I will next read to your Lordships the orders of the Directors for his reinstatement, on the 4th of July, 1777.
"Upon the most careful perusal of your proceedings upon the 2d of December, 1776, relative to the recall of Mr. Bristow from the court of the Nabob of Oude, and the appointment of Mr. Nathaniel Middleton to that station, we must declare our strongest disapprobation of the whole of that transaction. We observe that the Governor-General's motion for the recall of Mr. Bristow includes that for the restoration of Mr. Nathaniel Middleton; but as neither of those measures appear to us necessary, or even justifiable, they cannot receive our approbation. With respect to Mr. Bristow, we find no shadow of charge against him. It appears that he has executed his trust to the entire satisfaction even of those members of the Council who did not concur in his appointment. You have unanimously recommended him to our notice; attention to your recommendation has induced us to afford him marks of our favor, and to reannex the emoluments affixed by you to his appointment, which had been discontinued by our order; and as we must be of opinion that a person of acknowledged abilities, whose conduct has thus gained him the esteem of his superiors, ought not to be degraded without just cause, we do not hesitate to interpose in his behalf, and therefore direct that Mr. Bristow do forthwith return to his station of Resident at Oude, from which he has been so improperly removed."
Upon the receipt of these orders by the Council, Mr. Francis, then a member of the Council, moves, "That, in obedience to the Company's orders, Mr. Bristow be forthwith appointed and directed to return to his station of Resident at Oude, and that Mr. Purling be ordered to deliver over charge of the office to Mr. Bristow immediately on his arrival, and return himself forthwith to the Presidency; also that the Governor-General be requested to furnish Mr. Bristow with the usual letter of credence to the Nabob Vizier."
Upon this motion being made, Mr. Hastings entered the following minute.
"I will ask, who is Mr. Bristow, that a member of the administration should at such a time hold him forth as an instrument for the degradation of the first executive member of this government? What are the professed objects of his appointment? What are the merits and services, or what the qualifications, which entitle him to such an uncommon distinction? Is it for his superior integrity, or from his eminent abilities, that he is to be dignified, at such hazards of every consideration that ought to influence members of this administration? Of the former I know no proofs; I am sure that it is not an evidence of it, that he has been enabled to make himself the principal in such a competition; and for the test of his abilities, I appeal to the letter which he has dared to write to this board, and which, I am ashamed to say, we have suffered. I desire that a copy of it may be inserted in this day's proceedings, that it may stand before the eyes of every member of the board, when he shall give his vote upon a question for giving their confidence to a man, their servant, who has publicly insulted them, his masters, and the members of the government, to whom he owes his obedience; who, assuming an association with the Court of Directors, and erecting himself into a tribunal, has arraigned them for disobedience of orders, passed judgment upon them, and condemned or acquitted them as their magistrate and superior. Let the board consider whether a man possessed of so independent a spirit, who has already shown such a contempt of their authority, who has shown himself so wretched an advocate for his own cause and negotiator for his own interest, is fit to be trusted with the guardianship of their honor, the execution of their measures, and as their confidential manager and negotiator with the princes of India."
My Lords, you here see an instance of what I have before stated to your Lordships, and what I shall take the liberty of recommending to your constant consideration. You see that a tyrant and a rebel is one and the same thing. You see this man, at the very time that he is a direct rebel to the Company, arbitrarily and tyrannically displacing Mr. Bristow, although he had previously joined in the approbation of his conduct, and in voting him a pecuniary reward. He is ordered by the Court of Directors to restore that person, who desires, in a suppliant, decent, proper tone, that the Company's orders should produce their effect, and that the Council would have the goodness to restore him to his situation.
My Lords, you have seen the audacious insolence, the tyrannical pride, with which he dares to treat this order. You have seen the recorded minute which he has dared to send to the Court of Directors; and in this you see, that, when he cannot directly asperse a man's conduct, and has nothing to say against it, he maliciously, I should perhaps rather say enviously, insinuates that he had unjustly made his fortune. "You are," says he, "to judge from the independence of his manner and style, whether he could or no have got that without some unjust means." God forbid I should ever be able to invent anything that can equal the impudence of what this man dares to write to his superiors, or the insolent style in which he dares to treat persons who are not his servants!
Who made the servants of the Company the master of the servants of the Company? The Court of Directors are their fellow-servants; they are all the servants of this kingdom. Still the claim of a fellow-servant to hold an office which the Court of Directors had legally appointed him to is considered by this audacious tyrant as an insult to him. By this you may judge how he treats not only the servants of the Company, but the natives of the country, and by what means he has brought them into that abject state of servitude in which they are ready to do anything he wishes and to sign anything he dictates. I must again beg your Lordships to remark what this man has had the folly and impudence to place upon the records of the Council of which he was President; and I will venture to assert that so extraordinary a performance never before appeared on the records of any court, Eastern or European. Because Mr. Bristow claims an office which is his right and his freehold as long as the Company chooses, Mr. Hastings accuses him of being an accomplice with the Court of Directors in a conspiracy against him; and because, after long delays, he had presented an humble petition to have the Court of Directors' orders in his favor carried into execution, he says "he has erected himself into a tribunal of justice; that he has arraigned the Council for disobedience of orders, passed judgment upon them, and condemned or acquitted them as their magistrate and superior."
Let us suppose his Majesty to have been pleased to appoint any one to an office in the gift of the crown, what should we think of the person whose business it was to execute the King's commands, if he should say to the person appointed, when he claimed his office, "You shall not have it, you assume to be my superior, and you disgrace and dishonor me"? Good God! my Lords, where was this language learned? in what country, and in what barbarous nation of Hottentots was this jargon picked up? For there is no Eastern court that I ever heard of (and I believe I have been as conversant with the manners and customs of the East as most persons whose business has not directly led them into that country) where such conduct would have been tolerated. A bashaw, if he should be ordered by the Grand Seignior to invest another with his office, puts the letter upon his head, and obedience immediately follows.
But the obedience of a barbarous magistrate should not be compared to the obedience which a British subject owes to the laws of his country. Mr. Hastings receives an order which he should have instantly obeyed. He is reminded of this by the person who suffers from his disobedience; and this proves that person to be possessed of too independent a spirit. Ay, my Lords, here is the grievance;—no man can dare show in India an independent spirit. It is this, and not his having shown such a contempt of their authority, not his having shown himself so wretched an advocate for his own cause and so had a negotiator for his own interest, that makes him unfit to be trusted with the guardianship of their honor, the execution of their measures, and to be their confidential manager and negotiator with the princes of India.