by Edmund Burke
XCV. That, in the said deceits, prevarications, contradictions, malicious accusations, fraudulent concealments, and compelled discoveries, as well as in the said secret, corrupt, and prodigal disposition of the revenues of Oude, as well as in his breach of faith to the Nabob, in continuing expensive establishments under a private agent of his own after he had agreed to remove the Company’s agent, the said Warren Hastings is guilty of an high offence and misdemeanor.
XVII. — MAHOMED REZA KHN.
I. That it was the declared policy of the Company, on the acquisition of the dewanny of Bengal, to continue the country government, under the inspection of the Resident at the Nabob’s durbar in the first instance, and that of the President and Council in the last; and for that purpose they did stipulate to assign, for the support of the dignity of the Nabob, an annual allowance from the revenues, equal to four hundred thousand pounds a year.
II. That, during the country government, the principal active person in the administration of affairs, for rank, and for reputation of probity, and of knowledge in the revenues and the laws, was Mahomed Reza Khân, who, besides large landed property, was possessed of offices whose emoluments amounted nearly, if not altogether, to one hundred thousand pounds a year.
IV. That the Company’s servants, in the beginning, were not conversant in the affairs of the revenue, and stood in need of natives of integrity and experience to act in the management thereof. On that ground, as well as in regard to the rank which Mahomed Reza Khân held in the country, and the confidence of the people in him, they, the President and Council, did inform the Court of Directors, in their letter of the 30th of September, 1765, that, “as Mahomed Reza Khân’s short administration was irreproachable, they determined to continue him in a share of the authority”; and this information was not given lightly, but was founded upon an inquiry into his conduct, and a minute examination of charges made against him by his rivals in the Nabob’s court, — they having insinuated to the Nabob that a design was formed for deposing him, and placing Mahomed Reza on his throne; but, on examination, the President and Council declare, that “he had so openly and candidly accounted for every rupee disbursed from the treasury, that they could not, without injury to his character, and injustice to his conduct during his short administration, refuse continuing him in a share of the government.”
V. That the Company had reason to be satisfied with the arrangement made, so far as it regarded him: the President and Council having informed them, in the following year, in their letter of the 9th of December, 1766, that “the large increase of the revenue must in a great measure be ascribed to Mr. Sykes’s assiduity, and to Mahomed Reza Khân’s profound knowledge in the finances.”
VI. That the then President and Council, finding it necessary to make several reforms in the administration, were principally aided in the same by the suggestion, advice, and assistance of the said Mahomed Reza Khân; and in their letter to the Court of Directors of the 24th of June, 1767, they state their resolution of reducing the emoluments of office, which before had arisen from a variety of presents and other perquisities, to fixed allowances; and they state the merits of Mahomed Reza Khân therein, as well as the importance, dignity, and responsibility of his station, in the following manner.
“Mahomed Reza Khân has now of himself, with great delicacy of honor, represented to us the evil consequences that must ensue from the continuance of this practice, — since, by suffering the principal officers of the government to depend for the support of their dignity on the precarious fund of perquisites, they in a manner oblige them to pursue oppressive and corrupt measures, equally injurious to the country and the Company; and they accordingly assigned twelve lac of rupees for the maintenance and support of the said Mahomed Reza Khân, and two other principal persons, who held in their hands the most important employments of that government, — having regard to their elevated stations, and to the expediency of supporting them in all the show and parade requisite to keep up the authority and influence of their respective offices, as they are all men of weight and consideration in the country, who held places of great trust and profit under the former government. We further propose, by this act of generosity, to engage their cordial services, and confirm them steady in our interests; since they cannot hope, from the most successful ambition, to rise to greater advantages by any chance or revolution of affairs. At the same time it was reasonable we should not lose sight of Mahomed Reza Khân’s past services. He has pursued the Company’s interest with steadiness and diligence; his abilities qualify him to perform the most important services; the unavoidable charges of his particular situation are great; in dignity he stands second to the Nabob only; — and as he engages to increase the revenues, without injustice or oppression, to more than the amount of his salary, and to relinquish those advantages, to the amount of eight lacs of rupees per annum, which he heretofore enjoyed, we thought it proper, in the distribution of salaries, to consider Mahomed Reza Khân in a light superior to the other ministers. We have only to observe further, that, great and enormous as the sum must appear which we have allotted for the support of the ministers of the government, we will not hesitate to pronounce that it is necessary and reasonable, and will appear so on the consideration of the power which men employed on these important services have either to obstruct or promote the public good, unless their integrity be confirmed by the ties of gratitude and interest.”
VII. That the said Mahomed Reza Khân continued, with the same diligence, spirit, and fidelity, to execute the trust reposed in him, which comprehended a large proportion of the weight of government, and particularly of the collections; and his attachment to the interest of the Company, and his extensive knowledge, were again, in the course of the year 1767, fully acknowledged, and stated to the Court of Directors. And it further appears that by an incessant application to business his health was considerably impaired, which gave occasion in the year following, that is, in February, 1768, to a fresh acknowledgment of his services in these terms: “We must, in justice to Mahomed Reza Khân, express the high sense we entertain of his abilities, and of the indefatigable attention he has shown in the execution of the important trust reposed in him; and we cannot but lament the prospect of losing his services from the present declining state of his health.”
VIII. That as in the increase of the revenue the said Mahomed Reza Khân was employed as a person likely to improve the same without detriment to the people, so, when the state of any province seemed to require a remission, he was employed as a person disposed to the relief of the people without fraud to the revenue; and this was expressed by the President and Council as follows, with relation to the remissions granted in the province of Bahar: “That the general knowledge of Mahomed Reza Khân, in all matters relative to the dewanny revenues, induced us to consent to such deductions being made from the general state of that province at the last poonah as may be deemed irrecoverable, or such as may procure an immediate relief and encouragement to the ryots in the future cultivation of their lands.”
IX. That the said Mahomed Reza Khân, in the execution of the said great and important trusts and powers, was not so much as suspected of an ambitious or encroaching spirit, which might make him dangerous to the Company’s then recent authority, or which might render his precedence injurious to the consideration due to his colleagues in office; but, on the contrary, it appears, that, a plan having been adopted for dividing the administration, in order to remove the Nabob’s jealousies, the same was in danger of being subverted by the ambition “of two of his colleagues, and the excessive moderation of Mahomed Reza Khân.” And for a remedy of the inconveniencies which might arise from the excess of an accommodating temper, though attended with irreproachable integrity, the President and Council did send one of their own members, as their deputy, to the Nabob of Bengal, at his capital of Moorshedabad; and this measure appears to have been adopted for the support of Mahomed Reza Khân, in consequence of an inquiry made and advice given by Lord Clive,
in his letter of the 3d of July, 1765, in which letter he expresses himself of the said Mahomed Reza Khân as follows: “It is with pleasure I can acquaint you, that, the more I see of Mahomed Reza Khân, the stronger is my conviction of his honor and moderation, but that, at the same time, I cannot help observing, that, either from timidity or an erroneous principle, he is too ready to submit to encroachments upon that proportion of power that has been allotted him.”
X. That, the Nabob Jaffier Ali Khân dying in February, 1765, Mahomed Reza Khân was appointed guardian to his children, and administrator of his office, or regent, which appointment the Court of Directors did approve. But the party opposite to Mahomed Reza Khân having continued to cabal against him, sundry accusations were framed relative to oppression at the time of the famine, and for a balance due during his employment of collector of the revenues; upon which the Directors did order him to be deprived of his office, and a strict inquiry to be made into his conduct.
XI. That the said Warren Hastings, then lately appointed to the Presidency, did, on the 1st of April, and on the 24th of September, 1772, write letters to the Court of Directors, informing them that on the very next day after he had received (as he asserts) their private orders, “addressed to himself alone,” and not to the board, he did dispatch, by express messengers, his orders to Mr. Middleton, the Resident at the Nabob’s court at Moorshedabad, in a public character and trust with the Nabob, to arrest, in his capital, and at his court, and without any previous notice given of any charge, his principal minister, the aforesaid Mahomed Reza Khân, and to bring him down to Calcutta; and he did carefully conceal his said proceedings from the knowledge of the board, on pretext of his not being acquainted with their dispositions, and the influence which he thought that the said Mahomed Reza Khân had amongst them.
XII. That the said Warren Hastings, at the time he gave his orders as aforesaid for arresting the said Mahomed Reza Khân, did not take any measures to compel the appearance of any other persons as witnesses, — declaring it as his opinion, “that there would be little need of violence to obtain such intelligence as they could give against their former master, when his authority is taken from him”; but he did afterwards, in excuse for the long detention and imprisonment of the said Mahomed Reza Khân, without any proofs having been obtained of his guilt, or measures taken to bring him to a trial, assure the Directors, in direct contradiction to his former declaration, “that the influence of Mahomed Reza Khân still prevailed generally throughout the country, in the Nabob’s household, and at the capital, and was scarcely affected by his present disgrace,” — notwithstanding, as he, the said Hastings, doth confess, he had used his utmost endeavors “to break that influence, by removing his dependants, and putting the direction of all the affairs that had been committed to his care into the hands of the most powerful or active of his enemies; that he depended on the activity of their hatred to Mahomed Reza Khân, incited by the expectation of rewards, for investigating the conduct of the latter; that with this the institution of the new dewanny coincided; and that the same principle had guided him in the choice of Munny Begum and Rajah Gourdas, — the former for the chief administration, the latter” (the son of Nundcomar, and a mere instrument in the hands of his father) “for the dewanny of the Nabob’s household, — both the declared enemies of Mahomed Reza Khân.”
XIII. That, although it might be true that enemies will become the most active prosecutors, and as such may, though under much guard and many precautions, be used even as witnesses, and that it ought not to be an exception, supposing their character and capacity otherwise good, to the appointing them to power, yet to advance persons to power on the ground not of their honor and integrity, which might have produced the enmity of bad men, but merely for the enmity itself, without any reference whatsoever to a laudable cause, and even with a declared ill opinion of the morals of one of the party, such as was actually delivered in the said letter by him, the said Hastings, of Nundcomar, (and which time has shown he might also on good ground have conceived of others,) was, in the circumstances of a criminal inquiry, a motive highly disgraceful to the honor of government, and destructive of impartial justice, by holding out the greatest of all possible temptation to false accusation, to corrupt and factious conspiracies, to perjury, and to every species of injustice and oppression.
XIV. That, in consequence of the aforesaid motives, and others pretended, which were by no means a sufficient justification to the said Warren Hastings, he did appoint the woman aforesaid, called Munny Begum, who had been of the lowest and most discreditable order in society, according to the ideas prevalent in India, but from whom he received several sums of money, to be guardian to the Nabob in preference to his own mother, and to administer the affairs of the government in the place of the said Mahomed Reza Khân, the second Mussulman in rank after the Nabob, and the first in knowledge, gravity, weight, and character among the Mussulmen of that province. And in order to try every method and to take every chance for his destruction, the said Warren Hastings did maliciously and oppressively keep him under confinement, for a part of the time without any inquiry, and afterwards with a slow and dilatory trial, for two years together.
XV. That, notwithstanding a total revolution in the power, in part avowedly made for his destruction, the persons appointed for his trial did, on full inquiry, completely acquit the said Mahomed Reza Khân of the criminal charges against him, on account of which he had been so long persecuted and confined, and suffered much in mind, body, and fortune: and the Court of Directors, in their letter of the 3d of March, 1775, testify their satisfaction in the conduct and result of the said inquiry, and did direct the restoration of the said Mahomed Reza Khân to liberty, and to the offices which he had lately held, which comprehended the management of the Nabob’s household, and the general superintendency of the justice of Bengal; but, according to the orders of the Court of Directors, his appointments were reduced to thirty thousand pounds a year, or thereabouts, of which he did make grievous complaint, on account of the expenses attendant on his station, and the heavy debts which he had been obliged to contract during his unjust persecution and imprisonment aforesaid.
XVI. That, on the removal of the said Mahomed Reza Khân from the superintendency of the criminal justice, and in consequence of letting the province of Bengal in farm by the said Warren Hastings, several dangerous and mischievous innovations were made by him, the said Warren Hastings, and the criminal justice of the country was almost wholly subverted, and great irregularities and disorders did actually ensue.
XVII. That the Council-General, established by act of Parliament in the year 1773, did restore the said Mahomed Reza Khân, with the consent and approbation of the Nabob, (but under a protest from the said Warren Hastings,) to his liberty and to his offices, according to the spirit of the orders given by the Court of Directors as aforesaid; and the Court of Directors did approve of the said appointment, and did assure the said Mahomed Reza Khân of their favor and protection as long as his conduct should merit the same, in the following terms. “As the abilities of Mahomed Reza Khân have been sufficiently manifested, as official experience qualifies him for so high a station in a more eminent degree than any other native with whom the Company has been connected, and as no proofs of maladministration have been established against him, either during the strict investigation of his conduct or since his retirement, we cannot under all circumstances but approve your recommendation of him to the Nabob to constitute him his Naib. We are well pleased that he has received that appointment, and authorize you to assure him of our favor, so long as a firm attachment to the interest of the Company and a proper discharge of the duties of his station shall render him worthy of our protection.” And the said Mahomed Reza Khân did continue to execute the same without any complaint whatsoever of malversation or negligence, in any manner or degree, in his said office.
XVIII. That in March, 1778, the said Warren Hastings, under color that the Nabob had completed his twentieth year, and
had desired to be placed in the entire and uncontrolled management of his own affairs, and that Mahomed Reza Khân should be removed from his office, and that Munny Begum, his step-mother, the dancing-girl aforesaid, “should take on herself the management of the nizamut [the government and general superintendency of criminal justice] without the interference of any person whatsoever,” and notwithstanding the contradictions in the pretended applications from the Nabob, with whose incapacity for all affairs he was well acquainted, did, in defiance of the orders of the Court of Directors, and without regard to the infamy of an arrangement made for the evident and declared purpose of delivering not only the family with the prince, but the government and justice of a great kingdom, into such insufficient, corrupt, and scandalous hands, and though he has declared his opinion “that our national character is concerned in the character which the Nabob may obtain in the public opinion,” on obtaining a majority in Council, without any complaint, real or pretended, remove the said Mahomed Reza from all his offices, and did partition his salary as a spoil in the following manner: to Munny Begum, the dancing-girl aforesaid, an additional allowance of 72,000 rupees (7,200l.) a year; to the Nabob’s own mother but half that sum, that is to say, 36,000 rupees (3,600l.) a year; to Rajah Gourdas, son of Nundcomar, (whom he had described as a weak young man,) 72,000 rupees (7,200l.) a year, as controller of the household; and to a magistrate called Sudder ul Hock, who, in real subserviency to the said Munny Begum, was nominally to act in the department of criminal justice, 78,000 rupees (7,800l.) a year: the total of which allowances exceeding the salary of Mahomed Reza Khân by 18,000 rupees (1,800l.) yearly, he did, for the corrupt and scandalous purposes aforesaid, order the same to be made up from the Company’s treasury.
