LXXVI. That the said Warren Hastings having made a malicious, loose, and ill-supported charge, backed by certain unsatisfactory affidavits, as a ground for his seizing on the jaghires and the treasures of the Vizier's mother, solemnly guarantied to them, the Court of Directors did, in their letter of the 14th of February, 1783, express themselves as follows concerning that measure,—"which the Governor-General, [he, the said Warren Hastings,] in his letter to your board, the 23d of January, 1782, has declared he strenuously encouraged and supported: we hope and trust, for the honor of the British nation, that the measure appeared fully justified in the eyes of all Hindostan. The Governor-General has informed us that it can be well attested that the Begums [the mother and grandmother of the Nabob aforesaid] principally excited and supported the late commotions, and that they carried their inveteracy to the English nation so far as to aim at our utter extirpation." And the Court of Directors did farther declare as follows: "That it nowhere appears from the papers at present in our possession, that they [the mother and grandmother of the Nabob of Oude] excited any commotions previous to the imprisonment of Rajah Cheyt Sing, and only armed themselves in consequence of that transaction; and, as it is probable, that such a conduct proceeded from motives of self-defence, under an apprehension that they themselves might likewise be laid under unwarrantable contributions." And the said Court of Directors, in giving their orders for the restoration of the jaghires, or for the payment of an equivalent through the Resident, did give this order for the restoration of their estates as aforesaid on condition that it should appear from inquiry that they were not guilty of the practices charged upon them by the said Hastings. Mr. Stables, one of the Council-General, did, in execution of the said conditional order, propose an inquiry leading to the ascertainment of the condition, and did enter a minute as follows: "That the Court of Directors, by their letters of the 14th of February, 1783, seem not to be satisfied that the disaffection of the Begums to this government is sufficiently proved by the evidence before them; I therefore think that the late and present Resident, and commanding officer in the Vizier's country at the time, should be called on to collect what further information they can on this subject, in which the honor and dignity of this government is so materially concerned, and that such information may be transmitted to the Court of Directors." And he did further propose heads and modes of inquiry suitable to the doubts expressed by the Court of Directors. But the said Warren Hastings, who ought long before, on principles of natural justice, to have instituted a diligent inquiry in support of his so improbable a charge, and was bound, even for his own honor, as well as for the satisfaction of the Court of Directors, to take a strong part in the said inquiry, did set himself in opposition to the same, and did carry with him a majority of Council against the said inquiry into the justice of the cause, or any proposition for the relief of the sufferers: asserting, "that the reasons of the Court of Directors, if transmitted with the orders for the inquiry, will prove in effect an order for collecting evidence to the justification and acquittal of the Begums, and not for the investigation of the truth of the charges which have been preferred against them." That Mr. Stables did not propose (as in the said Hastings's minute is groundlessly supposed) that the reasons of the Court of Directors should be transmitted with the orders for an inquiry. But the apprehension of the said Warren Hastings of the probable result of the inquiry proposed did strongly indicate his sense of his own guilt and the innocence of the parties accused by him; and if, by his construction, Mr. Stables's minute did indicate an inquiry merely for the justification of the parties by him accused, (which construction the motion did not bear,) it was no more than what the obvious rules of justice would well support, his own proceedings having been ex parte,—he having employed Sir Elijah Impey to take affidavits against the women of high rank aforesaid, not only without any inquiry made on their part, but without any communication to them of his practice and proceeding against them; and equity did at least require that they, with his own knowledge and by the subordinates of his own government, should be allowed a public inquiry to acquit themselves of the heavy offences with which they had been by him clandestinely charged.
LXXVII. That he, the said Hastings, in order to effectually stifle the said inquiry, did enter on record a further minute, asserting that the said inquiry would be productive "of evils greater than any which exist in the consequences which have already taken place, and which time has almost obliterated"; as also the following: "If I am rightly informed, the Nabob Vizier and the Begums are on terms of mutual goodwill. It would ill become this government to interpose its influence by any act which might tend to revive their animosities,—and a very slight occasion would be sufficient to effect it. They will instantly take fire on such a declaration, proclaim the judgment of the Company in their favor, demand a reparation of the acts which they will construe wrongs with such a sentence warranting that construction, and either accept the invitation to the proclaimed scandal of the Nabob Vizier, which will not add to the credit of our government, or remain in his dominions, but not under his authority, to add to his vexations and the disorders of the country by continual intrigues and seditions. Enough already exists to affect his peace and the quiet of his people. If we cannot heal, let us not inflame the wounds which have been inflicted."—"If the Begums think themselves aggrieved to such a degree as to justify them in an appeal to a foreign jurisdiction, to appeal to it against a man standing in the relation of son and grandson to them, to appeal to the justice of those who have been the abettors and instruments of their imputed wrongs, let us at least permit them to be the judges of their own feelings, and prefer their complaints before we offer to redress them. They will not need to be prompted. I hope I shall not depart from the simplicity of official language in saying, the majesty of justice ought to be approached with solicitation, not descend to provoke or invite it, much less to debase itself by the suggestion of wrongs and the promise of redress, with the denunciation of punishments before trial, and even before accusation."
LXXVIII. That the said Warren Hastings, in attempting to pass an act of indemnity for his own crimes, and of oblivion for the sufferings of others, supposing the latter almost obliterated by time, did not only mock and insult over the sufferings of the allies of the Company, but did show an indecent contempt of the understandings of the Court of Directors: because his violent attempts on the property and liberty of the mother and grandmother of the ally aforesaid had not their first commencement much above two years before that time, and had been continued, without abatement or relaxation on his part, to the very time of his minute; the Nabob having, by the instigation of his, the said Hastings's, instrument, Hyder Beg Khân, not two months before the date of the Consultation, been obliged a second time to break his faith with relation to the estates of his mother, in the manner hereinbefore recited. And the said Hastings did not and could not conceive that the clearing the mother could revive any animosity between her and her son, by whom she never had been accused. The said Hastings was also sensible that the restoration of her landed estates, recommended by the Court of Directors, could not produce any ill effect on the mind of the said son, as it was "with almost unconquerable reluctance he had been persuaded to deprive her of them," and at the time of his submitting to become an instrument in this injustice, did "declare," both, to the Resident and his ministers, "that it was an act of compulsion."
LXXIX. That the said Hastings further, by insinuating that the women in question would act amiss in appealing to a foreign jurisdiction against a son and grandson, could not forget that he himself, being that foreign jurisdiction, (if any jurisdiction there was,) did himself direct and order the injuries, did himself urge the calumnies, and did himself cause to be taken and produced the unsatisfactory evidence by which the women in question had suffered,—and that it was against him, the said Hastings, and not against their son, that they had reason to appeal. But the truth is, that the inquiry was moved for by Mr. Stables, not on the prayer or appeal of the sufferers, but upon the ill impression which the said Hastings's own conduct, merely and solely on his own state of it, and on his own evidence in support of it, had made on the Court of Directors, who were his lawful masters, and not suitors in his court. And his arrogating to himself and his colleagues to be a tribunal, and a tribunal not for the purpose of doing justice, but of refusing inquiry, was an high offence and misdemeanor (particularly as the due obedience to the Company's orders was eluded on the insolent pretence "that the majesty of justice ought to be approached with solicitation, and that it would debase itself by the suggestion of wrongs and the promise of redress") in a Governor, whose business it is, even of himself, and unsolicited, not only to promise, but to afford, redress to all those who should suffer under the power of the Company, even if their ignorance, or want of protection, or the imbecility of their sex, or the fear of irritating persons in rank and station, should prevent them from seeking it by formal solicitation.
LXXX. That the said Warren Hastings, at the time when he pretended ignorance of all solicitation for justice on the part of the women aforesaid, and on that pretence did refuse the inquiry moved by his colleague, Mr. Stables, had in all probability received from the Resident, Middleton, or, if he had made the slightest inquiry from the said Middleton, then at Calcutta, might immediately receive, an account that they did actually solicit the said Resident, through Major Gilpin, for redress against his, the said Hastings's, calumnious accusation, and the false testimony by which it was supported, and did send the said complaint to the Resident, Middleton, by the said Gilpin, to be transmitted to him, the said Hastings, and the Council, so early as the 19th of October, 1782; and that she, the mother of the Nabob, did afterwards send the same to the Resident, Bristow, asserting their innocence, and accompanying the same with the copies of letters (the originals of which they asserted were in their hands) from the chief witnesses against them, Hannay and Gordon, which letters did directly overturn the charges or insinuations in the affidavits made by them, and that, instead of any accusation of an attempt upon them and their parties by the instigation of the mother of the Nabob, or by her ministers, they, the said Hannay and Gordon, did attribute their preservation to them and to their services, and did, with strong expressions of gratitude both to the mother of the Nabob and to her ministers, fully acknowledge the same: which remonstrance of the mother of the Nabob, and the letters of the said Hannay and Gordon, are annexed to this charge; and the said Hastings is highly criminal for not having examined into the facts alleged in the said remonstrance.
LXXXI. That the violent proceedings of the said Warren Hastings did tend to impress all the neighboring princes, some of whom were allied in blood to the oppressed women of rank aforesaid, with an ill opinion of the faith, honor, and decency of the British nation; and accordingly, on the journey aforesaid made by the Nabob from Lucknow to Fyzabad, in which the said Nabob did restore, in the manner before mentioned, the confiscated estates of his mother and grandmother, and did afterwards revoke his said grant, it appears that the said journey did cause a general alarm (the worst motives obtaining the most easy credit with regard to any future proceeding, on account of the foregone acts) and excited great indignation among the ruling persons of the adjacent country, insomuch that Major Brown, agent to the said Warren Hastings at the court of the King Shah Allum at Delhi, did write a remonstrance therein to Mr. Bristow, Resident at Oude, as follows.
"The evening of the 7th, at a conference I had with Mirza Shaffee Khân, he introduced a subject, respecting the Nabob Vizier, which, however it may be disagreeable for you to know, and consequently for me to communicate, I am under a necessity of laying before you. He told me he had received information from Lucknow, that, by the advice of Hyder Beg Khân, the Vizier had determined to bring his grandmother, the widow of Sufdar Jung, from Fyzabad to Lucknow, with a view of getting a further sum of money from her, by seizing on her eunuchs, digging up the apartments of her house at Fyzabad, and putting her own person under restraint. This, he said, he knew was not an act of our government, but the mere advice of Hyder Beg Khân, to which the Vizier had been induced to attend. He added, that the old Begum had resolved rather to put herself to death than submit to the disgrace intended to be put upon her; that, if such a circumstance should happen, there is not a man in Hindostan who will attribute the act to the Vizier [Nabob of Oude], but every one will fix the odium on the English, who might easily, by the influence they so largely exercise in their own concerns there, have prevented such unnatural conduct in the Vizier. He therefore called upon me, as the English representative in this quarter, to inform you of this, that you may prevent a step which will destroy all confidence in the English nation throughout Hindostan, and excite the bitterest resentment in all those who by blood are connected with the house of Sufdar Jung. He concluded by saying, that, 'if the Vizier so little regarded his family and personal honor, or his natural duty, as to wish to disgrace his father's mother for a sum of money, let him plunder her of all she has, but let him send her safe up to Delhi or Agra, and, poor as I am, I will furnish subsistence for her, which she shall possess with safety and honor, though it cannot be adequate to her rank.'
"This, Sir, is a most exact detail of the conversation (as far as related to that affair) on the part of Mirza Shaffee Khân. On my part I could only say, that I imagined the affair was misrepresented, and that I should write as he requested. Let me therefore request that you will enable me to answer in a more effectual manner any further questions on this subject.
LXXXII. "As Mirza Shaffee's grandfather was brother to Sufdar Jung, there can be no doubt of what his declaration means; and if this measure of dismissing the old Begum should be persisted in, I should not, from the state of affairs, and the character of the Amir ul Omrah, be surprised at some immediate and violent resolution being adopted by him."
LXXXIII. That Mirza Shaffee, mentioned in this correspondence, (who has since been murdered,) was of near kindred to the lady in question, (grandmother to the Nabob,) was resident in a province immediately adjoining to the province of Oude, and, from proximity of situation and nearness of connection, was likely to have any intelligence concerning his female relations from the best authority.