The revenues in this manner failing, they seized upon the estates of every person of eminence in the country, and, under the name of resumption, confiscated their property. I wish, Sir, to be understood universally and literally, when I assert that there is not left one man of property and substance for his rank in the whole of these provinces, in provinces which are nearly the extent of England and Wales taken together: not one landholder, not one banker, not one merchant, not one even of those who usually perish last, the ultimum moriens in a ruined state, not one farmer of revenue.
One country for a while remained, which stood as an island in the midst of the grand waste of the Company's dominion. My right honorable friend, in his admirable speech on moving the bill, just touched the situation, the offences, and the punishment of a native prince, called Fizulla Khân. This man, by policy and force, had protected himself from the general extirpation of the Rohilla chiefs. He was secured (if that were any security) by a treaty. It was stated to you, as it was stated by the enemies of that unfortunate man, "that the whole of his country is what the whole country of the Rohillas was, cultivated like a garden, without one neglected spot in it." Another accuser says,—"Fyzoolah Khan, though a bad soldier, [that is the true source of his misfortune,] has approved himself a good aumil,—having, it is supposed, in the course of a few years, at least doubled the population and revenue of his country." In another part of the correspondence he is charged with making his country an asylum for the oppressed peasants who fly from the territories of Oude. The improvement of his revenue, arising from this single crime, (which Mr. Hastings considers as tantamount to treason,) is stated at an hundred and fifty thousand pounds a year.
Dr. Swift somewhere says, that he who could make two blades of grass grow where but one grew before was a greater benefactor to the human race than all the politicians that ever existed. This prince, who would have been deified by antiquity, who would have been ranked with Osiris, and Bacchus, and Ceres, and the divinities most propitious to men, was, for those very merits, by name attacked by the Company's government, as a cheat, a robber, a traitor. In the same breath in which he was accused as a rebel, he was ordered at once to furnish five thousand horse. On delay, or (according to the technical phrase, when any remonstrance is made to them) "on evasion," he was declared a violator of treaties, and everything he had was to be taken from him. Not one word, however, of horse in this treaty.
The territory of this Fizulla Khân, Mr. Speaker, is less than the County of Norfolk. It is an inland country, full seven hundred miles from any seaport, and not distinguished for any one considerable branch of manufacture whatsoever. From this territory several very considerable sums had at several times been paid to the British resident. The demand of cavalry, without a shadow or decent pretext of right, amounted to three hundred thousand a year more, at the lowest computation; and it is stated, by the last person sent to negotiate, as a demand of little use, if it could be complied with,—but that the compliance was impossible, as it amounted to more than his territories could supply, if there had been no other demand upon him. Three hundred thousand pounds a year from an inland country not so large as Norfolk!
The thing most extraordinary was to hear the culprit defend himself from the imputation of his virtues, as if they had been the blackest offences. He extenuated the superior cultivation of his country. He denied its population. He endeavored to prove that he had often sent back the poor peasant that sought shelter with him.—I can make no observation on this.
After a variety of extortions and vexations, too fatiguing to you, too disgusting to me, to go through with, they found "that they ought to be in a better state to warrant forcible means"; they therefore contented themselves with a gross sum of one hundred and fifty thousand pounds for their present demand. They offered him, indeed, an indemnity from their exactions in future for three hundred thousand pounds more. But he refused to buy their securities,—pleading (probably with truth) his poverty; but if the plea were not founded, in my opinion very wisely: not choosing to deal any more in that dangerous commodity of the Company's faith; and thinking it better to oppose distress and unarmed obstinacy to uncolored exaction than to subject himself to be considered as a cheat, if he should make a treaty in the least beneficial to himself.
Thus they executed an exemplary punishment on Fizulla Khân for the culture of his country. But, conscious that the prevention of evils is the great object of all good regulation, they deprived him of the means of increasing that criminal cultivation in future, by exhausting his coffers; and that the population of his country should no more be a standing reproach and libel on the Company's government, they bound him by a positive engagement not to afford any shelter whatsoever to the farmers and laborers who should seek refuge in his territories from the exactions of the British residents in Oude. When they had done all this effectually, they gave him a full and complete acquittance from all charges of rebellion, or of any intention to rebel, or of his having originally had any interest in, or any means of, rebellion.
These intended rebellions are one of the Company's standing resources. When money has been thought to be heaped up anywhere, its owners are universally accused of rebellion, until they are acquitted of their money and their treasons at once. The money once taken, all accusation, trial, and punishment ends. It is so settled a resource, that I rather wonder how it comes to be omitted in the Directors' account; but I take it for granted this omission will be supplied in their next edition.
The Company stretched this resource to the full extent, when they accused two old women, in the remotest corner of India, (who could have no possible view or motive to raise disturbances,) of being engaged in rebellion, with an intent to drive out the English nation, in whose protection, purchased by money and secured by treaty, rested the sole hope of their existence. But the Company wanted money, and the old women must be guilty of a plot. They were accused of rebellion, and they were convicted of wealth. Twice had great sums been extorted from them, and as often had the British faith guarantied the remainder. A body of British troops, with one of the military farmers-general at their head, was sent to seize upon the castle in which these helpless women resided. Their chief eunuchs, who were their agents, their guardians, protectors, persons of high rank according to the Eastern manners, and of great trust, were thrown into dungeons, to make them discover their hidden treasures; and there they lie at present. The lands assigned for the maintenance of the women were seized and confiscated. Their jewels and effects were taken, and set up to a pretended auction in an obscure place, and bought at such a price as the gentlemen thought proper to give. No account has ever been transmitted of the articles or produce of this sale. What money was obtained is unknown, or what terms were stipulated for the maintenance of these despoiled and forlorn creatures: for by some particulars it appears as if an engagement of the kind was made.
Let me here remark, once for all, that though the act of 1773 requires that an account of all proceedings should be diligently transmitted, that this, like all the other injunctions of the law, is totally despised, and that half at least of the most important papers are intentionally withheld.