But, my Lords, although Mr. Hastings swore to the truth of this charge, when he came before the House of Commons, yet in his Narrative he thus fairly and candidly avowed that he entertained no such opinion at the time. "Every step," says he, "which I had taken before that fatal moment, namely, the flight of Cheyt Sing, is an incontrovertible proof that I had formed no design of seizing upon the Rajah's treasures or of deposing him. And certainly, at the time when I did form the design of making the punishment that his former ill conduct deserved subservient to the exigencies of the state by a large fine, I did not believe him guilty of that premeditated project for driving the English out of India with which I afterwards charged him." Thus, then, he declares upon oath that the Rajah's contumacy was the ground of his suspecting him of rebellion, and yet, when he comes to make his defence before the House of Commons, he simply and candidly declares, that, long after these alleged acts of contumacy had taken place, he did not believe him to be guilty of any such thing as rebellion, and that the fine imposed upon him was for another reason and another purpose.
In page 28 of your printed Minutes he thus declares the purpose for which the fine was imposed:—"I can answer only to this formidable dilemma, that, so long as I conceived Cheyt Sing's misconduct and contumacy to have me rather than the Company for its object, at least to be merely the effect of pernicious advice or misguided folly, without any formal design of openly resisting our authority or disclaiming our sovereignty, I looked upon a considerable fine as sufficient both for his immediate punishment and for binding him to future good behavior."
Here, my Lords, the secret comes out. He declares it was not for a rebellion or a suspicion of rebellion that he resolved, over and above all his exorbitant demands, to take from the Rajah 500,000l., (a good stout sum to be taken from a tributary power!)—that it was not for misconduct of this kind that he took this sum, but for personal ill behavior towards himself. I must again beg your Lordships to note that he then considered the Rajah's contumacy as having for its object, not the Company, but Warren Hastings, and that he afterwards declared publicly to the House of Commons, and now before your Lordships he declares finally and conclusively, that he did believe Cheyt Sing to have had the criminal intention imputed to him.
"So long," says he, "as I conceived Cheyt Sing's misconduct and contumacy to have me" (in Italics, as he ordered it to be printed,) "rather than the Company, for its object, so long I was satisfied with a fine: I therefore entertained no serious thoughts of expelling him, or proceeding otherwise to violence. But when he and his people broke out into the most atrocious acts of rebellion and murder, when the jus fortioris et lex ultima regum were appealed to on his part, and without any sufficient plea afforded him on mine, I from that moment considered him as the traitor and criminal described in the charge, and no concessions, no humiliations, could ever after induce me to settle on him the zemindary of Benares, or any other territory, upon any footing whatever."
Thus, then, my Lords, he has confessed that the era and the only era of rebellion was when the tumult broke out upon the act of violence offered by himself to Cheyt Sing; and upon the ground of that tumult, or rebellion as he calls it, he says he never would suffer him to enjoy any territory or any right whatever. We have fixed the period of the rebellion for which he is supposed to have exacted this fine; this period of rebellion was after the exaction of the fine itself: so that the fine was not laid for the rebellion, but the rebellion broke out in consequence of the fine, and the violent measure accompanying it. We have established this, and the whole human race cannot shake it. He went up the country through malice, to revenge his own private wrongs, not those of the Company. He fixed 500,000l. as a mulct for an insult offered to himself, and then a rebellion broke out in consequence of his violence. This was the rebellion, and the only rebellion; it was Warren Hastings's rebellion,—a rebellion which arose from his own dreadful exaction, from his pride, from his malice and insatiable avarice,—a rebellion which arose from his abominable tyranny, from his lust of arbitrary power, and from his determination to follow the examples of Sujah Dowlah, Asoph ul Dowlah, Cossim Ali Khân, Aliverdy Khân, and all the gang of rebels who are the objects of his imitation.
"My patience," says he, "was exhausted." Your Lordships have, and ought to have, a judicial patience. Mr. Hastings has none of any kind. I hold that patience is one of the great virtues of a governor; it was said of Moses, that he governed by patience, and that he was the meekest man upon earth. Patience is also the distinguishing character of a judge; and I think your Lordships, both with regard to us and with regard to him, have shown a great deal of it: we shall ever honor the quality, and if we pretend to say that we have had great patience in going through this trial, so your Lordships must have had great patience in hearing it. But this man's patience, as he himself tells you, was soon exhausted. "I considered," he says, "the light in which such behavior would have been viewed by his native sovereign, and I resolved he should feel the power he had so long insulted. Forty or fifty lacs of rupees would have been a moderate fine for Sujah ul Dowlah to exact,—he who had demanded twenty-five lacs for the mere fine of succession, and received twenty in hand, and an increased rent tantamount to considerably above thirty lacs more; and therefore I rejected the offer of twenty, with which the Rajah would have compromised for his guilt when it was too late."
Now, my Lords, observe who his models were, when he intended to punish this man for an insult on himself. Did he consult the laws? Did he look to the Institutes of Timour, or to those of Genghis Khân? Did he look to the Hedaya, or to any of the approved authorities in this country? No, my Lords, he exactly followed the advice which Longinus gives to a great writer:—"Whenever you have a mind to elevate your mind, to raise it to its highest pitch, and even to exceed yourself, upon any subject, think how Homer would have described it, how Plato would have imagined it, and how Demosthenes would have expressed it; and when you have so done, you will then, no doubt, have a standard which will raise you up to the dignity of anything that human genius can aspire to." Mr. Hastings was calling upon himself, and raising his mind to the dignity of what tyranny could do, what unrighteous exaction could perform. He considered, he says, how much Sujah Dowlah would have exacted, and that he thinks would not be too much for him to exact. He boldly avows,—"I raised my mind to the elevation of Sujah Dowlah; I considered what Cossim Ali Khân would have done, or Aliverdy Khân, who murdered and robbed so many, I had all this line of great examples before me, and I asked myself what fine they would have exacted upon such an occasion. But," says he, "Sujah Dowlah levied a fine of twenty lacs for a right of succession."
Good God! my Lords, if you are not appalled with the violent injustice of arbitrary proceedings, you must feel something humiliating at the gross ignorance of men who are in this manner playing with the rights of mankind. This man confounds a fine upon succession with a fine of penalty. He takes advantage of a defect in the technical language of our law, which, I am sorry to say, is not, in many parts, as correct in its distinctions and as wise in its provisions as the Mahometan law. We use the word fine in three senses: first, as a punishment and penalty; secondly, as a formal means of cutting off by one form the ties of another form, which we call levying a fine; and, thirdly, we use the word to signify a sum of money payable upon renewal of a lease or copyhold. The word has in each case a totally different sense; but such is the stupidity and barbarism of the prisoner, that he confounds these senses, and tells you Sujah Dowlah took twenty-five lacs as a fine from Cheyt Sing for the renewal of his zemindary, and therefore, as a punishment for his offences, he shall take fifty. Suppose any one of your Lordships, or of us, were to be fined for assault and battery, or for anything else, and it should be said, "You paid such a fine for a bishop's lease, you paid such a fine on the purchase of an estate, and therefore, now that you are going to be fined for a punishment, we will take the measure of the fine, not from the nature and quality of your offence, not from the law upon the subject, or from your ability to pay, but the amount of a fine you paid some years ago for an estate shall be the measure of your punishment." My Lords, what should we say of such brutish ignorance, and such shocking confusion of ideas?
When this man had elevated his mind according to the rules of art, and stimulated himself to great things by great examples, he goes on to tell you that he rejected the offer of twenty lacs with which the Rajah would have compounded for his guilt when it was too late.
Permit me, my Lords, to say a few words here, by way of referring back all this monstrous heap of violence and absurdity to some degree of principle. Mr. Hastings having completely acquitted the Rajah of any other fault than contumacy, and having supposed even that to be only personal to himself, he thought a fine of 500,000l. would be a proper punishment. Now, when any man goes to exact a fine, it presupposes inquiry, charge, defence, and judgment. It does so in the Mahometan law; it does so in the Gentoo law; it does so in the law of England, in the Roman law, and in the law, I believe, of every nation under heaven, except in that law which resides in the arbitrary breast of Mr. Hastings, poisoned by the principles and stimulated by the examples of those wicked traitors and rebels whom I have before described. He mentions his intention of levying a fine; but does he make any mention of having charged the Rajah with his offences? It appears that he held an incredible quantity of private correspondence through the various Residents, through Mr. Graham, Mr. Fowke, Mr. Markham, Mr. Benn, concerning the affairs of that country. Did he ever, upon this alleged contumacy, (for at present I put the rebellion out of the question,) inquire the progress of this personal affront offered to the Governor-General of Bengal? Did he ever state it to the Rajah, or did he call his vakeel before the Council to answer the charge? Did he examine any one person, or particularize a single fact, in any manner whatever? No. What, then, did he do? Why, my Lords, he declared himself the person injured, stood forward as the accuser, assumed the office of judge, and proceeded to judgment without a party before him, without trial, without examination, without proof. He thus directly reversed the order of justice. He determined to fine the Rajah when his own patience, as he says, was exhausted, not when justice demanded the punishment. He resolved to fine him in the enormous sum of 500,000l. Does he inform the Council of this determination? No. The Court of Directors? No. Any one of his confidants? No, not one of them,—not Mr. Palmer, not Mr. Middleton, nor any of that legion of secretaries that he had; nor did he even inform Mr. Malcolm [Markham?] of his intentions, until he met him at Boglipore.