No More Learning

They felt bound to ask themselves certain questions, first,
"Where were the Governor-General's particular instructions for
1 Reports from Committee of the House of Commons, v, 489.
2 Warren Hastings, A Narrative of the Insurrrection which happened in
the Zamindary of Benares, p. 27. Idem, p. 9
4 Idem, p. 19.
3


## p. 297 (#325) ############################################

CHAIT SINGH'S TENURE
297
such extraordinary demands upon Chait Singh? ” To this they replied
that "he was fully authorised by the general tenor of his instructions”
and that in not requiring more particular injunctions “there was a
delicacy in the mode he preferred and it imposed a greater respon-
sibility. " Their second question was, "Why was Chait Singh put in
arrest when he offered to make every concession? ” to which they
replied that nothing but arrest could have convinced Chait Singh of
Hastings's determination. Their third question was "Whether there
was not a compact between him and the Company which specified that
he was only to pay them a certain annual tribute? ” They agreed that
this “involves much argument”, but they accept Hastings's own
version of the sanad or original agreement with Chait Singh given
in his Narrative. They admit that his actions "certainly precipitated
the storm from the cloud in which it had gathered", and that these
acts “judges at a distance, judges unoppressed with the actual
embarrassments of this government, may with great speciousness of
argument condemn". 1 Their attitude suggests a certain uneasiness,
together with an obvious desire to defend the governor-general. We
must deal here very shortly with certain technical and legal points
which were discussed at immense length in the impeachment. The
first is whether Chait Singh was an independent raja or a mere
zamindar. The fact was that though he undoubtedly had a zamindari
status, he had a very real measure of independence and quite an
exceptional position. Hastings had committed himself in the past to
the view that he was far more than a zamindar, but this question
clearly does not affect the main point at issue, which is whether Chait
Singh, whatever his eaxct degree of dependency upon the British,
was treated with fairness and mercy. In any case, as Grey pointed
.
out in the impeachment, Hastings's defenders were impaling them-
selves upon the horns of a dilemma, if they maintained that Chait
Singh was a mere zamindar and at the same time that the demand
made upon him was justifiable. In that case the exaction ought to
have taken the form of a general universal tax levied on all the
zamindars under the Company's rule; but it was directed only against
Chait Singh. Hastings had admitted that "there was no other person
in the situation of Chait Singh",? which was really fatal to the "mere
zamindar" theory. The second question is whether the Company had
not bound itself to levy no contribution upon him beyond his normal
tribute or rent of £225,000. It would take too long to discuss this
question in all its detail, but there is no doubt of the technical point
that such a promise had been definitely given in 1775. A later grant,
it is true, of 1776, contained the words that "all former sanads had
become null and void", and it was upon this fact that Hastings tried
to base a technical defence; but it is clear that Chait Singh had
1 Forrest, Selections from the State Papers in the Foreign Department, m,
830-2.
2 Bond, Speeches in the Trial of Warren Hastings, I, 328.
>


## p. 298 (#326) ############################################

298
CHAIT SINGH, OUDH BEGAMS, FAIZULLA KHAN
objected, as he had every right to do, to the insertion of these words,
and that the grant was altered accordingly. Hastings also claimed
that:
it [is] a right inherent in every government to impose, such assessments as it
judges expedient for the common service and protection of all its subjects; and
we are not precluded from it by any agreement subsisting between the Raja
and this government. 1
These Asiatic views naturally exposed Hastings to the attacks of
Burke.
A third question whether Chait Singh was in rebellion against the
Company hardly deserves examination. It is perfectly certain that,
until his troops broke out in detestation of the treatment to which
their ruler was subjected, the idea of rebellion had never dawned
upon the raja. The truth is that Hastings in his desperate need for
supplies allowed himself to depart from his usually generous and
kindly attitude towards Indian powers. Whatever the legal rights
and wrongs of the matter, no sane person can deny that Hastings's
treatment of the unfortunate raja was merciless and vindictive. This
can be illustrated by one incident which occurred in the year 1780.
In that year after the demand for a third sum of £50,000 had been
made, Chait Singh sending a confidential agent to Calcutta offered
Hastings a present of about £20,000. Hastings at first refused it,
which was of course the only proper course to take, for the sum was
meant as a bribe to save Chait Singh from the larger amount of
£50,000. If it was right to levy the latter sum, it was unquestionably
most improper to receive the former. But Hastings after a few days,
being in serious need of money to equip an expedition against Sindhia,
accepted the money. We need not here consider the unconstitutional
nature of his act in taking such sums without the knowledge of nis
council, the difficulties in which he involved himself by representing
the money as a gift from his private estate or the unfortunate view of
money transactions which the whole affair implies; but it is difficult
to understand how any man of ordinary feeling and consideration
for his fellow-creatures could accept the proffered gift of £20,000
and then immediately exact the larger sum of £50,000; confront his
suppliant with a further demand for troops, and, on the ground that
the demand was not met, proceed to levy a fine of £500,000. There
seems no doubt, as Sir Alfred Lyall points out and as Hastings's own
language shows, that the governor-general had never quite forgiven
Chait Singh for having in the crisis of 1777 sent an emissary to make
favour with Clavering.
Quite apart from the morality of the transaction, Hastings lies
open to criticism in regard to the policy of it. He has been justified,
after all other defences
have been surrendered, on the ground that the
1 Reports from Committees of the House of Commons, v, 463.


## p. 299 (#327) ############################################

CONDITION OF BENARES
299
a
political situation was so serious as to justify any means of obtaining
money. The answer to this is that he obtained none, and, what is
more, placed his own valuable life in the utmost peril. By his im-
prudent action in arresting Chait Singh he was responsible for the
uprising of the people of Benares; the raja escaped with part of his
wealth-the amount he took with him was in all probability grossly
exaggerated—and the rest of it amounting to twenty-three lakhs of
rupees was seized by the troops at Bijaigarh who promptly proceeded
to divide it up amongst themselves. This was largely due to an
indiscreet letter of Hastings himself which encouraged the army to
claim the prize money. The immediate result therefore on the finan-
cial side was that the Company incurred the expense of the military
operations that ensued. For the moment they got nothing, and it was
an immediate subvention that was required. Hastings afterwards
boasted, “I lost the zemindari with the rent of 22 lakhs; I recovered
it with a revenue of 40”. 1 But this only applied of course to the
future, and as a matter of fact for a long time the augmented revenue
(partly owing to the simultaneous occurrence of a famine) could not
be raised. Two successive ministers of finance were dismissed be-
cause they failed to produce it. All the evidence shows that it was a
very long time before Benares recovered from the heavy exactions
made upon it. Hastings, with a curious detachment which often pre-
vented him from seeing, or at any rate from acknowledging the
consequences of his own actions, himself bears witness to the desola-
tion of the country without apparently the least apprehension that he
was in any way responsible for it. In June, 1784, he wrote that he
would avoid Benares on his way back to Calcutta, "for I underwent
the persecution of mobs of complainants from Buxar to Joosee in my
way thither, and there is now a little mob parading even at my gate”. ?
In 1788 Lord Cornwallis sent Jonathan Duncan as a commissioner to
report on the condition of Benares. His report dealt one by one with
the districts of the province and is a most serious indictment of the
treatment meted out to Benares. In one district it is said that a third
of the land is uncultivated. In another for about twelve or fourteen
miles, "the whole appeared one continual waste as far as the eye
could reach”. In a third in a stretch of about twelve miles “not above
twenty fields of cultivated ground are to be seen: all the rest being
as far as the eye can reach, one general waste of long grass”. The
report adds significantly that this falling off in cultivation is said
to have happened in the course of a few years, that is, since the
late raja's expulsion. 3
Hastings having failed, as we have seen, to obtain any money from
Chait Singh had to seek for another source of supply. The nawab of
Oudh, Asaf-ud-daula, owed the Company at this time, for arrears of
1 Gleig, op. cit. II, 421.
2 Idem, III, 185.
8 Minutes of the Evidence in the Trial of Warren Hastings, pp. 261-2.


## p. 300 (#328) ############################################

300
CHAIT SINGH, OUDH BEGAMS, FAIZULLA KHAN
subsidy, about fifteen lakhs of rupees, and he professed that he had
no means of discharging the debt. His mother and grandmother,
the begams or princesses of Oudh, had inherited from the late nawab
large jagirs or landed estates and a treasure amounting it is said to
about £2,000,000. The nawab had long desired to get control of this
wealth and claimed that it was unjustly withheld from him. The will
had never been produced and it was claimed that by the Muham-
madan law the begams had no right to inherit so large a proportion
of the late ruler's property. In any case, it was said, this property
was really part of the wealth of the sovereign of the country and the
first claim upon it ought to have been the late nawab's debt to the
Company. All this was no doubt largely true, but in 1775 the widow
of Shuja-ud-daula, on the urgent representation of the British
Resident, agreed to pay her son £300,000 in addition to £250,000
already given to him, on condition that he and the Company
guaranteed that no further demand should ever be made upon her.
The guarantee was given. In 1781 Asaf-ud-daula, urged on thereto
by the Resident, as is clear from the private correspondence between
Hastings and Middleton, asked that he might be allowed to resume
the estates and seize the treasure of the begams. Hastings in sore
need of money agreed to the proposal and withdrew the Company's
protection from the begams. At this point the nawab, who had
probably never desired to seize the treasure, and was afraid, as the
Resident said, of the "uncommonly violent temper of his female
relations”, began to hang back, and had henceforward to be steadily
driven on by the British authorities to avail himself of the opportunity
thus given him. In December, 1781,. Hastings wrote to Middleton,
"You must not allow any negotiations or forbearance, but must
prosecute both services until the begams are at the entire mercy of
the nawab”. 1 In January, 1782, he writes to say that he had hoped
the nawab would have immediately entered upon the measures
agreed upon, but "after having long waited, with much impatience,
for this effect, I was apprised . . . that the nawab, from what cause
I know not, had shown a great reluctance to enter on this business”.
He tells the council that if the Resident cannot carry out the instruc-
tions, "I would myself proceed to Lucknow, and afford the nawab
any personal assistance for carrying them into execution . . . I dread
the imbecility and irresolution, which too much prevail in the nawab's
councils”. Hastings refers to "the pressing letters which I have
written to the nawab, the strong injunctions which I have repeated
to the Resident”. 2 Middleton replied that “the temporising and
indecisive conduct of the nawab seem to promise an issue very
different from that expected in your commands”. 3 Hastings, however,
was not to be deterred from his object by the unwillingness of
1 Forrest, Selections from the State Papers in the Foreign Department,
III, 950.
2 Report from Committees of the House of Commons, vi, 537.
3. Idem, p. 538.
9
>


## p. 301 (#329) ############################################

THE BEGAM'S CASE
301
the nawab or the shrinking from strong measures of his representative,
and in February we find him writing to Scott that he had been
compelled to rouse Middleton's activity "by letters written in a style
of the greatest severity". 1
Middleton, not having satisfied Hastings as sufficiently energetic
in applying coercion, was superseded as Resident by Bristow, and
Bristow wrote in June :
The begam complains that having no pension or jagir she now subsists, her
family and herself, with the greatest difficulty. . . . Previous to my arrival her
eunuchs were kept for many months in confinement, and led out to corporal
punishment. . . . These measures failed, and you have before you the opinions
given by Major Gilpin . . . that all that force could do has been done. 2
The above quotations are perhaps sufficient to meet the theory
that Hastings was not responsible for what his agents were doing at
Faizabad and that the latter were merely carrying out the wishes of
the nawab. As a matter of fact the nawab was a reluctant party
throughout, and Hastings asks that a very severe rebuke should be
given to his minister for having assumed a very unbecoming tone of
refusal, reproach and resentment in opposition to measures recom-
mended by me and even to acts done by my authority”. As to
the actual treatment inflicted on the begam's two ministers, they
were imprisoned from January to December, 1782, and they were for
a time deprived of food and put in irons. It seems doubtful whether
flogging was actually inflicted.
Finally in December, 1782, they paid over large sums of money
and were released. The British officer who had charge of them wrote:
"I wish you had been present at the enlargement of the prisoners.
The quivering lips, the tears of joy stealing down the poor men's
cheeks was a scene truly affecting". 1
The justification put forward by Hastings for tearing up the
Company's guarantee was that the begams had supported the rising
of Chait Singh and were in rebellion against the British Government.
The answer to this appears to be that, even if it were entirely true,
the proper course would have been to confront the begams with the
charge, produce the evidence and demand proofs of innocence, not
to cancel the treaty and cast them to the tender mercies of the nawab,
or rather to those of the British Resident.
The evidence for the alleged rebellion is conflicting. It depends
upon the affidavits taken by Sir Elijah Impey, in his injudicious
attempt to support the governor-general, the statements of Colonel
Hannay and his officers, and those of Wheler and others. The
affidavits are worthless. Sir James Stephen points out that only ten
1 Gleig, op. cit. I, 449.
2 Forrest, Selections from the State Papers in the Foreign Department,
IDT, 969.
Idem, p. 982.
* Bond, Speeches in the Trial of Warren Hastings, 1. 107.
8


## p. 302 (#330) ############################################

302
CHAIT SINGH, OUDH BEGAMS, FAIZULLA KHAN
a
of them mention the begams and then only on hearsay, and if they
are to be accepted at all, most of them equally inculpate the nawab
himself-an awkward fact which was ignored by Hastings and the
council. The evidence of Colonel Hannay can only be accepted with
many reservations; he was in the service of the nawab and acquired
a large fortune by questionable means. The country was no doubt
in a state of disturbance and Hannay and his colleagues would be
interested, as Mill suggests, in finding for these disturbances some
cause other than their own malversations. The third piece of evidence,
and the strongest, is the statement of Wheler, an honest man, that
he believed the begams were really stirring up a rebellion. Against
the theory of the defection of the begams, is, first of all, the extreme
improbability of their taking any part in any serious movement
against the British Government. Even those who afterwards adopted
the charge, wrote and spoke during the events as though such a thing
were impossible. For instance, in a letter from Middleton to Hastings
on 18 January, 1782, the phrase occurs, "The reliance which not-
withstanding the part I have avowed and acted with respect to her
she probably placed in the support and mediation of our Govern-
ment". 1 Further, in all the correspondence that passed between
Hastings and Wheler at the time, there is no mention at all of any
rebellion. The only question is how soon the money could be exacted
from the begam and her ministers. In the private correspondence
too between Middleton, Impey and Hastings there is nothing to lead
one to suppose that the money was being levied as a fine for an
insurrection. It seems probable that the charge of rebellion was ex
post facto, made when it was found necessary to present a justification
for the whole business. It was easy enough to do this, because under
the wretched government of the nawab there was always an endemic
insurrection going on in Oudh, the unfortunate rajas who owned
him as their suzerain being frequently in revolt against his oppres-
sions. In any case we must be fair enough to admit that the treatment
meted out to Chait Singh, whatever its justification, was sufficient to
make any Indian power adopt measures for its own protection. The
truth is that, making every possible allowance for Hastings's financial
difficulty, and granting for purposes of argument that the begams
were quite willing to stir up every kind of trouble for him, we must
yet agree that it was a sordid, shabby and sorry business. Before we
leave the subject a curious episode must be mentioned. We have
seen that Hastings in 1780 took a present of £20,000 from Chait
Singh while engaged in pressing him for money. In almost exactly
the same way in 1781, he was offered and accepted £100,000 from
the nawab of Oudh. He employed it in the Company's service and
then after a considerable delay and some amazing manipulation of
the accounts, he reported the matter to the directors, and made the
1 Minutes of the Evidence, p. 820.


## p. 303 (#331) ############################################

QUESTION OF PRESENTS
303
astonishing request that they should present it to himself as a token
of their approval. We need not concern ourselves here with the
decency or taste of his suggestion to the directors—the suggestion we
must remember of a man whose official salary with allowances was
about £30,000_but the transaction throws a vivid light on Hastings's
laxity of view on all monetary transactions. The money was un-
doubtedly offered by the nawab as a bribe to Hastings to release him
from the disagreeable task of coercing the begams. Hastings accepts
it but continues his policy nevertheless, an exact parallel to his
conduct in the Chait Singh case. The whole proceeding was kept
secret from the council, a most unconstitutional act. If the money
had been taken at all, it ought to have been accepted as a mere in-
stalment of the debt due to the Company. In truth there is no defence
at all for the acceptance of these sums. Modern historians sometimes
write as though the practice was defensible, if it can be proved that
Hastings spent the money in the public service. But the Regulating
Act had forbidden presents absolutely, for the sake of Indian princes.
The whole theory underlying them was highly objectionable. Either
the giver obtained some special favour from the government, which
means corruption, or he did not, which implies deception. The Select
Committee of 1781 said with justice that the generosity of the donors
“is found in proportion, not to the opulence they possess or to the
favours they receive, but to the indigence they feel, and the insults
they are exposed to",1 and Burke for once was surely fully justified
when he described presents from Indian rulers as "the donations of
misery to power, the gifts of wretchedness to the oppressors". 2
Hastings we must admit seems to have had a blind spot in his mind
as regards money matters.
A third case of Hastings's financial operations with an Indian
ruler must be mentioned as it throws considerable light on the other
two. We have explained how at the end of the Rohilla War the only
chieftain of that race left in possession of territory was Faizulla Khan
of Rampur. A peace had been made between him and the nawab of
Oudh. By it he was to retain not more than 5000 troops and if the
nawab was at war he was to "send two or three thousand men
according to his ability":3 Faizulla Khan proved himself an able
and vigorous ruler, as Hastings some years later freely admitted.
Under him the country prospered and the people were contented.
In February, 1778, there were some rumours that he was maintaining
an unnecessarily large army. Middleton, Resident in Oudh, said that
he might well have acted in this way owing to the injustice and
oppression of the nawab, but the commissioner who was sent down
to Rampur to investigate reported that Faizulla Khan had “preserved
1 Reports from Committees of the House of Commons, v7, 585.
? Bond, Speeches in the Trial of Warren Hastings, I, 70.
8 Reports from Committees of the House of Commons, VI, 22.


## p. 304 (#332) ############################################

304
CHAIT SINGH, OUDH BEGAMS, FAIZULLA KHAN
3
every article of his treaty inviolate”. 1 Faizulla Khan was, as a matter
of fact, one of the very small band of Indian rulers like Ranjit Singh,
who formed a great admiration for the British nation and recognised
once and for all the advantage of trusting them. It is rather a lament-
able reflection that he was very nearly entangled and ruined in the
policy of Hastings. He asked that the treaty which Champion had
made between him and the nawab might now receive the Company's
own ratification, on the ground that it was “the only power in which
he had confidence, and which he could look up to for protection”. ?
The council agreed to his proposal and a special treaty was presented
to him. Soon afterwards Faizulla Khan, whose treaty only bound
him to assist the nawab, on a hint from Middleton offered to lend
the Company 2000 horse. He was formally thanked for this mark of
his faithful attachment to the Company and the English nation.
In November, 1780, Hastings obliged the nawab of Oudh to write
to Faizulla Khan requiring him to furnish “the quota of troops
stipulated by treaty . . . being 5000 horse". It is charitable to assume
that in the original demand Hastings had simply made a mistake
about the terms of his treaty. But this excuse could not be made for
his subsequent action, for Faizulla Khan replied civilly and moderately
pointing out that he was only bound to furnish 2000 or 3000 troops,
not necessarily horse, "according to his ability", and offering to dis-
charge his liabilities to the full by sending 2000 horse and 1000 foot.
It has been well pointed out that if he had been able to provide 5000
horse he might have been charged with breaking the other article
in the treaty which prevented him from maintaining more than that
number as his total army. Hastings recorded a minute that Faizulla
Khan had "evaded the performance of . . . the treaty” 4 which was
of course a direct falsehood. He then in March, 1781, slightly
mitigating his demand, sent a deputation requiring the delivery of
3000 cavalry. As Faizulla Khan firmly but politely maintained his
former position, Hastings made a formal protest against him for
breaking the treaty and gave the nawab of Oudh permission to re-
sume his lands.
That Hastings knew perfectly well that the treaty
had not been broken is proved by the amazing minute which he laid
before the council at Calcutta :
The conduct of Faizulla Khan, in refusing the aid demanded, though not
an absolute breach of treaty was evasive and uncandid . . . so scrupulous an
attention to literal expression, when a more liberal interpretation would have
been highly useful and acceptable to us, strongly marks his unfriendly dispo-
sition, though it may not impeach his fidelity. 5
Even at this distance of time the thought that a British administrator
could have written such words arouses a flush of shame and it may
1 Reports from Committees of the House of Commons, VI, 24.
2 Idem, p. 24.
3 Idem, 27.
• Idem, p. 29.
% Idem, p. 31.


## p. 305 (#333) ############################################

CHANGES IN OUDH
305
safely be surmised that such a justification for charging a ruler with
disaffection has never been offered before or since. Faizulla Khan
escaped ruin partly because Hastings, it is to be hoped with a sense
of compunction, postponed for a time the execution of the decree
against him, and partly because before it was put into force the
directors of the Company much to their honour sent a stern dispatch
condemning the whole business and forbidding Hastings to go any
further in the matter.
Hastings's final activities in India were devoted to an attempt at
reconstruction in Benares and Oudh. Bristow had not succeeded in
recovering the Company's balances from that incorrigibly insolvent
debtor, the nawab of Oudh, and his own financial transactions seem
to have been open to serious criticism. The nawab himself desired,
or more probably had been ordered by Hastings to ask for, the recall
of the Resident, and the abolition of the residency. Hastings may
have been right in demanding a complete change of system in Oudh,
but it must be confessed that his action in the matter was curiously
tortuous, and no quite adequate explanation of his conduct has ever
been offered. He had himself given Bristow the strictest orders to
obtain a complete control over the government of Oudh. Soon after-
wards he proposed to the council that Bristow should be recalled for
having attempted to tyrannise over the nawab, and that the nawab
himself, and his minister, Haidar Beg Khan, whom he had in the past
severely criticised, should jointly be security for the Company's debts.
The council at first defended Bristow on the ground that he had only
been endeavouring to carry out his instructions, and that Haidar Beg
Khan had consistently opposed all reforms. Finally, however, with
great reluctance they accepted Hastings's proposal and agreed that
he should proceed to Lucknow to carry out the change. Hastings
arrived at the nawab's capital on 27 March, 1784, and attacked his
new task with characteristic courage and buoyancy. "It is my ambi-
tion”, he wrote,. “to close my government with the redemption of
a great government, family, and nation from ruin . . . it is the boldest
enterprise of my public life, but I confidently hazard the conse-
quences. ” 1 It is generally said that he was very successful, but there
is not much evidence of it; he merely won a respite for the time by
a heavy mortgage on the future. He conciliated the nawab by his
dominating personality, by removing the residency, and by restoring
the jagirs to the begams-an act of restitution which had been ordered
by the court of directors. He also claimed to have "adjusted all the
disputed accounts between the Nabob: Vizier and the Company”. 2 The
position in Oudh was no doubt easier for the moment, but as soon
as Hastings had departed, the hollowness of his reforms was revealed.
It then appeared that, if the residency was removed, there had been
established in its place an "agency of the governor-general", which
1 Gleig, op. cit. m,
153.
* Idem, p. 184.
20


## p. 306 (#334) ############################################

306
CHAIT SINGH, OUDH BEGAMS, FAIZULLA KHAN
interfered quite as drastically in the affairs of Oudh, and was a still
greater burden on its revenues. Whereas the expense of Bristow's
residency had been £64,202 per annum, the cost of the new agency
was over £112,000, of which £22,000 was the salary of the agent.
As soon as Cornwallis came out, the nawab. approached him with
exactly the same complaint that he had addressed to Hastings, that
the burden upon his country was insupportable. As for the alleged
reform of the finances, Cornwallis writes: "I cannot express how
much I was concerned . . . to be witness of the disordered state of his
finances and government, and of the desolated appearance of the
country. The evils were too alarming to admit of palliation". 1
In regard to Benares, Hastings laid before the council a scheme
for securing the revenues, for removing incapable and oppressive
officials, and for safeguarding the tenancy rights of the ryots; but even
his unremitting defender Gleig admits, that in the regeneration of
Benares he was not so immediately successful as in the case of Oudh. ”
No real reformation was possible, so long as the British Resident was
allowed to amass, exclusive of his official salary, an income of £40,000
a year, and Cornwallis could only describe the whole position there
as “a scene of the grossest corruption and mismanagement”. 8
While he was at Lucknow, Hastings had an interview with the
eldest son of the Moghul emperor, who, a fugitive from the warring
factions in Delhi, implored the aid of the British to re-establish his
father's throne. It was thoroughly typical of Hastingstypical both
of the defiant hardihood, which formed so strong'an element in his
character, and of the wilful blindness to obstacles lying athwart his
path-that he was willing to engage upon this enterprise. Any other
man in the face of an imminent retirement, would have been giad
enough to disentangle himself from old responsibilities, let alone
incur new ones. But Hastings urged upon the council as a reason
for taking up the prince's cause “our relaxation from every other
external concern"; and had the political effrontery to maintain :
"I am not sure, but I believe, that we shall be applauded at home,
if we take the generous side of the question”. 4 The council very
wisely would have none of it, and Hastings, though he felt that their
action went some way to save his own interests and peace of mind,
could not resist the temptation of flinging a gibe at them for their
want of courage and for their propensity to turn from the setting to
the rising sun.
Marquis Cornwallis, I, 300.
1 Ross, Correspondence of
2 Gleig, op. cit. Di, 194.
4 Gleig, op. cit. m, 191.
1
8 Ross, op. cit. 1, 253.


## p. 307 (#335) ############################################

1
CHAPTER XVII
THE IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS
HASTINGS left India in February, 1785, and arrived in England
in June, unconscious of the tremendous attack on his life and work
that was being prepared by the vindictive enmity and foiled ambition
of Francis and the more honourable but misguided zeal of Burke.
He was at first well received, especially at court, for George III was
one of his firmest supporters. But in January, 1786, Scott, Hastings's
agent, challenged Burke to produce his charges. Scott has been
severely blamed for this, and contemporary observers, like Wraxall
and Fanny Burney, declared that the prosecution was really due to
him. Scott was undoubtedly an impetuous and injudicious man, yet,
as Professor Holland Rose points out, he would scarcely have acted
without Hastings's consent; and since the vote of censure of 28 May,
1782, still remained on the records of the House, the question would
have had some day to be raised and settled. Burke moved for
papers on 17 February, 1786, and in April brought forward his
charges; at first eleven in number, they were afterwards increased
to twenty-two. On 1, 2 and 3 May Hastings was granted permission
to read a defence at the bar of the House. The actual reading was
done partly by himself, partly by Markham, son of the archbishop
of York. The step was a serious error in judgment; it would have
been better for Hastings to have reserved his defence. The apologia
was too long and wearied his hearers. It was badly put together and
was not always consistent, for parts of it had been drawn up by
different hands : by Scott, Shore, Middleton, Markham and Gilpin.
It was combative and defiant in tone, for Hastings not only defended
himself against censure, he claimed positive merit for all his actions.
There was a certain moral splendour in such a demeanour, but in the
present temper of the House it was not diplomatic. As one member
.
said: “I see in it a perfect character drawn by the culprit himself,
and that character is his own. Conscious triumph in the ability and
success of all his measures pervades every sentence”. On 1 June.
parliament refused to accept an impeachment on the charge of the
Rohilla War by 119 votes to 79, Dundas and Pitt voting with the
majority. On the 13th, the House accepted the charge on the Chait
Singh case, and on this occasion Pitt and Dundas voted against
Hastings From that day to this an extraordinary amount of
ingenuity has been exercised in the attempt to find some motive,
recondite or unworthy, for this action. It has been suggested that
Pitt was jealous of Hastings and his favour with the king; that he was
over-persuaded by Dundas, who feared that Hastings might succeed


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308
IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS
him at the Board of Control; that Pitt was not sorry to see the energies
of a powerful and able opposition directed to a quarry other than
His Majesty's Government. The first of these reasons seems only
worthy of the author, Gleig, from whence it sprang. That Hastings,
whose career rightly or wrongly had been subject to so much con-
troversy, should ever become President of the Board of Control was
entirely impossible. The third suggestion loses sight of the fact that
though the trial lasted over seven years, the court only sat in full
session 118 days out of that time, and there is not the least reason to
suppose that the energy of the opposition in the ordinary work of
parliament was in any way diminished.
All this subtlety is beside the mark, and overlooks the fact that
there is a very simple and adequate explanation. It must be remem-
bered that, till a full and elaborate defence was put forward at the
trial, the evidence in the Chait Singh case looked extremely damag-
ing. There is no reason to suppose that Pitt acted otherwise than as an
honest man, that he weighed the evidence carefully, defended Hastings
when he could conscientiously do so, as in the matter of the Rohilla
War, and reluctantly voted against him where the evidence appeared
to be prima facie strong. Above all, it often seems to be forgotten
that he was only voting for a trial not for a condemnation. Apart
from the inherent probabilities of the business, there is plenty of
evidence to support this view. We have first the letter of Dundas to
Cornwallis, 21 March, 1787 :
The proceeding is not pleasant to many of our friends; and of course from
that and many other circumstances, not pleasant to us; but the truth is, when
we examined the various articles of charges against him, with his defences,
they were so strong, and the defences so perfectly unsupported, it was impos-
sible not to concur. 1
There is, secondly, a still more important piece of evidence that has
we think generally escaped notice, namely a letter of George III to
Pitt which is, it may be said, equally creditable to king and minister.
George III was always a thorough-going believer in Hastings, and
Pitt naturally desired wherever he could to meet the king's wishes.
After the adverse vote on the Chait Singh charge, George III wrote
j
Mr. Pitt would have conducted himself yesterday very unlike what my
mind ever expects of him if, as he thinks Mr. Hastings' conduct towards the
Rajah was too severe, he had not taken the part he did, though it made him
coincide with the adverse party. As for myself, I own I do not think it possible
in that country to carry on business with the same moderation that is suitable
to a European civilised nation. 2
It may be added that Wilberforce entirely believed in Pitt's integrity;
he tells us that Pitt paid as much impartial attention to the case was
if he were a juryman". It is important to remember that there was
1
Ross, Correspondence of Marquis Cornwallis, I, 281.
2 Stanhope;. Life of. William Pitt, I, 480.


## p. 309 (#337) ############################################

OPENING THE CHARGES
309
no attempt to constrain men's opinions by the application of party
discipline. The colleagues of the prime minister were left free to vote
as they chose, and Grenville, Lord Mulgrave and the attorney-general
opposed their chief in debate. There is a final argument which will
only appeal to a limited class but will appeal with irresistible strength
-we should have to alter our whole conception of the serene, pure
and lofty mind of Pitt, if we believed that on such a question he were
capable of being swayed by mere motives of the lowest political
expediency.
On 7 February, 1787, the charge relating to the begams of Oudh
was introduced by Sheridan in a speech, which was said to have
eclipsed all previous displays of eloquence ever heard in the House
of Commons, and the debate was adjourned that members might not
vote till their minds were freed from the spell of the orator. On 8
February, the charge was accepted by 175 votes to 68, and finally in
May the decision was made to impeach on twenty-two articles. These
articles attempted to cover the whole of Hastings's administration.
He was charged with having violated treaties made with the nawab
of Oudh, with having interfered in that ruler's internal affairs, with
having unrighteously sold to him Kora and Allahabad, with oppres-
sion and cruelty in the case of Chait Singh and the begams of Oudh,
with an arbitrary settlement of the land revenues of Bengal, with
fraudulent dealings in contracts and commissions and the acceptance
of presents and bribes. The managers for the Commons were Burke,
Fox, Sheridan, Pelham, Windham, Sir Gilbert Elliot, Charles Grey,
Sir James Erskine and twelve others. The House most properly
refused to allow Francis to be one of them: Hastings's counsel were
Law (afterwards Lord Ellenborough), Plumer (afterwards Master
of the Rolls), and Dallas (afterwards Chief Justice of the Common
Pleas).
The impeachment was a calamitous mistake and before it had
gone very far it developed into something like a cruel wrong. It was
not unreasonable that some enquiry should be held; indeed, after the
vote of censure of May, 1782, it was perhaps essential. The fair course
would have been to hear Hastings's case and then parliament might
have expressed a temperate disapproval of some of the methods he
had employed in the case of Chait Singh and the begams of Oudh,
and might well have commented severely upon the laxity of his ideas
of account-keeping. Having ensured that these unhappy features of
his period of office should not be allowed to become precedents for
British policy in the East, they should have recognised the immense
difficulties that confronted Hastings and acknowledged his magni-
ficent services to his country. A grant of some high honour from
the crown would naturally have followed, and the energies of the
reformers might have been devoted, with Hastings's aid and co-
operation, to amending the whole system of the Indian government.
.


## p. 310 (#338) ############################################

310
IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS
>
7
The impeachment of Hastings was an anachronism, a cumbrous
method of inflicting most unmerited suffering on one of the greatest
Englishmen of his time, something very like a travesty of justice.
For this there were several reasons. The trial was intolerably
lengthy. It lasted from February, 1788, to April, 1795, through seven
sessions of parliament and 148 sittings of the court. The personnel of
the judges was constantly changing-during the seven years there
were 180 changes in the peerage. There was a great inequality between
the defence and the attack. Hastings's counsel consisted of trained
lawyers-all of them afterwards rose to high judicial office--men who
used, and rightly used, all the technical devices of the law to protect
their client. His accusers were parliamentary orators and debaters,
masters of invective and controversy, but men unused to weigh
testimony, to substantiate their charges in the cold and dry atmo-
sphere of a court of law or to be guided by the rules of evidence.
Lord Thurlow, Hastings's friend, and Lord Loughborough, who was
on the whole hostile, agreed in reprobating the. "loseness and inac-
curacy” with which the articles were drawn up. They formed indeed
an absurd hotchpot of charges, some involving, had they been proved,
heinous guilt, others mere errors of policy or pardonable miscalcula-
tions. Over the whole trial there lies the false and histrionic glitter
of an elaborate and self-conscious display. Sheridan's speeches were
dramatic entertainments for connoisseurs of oratorical invective. The
Whig party made the occasion a manifesto for their humanitarian
sentiments and an exercise in vituperation. Burke, whose motives
were the most reputable, for he was entirely sincere, was the worst
sinner of all, in his utter surrender to a violent animosity against the
accused and his refusal to accord to him even those rights and
facilities which it would have been unrighteous to deny to the worst
of criminals. Through constant disputes as to the admissibility of
evidence and through the lack of technical juridical skill on the part
of the prosecution the trial lasted just over seven years. Gradually
it was found necessary to drop most of the charges. In 1791 it was
resolved to proceed only with those dealing with Chait Singh, the
begams of Oudh, fraudulent contracts, presents and bribes; the
verdict was finally given on 23 April, 1795. Hastings was acquitted
on all the articles on which a verdict was recorded. The highest
minorities against him were on the charges relating to Chait Singh
and the begams of Oudh, where the voting was 23 to 6.
The Lords review the evidence with the greatest care. Though
the trial had opened before 160 peers, only 29 recorded their votes.
This was due to the fact that, by an informal understanding honour-
ably observed, only those Lords . actually voted who had either
attended the trial from its commencement, or had been present
during a majority of the days when the court was sitting. Lord
Carnarvon had suggested that the House should itself determine


## p. 311 (#339) ############################################

BURKE'S VIOLENCE
311
"what lords had, and what lords had not, a right to vote". 1 But in
the end it was resolved to accept the opinion of Lord Thurlow "that
every lord must draw the line for himself; his own conscience and his
own sense of honour must determine how many days' attendance
entitled him to vote". 2 In the discussion Lord Thurlow and the
bishop of Rochester were strong supporters of Hastings. Lough-
borough, the lord chancellor, was on the whole against him; Lord
Mansfield, though a former friend, felt himself bound to censure some
of his acts. It is clear that even Hastings's warmest allies were hard
put to it to defend some parts of his financial administration and in
the last resort could only do so on the plea that his difficulties were
great and that "he was a man uncommonly regardless of money”.
It seems fairly certain that some votes were given for an acquittal,
not because the judges condoned every act of the accused, but because
they held that the long torture of the trial was a more than adequate
punishment for some errors of judgment, financial irregularities and
even acts of unjust severity committed in circumstances of supreme
crisis and peril. For long it had been clear that this was the only
possible issue. The curious thing is that Burke to the last refused
to see it. He seemed determined to reach the acme of unreason and
folly :
The crimes with which we charge the prisoner at the bar are substantial
crimes. They were crimes which have their rise in the wicked dispositions
of men . . in avarice, rapacity, pride, cruelty, ferocity, malignity of temper,
haughtiness, insolence; in short, my Lords, in everything that manifests a
heart blackened to the very blackest-a heart dyed deep in blackness-a heart
corrupted, vitiated and gangrened to the very core. 3
It is not surprising that men revolted from such a monstrous position.
The defence, on the other hand, did their best to build a golden
bridge for the retreat of the managers, and perhaps showed, by the
reasonableness of their attitude in this respect, that they recognised
that there was a case to meet and to defend.
"The Commons”, they said, "have well exercised their honour by preferring
a charge and bringing it here to be discussed, to know whether it is true or
not; and it is no dishonour or disgrace to the House of Commons to say, ulti-
mately, that upon that inquiry, it turns out that the charge is not well founded.
Their object is not the individual, but the crime. If the crime does not
exist, they have no resentment against Mr. Hastings the House of Commons
and every individual member of it has no other wish but that the charge should
be fairly sifted and examined, to see whether their suspicions are well or ill
founded; and every member of the House of Commons , will rejoice if it
should turn out, in the event, that Mr. Hastings is able to exonerate himself
from these imputations that have been cast upon him and upon the nation. " +
But the sentiments thus described had no place in the heart of
the leading manager. Burke would have none of it:
. . .
. . . ?
p. 11.
1 Debates of the House of Lords on the Evidence
Bond, Speeches in the Trial of Warren Hastings, 1, 6-7.
2 Idem, p. 13.
4 Idem, II, 692-3.
3


## p. 312 (#340) ############################################

312
IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS
"No", he cried in answer to Plumer, "we never would, nor can we conceive
that we should, do other than pass from this bar with indignation, with rage and
despair, if the House of Commons should, upon such a defence as has here been
made against such a charge as they have produced-if they should be foiled,
baffled and defeated in it. No, my Lords, we never should forget it. A long,
lasting, deep, bitter memory of it would sink into our minds; for we have not
come here to you in the rash heat of a day, with that fervour which sometimes
prevails in popular assemblies and frequently misleads them. No; if we have
been guilty of error, it is a long deliberate error; an error the fruit, of long
laborious inquiry. We are not come here to compromise matters at all.
We do admit that our fame, our honours, nay, the very being of the inquisi-
torial power of the House of Commons are gone, if this man is not guilty. We
are not come here to solve a problem, but to call for justice. I, for myself
and for others, make this deliberate determination, I nuncupate this solemn an:
serious vow—that we do glow with an immortal hatred against all this
corruption. " 1
It is not surprising that when a motion of thanks was made to the
managers of the impeachment, one member declared that he would
be willing to agree, if the leading manager were excepted, “who had
by his conduct disgraced and degraded the House of Commons".
But Burke's errors were the errors of a noble if utterly misguided
soul. He never recovered from the verdict. The day after it was given
he left the House of Commons for ever.
Throughout the trial—in the darkest hour of his fate-Hastings
had borne himself with the same dauntless courage which had enabled
him to hold his head high under the cruel "bludgeonings of chance"
in scenes far distant from Westminster Hall. Nothing, not even the
scorching invective of his accusers, nor the long mental agony of the
seven years' ordeal, had been able to break that indomitable spirit.
As in the council chamber at Calcutta, so at the bar of the House of
Lords, treatment that would have crushed most men to the earth
seemed only to brace him to a stubborn, heroic and provocative
defiance. For his most questionable acts he claimed not pardon or
indulgence but full justification and unmeasured praise. In facing
his accusers he showed in every gesture and every inflection of his
voice that icy yet burning scorn which sprang from his unconquer-
able belief in his own rectitude and which drove his adversary,
Burke, into frenzies of impotent anger.
And so perhaps the greatest Englishman who ever ruled India,
a man who with some ethical defects possessed in superabundant
measure the mobile and fertile brain, the tireless energy and the lofty
fortitude which distinguishes only the supreme statesman, was left
with his name cleared but his fortunes ruined, and every hope of
future distinction and even employment taken from him.