by Edmund Burke
Your Committee have inquired into the observance of these necessary regulations, and they find that they have, like the rest, been entirely contemned, and contemned with entire impunity. After the period of Colonel Monson’s death, and Mr. Hastings and Mr. Barwell obtaining the lead in the Council, the contracts were disposed of without at all advertising for proposals. Those in 1777 were given for three years; and the gentlemen in question growing by habit and encouragement into more boldness, in 1779 the contracts were disposed of for five years: and this they did at the eve of the expiration of their own appointment to the government. This increase in the length of the contracts, though contrary to orders, might have admitted some excuse, if it had been made, even in appearance, the means of lessening the expense. But the advantages allowed to the contractors, instead of being diminished, were enlarged, and in a manner far beyond the proportion of the enlargement of terms. Of this abuse and contempt of orders a judgment may be formed by the single contract for supplying the army with draught and carriage bullocks. As it stood at the expiration of the contract in 1779, the expense of that service was about one thousand three hundred pounds a month. By the new contract, given away in September of that year, the service was raised to the enormous sum of near six thousand pounds a month. The monthly increase, therefore, being four thousand seven hundred pounds, it constitutes a total increase of charges for the Company, in the five years of the contract, of no less a sum than two hundred and thirty-five thousand pounds. Now, as the former contract was, without doubt, sufficiently advantageous, a judgment may be formed of the extravagance of the present. The terms, indeed, pass the bounds of all allowance for negligence and ignorance of office.
The case of Mr. Belli’s contract for supplying provisions to the Fort is of the same description; and what exceedingly increases the suspicion against this profusion, in contracts made in direct violation of orders, is, that they are always found to be given in favor of persons closely connected with Mr. Hastings in his family, or even in his actual service.
The principles upon which Mr. Hastings and Mr. Barwell justify this disobedience, if admitted, reduce the Company’s government, so far as it regards the Supreme Council, to a mere patronage, — to a mere power of nominating persons to or removing them from an authority which, is not only despotic with regard to those who are subordinate to it, but in all its acts entirely independent of the legal power which is nominally superior. These are principles directly leading to the destruction of the Company’s government. A correspondent practice being established, (as in this case of contracts, as well as others, it has been,) the means are furnished of effectuating this purpose: for the common superior, the Company, having no power to regulate or to support their own appointments, nor to remove those whom they wish to remove, nor to prevent the contracts from being made use of against their interest, all the English in Bengal must naturally look to the next in authority; they must depend upon, follow, and attach themselves to him solely; and thus a party may be formed of the whole system of civil and military servants for the support of the subordinate, and defiance of the supreme power.
Your Committee being led to attend to the abuse of contracts, which are given upon principles fatal to the subordination of the service, and in defiance of orders, revert to the disobedience of orders in the case of Mahomed Reza Khân.
This transaction is of a piece with those that preceded it. On the 6th of July, 1781, Mr. Hastings announced to the board the arrival of a messenger and introduced a requisition from the young Nabob Mobarek ul Dowlah, “that he might be permitted to dispose of his own stipend, without being made to depend on the will of another.” In favor of this requisition Mr. Hastings urged various arguments: — that the Nabob could no longer be deemed a minor; — that he was twenty-six years of age, and father of many children; — that his understanding was much improved of late by an attention to his education; — that these circumstances gave him a claim to the uncontrolled exercise of domestic authority; and it might reasonably be supposed that he would pay a greater regard to a just economy in his own family than had been observed by those who were aliens to it. For these reasons Mr. Hastings recommended to the board that Mahomed Reza Khân should be immediately divested of the office of superintendent of the Nabob’s household, and that the Nabob Mobarek ul Dowlah should be intrusted with the exclusive and entire receipts and disbursements of his stipend, and the uncontrolled management and regulation of his household. Thus far your Committee are of opinion, that the conclusion corresponds with the premises; for, supposing the fact to be established or admitted, that the Nabob, in point of age, capacity, and judgment, was qualified to act for himself, it seems reasonable that the management of his domestic affairs should not be withheld from him. On this part of the proceeding your Committee will only observe, that, if it were strictly true that the Nabob’s understanding had been much improved of late by an attention to his education, (which seems an extraordinary way of describing the qualifications of a man of six-and-twenty, the father of many children,) the merit of such improvement must be attributed to Mahomed Reza Khân, who was the only person of rank and character connected with him, or who could be supposed to have any influence over him. Mr. Hastings himself reproaches the Nabob with raising mean men to be his companions, and tells him plainly, that some persons, both of bad character and base origin, had found the means of insinuating themselves into his company and constant fellowship. In such society it is not likely that either the Nabob’s morals or his understanding could have been much improved; nor could it be deemed prudent to leave him without any check upon his conduct. Mr. Hastings’s opinion on this point may be collected from what he did, but by no means from what he said, on the occasion.
The House will naturally expect to find that the Nabob’s request was granted, and that the resolution of the board was conformable to the terms of Mr. Hastings’s recommendation. Yet the fact is directly the reverse. Mr. Hastings, after advising that the Nabob should be intrusted with the exclusive and entire receipts and disbursements of his stipend, immediately corrects that advice, being aware that so sudden and unlimited a disposal of a large revenue might at first encourage a spirit of dissipation in the Nabob, — and reserves to himself a power of establishing, with the Nabob’s consent, such a plan for the regulation and equal distribution of the Nabob’s expenses as should be adapted to the dissimilar appearances of preserving his interests and his independence at the same time. On the same complicated principles the subsequent resolution of the board professes to allow the Nabob the management of his stipend and expenses, — with an hope, however, (which, considering the relative situation of the parties, could be nothing less than an injunction,) that he would submit to such a plan as should be agreed on between him and the Governor-General.
The drift of these contradictions is sufficiently apparent. Mahomed Reza Khân was to be divested of his office at all events, and the management of the Nabob’s stipend committed to other hands. To accomplish the first, the Nabob is said to be “now arrived at that time of life when a man may be supposed capable, if ever, of managing his own concerns.” When this principle has answered the momentary purpose for which it was produced, we find it immediately discarded, and an opposite resolution formed on an opposite principle, viz., that he shall not have the management of his own concerns, in consideration of his want of experience.
Mr. Hastings, on his arrival at Moorshedabad, gives Mr. Wheler an account of his interview with the Nabob, and of the Nabob’s implicit submission to his advice. The principal, if not the sole, object of the whole operation appears from the result of it. Sir John D’Oyly, a gentleman in whom Mr. Hastings places particular confidence, succeeds to the office of Mahomed Reza Khân, and to the same control over the Nabob’s expenses. Into the hands of this gentleman the Nabob’s stipend was to be immediately paid, as every intermediate channel would be an unavoidable cause of delay; and to his advice the Nabob was required to give the same attention as if it were given
by Mr. Hastings himself. One of the conditions prescribed to the Nabob was, that he should admit no Englishman to his presence without previously consulting Sir John D’Oyly; and he must forbid any person of that nation to be intruded without his introduction. On these arrangements it need only be observed, that a measure which sets out with professing to relieve the Nabob from a state of perpetual pupilage concludes with delivering not only his fortune, but his person, to the custody of a particular friend of Mr. Hastings.
The instructions given to the Nabob contain other passages that merit attention. In one place Mr. Hastings tells him, “You have offered to give up the sum of four lacs of rupees to be allowed the free use of the remainder; but this we have refused.” In another he says, that, “as many matters will occur which cannot be so easily explained by letter as by conversation, I desire that you will on such occasions give your orders to Sir John D’Oyly respecting such points as you may desire to have imparted to me.” The offer alluded to in the first passage does not appear in the Nabob’s letters, therefore must have been in conversation, and declined by Mr. Hastings without consulting his colleague. A refusal of it might have been proper; but it supposes a degree of incapacity in the Nabob not to be reconciled to the principles on which Mahomed Reza Khân was removed from the management of his affairs. Of the matters alluded to in the second, and which, it is said, could not be so easily explained by letters as in conversation, no explanation is given. Your Committee will therefore leave them, as Mr. Hastings has done, to the opinion of the House.
As soon as the Nabob’s requisition was communicated to the board, it was moved and resolved that Mahomed Reza Khân should be divested of his office; and the House have seen in what manner it was disposed of. The Nabob had stated various complaints against him: — that he had dismissed the old established servants of the Nizamut, and filled their places with his own dependants; — that he had regularly received the stipend of the Nizamut from the Company, yet had kept the Nabob involved in debt and distress, and exposed to the clamors of his creditors, and sometimes even in want of a dinner. All these complaints were recorded at large in the proceedings of the Council; but it does not appear that they were ever communicated to Mahomed Reza Khân, or that he was ever called upon, in any shape, to answer them. This circumstance inclines your Committee to believe that all of these charges were groundless, — especially as it appears on the face of the proceedings, that the chief of them were not well founded. Mr. Hastings, in his letter to Mr. Wheler, urges the absolute necessity of the monthly payment of the Nabob’s stipend being regularly made, and says, that, to relieve the Nabob’s present wants, he had directed the Resident to raise an immediate supply on the credit of the Company, to be repaid from the first receipts. From hence your Committee conclude that the monthly payments had not been regularly made, and that whatever distresses the Nabob might have suffered must have been owing to the Governor-General and Council, not to Mahomed Reza Khân, who, for aught that appears to the contrary, paid away the stipend as fast as he received it. Had it been otherwise, that is, if Mahomed Reza Khân had reserved a balance of the Nabob’s money in his hands, he should, and undoubtedly he would, have been called upon to pay it in; and then there would have been no necessity for raising an immediate supply by other means.
The transaction, on the whole, speaks very sufficiently for itself. It is a gross instance of repeated disobedience to repeated orders; and it is rendered particularly offensive to the authority of the Court of Directors by the frivolous and contradictory reasons assigned for it. But whether the Nabob’s requisition was reasonable or not, the Governor-General and Council were precluded by a special instruction from complying with it. The Directors, in their letter of the 14th of February, 1779, declare, that a resolution of Council, (taken by Mr. Francis and Mr. Wheler, in the absence of Mr. Barwell,) viz., “that the Nabob’s letter should be referred to them for their decision, and that no resolution should be taken in Bengal on his requisitions without their special orders and instructions,” was very proper. They prudently reserved to themselves the right of deciding on such questions; but they reserved it to no purpose. In England the authority is purely formal. In Bengal the power is positive and real. When they clash, their opposition serves only to degrade the authority that ought to predominate, and to exalt the power that ought to be dependent.
Since the closing of the above Report, many material papers have arrived from India, and have been laid before your Committee. That which they think it most immediately necessary to annex to the Appendix to this Report is the resolution of the Council-General to allow to the members of the Board of Trade resident in Calcutta a charge of five per cent on the sale in England of the investment formed upon their second plan, namely, that plan which had been communicated to Lord Macartney. The investment on this plan is stated to be raised from 800,000l. to 1,000,000l. sterling.
It is on all accounts a very memorable transaction, and tends to bring on a heavy burden, operating in the nature of a tax laid by their own authority on the goods of their masters in England. If such a compensation to the Board of Trade was necessary on account of their engagement to take no further (that is to say, no unlawful) emolument, it implies that the practice of making such unlawful emolument had formerly existed; and your Committee think it very extraordinary that the first notice the Company had received of such a practice should be in taxing them for a compensation for a partial abolition of it, secured on the parole of honor of those very persons who are supposed to have been guilty of this unjustifiable conduct. Your Committee consider this engagement, if kept, as only a partial abolition of the implied corrupt practice: because no part of the compensation is given to the members of the Board of Trade who reside at the several factories, though their means of abuse are without all comparison greater; and if the corruption was supposed so extensive as to be bought off at that price where the means were fewer, the House will judge how far the tax has purchased off the evil.
ELEVENTH REPORT
OF THE
SELECT COMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS
ON
THE AFFAIRS OF INDIA.
WITH EXTRACTS FROM THE APPENDIX.
November 18, 1783.
ELEVENTH REPORT
From the SELECT COMMITTEE appointed to take into consideration the state of the administration of justice in the provinces of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa, and to report the same, as it shall appear to them, to the House, with their observations thereupon; and who were instructed to consider how the British possessions in the East Indies may be held and governed with the greatest security and advantage to this country, and by what means the happiness of the native inhabitants may be best protected.
Your Committee, in the course of their inquiry into the obedience yielded by the Company’s Servants to the orders of the Court of Directors, (the authority of which orders had been strengthened by the Regulating Act of 1773,) could not overlook one of the most essential objects of that act and of those orders, namely, the taking of gifts and presents. These pretended free gifts from the natives to the Company’s servants in power had never been authorized by law; they are contrary to the covenants formerly entered into by the President and Council, they are strictly forbidden by the act of Parliament, and forbidden upon grounds of the most substantial policy.
Before the Regulating Act of 1773, the allowances made by the Company to the Presidents of Bengal were abundantly sufficient to guaranty them against anything like a necessity for giving into that pernicious practice. The act of Parliament which appointed a Governor-General in the place of a President, as it was extremely particular in enforcing the prohibition of those presents, so it was equally careful in making an ample provision for supporting the dignity of the office, in order to remove all excuse for a corrupt increase of its emoluments.
Although evidence on record, as well as verbal testimony, has appeared before your Committee of presents to a large amount having been received by Mr. Hastings and others be
fore the year 1775, they were not able to find distinct traces of that practice in him or any one else for a few years.
The inquiries set on foot in Bengal, by order of the Court of Directors, in 1775, with regard to all corrupt practices, and the vigor with which they were for some time pursued, might have given a temporary check to the receipt of presents, or might have produced a more effectual concealment of them, and afterwards the calamities which befell almost all who were concerned in the first discoveries did probably prevent any further complaint upon the subject; but towards the close of the last session your Committee have received much of new and alarming information concerning that abuse.
The first traces appeared, though faintly and obscurely, in a letter to the Court of Directors from the Governor-General, Mr. Hastings, written on the 29th of November, 1780. It has been stated in a former Report of your Committee, that on the 26th of June, 1780, Mr. Hastings being very earnest in the prosecution of a particular operation in the Mahratta war, in order to remove objections to that measure, which were made on account of the expense of the contingencies, he offered to exonerate the Company from that “charge.” Continuing his Minute of Council, he says, “That sum” (a sum of about 23,000l.) “I have already deposited, within a small amount, in the hands of the sub-treasurer; and I beg that the board will permit it to be accepted for that service.” Here he offers in his own person; he deposits, or pretends that he deposits, in his own person; and, with the zeal of a man eager to pledge his private fortune in support of his measures, he prays that his offer may be accepted. Not the least hint that he was delivering back to the Company money of their own, which he had secreted from them. Indeed, no man ever made it a request, much less earnestly entreated, “begged to be permitted,” to pay to any persons, public or private, money that was their own.
