charge which is fully and in terms admitted. The proofs which they have produced to your Lords.h.i.+ps were upon matters which were contested; but here the facts are admitted in the fullest manner. We neither have abandoned them, intended to abandon them, or ever shall abandon them; we have made them, as a charge, upon record; the answers to them have been recorded, which answers are complete admissions of every fact in the charge.
_Lord Chancellor._ I do not make myself understood. The objection is not that there has not been evidence given upon the 17th article, but at the close of the case on the part of the Managers for the House of Commons no mention having been made of the matter contained in the 17th article, that therefore, although it may all have been admitted by the answer to be true, yet in justice, if from that answer you ground the charge, it is necessary the defendant should be heard upon it.
_Mr. Burke._ If your Lords.h.i.+ps choose that the defendant shall be heard upon it, we have no kind of objection, nor ever had, or proposed an objection to the defendant being heard upon it. Your Lords.h.i.+ps know that the defendant's counsel value themselves upon having abandoned their defence against certain parts of the charge; your Lords.h.i.+ps know that they declared that they broke off thus in the middle of their defence in order to expedite this business.
_Lord Chancellor._ Referring to the proceedings, I think it a matter perfectly clear, that, in the course of the charge, after certain articles had been gone through, the Managers for the Commons closed the case there, leaving therefore all the other articles, excepting those that had been discussed, as matters standing with the answers against them, but not insisted upon in making out the charge. Of course, therefore, if the defendant had gone into any of those articles, the defendant must have been stopped upon them, because he would then have been making a case in defence to that which had not been made a case in the prosecution. The objection, therefore, is not at all that no evidence has been examined. To be sure, it would be an answer to that to say, you are now proceeding upon an admission; but even upon those facts that are admitted, (if the facts are admitted that are insisted upon as matter in charge,) that should come in the original state of the cause, and the defendant in common justice must be heard upon that, and then, and then only, come the observations in reply.
_Mr. Burke._ We do not know, not are informed, that any charge, information, or indictment, that is before the court, and upon record, and is not denied by the defendant, does not stand in full force against him. We conceive it to be so; we conceive it to be agreeable to the a.n.a.logy of all proceedings; and the reason why we did not go into and insist upon it was, that, having a very long cause before us, and having the most full and complete admission upon this subject, we did not proceed further in it. The defendant defends himself by averring that _it was not his duty_. It was not our business to prove that it was his duty. It was he that admitted the facts a.s.sumed to be the foundation of his duty; the negative he was bound to prove, and he never offered to prove it. All that I can say upon this point is, that his delinquency in the matter in question appeared to us to be a clear, distinct case,--to be a great offence,--an offence charged upon the record, admitted upon the record, and never by us abandoned. As to his defence having been abandoned, we refer your Lords.h.i.+ps to the last pet.i.tion laid by him upon your table, (that libellous pet.i.tion, which we speak of as a libel upon the House of Commons,) and which has no validity but as it a.s.serts a matter of fact from the pet.i.tioner; and there you will find that he has declared explicitly, that, for the accommodation and ease of this business, and for its expedition, he did abandon his defence at a certain period.
_Lord Chancellor._ A charge consisting of a variety of articles in their nature (however connected with each other in their subject, but in their nature) distinct and specific, if only certain articles are pressed in the charge, to those articles only can a defence be applied; and all the other articles, that are not made matter of charge _originally_, have never, in the course of any proceeding whatever, been taken up _originally_ in reply.
_Mr. Burke._ With great respect to your Lords.h.i.+p's judgment, we conceive that the objection taken from our not having at a certain period argued or observed upon the prisoner's answer to the articles not insisted upon is not conclusive; inasmuch as the record still stands, and as our charge still stands. It was never abandoned; and the defendant might have made a justification to it, if he had thought fit: he never did think fit so to do. If your Lords.h.i.+ps think that we ought not to argue upon it here in our reply, because we did not argue upon it before,--well and good; but we have argued and do argue in our reply many things to which he never gave any answer at all. I shall beg leave, if your Lords.h.i.+ps please, to retire with my fellow Managers for a moment, to consult whether we shall press this point or not. We shall not detain your Lords.h.i.+ps many minutes.
(_The Managers withdrew: in a few minutes the Managers returned, again into the Hall._)
_Mr. Burke._ My Lords, the Managers have consulted among themselves upon this business; they first referred to your printed proceedings, in order to see the particular circ.u.mstance on which the observation of your Lords.h.i.+p is founded; we find it thus stated:--”Then the Managers for the Commons informed the Lords, that, saving to themselves their undoubted rights and privileges, the Commons were content to rest their charge here.” We rested our charge there, not because we meant to efface any precedent matter of the charge which had been made by us, and of which the facts had been admitted by the defendant, but, simply saving our rights and privileges, that is, to resume, (and to make new matter, if we thought fit,) the Commons were content to rest the charge there.
I have further to remark to your Lords.h.i.+ps, that the counsel for the defendant have opened a vast variety of matter that is not upon record, either on our part or on theirs, in order to ill.u.s.trate and to support their cause; and they have spoken day after day upon the principles on which their defence was made. My great object now is an examination of those principles, and to ill.u.s.trate the effects of these principles by examples which are not the less cogent, the less weighty, and the less known, because they are articles in this charge.
Most a.s.suredly they are not. If your Lords.h.i.+ps recollect the speeches that were made here, you know that great merit was given to Mr. Hastings for matters that were not at all in the charge, and which would put us under the greatest difficulties, if we were to take no notice of them in our reply. For instance, his merits in the Mahratta war, and a great ma.s.s of matter upon that subject, were obliquely, and for other purposes, brought before you, upon which they argued. That immense ma.s.s of matter, containing an immense ma.s.s of principles, and which was sometimes supported by alleged facts, sometimes by none, they have opened and argued upon, as matter relative to principle. In answer to their argument, we propose to show the mischiefs that have happened from the mischievous principles laid down by Mr. Hastings, and the mischievous consequences of them.
If, however, after this explanation, your Lords.h.i.+ps are of opinion that we ought not to be allowed to take this course, wis.h.i.+ng to fall in with your Lords.h.i.+ps'
sentiments, we shall abandon it. But we will remind your Lords.h.i.+ps that such things stand upon your records; that they stand unanswered and admitted on your records; and consequently they cannot be destroyed by any act of ours, but by a renunciation of the charge, which renunciation we cannot make, because the defendant has clearly and fully admitted it to be founded in fact. We cannot plead error; we cannot retract it. And why?
Because he has admitted it. We therefore only remind your Lords.h.i.+ps that the charge stands uncontradicted; and that the observation we intended to make upon it was to show your Lords.h.i.+ps that the principles upon which he defends all such conduct are totally false and groundless. But though your Lords.h.i.+ps should be of opinion that we cannot press it, yet we cannot abandon it; it is not in your power, it is not in our power, it is not in his power to abandon that charge. You cannot acquit him of that charge; it is impossible. If, however, your Lords.h.i.+ps, for the accommodation of business, method of proceedings, or any circ.u.mstance of that kind, wish we should say no more upon the subject, we close the subject there. Your Lords.h.i.+ps are in possession both of the charge and the admission; and we wish, and we cannot wish better than, to leave it as it is upon the record.
The _Lord Chancellor_ here said,--The opinion of the Lords can only be with me matter of conjecture. I certainly was not commanded by the House to state the observation that had occurred to me; but in the position in which it now stands, I feel no difficulty in saying, as my own judgment, that nothing can be matter in reply that does not relate to those articles that were pressed in the original charge; and therefore, in this position of the business of reply, you cannot go into new matter arising out of other articles that were not originally insisted upon.
_Mr. Burke._ We were aware of the objection that might be made to admitting our observations, if considered as observations upon the 17th article, but not when considered with reference to facts on the record before you, for the purpose of disproving the principles upon which the defendant and his counsel had relied: that was the purpose for which we proposed chiefly to make them.
But your Lords.h.i.+p's [the Lord Chancellor's] own personal authority will have great weight with us, and, unless we perceive some other peer differ from you, we will take it in the course we have constantly done. We never have sent your Lords.h.i.+ps out of the hall to consent [consult?] upon a matter upon which that n.o.ble lord appeared to have formed a decision in his own mind; we take for granted that what is delivered from the woolsack, to which no peer expresses a dissent, is the sense of the House; as such we take it, and as such we submit to it in this instance.
Therefore, leaving this upon the record as it stands, without observing upon it, and submitting to your Lords.h.i.+ps' decision, that we cannot, according to order, observe in reply upon what was not declared by us to be a part of the charges we meant to insist upon, we proceed to another business.]
We have already stated to your Lords.h.i.+ps, and we beg to remind you of it, the state and condition of the country of Oude when Mr. Hastings first came to it,--his subsequent and immediate usurpation of all the powers of government, and the use he made of them,--the tyranny he exercised over the Nabob himself,--the tyranny he exercised upon his mother and grandmother, and all the other females of his family, and their dependants of every description, to the number of about eight hundred persons,--the tyranny exercised (though we are not at liberty to press it now) upon his brethren. We have shown you how he confiscated the property of all the jaghiredars, the n.o.bility of the country. We have proved to your Lords.h.i.+ps that he was well acquainted with all the misery and distress occasioned by these proceedings, and that he afforded the sufferers no relief. We now proceed to review the effect of this general ma.s.s of usurpation, tyranny, and oppression upon the revenues and the prosperity of the country.
Your Lords.h.i.+ps will first be pleased to advert to the state in which Mr.
Hastings found the country,--in what state he found its revenues,--who were the executive ministers of the government,--what their conduct was, and by whom they were recommended and supported. For the evidence of these facts we refer your Lords.h.i.+ps to your printed Minutes: there, my Lords, they stand recorded: they never can be expunged out of your record, and the memory of mankind, whether we be permitted to press them at this time upon your Lords.h.i.+ps or not. Your Lords.h.i.+ps will there find in what manner the government was carried on in Oude in 1775, before the period of Mr. Hastings's usurpation. Mr. Hastings, you will find, has himself there stated that the minister was recommended by the Begums; and you will remark this, because Mr. Hastings afterwards makes her interference in the government of her son a part of his crimination of the Begum.