Volume XII Part 14 (1/2)
”We wish we could refute the observation, that almost every attempt made by us and our administrations at your Presidency for the reforming of abuses has rather increased them, and added to the miseries of the country we are so anxious to protect and cherish.
The truth of this observation appears fully in the late appointment of supervisors and chiefs. Inst.i.tuted as they were, to give relief to the industrious tenants, to improve and enlarge our investments, to destroy monopolies and retrench expenses, the end has by no means been answerable to the inst.i.tution. Are not the tenants more than ever oppressed and wretched? Are our investments improved?
Have not the raw silk and coc.o.o.ns been raised upon us fifty per cent in price? We can hardly say what has not been made a monopoly.
And as to the expenses of your Presidency, they are at length swelled to a degree we are no longer able to support. These facts (for such they are) should have been stated to us as capital reasons why neither our orders of 1771, nor indeed any regulations whatever, could be carried into execution. But, perhaps, as this would have proved too much, it was not suggested to us; for nothing could more plainly indicate a state of anarchy, and that there was no government existing in our servants in Bengal.”
”And therefore, when oppression pervades the whole country, when youths have been suffered with impunity to exercise sovereign jurisdiction over the natives, and to acquire rapid fortunes by monopolizing of commerce, it cannot be a wonder to us or yourselves, that dadney merchants do not come forward to contract with the Company, that the manufactures find their way through foreign channels, or that our investments are at once enormously dear and of a debased quality.
”It is evident that the evils which have been so destructive to us lie too deep for any partial plans to reach or correct; it is therefore our resolution to aim at the root of these evils: and we are happy in having reason to believe that in every just and necessary regulation we shall meet with the approbation and support of the legislature, who consider the public as materially interested in the Company's prosperity.
”In order to effectuate this great end, the first step must be to restore perfect obedience and due subordination to your administration. Our Governor and Council must rea.s.sume and exercise their delegated powers upon every just occasion,--punish delinquents, cherish the meritorious, discountenance that luxury and dissipation which, to the reproach of government, prevailed in Bengal. Our President, Mr. Hastings, we trust, will set the example of temperance, economy, and application; and upon this, we are sensible, much will depend. And here we take occasion, to indulge the pleasure we have in acknowledging Mr. Hastings's services upon the coast of Coromandel, in constructing, with equal labor and ability, the plan which has so much improved our investments there; and as we are persuaded he will persevere in the same laudable pursuit through every branch of our affairs in Bengal, he, in return, may depend on the steady support and favor of his employers.
”Your settlement being thus put into a train of reform, (without which, indeed, all regulations will prove ineffectual,) you are next to revert to the old system, when the business of your Presidency was princ.i.p.ally performed by our own servants, who then had knowledge of our investments, and every other department of our concerns: you will therefore fill the several offices with the factors and writers upon your establishment, (for, with our present appointments, we are a.s.sured there will be sufficient for this purpose,) and thus you will banish idleness, and its attendants, extravagance and dissipation. And here we enjoin you to transmit to us a faithful and minute state of the pay and every known emolument of all below Council: for, as it is notorious that even youths in our service expend in equipage, servants, dress, and living infinitely more than our stated allowances can afford, we cannot but be anxious to discover the means by which they are enabled to proceed in this manner; and, indeed, so obnoxious is this conduct to us, and so injurious in its consequences, that we expect and require you to show your displeasure to all such as shall transgress in this respect, contrasting it at the same time with instances of kindness towards the sober, frugal, and industrious.”
My Lords, you see the state in which the Directors conceived the country to be. That it was in this state is not denied by Mr. Hastings, who was sent out for the purpose of reforming it. The Directors had swept away almost the whole body of their Bengal servants for supposed corruption; and they appointed a set of new ones, to regenerate, as it were, the government of that country.
Mr. Hastings says, ”I was brought to India like other people.” This, indeed, is true; and I hope it will prove an example and instruction to all mankind never to employ a man who has been bred in base and corrupt practices, from any hope that his local knowledge may make him the fittest person to correct such practices. Mr. Hastings goes on to say, that you could not expect more from him than could be done by a man bred up, as he was, in the common habits of the country. This is also true.
My Lords, you might as well expect a man to be fit for a perfumer's shop, who has lain a month in a pig's stye, as to expect that a man who has been a contractor with the Company for a length of time is a fit person for reforming abuses. Mr. Hastings has stated in general his history, his merits, and his services. We have looked over with care the records relative to his proceedings, and we find that in 1760 and 1761 he was in possession of a contract for bullocks and a contract for provisions. It is no way wrong for any man to take a contract, provided he does not do what Mr. Hastings has condemned in his regulations,--become a contractor with his masters. But though I do not bear upon Mr. Hastings for having spent his time in being a bullock-contractor, yet I say that he ought to have laid aside all the habits of a bullock-contractor when he was made a great minister for the reformation of a great service full of abuses. I will show your Lords.h.i.+ps that he never did so; that, on the contrary, being bred in those bad habits, and having had the education that I speak of, he persevered in the habits which had been formed in him to the very last.
I understand it has been imputed as a sort of a crime in me, that I stated something of the obscurity of Mr. Hastings's birth. The imputation has no foundation. Can it be believed that any man could be so absurd as to attack a man's birth, when he is accusing his actions?
No, I have always spoken of the low, sordid, and mercenary habits in which he was bred; I said nothing of his birth. But, my Lords, I was a good deal surprised when a friend of his and mine yesterday morning put into my hands, who had been attacking Mr. Hastings's life and conduct, a pedigree. I was appealing to the records of the Company; they answer by sending me to the Herald's Office. Many of your Lords.h.i.+ps' pedigrees are obscure in comparison with that of Mr. Hastings; and I only wonder how he came to derogate from such a line of n.o.bles by becoming a contractor for bullocks.
A man may be an honest bullock-contractor, (G.o.d forbid that many of them in this country should not be very honest!) but I find his terms were nearly four times as high as those which the House of Commons had condemned as exorbitant. They were not only unusually high, but the bullocks were badly supplied, and the contract had not been fairly advertised. It was therefore agreed to declare the same void at the expiration of twelve months, on the 1st December, 1763. I say again, that I do not condemn him for being a bullock-contractor; but I am suspicious of his honesty, because he has been nursed in bad and vicious habits. That of contracting with his masters is a bad habit, as he himself has stated in a record which is printed by the House of Commons.
I condemn him for being a fraudulent bullock-contractor: for he was turned out of that contract for fraudulent practices; it was declared void, and given to another at a lower price. After it was so disposed of, Mr. Hastings himself, condemning his own original contract, which was at twelve rupees for a certain species of bullocks, took the contract again at seven; and on these terms it continued. What I therefore contend for is this, that he carried with him the spirit of a fraudulent bullock-contractor through the whole of the Company's service, in its greatest and most important parts.
My Lords, the wading through all these corruptions is an unpleasant employment for me; but what am I to think of a man who holds up his head so high, that, when a matter of account is in discussion, such as appears in this very defence that I have in my hand, he declares he does not know anything about it? He cannot keep accounts: that is beneath him. We trace him throughout the whole of his career engaged in a great variety of mercantile employments; and yet, when he comes before you, you would imagine that he had been bred in the study of the sublimest sciences, and had no concern in anything else,--that he had been engaged in writing a poem, an Iliad, or some work that might revive fallen literature. There is but one exception to his abhorrence of accounts: he always contrives to make up a good account for himself.
My Lords, we have read to you a letter in which the Court of Directors have described the disorders of their service, the utter ruin of it, the corruption that prevailed in it, and the destruction of the country by it. When we are said to exaggerate, we use no stronger words than they do. We cannot mince the matter; your Lords.h.i.+ps should not mince it; no little paltry delicacies should hinder you, when there is a country expiring under all these things, from calling the authors to a strict account. The Court of Directors sent him that statement; they recommended to him a radical reformation. What does he do? We will read his letter of 1773, in which you will find seeds sown for the propagation of all those future abuses which terminated in the utter and irremediable destruction of the whole service. After he has praised the Directors for the trust that they had placed in him, after expressing his highest grat.i.tude, and so on, he says,--
”While I indulge the pleasure which I receive from the past successes of my endeavors, I own I cannot refrain from looking back with a mixture of anxiety on the omissions by which I am sensible I may since have hazarded the diminution of your esteem. All my letters addressed to your Honorable Court, and to the Secret Committee, repeat the strongest promises of prosecuting the inquiries into the conduct of your servants, which you have been pleased to commit particularly to my charge. You will readily perceive that I must have been sincere in those declarations; since it would have argued great indiscretion to have made them, had I foreseen my inability to perform them. I find myself now under the disagreeable necessity of avowing that inability; at the same time I will boldly take upon me to affirm, that, on whomsoever you might have delegated that charge, and by whatever powers it might have been accompanied, it would have been sufficient to occupy the entire attention of those who were intrusted with it, and, even with all the aids of leisure and authority, would have proved ineffectual. I dare appeal to the public records, to the testimony of those who have opportunities of knowing me, and even to the detail which the public voice can report of the past acts of this government, that my time has been neither idly nor uselessly employed; yet such are the cares and embarra.s.sments of this various state, that, although much may be done, much more, even in matters of moment, must necessarily remain neglected. To select from the miscellaneous heap which each day's exigencies present to our choice those points on which the general welfare of your affairs most essentially depends, to provide expedients for future advantages, and guard against probable evils, are all that your administration can faithfully promise to perform for your service, with their united labors most diligently exerted. They cannot look back without sacrificing the objects of their immediate duty, which are those of your interest, to endless researches, which can produce no real good, and may expose your affairs to all the ruinous consequences of personal malevolence, both here and at home.”
My Lords, you see here, that, after admitting that he has promised to the Court of Directors to do what they ordered him to do, (and he had promised to make a radical reform in their whole service, and to cure those abuses which they have stated,) he declares that he will not execute them; he pleads a variety of other occupations; but as to that great fundamental grievance he was appointed to eradicate, he declares he will not even attempt it. ”Why did you promise?”--it naturally occurs to ask him that question. ”Why,” says he, ”you will readily perceive that I must have been sincere in those declarations; since it would have argued great indiscretion to have made them, had I known my inability to perform them.” This is a kind of argument that belongs to Mr. Hastings exclusively. Most other people would say, ”You may judge of the sincerity of my promises by my zeal in the performance”; but he says, ”You may judge of the sincerity of my promises, because I would not promise, if I had not thought I should be able to perform.” It runs in this ridiculous circle: ”I promised to obey the Court of Directors; therefore I knew that I could obey them: but I could not obey them; therefore I was absolved from my promise, and did not attempt to obey them.” In fact, there is not so much as one grievance or abuse in the country, that he reformed. And this was systematical in Mr. Hastings's conduct,--that he was resolved to connive at the whole of the iniquities of the service, because he was resolved that every one of those existing iniquities should be practised by himself. ”But,” says he, ”the reformation required can produce no real good, and may expose your affairs to all the ruinous consequences of personal malevolence, both here and at home.” This he gives you as a reason why he will not prosecute the inquiry into abuses abroad,--because he is afraid that you should punish him at home for doing his duty abroad,--that it will expose him to malevolence at home; and therefore, to avoid being subject to malevolence at home, he would not do his duty abroad.
He follows this with something that is perfectly extraordinary: he desires, instead of doing his duty, which he declares it is impossible to do, that he may be invested with an arbitrary power. I refer your Lords.h.i.+ps to pages 2827, 2828, and 2829 of the printed Minutes, where you will find the system of his government to be formed upon a resolution not to use any one legal means of punis.h.i.+ng corruption, or for the prevention of corruption; all that he desires is, to have an absolute arbitrary power over the servants of the Company. There you will see that arbitrary power for corrupt purposes over the servants of the Company is the foundation of every part of his whole conduct. Remark what he says here, and then judge whether these inferences are to be eluded by any chicane.
”In the charge of oppression, although supported by the cries of the people and the most authentic representations, it is yet impossible, in most cases, to obtain legal proofs of it; and unless the discretionary power which I have recommended be somewhere lodged, the a.s.surance of impunity from any formal inquiry will baffle every order of the board; as, on the other hand, the fear of the consequences will restrain every man within the bounds of his duty, if he knows himself liable to suffer by the effects of a single control.”
My Lords, you see two things most material for you to consider in the judgment of this great cause, which is the cause of nations. The first thing for you to consider is the declaration of the culprit at your bar, that a person may be pursued by the cries of a whole people,--that doc.u.ments the most authentic and satisfactory, but deficient in technical form, may be produced against him,--in short, that he may be guilty of the most enormous crimes,--and yet that legal proofs may be wanting. This shows you how seriously you ought to consider, before you reject any proof upon the idea that it is not technical legal proof. To this a.s.sertion of Mr. Hastings I oppose, however, the opinion of a gentleman who sits near his side, Mr. Sumner, which is much more probable.
Mr. Hastings says, that the power of the Council is not effectual against the inferior servants, that [it?] is too weak to coerce them.
With much more truth Mr. Sumner has said, in his minute, you might easily coerce the inferior servants, but that the dread of falling upon persons in high stations discourages and puts an end to complaint. I quote the recorded authority of the gentleman near him, as being of great weight in the affairs of the Company, to prove what is infinitely more probable, the falsehood of Mr. Hastings's a.s.sertion, that an inferior servant cannot be coerced, and that they must riot with impunity in the spoils of the people.
But we will go to a much more serious part of the business. After desiring arbitrary power in this letter, he desires a perpetuation of it. And here he has given you a description of a bad Governor, to which I must call your attention, as your Lords.h.i.+ps will find it, in every part of his proceeding, to be exactly applicable to himself and to his own government.
”The first command of a state so extensive as that of Bengal is not without opportunities of private emoluments; and although the allowance which your bounty has liberally provided for your servants may be reasonably expected to fix the bounds of their desires, yet you will find it extremely difficult to restrain men from profiting by other means, who look upon their appointment as the measure of a day, and who, from the uncertainty of their condition, see no room for any acquisition but of wealth, since reputation and the consequences which follow the successful conduct of great affairs are only to be attained in a course of years.
Under such circ.u.mstances, however rigid your orders may be, or however supported, I am afraid that in most instances they will produce no other fruits than either avowed disobedience or the worst extreme of falsehood and hypocrisy. These are not the principles which should rule the conduct of men whom you have const.i.tuted the guardians of your property, and checks on the morals and fidelity of others. The care of self-preservation will naturally suggest the necessity of seizing the opportunity of present power, when the duration of it is considered as limited to the usual term of three years, and of applying it to the provision of a future independency; therefore every renewal of this term is liable to prove a reiterated oppression. It is perhaps owing to the causes which I have described, and a proof of their existence, that this appointment has been for some years past so eagerly solicited and so easily resigned. There are yet other inconveniences attendant on this habit, and perhaps an investigation of them all would lead to endless discoveries. Every man whom your choice has honored with so distinguished a trust seeks to merit approbation and acquire an _eclat_ by innovations, for which the wild scene before him affords ample and justifiable occasion.”
You see, my Lords, he has stated, that, if a Governor is appointed to hold his office only for a short time, the consequence would be either an avowed disobedience, or, what is worse, extreme falsehood and hypocrisy. Your Lords.h.i.+ps know that this man has held his office for a long time, and yet his disobedience has been avowed, and his hypocrisy and his falsehood have been discovered, and have been proved to your Lords.h.i.+ps in the course of this trial. You see this man has declared what are the principles which should rule the conduct of men whom you have const.i.tuted the guardians of your property, and checks upon the morals and fidelity of others. Mr. Hastings tells you himself directly what his duty was; he tells you himself, and he p.r.o.nounces his own condemnation, what was expected from him, namely, that he should give a great example himself, and be a check and guardian of the fidelity of all that are under him. He declares, at the end of this letter, that a very short continuance in their service would enable him to make a fortune up to the height of his desire. He has since thought proper to declare to you that he is a beggar and undone, notwithstanding all his irregular resources in that very service.