1782.

Book V. provide them, had laid open the country to all the disasters, to which the weak and unprotected state in which it was found by Hyder Ali exposed it. When the war began, the strongest necessity existed for rendering the resources of the country available to its defence. Supplies, in the highest degree defective, had been obtained from the Nabob; nor was there any rational prospect of improvement. For the payment of particular debts, both to the Company and to individuals, it had been usual with him, according to the custom of Indian princes, to grant assignments on the revenues of particular districts; and no inconsiderable portion of the whole was under this disposition. As the exigency was peculiarly violent; nothing less being immediately at stake, than the existence, in the Carnatic, of both the Nabob and the English; Lord Macartney regarded an extension of the same expedient, namely, an assignment of all his revenues, as the only feasible plan for meeting the present difficulties; and compliance with it, as no unreasonable condition imposed on the Nabob, seeing the proceeds were to be employed for his own defence, and that it was impossible he could, if defended at all, be so well defended, by any other means. Not without great difficulty the consent of the Nabob was obtained. It was an arrangement far from agreeable to that vanity and ambition, which formed a strong ingredient in his character. And there was no want of persons in his confidence who inflamed his discontent; and who excited him to employ every stratagem to obtain the surrender of the power he had given away.

State of interests and of intrigue, at the Nabob.

It has already been observed, that the seat or durbar of the Nabob, who had taken up his residence at Madras, was one of the most corrupt and active scenes Durbar of the of intrigue, that had ever been exhibited in India. The Nabob, who was totally incompetent to his own defence, was necessarily in a state of abject dependance upon the Company; but, receiving directly the revenues of the country, he endeavoured, as far as possible, by the application of money, to secure the gratification of his will. His policy was, to purchase friends among the English rulers; and to excite opposition to those whose acquiescence he failed in acquiring. The effects were mischievous, in a variety of ways. The servants of the Company were too frequently taught to look to the violation, rather than the performance of their duties, as their most certain source of reward; and the business of the Presidency was in general disturbed by a violent spirit of division and counteraction.

The mind of the Nabob was of that class of minds which must, by a kind of necessity, be always governed by somebody; and in the imbecility of age, and of a constitution worn with indulgence, he now leaned more absolutely on

1782.

the accustomed support, than at an earlier period of his life. The persons who CHAP. VIII. at this period had acquired the entire ascendancy over him were Ameer ul Omrah, his second son, and Paul Benfield. The former is described as excelling in all the arts of eastern, the latter in all the arts of western, villainy. The passion of the former was power, the passion of the latter, money; and this much, at least, appears, that both pursued their ends with much ardour, with great talents for intrigue, with great audacity, and not much of moral restraint. The immediate object of the former was to get his elder brother disinherited, and to obtain the succession for himself. For this purpose the old Nabob, whose passions and those of his favourite were one, had employed all his arts to obtain from the Company an acknowledgment, that he had the right of naming his successor, without regard to the established order of inheritance. With a view, by obtaining favour with the English, to pave the way to this and other desirable objects, the Ameer ul Omrah had acted the part of a zealous instrument in obtaining the consent of his father to the assignment of the revenues. When he found that Lord Macartney was as little subservient to his purposes, after this event as before, his disappointment and his enmity were equally strong. His endeavour was to render the assignment useless; to annul, if possible, the transaction. As he had his father's mind compliant in all things, so he had it eager in the pursuit of an end, the hope of which served as a balm to the wound his pride had received, in ever relinquishing the management of the revenues. In Benfield he met with an able coadjutor. Benfield had been removed by Lord Macartney from some of the offices which he held as a servant of the Company. The liberalities and the views of the Nabob and his son pointed out a path to both fortune and revenge.

to defeat the

The first expedient was, by practising on the renters, and other persons in He endeavours charge of the revenues, to render unproductive the collections. Disordered and effects of the desolate as the country was, without a government, and ravaged by a destruc- assignment. tive foe, the realizing of any revenue was in itself a difficult task. Lord Macartney had appointed a committee, consisting of some of the most trustworthy of the Company's servants at the Presidency, for conducting the business which regarded the assigned revenues. They speedily discovered, that secret orders and suggestions, which counteracted all their proceedings, had been sent into the districts. The people had been taught to distrust the validity of the engagements formed with the English government; and hence to practise all the arts of delay and evasion. The greatest oppression was evidently exercised upon the unhappy cultivators; yet little could be obtained from the renters

BOOK V. and collectors for the Company's treasury; while large sums, it is affirmed, were privately sent to the Ameer ul Omrah.*

1783.

The GovernorGeneral embraces his

wiews.

The known enmity of Sir Eyre Coote to Lord Macartney suggested the first stratagem for overturning the engagement with the President. A bait was offered, the attractions of which, it was supposed, the avidity of the General for power would not be able to resist. The Nabob offered to vest in his hands full authority over all the officers of his government and revenues. But the General too well knew what a frightful chaos his government was, to desire for the responsibility of so dangerous a trust.

have any

As soon as it was found that the ear of the Governor-General was open to representations against the Governor of Madras, it was a channel in which the Nabob and his instruments industriously plied. Lord Macartney was accused of wanting abilities to render the assignment of the revenues productive; of enhancing the disorders of the country; and, above all, of practising the utmost cruelty and oppression towards the Nabob and his family. Letters of this import were not only sent at various times in the Nabob's name to Bengal; but one was written and transmitted to the British King.

Sufficient encouragement having been received from the Governor-General, the Nabob ventured at last to solicit the restoration of his revenues, by the surrender of the assignment: And his former agents, Assam Khan and Mr. Richard Sullivan, were sent on a second mission to Bengal in January, 1783.

Their criminative representations against Macartney were received; and not only entered on the records, but immediately sent to England; without communication to the party accused; and of course without an opportunity afforded him of obviating their effects, however undeserved, by a single word of defence. A most singular examination of the Nabob's agents or advocates took place before the Supreme Council, on the subjects on which the Nabob prayed their interference. His agents were directed to state whatever they knew, and did state whatever they chose; matters of hearsay, as much as of perception; without a word of cross-examination, from an opposite party, to limit and correct the partial representation of interested reporters. After completing their statements, and not before, they were asked, if they would swear to the truth of what they had stated. The compulsion was almost irresistible. To have said, they would not swear, was to confess they had not spoken truth. Assam Khan, however, excused himself, on the plea that it was not honourable for a Mussulman to con

*Barrow's Life of Macartney, i. 241.

1785.

firm what he said by an oath. Mr. Sullivan had no such apology, and therefore CHAP. VIII. he took his oath, but with a tolerable latitude; that "to the best of his belief and remembrance, he had spoken the truth and nothing but the truth;" an oath which, if we have charity enough to believe to be in no degree strained, affected not any part of the truth, however material, which it might have suited and pleased him to suppress.

dered.

On the strength of this information, partial and interested as it was, a reso- Orders the lution was passed, on the 8th of January, 1783, to surrender the assignment the revenues assignment of into the hands of the Nabob: though not only had this assignment been for- to be surrenmerly approved and highly praised by the Governor-General and Council, as an act of equal utility and justice, but the delicacy of the Madras government, which endeavoured to accomplish the end by gentle means, was treated as too scrupulous, and the utility of a greater severity was particularly and strongly displayed.*

The interruption and disturbance, which the Nabob was able to give to the government of Madras, he was emboldened to carry to the greatest height, by the encouragement which he received from so high a quarter. And a viler display of hypocrisy is not upon record, than the language in which the author of the calamities of the whole Rohilla nation, of Cheyte Sing, and of the Begums of Oude, affected to bewail the cruelties which, he said, were practised upon the Nabobs of Carnatic and Oude, by Lord Macartney, and Mr. Bristow. "The condition," Mr. Hastings said, "of both Princes is equally destitute and

* The reader should have before him the very words. In the letter from the Governor-General and Council to the President and Select Committee of Fort St. George, dated 5th April, 1782, they "regret," they say, "that the government of Madras should have suffered any consideration, even of delicacy towards the Nabob, or attention for those feelings which it might be natural for him to retain, to restrain them from availing themselves as effectually of the assignment as the desperate necessity which exacted such a concession inevitably demanded." They add a great compliment, and say, "Happy would it be for the national interests and reputation, if the same disinterested and forbearing spirit should invariably dictate the conduct of their affairs." They rise to the use of unlimited terms, instructing the Governor to assume every power necessary to render the assignment effective-" in a word, the whole sovereignty" (such is their expression)" if it shall be necessary to the exercise of such a charge, not admitting the interposition of any authority whatever, which may possibly impede it. If you continue the Nabob's agents; or suffer them to remain, under whatever denomination, in the actual or virtual control of the revenue, they are your servants, and you alone will be deemed responsible for all their acts. And your intercourse with the Nabob may and ought to be restricted to simple acts and expressions of kindness."

+ In his Minute on the 2d of November, 1783, printed among the papers presented to the 4 S

VOL. II.

1785.

Book V. equally oppressed; and the humiliation of their remonstrances shows them to be equally hopeless of any redress but in the mercy of their oppressors." Orders were dispatched to Madras for the restoration of his revenues to the Nabob; of which the sixth part, which he had reserved to himself, as requisite for the maintenance of his family and dignity, had been exactly paid; and in reality yielded to him more money for his private purposes, than he had ever before enjoyed. It curiously happened, that, before the orders of the Supreme Council arrived at Madras, dispatches were received from the Court of Directors, which conveyed their approbation of the assignment, and commanded the assistance of the Bengal government to render it effectual; dispatches which, at the same time, contained, the condemnation of the transaction by which Mr. Sullivan was appointed an agent of the Supreme Council at the residence of the Nabob, and a declaration that the only organ of communication with Mahomed Ali was the Governor and Council of Madras. Upon this communication from the Court of Directors, the Governor and Council applied to the Supreme Council for the assistance which they were commanded to yield. After a hesitation of a few months, the Supreme Council resolved to disobey: And, informing the Governor and Council of Madras, that they assumed the right of judging for themselves, they repeated their orders of the 13th of January, and commanded the surrender of the assignment.

Macartney refuses to obey.

The consequences of obedience appeared to Lord Macartney of the most alarming description. The pay of the Madras army was at that moment seven months in arrear: from the resources of Carnatic alone was any supply to be obtained: not a single pagoda, since the death of Sir Eyre Coote, had been sent from Bengal: if the assignment was given up, the slender produce of the Circars which Mr. Hastings would have sacrificed would alone have remained: and neither the native, nor European troops, could be expected to bear any addition to the privations which they now endured. With a prospect of the actual dissolution of the government, if the revenues, on which every thing depended, were at so extraordinary a moment given up; and fully impressed with the conviction, that to surrender them to the Nabob was to render them unavailing to the defence of the country, defence which then fell upon the Company without

House of Commons on the 13th of March, 1786. For the opinion which Mr. Hastings entertained of the mischievous character of the Nabob, and of the intrigues of which he was at once the cause and the dupe, entertained as long as since the period when he was second in council at Madras; see the records of that Presidency in Rous's Appendix, p. 682*, 688*, 704, 717, 718, 729.