proof of her charges. The pretext for this condition was, its alleged conformity CHAP. II. to the laws of the country: To stifle complaint, and to screen misrule, was its 1776, natural effect; and upon this consideration the majority of the Council refused to impose it. A variety of accounts were presented to the Board, in which were entered several sums of considerable amount, as paid by the Duan to the servants of the Company and their dependants, not only upon the appointment of the young Rajah, but also upon that of his Duan. Not less than 3,20,975 rupees were charged to the account of the resident, his banian, and cash-keeper. Mr. Hastings himself was accused of receiving 15,000 rupees, and his banian, or native secretary, 4,500; and the whole of the sums represented as thus distributed among the Company's servants, since the death of the deceased Rajah, amounted to 9,36,497 rupees. The authenticity of these accounts was called in question by the parties whom they affected; and every thing is doubtful which rests upon the authority of Indian witnesses, under strong temptations to depart from truth. Enough does not appear to condemn any individual. Enough appears to render it not doubtful that money was upon this occasion received by the Company's servants; and enough does not appear to exculpate any individual against whom the charge was advanced. Mr. Hastings now lost his tone of calmness and forbearance. He accused the party in the Council, by whom he was opposed, of a design to supersede him in his authority, and to drive him from his office. He pronounced them to be his accusers, parties to the cause against him; and therefore disqualified to sit as judges upon his conduct. He declared that he would not summon or hold councils for "a triumph over himself." He proposed that whatever inquisition they might choose to make into his conduct, they should make it in a committee; where his absence would save his station and character from degradation and insult; and he declared it to be his resolution to dissolve the Council, as often as they should enter upon any criminatory inquiry against himself. An occasion soon presented itself for putting his threat in execution. The resolution to compliment the Ranee with the usual insignia of office, he pronounced an insult to himself; declared the Council dissolved, and quitted the chair. The majority resolved that a vote of adjournment could, as all other votes, be passed only by a plurality of the voices present; that if this was not the law, the Governor General was despotic; and that the right which he claimed was a right of impunity. They voted the first member of the Council into the chair, and continued their proceedings. accused of re On the 30th of March, 1775, another accusation occupied the attention of Mr. Hastings the Board. In a representation received from one of the natives, it was set ceiving annu 1776. ally a large sum from the Phousdar of Book V. forth, that the Phouzdar of Hoogly was paid by the Company 72,000 rupees as the annual salary of his office; that out of this sum, however, he paid annually to Mr. Hastings 36,000 rupees, together with 4,000 to Mr. Hastings' native secretary, reserving only 32,000 rupees to himself; and that the author of this representation would undertake the duties of the office for this reduced allowance, producing an annual saving to the Company of 40,000 rupees, now corruptly received by Mr. Hastings and his banyan. The first debate which arose upon this information regarded the competence of the board to entertain such complaints. Mr. Hastings' party, consisting of Mr. Barwell and himself, opposed the reception of any accusations against any individual of the board; and referred to the courts of justice. The major party deemed it an important article of the duty of the Supreme Council to control abuses, and not least in the hands of those who had the greatest power to commit them. It is no sufficient check upon those who are entrusted with power to be amenable for legal crimes in a court of justice. The analogies of the most vulgar trust shed light upon the highest. Who would endure a servant pretending that his conduct ought not to be challenged but in a court of justice; his trust modified, or withdrawn, till after the judicial proof of a legal crime? When this plea was over-ruled, and the council were about to enter upon the investigation, Mr. Hastings declared that " he would not sit to be confronted with such accusers, nor to suffer a judicial inquiry into his conduct, at the board of which he is President." As formerly, he pronounced the Council dissolved; and the majority continued their proceedings in his absence. Two letters of the Phouzdar in question were produced in evidence; and two witnesses were examined. The Phouzdar himself was summoned to answer. At first he alleged excuses for delay. When he did appear, he declined examination upon oath; on the pretence that to persons of his rank it was a degradation to confirm their testimony by that religious ceremony. In this scrupulosity, he was strongly supported by Mr. Hastings; but the majority construed it into a contempt of the Board; and dismissed the Phouzdar from his office, which they conferred, not upon the accusing petitioner, but another individual, at one half of the preceding salary, 36,000 rupees. The majority of the Council esteemed the evidence of the charge complete. The party of the Governor-General, representing the testimony of the natives of India when they have any motive to falsify, as little worthy of trust; and the known disposition of the leading party in the Council as holding forth inducement to accuse, affirmed that the evidence had no title to regard. The eagerness of the Governor-General to stifle, and his exertions to obstruct inquiry, on all occasions where his conduct came under complaint, constituted in itself an CHAP. II. article of proof, which added materially to the weight of whatever came against him from any other source. 1776. accused of re sent from Another ground of charge presented itself in the following manner. On the 2d Mr. Hastings of May, 1775, Mr. Grant, accountant to the provincial council of Moorshedabad, ceiving a preproduced to the board a set of accounts, relating to the affairs of the Nabob; Munny Beand stated that he had received them from a native, now in his own service, gum. who had till lately been a clerk in the treasury office of the Nabob. From these accounts it appeared that Munny Begum, since her appointment to the superintendance of the Nabob's person and affairs, had received 9,67,693 rupees, over and above what she appeared to have disbursed, or had accounted for. Upon examination of Mr. Grant, and of the clerk from whom the accounts were received, the majority of the council were induced to regard them as authentic. Among other circumstances it was stated by the clerk that the head eunuch of the Begum, the person who stood highest in her confidence, had endeavoured, upon hearing of such accounts in the hands of the clerk, to prevail upon him, by the prospect of rewards and advantages, to restore the papers, and return to the service of the Begum; and Mr. Grant was ready to confirm by his oath that similar attempts had been made upon himself. The party opposed to the Governor-General thought the circumstances sufficiently strong to render inquiry necessary, and to authorise the steps which for that purpose were required. They proposed that a servant of the Company should immediately be sent to Moorshedabad, invested with a proper commission and powers; and that the Begum, for the investigation of whose conduct no satisfactory evidence could be procured, while she retained authority over the offices and servants of the Nabob, should be divested of her power. The GovernorGeneral, on the other hand, questioned the authority of the papers, resisted the proposal to inquire into the accounts of the Begum, and protested against removing her from her office, while no proof of her misconduct was adduced.* By decision however of the majority, Mr. Goring was dispatched for the investigation; the power of the Begum was withdrawn; and Rajah Gourdass, the son of Nuncomar, Duan, or principal Minister of the Begum, received the temporary charge of the Nabob's affairs. Inquiry seemed to establish the authenticity of the papers. The Begum, when pressed to account for the balance with which she was charged, stated, among other circumstances, that 1,50,000 rupees * Another contrast to the case of Mahomed Reza Khan. 1776. BOOK V. had been given to Mr. Hastings, under the name of entertainment money, when he went to Moorshedabad in 1772, and placed her at the head of the Nabob's establishment. She also represented that on the same occasion 1,50,000 rupees had been given by her as a present to Mr. Middleton. Of the sum thus delivered to Mr. Middleton (for the receipt of it was never denied), no account was ever rendered, and no defence was ever set up. Mr. Hastings justified the receipt of what was bestowed upon him, on the several pleas, that the act of parliament which prohibited presents was not then passed, that such allowances were the common custom of the country, that a Nabob of Bengal received on the same account 1000 rupees a day as often as he visited the Governor in Calcutta, that he added nothing to his fortune by this allowance, and must have charged to the Company a sum as large, if this had not been received.* Upon part of this it is necessary to remark, that custom, the custom of a country, where almost every thing was corrupt, affords but a sorry defence; that if a visit to the Nabob was a thing of so much expense it ought not to have been made without an adequate cause; that no adequate cause, if the receipt of the present be excluded, can any where be found; that for the necessity of a great expense on such a visit, or indeed of any extraor dinary expense at all, we have barely the assertion of the Governor-General, which being the assertion of a party making out a case in his own defence, and an assertion opposed to probability, possesses but little of the force of proof. Besides, the amount is enormous; 2000 rupees per day; 7,30,000 rupees, or 73,000l. per annum. What should have made living at Moorshedabad cost the Governor-General at the rate of 73,000l. per annum? And why should the Nabob, whose allowance was understood to be cut down to the lowest point, have been oppressed by so enormous a burden? Another consideration of importance is, that when Mr. Hastings received the sum of one lac and a half of rupees for entertainment money, he at the same time charged to the Company a large sum, 30,000 rupees and upwards, as travelling charges, and a great additional amount for his colleagues and attendants. The complaints of severe usage to the Begum; advanced both by herself and by Hastings; appear to have had no other foundation than the loss of her office; an office which the majority considered her sex as disqualifying her to fill; and to which they treated her appointment as one of the errors or crimes of the preceding administration. * See Defence of Mr. Hastings at the Bar of the Lords. + Minutes of Evidence on the Trial, p. 1048. cuses Mr. sents. opposes all Of the different charges, however, brought against the Governor-General, CHAP. II. those which were produced by the Rajah Nuncomar were attended with the 1776. most remarkable circumstances. From this personage, whom we have seen Nuncomar acPhouzdar of Hoogly, minister of the Nabob Jaffier Khan, the agent of Mr. Hastings of Hastings in the prosecution of Mahomed Reza Khan, him whose son was receiving preappointed Duan of the household to the Nabob, and which son it was regulated and ordained that he should guide; a paper was delivered on the 11th of March, which, besides accusing the Governor-General of overlooking the proof of vast embezzlements committed by Mahomed Reza Khan and Shitabroy, and of acquitting them in consideration of large sums of money by which he was bribed, exhibited the particulars of a sum, amounting to 3,54,105 rupees, which it affirmed, the Governor-General accepted for the appointment of Munny Begum, and Goordass, to their respective dignities and powers. In prosecution of the opinion of the majority that it was the duty of the supreme Council to inquire into the charges which were brought against the members of the government, and to control the conduct even of the highest officers of state, it was on the 13th proposed, that Nuncomar should be summoned to appear before them, and called upon to produce the grounds of his accusation. Mr. Hastings, instead Mr. Hastings of choosing to confront his accuser, and to avail himself of the advantage of inquiry. innocence in hearing and challenging the pretences of a false accusation, resisted inquiry. "Before the question is put," says his Minute, "I declare that I will not suffer Nuncomar to appear before the Board as my accuser. I know what belongs to the dignity and character of the first member of this administration. I will not sit at this Board in the character of a criminal. Nor do I acknowledge the members of this Board to be my judges. I am reduced on this occasion to make the declaration that I regard General Clavering, Colonel Monson, and Mr. Francis, as my accusers." The Governor-General, with Mr. Barwell, again recommended prosecution at law, not inquiry before the Council, as the mode of investigating his conduct. Again he pronounced the Council dissolved, and, together with Mr. Barwell, quitted the Board. Again the majority voted this form of dissolution void, and continued the inquiry. Nuncomar made positive declaration as to the sums which he himself had paid to the Governor; gave in the names of several persons who were privy to the transactions; and presented a letter in purport from Munny Begum to himself, of which the seal, upon comparison, by the Persian translator and his moonshee, was declared to be authentic, and in which a gift was stated of two lacs to the Governor from herself. Upon this evidence the Governor was called upon to |
