The moment that real death had carried away two of the most virtuous of this community, and that Mr. Hastings was thereby reëstablished in his power, he returned to his former state of rebellion to the Company, and of fraud and oppression upon the people. And here we come to the revivificating medicine. I forgot to tell your Lordships, that this Nabob, whose letters were declared by a court of law, with his own approbation, to be in effect letters of the Governor-General and Council, concludes a formal application transmitted to them, and dated 17th November, 1777, with a demand of the restoration of his rights. Mr. Hastings upon this enters the following minute:—
"The Nabob's demands are grounded upon positive rights, which will not admit of a discussion; he has an incontestable right to the management of his own household; he has an incontestable right to the nizamut."
My Lords, you have heard his affidavit, you have heard his avowed and recorded opinion. In direct defiance of both, because he wishes to make doubtful the orders of the Company and to evade his duty, he here makes without any delicacy a declaration, which if it be true, the affidavit is a gross perjury, let it be managed with what delicacy he pleases. The word nizamut, which he uses, may be unfamiliar to your Lordships. In India it signifies the whole executive government, though the word strictly means viceroyalty: all the princes of that country holding their dominions as representatives of the Mogul, the great nominal sovereign of the empire. To convince you that it does so, take his own explanation of it.
"It is his by inheritance: the adawlut and the foujdarry having been repeatedly declared by the Company and by this government to appertain to the nizamut. The adawlut, namely, the distribution of civil justice, and the foujdarry, namely, the executive criminal justice of that country, that is to say, the whole sovereign government of the courts of justice, have been declared by the Company to appertain to the nizamut."
I beg of your Lordships to recollect, when you take into your consideration the charges of the House of Commons, that the person they accuse, and persons suborned by him, have never scrupled to be guilty, without sense of shame, of the most notorious falsehoods, the most glaring inconsistencies, and even of perjury itself; and that it is thus they make the power of the Company dead or alive, as best suits their own wicked, clandestine, and fraudulent purposes, and the great end of all their actions and all their politics plunder and peculation.
I must here refer your Lordships to a minute of Mr. Francis's, which I recommend to your reading at large, and to your very serious recollection, in page 1086; because it contains a complete history of Mr. Hastings's conduct, and of its effects upon this occasion.
And now to proceed.—The Nabob, in a subsequent application to the Company's government at Calcutta, desires that Munny Begum may be allowed to take on herself the whole administration of the affairs of the nizamut, (not the superiority in the administration of the affairs of the seraglio only, though this would have been a tyrannical usurpation of the power belonging to the legitimate mother of the Nabob,) without the interference of any person whatever; and he adds, that by this the Governor will give him complete satisfaction. In all fraudulent correspondence you are sure to find the true secret of it at last. It has been said by somebody, that the true sense of a letter is to be learnt from its postscript. But this matter is so clumsily managed, that, in contempt of all decency, the first thing the Nabob does is to desire he may be put into the hands of Munny Begum, and that without the interference of anybody whatever.
The next letter, immediately following on the heels of the former, was received by the Council on the 12th of February, 1778. In this letter he desires that Mahomed Reza Khân may be removed from his office in the government; and he expresses his hopes, that, as he himself is now come to years of maturity, and by the blessing of God is not so devoid of understanding as to be incapable of conducting his affairs, he says, "I am therefore hopeful, from your favor and regard to justice, that you will deliver me from the authority of the aforesaid Mahomed Reza Khân, and give your permission that I take on myself the management of the adawlut and foujdarry." There is no doubt of this latter application, in contradiction to the former, having arisen from a suspicion that the appointment of Munny Begum would be too gross, and would shock the Council; and Mr. Hastings therefore orders the second letter to be written from the Nabob, in which he claims the powers of government for himself. Then follows a letter from the Governor-General, informing the Nabob that it had been agreed, that, his Excellency being now arrived at years of maturity, the control of his own household, and the courts dependent on the nizamut and foujdarry, should be placed in his hands; and Mahomed Reza Khân was directed at the same time to resign his authority to the Nabob.
Here your Lordships see Munny Begum in effect completely invested with, and you will see how she has used her power: for I suppose your Lordships are sick of the name of Nabob, as a real actor in the government. You now see the true parties in the transaction,—namely, the lover, Warren Hastings, Esquire, and Munny Begum, the object of his passion and flame, to which he sacrifices as much as Antony ever did to Cleopatra. You see the object of his love and affection placed in the administration of the viceroyalty; you see placed at her disposal the administration of the civil judicature, and of the executory justice,—together with the salary which was intended for Mahomed Reza Khân.