XLV. That the crime of the said Hastings, in his procedure aforesaid, was further highly aggravated by his having received information of several striking circumstances which strongly indicated the necessity of a regular magistracy and a legal judicature, from the total failure of justice, affecting not only the subjects at large, but even the reigning family itself,—as also of the causes why no legal magistracy could exist, and why the princes of the reigning family were not only exposed to the attacks of assassins, but even to a want of the protection which might be had from their servants and attendants, who were driven from
their masters for want of that maintenance which the princes, their masters, could not procure even for themselves. And the circumstances aforesaid were detailed to him, the said Hastings, by the Resident, Bristow, in a letter from Lucknow, dated the 29th January, 1784, to the Governor-General, the said Warren Hastings, and the Council of Bengal, in the terms following.
"The frequent robberies and murders perpetrated in his Excellency's, the Vizier's, dominions, have been too often the subject of my representations to your honorable board. From the total want of police, hardly a day elapses but I am informed of some tragical event, whereof the bare recital is shocking to humanity. About two months since, an attempt was made to assassinate Rajah Ticket Roy, the acting minister's confidential agent; but he happily escaped unhurt. Nabob Bahadur, his Highness's brother, has not been so fortunate, as will appear from translations of two of his letters to me, No. 1, which I have the honor to inclose for your information. Although my feelings are sensibly hurt and my compassion strongly excited by the disgraceful and miserable state of poverty to which his Excellency's brothers are reduced, yet, situated as I am, it is not in my power to interfere with effect. My efforts on a former occasion failed of success, and my interposition now would only excite the resentment of the minister towards the unhappy sufferers, in consequence of their application to me, from whom ALONE, however, they hope for relief from their present distress, which, their near connection with the Vizier considered, is both shameful and unprecedented. That no regular courts of justice have been established in this country is particularly pointed at
in my instructions, as the most disreputable defect in his Highness's government; yet the minister seems determined on abolishing even the shadow of so necessary an institution. The office of Chief Justice, as held by Moulavy Morobine, was ever nugatory, but now it is sunk into the lowest contempt. The original establishment, inadequate as it was, is mouldering away, and the officers now attached to it are literally starving, as no part of their allowance has been paid for above six months past. He himself has proposed to resign his appointment, being every way precluded from a possibility of exercising the duties of it."
XLVI. That it appears by the said letter, and the papers therewith transmitted, as well as other documents in the said correspondence, that, in consequence of the distress brought upon the Nabob's finances, certain of the princes, his brethren, the children of Sujah ul Dowlah, the late sovereign of the country, were put upon pensions unsuitable to their birth and rank, and by the mismanagement of the minister aforesaid, (appointed by the said Warren Hastings,) for two years together no considerable part of the said inadequate pension was paid; and not being able to maintain the attendants necessary for their protection in a city in which all magistracy and justice was abolished, they were not only liable to suffer the greatest extremities of penury, but their lives were exposed to the attempts of assassins: the condition of one of the said princes, called the Nabob Bahadur, being by himself strongly expressed in three letters to the said Resident Bristow,—the first dated the 28th of December, 1783; the second, the 7th of January, 1784; and the third, the 15th of January, 1784,—which letters
were duly transmitted, in the dispatch of the 29th of the same month, to Warren Hastings, Esquire, and are as follow.
"Your own servant carried you the account of what he himself was an eye-witness to, after the affair of last night. These are the particulars. About midnight my aunt received twelve wounds from a ruffian, of which she died. I also received six successive stabs, which alarmed the people of the house, who set up a shouting: whereupon the assassin run off. Besides being without food or the means of providing any, this misfortune has befallen me. I am desirous of sending the coffin to your door. It is your duty, both for the sake of God and of Christ, to execute justice, and to inquire what harm I have done to the murderer sufficient to deserve assassination, or even injury. You now stand in the place of his Excellency the Vizier. I request you will do me justice. What more can I say?
"P.S. I am also desirous to show you my wounds."
From the same, 29th [7th?] January, 1784.