by Edmund Burke
But it may be said that Hastings might have been in an error. If he was in an error, my Lords, his error continued an extraordinary length of time. The error itself was also extraordinary in a man of business: it was an error of account. If his confidential agent, Mr. Markham, had originally contributed to lead him into the error, he soon perceived it. He soon informed Mr. Hastings that his expectations were erroneous, and that he had overrated the country. What, then, are we to think of his persevering in this error? Mr. Hastings might have formed extravagant and wild expectations, when he was going up the country to plunder; for we allow that avarice may often overcalculate the hoards that it is going to rob. If a thief is going to plunder a banker’s shop, his avarice, when running the risk of his life, may lead him to imagine there is more money in the shop than there really is. But when this man was in possession of the country, how came he not to know and understand the condition of it better? In fact, he was well acquainted with it; for he has declared it to be his opinion that forty lacs was an overrated calculation, and that the country could not continue to pay this tribute at the very time he was imposing it. You have this admission in page 294 of the printed Minutes; but in the very face of it he says, if the Rajah will exert himself, and continue for some years the regular payment, he will then grant him a remission. Thus the Rajah was told, what he well knew, that he was overrated, but that at some time or another he was to expect a remission. And what, my Lords, was the condition upon which he was to obtain this promised indulgence? The punctual payment of that which Mr. Hastings declares he was not able to pay, — and which he could not pay without ruining the country, betraying his own honor and character, and acting directly contrary to the duties of the station in which Mr. Hastings had placed him. Thus this unfortunate man was compelled to have recourse to the most rigorous exaction, that he might be enabled to satisfy the exorbitant demand which had been made upon him.
But let us suppose that the country was able to afford the sum at which it was assessed, and that nothing was required but vigor and activity in the Rajah. Did Mr. Hastings endeavor to make his strength equal to the task imposed on him? No: the direct contrary. In proportion as he augmented the burdens of this man, in just that proportion he took away his strength and power of supporting these burdens. There was not one of the external marks of honor which attended the government of Cheyt Sing that he did not take away from the new Rajah; and still, when this new man came to his new authority, deprived of all external marks of consequence, and degraded in the opinion of his subjects, he was to extort from his people an additional revenue, payable to the Company, of fifteen lacs of rupees more than was paid by the late Rajah in all the plenitude of undivided authority. To increase this difficulty still more, the father and guardian of this inexperienced youth was a man who had no credit or reputation in the country. This circumstance alone was a sufficient drawback from the weight of his authority; but Mr. Hastings took care that he should be divested of it altogether; for, as our charge states, he placed him under the immediate direction of Mr. Markham, and consequently Mr. Markham was the governor of the country. Could a man with a reduced, divided, contemptible authority venture to strike such bold and hardy strokes as would be efficient without being oppressive? Could he or any other man, thus bound and shackled, execute such vigorous and energetic measures as were necessary to realize such an enormous tribute as was imposed upon this unhappy country?
My Lords, I must now call your attention to another circumstance, not mentioned in the charge, but connected with the appointment of the new Rajah, and of his Naib, Durbege Sing, and demonstrative of the unjust and cruel treatment to which they were exposed. It appears from a letter produced here by Mr. Markham, (upon which kind of correspondence I shall take the liberty to remark hereafter,) that the Rajah lived in perpetual apprehension of being removed, and that a person called Ussaun Sing was intended as his successor. Mr. Markham, in one part of his correspondence, tells you that the Rajah did not intend to hold the government any longer. Why? Upon a point of right, namely, that he did not possess it upon the same advantageous terms as Cheyt Sing; but he tells you in another letter, (and this is a much better key to the whole transaction,) that he was in dread of that Ussaun Sing whom I have just mentioned. This man Mr. Hastings kept ready to terrify the Rajah; and you will, in the course of these transactions, see that there is not a man in India, of any consideration, against whom Mr. Hastings did not keep a kind of pretender, to keep him in continual awe. This Ussaun Sing, whom Mr. Hastings brought up with him to Benares, was dreaded by Cheyt Sing not less than by his successor. We find that he was at first nominated Naib or acting governor of the country, but had never been put in actual possession of this high office, and Durbege Sing was appointed to it. Although Ussaun Sing was thus removed, he continued his pretensions, and constantly solicited the office. Thus the poor man appointed by Mr. Hastings, and actually in possession, was not only called upon to perform tasks beyond his strength, but was overawed by Mr. Markham, and terrified by Ussaun Sing, (the mortal enemy of the family,) who, like an accusing fiend, was continually at his post, and unceasingly reiterating his accusations. This Ussaun Sing was, as Mr. Markham tells you, one of the causes of the Rajah’s continued dejection and despondency. But it does not appear that any of these circumstances were ever laid before the Council; the whole passed between Mr. Hastings and Mr. Markham.
Mr. Hastings having by his arbitrary will thus disposed of the revenue and of the landed property of Benares, we will now trace his further proceedings and their effects. He found the country most flourishing in agriculture and in trade; but not satisfied with the experiment he had made upon the government, upon the revenues, upon the reigning family, and upon all the landed property, he resolved to make as bold and as novel an experiment upon the commercial interests of the country. Accordingly he entirely changed that part of the revenue system which affects trade and commerce, the life and soul of a state. Without any advice that we know of, except Mr. Markham’s, he sat down to change in every point the whole commercial system of that country; and he effected the change upon the same arbitrary principles which he had before acted upon, namely, his own arbitrary will. We are told, indeed, that he consulted bankers and merchants; but when your Lordships shall have learned what has happened from this experiment, you will easily see whether he did resort to proper sources of information or not. You will see that the mischief which has happened has proceeded from the exercise of arbitrary power. Arbitrary power, my Lords, is always a miserable creature. When a man once adopts it as the principle of his actions, no one dares to tell him a truth, no one dares to give him any information that is disagreeable to him; for all know that their life and fortune depend upon his caprice. Thus the man who lives in the exercise of arbitrary power condemns himself to eternal ignorance. Of this the prisoner at your bar affords us a striking example. This man, without advice, without assistance, and without resource, except in his own arbitrary power, stupidly ignorant in himself, and puffed up with the constant companion of ignorance, a blind presumption, alters the system of commercial imposts, and thereby ruined the whole trade of the country, leaving no one part of it undestroyed.
Let me now call your Lordships’ attention to his assumption of power, without one word of communication with the Council at Calcutta, where the whole of these trading regulations might and ought to have been considered, and where they could have been deliberately examined and determined upon. By this assumption the Council was placed in the situation which I have before described: it must either confirm his acts, or again undo everything which had been done. He had provided not only against resistance, but almost against any inquiry into his wild projects. He had by his opium contracts put all vigilance asleep, and by his bullock and other contracts he had secured a variety of concealed interests, both abroad and at home. He was sure of the ratification of his acts by the Council, whenever he should please to inform them of his measures; and to his secret influence he trusted
for impunity in his career of tyranny and oppression.
In bringing before you his arbitrary mode of imposing duties, I beg to remind your Lordships, that, when I examined Mr. Markham concerning the imposing of a duty of five per cent instead of the former duty of two, I asked him whether that five per cent was not laid on in such a manner as utterly to extinguish the trade, and whether it was not in effect and substance five times as much as had been paid before. What was his answer? Why, that many plans, which, when considered in the closet, look specious and plausible, will not hold when they come to be tried in practice, and that this plan was one of them. The additional duties, said he, have never since been exacted. But, my Lords, the very attempt to exact them utterly ruined the trade of the country. They were imposed upon a visionary theory, formed in his own closet, and the result was exactly what might have been anticipated. Was it not an abominable thing in Mr. Hastings to withhold from the Council the means of ascertaining the real operation of his taxes? He had no knowledge of trade himself; he cannot keep an account; he has no memory. In fact, we find him a man possessed of no one quality fit for any kind of business whatever. We find him pursuing his own visionary projects, without knowing anything of the nature or [of?] the circumstances under which the trade of the country was carried on. These projects might have looked very plausible: but when you come to examine the actual state of the trade, it is not merely a difference between five and two per cent, but it becomes a different mode of estimating the commodity, and it amounts to five times as much as was paid before. We bring this as an exemplification of this cursed mode of arbitrary proceeding, and to show you his total ignorance of the subject, and his total indifference about the event of the measure he was pursuing. When he began to perceive his blunders, he never took any means whatever to put the new regulations which these blunders had made necessary into execution, but he left all this mischievous project to rage in its full extent.
I have shown your Lordships how he managed the private property of the country, how he managed the government, and how he managed the trade. I am now to call your Lordships’ attention to some of the consequences which have resulted from the instances of management, or rather gross mismanagement, which have been brought before you. Your Lordships will recollect that none of these violent and arbitrary measures, either in their conception or in the progress of their execution, were officially made known to the Council; and you will observe, as we proved, that the same criminal concealment existed with respect to the fatal consequences of these acts.
After the flight of Cheyt Sing, the revenues were punctually paid by the Naib, Durbege Sing, month by month, kist by kist, until the month of July, and then, as the country had suffered some distress, the Naib wished this kist, or instalment, to be thrown on the next month. You will ask why he wished to burden this month beyond the rest. I reply, The reason was obvious: the month of August is the last of the year, and he would, at its expiration, have the advantage of viewing the receipts of the whole year, and ascertaining the claim of the country to the remission of a part of the annual tribute which Mr. Hastings had promised, provided the instalments were paid regularly. It was well known to everybody that the country had suffered very considerably by the revolt, and by a drought which prevailed that year. The Rajah, therefore, expected to avail himself of Mr. Hastings’s flattering promise, and to save by the delay the payment of one of the two kists. But mark the course that was taken. The two kists were at once demanded at the end of the year, and no remission of tribute was allowed. By the promise of remission Mr. Hastings tacitly acknowledged that the Rajah was overburdened; and he admits that the payment of the July kist was postponed at the Rajah’s own desire. He must have seen the Rajah’s motive for desiring delay, and he ought to have taken care that this poor man should not be oppressed and ruined by this compliance with requests founded on such motives.
So passed the year 1781. No complaints of arrears in Durbege Sing’s payments appear on record before the month of April, 1782; and I wish your Lordships seriously to advert to the circumstances attending the evidence respecting these arrears, which has been produced for the first time by the prisoner in his defence here at your bar. This evidence does not appear in the Company’s records; it does not appear in the book of the Benares correspondence; it does not appear in any documents to which the Commons could have access; it was unknown to the Directors, unknown to the Council, unknown to the Residents, Mr. Markham’s successors, at Benares, unknown to the searching and inquisitive eye of the Commons of Great Britain. This important evidence was drawn out of Mr. Markham’s pocket, in the presence of your Lordships. It consists of a private correspondence which he carried on with Mr. Hastings, unknown to the Council, after Durbege Sing had been appointed Naib, after the new government had been established, after Mr. Hastings had quitted that province, and had apparently wholly abandoned it, and when there was no reason whatever why the correspondence should not be public. This private correspondence of Mr. Markham’s, now produced for the first time, is full of the bitterest complaints against Durbege Sing. These clandestine complaints, these underhand means of accomplishing the ruin of a man, without the knowledge of his true and proper judges, we produce to your Lordships as a heavy aggravation of our charge, and as a proof of a wicked conspiracy to destroy the man. For if there was any danger of his falling into arrears when the heavy accumulated kists came upon him, the Council ought to have known that danger; they ought to have known every particular of these complaints: for Mr. Hastings had then carried into effect his own plans.
I ought to have particularly marked for your Lordships’ attention this second era of clandestine correspondence between Mr. Hastings and Mr. Markham. It commenced after Mr. Hastings had quitted Benares, and had nothing to do with it but as Governor-General: even after his extraordinary, and, as we contend, illegal, power had completely expired, the same clandestine correspondence was carried on. He apparently considered Benares as his private property; and just as a man acts with his private steward about his private estate, so he acted with the Resident at Benares. He receives from him and answers letters containing a series of complaints against Durbege Sing, which began in April and continued to the month of November, without making any public communication of them. He never laid one word of this correspondence before the Council until the 29th of November, and he had then completely settled the fate of this Durbege Sing.
This clandestine correspondence we charge against him as an act of rebellion; for he was bound to lay before the Council the whole of his correspondence relative to the revenue and all the other affairs of the country. We charge it not only as rebellion against the orders of the Company and the laws of the land, but as a wicked plot to destroy this man, by depriving him of any opportunity of defending himself before the Council, his lawful judges. I wish to impress it strongly on your Lordships’ minds, that neither the complaints of Mr. Markham nor the exculpations of Durbege Sing were ever made known till Mr. Markham was examined in this hall.
The first intimation afforded the Council of what had been going on at Benares from April, 1782, at which time, Mr. Markham says, the complaints against Durbege Sing had risen to serious importance, was in a letter dated the 27th of November following. This letter was sent to the Council from Nia Serai, in the Ganges, where Mr. Hastings had retired for the benefit of the air. During the whole time he was in Calcutta, it does not appear upon the records that he had ever held any communication with the Council upon the subject. The letter is in the printed Minutes, page 298, and is as follows.
“The Governor-General. — I desire the Secretary to lay the accompanying letters from Mr. Markham before the board, and request that orders may be immediately sent to him concerning the subjects contained in them. It may be necessary to inform the board, that, on repeated information from Mr. Markham, which indeed was confirmed to me beyond a doubt by other channels, and by private assurances which I could trust, that the affairs of that province were likely to fall
into the greatest confusion from the misconduct of Baboo Durbege Sing, whom I had appointed the Naib, fearing the dangerous consequences of a delay, and being at too great a distance to consult the members of the board, who I knew could repose that confidence in my local knowledge as to admit of this occasional exercise of my own separate authority, I wrote to Mr. Markham the letter to which he alludes, dated the 29th of September last, of which I now lay before the board a copy. The first of the accompanying letters from Mr. Markham arrived at a time when a severe return of my late illness obliged me, by the advice of my physicians, to leave Calcutta for the benefit of the country air, and prevented me from bringing it earlier before the notice of the board.”
I have to remark upon this part of the letter, that he claims for himself an exercise of his own authority. He had now no delegation, and therefore no claim to separate authority. He was only a member of the board, obliged to do everything according to the decision of the majority, and yet he speaks of his own separate authority; and after complimenting himself, he requests its confirmation. The complaints of Mr. Markham had been increasing, growing, and multiplying upon him, from the month of April preceding, and he had never given the least intimation of it to the board until he wrote this letter. This was at so late a period that he then says, “The time won’t wait for a remedy; I am obliged to use my own separate authority”; although he had had abundant time for laying the whole matter before the Council.
He next goes on to say,— “It had, indeed, been my intention, but for the same cause, to have requested the instructions of the board for the conduct of Mr. Markham in the difficulties which he had to encounter immediately after the date of my letter to him, and to have recommended the substance of it for an order to the board.” He seems to have promised Mr. Markham, that, if the violent act which Mr. Markham proposed, and which he, Mr. Hastings, ordered, was carried into execution, an authority should be procured from the board. He, however, did not get Mr. Markham such an authority. Why? Because he was resolved, as he has told you, to act by his own separate authority; and because, as he has likewise told you, that he disobeys the orders of the Court of Directors, and defies the laws of his country, as a signal of his authority.
