2ndly, That two contracts, those of provisions and for carriage bullocks, shall be only annual.
These orders are undoubtedly some correctives to the abuses which may arise in this very critical article of public dealing. But the House will remark, that, if the business usually carried on by contracts can be converted at pleasure into agencies, like that of Mr. Fowke, all these regulations perish of course, and there is no direction whatsoever for restraining the most prodigal and corrupt bargains for the public.
Your Committee have inquired into the observance of these necessary regulations, and they find that they have, like the rest, been entirely contemned, and contemned with entire impunity. After the period of Colonel Monson's death, and Mr. Hastings and Mr. Barwell obtaining the lead in the Council, the contracts were disposed of without at all advertising for proposals. Those in 1777 were given for three years; and the gentlemen in question growing by habit and encouragement into more boldness, in 1779 the contracts were disposed of for five years: and this they did at the eve of the expiration of their own appointment to the government. This increase in the length of the contracts, though contrary to orders, might have admitted some excuse, if it had been made, even in appearance, the means of lessening the expense. But the advantages allowed to the contractors, instead of being diminished, were enlarged, and in a manner far beyond the proportion of the enlargement of terms. Of this abuse and contempt of orders a judgment may be formed by the single contract for supplying the army with draught and carriage bullocks. As it stood at the expiration of the contract in 1779, the expense of that service was about one thousand three hundred pounds a month. By the new contract, given away in September of that year, the service was raised to the enormous sum of near six thousand pounds a month. The monthly increase, therefore, being four thousand seven hundred pounds, it constitutes a total increase of charges for the Company, in the five years of the contract, of no less a sum than two hundred and thirty-five thousand pounds. Now, as the former contract was, without doubt, sufficiently advantageous, a judgment may be formed of the extravagance of the present. The terms, indeed, pass the bounds of all allowance for negligence and ignorance of office.
The case of Mr. Belli's contract for supplying provisions to the Fort is of the same description; and what exceedingly increases the suspicion against this profusion, in contracts made in direct violation of orders, is, that they are always found to be given in favor of persons closely connected with Mr. Hastings in his family, or even in his actual service.
The principles upon which Mr. Hastings and Mr. Barwell justify this disobedience, if admitted, reduce the Company's government, so far as it regards the Supreme Council, to a mere patronage,—to a mere power of nominating persons to or removing them from an authority which, is not only despotic with regard to those who are subordinate to it, but in all its acts entirely independent of the legal power which is nominally superior. These are principles directly leading to the destruction of the Company's government. A correspondent practice being established, (as in this case of contracts, as well as others, it has been,) the means are furnished of effectuating this purpose: for the common superior, the Company, having no power to regulate or to support their own appointments, nor to remove those whom they wish to remove, nor to prevent the contracts from being made use of against their interest, all the English in Bengal must naturally look to the next in authority; they must depend upon, follow, and attach themselves to him solely; and thus a party may be formed of the whole system of civil and military servants for the support of the subordinate, and defiance of the supreme power.
Your Committee being led to attend to the abuse of contracts, which are given upon principles fatal to the subordination of the service, and in defiance of orders, revert to the disobedience of orders in the case of Mahomed Reza Khân.
This transaction is of a piece with those that preceded it. On the 6th of July, 1781, Mr. Hastings announced to the board the arrival of a messenger and introduced a requisition from the young Nabob Mobarek ul Dowlah, "that he might be permitted to dispose of his own stipend, without being made to depend on the will of another." In favor of this requisition Mr. Hastings urged various arguments:—that the Nabob could no longer be deemed a minor;—that he was twenty-six years of age, and father of many children;—that his understanding was much improved of late by an attention to his education;—that these circumstances gave him a claim to the uncontrolled exercise of domestic authority; and it might reasonably be supposed that he would pay a greater regard to a just economy in his own family than had been observed by those who were aliens to it. For these reasons Mr. Hastings recommended to the board that Mahomed Reza Khân should be immediately divested of the office of superintendent of the Nabob's household, and that the Nabob Mobarek ul Dowlah should be intrusted with the exclusive and entire receipts and disbursements of his stipend, and the uncontrolled management and regulation of his household. Thus far your Committee are of opinion, that the conclusion corresponds with the premises; for, supposing the fact to be established or admitted, that the Nabob, in point of age, capacity, and judgment, was qualified to act for himself, it seems reasonable that the management of his domestic affairs should not be withheld from him. On this part of the proceeding your Committee will only observe, that, if it were strictly true that the Nabob's understanding had been much improved of late by an attention to his education, (which seems an extraordinary way of describing the qualifications of a man of six-and-twenty, the father of many children,) the merit of such improvement must be attributed to Mahomed Reza Khân, who was the only person of rank and character connected with him, or who could be supposed to have any influence over him. Mr. Hastings himself reproaches the Nabob with raising mean men to be his companions, and tells him plainly, that some persons, both of bad character and base origin, had found the means of insinuating themselves into his company and constant fellowship. In such society it is not likely that either the Nabob's morals or his understanding could have been much improved; nor could it be deemed prudent to leave him without any check upon his conduct. Mr. Hastings's opinion on this point may be collected from what he did, but by no means from what he said, on the occasion.
The House will naturally expect to find that the Nabob's request was granted, and that the resolution of the board was conformable to the terms of Mr. Hastings's recommendation. Yet the fact is directly the reverse. Mr. Hastings, after advising that the Nabob should be intrusted with the exclusive and entire receipts and disbursements of his stipend, immediately corrects that advice, being aware that so sudden and unlimited a disposal of a large revenue might at first encourage a spirit of dissipation in the Nabob,—and reserves to himself a power of establishing, with the Nabob's consent, such a plan for the regulation and equal distribution of the Nabob's expenses as should be adapted to the dissimilar appearances of preserving his interests and his independence at the same time. On the same complicated principles the subsequent resolution of the board professes to allow the Nabob the management of his stipend and expenses,—with an hope, however, (which, considering the relative situation of the parties, could be nothing less than an injunction,) that he would submit to such a plan as should be agreed on between him and the Governor-General.
The drift of these contradictions is sufficiently apparent. Mahomed Reza Khân was to be divested of his office at all events, and the management of the Nabob's stipend committed to other hands. To accomplish the first, the Nabob is said to be "now arrived at that time of life when a man may be supposed capable, if ever, of managing his own concerns." When this principle has answered the momentary purpose for which it was produced, we find it immediately discarded, and an opposite resolution formed on an opposite principle, viz., that he shall not have the management of his own concerns, in consideration of his want of experience.