Chapter 35

Here your Governor stimulates a rapacious and licentious soldiery to the personal search of women, lest these unhappy creatures should avail themselves of the protection of their sex to secure any supply for their necessities; and he positively orders that no stipulation should be made for any provision for them. The widow and mother of a prince, well informed of her miserable situation, and the cause of it, a woman of this rank became a suppliant to the domestic servant of Mr. Hastings, (they are his own words that I read,) "imploring his intercession that she may be relieved _from the hardships and dangers of her present situation_, and offering to surrender the fort, and the _treasure and valuable effects_ contained in it, provided she can be assured _of safety and protection to her person and honor_, and to that of her family and attendants." He is so good as to consent to this, "provided she surrenders everything of value, with the reserve _only_ of such articles as _you_ shall think _necessary_ to her condition, or as you _yourself_ shall be disposed to indulge her with.--But should she refuse to execute the promise she has made, or delay it beyond the term of twenty-four hours, it is _my positive_ injunction that you immediately put a stop to any further intercourse or negotiation with her, and on no pretext renew it. If she disappoints or _trifles_ with me, after I have subjected _my duan_ to the disgrace of returning ineffectually, and of course myself to discredit, I shall consider it as a _wanton_ affront and indignity _which I can never forgive_; nor will I grant her _any_ conditions whatever, but leave her exposed _to those_ dangers which she has chosen to risk, rather than trust to the clemency and generosity of our government. I think she cannot be ignorant of these consequences, and will not venture to incur them; and it is for this reason I place a dependence on her offers, and have consented to send my duan to her." The dreadful secret hinted at by the merciful Governor in the latter part of the letter is well understood in India, where those who suffer corporeal indignities generally expiate the offences of others with their own blood. However, in spite of all these, the temper of the military did, some way or other, operate. They came to terms which have never been transmitted. It appears that a fifteenth per cent of the plunder was reserved to the captives, of which the unhappy mother of the Prince of Benares was to have a share. This ancient matron, born to better things [_A laugh from certain young gentlemen]_--I see no cause for this mirth. A good author of antiquity reckons among the calamities of his time "_nobilissimarum fæminarum exilia et fugas_." I say, Sir, this ancient lady was compelled to quit her house, with three hundred helpless women and a multitude of children in her train. But the lower sort in the camp, it seems, could not be restrained. They did not forget the good lessons of the Governor-General. They were unwilling "to be defrauded of a considerable part of their booty by suffering them to pass without examination."--They examined them, Sir, with a vengeance; and the sacred protection of that awful character, Mr. Hastings's _maître d'hôtel,_ could not secure them from insult and plunder. Here is Popham's narrative of the affair:--

"The Ranny came out of the fort, with her family and dependants, the tenth, at night, owing to which such attention was not paid to her as I wished; and I am exceedingly sorry to inform you that _the licentiousness of our followers was beyond the bounds of control; for, notwithstanding all I could do, her people were plundered on the road of most of the things which they brought out of the fort, by which means one of the articles of surrender has been much infringed_. The distress I have felt upon this occasion cannot be expressed, and can only be allayed by a firm performance of the other articles of the treaty, which I shall make it my business to enforce.--The suspicions which the officers had of treachery, and the delay made to our getting possession, had enraged them, as well as the troops, so much, that the treaty was at first regarded as void; but this determination was soon succeeded by pity and compassion for the unfortunate besieged."--After this comes, in his due order, Mr. Hastings; who is full of sorrow and indignation, &c., &c., &c., according to the best and most authentic precedents established upon such occasions.

The women being thus disposed of, that is, completely despoiled, and pathetically lamented, Mr. Hastings at length recollected the great object of his enterprise, which, during his zeal lest the officers and soldiers should lose any part of their reward, he seems to have forgot,--that is to say, "to draw from the Rajah's guilt the means of relief to the Company's distresses." This was to be the stronghold of his defence. This compassion to the Company, he knew by experience, would sanctify a great deal of rigor towards the natives. But the military had distresses of their own, which they considered first. Neither Mr. Hastings's authority, nor his supplications, could prevail on them to assign a shilling to the claim he made on the part of the Company. They divided the booty amongst themselves. Driven from his claim, he was reduced to petition for the spoil as a loan. But the soldiers were too wise to venture as a loan what the borrower claimed as a right. In defiance of all authority, they shared among themselves about two hundred thousand pounds sterling, besides what had been taken from the women.

In all this there is nothing wonderful. We may rest assured, that, when the maxims of any government establish among its resources extraordinary means, and those exerted with a strong hand, that strong hand will provide those extraordinary means for _itself_. Whether the soldiers had reason or not, (perhaps much might be said for them,) certain it is, the military discipline of India was ruined from that moment; and the same rage for plunder, the same contempt of subordination, which blasted all the hopes of extraordinary means from your strong hand at Benares, have very lately lost you an army in Mysore. This is visible enough from the accounts in the last gazette.

There is no doubt but that the country and city of Benares, now brought into the same order, will very soon exhibit, if it does not already display, the same appearance with those countries and cities which are under better subjection. A great master, Mr. Hastings, has himself been at the pains of drawing a picture of one of these countries: I mean the province and city of Furruckabad. There is no reason to question his knowledge of the facts; and his authority (on this point at least) is above all exception, as well for the state of the country as for the cause. In his minute of consultation, Mr. Hastings describes forcibly the consequences which arise from the degradation into which we have sunk the native government. "The total want (says he) of all order, regularity, or authority, in his (the Nabob of Furruckabad's) government, and to which, among other obvious causes, it may no doubt be owing that the country of Furruckabad is become _almost an entire waste, without cultivation or inhabitants_,--that the capital, which but a very short time ago was distinguished as one of the most populous and opulent commercial cities in Hindostan, at present exhibits nothing but _scenes of the most wretched poverty, desolation, and misery_,--and that the _Nabob himself_, though in the possession of a tract of country which, with only common care, is notoriously capable of yielding an annual revenue of between thirty and forty lacs, (three or four hundred thousand pounds,) with _no military establishment_ to maintain, scarcely commands _the means of a bare subsistence_."

This is a true and unexaggerated picture, not only of Furruckabad, but of at least three fourths of the country which we possess, or rather lay waste, in India. Now, Sir, the House will be desirous to know for what purpose this picture was drawn. It was for a purpose, I will not say laudable, but necessary: that of taking the unfortunate prince and his country out of the hands of a sequestrator sent thither by the Nabob of Oude, the mortal enemy of the prince thus ruined, and to protect him by means of a British resident, who might carry his complaints to the superior resident at Oude, or transmit them to Calcutta. But mark how the reformer persisted in his reformation. The effect of the measure was better than was probably expected. The prince began to be at ease; the country began to recover; and the revenue began to be collected. These were alarming circumstances. Mr. Hastings not only recalled the resident, but he entered into a formal stipulation with the Nabob of Oude never to send an English subject again to Furruckabad; and thus the country, described as you have heard by Mr. Hastings, is given up forever to the very persons to whom he had attributed its ruin,--that is, to the sezawals or sequestrators of the Nabob of Oude.

Such was the issue of the first attempt to relieve the distresses of the dependent provinces. I shall close what I have to say on the condition of the northern dependencies with the effect of the last of these attempts. You will recollect, Sir, the account I have not long ago stated to you, as given by Mr. Hastings, of the ruined condition of the destroyer of others, the Nabob of Oude, and of the recall, in consequence, of Hannay, Middleton, and Johnson. When the first little sudden gust of passion against these gentlemen was spent, the sentiments of old friendship began to revive. Some healing conferences were held between them and the superior government. Mr. Hannay was permitted to return to Oude; but death prevented the further advantages intended for him, and the future benefits proposed for the country by the provident cars of the Council-General.

One of these gentlemen was accused of the grossest peculations; two of them by Mr. Hastings himself, of what he considered as very gross offences. The Court of Directors were informed, by the Governor-General and Council, that a severe inquiry would be instituted against the two survivors; and they requested that court to suspend its judgment, and to wait the event of their proceedings. A mock inquiry has been instituted, by which the parties could not be said to be either acquitted or condemned. By means of the bland and conciliatory dispositions of the charter-governors, and proper private explanations, the public inquiry has in effect died away; the supposed peculators and destroyers of Oude repose in all security in the bosoms of their accusers; whilst others succeed to them to be instructed by their example.

It is only to complete the view I proposed of the conduct of the Company with regard to the dependent provinces, that I shall say _any_ thing at all of the Carnatic, which is the scene, if possible, of greater disorder than the northern provinces. Perhaps it were better to say of this centre and metropolis of abuse, whence all the rest in India and in England diverge, from whence they are fed and methodized, what was said of Carthage,--"_De Carthagine satius est silere quam parum dicere_." This country, in all its denominations, is about 46,000 square miles. It may be affirmed universally, that not one person of substance or property, landed, commercial, or moneyed, excepting two or three bankers, who are necessary deposits and distributors of the general spoil, is left in all that region. In that country, the moisture, the bounty of Heaven, is given but at a certain season. Before the era of our influence, the industry of man carefully husbanded that gift of God. The Gentoos preserved, with a provident and religious care, the precious deposit of the periodical rain in reservoirs, many of them works of royal grandeur; and from these, as occasion demanded, they fructified the whole country. To maintain these reservoirs, and to keep up an annual advance to the cultivators for seed and cattle, formed a principal object of the piety and policy of the priests and rulers of the Gentoo religion.

This object required a command of money; and there was no pollam, or castle, which in the happy days of the Carnatic was without some hoard of treasure, by which the governors were enabled to combat with the irregularity of the seasons, and to resist or to buy off the invasion of an enemy. In all the cities were multitudes of merchants and bankers, for all occasions of moneyed assistance; and on the other hand, the native princes were in condition to obtain credit from them. The manufacturer was paid by the return of commodities, or by imported money, and not, as at present, in the taxes that had been originally exacted from his industry. In aid of casual distress, the country was full of choultries, which were inns and hospitals, where the traveller and the poor were relieved. All ranks of people had their place in the public concern, and their share in the common stock and common prosperity. But _the chartered rights of men_, and the right which it was thought proper to set up in the Nabob of Arcot, introduced a new system. It was their policy to consider hoards of money as crimes,--to regard moderate rents as frauds on the sovereign,--and to view, in the lesser princes, any claim of exemption from more than settled tribute as an act of rebellion. Accordingly, all the castles were, one after the other, plundered and destroyed; the native princes were expelled; the hospitals fell to ruin; the reservoirs of water went to decay; the merchants, bankers, and manufacturers disappeared; and sterility, indigence, and depopulation overspread the face of these once flourishing provinces.

The Company was very early sensible of these mischiefs, and of their true cause. They gave precise orders, "that the native princes, called polygars, should _not be extirpated_." "The rebellion" (so they choose to call it) "of the polygars may, they fear, _with, too much justice_, be attributed to the maladministration of the Nabob's collectors." "They observe with concern, that their troops have been put to _disagreeable_ services." They might have used a stronger expression without impropriety. But they make amends in another place. Speaking of the polygars, the Directors say that "it was repugnant to humanity to _force_ them to such dreadful extremities _as they underwent";_ that some examples of severity _might_ be necessary, "when they fell into the Nabob's hands," _and not by the destruction of the country_; "that _they fear_ his government is _none of the mildest_, and that there is _great oppression_ in collecting his revenues." They state, that the wars in which he has involved the Carnatic had been a cause of its distresses; "that those distresses have been certainly great, but those by _the Nabob's oppressions_ they believe _to be greater than all_." Pray, Sir, attend to the reason for their opinion that the government of this their instrument is more calamitous to the country than the ravages of war:--Because, say they, his oppressions are "_without intermission_; the others are temporary;--by all which _oppressions_ we believe the Nabob has great wealth in store." From this store neither he nor they could derive any advantage whatsoever, upon the invasion of Hyder Ali, in the hour of their greatest calamity and dismay.

It is now proper to compare these declarations with the Company's conduct. The principal reason which they assigned against the _extirpation_ of the polygars was, that the _weavers_ were protected in their fortresses. They might have added, that the Company itself, which stung them to death, had been warmed in the bosom of these unfortunate princes: for, on the taking of Madras by the French, it was in their hospitable pollams that most of the inhabitants found refuge and protection. But notwithstanding all these orders, reasons, and declarations, they at length gave an indirect sanction, and permitted the use of a very direct and irresistible force, to measures which they had over and over again declared to be false policy, cruel, inhuman, and oppressive. Having, however, forgot all attention to the princes and the people, they remembered that they had some sort of interest in the trade of the country; and it is matter of curiosity to observe the protection which they afforded to this their natural object.

Full of anxious cares on this head, they direct, "that, in reducing the polygars, they [their servants] were to be _cautious_ not to deprive the _weavers and manufacturers_ of the protection they often met with in the strongholds of the polygar countries"; and they write to their instrument, the Nabob of Arcot, concerning these poor people in a most pathetic strain. "We _entreat_ your Excellency," (say they,) "in particular, to make the manufacturers the object of your _tenderest care;_ particularly when you _root out_ the polygars, you do not deprive the _weavers of the protection they enjoyed under them_." When they root out the protectors in favor of the oppressor, they show themselves religiously cautious of the rights of the protected. When they extirpate the shepherd and the shepherd's dog, they piously recommend the helpless flock to the mercy, and even to the _tenderest care,_ of the wolf. This is the uniform strain of their policy,--strictly forbidding, and at the same time strenuously encouraging and enforcing, every measure that can ruin and desolate the country committed to their charge. After giving the Company's idea of the government of this their instrument, it may appear singular, but it is perfectly consistent with their system, that, besides wasting for him, at two different times, the most exquisite spot upon the earth, Tanjore, and all the adjacent countries, they have even voluntarily put their own territory, that is, a large and fine country adjacent to Madras, called their jaghire, wholly out of their protection,--and have continued to farm their subjects, and their duties towards these subjects, to that very Nabob whom they themselves constantly represent as an habitual oppressor and a relentless tyrant. This they have done without any pretence of ignorance of the objects of oppression for which this prince has thought fit to become their renter; for he has again and again told them that it is for the sole purpose of exercising authority he holds the jaghire lands; and he affirms (and I believe with truth) that he pays more for that territory than the revenues yield. This deficiency he must make up from his other territories; and thus, in order to furnish the means of oppressing one part of the Carnatic, he is led to oppress all the rest.

The House perceives that the livery of the Company's government is uniform. I have described the condition of the countries indirectly, but most substantially, under the Company's authority. And now I ask, whether, with this map of misgovernment before me, I can suppose myself bound by my vote to continue, upon any principles of pretended public faith, the management of these countries in those hands. If I kept such a faith (which in reality is no better than a _fides latronum_) with what is called the Company, I must break the faith, the covenant, the solemn, original, indispensable oath, in which I am bound, by the eternal frame and constitution of things, to the whole human race.

As I have dwelt so long on these who are indirectly under the Company's administration, I will endeavor to be a little shorter upon the countries immediately under this charter-government. These are the Bengal provinces. The condition of these provinces is pretty fully detailed in the Sixth and Ninth Reports, and in their Appendixes. I will select only such principles and instances as are broad and general. To your own thoughts I shall leave it to furnish the detail of oppressions involved in them. I shall state to you, as shortly as I am able, the conduct of the Company:--1st, towards the landed interests;--next, the commercial interests;--3rdly, the native government;--and lastly, to their own government.

Bengal, and the provinces that are united to it, are larger than the kingdom of France, and once contained, as France does contain, a great and independent landed interest, composed of princes, of great lords, of a numerous nobility and gentry, of freeholders, of lower tenants, of religious communities, and public foundations. So early as 1769, the Company's servants perceived the decay into which these provinces had fallen under English administration, and they made a strong representation upon this decay, and what they apprehended to be the causes of it. Soon after this representation, Mr. Hastings became President of Bengal. Instead of administering a remedy to this melancholy disorder, upon the heels of a dreadful famine, in the year 1772, the succor which the new President and the Council lent to this afflicted nation was--shall I be believed in relating it?--the landed interest of a whole kingdom, of a kingdom to be compared to France, was set up to public auction! They set up (Mr. Hastings set up) the whole nobility, gentry, and freeholders to the highest bidder. No preference was given to the ancient proprietors. They must bid against every usurer, every temporary adventurer, every jobber and schemer, every servant of every European,--or they were obliged to content themselves, in lieu of their extensive domains, with their house, and such a pension as the state auctioneers thought fit to assign. In this general calamity, several of the first nobility thought (and in all appearance justly) that they had better submit to the necessity of this pension, than continue, under the name of zemindars, the objects and instruments of a system by which they ruined their tenants and were ruined themselves. Another reform has since come upon the back of the first; and a pension having been assigned to these unhappy persons, in lieu of their hereditary lands, a new scheme of economy has taken place, and deprived them of that pension.

The menial servants of Englishmen, persons (to use the emphatical phrase of a ruined and patient Eastern chief) "_whose fathers they would not have set with the dogs of their flock_" entered into their patrimonial lands. Mr. Hastings's banian was, after this auction, found possessed of territories yielding a rent of one hundred and forty thousand pounds a year.