Book: The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12)

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THE WORKS

OF

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

EDMUND BURKE


IN TWELVE VOLUMES

VOLUME THE EIGHTH


[Illustration: Burke Coat of Arms.]


LONDON
JOHN C. NIMMO
14, KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND, W.C.
MDCCCLXXXVII




CONTENTS OF VOL. VIII.


NINTH REPORT OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS ON
THE AFFAIRS OF INDIA. JUNE 25, 1783.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE STATE OF THE COMPANY'S AFFAIRS IN INDIA 3

CONNECTION OF GREAT BRITAIN WITH INDIA 41

EFFECT OF THE REVENUE INVESTMENT ON THE COMPANY 56

INTERNAL TRADE OF BENGAL 75
SILK 83
RAW SILK 88
CLOTHS, OR PIECE-GOODS 99
OPIUM 116
SALT 142
SALTPETRE 170

BRITISH GOVERNMENT IN INDIA 173


ELEVENTH REPORT OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS ON
THE AFFAIRS OF INDIA. WITH EXTRACTS FROM THE APPENDIX.
NOVEMBER 18, 1783 217


ARTICLES OF CHARGE OF HIGH CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS AGAINST WARREN
HASTINGS, ESQUIRE, LATE GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF BENGAL: PRESENTED TO
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN APRIL AND MAY, 1786.--ARTICLES I.-VI.

I. ROHILLA WAR 307

II. SHAH ALLUM 319

III. BENARES

PART I. RIGHTS AND TITLES OF THE RAJAH OF BENARES 327

PART II. DESIGNS OF MR. HASTINGS TO RUIN THE RAJAH OF
BENARES 339

PART III. EXPULSION OF THE RAJAH OF BENARES 354

PART IV. SECOND REVOLUTION IN BENARES 380

PART V. THIRD REVOLUTION IN BENARES 386

IV. PRINCESSES OF OUDE 397

V. REVOLUTIONS IN FURRUCKABAD 467

VI. DESTRUCTION OF THE RAJAH OF SAHLONE 484




NINTH REPORT

OF THE

SELECT COMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS

ON

THE AFFAIRS OF INDIA.

June 25, 1783.




NINTH REPORT

From the SELECT COMMITTEE [of the House of Commons] appointed
to take into consideration the state of the administration of
justice in the provinces of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa, and to
report the same, as it shall appear to them, to the House,
with their observations thereupon; and who were instructed to
consider how the British possessions in the East Indies may
be held and governed with the greatest security and advantage
to this country, and by what means the happiness of the
native inhabitants may be best promoted.


I.--OBSERVATIONS ON THE STATE OF THE COMPANY'S AFFAIRS IN INDIA.


In order to enable the House to adopt the most proper means for
regulating the British government in India, and for promoting the
happiness of the natives who live under its authority or influence, your
Committee hold it expedient to collect into distinct points of view the
circumstances by which that government appears to them to be most
essentially disordered, and to explain fully the principles of policy
and the course of conduct by which the natives of all ranks and orders
have been reduced to their present state of depression and misery.

Your Committee have endeavored to perform this task in plain and popular
language, knowing that nothing has alienated the House from inquiries
absolutely necessary for the performance of one of the most essential
of all its duties so much as the technical language of the Company's
records, as the Indian names of persons, of offices, of the tenure and
qualities of estates, and of all the varied branches of their intricate
revenue. This language is, indeed, of necessary use in the executive
departments of the Company's affairs; but it is not necessary to
Parliament. A language so foreign from all the ideas and habits of the
far greater part of the members of this House has a tendency to disgust
them with all sorts of inquiry concerning this subject. They are
fatigued into such a despair of ever obtaining a competent knowledge of
the transactions in India, that they are easily persuaded to remand them
back to that obscurity, mystery, and intrigue out of which they have
been forced upon public notice by the calamities arising from their
extreme mismanagement. This mismanagement has itself, as your Committee
conceive, in a great measure arisen from dark cabals, and secret
suggestions to persons in power, without a regular public inquiry into
the good or evil tendency of any measure, or into the merit or demerit
of any person intrusted with the Company's concerns.

[Sidenote: Present laws relating to the East India Company, and internal
and external policy.]

The plan adopted by your Committee is, first, to consider the law
regulating the East India Company, as it now stands,--and, secondly, to
inquire into the circumstances of the two great links of connection by
which the territorial possessions in India are united to this kingdom,
namely, the Company's commerce, and the government exercised under the
charter and under acts of Parliament. The last [first] of these objects,
the commerce, is taken in two points of view: the _external_, or the
direct trade between India and Europe, and the _internal_, that is to
say, the trade of Bengal, in all the articles of produce and manufacture
which furnish the Company's investment.

The government is considered by your Committee under the like
descriptions of internal and external. The internal regards the
communication between the Court of Directors and their servants in
India, the management of the revenue, the expenditure of public money,
the civil administration, the administration of justice, and the state
of the army. The external regards, first, the conduct and maxims of the
Company's government with respect to the native princes and people
dependent on the British authority,--and, next, the proceedings with
regard to those native powers which are wholly independent of the
Company. But your Committee's observations on the last division extend
to those matters only which are not comprehended in the Report of the
Committee of Secrecy. Under these heads, your Committee refer to the
most leading particulars of abuse which prevail in the administration of
India,--deviating only from this order where the abuses are of a
complicated nature, and where one cannot be well considered
independently of several others.

[Sidenote: Second attempt made by Parliament for a reformation.]

Your Committee observe, that this is the second attempt made by
Parliament for the reformation of abuses in the Company's government. It
appears, therefore, to them a necessary preliminary to this second
undertaking, _to consider the causes which, in their opinion_, have
produced the failure of the first,--that the defects of the original
plan may be supplied, its errors corrected, and such useful regulations
as were then adopted may be further explained, enlarged, and enforced.

[Sidenote: Proceedings of session 1773.]

The first design of this kind was formed in the session of the year
1773. In that year, Parliament, taking up the consideration of the
affairs of India, through two of its committees collected a very great
body of details concerning the interior economy of the Company's
possessions, and concerning many particulars of abuse which prevailed at
the time when those committees made their ample and instructive reports.
But it does not appear that the body of regulations enacted in that
year, that is, in the East India Act of the thirteenth of his Majesty's
reign, were altogether grounded on that information, but were adopted
rather on probable speculations and general ideas of good policy and
good government. New establishments, civil and judicial, were therefore
formed at a very great expense, and with much complexity of
constitution. Checks and counter-checks of all kinds were contrived in
the execution, as well as in the formation of this system, in which all
the existing authorities of this kingdom had a share: for Parliament
appointed the members of the presiding part of the new establishment,
the Crown appointed the judicial, and the Company preserved the
nomination of the other officers. So that, if the act has not fully
answered its purposes, the failure cannot be attributed to any want of
officers of every description, or to the deficiency of any mode of
patronage in their appointment. The cause must be sought elsewhere.

[Sidenote: Powers and objects of act of 1773, and the effects thereof.]

The act had in its view (independently of several detached regulations)
five fundamental objects.

1st. The reformation of the Court of Proprietors of the East India
Company.

2ndly. A new model of the Court of Directors, and an enforcement of
their authority over the servants abroad.

3rdly. The establishment of a court of justice capable of protecting the
natives from the oppressions of British subjects.

4thly. The establishment of a general council, to be seated in Bengal,
whose authority should, in many particulars, extend over all the British
settlements in India.

5thly. To furnish the ministers of the crown with constant information
concerning the whole of the Company's correspondence with India, in
order that they might be enabled to inspect the conduct of the Directors
and servants, and to watch over the execution of all parts of the act;
that they might be furnished with matter to lay before Parliament from
time to time, according as the state of things should render regulation
or animadversion necessary.

[Sidenote: Court of Proprietors.]

[Sidenote: New qualification.]

The first object of the policy of this act was to improve the
constitution of the Court of Proprietors. In this case, as in almost all
the rest, the remedy was not applied directly to the disease. The
complaint was, that factions in the Court of Proprietors had shown, in
several instances, a disposition to support the servants of the Company
against the just coercion and legal prosecution of the Directors.
Instead of applying a corrective to the distemper, a change was proposed
in the constitution. By this reform, it was presumed that an interest
would arise in the General Court more independent in itself, and more
connected with the commercial prosperity of the Company. Under the new
constitution, no proprietor, not possessed of a thousand pounds capital
stock, was permitted to vote in the General Court: before the act, five
hundred pounds was a sufficient qualification for one vote; and no value
gave more. But as the lower classes were disabled, the power was
increased in the higher: proprietors of three thousand pounds were
allowed two votes; those of six thousand were entitled to three; ten
thousand pounds was made the qualification for four. The votes were thus
regulated in the scale and gradation of property. On this scale, and on
some provisions to prevent occasional qualifications and splitting of
votes, the whole reformation rested.

[Sidenote: The ballot.]

[Sidenote: Indian interest.]

Several essential points, however, seem to have been omitted or
misunderstood. No regulation was made to abolish the pernicious custom
of voting by _ballot_, by means of which acts of the highest concern to
the Company and to the state might be done by individuals with perfect
impunity; and even the body itself might be subjected to a forfeiture of
all its privileges for defaults of persons who, so far from being under
control, could not be so much as known in any mode of legal cognizance.
Nothing was done or attempted to prevent the operation of the interest
of delinquent servants of the Company in the General Court, by which
they might even come to be their own judges, and, in effect, under
another description, to become the masters in that body which ought to
govern them. Nor was anything provided to secure the independency of the
proprietary body from the various exterior interests by which it might
be disturbed, and diverted from the conservation of that pecuniary
concern which the act laid down as the sole security for preventing a
collusion between the General Court and the powerful delinquent servants
in India. The whole of the regulations concerning the Court of
Proprietors relied upon two principles, which have often proved
fallacious: namely, that small numbers were a security against faction
and disorder; and that integrity of conduct would follow the greater
property. In no case could these principles be less depended upon than
in the affairs of the East India Company. However, by wholly cutting off
the lower, and adding to the power of the higher classes, it was
supposed that the higher would keep their money in that fund to make
profit,--that the vote would be a secondary consideration, and no more
than a guard to the property,--and that therefore any abuse which tended
to depreciate the value of their stock would be warmly resented by such
proprietors.

If the ill effects of every misdemeanor in the Company's servants were
to be _immediate_, and had a tendency to lower the value of the stock,
something might justly be expected from the pecuniary security taken by
the act. But from the then state of things, it was more than probable
that proceedings ruinous to the permanent interest of the Company might
commence in great lucrative advantages. Against this evil large
pecuniary interests were rather the reverse of a remedy. Accordingly,
the Company's servants have ever since covered over the worst
oppressions of the people under their government, and the most cruel and
wanton ravages of all the neighboring countries, by holding out, and for
a time actually realizing, additions of revenue to the territorial funds
of the Company, and great quantities of valuable goods to their
investment.

[Sidenote: Proprietors.]

But this consideration of mere income, whatever weight it might have,
could not be the first object of a proprietor, in a body so
circumstanced. The East India Company is not, like the Bank of England,
a mere moneyed society for the sole purpose of the preservation or
improvement of their capital; and therefore every attempt to regulate it
upon the same principles must inevitably fail. When it is considered
that a certain share in the stock gives a share in the government of so
vast an empire, with such a boundless patronage, civil, military,
marine, commercial, and financial, in every department of which such
fortunes have been made as could be made nowhere else, it is impossible
not to perceive that capitals far superior to any qualifications
appointed to proprietors, or even to Directors, would readily be laid
out for a participation in that power. The India proprietor, therefore,
will always be, in the first instance, a politician; and the bolder his
enterprise, and the more corrupt his views, the less will be his
consideration of the price to be paid for compassing them. The new
regulations did not reduce the number so low as not to leave the
assembly still liable to all the disorder which might be supposed to
arise from multitude. But if the principle had been well established and
well executed, a much greater inconveniency grew out of the reform than
that which had attended the old abuse: for if tumult and disorder be
lessened by reducing the number of proprietors, private cabal and
intrigue are facilitated at least in an equal degree; and it is cabal
and corruption, rather than disorder and confusion, that was most to be
dreaded in transacting the affairs of India. Whilst the votes of the
smaller proprietors continued, a door was left open for the public sense
to enter into that society: since that door has been closed, the
proprietary has become, even more than formerly, an aggregate of private
interests, which subsist at the expense of the collective body. At the
moment of this revolution in the proprietary, as it might naturally be
expected, those who had either no very particular interest in their vote
or but a petty object to pursue immediately disqualified; but those who
were deeply interested in the Company's patronage, those who were
concerned in the supply of ships and of the other innumerable objects
required for their immense establishments, those who were engaged in
contracts with the Treasury, Admiralty, and Ordnance, together with the
clerks in public offices, found means of securing qualifications at the
enlarged standard. All these composed a much greater proportion than
formerly they had done of the proprietary body.

Against the great, predominant, radical corruption of the Court of
Proprietors the raising the qualification proved no sort of remedy. The
return of the Company's servants into Europe poured in a constant supply
of proprietors, whose ability to purchase the highest qualifications for
themselves, their agents, and dependants could not be dubious. And this
latter description form a very considerable, and by far the most active
and efficient part of that body. To add to the votes, which is adding to
the power in proportion to the wealth, of men whose very offences were
supposed to consist in acts which lead to the acquisition of enormous
riches, appears by no means a well-considered method of checking
rapacity and oppression. In proportion as these interests prevailed, the
means of cabal, of concealment, and of corrupt confederacy became far
more easy than before. Accordingly, there was no fault with respect to
the Company's government over its servants, charged or chargeable on the
General Court as it originally stood, of which since the reform it has
not been notoriously guilty. It was not, therefore, a matter of surprise
to your Committee, that the General Court, so composed, has at length
grown to such a degree of contempt both of its duty and of the permanent
interest of the whole corporation as to put itself into open defiance of
the salutary admonitions of this House, given for the purpose of
asserting and enforcing the legal authority of their own body over their
own servants.

The failure in this part of the reform of 1773 is not stated by your
Committee as recommending a return to the ancient constitution of the
Company, which was nearly as far as the new from containing any
principle tending to the prevention or remedy of abuses,--but to point
out the probable failure of any future regulations which do not apply
directly to the grievance, but which may be taken up as experiments to
ascertain theories of the operation of councils formed of greater or
lesser numbers, or such as shall be composed of men of more or less
opulence, or of interests of newer or longer standing, or concerning the
distribution of power to various descriptions or professions of men, or
of the election to office by one authority rather than another.

[Sidenote: Court of Directors.]

The second object of the act was the Court of Directors. Under the
arrangement of the year 1773 that court appeared to have its authority
much strengthened. It was made less dependent than formerly upon its
constituents, the proprietary. The duration of the Directors in office
was rendered more permanent, and the tenure itself diversified by a
varied and intricate rotation. At the same time their authority was held
high over their servants of all descriptions; and the only rule
prescribed to the Council-General of Bengal, in the exercise of the
large and ill-defined powers given to them, was that they were to yield
obedience to the orders of the Court of Directors. As to the Court of
Directors itself, it was left with very little regulation. The custom of
ballot, infinitely the most mischievous in a body possessed of all the
ordinary executive powers, was still left; and your Committee have found
the ill effects of this practice in the course of their inquiries.
Nothing was done to oblige the Directors to attend to the promotion of
their servants according to their rank and merits. In judging of those
merits nothing was done to bind them to any observation of what appeared
on their records. Nothing was done to compel them to prosecution or
complaint where delinquency became visible. The act, indeed, prescribed
that no servant of the Company abroad should be eligible into the
direction until two years after his return to England. But as this
regulation rather presumes than provides for an inquiry into their
conduct, a very ordinary neglect in the Court of Directors might easily
defeat it, and a short remission might in this particular operate as a
total indemnity. In fact, however, the servants have of late seldom
attempted a seat in the direction,--an attempt which might possibly
rouse a dormant spirit of inquiry; but, satisfied with an interest in
the proprietary, they have, through that name, brought the direction
very much under their own control.

As to the general authority of the Court of Directors, there is reason
to apprehend that on the whole it was somewhat degraded by the act whose
professed purpose was to exalt it, and that the only effect of the
Parliamentary sanction to their orders has been, that along with those
orders the law of the land has been despised and trampled under foot.
The Directors were not suffered either to nominate or to remove those
whom they were empowered to instruct; from masters they were reduced to
the situation of complainants,--a situation the imbecility of which no
laws or regulations could wholly alter; and when the Directors were
afterwards restored in some degree to their ancient power, on the
expiration of the lease given to their principal servants, it became
impossible for them to recover any degree of their ancient respect, even
if they had not in the mean time been so modelled as to be entirely free
from all ambition of that sort.

From that period the orders of the Court of Directors became to be so
habitually despised by their servants abroad, and at length to be so
little regarded even by themselves, that this contempt of orders forms
almost the whole subject-matter of the voluminous reports of two of your
committees. If any doubt, however, remains concerning the cause of this
fatal decline of the authority of the Court of Directors, no doubt
whatsoever can remain of the fact itself, nor of the total failure of
one of the great leading regulations of the act of 1773.

[Sidenote: Supreme Court of Judicature.]

The third object was a new judicial arrangement, the chief purpose of
which was to form a strong and solid security for the natives against
the wrongs and oppressions of British subjects resident in Bengal. An
operose and expensive establishment of a Supreme Court was made, and
charged upon the revenues of the country. The charter of justice was by
the act left to the crown, as well as the appointment of the
magistrates. The defect in the institution seemed to be this,--that no
rule was laid down, either in the act or the charter, by which the court
was to judge. No descriptions of offenders or species of delinquency
were properly ascertained, according to the nature of the place, or to
the prevalent mode of abuse. Provision was made for the administration
of justice in the remotest part of Hindostan as if it were a province in
Great Britain. Your Committee have long had the constitution and conduct
of this court before them, and they have not yet been able to discover
very few instances (not one that appears to them of leading importance)
of relief given to the natives against the corruptions or oppressions of
British subjects in power,--though they do find one very strong and
marked instance of the judges having employed an unwarrantable extension
or application of the municipal law of England, to destroy a person of
the highest rank among those natives whom they were sent to protect. One
circumstance rendered the proceeding in this case fatal to all the good
purposes for which the court had been established. The sufferer (the
Rajah Nundcomar) appears, at the very time of this extraordinary
prosecution, a discoverer of some particulars of illicit gain then
charged upon Mr. Hastings, the Governor-General. Although in ordinary
cases, and in some lesser instances of grievance, it is very probable
that this court has done its duty, and has been, as every court must be,
of some service, yet one example of this kind must do more towards
deterring the natives from complaint, and consequently from the means
of redress, than many decisions favorable to them, in the ordinary
course of proceeding, can do for their encouragement and relief. So far
as your Committee has been able to discover, the court has been
generally terrible to the natives, and has distracted the government of
the Company without substantially reforming any one of its abuses.

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