Chapter 25

But there are some aggravating circumstances in these crimes, which I have not yet stated. It appears that this unhappy and injured man was, without any solicitation of his own, placed in a situation the duties of which even Mr. Hastings considered it impossible for him to execute. Instead of supporting him with the countenance of the supreme government, Mr. Hastings did everything to lessen his weight, his consequence, and authority. And when the business of the collection became embarrassed, without any fault of his, that has ever yet been proved, Mr. Markham instituted an inquiry. What kind of inquiry it was that would or could be made your Lordships will judge. While this was going on, Mr. Markham tells you, that, in consequence of orders which he had received, he first put him into a gentle confinement. Your Lordships know what that confinement was; and you know what it is for a man of his rank to be put into any confinement. We have shown he was thereby incapable of transacting business. His life had been threatened, if he should not pay in the balance of his accounts within a short limited time; still he was subjected to confinement, while he had money accounts to settle with the whole country. Could a man in gaol, dishonored and reprobated, take effectual means to recover the arrears which he was called upon to pay? Could he, in such a situation, recover the money which was unpaid to him, in such an extensive district as Benares? Yet Mr. Markham tells the Council he thought proper "that Durbege Sing should be put under a gentle confinement, until I shall receive your Honorable Board's orders for any future measures." Thus Mr. Markham, without any orders from the Council, assumed an authority to do that which we assert a Resident at Benares had no right to do, but to which he was instigated by Mr. Hastings's recommendation that Durbege Sing should be prevented from flight.

Now, my Lords, was it to be expected that a man of Durbege Sing's rank should suffer these hardships and indignities, and at the same time kiss the rod and say, "I have deserved it all"? We know that all mankind revolts at oppression, if it be real; we know that men do not willingly submit to punishment, just or unjust; and we find that Durbege Sing had near relatives, who used for his relief all the power which was left them,--that of remonstrating with his oppressors. Two _arzees_, or petitions, were presented to the Council, of which we shall first call your Lordships' attention to one from the dowager princess of Benares, in favor of her child and of her family.

_From the Ranny, widow of Bulwant Sing. Received the 15th of December, 1782._

"I and my children have no hopes but from your Highness, and our honor and rank are bestowed by you. Mr. Markham, from the advice of my enemies, having protected the farmers, would not permit the balances to be collected. Baboo Durbege Sing frequently before desired that gentleman to show his resentment against the people who owed balances, that the balances might be collected, and to give ease to his mind for the present year, conformably to the requests signed by the presence, that he might complete the _bundobust_. But that gentleman would not listen to him, and, having appointed a _mutsuddy_ and _tahsildar_, employs them in the collections of the year, and sent two companies of sepoys and arrested Baboo Durbege Sing upon this charge, that he had secreted in his house many lacs of rupees from the collections, and he carried the mutsuddies and treasurer with their papers to his own presence. He neither ascertained this matter by proofs, nor does he complete the balance of the sircar from the _jaidads_ of the balances: right or wrong, he is resolved to destroy our lives. As we have no asylum or hope except from your Highness, and as the Almighty has formed your mind to be a distributor of justice in these times, I therefore hope from the benignity of your Highness, that you will inquire and do justice in this matter, and that an _aumeen_ may be appointed from the presence, that, having discovered the crimes or innocence of Baboo Durbege Sing, he may report to the presence. Further particulars will be made known to your Highness by the arzee of my son Rajah Mehip Narrain Bahadur."

_Arzee from Rajah Mehip Narrain Bahadur. Received 15th December, 1782._

"I before this had the honor of addressing several arzees to your presence; but, from my unfortunate state, not one of them has been perused by your Highness, that my situation might be fully learnt by you. The case is this. Mr. Markham, from the advice of my enemies, having occasioned several kinds of losses, and given protection to those who owed balances, prevented the balance from being collected,--for this reason, that, the money not being paid in time, the Baboo might be convicted of inability. From this reason, all the owers of balances refused to pay the _malwajib_ of the sircar. Before this, the Baboo had frequently desired that gentleman to show his resentment against the persons who owed the balances, that the balances might be paid, and that his mind might be at ease for the present year, so that the _bundobust_ of the present year might be completed,--adding, that, if, next year, such kinds of injuries, and protection of the farmers, were to happen, he should not be able to support it."

I am here to remark to your Lordships, that the last of these petitions begins by stating, "I before this have had the honor of addressing several arzees to your presence; but, from my unfortunate state, not one of them has been perused by your Highness." My Lords, if there is any one right secured to the subject, it is that of presenting a petition and having that petition noticed. This right grows in importance in proportion to the power and despotic nature of the governments to which the petitioner is subject: for where there is no sort of remedy from any fixed laws, nothing remains but complaint, and prayers, and petitions. This was the case in Benares: for Mr. Hastings had destroyed every trace of law, leaving only the police of the single city of Benares. Still we find this complaint, prayer, and petition was not the first, but only one of many, which Mr. Hastings took no notice of, entirely despised, and never would suffer to be produced to the Council; which never knew anything, until this bundle of papers came before them, of the complaint of Mr. Markham against Durbege Sing, or of the complaint of Durbege Sing against Mr. Markham.

Observe, my Lords, the person that put Durbege Sing in prison was Mr. Markham; while the complaint in the arzee is, that Mr. Markham was himself the cause of the very failure for which he imprisoned him. Now what was the conduct of Mr. Hastings as judge? He has two persons before him: the one in the ostensible care of the revenue of the country; the other his own agent, acting under his authority. The first is accused by the second of default in his payments; the latter is complained of by the former, who says that the occasion of the accusation had been furnished by him, the accuser. The judge, instead of granting redress, dismisses the complaints against Mr. Markham with reprehension, and sends the complainant to rot in prison, without making one inquiry, or giving himself the trouble of stating to Mr. Markham the complaints against him, and desiring him to clear himself from them. My Lords, if there were nothing but this to mark the treacherous and perfidious nature of his conduct, this would be sufficient.

In this state of things, Mr. Hastings thus writes.

"To Mr. Markham. The measures which you have taken with Baboo Durbege Sing are perfectly right and proper, so far as they go; and we now direct that you exact from him, with the utmost rigor, every rupee of the collections which it shall appear that he has made and not brought to account, and either confine him at Benares, or send him prisoner to Chunar, and keep him in confinement until he shall have discharged the whole of the amount due from him."

He here employs the very person against whom the complaint is made to imprison the complainant. He approves the conduct of his agent without having heard his defence, and leaves him, at his option, to keep his victim a prisoner at Benares, or to imprison him in the fortress of Chunar, the infernal place to which he sends the persons whom he has a mind to extort money from.

Your Lordships will be curious to know how this debt of Durbege Sing stood at the time of his imprisonment. I will state the matter to your Lordships briefly, and in plain language, referring you for the particulars of the account to the papers which are in your Minutes. It appears from them, that, towards the end of the yearly account in 1782, a kist or payment of eight lacs (about 80,000_l._), the balance of the annual tribute, was due. In part of this kist, Durbege Sing paid two lacs (20,000_l._). Of the remaining six lacs (60,000_l._), the outstanding debts in the country due to the revenue, but not collected by the Naib, amounted to four lacs (40,000_l._). Thus far the account is not controverted by the accusing party. But Mr. Markham asserts that he _shall_ be able to prove that the Naib had also actually received the other two lacs (20,000_l._), and consequently was an actual defaulter to that amount, and had, upon the whole, suffered the annual tribute to fall six lacs in arrear. The Naib denies the receipt of the two lacs just mentioned, and challenges inquiry; but no inquiries appear to have been made, and to this hour Mr. Markham has produced no proof of the fact. With respect to the arrear of the tribute money which appeared on the balance of the whole account, the Naib defended himself by alleging the distresses of the country, the diminution of his authority, and the want of support from the supreme government in the collection of the revenues; and he asserts that he has assets sufficient, if time and power be allowed him for collecting them, to discharge the whole balance due to the Company. The immediate payment of the whole balance was demanded, and Durbege Sing, unable to comply with the demand, was sent to prison. Thus stood the business, when Mr. Markham, soon after he had sent the Naib to prison, quitted the Residency. He was succeeded by Mr. Benn, who acted exactly upon the same principle. He declares that the six lacs demanded were not demanded upon the principle of its having been actually collected by him, but upon the principle of his having agreed to pay it. "We have," say Mr. Hastings's agents to the Naib, "we have a Jew's bond. If it is in your bond, we will have it, or we will have a pound of your flesh: whether you have received it or not is no business of ours." About this time some hopes were entertained by the Resident that the Naib's personal exertions in collecting the arrears of the tribute might be useful. These hopes procured him a short liberation from his confinement. He was let out of prison, and appears to have made another payment of half a lac of rupees. Still the terms of the bond were insisted on, although Mr. Hastings had allowed that these terms were extravagant, and only one lac and a half of the money which had been actually received remained unpaid. One would think that common charity, that common decency, that common regard to the decorum of life would, under such circumstances, have hindered Mr. Hastings from imprisoning him again. But, my Lords, he was imprisoned again; he continued in prison till Mr. Hastings quitted the country; and there he soon after died,--a victim to the enormous oppression which has been detailed to your Lordships.

It appears that in the mean time the Residents had been using other means for recovering the balance due to the Company. The family of the Rajah had not been paid one shilling of the 60,000_l._, allowed for their maintenance. They were obliged to mortgage their own hereditary estates for their support, while the Residents confiscated all the property of Durbege Sing. Of the money thus obtained what account has been given? None, my Lords, none. It must therefore have been disposed of in some abominably corrupt way or other, while this miserable victim of Mr. Hastings was left to perish in a prison, after he had been elevated to the highest rank in the country.

But, without doubt, they found abundance of effects after his death? No, my Lords, they did not find anything. They ransacked his house; they examined all his accounts, every paper that he had, in and out of prison. They searched and scrutinized everything. They had every penny of his fortune, and I believe, though I cannot with certainty know, that the man died insolvent; and it was not pretended that he had ever applied to his own use any part of the Company's money.

Thus Durbege Sing is gone; this tragedy is finished; a second Rajah of Benares has been destroyed. I do not speak of that miserable puppet who was said by Mr. Hastings to be in a state of childhood when arrived at manhood, but of the person who represented the dignity of the family. He is gone; he is swept away; and in his name, in the name of this devoted Durbege Sing, in the name of his afflicted family, in the name of the people of the country thus oppressed by an usurped authority, in the name of all these, respecting whom justice has been thus outraged, we call upon your Lordships for justice.

We are now at the commencement of a new order of things. Mr. Markham had been authorized to appoint whoever he pleased as Naib, with the exception of Ussaun Sing. He accordingly exercises this power, and chooses a person called Jagher Deo Seo. From the time of the confinement of Durbege Sing to the time of this man's being put into the government, in whose hands were the revenues of the country? Mr. Markham himself has told you, at your bar, that they were in his hands,--that he was the person who not only named this man, but that he had the sole management of the revenues; and he was, of course, answerable for them all that time. The nominal title of Zemindar was still left to the miserable pageant who held it; but even the very name soon fell entirely out of use. It is in evidence before your Lordships that his name is not even so much as mentioned in the proceedings of the government; and that the person who really governed was not the ostensible Jagher Deo Seo, but Mr. Markham. The government, therefore, was taken completely and entirely out of the hands of the person who had a legal right to administer it,--out of the hands of his guardians,--out of the hands of his mother,--out of the hands of his nearest relations,--and, in short, of all those who, in the common course of things, ought to have been intrusted with it. From all such persons, I say, it was taken: and where, my Lords, was it deposited? Why, in the hands of a man of whom we know nothing, and of whom we never heard anything, before we heard that Mr. Markham, of his own usurped authority, authorized by the usurped authority of Mr. Hastings, without the least communication with the Council, had put him in possession of that country.

Mr. Markham himself, as I have just said, administered the revenues alone, without the smallest authority for so doing, without the least knowledge of the Council, till Jagher Deo Seo was appointed Naib. Did he then give up his authority? No such thing. All the measures of Jagher Deo Seo's government were taken with the concurrence and joint management of Mr. Markham. He conducted the whole; the settlements were made, the leases and agreements with farmers all regulated by him. I need not tell you, I believe, that Jagher Deo Seo was not a person of very much authority in the case: your Lordships would laugh at me, if I said he was. The revenue arrangements were, I firmly believe, regulated and made by Mr. Markham. But whether they were or were not, it comes to the same thing. If they were improperly made and improperly conducted, Mr. Hastings is responsible for the whole of the mismanagement; for he gave the entire control to a person who had little experience, who was young in the world (and this is the excuse I wish to make for a gentleman of that age). He appointed him, and gave him at large a discretionary authority to name whom he pleased to be the ostensible Naib; but we know that he took the principal part himself in all his settlements and in all his proceedings.

Soon after the Naib had been thus appointed and instructed by Mr. Markham, he settled, under his directions, the administration of the country. Mr. Markham then desires leave from Mr. Hastings to go down to Calcutta. I imagine he never returned to Benares; he comes to Europe; and here end the acts of this viceroy and delegate.

Let us now begin the reign of Mr. Benn and Mr. Fowke. These gentlemen had just the same power delegated to them that Mr. Markham possessed,--not one jot less, that I know of; and they were therefore responsible, and ought to have been called to an account by Mr. Hastings for every part of their proceedings. I will not give you my own account of the reign of these gentlemen; but I will read to you what Mr. Hastings has thought proper to represent the state of the people to be under their government. This course will save your Lordships time and trouble; for it will nearly supersede all observations of mine upon the subject. I hold in my hand Mr. Hastings's representation of the effects produced by a government which was conceived by himself, carried into effect by himself, and illegally invested by him with illegal powers, without any security or responsibility of any kind. Hear, I say, what an account Mr. Hastings gave, when he afterwards went up to Benares upon another wicked project, and think what ought to have been his feelings as he looked upon the ruin he had occasioned. Think of the condition in which he saw Benares the first day he entered it. He then saw it beautiful, ornamented, rich,--an object that envy would have shed tears over for its prosperity, that humanity would have beheld with eyes glistening with joy for the comfort and happiness which were there enjoyed by man: a country flourishing in cultivation to such a degree that the soldiers were obliged to march in single files through the fields of corn, to avoid damaging them; a country in which Mr. Stables has stated that the villages were thick beyond all expression; a country where the people pressed round their sovereign, as Mr. Stables also told you, with joy, triumph, and satisfaction. Such was the country; and in such a state and under such a master was it, when he first saw it. See what it now is under Warren Hastings; see what it is under the British government; and then judge whether the Commons are or are not right in pressing the subject upon your Lordships for your decision, and letting you and all this great auditory know what sort of a criminal you have before you, who has had the impudence to represent to your Lordships at your bar that Benares is in a flourishing condition, in defiance of the evidence which we have under his own hands, and who, in all the false papers that have been circulated to debauch the public opinion, has stated that we, the Commons, have given a false representation as to the state of the country under the English government.

_Lucknow, the 2d of April, 1784. Addressed to the Honorable Edward Wheler, Esq., &c. Signed Warren Hastings. It is in page 306 of the printed Minutes._

"Gentlemen,--Having contrived, by making forced stages, while the troops of my escort marched at the ordinary rate, to make a stay of five days at Benares, I was thereby furnished with the means of acquiring some knowledge of the state of the province, which I am anxious to communicate to you: indeed, the inquiry, which was in a great degree obtruded upon me, affected me with very mortifying reflections on my own inability to apply it to any useful purpose.