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1781.

BOOK V. his law of self-preservation, when examined, and brought into conformity with the facts, implies a strong convenience, and nothing more. It was very convenient for the English, at that time, to have a large body of troops maintained by a different treasury from their own. But it will hardly be maintained, at any rate by the friends of Mr. Hastings, that in his hands the British empire in India must have been destroyed, had it been compelled to rely upon its own resources. It was for a great convenience, then, and for nothing else, that the English, without any claim of right, compelled the Nabob Vizir to maintain their troops; that is, treated him as the vassal which Mr. Hastings described him, and substantially seized and exercised the rights of sovereign and master over both him and his country.

Another point well deserves to be considered; whether the original brigade of the Company's troops was not a force sufficient to protect the Nabob's country, against all the dangers with which it was threatened. If the English, who included in their own line of defence the boundaries of Oude, did not provide their due proportion, but impose the whole upon the Nabob, they defended themselves at his expense; they delivered themselves from a burthen, which was their own, by compelling the Nabob to bear it; and violated the laws of justice. It is also a question, whether the troops quartered upon him in addition to that brigade, as they were kept in idleness in his dominions, were not, with all their expense, of little use either to him or the Company. As they were not employed against the enemies of the Company, they could be of little use in repelling them; and the complaint of the Vizir that they and their officers acted as the masters in his country, and as a source both of expense and of disorder, is confirmed by Mr. Francis, who, in Council, pronounced it "notorious, that the English army had devoured his revenues, and his country, under colour of defending it." *

The Governor-General, when pressed for argument, made the following avowal: That ambiguities had been left in the treaty: And that it was the part of the strongest to affix to these ambiguities that meaning which he pleased.†

* Extract of Bengal Consultations, 15th December, 1779; Tenth Report, ut supra, Appendix, No. 7.

+ His words are these, "As no period was stipulated for the continuance of the temporary brigade, or of the troops which are to supply their place in his service, nor any mode prescribed for withdrawing them; the time and mode of withdrawing them must be guided by such rules, as necessity, and the common interests of both parties, shall dictate. These, either he must prescribe, or ourselves. If we cannot agree upon them, in such a division, the strongest must decide."

Ibid.

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That this is a very common political procedure, every one knows. The trans- CHAP. VIII. action, however, in its essence, is, it is evident, only a varnish placed upon 1781. injustice by fraud. In the present case, besides, it happened, by a singular chance, that ambiguity had not existence, and the allegation of it was false. "So long only as the Nabob pleased," was the express condition of the compact; and the moment at which the Nabob desired relief, the most exact definition was applied.

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The Governor-General surmised a circumstance, which always seems to have animated him to peculiar severity; that the idea of the instability of the existing government was among the causes which emboldened the Nabob to complain. I, for my own part," said he, "do not attribute* the demand of the Nabob to any conviction impressed on his mind by the necessity of his affairs; but to the knowledge which his advisers have acquired, of the weakness and divisions of our own government. This is a powerful motive with me, however inclined I might be, upon any other occasion, to yield to some part of his demands, to give them an absolute and unconditional refusal in the present; and even to bring to punishment, if my influence can produce that effect, those incendiaries who have endeavoured to make themselves the instruments of division between us." +

Under the enormous demands of the English, and the Nabob's inability to Nabob's debts progressive. meet them, the debt with which he stood charged in 1780 amounted to the sum of 1,400,000l. The Supreme Council continued pressing their demands. The Nabob, protesting that he had given up every thing, that "in the country no further resources remained, and that he was without a subsistence," continued sinking more deeply in arrear: Till the time when the resolution of Mr. Hastings was adopted, to proceed to make with him a new arrangement upon the spot.

Governor-Ge

As a step preliminary to the affairs which the Governor-General meant to Previous to the transact with the Nabob, he withdrew the resident, Mr. Bristow. This gentle- neral's transman had been appointed by the party of General Clavering, when they removed actions with Middleton, the private agent of Mr. Hastings: The Governor-General had Bristow is reremoved him soon after the time when he recovered his superiority in the

* It would be very curious, if the Governor-General, at the commencement of the year 1780, was totally ignorant of the ruin of the Nabob's finances; and in eighteen months afterwards, viz. at the time of his journey to the upper provinces, was so convinced of that ruin, as to make it the principal ground of the extraordinary procedure which he adopted, and, allowing the inability to be real, to remove the brigade and other objects of complaint.

+ Extract of Bengal Consultations, 15th December, 1779; Tenth Report, ut supra, Appendix, No. 7.

the Vizir, Mr.

moved.

1781.

Governor-Ge

neral's agree

Vizir.

BOOK V. Council: The Court of Directors had ordered him to be replaced as unjustly and improperly removed: Mr. Hastings, in disobedience of these orders, had refused to replace him, till it became a condition of the compromise into which he entered with Francis: And he now removed him again, with a fresh violation of the authority of the Court of Directors, in conformity with whose orders he occupied the place. Mr. Middleton was again appointed, on the reason, notwithstanding the condemnation of the Court of Directors, again avowed, that a person in the Governor-General's own confidence was necessary in that situation. As the Governor-General intended to make a very short stay at Benares, and ment with the then proceed to Lucknow, the Nabob had already left his capital, in order to pay him the usual compliment of a meeting, when he received intelligence of the insurrection. Mr. Hastings, who wished not the interview in a state of humiliation, or under the appearance of receiving protection from his ally, endeavoured by a letter to make him return to his capital. But the Nabob was eager to show the interest which he took in the fate of the Governor-General, or eager to know the situation in which he was placed; and hastened with but a few of his attendants to Chunar. The English ruler was at pains to afford him a cordial reception. And with little debate or hesitation they made a memorable arrangement. In consequence of " the repeated and urgent representations of the Nabob, that he is unable to support the expenses of the temporary brigade of cavalry, and English officers with their battalions, as well as other gentlemen who are now paid by him," (such are the terms of the preamble to the covenant) it was agreed, on the part of the Governor-General, that from the expense of the temporary brigade, and of all other English troops, except the single brigade left with Suja ul Dowlah, and a regiment of sepoys for the resident's guard; and from the expense of all payments to English gentlemen, excepting those of the resident's office; the Nabob should be relieved.* According to another article,

See the preceding page, where it appears that Hastings, little more than a year before, treated as incendiaries, and threatened with punishment, those advisers, by whose suggestion he deemed it proper to assume, that the Nabob implored the relief which was now granted, and so much as stated the sufferings of the country which the Governor-General now held studiously up to view. To threaten to punish the representation of grievances, as Burke justly on this passage remarks, is to endeavour to obstruct one of the most sacred duties of a dependant prince, and of his advisers; a duty in the highest degree useful, both to the people who suffer, and to the governing power. It affords a curious moral spectacle, to compare the minutes and letters of the Governor-General, when, at the beginning of the year 1780, maintaining the propriety of compelling the Nabob to sustain the whole of the burthen imposed upon him; and his minutes and letters, when maintaining the propriety of relieving him from these burthens in 1781: The arguments and facts adduced

1781.

permission was granted him to resume such of the jaghires within his territories CHAP. VIII. as he himself might choose, with only this reservation, that a pension equal to the net rent should be paid to the holders of such of them as had the Company for their guarantee. An article was also inserted, according to which the Nabob was to be allowed, when the suitable time should arrive, to strip Fyzoolla Khan of his territory, allowing him only a pension in its stead.

Such was all that was seen on the face of this agreement; where no advantage to the English appeared. The circumstances, however, which constituted the real nature of the transaction were only behind the curtain.

There were two Princesses, known by the name of the Begums; the one, the The Begums. mother of Suja ul Dowla, the late Nabob; the other, the widow of the late Nabob, and mother of the present. These Princesses the preceding sovereign had always treated with the highest consideration and respect; and allowed them a magnificent and expensive establishment. At the death of Suja ul Dowla, those Princesses, according to the custom of India, were left in possession of certain jaghires; that is, the government portion of the produce of a part of the land, over which, for the greater certainty of payment, the holder of the jaghire was allowed the powers of management and collection. This was the fund, from which the Begums provided for their state and subsistence; and for the state and subsistence of the numerous families of the preceding Nabobs, placed under their superintendance. Suja ul Dowla, at his death, had also left to the Begums the greater part of the treasure which happened to be in his hands; and imagination swelled the sum to a prodigious extent. Mr. Hastings had been disappointed in the mine which he expected to drain at Benares. His power and reputation depended upon the immediate acquisition of money. In the riches of the Begums appeared to lie an admirable resource. It was agreed between Mr. Hastings and the Nabob, that his Highness should be relieved from the expense, which he was unable to bear, of the English troops and gentlemen; and he, on his part, engaged to strip the Begums of both their treasure and their jaghires, delivering to the Governor-General the proceeds.*

Stripped of

their treasure and jaghires.

on the one occasion, as well as the conclusion, are in flat contradiction to those exhibited on the other. See the Documents in the Second and Tenth Reports, ut supra; printed also for the House of Commons on the 16th of Burke's Charges; and in the Minutes of Evidence on the Trial.

* To enable the Nabob, "to discharge his debt to the Company in the shortest time possible," that is, to get money from him; and "to prevent his alliance from being a clog instead of an aid;" that is, costing money, instead of yielding it, is declared by the Governor-General to have been

Book V.

1781.

viour of the

This transaction, however objectionable it may at first sight appear, Mr. Hastings represented as attended with circumstances which rendered it not only just but necessary. The weight of these circumstances ought to be carefully and impartially considered.

Previous beha- In the year 1775, not long after the death of Suja ul Dowla, his widow, the Governor-Ge- mother of the reigning Nabob, complained, by letter, to the English government, neral toward of the treatment which she received from her son. She stated that various sums, the Begums. to the extent of twenty-six lacs of rupees, had been extorted from her, under the plea of being in want of money to discharge his obligations to the English chiefs; and that a recent demand had been urged for no less than thirty lacs, as absolutely necessary to relieve him, under his engagements to the Company; and to save his affairs from a ruinous embarrassment. Upon the faith of the English government, to which alone she would trust, she agreed to make this sacrifice; and it was solemnly covenanted, on the part of her son, and guaranteed on the part of the English government, that no further invasion should ever be made upon her, in the full enjoyment of her jaghires and effects, whether she resided within the dominions of Asoph ul Dowla, or chose to reside in any other place. This agreement was far from producing peace between the Nabob and the Begums. Perpetual complaints of injurious treatment were made by the Princesses, and the business of mediation was found by the English resident a difficult and delicate task.

In the beginning of the year 1778, those dissensions rose to a great height and the aged Princess, "whose residence the treatment of her grandson" (to use the words of Mr. Middleton, the resident) "seems to have rendered irksome and disgusting to her," resolved to abandon his dominions, and repair on a pilgrimage to Mecca. To the execution of this design, the Nabob was exceedingly averse; because it would withdraw, from the sphere of his power, the great treasure which he imagined she possessed, and which at her death, if not before, he could render his own. Both the Nabob and his grandmother applied to the resident; the one for the purpose of procuring his influence to prevail upon the Begum to remain; the other for the purpose of procuring it to induce the Nabob to allow her to depart. The Begum complained that she was subject to daily extortions and insults; that the Nabob withheld the allowance which had been established by the late Vizir for the maintenance of the family of her deceased husband; that he had resumed the jaghires and emoluments of her servants and dependants; that he had made no "the chief object in his negotiations with the Nabob." Letter to Mr. Middleton, 23d September,

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