With respect to what the Hon. Gentleman (Major Scott) had mentioned, of his being alluded to as one of the dependents of Mr. Hastings, Mr. Sheridan declared upon his honour, that, if he made use of such an expression, he had not the smallest intention of conveying any insinuation that tended to reflect on the Hon. Gentleman. He had every allowance to make for opinions that were formed on the prejudices of human nature. He was not surprised that the Hon. Gentleman viewed the conduct of Mr. Hastings in a light different from other men, for when the heart acknowledged an obligation, it would never suffer the judgment to be influenced by it. If he had uttered harsh expressions, he declared they were not the result of malignity, or the offspring of vindictive malice; — he thanked God, he had a heart incapable of cherishing either, and, if he had spoken warmly, it was on a question which, he confessed had deeply agitated his mind and excited his feelings. That question would soon come before another tribunal, and which would decide between the House of Commons and Mr. Hastings.
Several other Gentlemen having spoken, the question was at last put, and the house divided, when the numbers were,
Ayes 175
Noes 68
Majority for Mr. Sheridan’s Motion 107
FINIS.
THE SPEECH OF R. B. SHERIDAN, ESQ. ON SUMMING UP THE SECOND CHARGE AGAINST WARREN HASTINGS, ESQ. BEFORE THE HIGH COURT OF PARLIAMENT, IN WESTMINSTER-HALL, TUESDAY, JUNE 2, 1788.
THE general expectation from the Speech of Mr. Sheridan, on summing up the second Charge against Mr. Hastings, though exceeding all that has been recently witnessed on similar occasions, was fully apparent in the brilliancy and fullness of the Court this day. Before ten o’clock the Galleries for Peers’ Tickets, and the Peeresses’ Box were crouded to an overflow. In the seats for the Commons, so generally deserted, there appeared upwards of three hundred Members. — Those in fact who did not then see the Court, can scarcely form a judgment of the spectacle. — To enumerate those of distinction who were present, would be to enumerate all who are conspicuous for Rank, or claim celebrity from Talents. — That mind, however, must be insensible to excellence, on which the splendor of the scene could make a more than transient impression; the expectation was raised to an higher object; and could the faint sketches of the Memory communicate but a remote semblance of the reality, we would assert to absent Readers, with more Confidence, that no degree of expectation was dismissed ungratified.
The Court being seated, precisely at 12 o’clock, Mr. Sheridan arose. — It would be superfluous, he observed, for him to call the attention of their Lordships to the magnitude and importance of the subject before them; to advert to the parties who were engaged in the business; or to depict the situation of those multitudes who were ultimately to be affected. All this had already been done by the Hon. Gentleman (Mr. Burke) who opened the Prosecution; — by him, who, alone, was equal to the task; — by him, to whom Mankind was indebted for the embodied stand, which was now made in defence of the general rights of Humanity. — Neither was it his intention to enter into any detail, which might be deemed foreign to the question immediately before the Court: — he would only indulge himself in a few words respecting some insinuations which had been thrown out against the persons concerned in this prosecution. It had been whispered, by whom he could not say, that there was something malicious, and something perhaps too violent in the manner in which it had been conducted. Speaking for himself, and as far as the heart of man could be known, for the other Managers appointed by the Commons, he would boldly assert, that they had acted solely from conviction; — not a conviction born in Error, and nursed by Prejudice; but a Conviction founded on deliberate and well grounded enquiry; — that they had proceeded, not as rejoicing in Punishment, but impelled by a sanguine hope of Remedy. — Personal malice! God forbid that they should indulge such a sensation against the unfortunate gentleman at the bar; but how, when they were to speak of Rapine, of Cruelty, and of Extortion, could such ideas be conveyed but in consonant language? There was undoubtedly a difference between Impeachment for capital Crimes, and those for Misdemeanours only. In proceedings on the mer, every latitude had been indulged by usage, every aggravation was employed, and every act of the Prisoner tortured into Criminality. No such privilege was claimed by the Managers on the present occasion; but yet it should be considered by those, whose Pity seemed to rise in proportion with the Guilt of its object; — that if such a mode of Proceeding was admissible in the former Case, where the life of the Prisoner was affected, it was still more justifiable on an Impeachment like the present; where the utmost Consequences of Guilt when proved, would be but a splendid exclusion of the Criminal from that Society which he had injured, or a trifling deduction from the spoils of a long-continued Extortion.
It had been observed, what was undoubtedly true, that no complaint, from the Natives of India, had been presented in the course of these proceedings. Those, however, who were first to make this observation, were fully convinced that meekness in suffering was there a part of the national Character, and that their terrors had been too deeply impressed, not to be long remembered. But though a Despair of British Justice had prevailed through that Peninsula; — though their subdued hearts could not even hope for relief — yet their Claims, on the Justice and Humanity of their Lordships were not thereby diminished, but recommended. He would not mention this Despair, without accompanying the observation by proof; he therefore read Extracts from two letters, the first, lately received from Lord Cornwallis; the second, enclosed from Capt. Kirkpatrick to his Lordship: from both which it appeared, that such was the prevailing sense through India, of the Injuries inflicted by the English, and of their repeated violations of every Compact, that it would be long indeed before their Confidence, in English Faith, or their reliance on English Justice, could again be restored.
To these complaints their Lordships were now to answer not by professions, but by facts; — not by remedial acts directed to the future, but by an exemplary punishment inflicted on past delinqency. It was incumbent on them to shew to the oppressed natives of India, and to future Governors and Judges, that there could be no authority so high, no office so sacred, as not to be subject to the paramount power of British Justice. — He did not, however, mean to say that the Example should be made unless the Guilt was first fully proved; no, God forbid, that in this free and just land, legal proof and legal guilt should ever be separated. — Tho’ the greater part of the Evidence on this occasion had been, with a few exceptions, wrung from the unrelenting accomplices of the Prisoner — from men who had partook of the spoils, and were involved in the Guilt; yet had he therefore no Indulgence to demand, nor had he to request that the Court should take that as evidence on this occasion which on any other they might deem themselves bound to refuse. He on the contrary, was now to bring forward to their Lordships a Mass of Evidence, as full, as strong, as competent, and as conclusive, as ever established the guilt of a Criminal, or ever brought conviction home to the breasts of conscientious Judges. — In the performance of this task, he observed, he should have the less difficulty, as their Lordships had attended to the whole, voluminous and complicated as it appeared, with a diligence which did honor to their feelings, and shewed their individual sense of the dignity of that high Tribunal, which they collectively formed.
The first part of this Evidence, to which he should call the attention of the Court, was the Defences delivered in by Mr. Hastings to the House of Commons, and to their Lordships. — On these, as being the voluntary admissions of the Prisoner, unextorted by any threat, and unbiassed by any persuasion, much stress had undoubtedly been laid. To a part of these, however, an objection had been made, the most extraordinary perhaps that had ever been advanced in a Court of Criminal Justice; — an objection which, when Mr. Hastings was well advised, as he undoubted was; when he was saved from his own rash Guidance, the Managers could scarcely have expected. This objection was, that a Part of the first defence in particular, not having been written by Mr. Hastings, but by some of
his friends, that Gentleman was not bound by any admissions therein contained. Mr. Hastings, on appearing at the Bar of the House of Commons, had pleaded the haste in which he had written in palliation of his inaccuracies; he had even made a merit of doing that himself, which would be less dangerous, if he had committed it to another! — But now, said Mr. Sheridan, that he finds that there is something more than inaccuracy — something fraught with that actual danger which he had apprehended; — he reverts to that plea which he had abandoned, and declares that he had committed the trust to others! — He disclaims all his former merits, and avers that in making up his tale, he had not trusted solely to his own powers; — that he had put his Memory into Commission, and parcelled out his Conscience into different departments. The structure, it appeared, went on, whilst Mr. Hastings was content with overseeing and cheering his labourers. — Mr. Shore, said he, you will take care to make me appear a good financier; Major Scott, my Judgment is reposed in your hands; — Mr. Middleton my HUMANITY is yours!!! — The work being thus done, — Mr. Hastings surveyed it with a careless glance, and adopted it as his own. But now that its defects appear, the Child of his Adoption becomes the object of his aversion, his approbation ceases, and his language is totally changed. — The defence is in general made up of general denials of the Charges, intermixed with encomiums on his own conduct: — yet Mr. Hasting exclaims —
“Subject me to all the other evidence against me; — I know I can trust to their want of Recollection and their force of Attachment; — bare my bosom to every shaft of Enmity: — but save me from the Perils of my own Panegyric!”
— The haste in which these productions were written, was also alledged by Mr. Hastings as an apology for every error; but did it follow, that because a man wrote rapidly, he should also write falsely; or was it that the truth and candour of Mr. Hastings were so deeply buried in his bosom that long study alone could bring them upwards, whilst the natural falsehood, floating on the surface, could be transferred with extemporaneous readiness to every topic, whether to be written or to be uttered! — These were the apologies offered for the variations, the admissions, and the inconsistency of Mr. Hastings’ defences; but these it was to be hoped, for the sake of propriety and good sense, would never again be repeated.
Mr. Sheridan, on quitting this subject, entered into a very full and happy delineation of the situation of the Princesses of Oude. No perusal of the Turkish History, he observed, nor attention to the precepts of the Mahometan religion, could give their Lordships any idea of the manners of the women of high casts in Hindostan. Educated in a profound respect to the customs of their Persian ancestors, they maintained a purer style of Prejudice, and a loftier degree of Superstition; dwelling perpetually within the precincts of their Zenanas, the Simplicity of their sentiments was equalled only by the Purity of their Conduct. In those innocent retreats, they were circumscribed, not immured; for such was the force of Prejudice, that Liberty would be looked on as a curse to those, to whom the common gaze of men, would be regarded as an unexpiable violation. However mistaken their ideas, they were placed there by the hand of Piety, and could not be disturbed, but by a sacrilege. They were as Relics on an Altar, which though deposited by Superstition, none but the impious would disturb.
In addition to those claims, Mr. Hastings himself had borne testimony to the Duty which Children owed to Parents in Hindostan. Yet the Bhow Begum, or mother of the reigning Nabob, had still stronger demands on the affection of her son. — In the year 1764, when Sujah Dowlah, after the Battle of Buxar, was driven from that territory by the English, which their politic Generosity afterwards restored; she bore her private treasures to his assistance, and was rewarded by the respectful attachment of his future life, with the devise of all his territories to her son. — She had also interfered in a quarrel between her son and her husband, and when the savage father was about to strike down his son with a sabre, at the expence of her blood, preserved that life which she gave. — There were pleas in her favor, which would have exacted the reverence of any man — but one! — But these pleas, the sex, the age, and character of the Begums; — and what was yet more, the death-bed recommendation of Sujah Dowlah, were all of no weight with Mr. Hastings. — This was therefore the object of the present charge; — that where he owed protection — he had been the severest oppressor; — that the weakness which should have claimed his aid, but excited his violence; — that he had subjected the son, thus to make him the ungracious instrument of his tyranny over the parent — and had first made him a slave, in order that he might become — a monster!
The interference of Mr. Bristow in 1775, in the differences between the Begums and the Nabob, in consequence of the claims of the latter, was the next ground of Mr. SHERIDAN’s observations. — Mr. Bristow had then, in a conversation with the Superior or Elder Begum, thrown out an insinuation, that the treasures which she possessed were the Treasures of the State, — and on this insinuation, so termed by Mr. Bristow himself, had Mr. Hastings founded all his arguments on that head, and on which he lately appeared to place so much reliance. — The Begums at that time gave up to the Asoph ul Dowla sums amounting to Five Hundred and Fifty Thousand Pounds. — Of this a part was to be paid in goods, which as they consisted of arms, elephants, &c. the Nabob alledged to be his property, and refused to accept as payment. This occasioned a dispute which was referred to the Board of Calcutta. Mr. Hastings then vindicated the right of the Begums to all the goods in the Zenana, and brought over the Majority of the Council to his opinion. The ideas then placed on record, he had since found it convenient to disown, as belonging not to him but to the Majority of the Council! — How these opinions could be transferred, it might be difficult for their Lordships, though well informed of the effects of Majorities and Minorities to determine. As well might Mr. BURKE, on a future day deliver an Encomium on that great and good man, Mr. Hastings! and if reminded of his share in the prosecution, alledge, that he was not accountable for so nefarious a preceeding; that his opinions when once delivered, were no longer his own, that at the time, he had constantly acted in a Minority!
The claims however, it was observable, of the Nabob, as to the Treasure of the Begums, were at this time the only plea alledged for the seizure. These were always founded on a passage of that Koran which was perpetually quoted but never proved. — Not a word was then mentioned of the strange Rebellion which was afterwards conjured up, and of which the existence and the notoriety were equally a secret! — A Disaffection which was at its height, at the very time, when the Begums were dispensing their liberality to the Nabob, and exercising the greatest generosity to the English Officers in distress! — a Disturbance, in short, without its parallel in History, which was raised by two Women, — carried on by two Eunuchs, — and finally suppressed by an Affidavit!
Mr. Sheridan then adverted to the Negociations of Mr. Middleton with the Begums in 1778, when the discontents of the Superior Begum would have induced her to leave the Country, unless her authority was sanctioned and her property secured by the Guarantee of the Company. — This Guarantee the Counsel — or Mr. Hastings, had thought it necessary to deny, as knowing that if the agreements with the Elder Begum were proved, it would affix to Mr. Hastings the Guilt of all the sufferings of the Women of the Khord Mahal, the Revenues for whose support were secured by the same engagement. In treating this part of the subject, the principal difficulty arose from the uncertain evidence of Mr. Middleton, who tho’ concerned in the negociation of four treaties, could not recollect affixing his signature to three out of that number. Mr. Sheridan proved however, from the Evidence even of Mr. Middleton, that a Treaty had been signed in October, 1778, wherein the rights of the Elder Begum were fully recognized; a Provision secured for the Women and Children of the late Vizier in the Khord Mahal; and that these engagements had received the fullest sanction of Mr. Hastings. These facts were confirmed by the Evidence of Mr. Purling, a Gentleman, who, Mr. Sheridan said, had delivered himself fairly and as having no foul secrets
to conceal. He had transmitted Copies of these engagements in 1780 to Mr. Hastings at Calcutta; the answer returned was, that in arranging the Taxes on the other Districts, he should pass over the Jaghires of the Begums. No notice was then taken of any impropriety in the transactions in 1778, nor any notice given of an intended revocation of those engagements.
But in June 1781, when Gen. Clavering and Col. Monson, being no more, and Mr. Francis having returned to Europe, all the hoard and arrear of collected Evil burst forth without restraint, and Mr. Hastings determined on his Journey to the Upper Provinces; — it was then, that, without adverting to intermediate transactions, he met with the Nabob Asoph ul Dowlah, at Chunar, and received from him the mysterious present of 100,000l. To form a proper idea of this transaction, it was only necessary to consider the respective situation of him who gave, and him who received this present. It was not given by the Nabob from the superflux of his wealth, nor in the abundance of his esteem for the man to whom it was given. It was on the contrary, a prodigal bounty, drawn from a country depopulated, — no matter whether by natural causes, or by the grinding of oppression. It was raised by an exaction, which took what Calamity had spared, and Rapine overlooked; — and pursued those angry dispensations of Providence, when a prophetic chastisement had been inflicted on a fated Realm. — The secrecy which had marked this transaction, was not the smallest proof of its criminality. — When Benaram Pundit had, a short time before, made a present to the Company of a lack of Rupees, Mr. Hastings, in his own language, deemed it
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