Volume 10 — SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE OF CHARGE. SECOND DAY: SATURDAY, APRIL 25, 1789. (continued 2)

You have heard how Mr. Hastings opposed the order of the Company, and on what account he opposed it. On the 1st of September he sent an order to the Nabob, now become his subject, to give up this office to Mahomed Reza Khân: an act which he had before represented as a dethroning of the Nabob. The order went on the 1st of September, and on the 3d this great and mighty prince, whom all earth could not move from the assertion of his rights, gives them all up, and Mahomed Reza Khân is invested with them. So there all his pretences were gone. It is plain that what had been done before was for Munny Begum, and that what he now gave up was from necessity: and it shows that the Nabob was the meanest of his servants; for in truth he ate his daily bread out of the hands of Mr. Hastings, through Munny Begum.

Mahomed Reza Khân was now invested again with his office; but such was the treachery of Mr. Hastings, that, though he wrote to the Nabob that this was done in consequence of the orders of the Company, he did clandestinely, according to his usual mode, assure the Nabob that Mahomed Reza Khân should not hold the place longer than till he heard from England. He then wrote him another letter, that he should hold it no longer than while he submitted to his present necessity, (thus giving up to his colleague what he refused to the Company,) and engaged, privately, that he would dismiss Mahomed Reza Khân again. And accordingly, the moment he thought Mr. Francis was not in a condition to give him trouble any longer, that moment he again turned out Mahomed Reza Khân from that general superintendence of affairs which the Company gave him, and deposed him as a minister, leaving him only a very confined authority as a magistrate.

All these changes, no less than four great revolutions, if I may so call them, were made by Mr. Hastings for his own corrupt purposes. This is the manner in which Mr. Hastings has played with the most sacred objects that man ever had a dealing with: with the government, with the justice, with the order, with the dignity, with the nobility of a great country: he played with them to satisfy his own wicked and corrupt purposes through the basest instrument.

Now, my Lords, I have done with these presumptions of corruption with Munny Begum, and have shown that it is not a slight crime, but that it is attended with a breach of public faith, with a breach of his orders, with a breach of the whole English government, and the destruction of the native government, of the police, the order, the safety, the security, and the justice of the country,—and that all these are much concerned in this cause. Therefore the Commons stand before the face of the world, and say, We have brought a cause, a great cause, a cause worthy the Commons of England to prosecute, and worthy the Lords to judge and determine upon.

I have now nothing further to state than what the consequences are of Mr. Hastings taking bribes,—that Mr. Hastings's taking of bribes is not only his own corruption, but the incurable corruption of the whole service. I will show, first, that he was named in 1773 to put an end to that corruption. I will show that he did not,—that he knowingly and willingly connived at it,—and that that connivance was the principal cause of all the disorders that have hitherto prevailed in that country. I will show you that he positively refused to obey the Company's order to inquire into and to correct the corruptions that prevailed in that country; next, that he established an avowed system of connivance, in order to gain over everything that was corrupt in the country; and that, lastly, to secure it, he gave up all the prosecutions, and enervated and took away the sole arm left to the Company for the assertion of authority and the preservation of good morals and purity in their service.

My Lords, here is a letter, in the year 1773, in which the Court of Directors had, upon his own representation, approved some part of his conduct. He is charmed with their approbation; he promises the greatest things; but I believe your Lordships will see, from the manner in which he proceeds at that very instant, that a more deliberate system, for not only being corrupt himself, but supporting corruption in others, never was exhibited in any public paper.

"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 had 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 embarrassments 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 interests, 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, this is the first man, I believe, that ever took credit for his sincerity from his breach of his promises. "I could not," he says, "have made these promises, if I had not thought that I could perform them. Now I find I cannot perform them, and you have in that non-performance and in that profession a security for my sincerity when I promised them." Upon this principle, any man who makes a promise has nothing to do afterwards, but to say that he finds himself (without assigning any particular cause for it) unable to perform it,—not only to justify himself for his non-performance, but to justify himself and claim credit for sincerity in his original profession. The charge was given him specially, and he promised obedience, over and over, upon the spot, and in the country, in which he was no novice, for he had been bred in it: it was his native country in one sense, it was the place of his renewed nativity and regeneration. Yet this very man, as if he was a novice in it, now says, "I promised you what I now find I cannot perform." Nay, what is worse, he declares no man could perform it, if he gave up his whole time to it. And lastly, he says, that the inquiry into these corruptions, even if you succeeded in it, would do more harm than good. Now was there ever an instance of a man so basely deserting a duty, and giving so base a reason for it? His duty was to put an end to corruption in every channel of government. It cannot be done. Why? Because it would expose our affairs to malignity and enmity, and end, perhaps, to our disadvantage. Not only will he connive himself, but he advises the Company to do it. For fear of what? For fear that their service was so abandoned and corrupt, that the display of the evil would tend more to their disreputation than all their attempts to reform it would tend to their service.

Mr. Hastings should naturally have imagined that the law was a resource in this desperate case of bribery. He tells you, that in "that charge of oppression, though they were supported by the cries of the people and the most authentic representations, it is yet impossible in most cases to obtain legal proofs." Here is a system of total despair upon the business, which I hope and believe is not a desperate one, and has not proved a desperate one, whenever a rational attempt has been made to pursue it. Here you find him corrupt, and you find, in consequence of that corruption, that he screens the whole body of corruption in India, and states an absolute despair of any possibility, by any art or address, of putting an end to it. Nay, he tells you, that, if corruption did not exist, if it was not connived at, that the India Company could not exist. Whether that be a truth or not I cannot tell; but this I know, that it is the most horrible picture that ever was made of any country. It might be said that these were excuses for omissions,—sins of omission he calls them. I will show that they were systematic, that Mr. Hastings did uniformly profess that he would connive at abuses, and contend that abuses ought to be connived at. When the whole mystery of the iniquity, in which he himself was deeply concerned, came to light,—when it appeared that all the Company's orders were contravened,—that contracts were given directly contrary to their orders, and upon principles subversive of their government, leading to all manner of oppression and ruin to the country,—what was Mr. Hastings's answer? "I must here remark, that the majority ... I had not the power of establishing it."[5] Then he goes on and states other cases of corruption, at every one of which he winks. Here he states another reason for his connivance. "Suppose again," (for he puts another supposition, and these suppositions are not hypotheses laid down for argument, but real facts then existing before the Council examining into grievances,)—"suppose again, that any person had benefited himself ... unprofitable discussion."[6]

Here is a direct avowal of his refusing to examine into the conduct of persons in the Council, even in the highest departments of government, and the best paid, for fear he should dissatisfy them, and should lose their votes, by discovering those peculations and corruptions, though he perfectly knew them. Was there ever, since the world began, any man who would dare to avow such sentiments, until driven to the wall? If he could show that he himself abhorred bribes, and kept at a distance from them, then he might say, "I connive at the bribes of others"; but when he acknowledges that he takes bribes, how can you doubt that he buys a corrupt confederacy, and puts an end to any hope through him of reformation of the abuses at Bengal? But your Lordships will see that he not only connived at abuse, but patronized it and supported it for his own political purposes; since he here confesses, that, if inquiry into it created him ill-humor, and produced him an opposition in Council, he sacrificed it to the power of the Company, and the constitution of their government. Did he so? The Company ordered him to prosecute those people, and their constitution required that they should be prosecuted. "No," says Mr. Hastings, "the conniving at it procures a majority of votes." The very thing that he bought was not worth half the price he paid for it. He was sent to reform corruptions, and, in order that he might reform corruptions, he winked at, countenanced, and patronized them, to get a majority of votes; and what was, in fact, a sacrifice to his own interest, ambition, and corruption, he calls a sacrifice to the Company. He puts, then, this alternative: "Either give everything into my hand, suffer me to go on, and have no control, or else I wink at every species of corruption." It is a remarkable and stupendous thing, that, when all the world was alarmed at the disorders of the Company, when that alarm occasioned his being sent out, and when, in consequence of that alarm, Parliament suspended the constitution of the Company, and appointed another government, Mr. Hastings should tell that Company that Parliament had done wrong, and that the person put at the head of that government was to wink at those abuses. Nay, what is more, not only does Mr. Hastings declare, upon general principles, that it was impossible to pursue all the delinquencies of India, and that, if possible to pursue them, mischief would happen from it, but your Lordships will observe that Mr. Hastings, in this business, during the whole period of the administration of that body which was sent out to inquire into and reform the corruptions of India, did not call one person to an account; nor, except Mr. Hastings, this day, has any one been called to an account, or punished for delinquency. Whether he will be punished or no, time will show. I have no doubt of your Lordships' justice, and of the goodness of our cause.

The table of the House of Commons groaned under complaints of the evils growing in India under this systematic connivance of Mr. Hastings. The Directors had set on foot prosecutions, to be conducted God knows how; but, such as they were, they were their only remedy; and they began to consider at last that these prosecutions had taken a long oblivious nap of many years; and at last, knowing that they were likely, in the year 1782, to be called to a strict account about their own conduct, the Court of Directors began to rouse themselves, and they write thus: "Having in several of our letters to you very attentively perused all the proceedings referred to in these paragraphs, relative to the various forgeries on the Company's treasuries, we lament exceedingly that the parties should have been so long in confinement without being brought to trial."

Here, my Lords, after justice had been asleep awhile, it revived. They directed two things: first, that those suits should be pursued; but whether pursued or not, that an account of the state of them should be given, that they might give orders concerning them.

Your Lordships see the orders of the Company. Did they not want to pursue and to revive those dormant prosecutions? They want to have a state of them, that they may know how to direct the future conduct of them with more effect and vigor than they had yet been pursued with. You will naturally imagine that Mr. Hastings did not obey their orders, or obeyed them languidly. No, he took another part. He says, "Having attentively read and weighed the arguments ... for withdrawing them."[7]

Thus he begins with the general principle of connivance; he directly avows he does it for a political purpose; and when the Company directs he shall proceed in the suits, instead of deferring to their judgment, he takes the judgment on himself, and says theirs is untenable; he directly discharges the prosecutions of the Company, supersedes the authority of his masters, and gives a general release to all the persons who were still suffering by the feeble footsteps of justice in that country. He gave them an act of indemnity, and that was the last of his acts.

Now, when I show the consequence of his bribery, the presumptions that arise from his own bribes, his attention to secure others from the punishment of theirs, and, when ordered to carry on a suit, his discharging it,—when we see all this, can we avoid judging and forming our opinions upon two grand points: first, that no man would proceed in that universal patronage of guilt, unless he was guilty himself; next, that, by a universal connivance for fourteen years, he is himself the cause and mainspring of all the evils, calamities, extortion, and bribery, that have prevailed and ravaged that country for so long a time? There is, indeed, no doubt either of his guilt, or of the consequences of it, by which he has extinguished the last expiring hope and glimpse that remained of procuring a remedy for India of the evils that exist in it.

I would mention, that, as a sort of postscript, when he could no longer put the government into the hands of that infamous woman, Munny Begum, he sent an amorous, sentimental letter to the Company, describing her miserable situation, and advising the Company to give her a pension of seventy-two thousand rupees a year, to maintain her. He describes her situation in such a moving way as must melt every heart. He supposes her to be reduced to want by the cruel orders of the Company, who retain from her money which they were never obliged to give her. This representation, which he makes with as much fairness as he represents himself to be in a state of the most miserable poverty and distress, he alone made to the Company, because his colleagues would not countenance him in it; and we find, upon looking over Lord Cornwallis's last examination into the whole state of this unhappy family, that this woman was able to lend to Mobarek ul Dowlah twenty thousand pounds. Mr. Hastings, however, could not avoid making this representation; because he knew, that, if he quitted the country without securing that woman, by giving her a hope that she could procure by his credit here that money which by his authority he had before procured for her, she might then make a discovery of all the corruption that had been carried on between them; and therefore he squanders away the treasures of the Company, in order to secure himself from any such detection, and to procure for himself razinamas and all those fine things. He knew that Munny Begum, that the whole seraglio, that all the country, whom he had put under the dominion of Sir John D'Oyly, that all those people might have made a discovery of all his corrupt proceedings; he therefore gets the Nabob to appoint Sir John D'Oyly his agent here, with a view of stopping his mouth, and by the hope of another 160,000l. a year to prevent his giving an account of the dilapidation and robbery that was made of the 160,000l. which had been left him.

I have now finished what I proposed to say relative to his great fund of bribery, in the first instance of it,—namely, the administration of justice in the country. There is another system of bribery which I shall state before my friends produce the evidence. He put up all the great offices of the country to sale; he makes use of the trust he had of the revenues in order to destroy the whole system of those revenues, and to bind them and make them subservient to his system of bribery: and this will make it necessary for your Lordships to couple the consideration of the charge of the revenues, in some instances, with that of bribery.

The next day your Lordships meet (when I hope I shall not detain you so long) I mean to open the second stage of his bribery, the period of discovery: for the first stage was the period of concealment. When he found his bribes could no longer be concealed, he next took upon him to discover them himself, and to take merit from them.

When I shall have opened the second scene of his peculation, and his new principles of it, when you see him either treading in old corruptions, and excelling the examples he imitated, or exhibiting new ones of his own, in which of the two his conduct is the most iniquitous, and attended with most evil to the Company, I must leave your Lordships to judge.

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