Visit of Mr. Hastings to Benares—Proceedings against the rajah—Parliamentary reports on Indian affairs—Proceedings in Oude—Resignation of Mr. Hastings—Resignation of Lord Macartney—India bills of Mr. Dundas, Mr. Fox, and Mr. Pitt—Establishment of the Board of Control.

During the dismemberment of the Mogul empire, the province of Benares passed as a dependency to the Soubahdar of Oude, and was held as a zemindary by Bulwant Sing, who, in 1740, had succeeded his father, Mansa Ram, both in his possessions and in the title of rajah, conferred upon him by Mahomed Shah of Delhi. During the war between the Company and the Soubahdar of Oude, or Nabob Vizier as he was usually called, Bulwant Sing, throwing off his allegiance as zemindar, became a valuable ally of the Company; and accordingly, in 1765, when peace was made with the vizier, an article was inserted in the treaty, stipulating that Bulwant Sing, in again becoming the dependant of Oude, should hold his possessions unmolested, and be liable to no more tribute than before. On the death of Bulwant Sing, in 1770, the vizier showed an inclination to dispossess his son, Cheyte Sing, but the Company, in fulfilment of the guarantee which they had given in the treaty, interfered and secured the succession for him, on the same terms as before, with the exception of a small addition in the annual payment. In 1773, when Mr. Hastings paid his first visit to the vizier, he was earnestly solicited by the latter to allow him to dispossess the rajah of two forts, and exact from him ten lacs of rupees above the stipulated amount, but refused, obviously on the ground that he could not consent without violating the treaty. This, indeed, is not an inference, but a fact, confirmed by Mr. Hastings in his general report to his colleagues, where he thus expresses himself, “I am well convinced that the rajah’s inheritance, and perhaps his life, are no longer safe than while he enjoys the Company’s protection; which is his due by the ties of justice, and the obligations of public faith, and which policy enjoins us to afford him ever most effectually; his country is a strong barrier to ours without subjecting us to any expense, and we may depend upon him as a sure ally whenever we may stand in need of his services.” In accordance with these views it was formally decided that “no increase of revenue should ever thereafter be demanded.”

On the death of the nabob vizier, in 1775, the Bengal government, then represented by the majority, Messrs. Clavering, Monson, and Francis, took advantage of the minority of his son and successor, Asoff-ul-Dowlah, to impose upon him the treaty of Fyzabad, by which, among other extortions, they obliged him to cede the province of Benares to the Company. The effect of this cession was obviously to place the Company in the very same position as that in which the vizier had previously stood. It was certainly never meant by it to injure the Rajah of Benares. On the contrary, while he remained liable to no greater payment than before, he was to have the advantage of exchanging his allegiance to a capricious despot into allegiance to the Company, whose protection he had already experienced, and in whose honour and justice he could perfectly confide. The majority of the Bengal council plumed themselves greatly on the treaty, and thought it necessary, in order to prevent their colleagues from sharing any part of the credit, to inform the directors, “The measure is strictly and exclusively ours; the original plan was opposed in every step by the governor-general and Mr. Barwell.” But though Mr. Hastings objected to the treaty because it dishonourably exacted from Asoff-ul-Dowlah “concessions inconsistent with former treaties, to which the necessity of his situation alone obliged him, however unwilling, to submit,” it appears that after the treaty was concluded, he strongly advocated the policy of improving rather than deteriorating the rajah’s position, by rendering him as much as possible an independent though a tributary prince. On this subject, indeed, the council were unanimous, and it was therefore decreed that so long as he performed his engagements, “no more demands should be made upon him by the honourable Company of any kind; nor, on any pretence whatever, should any person be allowed to interfere with his authority.” The more effectually to secure this, Mr. Hastings proposed that the rajah should pay his revenue at Patna, putting on record the following reason:—“If a resident was appointed to receive the money as it became due at Benares, such a resident would unavoidably acquire an influence over the rajah, and over his country, which would unavoidably make him master of both. The consequence might not, perhaps, be brought completely to pass without a struggle, and many appeals to the council, which, in a government constituted like this, cannot fail to terminate against the rajah, and by the construction to which his opposition to the agent would be liable, might eventually draw on him severe restrictions, and end in reducing him to the mean and deprived state of a mere zemindar.” Though this passage does not explain the nature of the higher state which Mr. Hastings believed the rajah already to possess, it proves to demonstration that, both in his own opinion and that of his colleagues, the rajah, by the transference of his allegiance to the Company, had lost none of his former rights, and was not to be subjected to additional demands of any kind, nor to any interference with his authority so long as he discharged his engagements. It has been necessary to set this matter in the clearest light, because it was afterwards argued that the sunnud or charter granted to the rajah in 1776, made all former sunnuds null and void, and that, as that sunnud did not contain any clause exempting him for ever from all further demands, there was in fact no limit to the demands which the Company, as his acknowledged sovereign, might make upon him. This argument is at best a legal quibble. If the sunnud did not exempt him from further demands, neither did it reserve any right to make and enforce such demands. The only obligations to which it bound the rajah were, to pay a certain amount of revenue, and maintain order within his territories; and the clear understanding of all parties was that the fulfilment of these obligations was all that the Company could legally or equitably require of him. To give any other interpretation to the sunnud is to place the rajah in a worse position than before, a result not only not contemplated, but disavowed in the strongest terms by Mr. Hastings and his colleagues at the time when the sunnud was granted.

In the year 1778, when the Mahratta war was raging, Mr. Hastings proposed that during its continuance the rajah should be required to furnish three battalions of sepoys, the annual expense of which was estimated at five lacs (£50,000). Half of the council proposed to substitute requested for required, but Mr. Hastings carried his point on agreeing to reserve the question of right for the decision of the directors. The rajah endeavoured to stipulate that the exaction should be continued only for a single year, and was punished, for what was called his contumacy, by an order to pay the amount of a whole year forthwith, instead of by instalments, as would otherwise have been permitted. He pleaded poverty, and asked indulgence for six or seven months, but this was treated as a new offence, and instructions were sent to the resident at Benares to demand full payment within five days, with intimation that failure to comply would be construed and treated as an absolute refusal. Thus pressed, the rajah did not venture to carry resistance further, and the money was forthcoming. The feeling toward the rajah evinced by Mr. Hastings on this occasion, differs so much from that displayed in the passages above quoted, that one naturally inquires whether anything had occurred in the interval to produce the change. Mr. Hastings has himself made statements which his enemies believed to give the real, though more charitable judges consider them to amount only to an apparent explanation. Speaking of the period when he was supposed to have resigned he says, “It is a fact, that when the unhappy divisions of our government had proceeded to an extremity bordering on civil violence, by the attempt to wrest from me my authority, in the month of June, 1777, he had deputed a man, named Sumboonaut, with an express commission to my opponent; and the man had proceeded as far as Moorshedabad, when hearing of the change of affairs he stopped, and the rajah recalled him.” When the rajah pleaded for six or seven months’ indulgence, Mr. Hastings made this other statement, “I will not conceal from the board that I have expected this evasive conduct in the rajah, having been for some time past well informed, that he had been advised in this manner to procrastinate the payment of the five lacs, to afford time for the arrival of despatches from England, which were to bring orders for a total change in this government; and this, he was given to expect, would produce a repeal of the demand made upon him by the present government.” Mr. Hastings, for his own sake, ought either to have withheld these statements, or, having made them, to have abstained carefully from acting toward the rajah in a manner which might be much more readily ascribed to personal vindictiveness than to a sense of duty.

In 1779 the demand of the five lacs was repeated. The rajah again pretended poverty, complained of hardship, and even ventured to plead that, by the tenure of his territories, he was only under obligation to pay a stipulated sum—an obligation which he had regularly performed. He was again pronounced contumacious, and under threat of military execution, was compelled to pay the five lacs, and an additional sum of £2000, as the alleged expense of the troops employed to coerce him. In 1780, when the demand was made for the third time, the rajah sent a confidential agent to Calcutta, to deprecate the displeasure of the governor-general, and offer every reparation in his power except payment. As a substitute for it, he secretly offered a present of two lacs. Mr. Hastings at first refused it, telling the agent that the whole contribution must be paid, but he afterwards changed his mind and received it. He must have understood that the money was offered as a bribe, and would not have been paid, except under the impression that it was to relieve the rajah from the larger claim. The acceptance, therefore, while still determined to enforce that claim, looks very like a fraud. Mr. Hastings’ own explanation is, that he was exerting himself at the time to send a detachment under Colonel Camac into Scindia’s dominions, and being otherwise destitute of the necessary funds, regarded the proffered gift as a kind of god-send. There cannot be a doubt that the money was expended in the Company’s service, and the allegation subsequently made that Mr. Hastings meant to have appropriated it to his own use may be dismissed as groundless. At the same time, it must be confessed that he made too much a mystery of it, and subjected himself very unnecessarily to misconstruction, by first talking of the money as if it had formed part of his private resources, and not informing the directors till five months after, “that the money, by whatever means it came into his possession, was not his own; that he had himself no right to it, nor would or could have received it, but for the occasion which prompted him to avail himself of the accidental means which were at that instant afforded him, of accepting and converting it to the property and use of the Company.” Ultimately the rajah found that he had only duped himself by his present. The five lacs were exacted as before, and a considerable fine is said to have been imposed for his previous attempts to evade payment.

About the date of the last payment, the Bengal government resolved that the rajah, in addition to the tribute and the forced contribution, should be required to furnish them with as many of the cavalry in his service as could be spared. This was rather a vague demand, but it was made specific by Mr. Hastings, who instructed the resident at Benares to fix the number at 2000.

The rajah averred that all his cavalry amounted only to 1300, and were absolutely necessary to keep the peace and collect the revenue. Mr. Hastings must have been satisfied that there was truth in this statement, as he reduced his demand successively to 1500 and 1000. Ultimately the rajah collected 500 horse, and 500 matchlock-men as a substitute for the remainder, and sent word to the governor-general that they were ready to receive his commands. No answer was returned, for coercion had already been resolved on. “I was resolved,” says Mr. Hastings, “to draw from his guilt the means of relief to the Company’s distresses. In a word, I had determined to make him pay largely for his pardon, or to exact a severe vengeance for his past delinquency.” There is here no disguise. A demand is made upon a Hindoo rajah, who, believing on grounds which appear well founded, and are admitted on all hands to be at least plausible, that he is not liable, complies with the utmost reluctance, after pleading poverty and petitioning for delay. This reluctance is magnified into a heinous crime, not so much because it is so in reality, but because the fine or ruin inflicted on the rajah under the form of punishment will have the effect of relieving the Company from severe pecuniary distress. When such motives are distinctly avowed, it is useless to inquire whether the proceedings that followed were in accordance with justice. They could not be so except by accident, as no justice was meant, and nothing but money was wanted.

Mr. Hastings, being about to make a tour to the north, for the purpose of visiting the Nabob of Oude, had an opportunity of personally exacting his “severe vengeance” at Benares. His intention in this respect had been confidentially communicated to Mr. Wheler, at that time the only other member of council; to all others it was a profound secret. It would seem, however, that his designs had been to some extent penetrated. The nabob, whose guest he was about to become, had actually offered to purchase the rajah’s dominions at a very large price; and the rajah himself, now thoroughly intimidated, proved how groundless all his pleas of poverty had been, by tendering twenty lacs of rupees as a contribution to the public service. Mr. Hastings, having the nabob’s offer in his pocket, knew he could make a better bargain, and therefore refused to accept of less than fifty lacs, or £500,000 sterling. Meanwhile, he set out on his northern tour. Anxious, if possible, to avert the impending storm, the rajah met him at Buxar, on the frontiers of his province, and humbled himself in every way before the relentless governor-general. During a confidential interview, granted on his own solicitation, he assured me, says Mr. Hastings, “that his zemindary, and all that he possessed, were at my devotion; and he accompanied his words by an action either strongly expressive of the agitation of his mind, or his desire to impress on mine a conviction of his sincerity, by laying his turban on my lap.” All would not do, and the rajah was dismissed without a hint of the fate which awaited him.

Mr. Hastings arrived at Benares on the 14th of August, 1781. The rajah, who did not arrive till a few hours later, offered to wait upon him in the evening, but was told to forbear his visit. On the following morning, Mr. Markham, the resident, was sent to him with a paper of complaints and demands. He returned an answer in the course of the same day, partly explaining and partly excusing his conduct; but it was money, not explanation, that was wanted, and therefore, in the course of the same evening, he found himself a prisoner in his own palace, with two companies of sepoys placed over him. The disapprobation which it is impossible not to feel at the harshness of this arrest, is almost lost in amazement at its boldness. Benares, situated on the left or north bank of the Ganges, 420 miles north-west of Calcutta in a direct line, and a half more by water, was the acknowledged capital of Hindooism, and contained a population of 200,000, of which the Hindoos formed two-thirds. A large part of this population was casual and migratory, rather than fixed, consisting of pilgrims and mendicants, all of them of course deeply imbued with fanaticism, and many of them ferocious desperadoes provided with arms, which they were ever ready to use in any affray. The rajah was popular on account of the mildness and equity of his administration, and the moment it became known that he had been subjected to the indignity of an arrest, and that his life was perhaps in danger, the whole city was in commotion, and a general rush was made for the palace. By some unaccountable oversight, the two companies of sepoys had not been provided with ammunition. As soon as the insurrection commenced, and the oversight was discovered, another company of sepoys was despatched to the assistance of their comrades, but the work of slaughter had already commenced. The sepoys in the palace, unable to defend themselves, were speedily cut to pieces, and the company sent to succour them found their passage disputed by multitudes of armed men, who had surrounded the palace and blockaded all the avenues. In the confusion the rajah escaped through a wicket, and descending the steep bank of the river, by means of turbans tied together, entered a boat, which conveyed him to the opposite side. Such were the first-fruits of Mr. Hastings’ resolution to “exact severe vengeance.”

At a later period, Mr. Hastings, when called to account for his treatment of the rajah, endeavoured to improve his case by imputing to him treasonable designs. His own conduct refutes the charge. He moved into the heart of the rajah’s capital, and arrested him in his own palace, under the very eyes of an attached and most excitable population, without providing himself with any stronger protection than a small escort. This, however much he might have been blinded by the desire of vengeance, he never would have done, if he had suspected treasonable designs. Still, though there seems not to have been any premeditated treason, the position into which he had now brought himself was full of alarm. His account of it is as follows:—“If Cheyte Sing’s people, after they had effected his rescue, had proceeded to my quarters, instead of crowding after him in a tumultuous manner, as they did, in his passage over the river, it is probable that my blood, and that of about thirty English gentlemen of my party, would have been added to the recent carnage; for they were about 2000, furious and daring from the easy success of their last attempt; nor could I assemble more than fifty regular and armed sepoys for my defence.” To these he was able almost immediately to add six companies of Major Popham’s regiment, and a few recruits recently enlisted as a guard to the resident, the whole mustering about 450 men. This force, small as it was, might have sufficed to overawe the insurrectionists, had not new spirit and audacity been infused into them from another quarter.

The officer in command of the other four companies of Major Popham’s regiment, lying at Mirzapore, together with a company of artillery and a company of the French rangers, was ordered to bring them down the river to Ramnugur, situated on the south bank, about four miles above Benares. It was a place of some strength, in the rajah’s possession, and it was intended that no attempt should be made upon it till a larger force should be collected and placed under Major Popham’s command. Unfortunately, the officer from Mirzapore, anxious to signalize himself, ventured on the attack with very inadequate means, and sustained a repulse, by which his force was nearly annihilated. The effect was to raise the whole country in the rajah’s interest. Even beyond his territories, in parts of Oude and Behar, the excitement was felt, and multitudes flocked to arms. The rajah himself, meanwhile, professed an earnest desire for peace, protesting his innocence of all the blood that had been shed; but to his letters no answer was returned. Mr. Hastings must now have questioned, if not the propriety of his measures, the manner in which he had attempted to execute them, since instead of replenishing the treasury of the Company, they now threatened only to make a new drain upon it, by provoking an additional war. His quarters at Benares were regarded as no longer tenable, and he removed, with all the troops which had been collected, to the Company’s strong fort of Chunar, or Chunarghur, situated sixteen miles to the south-west. The danger was thus removed, and little difficulty was afterwards felt in collecting a force which rendered further resistance hopeless. The rajah, who had mustered his forces after he found that no terms would be granted him, proved totally unable to cope with his antagonists, and fled to the fort of Bidjeyghur, situated about fifty miles south of his capital. Here he had deposited most of his treasures. Major Popham followed in pursuit, but the rajah, taking with him as much property as he could manage to carry, continued his flight. The ranee, his mother, still remaining within the fort, maintained the defence till an assault was threatened, and then surrendered on the condition of personal safety, and the assurance that neither she nor the females of her family and household should be subjected to the indignity of search. This article was shamefully violated, and, it appears, with the sanction of the officers; for the report of the proceedings of a committee of officers, put on record at the time, contains, inter alia, the following resolution:—“That ten gold mohurs¹ be given to each of the four female searchers.” Mr. Hastings also admits the fact when he writes, “It gives me great concern that the licentiousness of any persons under your command should have given cause to complain of the infringement of the smallest article of the capitulation in favour of the mother of Cheyte Sing and her dependants.” It is not unworthy of notice that what he here censures is only the infringement. To the thing itself, provided it could be done without infringement, he appears not to have had any serious objection, since he thus addressed Major Popham when consulted as to the terms of capitulation:—“I apprehend that she (the ranee) will contrive to defraud the captors of a considerable part of the booty, by being suffered to retire without examination. But this is your consideration and not mine. I should be very sorry that your officers and soldiers lost any part of the reward to which they are so well entitled; but I cannot make any objection, as you must be the best judge of the expediency of the promised indulgence to the ranee.”

This passage has been quoted, not so much for what it says about examination, as for its distinct admission that what should be found within the fort was to belong to the captors. Had it been taken by assault this would have been the rule, but as possession by capitulation only was now contemplated, the property found within the fort belonged of right to the Company. Accordingly, in the very face of the above passage, Mr. Hastings did lay claim to all the treasure of Bidjeyghur, but it was only to meet with a grievous disappointment. The troops seized upon everything found within the fort, or obtained by the dishonourable search of the females, as lawful booty. Mr. Hastings, after claiming it as a right, was so distressed for money that he petitioned for part of the money as a loan, and had the mortification of being refused. What his original expectations had been may be inferred from his belief of the report made to him that Cheyte Sing took away “as much treasure as his elephants and camels together could carry, which is reported to me to have consisted of one lac of mohurs and fifteen or sixteen of silver (in all about £320,000), besides jewels of an unknown amount.” When disappointed in the expectation of treasure, the governor may have found some compensation in the exaction of “severe vengeance,” which he accomplished by depriving Cheyte Sing of his territories, and bestowing them on his sister’s son, a youth of only eighteen years of age. A better source of consolation was given him by the intelligence which he received while at Chunar that Mahadajee Scindia had agreed to terms of peace.

Mr. Hastings should now have continued his journey to Lucknow, but the eagerness of the nabob had rendered this unnecessary. On hearing of the insurrection at Benares, and the subsequent retirement to Chunar, he determined to lose no time in setting out for this fort. Shortly after his arrival, a new treaty, known by the name of the treaty of Chunar, was concluded between the nabob and the Company. The main object of it was to free him from burdens which he had declared his inability to bear, and permit him to resume a number of jaghires which the Company had guaranteed to their actual possessors. His payments to the Company for the troops maintained within his territories had fallen greatly into arrear; and as he declared that many of the troops might be dispensed with, and were even forced upon him contrary to his wish, there was little difficulty in arranging that as many as were deemed superfluous should be withdrawn. What, indeed, could the Company gain by sending troops into Oude, and receiving for their maintenance nothing better than promises from the nabob, while the real burden was thrown upon themselves? The articles providing for the resumption of jaghires raised questions of greater difficulty. The basis of agreement in regard to them was, that where the possessors were guaranteed by the Company, each should, on being ousted, receive a pension equivalent to the estimated annual value of the lands possessed. It must be perfectly obvious that such an exchange, when not left optional, but rendered compulsory, placed the holders of the jaghires in a far worse position than before, and therefore amounted to a gross breach of faith. So long as they continued in the possession of the lands, they were always sure of drawing a revenue from them; but what were they to expect when they were degraded to the condition of pensioners, and had no better security for their pensions than the promise of a despot, notoriously unable to pay, and notoriously still more unwilling than unable?

The most extensive of all the jaghires was that of Fyzoola Khan, the last of the Rohilla chiefs who had battled for the independence of his country. Up to the last, he remained so strongly entrenched at the head of a numerous and valiant army, that the late nabob, the father of the present, was glad to come to terms. Fyzoola Khan knew too well with whom he was dealing, to put any trust in his promises, and only agreed to enter into a treaty, on the Company undertaking to guarantee it. By this treaty he received a large and valuable jaghire, and engaged in return to retain in his service 5000 troops, with 2000 or 3000 of which he was to assist the nabob in time of war according to his ability. In 1778, when hostilities between Great Britain and France were declared, Mr. Hastings applied to him for aid, and receiving less than he expected, urged the nabob to make a demand upon him for 5000 horse. He replied that he had only 2000 horse in all, which were ready at the Company’s service, and that the 3000 foot, the remainder of his troops, were necessary to keep the peace of the country and collect the revenues. When this answer was received, the governor-general and council, consisting at this time of only Mr. Hastings and Mr. Wheler, minuted the following resolution:—“That the nabob Fyzoola Khan had evaded the performance of his part of the treaty between the late nabob Sujah-u-Dowlah and him, to which the honourable Company were guarantees, and upon which he was lately summoned to furnish the stipulated number of troops, which he is obliged to furnish on the condition by which he holds the jaghire granted to him.” This resolution looks as if it had been inserted to pave the way for a transaction which was already in contemplation, and was completed by the third article of the treaty of Chunar. This article is as follows:—“That as Fyzoola Khan has, by his breach of treaty, forfeited the protection of the English government, and causes, by his continuance in his present independent state, great alarm and detriment to the nabob vizier, he be permitted, when time shall suit, to resume his lands and pay him in money, through the resident—after deducting the amount and charges of the troops he stands engaged to furnish by treaty—the amount stipulated by treaty, which amount shall be passed to the account of the Company during the continuance of the present war.” When the question is asked, Wherein does the breach of treaty by Fyzoola Khan, previously asserted in the minute of the council, and now more solemnly reasserted in this third article, consist? Mr. Hastings himself answers that there was really no such breach. “In the hurry of business,” he says, “he and the other members of the board were deceived by this letter (a letter from a British officer in Rohilcund) into the belief that 5000 was the quota defined, and horse, though not expressed in the treaty, was undoubtedly understood.” Again, after repeating the misstatement in the most solemn manner by inserting it in the treaty of Chunar, and employing it to excuse the Company for violating their guarantee, and leaving Fyzoola Khan at the nabob’s mercy, he distinctly admits, that “the conduct of Fyzoola Khan in refusing the aid demanded,” though “evasive and uncandid,” was “not an absolute breach of treaty;” he was only guilty of a scrupulous “attention to literal expression, when a more liberal interpretation would have been highly useful and acceptable to us.” This, he adds, “strongly marks his unfriendly disposition, though it may not impeach his fidelity, and leaves him little claim to any exertions from us for the continuance of his jaghires.” These words occur in a kind of commentary, with which Mr. Hastings accompanied the treaty of Chunar, on transmitting it to his colleagues. Why Mr. Hastings, while acknowledging that Fyzoola had not broken the treaty, not only charged him with it, but made it a pretext for breaking faith with him, and depriving him of the protection which the Company had solemnly guaranteed, can only be explained by admitting, that on this as on various other occasions, he was too ready to sacrifice honour and justice to the purposes of the moment. In the present instance, he could not even say that the course he took was in accordance with sound policy. On the contrary, in the commentary above referred to, he makes the following extraordinary confession:—“I am of opinion, that neither the vizier’s nor the Company’s interests would be promoted by depriving Fyzoola Khan of his independency, and I have therefore reserved the execution of this agreement to an indefinite term; and our government may always interpose to prevent any ill effects from it.” In other words, he had agreed, in consideration of a sum of money, to allow the nabob to rob Fyzoola Khan, but had purposely made the terms so ambiguous, that the nabob, after paying the money, might still be prevented from committing the robbery.

The resumption of the jaghires led to other transactions of a still more disgraceful character. A large extent of land was held in jaghire by two Begums or Princesses of Oude, the one the grandmother and the other the mother of the nabob. In addition to the jaghires, they were understood to possess an enormous amount of treasure, the hoard accumulated by the late nabob Sujah-u-Dowlah, and estimated at £3,000,000. The proceedings at Benares, instead of yielding the money expected, had increased the financial difficulties of the Company, and Mr. Hastings, rendered almost desperate, determined as a last resource to replenish his treasury by the spoliation of the begums. With this view mainly, the second article of the treaty of Chunar, providing for the resumption of the jaghires, had been framed. Decency and policy did not permit any express mention of the treasure, but the secret stipulation was, that the nabob should plunder his grandmother and mother, and pay over the proceeds to the governor-general for the behoof of the Company. There were difficulties in the way. Asoff-ul-Dowlah, though almost destitute of natural affection, stood somewhat in awe of the begums, and had no sooner consented to become their spoliator than he would fain have retracted. This difficulty, however, was easily surmounted. Another, involving the honour of the Company, was more serious. The nabob’s mother had made a formal complaint against him to the governor-general and council. He had extorted from her twenty-six lacs of rupees, and was demanding an additional thirty lacs. The pretext was, that he required the money in order to meet his obligations to the Company. Assuming this to be the fact, she was willing to make the new advance, which, added to the former, constituted an entire debt of £560,000, and renounce all claim for repayment, provided her son would become solemnly bound, and the Company would undertake to guarantee, that he would make no further demand upon her; and that she should have the full enjoyment of her jaghires and effects wherever she might please to reside, whether within the limits of Oude, or elsewhere. The terms were accepted. Asoff-ul-Dowlah signed the obligation, and the Company gave the guarantee.

In the beginning of 1778, the elder begum, who had not obtained any security for good treatment, resolved, in consequence of the extortion and insult to which she was daily subjected, to quit Oude and make a pilgrimage to Mecca. This did not suit the views of the nabob, who feared that her treasure would thus be entirely lost to him, and he refused to allow her to depart. She made her complaint to the resident, Mr. Middleton, who, after hearing both parties, reported that “the deportment of the nabob toward her, his family, and relations in general, was, he could not but admit, very exceptionable.” The complaint from the elder was soon followed by another from the younger begum, who charged her son with repeated violations of his agreement, and called upon the Company to make good their guarantee. The Bengal council, in which Mr. Hastings had regained the ascendant, took up the subject on the 23d of March, and thus instructed the resident:—“We desire you will repeat your remonstrances to the vizier on these points, in the name of this government; representing to him the consequences of such an arbitrary proceeding; the reproach to which his honour and reputation, as well as ours from being connected with him, will be exposed by such acts of cruelty and injustice; and the right which we derive from the nature of our alliance with him, to expect that he will pay a deference to our remonstrances.” With respect to the Bao Begum (the nabob’s mother), they add, “Her grievances come before us on a very different footing. She is entitled to our protection by an act, not sought by us, but solicited by the nabob himself. We therefore empower and direct you, to afford your support and protection to her in the due maintenance of all the rights she possesses, in virtue of the treaty executed between her and her son, under the guarantee of the treaty.”

Such was the view taken by the governor-general and council in 1778, and he heard of nothing which had occurred to change it till 1781, when we are startled by an article in the treaty of Chunar, framed for the express purpose of sanctioning the spoliation of the begums. When asked, What had the begums done to deserve this cruel treatment, and place themselves beyond the pale of the Company’s pledged protection? we can only answer, Mr. Hastings was in want of money and determined to have it. No doubt a proceeding carrying so much dishonour and iniquity on the very face of it, could not be carried out without some semblance of justification. Accordingly, it is said that the begums abetted Cheyte Sing, and countenanced, if they did not actually take part in his insurrection. Where is the proof of the fact? It was a rumour on which Mr. Hastings chose to act, before he had any means of ascertaining whether it was well founded, and he reiterated the charge, after he knew that if he could not make it good, his own conduct would be incapable of vindication. The means to which he resorted for proof only show the extremity to which he felt himself reduced. His old friend and schoolfellow, Sir Elijah Impey, in order, as he himself declares, that people in England might be satisfied that Mr. Hastings in his narrative had affirmed no more than the truth, volunteered to go to Lucknow, and take affidavits attesting the truth of the charges brought against the begums. Mr. Hastings accepted of this extraordinary offer, and Sir Elijah set out for the express purpose of taking these affidavits. Of course, he had no jurisdiction in Oude. Why then employ him? The only answer that can be given is, that being chief-justice of the supreme court of Calcutta and the known friend of the governor-general, abundance of affidavits of the kind required could hardly fail to be forthcoming. Personally, Sir Elijah Impey was destitute of every other qualification for the office. When afterwards interrogated on the subject, he admitted that he did not know what the affidavits contained, and he did not know whether the persons who swore them had ever read them, or whether they even understood them. They “brought their affidavits ready drawn,” and he believed that the resident, Mr. Middleton, “in consequence of a letter Mr. Hastings wrote to him, had communicated the subject matter of what they were to depose to.” It is needless to say, that affidavits so concocted and so sworn were worse than useless, and damaging only to those who had recourse to them.

The resumption of the jaghires proved more tedious than had been anticipated, not from any difficulty in the thing itself, but from the nabob’s reluctance to carry out the extreme measures to which he had been induced to give his consent. Mr. Hastings, in consequence, lost patience, and instructed Mr. Middleton to take the matter into his own hands. This threatened supersession of the nabob’s authority compelled him to proceed, and Mr. Middleton wrote Mr. Hastings, on 9th December, 1781, that, “rather than suffer it to appear that the point had been carried in opposition to his will, he at length yielded a nominal acquiescence, and has this day issued his own perwannahs to that effect: declaring however at the same time, both to me and his ministers, that it is an act of compulsion.”

The next part in the plan of spoliation was the seizure of the treasures. Mr. Hastings at one time alleged that this was not originally contemplated, and that it was inflicted as a punishment for the violent opposition which the servants and agents of the begums had made to the resumption of the jaghires. It is clear, however, that in this instance, his memory had proved treacherous. In one of his own letters, dated 23rd January, 1782, but referring to the earlier date of the conferences at Chunar, he says, “that in addition to the resolution of resuming the begums’ jaghires, the nabob had declared his resolution of reclaiming all the treasures of his family which were in their possession, and to which, by the Mahometan laws, he was entitled. This resolution I have strenuously encouraged and supported.” Mr. Middleton also, in a letter dated the 6th of December, and consequently three days before the nabob had issued any orders for the resumption of the jaghires, wrote to Mr. Hastings, “Your pleasure respecting the begums I have learned from Sir Elijah; and the measure heretofore proposed will soon follow the resumption of the jaghires. From both, or indeed from the former alone, I have no doubt of the complete liquidation of the Company’s balance.” The measure from which this magnificent result was anticipated, could be nothing else than the seizure of the treasures. Mr. Hastings himself afterwards became satisfied, and candidly acknowledged, that in ascribing the seizure of the treasures to the opposition offered to the resumption of the jaghires, he had committed a blunder.

The begums were residing at Fyzabad, the former capital of Oude. Here the nabob, the resident, and a body of English troops arrived on the 8th of January, 1782. After three days spent in parleying, the troops took possession of the town, occupied the outer enclosure of the palace of the one begum, and blocked up the entrance to the other. Still negotiation proved unavailing. The begums remained within their secluded apartments, and no treasure was obtained. The next step was to operate on the feelings of the begums, through their favourite and confidential agents. These were two aged eunuchs, named Jewar Ali Khan and Behar Ali Khan, and the device fallen upon was to seize these persons, put them in irons, and by subjecting them to other severities, compel them to disclose any treasure of which they might have the custody, or to use their influence with the princesses, who, it was thought, might from mere compassion, on learning how their favourite servants were maltreated, be induced to give way. This diabolical expedient proved so far successful, that the elder begum paid to the English resident the amount of the bond granted by the nabob to the Company for the balance of 1779-80.

It does not appear what promise was made to induce her to make this payment, but the fact is that the eunuchs were not released. There was another balance due for 1780–81, but when it was demanded of her “she declared,” says the resident, “with apparent truth, that she had delivered up the whole of the property in her hands.” This might be so, argued the spoliators, and yet if not in her hands, it might be elsewhere. The torturing process must therefore be continued. What its nature was, may be inferred from the following letter, dated 20th January, 1782, addressed by the resident to the British officer who guarded the eunuchs:—“Sir—When this note is delivered to you, I have to desire, that you order the two prisoners to be put in irons, keeping them from all food, &c., agreeable to my instructions of yesterday. (Signed) Nath. Middleton.” Thus ironed, and starved, and subjected to all the privations and indignities which may be imagined to be included under the above “&c,” the eunuchs offered to pay the sum demanded in a month, from their own effects and credit. A bond for the amount was accordingly taken, but the imprisonment was continued, and the two begums remained under a guard. Before the 23d of February, 1782, upwards of £500,000 had been received by the resident. This consisted partly of payments made by the eunuchs on the bond which had been extorted from them. To raise the balance, they requested to be allowed to go abroad, and solicit the assistance of their friends. This was positively refused.

On the 18th of May, after the eunuchs had suffered a two months’ imprisonment, the officer in charge of them wrote thus to the resident:—“The prisoners Behar Ali Khan and Jewar Ali Khan, who seem to be very sickly, have requested their irons might be taken off for a few days, that they might take medicine, and walk about the garden of the place where they are confined. Now, as I am sure that they will be equally secure without their irons as with them, I think it my duty to inform you of this request. I desire to know your pleasure concerning it.” The resident, acting under higher orders, had no alternative but to refuse. Indeed, new terrors and rigours were prepared for them. In Fyzabad, their ordinary residence, the fact of their being near the begums, and within reach of their possible intervention in their behalf, might afford some solace, but they were now sent off to Lucknow, perhaps to perish unheeded among strangers. What they here suffered must be conjectured from the following letter, addressed by the assistant-resident to the British officer on guard:—“Sir—The nabob having determined to inflict corporal punishment upon the prisoners under your guard, this is to desire, that his officers, when they shall come, may have free access to the prisoners, and be permitted to do with them as they shall see proper.” All measures of severity proving unavailing, it began to be suspected that the work of spoliation was complete, or, that if anything remained to be given up, lenient measures were more likely to obtain it. The begums and their attendants, who had often been reduced to the point of starvation, were set free from restraint, and the eunuchs regained their freedom. The kind of treatment to which they had been subjected may be learned from the delight expressed at their deliverance. This is described rather hyperbolically by the officer who had the charge of them, in a letter to the resident:—“I wish you had been present at the enlargement of the prisoners. The quivering lips, with the tears of joy stealing down the poor men’s cheeks, was a scene truly affecting. If the prayers of these poor men will avail, you will at the last trump be translated to the happiest regions in heaven.”

During his visit at Chunar, the nabob offered Mr. Hastings a present of ten lacs (£100,000), of course not in specie, for of this he had none, but in bills on some of the great soucars or bankers of the country. By the Regulating Act, all servants of the Company, civil and military, are expressly prohibited from accepting “from any of the Indian princes or powers, or their ministers or agents (or any of the natives of Asia), any present, gift, donation, gratuity, or reward, pecuniary or otherwise, on any account, or on any pretence whatsoever;” and by another regulation, all the ordinary nuzzurs or presents which it would be deemed an affront to the donor not to receive, are to be handed over to the Company. The only alternative remaining to Mr. Hastings, therefore, was to decline the present, or having accepted it, to pay over the amount into the Company’s treasury. Once there, it must have appeared in the accounts, and could at any future time be traced. Mr. Hastings adopted a different course. He accepted the £100,000, as if for himself, expended it in the service of the Company, and then asked the directors to make his fortune by sanctioning his appropriation of it as a present. This request, contained in a letter dated 20th January, 1782, about four months after his acceptance of the gift, in September, 1781, was in the following terms:— “I accepted it without hesitation, and gladly, being entirely destitute both of means and credit, whether for your service or the relief of my own necessities. It was made not in specie, but in bills. What I have received has been laid out in the public service; the rest shall be applied to the same account. The nominal sum is ten lacs Oude currency. As soon as the whole is completed, I shall send you a faithful account of it, resigning the disposal of it to the pleasure of your honourable court. If you shall adjudge the disposal to me, I shall consider it as the most honourable appointment and reward of my labours, and I wish to owe my fortune to your bounty. I am now in my fiftieth year; I have passed thirty-one years in your service. My conscience allows me boldly to claim the merit of zeal and integrity, nor has fortune been unpropitious to their exertions. To these qualities I bound my pretensions. I shall not repine, if you shall deem otherwise of my services; nor ought your decision, however it may disappoint my hope of a retreat adequate to the consequence and elevation of the office which I now possess, to lessen my gratitude for having been so long permitted to hold it, since it has at least permitted me to lay up a provision with which I can be contented in a more humble station.

In making the above request, Mr. Hastings committed two important mistakes. He asked the directors for a gift which they could not bestow without flying in the face of an act of parliament; and he asked it under the impression that he stood high in favour with the directors, whereas his letter must have reached them about the very time when they were meditating his removal from office, in compliance with the following resolution adopted by the House of Commons, on the 30th of May, 1782:—“Resolved that Warren Hastings, Esq., governor-general, and William Hornby, Esq., president of the council at Bombay, having in sundry instances acted in a manner repugnant to the honour and policy of this nation, and thereby brought great calamities on India, and enormous expenses on the Company, it is the duty of the directors to pursue all legal and effectual means for the removal of the said governor-general and president from their respective offices, and to recall them to Great Britain.” The parliamentary proceedings which issued in the adoption of the above resolution, and the course subsequently taken by the directors and the court of proprietors, must be briefly explained.

The exclusive privileges of the Company were to expire on three years’ notice, given at any time after the 25th of March, 1780, and many communications passed between the ministry and the directors, with a view to a future arrangement. The points chiefly debated were the claim of the crown to all the territories which the Company had acquired, and the amount of payment which the Company ought to make to the public in return for their exclusive privileges. The precarious position of Lord North’s ministry at the time, gave the directors advantages of which they did not fail to avail themselves, and the act which was passed left the more important of these questions still open.

The act (21 Geo. III. c. 65) left the Company in possession of all their former privileges till three years’ notice after the 1st of March, 1791; accepted of a sum of £400,000 as full payment of the arrears due to the public under former arrangement; and provided that in future, after payment of a dividend of eight per cent. out of the clear profits, the public should receive three-fourths of any surplus that might arise. The only part of the act seriously affecting the constitution of the Company was a section providing that, as the Company were already bound to communicate to government all despatches received from India, so they should in future be bound to communicate and submit for approval all despatches which they proposed to transmit to India. While the attention of parliament was thus directed to Indian affairs, two important committees were appointed—the one a select committee, restricted at first to the examination of the proceedings relative to the jurisdiction of the supreme court at Calcutta, but afterwards empowered to extend their inquiries generally to the administration of justice and government in Bengal; the other a secret committee, to inquire into the causes of the Carnatic war and the state of the Company’s possessions on the coast. Mr. Burke took the lead in the one committee, Mr. Henry Dundas, afterwards Lord Melville, was chairman of the other. From the two, eighteen reports (twelve from the select and six from the secret committee) were received, containing a vast mass of important matter, and still affording the best materials for the history of India during the period to which they refer.

On the 9th of April, 1782, Mr. Dundas, in moving that the reports of the secret committee should be referred to a committee of the whole house entered very fully into the merits of the transactions to which they referred, and concluded with a long series of resolutions, relating partly to the general system of government, and partly to the affairs of the Carnatic. A bill of pains and penalties, founded on those relating to the latter head, was immediately brought in against Sir Thomas Rumbold, the late governor, and Messrs Whitehill and Perring, late members of the council of Madras, for breaches of public trust and high crimes and misdemeanours. In March, 1782, Lord North’s ministry had been succeeded by that of the Marquis of Rockingham, and this again, owing to his sudden death in the following July, by that of the Earl of Shelburne. The attention of parliament was so much engrossed by domestic politics, that Mr. Dundas’s bill of pains and penalties had only passed a second reading when the session closed. In the spring of 1783 another ministerial change took place by the famous coalition between Lord North and Mr. Fox, and when parliament again met, the bill of pains and penalties continued to languish. In December the coalition ministry was dismissed, and Mr. Pitt became first lord of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer. A few days afterwards the bill was finally dropped.

The resolution for the dismissal of Mr. Hastings, quoted above, was moved by Mr. Dundas during the Rockingham ministry, and would in all probability have been carried into effect, had not this ministry been suddenly dissolved, since Mr. Burke, though only paymaster of the forces, was one of its most influential members, and had already expressed his decided condemnation of the governor-general’s conduct. The directors accordingly seemed disposed to give immediate effect to the resolution, when they found their hands tied up by the proprietors, who, at a special general court, held on the 19th of June, 1782, adopted the following spirited resolution:—“That the removing of Warren Hastings, Esq., the governor-general of Bengal, or any servants of the Company, merely in compliance with a vote of the House of Commons, without being satisfied that the grounds of delinquency against the said Warren Hastings, or such other servants, are sufficient of themselves to vindicate the directors in coming to such resolution, would weaken the confidence which the servants of the Company ought to entertain of the justice of their employers, and will tend to destroy that independency which the proprietors of East India stock ought to enjoy in the management of their own affairs.” Appended to this resolution was a recommendation to the directors not to give effect to any decision on the subject till it had received the approbation of a general court. The directors were so puzzled how to act, that they discussed the question at eleven meetings, held between the 20th of June and the 2d of October. Ultimately they adopted a series of resolutions, which, after declaring that their policy had always been “to abstain from schemes of conquest,” and “to confine their views to a system of defence,” but “that a contrary system of policy has been adopted and pursued by the Company’s servants in India,” in disobedience to the well-advised orders of their superiors, concluded that “a steady perseverance in the system of conduct, so frequently enjoined by the court of directors, cannot be expected from those whose ideas of extension of dominion, either by negotiation or conquest, have led them to depart from orders so often enforced, and therefore, that it is expedient to remove Warren Hastings, Esq., from the office of governor-general of Bengal.” These resolutions were met by counter-resolutions on the part of the proprietors, who, at a special general court, held on the 21st of October, adopted a motion declaring “that the war in which we are now engaged with the Mahrattas was evidently founded on the sentiments of the court of directors, conveying demands on the Mahratta administration greatly exceeding the conditions of the treaty of Poorundhur”—that “consequently it would be the height of injustice to lay the blame of that war, or the evils which have flowed from it, upon Mr. Hastings”—that “the government-general of Bengal were using every means in their power to effect a general pacification”—that this conduct “merits the warmest approbation of the court”—and “that therefore it would be evidently injurious to the interest of the Company and the nation to remove any of those principal servants of the Company, now discharging their duty with such uncommon exertions, ability, and unanimity.”

In accordance with these opinions, the general court “recommended to the court of directors to rescind their late resolution respecting the removal of Warren Hastings, Esq. governor-general of Bengal.” This motion, when tested by a ballot, taken on the 31st of October, was carried by a large majority. The directors, in consequence, rescinded their resolution, and prepared a general letter to India announcing the result. Here, however, a serious difficulty occurred. By the recent act of 1781, it was necessary to submit the letter before transmitting it for the approval of government. This approval was distinctly refused. Mr. Secretary Townsend intimated that the resolution not to remove Mr. Hastings was so repugnant to the sense of the House of Commons, that he had received his majesty’s commands to withhold all approbation and to prohibit the transmission of it; and Mr. Dundas, when moving that all proceedings relating to it should be laid before parliament, denounced it in still stronger terms.

While the question of removing Mr. Hastings was thus discussed, he was himself preparing to supersede it by a voluntary resignation. He had received a letter from the directors, condemning his conduct at Benares, and declaring his treatment of the rajah unwarrantable and highly impolitic. The unqualified terms in which the condemnation was pronounced, seemed to him to justify the use of equally unqualified terms in answer, and he replied, in a letter to the court, dated 20th March, 1783:—“I understand that these resolutions regarding Cheyte Sing were either published or intended for publication; the authority from whence they proceed leads to the belief of the fact. Who are the readers? Not the proprietors alone, whose interest is immediately concerned in them, and whose approbation I am impelled by every motive of pride and gratitude to solicit, but the whole body of the people of England, whose passions have been excited on the general subject of the conduct of their servants in India; and before them I am arraigned and prejudged of a violation of the national faith in acts of such complicated aggravation, that if they were true, no punishment short of death could atone for the injury which the interest and credit of the public has sustained from them.” After arguing the question, and remarking that “it is now eleven years since I first received the nominal charge of your affairs,” and that “in the course of that time I have had invariably to contend not only with ordinary difficulties, but with such as most naturally arose from the opposition of those very powers from whom I primarily derived my authority, and which were required for the support of it,” he concludes thus:—“It therefore remains for me to perform the duty which I had assigned myself as the final purpose of this letter, to declare, as I now most formally do, that it is my desire that you will be pleased to obtain the early nomination of a person to succeed me in the government of Fort William; to declare that it is my intention to resign your service, so soon as I can do it without prejudice to your affairs, after the allowance of a competent time for your choice of a person to succeed me; and to declare that if, in the intermediate time, you shall proceed to order the restoration of Rajah Cheyte Sing to the zemindary from which he was dispossessed for crimes of the greatest enormity, and your council shall resolve to execute the order, I will instantly give up my station and the service.” Even at this time, when expressing himself thus strongly, he was not without an expectation of still retaining his office, for he immediately says: “To these declarations suffer me to add this reservation, that if in the meantime the acts of which I complain shall, on a mature revision of them, be revoked, and I shall find myself possessed of such a degree of your confidence as shall enable me to discharge the duties of my station, I will continue it until the peace of all your possessions shall be restored, or it shall be your pleasure to allow me to resign it.” In a subsequent letter, referring to the same subject, he says: “At whatever period your decision may arrive, may the government fall into the hands of a person invested with the powers of his office, not disgraced as I have been with an unsubstantial title without authority, and with a responsibility without the means of discharging it.”

In this state of suspense it is rather singular that he undertook a journey to Lucknow, though he must have foreseen that it would occupy the greater part of a year, and that not improbably during his absence his successor might arrive. His own explanation, as given in a pamphlet which he published, ¹ is that his resolution to resign was not absolute but conditional, and that he considered himself pledged to execute it, only provided “no circumstance intervened which might lessen the weight of it as an engagement, or which, as a superior claim, might require it to be suspended. In effect,” he continues, “such a contingency did actually come to pass within a very few months after the date of my letter. This originated in an appeal which was made by the nabob vizier and his ministers against the acts of Mr. Bristow, the Company’s resident at his court, and impelled me by every tie of justice, honour, and public duty, to sacrifice every consideration that regarded myself alone, if necessary for his redress.” Thus impelled, Mr. Hastings set out for Lucknow, on the 17th of February, 1784, and reached it on the 27th of March. During the journey he passed through Benares, and had ample opportunity of contemplating the results of the revolution effected in that province. Under Cheyte Sing, as well as under his father Bulwant Sing, it had enjoyed a high degree of prosperity. The striking contrast which it now presented he has himself candidly recorded. “From the confines of Buxar to Benares, I was followed and fatigued by the clamour of discontented inhabitants. The distresses which were produced by the long-continued drought unavoidably tended to heighten the general discontent; yet I have reason to fear that the cause existed principally in a defective, if not a corrupt and oppressive administration.” He afterwards says, “I have seen nothing but traces of devastation in every village,” and “I cannot help remarking that except the city of Benares, the province is in effect without a government. The administration of the province is misconducted and the people oppressed, trade discouraged, and the revenue in danger of a rapid decline, from the violent appropriation of its means.” At Lucknow, Mr. Hastings made free use of the ample powers which his colleagues had conceded to him. He withdrew a detachment of the Company’s troops stationed on the frontiers of Oude, because the nabob complained of it as eating up his revenues without yielding him any equivalent service in return; and removed the resident, not with the intention of appointing a successor, but avowedly for the purpose of enabling the nabob to exercise an uncontrolled sovereignty. To this course he had previously been opposed, because he maintained that the nabob was a mere cipher in the hands of his minister Hyder Beg Khan, “as he ever must be in the hands of some person.” Now, however, from some sudden revolution in his views, he insisted that this cipher should have all the authority which his minister thought proper to ask for him, because, as he was now pleased to argue, “justice and good faith” cut off “every pretext for exercising any authority in the country, while the sovereign of it fulfils the engagement which he has contracted with the Company.” While at Lucknow, Mr. Hastings was not indisposed to enter into some kind of treaty with the Mogul, then at Delhi, but the idea not receiving any countenance from his colleagues was dropped.

Mr. Hastings left Lucknow on the 27th of August, and arrived in Calcutta on the 4th of November, after an absence of nine months. His letter to the directors on the subject of his resignation still remained unanswered. To what was this long delay to be ascribed? Had the directors been prevented by circumstances from arriving at any decision? or, having accepted of the resignation as if it had been a matter of course, had they deemed it unnecessary to take any further notice of it? The latter appears to have been the view taken by Mr. Hastings, and therefore within three weeks of his return he wrote them as follows: “If the next regular advices should contain, either the express acceptance of my resignation of the service, or your tacit acquiescence, I shall relinquish my office to the gentleman who stands next to me in the prescribed order of succession, and return to England as soon as the ship Berrington can be made ready to sail.” As a reason for thus taking the decision into his own hands he adds, “I do not believe this government will ever be invested with its proper powers till I am removed from it, nor can it much longer subsist without them. I am therefore a hurtful encumbrance on it, and my removal, whenever or however effected, will be a relief to it.” After two months more had elapsed without an answer, he received accounts from England which satisfied him that all idea of continuing in office must be abandoned. His last communication to the directors on the subject, written on the 10th of January, 1785, contained the following passage:—“I conceive it now to be impossible for your commands to require my stay, on the terms in which I might have had the presumption to suppose within the line of possibility; were such to be your pleasure, it is scarcely possible for your commands, on any subject which could concern my stay, to arrive before the season required for my departure. I rather feel the wish to avoid the receipt of them than to await their coming, and I consider myself in this act as the fortunate instrument of dissolving the frame of an inefficient government pernicious to your interests, and disgraceful to the national character.” Accordingly, on the 1st of February, he formally delivered the keys of Fort William and of the treasury to Mr. Macpherson, the senior councillor, and on the 8th finally quitted the shores of India.

The accounts from England, which seemed to Mr. Hastings to leave him no alternative, and to compel his immediate departure, are understood to have related to the various ministerial changes which had taken place, and the various parliamentary proceedings of which India was the subject. In the course of nine months three distinguished statesmen had aspired to the honour of being its legislators, and with that view brought forward bills which still possess historical importance. The first in order was the bill introduced by Mr. Dundas on the 14th of April, 1783. It proposed, as its leading provisions, to give the crown a power of recalling the principal servants of the Company, to define more accurately the extent of control which the governor-general and council of Bengal were entitled to exercise over the other presidencies, and to authorize the governor-general to act, whenever he should deem it expedient, on his own responsibility, should he happen to differ in opinion with the majority of his colleagues. This bill had been framed while the Shelburne ministry was in office, but as that ministry had fallen nine days before it was introduced, Mr. Dundas, seeing no prospect of carrying it, allowed it to drop.

The second bill was introduced on the 18th of November, only a week after the meeting of a new parliament, by Mr. Fox, who had become a secretary of state, and ministerial leader of the House of Commons, in consequence of the coalition of his party with that of Lord North. It was entitled “A bill for vesting the affairs of the East India Company in the hands of certain commissioners for the benefit of the proprietors and the public.” In accordance with this title, it proposed not so much to reform, as to revolutionize the existing constitution of the Company, and proceeded on the following preamble:—

“Whereas disorders of an alarming nature and magnitude have long prevailed and do still continue and increase, in the management of the territorial possessions, the revenues, and the commerce of this kingdom in the East Indies; by means whereof the prosperity of the natives hath been greatly diminished, and the valuable interests of this nation in the said territorial possessions, revenues, and commerce, have been materially impaired, and would probably fall into utter ruin if an immediate and fitting remedy were not provided.” Assuming this preamble to be proved, there was no use in attempting half measures. The whole body was totally and incurably corrupt, and was only to be saved from destruction by being deprived of all means of hurting itself. The proposal therefore was to place it under trust for a period of four years. With this view, the court of directors and the general court of proprietors were both to be abolished, and all their powers, so far as not altered by the new act, were to be conferred on seven directors, and nine assistant-directors, the latter, however, being restricted to the management of the commerce only, and being even in this “under and subject to the orders and directions” of the former, who alone were to have “full power and authority” to govern, order, and manage the whole affairs of the Company, and in particular “to remove, displace, suspend, appoint, confirm, or restore all and every person or persons whatsoever, from or to any office, station, or capacity whatever, civil or military.” Both the directors, of whom no special qualification was required, and the assistant-directors, who behaved to be proprietors possessing at least £2000 of stock, were named in the bill, but in the occurrence of vacancies they were to be supplied, in the case of directors, by the crown, and in the case of assistant-directors, by the proprietors, who, it was specially provided, were not to “vote by ballot, or in any other covert or concealed manner, but in an open court” specially summoned for the purpose. The assistant-directors might be removed for misconduct by a vote of five directors; and both directors and assistant-directors were removable by the crown on the address of either House of Parliament. Neither directors nor assistant-directors were to hold any office whatsoever in the service of the Company, nor any place of profit under the crown during pleasure. No mention was made of any payment to the directors, but each assistant-director was to have a salary of £500 a year. Other sections of the bill contained various provisions for enabling the directors to settle the differences which might arise between the supreme council and the subordinate presidencies, or between governors and their councils, to redress the grievances of native and protected princes, and prevent or punish other ascertained abuses. It is unnecessary, however, to enter further into detail, as the bill, instead of becoming law, proved the ruin of the ministry which had ventured to propose it. This was owing, not so much to its own demerits, though these were neither few nor small, as to adventitious causes, the most powerful of which was the avowed hostility of the king, who went so far as to intrust Earl Temple with a written

BOOK VI.

FROM THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE BOARD OF CONTROL TO THE COMPLETE EXTINCTION OF THE COMPANY’S TRADE.