Part 13

But, my Lords, when the vices of low, sordid, and illiberal minds infect that high situation,--when theft, bribery, and peculation, attended with fraud, prevarication, falsehood, misrepresentation, and forgery--when all these follow in one train,--when these vices, which gender and spawn in dirt, and are nursed in dunghills, come and pollute with their slime that throne which ought to be a seat of dignity and purity, the evil is much greater; it may operate daily and hourly; it is not only imitable, but improvable, and it will be imitated, and will be improved, from the highest to the lowest, through all the gradations of a corrupt government. They are reptile vices. There are situations in which the acts of the individual are of some moment, the example comparatively of little importance. In the other, the mischief of the example is infinite.

My Lords, when once a Governor-General receives bribes, he gives a signal to universal pillage to all the inferior parts of the service. The bridles upon hard-mouthed passion are removed; they are taken away; they are broken. Fear and shame, the great guards to virtue next to conscience, are gone. Shame! how can it exist?--it will soon blush away its awkward sensibility. Shame, my Lords, cannot exist long, when it is seen that crimes which naturally bring disgrace are attended with all the outward symbols, characteristics, and rewards of honor and of virtue,--when it is seen that high station, great rank, general applause, vast wealth follow the commission of peculation and bribery. Is it to be believed that men can long be ashamed of that which they see to be the road to honor? As to fear, let a Governor-General once take bribes, there is an end of all fear in the service. What have they to fear? Is it the man whose example they follow that is to bring them before a tribunal for their punishment? Can he open any inquiry? He cannot: he that opens a channel of inquiry under these circumstances opens a high-road to his own detection. Can he make any laws to prevent it? None: for he can make no laws to restrain that practice without the breach of his own laws immediately in his own conduct. If we once can admit, for a single instant, in a Governor-General, a principle, however defended, upon any pretence whatever, to receive bribes in consequence of his office, there is an end of all virtue, an end of the laws, and no hope left in the supreme justice of the country. We are sensible of all these difficulties; we have felt them; and perhaps it has required no small degree of exertion for us to get the better of these difficulties which are thrown in our way by a Governor-General accepting bribes, and thereby screening and protecting the whole service in such iniquitous proceedings.

With regard to this matter, we are to state to your Lordships, in order to bring it fully and distinctly before you, what the nature of this distemper of bribery is in the Indian government. We are to state what the laws and rules are which have been opposed to prevent it, and the utter insufficiency of all that have been proposed: to state the grievance, the instructions of the Company and government, the acts of Parliament, the constructions upon the acts of Parliament. We are to state to your Lordships the particular situation of Mr. Hastings; we are to state the trust the Company had in him for the prevention of all those evils; and then we are to prove that every evil, that all those grievances which the law intended to prevent, which there were covenants to restrain, and with respect to which there were encouragements to smooth and make easy the path of duty, Mr. Hastings was invested with a special, direct, and immediate trust to prevent. We are to prove to your Lordships that he is the man who, in his own person collectively, has done more mischief than all those persons whose evil practices have produced all those laws, those regulations, and even his own appointment.

The first thing that we shall do is to state, and which we shall prove in evidence, that this vice of bribery was the ancient, radical, endemical, and ruinous distemper of the Company's affairs in India, from the time of their first establishment there. Very often there are no words nor any description which can adequately convey the state of a thing like the direct evidence of the thing itself: because the former might be suspected of exaggeration; you might think that which was really fact to be nothing but the coloring of the person that explained it; and therefore I think that it will be much better to give to your Lordships here a direct state of the Presidency at the time when the Company enacted those covenants which Mr. Hastings entered into, and when they took those measures to prevent the very evils from persons placed in those very stations and in those very circumstances in which we charge Mr. Hastings with having committed the offences we now bring before you.

I wish your Lordships to know that we are going to read a consultation of Lord Clive's, who was sent out for the express purpose of reforming the state of the Company, in order to show the magnitude of the pecuniary corruptions that prevailed in it.

"It is from a due sense of the regard we owe and profess to your interests and to our own honor, that we think it indispensably necessary to lay open to your view a series of transactions too notoriously known to be suppressed, and too affecting to your interest, to the national character, and to the existence of the Company in Bengal, to escape unnoticed and uncensured,--transactions which seem to demonstrate that every spring of this government was smeared with corruption, that principles of rapacity and oppression universally prevailed, and that every spark of sentiment and public spirit was lost and extinguished in the unbounded lust of unmerited wealth.

"To illustrate these positions, we must exhibit to your view a most unpleasing variety of complaints, inquiries, accusations, and vindications, the particulars of which are entered in our Proceedings and the Appendix,--assuring you that we undertake this task with peculiar reluctance, from the personal regard we entertain for some of the gentlemen whose characters will appear to be deeply affected.

"At Fort St. George we received the first advices of the demise of Mir Jaffier and of Sujah Dowlah's defeat. It was there firmly imagined that no definite measures would be taken, either in respect to a peace or filling the vacancy in the nizamut, before our arrival,--as the 'Lapwing' arrived in the month of January with your general letter, and the appointment of a committee with express powers to that purpose, for the successful exertion of which the happiest occasion now offered. However, a contrary resolution prevailed in the Council. The opportunity of acquiring immense fortunes was too inviting to be neglected, and the temptation too powerful to be resisted. A treaty was hastily drawn up by the board, or rather transcribed, with few unimportant additions, from that concluded with Mir Jaffier,--and a deputation, consisting of Messrs. Johnstone, senior, Middleton, and Leycester, appointed to raise the natural son of the deceased Nabob to the subahdarry, in prejudice of the claim of the grandson; and for this measure such reasons are assigned as ought to have dictated a diametrically opposite resolution. Meeran's son was a minor, which circumstance alone would have naturally brought the whole administration into our hands, at a juncture when it became indispensably necessary we should realize that shadow of power and influence which, having no solid foundation, was exposed to the danger of being annihilated by the first stroke of adverse fortune. But this inconsistence was not regarded; nor was it material to the views for precipitating the treaty, which was pressed on the young Nabob at the first interview, in so earnest and indelicate a manner as highly disgusted him and chagrined his ministers; while not a single rupee was stipulated for the Company, whose interests were sacrificed, that their servants might revel in the spoils of a treasury before impoverished, but now totally exhausted.

"This scene of corruption was first disclosed, at a visit the Nabob was paid, to Lord Clive and the gentlemen of the Committee, a few days after our arrival. He there delivered to his Lordship a letter filled with bitter complaints of the insults and indignities he had been exposed to, and the embezzlement of near twenty lacs of rupees, issued from his treasury for purposes unknown, during the late negotiations. So public a complaint could not be disregarded, and it soon produced an inquiry. We referred the letter to the board, in expectation of obtaining a satisfactory account of the application of this money, and were answered only by a warm remonstrance entered by Mr. Leycester against that very Nabob in whose elevation he boasts of having been a principal agent.

"Mahomed Reza Khân, the Naib Subah, was then called upon to account for this large disbursement from the treasury; and he soon delivered to the Committee the very extraordinary narrative entered in our Proceedings the 6th of June, wherein he specifies the several names and sums, by whom paid, and to whom, whether in cash, bills, or obligations. So precise, so accurate an account as this of money for secret and venal services was never, we believe, before this period, exhibited to the Honorable Court of Directors,--at least, never vouched by such undeniable testimony and authentic documents: by Juggut Seet, who himself was obliged to contribute largely to the sums demanded; by Muley Ram, who was employed by Mr. Johnstone in all those pecuniary transactions; by the Nabob and Mahomed Reza Khân, who were the heaviest sufferers; and, lastly, by the confession of the gentlemen themselves whose names are specified in the distribution list.

"Juggut Seet expressly declared in his narrative, that the sum which he agreed to pay the deputation, amounting to 125,000 rupees, was extorted by menaces; and since the close of our inquiry, and the opinions we delivered in the Proceedings of the 21st June, it fully appears that the presents from the Nabob and Mahomed Reza Khân, exceeding the immense sum of seventeen lacs, were not the voluntary offerings of gratitude, but contributions levied on the weakness of the government, and violently exacted from the dependent state and timid disposition of the minister. The charge, indeed, is denied on the one hand, as well as affirmed on the other. Your honorable board must therefore determine how far the circumstance of extortion may aggravate the crime of disobedience to your positive orders, the exposing the government in a manner to sale, and receiving the infamous wages of corruption from opposite parties and contending interests. We speak with boldness, because we speak from conviction founded upon indubitable facts, that, besides the above sums specified in the distribution account to the amount of 228,125 pounds sterling, there was likewise to the value of several lacs of rupees procured from Nundcomar and Roydullub, each of whom aspired at and obtained a promise of that very employment it was predetermined to bestow on Mahomed Reza Khân.

(Signed at the end)

"CLIVE. W^M B. SUMNER. JOHN CARNAC. H. VERELST. FRA^S SYKES."

This paper cannot be denied to be a paper of weight and authenticity, because it is signed by a gentleman now in this House, who sits on one side of the gentleman at your bar, as his bail. This grievance, therefore, so authenticated, so great, and described in so many circumstances, I think it might be sufficient for me, in this part of the business, to show was, when Mr. Hastings was sent to India, a prevalent evil.

But, my Lords, it is necessary that I should show to you something more, because, _prima fronte_, this is some exculpation of Mr. Hastings: for, if he was only a partaker in a general misconduct, it was rather _vitium loci et vitium temporis_ than _vitium hominis_. This might be said in his exculpation. But I am next to show your Lordships the means which the Company took for removing this grievance; and that Mr. Hastings's peculiar trust, the great specific ground of his appointment, was a confidence that he would eradicate this very evil, of which we are going to prove that he has been one of the principal promoters. I wish your Lordships to advert to one particular circumstance,--namely, that the two persons who were bidders at this time, and at this auction of government, for the favor and countenance of the Presidency at Calcutta, were Mahomed Reza Khân and Rajah Nundcomar. I wish your Lordships to recollect this by-and-by, when we shall bring before you the very same two persons, who, in the same sort of transaction, and in circumstances exactly similar, or very nearly so, were candidates for the favor of Mr. Hastings.

My Lords, our next step will be to show you that the Company in 1768 had made a covenant expressly forbidding the taking of presents of above 400_l._ value in each present by the Governor-General. I take it for granted, this will not be much litigated. They renewed and enforced that with other covenants and other instructions; and at last came an act of Parliament, in the clearest, the most definite, the most specific words that all the wisdom of the legislature, intent upon the eradication of this evil, could use, to prevent the receiving of presents.

My Lords, I think it is necessary to state, that there has been some little difficulty concerning this word, _presents_. Bribery and extortion have been covered by the name of presents, and the authority and practice of the East has been adduced as a palliation of the crime. My Lords, no authority of the East will be a palliation of the breach of laws enacted in the West: and to those laws of the West, and not the vicious customs of the East, we insist upon making Mr. Hastings liable. But do not your Lordships see that this is an entire mistake? that there never was any custom of the East for it? I do not mean vicious practices and customs, which it is the business of good laws and good customs to eradicate. There are three species of presents known in the East,--two of them payments of money known to be legal, and the other perfectly illegal, and which has a name exactly expressing it in the manner our language does. It is necessary that your Lordships should see that Mr. Hastings has made use of a perversion of the names of authorized gifts to cover the most abominable and prostituted bribery. The first of those presents is known in the country by the name of _peshcush_: this _peshcush_ is a fine paid, upon the grant of lands, to the sovereign, or whoever grants them. The second is the _nuzzer_, or _nuzzerana_, which is a tribute of acknowledgment from an inferior to a superior. The last is called _reshwat_, in the Persian language,--that is to say, a bribe, or sum of money clandestinely and corruptly taken,--and is as much distinguished from the others as, in the English language, a fine or acknowledgment is distinguished from a bribe. To show your Lordships this, we shall give in evidence, that, whenever a peshcush or fine is paid, it is a sum of money publicly paid, and paid in proportion to the grant,--and that the sum is entered upon the very grant itself. We shall prove the nuzzer is in the same manner entered, and that all legal fees are indorsed upon the body of the grant for which they are taken: and that they are no more in the East than in the West any kind of color or pretence for corrupt acts, which are known by the circumstance of their being clandestinely taken, and which are acknowledged and confessed to be illegal and corrupt. Having stated that Mr. Hastings, in some of the evidence that we shall produce, endeavors to confound these three things, I am only to remark that the nuzzer is generally a very small sum of money, that it sometimes amounts to one gold mohur, that sometimes it is less, and that, in all the records of the Company, I have never known it exceed one gold mohur, or about thirty-five shillings,--passing by the fifty gold mohurs which were given to Mr. Hastings by Cheyt Sing, and a hundred gold mohurs which were given to the Mogul, as a nuzzer, by Mahomed Ali, Nabob of Arcot.

The Company, seeing that this nuzzer, though small in each sum, might amount at last to a large tax upon the country, (and it did so in fact,) thought proper to prohibit any sum of money to be taken upon any pretext whatever; and the Company in the year 1775 did expressly explode the whole doctrine of peshcush, nuzzer, and every other private lucrative emolument, under whatever name, to be taken by the Governor-General, and did expressly send out an order that that was the construction of the act, and that he was not even to take a nuzzer. Thus we shall show that that act had totally cut up the whole system of bribery and corruption, and that Mr. Hastings had no sort of color whatever for taking the money which we shall prove he has taken.

I know that positive prohibitions, that acts of Parliament, that covenants, are things of very little validity indeed, as long as all the means of corruption are left in power, and all the temptations to corrupt profit are left in poverty. I should really think that the Company deserved to be ill served, if they had not annexed such appointments to great trusts as might secure the persons intrusted from the temptations of unlawful emolument, and, what in all cases is the greatest security, given a lawful gratification to the natural passions of men. Matrimony is to be used, as a true remedy against a vicious course of profligate manners; fair and lawful emoluments, and the just profits of office, are opposed to the unlawful means which might be made use of to supply them. For, in truth, I am ready to agree, that for any man to expect a series of sacrifices without a return in blessings, to expect labor without a prospect of reward, and fatigue without any means of securing rest, is an unreasonable demand in any human creature from another. Those who trust that they shall find in men uncommon and heroic virtues are themselves endeavoring to have nothing paid them but the common returns of the worst parts of human infirmity. And therefore I shall show your Lordships that the Company did provide large, ample, abundant means for supporting the Governor-General,--that Lord Clive, in the year 1765, and the Council with him, of which Mr. Sumner, I am glad and proud to say, was one, did fix such an allowance as they thought a sufficient security to the Governor-General against the temptations attendant upon his situation; and therefore, after they had fixed this sum, they say, "that, although by this means the Governor will not be able to amass a million or half a million in the space of two or three years, yet he will acquire a very handsome independency, and be in that very situation which a man of honor and true zeal for the service would wish to possess. Thus situated, he may defy all opposition in Council; he will have nothing to ask, nothing to propose, but what he wishes for the advantage of his employers; he may defy the law, because there can be no foundation for a bill of discovery; and he may defy the obloquy of the world, because there can be nothing censurable in his conduct. In short, if stability can be insured to such a government as this, where riches have been acquired in abundance in a small space of time, by all ways and means, and by men with or without capacities, it must be effected by a Governor thus restricted,"--that is, a Governor restricted from every emolument but that of his salary. I must remark, that this salary and these emoluments were not settled upon the vague speculations of men taking the measure of their necessities for India from the manners of England; but it was fixed by the Council themselves,--fixed in India,--fixed by those who knew and were in the situation of the Governor-General, and who knew what was necessary to support his dignity and to preserve him from the temptation of corruption: and they have laid open to you such a body of advantages arising from it as would lead any man, who had a regard to his honor or conscience, to think himself happy in having such a provision made for him, and at the same time every temptation to act corruptly removed far from him.

The emoluments of the office, though reduced from the original plan which Lord Clive had proposed, may be computed at near 30,000_l._ a year, when Mr. Hastings was President: 22,000_l._ in certain money, and the rest in other advantages. Whatever it was, I have shown that it was thought sufficient by those who were the best judges, and who, in carving for others, were carving for themselves their own allowance at the time. But, my Lords, I am to give a better opinion of the sufficiency of that provision to guard against the temptation, out of Mr. Hastings's own mouth. He says, in his letter to the Court of Directors, "Although I disclaim the consideration of my own interest in these speculations, and flatter myself that I proceed upon more liberal grounds, yet I am proud to avow the feelings of an honest ambition that stimulates me to aspire at the possession of my present station for years to come. Those who know my natural turn of mind will not ascribe this to sordid views. A very few years' possession of the government would undoubtedly enable me to retire with a fortune amply fitted to the measure of my desires, were I to consult only my ease: but in my present situation I feel my mind expand to something greater; I have catched the desire of applause in public life."