Complete Works of Edmund Burke

by Edmund Burke

  And what is the signal by which you are to know when this authority is restored? By his obedience to the Court of Directors? — by his attention to the laws of his country? — by his regard to the rights of the people? No, my Lords, no: the notification of the restoration of this authority is a formal disobedience of the orders of the Court of Directors. When you find the laws of the land trampled upon, and their appointed authority despised, then you may be sure that the authority of the prisoner is reëstablished.

  There is, my Lords, always a close connection between vices of every description. The man who is a tyrant would, under some other circumstances, be a rebel; and he that is a rebel would become a tyrant. They are things which originally proceed from the same source. They owe their birth to the wild, unbridled lewdness of arbitrary power. They arise from a contempt of public order, and of the laws and institutions which curb mankind. They arise from a harsh, cruel, and ferocious disposition, impatient of the rules of law, order, and morality: and accordingly, as their relation varies, the man is a tyrant, if a superior, a rebel, if an inferior. But this man, standing in a middle point between the two relations, the superior and inferior, declares himself at once both a rebel and a tyrant. We therefore naturally expect, that, when he has thrown off the laws of his country, he will throw off all other authority. Accordingly, in defiance of that authority to which he owes his situation, he nominates Mr. Markham to the Residency at Benares, and therefore every act of Mr. Markham is his. He is responsible, — doubly responsible to what he would have been, if in the ordinary course of office he had named this agent. Every governor is responsible for the misdemeanors committed under his legal authority for which he does not punish the delinquent; but the prisoner is doubly responsible in this case, because he assumed an illegal authority, which can be justified only, if at all, by the good resulting from the assumption.

  Having now chosen his principal instrument and his confidential and sole counsellor, having the country entirely in his hand, and every obstacle that could impede his course swept out of the arena, what does he do under these auspicious circumstances? You would imagine, that, in the first place, he would have sent down to the Council at Calcutta a general view of his proceedings, and of their consequences, together with a complete statement of the revenue; that he would have recommended the fittest persons for public trusts, with such other measures as he might judge to be most essential to the interest and honor of his employers. One would have imagined he would have done this, in order that the Council and the Court of Directors might have a clear view of the whole existing system, before he attempted to make a permanent arrangement for the administration of the country. But, on the contrary, the whole of his proceedings is clandestinely conducted; there is not the slightest communication with the Council upon the business, till he had determined and settled the whole. Thus the Council was placed in a complete dilemma, — either to confirm all his wicked and arbitrary acts, (for such we have proved them to be,) or to derange the whole administration of the country again, and to make another revolution as complete and dreadful as that which he had made.

  The task which the Governor-General had imposed upon himself was, I admit, a difficult one; but those who pull down important ancient establishments, who wantonly destroy modes of administration and public institutions under which a country has prospered, are the most mischievous, and therefore the wickedest of men. It is not a reverse of fortune, it is not the fall of an individual, that we are here talking of. We are, indeed, sorry for Cheyt Sing and Durbege Sing, as we should be sorry for any individual under similar circumstances.

  It is wisely provided in the constitution of our heart, that we should interest ourselves in the fate of great personages. They are therefore made everywhere the objects of tragedy, which addresses itself directly to our passions and our feelings. And why? Because men of great place, men of great rank, men of great hereditary authority, cannot fall without a horrible crash upon all about them. Such towers cannot tumble without ruining their dependent cottages.

  The prosperity of a country, that has been distressed by a revolution which has swept off its principal men, cannot be reëstablished without extreme difficulty. This man, therefore, who wantonly and wickedly destroyed the existing government of Benares, was doubly bound to use all possible care and caution in supplying the loss of those institutions which he had destroyed, and of the men whom he had driven into exile. This, I say, he ought to have done. Let us now see what he really did do.

  He set out by disposing of all the property of the country as if it was his own. He first confiscated the whole estates of the Baboos, the great nobility of the country, to the amount of six lacs of rupees. He then distributed the lands and revenue of the country according to his own pleasure; and as he had seized the lands without our knowing why or wherefore, so the portion which he took away from some persons he gave to others, in the same arbitrary manner, and without any assignable reason.

  When we were inquiring what jaghires Mr. Hastings had thought proper to grant, we found, to our astonishment, (though it is natural that his mind should take this turn,) that he endowed several charities with jaghires. He gave a jaghire to some Brahmins to pray for the perpetual prosperity of the Company, and others to procure the prayers of the same class of men for himself. I do not blame his Gentoo piety, when I find no Christian piety in the man: let him take refuge in any superstition he pleases. The crime we charge is his having distributed the lands of others at his own pleasure. Whether this proceeded from piety, from ostentation, or from any other motive, it matters not. We contend that he ought not to have distributed such land at all, — that he had no right to do so; and consequently, the gift of a single acre of land, by his own private will, was an act of robbery, either from the public or some individual.

  When he had thus disturbed the landed property of Benares, and distributed it according to his own will, he thought it would be proper to fix upon a person to govern the country; and of this person he himself made the choice. It does not appear that the people could have lost, even by the revolt of Cheyt Sing, the right which was inherent in them to be governed by the lawful successor of his family. We find, however, that this man, by his own authority, by the arbitrary exercise of his own will and fancy, did think proper to nominate a person to succeed the Rajah who had no legal claims to the succession. He made choice of a boy about nineteen years old; and he says he made that choice upon the principle of this boy’s being descended from Bulwant Sing by the female line. But he does not pretend to say that he was the proper and natural heir to Cheyt Sing; and we will show you the direct contrary. Indeed, he confesses the contrary himself; for he argues, in his defence, that, when a new system was to be formed with the successor of Cheyt Sing who was not his heir, such successor had no claim of right.

  But perhaps the want of right was supplied by the capacity and fitness of the person who was chosen. I do not say that this does or can for one moment supersede the positive right of another person; but it would palliate the injustice in some degree. Was there in this case any palliative matter? Who was the person chosen by Mr. Hastings to succeed Cheyt Sing? My Lords, the person chosen was a minor: for we find the prisoner at your bar immediately proceeded to appoint him a guardian. This guardian he also chose by his own will and pleasure, as he himself declares, without referring to any particular claim or usage, — without calling the Pundits to instruct him, upon whom, by the Gentoo laws, the guardianship devolved.

  I admit, that, in selecting a guardian, he did not, in one respect, act improperly; for he chose the boy’s father, and he could not have chosen a better guardian for his person. But for the administration of his government qualities were required which this man did not possess. He should have chosen a man of vigor, capacity, and diligence, a man fit to meet the great difficulties of the situation in which he was to be placed.

  Mr. Hastings, my Lords, plainly tells you that he did not think the man’s talents to be extraordinary, and he
soon afterwards says that he had a great many incapacities. He tells you that he has a doubt whether he was capable of realizing those hopes of revenue which he (Mr. Hastings) had formed. Nor can this be matter of wonder, when we consider that he had ruined and destroyed the ancient system, the whole scheme and tenor of public offices, and had substituted nothing for them but his own arbitrary will. He had formed a plan of an entire new system, in which the practical details had no reference to the experience and wisdom of past ages. He did not take the government as he found it; he did not take the system of offices as it was arranged to his hand; but he dared to make the wicked and flagitious experiment which I have stated, — an experiment upon the happiness of a numerous people, whose property he had usurped and distributed in the manner which has been laid before your Lordships. The attempt failed, and he is responsible for the consequences.

  How dared he to make these experiments? In what manner can he be justified for playing fast and loose with the dearest interests, and perhaps with the very existence, of a nation? Attend to the manner in which he justifies himself, and you will find the whole secret let out. “The easy accumulation of too much wealth,” he says, “had been Cheyt Sing’s ruin; it had buoyed him up with extravagant and ill-founded notions of independence, which I very much wished to discourage in the future Rajah. Some part, therefore, of the superabundant produce in the country I turned into the coffers of the sovereign by an augmentation of the tribute.” — Who authorized him to make any augmentation of the tribute? But above all, who authorized him to augment it upon this principle?— “I must take care the tributary prince does not grow too rich; if he gets rich, he will get proud.” — This prisoner has got a scale like that in the almanac,— “War begets poverty, poverty peace,” and so on. The first rule that he lays down is, that he will keep the new Rajah in a state of poverty; because, if he grows rich, he will become proud, and behave as Cheyt Sing did. You see the ground, foundation, and spirit of the whole proceeding. Cheyt Sing was to be robbed. Why? Because he is too rich. His successor is to be reduced to a miserable condition. Why? Lest he should grow rich and become troublesome. The whole of his system is to prevent men from growing rich, lest, if they should grow rich, they should grow proud, and seek independence. Your Lordships see that in this man’s opinion riches must beget pride. I hope your Lordships will never be so poor as to cease to be proud; for, ceasing to be proud, you will cease to be independent.

  Having resolved that the Rajah should not grow rich, for fear he should grow proud and independent, he orders him to pay forty lacs of rupees, or 400,000l., annually to the Company. The tribute had before been 250,000l., and he all at once raised it to 400,000l. Did he previously inform the Council of these intentions? Did he inform them of the amount of the gross collections of the country, from any properly authenticated accounts procured from any public office?

  I need not inform your Lordships, that it is a serious thing to draw out of a country, instead of 250,000l., an annual tribute of 400,000l. There were other persons besides the Rajah concerned in this enormous increase of revenue. The whole country is interested in its resources being fairly estimated and assessed; for, if you overrate the revenue which it is supposed to yield to the great general collector, you necessitate him to overrate every under-collector, and thereby instigate them to harass and oppress the people. It is upon these grounds that we have charged the prisoner at your bar with having acted arbitrarily, illegally, unjustly, and tyrannically: and your Lordships will bear in mind that these acts were done by his sole authority, which authority we have shown to have been illegally assumed.

  My Lords, before he took the important steps which I have just stated, he consulted no one but Mr. Markham, whom he placed over the new Rajah. The Rajah was only nineteen years old: but Mr. Markham undoubtedly had the advantage of him in this respect, for he was twenty-one. He had also the benefit of five months’ experience of the country: an abundant experience, to be sure, my Lords, in a country where it is well known, from the peculiar character of its inhabitants, that a man cannot anywhere put his foot without placing it upon some trap or mine, until he is perfectly acquainted with its localities. Nevertheless, he puts the whole country and a prince of nineteen, as appears from the evidence, into the hands of Mr. Markham, a man of twenty-one. We have no doubt of Mr. Markham’s capacity; but he could have no experience in a country over which he possessed a general controlling power. Under these circumstances, we surely shall not wonder, if this young man fell into error. I do not like to treat harshly the errors into which a very young person may fall: but the man who employs him, and puts him into a situation for which he has neither capacity nor experience, is responsible for the consequences of such an appointment; and Mr. Hastings is doubly responsible in this case, because he placed Mr. Markham as Resident merely to show that he defied the authority of the Court of Directors.

  But, my Lords, let us proceed. We find Mr. Hastings resolved to exact forty lacs from the country, although he had no proof that such a tribute could be fairly collected. He next assigns to this boy, the Rajah, emoluments amounting to about 60,000l. a year. Let us now see upon what grounds he can justify the assignment of these emoluments. I can perceive none but such as are founded upon the opinion of its being necessary to the support of the Rajah’s dignity. Now, when Mr. Markham, who is the sole ostensible actor in the management of the new Rajah, as he had been a witness to the deposition of the former, comes before you to give an account of what he thought of Cheyt Sing, who appears to have properly supported the dignity of his situation, he tells you that about a lac or a lac and a half (10,000l. or 15,000l.) a year was as much as Cheyt Sing could spend. And yet this young creature, settled in the same country, and who was to pay 400,000l. a year, instead of 250,000l., tribute to the Company, was authorized by Mr. Hastings to collect and reserve to his own use 60,000l. out of the revenue. That is to say, he was to receive four times as much as was stated by Mr. Hastings, on Mr. Markham’s evidence, to have been necessary to support him.

  Your Lordships tread upon corruption everywhere. Why was such a large revenue given to the young Rajah to support his dignity, when, as they say, Cheyt Sing did not spend above a lac and half in support of his, — though it is known he had great establishments to maintain, that he had erected considerable buildings adorned with fine gardens, and, according to them, had made great preparations for war?

  We must at length imagine that they knew the country could bear the impost imposed upon it. I ask, How did they know this? We have proved to you, by a paper presented here by Mr. Markham, that the net amount of the collections was about 360,000l. This is their own account, and was made up, as Mr. Markham says, by one of the clerks of Durbege Sing, together with his Persian moonshee, (a very fine council to settle the revenues of the kingdom!) in his private house. And with this account before them, they have dared to impose upon the necks of that unhappy people a tribute of 400,000l., together with an income for the Rajah of 60,000l. These sums the Naib, Durbege Sing, was bound to furnish, and left to get them as he could. Your Lordships will observe that I speak of the net proceeds of the collections. We have nothing to do with the gross amount. We are speaking of what came to the public treasury, which was no more than I have stated; and it was out of the public treasury that these payments were to be made, because there could be no other honest way of getting the money.

  But let us now come to the main point, which is to ascertain what sums the country could really bear. Mr. Hastings maintains (whether in the speech of his counsel or otherwise I do not recollect) that the revenue of the country was 400,000l., that it constantly paid that sum, and flourished under the payment. In answer to this, I refer your Lordships, first, to Mr. Markham’s declaration, and the Wassil Baakee, which is in page 1750 of the printed Minutes. I next refer your Lordships to Mr. Duncan’s Reports, in page 2493. According to Mr. Duncan’s public estimate of the revenue of Benares, the net collections of the very year we are speaking of, when Durb
ege Sing had the management, and when Mr. Markham, his Persian moonshee, and a clerk in his private house, made their estimates without any documents, or with whatever documents, or God only knows, for nothing appears on the record of the transaction, — the collections yielded in that year but 340,000l., that is, 20,000l. less than Mr. Markham’s estimate. But take it which way you will, whether you take it at Mr. Markham’s 360,000l., or at Mr. Duncan’s 340,000l., your Lordships will see, that, after reserving 60,000l. for his own private expenses, the Rajah could not realize a sum nearly equal to the tribute demanded.

  Your Lordships have also in evidence before you an account of the produce of the country for I believe full five years after this period, from which it appears that it never realized the forty lacs, or anything like it, — yielding only thirty-seven and thirty-nine lacs, or thereabouts, which is 20,000l. short of Mr. Markham’s estimate, and 160,000l. short of Mr. Hastings’s. On what data could the prisoner at your bar have formed this estimate? Where were all the clerks and mutsuddies, where were all the men of business in Benares, who could have given him complete information upon the subject? We do not find the trace of any of them; all our information is Mr. Markham’s moonshee, and some clerk of Durbege Sing’s employed in Mr. Markham’s private counting-house, in estimating revenues of a country.

  The disposable revenue was still further reduced by the jaghires which Mr. Hastings granted, but to what amount does not appear. He mentions the increase in the revenue by the confiscation of the estates of the Baboos, who had been in rebellion. This he rates at six lacs. But we have inspected the accounts, we have examined them with that sedulous attention which belongs to that branch of the legislature that has the care of the public revenues, and we have not found one trace of this addition. Whether these confiscations were ever actually made remains doubtful; but if they were made, the application or the receipt of the money they yielded does not appear in any account whatever. I leave your Lordships to judge of this.