William Pitt and national revival

by J. Holland Rose

All eyes were turned on Pitt as he rose to state his views on this question; and Wraxall avers that never did the range of his faculties appear greater, his marshalling of facts more lucid, or his elocution more easy and graceful. This is the more remarkable as the young Minister avowed his desire on personal grounds to absent himself from the discussion of so complex and remote a problem. We also know from his letter of 10th June to Eden, that he had “hardly hours enough to read all the papers on that voluminous article” (the Benares charge).[309] It is therefore clear that he formed his judgement within a very short time of his speech. In this, however, he soon showed that he had probed the intricacies of the question. Setting forth in detail the terms of a zamindar’s tenure, he disproved Fox’s contention that the Company had no right to exact an “aid” from an “independent rajah.” He demurred to the epithet “independent,” at least as regarded the supreme power in India. The suzerain power has as good a right in time of crisis to exact “aids” from its feudatories as any Suzerain in Europe from his feudal dependents. Next he crushed Francis by citing his own written opinion that extraordinary demands might be exacted from such feudatories. Having set forth the question in its true light, and exposed the inconsistency and malice of Francis, he approached the crux of the whole problem, whether the fine ultimately exacted from Cheyt Singh was not excessive. Here he objected to the drawing of precedents solely from the days of the Indian Emperors. It was the duty of every British administrator to behave according to the rules of justice and liberty; and, said he, “On this ground I feel it impossible to acquit Mr. Hastings of the whole of the charge brought against him; for I feel in my conscience that he has pushed the exercise of that arbitrary discretion which, from the nature of the Eastern Government, was intrusted to him to a greater length than he was warranted to do by the necessity of the service.” While justified in imposing a penalty, he continued, Hastings had not proportioned the punishment to the guilt. In fining Cheyt Singh £500,000 for a mere delay to pay £50,000 (which £50,000 in the last instance was actually paid) Hastings had “proceeded in an arbitrary tyrannical manner.” As to the restoration of Cheyt Singh to his possessions, it was beset by certain difficulties, and he preferred for the present to withhold his opinion.

That speech led to the impeachment of Warren Hastings; for though Grenville, Lord Mulgrave, and the Attorney-General (Pepper Arden) spoke against the Prime Minister, the judgement of the last named prevailed; the House endorsed it by 119 votes to 79, or about the same numbers as had rejected the previous charge. The conduct of Pitt on this occasion has been vehemently assailed. Wraxall, writing many years later, maintained that it was a sudden and unaccountable change of front; and he further suggested that the jealousy which was said to be felt by Dundas for the superior abilities of Hastings might have influenced Pitt’s action.

As the insinuation has been endlessly repeated, I may be pardoned for dwelling on it somewhat fully. The story has been tricked out with a wealth of details. It is asserted that Pitt issued a Treasury circular calling for the attendance of his supporters on the 13th of June, as if it were for the defence of Hastings. No proof of this statement has ever been given; and there are good grounds for disbelieving it. In the first place it should be remembered that attendance at the House had been greatly thinned by the Whitsuntide holidays. The vacation was just over; and, as everyone acquainted with Parliament ought to know, a full House was hardly to be expected at the first sitting afterwards. Pitt’s letter of 10th June to Eden contains the following sentence. After stating that there had recently been a short and languid debate, and a division of seventy-one to thirty-three, he continues: “We shall probably have some attendance next Tuesday when Mr. Fox moves the charge respecting Benares; and after that our chief difficulty will be to get a House for the next fortnight. In the meantime I have hardly hours enough to read all the papers necessary on that voluminous article.”[310]

These are not the words of a man who is about to perform an act of treachery. It is clear that Pitt found great difficulty in getting through the evidence on that charge before the debate came on; and further, that he was doing his duty as leader of the House in trying to assure as good an attendance as the holiday season permitted on a charge of this importance. Wraxall, who here opposed Pitt, makes no mention of any ministerial “whip” in favour of Hastings, as he would certainly have done if he could thereby have strengthened his case against him. The fact that neither he nor Tomline refers to the calumny proves the lateness of its origin. Further, if a special “whip” had been sent out for the support of Hastings, would not some of the ex-Viceroy’s friends, especially Major Scott, have exposed the fraud? But no reference to it is to be found in the report of that debate. Are we also to suppose that the forty or fifty members who changed sides with Pitt, would have gone over to the accusers if he had been guilty of such duplicity? Finally, it is clear from the remarks of Grenville, Mulgrave, and Pepper Arden, that even the colleagues of Pitt felt perfectly free to vote as they chose. Mulgrave declared that the Prime Minister would not be fit to remain in office a single day if he expected his friends and associates to give up their opinions on this subject. Pitt, as we have seen, had at the outset called on members to exercise their impartiality; and he now assented to Mulgrave’s statement.[311] The story that Pitt sent round a “whip” for the support of Hastings, and then drove his followers like sheep into the opposite lobby, may therefore be dismissed as a malicious fiction, at variance with all the known facts of the case.

Then again it is stated by Lord Campbell in his sketch of the life of Lord Eldon,[312] that Pitt mysteriously abandoned Hastings, “and—contrary to the wish of Lord Thurlow who had a scheme for making Hastings a peer, perhaps a Minister—gave him up to impeachment.” The charge is made in a very loose way; but on it the detractors of Pitt have built a theory that Dundas and he feared the advent of Hastings to the India Board, or to the Ministry, or to the House of Lords. This story has been varied and amplified, so that in one version George III appears as desirous of forcing him into the Cabinet, or granting him a peerage on the sole recommendation of Thurlow. But the letter which the King wrote to Pitt on 14th June shows that, while regretting his action concerning Hastings, he respected his conscientiousness, and harboured no thought of breaking with him.[313] That Thurlow had boasted of his power to further the interests of Hastings is likely enough; but it is certain that the King never thought of thrusting the ex-Viceroy into the Cabinet, or the India Board of Control, or of raising him to the House of Lords without the approval of his Prime Minister. The King’s letters to Pitt[314] show that his chief desire then was to meet the large and growing expenses of his family; and Pitt’s economic policy made his continuance in power at that time especially desirable. Royal condescension towards Hastings set all tongues wagging; and they have wagged ever since on the malignant jealousy of Dundas, and the gross inconsistency of Pitt; but the proofs adduced are of the flimsiest character. Wraxall and Bland Burges, who later on jotted down their impressions of parliamentary life, asserted that Dundas had somehow become convinced that the King intended to eject him from the India Board of Control and put Hastings in his place. But neither of them gave any proof. Wraxall merely stated that “the public believed” that Dundas feared such a change.[315] Bland Burges averred that Dundas had “by some means” come to know the secret intention of the King, and therefore “sedulously fanned Mr. Pitt’s jealousy and uneasiness and so alarmed his mind that he hurried him on to a decision before he had time to satisfy himself as to its justice or expediency.”[316]

Equally unconvincing is the story, which Hastings himself told some thirty years later, that on the morning of 13th June Dundas called on Pitt, remained closeted with him for some hours, and convinced him that they must abandon the ex-Viceroy. The insinuation conveyed in this belated anecdote is that Pitt was then and there won over by Dundas, and owing to the mean motives mentioned above. The ingrained tendency of men to seek for petty personal pretexts rather than larger, more generous, and more obvious causes, seems to be the raison d’être of the story and of its perpetuation. There are also some natures so warped by partisanship that they naturally refer actions of political opponents to discreditable motives; and it is a sign of the bias which detracts from the value of Macaulay’s “Warren Hastings,” that he did not mention the late date at which the story was started, while he gives it as an historic fact that Pitt’s change of front was “the result of this conference.”

No statement of what went on at this alleged interview has ever been forthcoming; but, fortunately, on the all important question of motive, we have the clear testimony of one who knew Pitt most intimately, and whose political differences never distorted his imagination. Wilberforce, who had followed Pitt’s actions closely throughout the case, afterwards declared that justice had not been done to Pitt:—

People [he said] were asking what could make Pitt support him [Hastings] on this point and on that, as if he was acting from political motives; whereas he was always weighing in every particular whether Hastings had exceeded the discretionary power lodged in him. I well remember (I could swear to it now) Pitt listening most attentively to some facts which were coming out either in the first or second case. He beckoned me over, and went with me behind the chair, and said: “Does not this look very ill to you?” “Very bad indeed.” He then returned to his place and made his speech, giving up Hastings’ case. He paid as much impartial attention to it as if he were a juryman.[317]

Here we have evidence at first hand, though belonging to Wilberforce’s later years. Clearly it must refer to the events of 13th June; and it shows that if any one person was responsible for Pitt’s change of front that person was Wilberforce. Late in life the philanthropist declared that Pitt’s regard for truth was exceptionally keen, springing as it did “from a moral purity which appeared to be a part of his nature.” He also added that the want of simplicity and frankness sometimes observable in his answers really sprang from this scrupulous veracity.[318]

To quote the opinion of another experienced politician. William Pulteney wrote to Pitt the following hitherto unpublished letter: