Chapter 4

EXPULSION OF THE RAJAH OF BENARES.

I. That the said Warren Hastings, being resolved on the ruin of the Rajah aforesaid, as a preliminary step thereto, did, against the express orders of the Court of Directors, remove Francis Fowke, Esquire, the Company's Resident at the city of Benares, without any complaint or pretence of complaint whatsoever, but merely on his own declaration that he must have as a Resident at Benares a person of his own special and personal nomination and confidence, and not a man of the Company's nomination,--and in the place of the said Francis Fowke, thus illegally divested of his office, did appoint thereto another servant of the Company of his own choice.

II. That, soon after he had removed the Company's Resident, he prepared for a journey to the upper provinces, and particularly to Benares, in order to execute the wicked and perfidious designs by him before meditated and contrived: and although he did communicate his purpose privately to such persons as he thought fit to intrust therewith, he did not enter anything on the Consultations to that purpose, or record the principles, real or pretended, on which he had resolved to act, nor did he state any guilt in the Rajah which he intended to punish, or charge him, the said Rajah, with entertaining any hostile intentions, the effects of which were to be prevented by any strong measure; but, on the contrary, he did industriously conceal his real designs from the Court of Directors, and did fallaciously enter on the Consultations a minute declaratory of purposes wholly different therefrom, and which supposed nothing more than an amicable adjustment, founded on the treaties between the Company and the Rajah, investing himself by his said minute with "full power and authority to form _such_ arrangements _with_ the Rajah of Benares for the _better_ government and management of his zemindary, and to perform such acts for the improvement of the interest which the Company possesses in it, as he shall think _fit and consonant to the mutual engagements subsisting between the Company and the Rajah_"; and for this and other purposes he did invest himself with the whole power of the Council, giving to himself an authority as if his acts had been the acts of the Council itself: which, though a power of a dangerous, unwarrantable, and illegal extent, yet does plainly imply the following limits, namely, that the acts done should be _arranged with_ the Rajah, that is, _with his consent_; and, secondly, that they should be consonant to the actual engagements between the parties; and nothing appears in the minute conferring the said power, which did express or imply any authority for depriving the Rajah of his government, or selling the sovereignty thereof to his hereditary enemy, or for the plunder of his fort-treasures.

III. That the said Warren Hastings, having formed the plans aforesaid for the ruin of the Rajah, did set out on a journey to the city of Benares with a great train, but with a very small force, not much exceeding six companies of regular black soldiers, to perpetrate some of the unjust and violent acts by him meditated and resolved on; and the said Hastings was met, according to the usage of distinguished persons in that country, by the Rajah of Benares with a very great attendance, both in boats and on shore, which attendance he did apparently intend as a mark of honor and observance to the place and person of the said Hastings, but which the said Hastings did afterwards groundlessly and maliciously represent as an indication of a design upon his life; and the said Rajah came into the pinnace in which the said Hastings was carried, and in a lowly and suppliant manner, alone, and without any guard or attendance whatsoever, entreated his favor; and being received with great sternness and arrogance, he did put his turban in the lap of the said Hastings, thereby signifying that he abandoned his life and fortune to his disposal, and then departed, the said Hastings not apprehending, nor having any reason to apprehend, any violence whatsoever to his person.

IV. That the said Hastings, in the utmost security and freedom from apprehension, did pursue his journey, and did arrive at the city of Benares on the 14th of August, 1781, some hours before the Rajah, who, soon after his arrival, intended to pay him a visit of honor and respect at his quarters, but was by the said Hastings rudely and insolently forbid, until he should receive his permission. And the said Hastings, although he had previously determined on the ruin of the said Rajah, in order to afford some color of regularity and justice to his proceedings, did, on the day after his arrival, that is, on the 15th day of August, 1781, send to the Rajah a charge in writing, which, though informal and irregular, may be reduced to four articles, two general, and two more particular: the first of the general being, "That he [the Rajah] had, by the means of his secret agents, endeavored to excite disorders in the government on which he depended"; the second, "That he had suffered the _daily_ perpetration of robberies and murders, even in the streets of Benares, to the great and public scandal of the English name."

V. That it appears that the said Warren Hastings is guilty of an high offence, contrary to the fundamental principles of justice, in the said mode of charging misdemeanors, without any specification of person or place or time or act, or any offer of specification or proofs by which the party charged may be enabled to refute the same, in order to unjustly load his reputation, and to prejudice him with regard to the articles more clearly specified.

VI. That the two specified articles relate to certain delays: the first, with regard to the payment of the sums of money unjustly extorted as aforesaid; and the second, the non-compliance with a requisition of cavalry,--which non-compliance the said Hastings (even if the said charges had been founded) did falsely, and in contradiction to all law, affirm and maintain (in his accusation against the Rajah, and addressing himself to him) "to amount to a _direct_ charge of disaffection and _infidelity_ to the government on which you depend": and further proceeded as follows: "I therefore judged it proper to state them [the said charges] thus fully to you in writing, and to _require_ your answer; and this I expect _immediately_." That the said Hastings, stating his pretended facts to amount to a charge of the nature (as he would have it understood) of high treason, and _therefore_ calling for an _immediate_ answer, did wilfully act against the rules of natural justice, which requires that a convenient time should be given to answer, proportioned to the greatness of the offence alleged, and the heavy penalties which attend it; and when he did arrogate to himself a right both to charge and to judge in his own person, he ought to have allowed the Rajah full opportunity for conferring with his ministers, his doctors of law, and his accountants, on the facts charged, and on the criminality inferred in the said accusation of disloyalty and disaffection, or offences of that quality.

VII. That the said Rajah did, under the pressure of the disadvantages aforesaid, deliver in, upon the very evening of the day of the charge, a full, complete, and specific answer to the two articles therein specified; and did allege and offer proof that the whole of the extraordinary demands of the said Hastings had been actually long before paid and discharged; and did state a proper defence, with regard to the cavalry, even supposing him bound (when he was not bound) to furnish any. And the said Rajah did make a direct denial of the truth, of the two _general_ articles, and did explain himself on the same in as satisfactory a manner and as fully as their nature could permit, offering to enter into immediate trial of the points in issue between him and the said Hastings, in the remarkable words following. "My enemies, with a view to my ruin, have made false representations to you. Now that, _happily for me_, you have yourself arrived at this place, you will be able to ascertain all the circumstances: first, relative to the horse; secondly, to my people going to Calcutta; and thirdly, the dates of the receipts of the particular sums above mentioned. You will then know whether I have amused you with a false representation, or made a just report to you." And in the said answer the said Rajah complained, but in the most modest terms, of an injury to him of the most dangerous and criminal nature in transactions of such moment, namely, his not receiving any answer to his letters and petitions, and concluded in the following words. "I have never swerved in the smallest degree from my duty to you. It remains with you to decide on all these matters. I am in every case your slave. What is just I have represented to you. May your prosperity increase!"

VIII. That the said Warren Hastings was bound by the essential principles of natural justice to attend to the claim made by the Rajah to a fair and impartial trial and inquiry into the matter of accusation brought against him by the said Hastings, at a time and place which furnished all proper materials and the presence of all necessary witnesses; but the said Hastings, instead of instituting the said inquiry and granting trial, did receive an humble request for justice from a great prince as a fresh offence, and as a personal insult to himself, and did conceive a violent passion of anger and a strong resentment thereat, declaring that he did consider the said answer as not only unsatisfactory in substance, but offensive in style. "This answer you will perceive to be not only unsatisfactory in substance, but offensive in style, and less a vindication of himself than a recrimination on me. It expresses no concern for the causes of complaint contained in my letter, or desire to atone for them, nor the smallest intention to pursue a different line of conduct. An answer couched nearly _in terms of defiance_ to requisitions of so serious a nature I could not but consider as _a strong indication of that spirit of independency_ which the Rajah has for some years past assumed, and of which indeed I had early observed other manifest symptoms, both before and from the instant of my arrival." Which representation is altogether and in all parts thereof groundless and injurious; as the substance of the answer is a justification proper to be pleaded, and the style, if in anything exceptionable, it is in its extreme humility, resulting rather from an unmanly and abject spirit than from anything of an offensive liberty; but being received as disrespectful by the said Hastings, it abundantly indicates the tyrannical arrogance of the said Hastings, and the depression into which the natives are sunk under the British government.

IX. That the said Warren Hastings, pretending to have been much alarmed at the offensive language of the said Rajah's defence, and at certain appearances of independency which he had observed, not only on former occasions, but since his arrival at Benares, (where he had been but little more than one day,) and which appearances he never has specified in any one instance, did assert that he conceived himself indispensably obliged to adopt some decisive plan; and without any farther inquiry or consultation (which appears) with any person, did, at ten o'clock of the very night on which he received the before-mentioned full and satisfactory as well as submissive answer, send an order to the British Resident (then being a public minister representing the British government at the court of the said Rajah, and as such bound by the law of nations to respect the prince at whose court he was Resident, and not to attempt anything against his person or state, and who ought not, therefore, to have been chosen by the said Hastings, and compelled to serve in that business) that he should on the next morning arrest the said prince in his palace, and keep him in his custody until further orders; which said order being conceived in the most peremptory terms, the Rajah was put under arrest, with a guard of about thirty orderly sepoys, with their swords drawn; and the particulars thereof were reported to him as follows.

"HONORABLE SIR,--I this morning, in obedience to your orders of last night, proceeded with a few of my orderlies, accompanied by Lieutenant Stalker, to Shewalla Ghaut, the present residence of Rajah Cheyt Sing, and acquainted him it was your pleasure he should consider himself in arrest; that he should order his people to behave in a quiet and orderly manner, for that any attempt _to rescue him would be attended with his own destruction. The Rajah submitted quietly to the arrest_, and assured me, that, whatever were your orders, he was ready implicitly to obey; he hoped that you would allow him a _subsistence_, but as for _his zemindary, his forts, and his treasure, he was ready to lay them at your feet, and his life, if required_. He expressed himself much hurt at the ignominy which he affirmed must be the consequence of his confinement, and entreated me to return to you with the foregoing submission, hoping that you would make allowances for his youth and inexperience, and in consideration of his father's name release him from his confinement, as soon as he should prove the sincerity of his offers, and himself deserving of your compassion and forgiveness."

X. That a further order was given, that every servant of the Rajah's should be disarmed, and a certain number only left to attend him under a strict watch. In a quarter of an hour after this conversation, two companies of grenadier sepoys were sent to the Rajah's palace by the said Hastings; and the Rajah, being dismayed by this unexpected and unprovoked treatment, wrote two short letters or petitions to the said Hastings, under the greatest apparent dejection at the outrage and dishonor he had suffered in the eyes of his subjects, (all imprisonment of persons of rank being held in that country as a mark of indelible infamy, and he also, in all probability, considering his imprisonment as a prelude to the taking away his life,) and in the first of the said petitions he did express himself in this manner: "Whatever may be your pleasure, do it with your own hands; I am your slave. What occasion can there be for a guard?" And in the other: "My honor was bestowed upon me by your Highness. It depends on you alone to take away or not to take away the country out of my hands. In case my honor is not left to me, how shall I be equal to the business of the government? Whoever, with his hands in a supplicating posture, is ready with his life and property, what necessity can there be for him to be dealt with in this way?"

XI. That, according to the said Hastings's narrative of this transaction, he, the said Hastings, on account of the apparent despondency in which these letters were written, "thought it _necessary_ to give him _some_ encouragement," and therefore wrote him a note of a few lines, carelessly and haughtily expressed, and little calculated to relieve him from his uneasiness, promising to send to him a person to explain particulars, and desiring him "to set his mind at rest, and not to conceive any terror or apprehension." To which an answer of great humility and dejection was received.

XII. That the report of the Rajah's arrest did cause a great alarm in the city, in the suburbs of which the Rajah's palace is situated, and in the adjacent country. The people were filled with dismay and anger at the outrage and indignity offered to a prince under whose government they enjoyed much ease and happiness. Under these circumstances the Rajah desired leave to perform his ablutions; which was refused, unless he sent for water, and performed that ceremony on the spot. This he