London, 15th June 1786.
I cannot abstain from congratulating you on the line you took on Tuesday. It will do you great credit everywhere, but, what you will always think of more importance, I am convinced it will have the most salutary effects in every part of this great Empire, and particularly in India. Such is the powerful influence of strict honour and justice in those who govern kingdoms that it pervades every mind and in a great degree regulates the conduct of individuals. On the other hand, the wilfully permitting persons in high and responsible situations to go unpunished and uncensured, when guilty of important offences, is sufficient to foster the bad and corrupt principles in all other minds and to lay a foundation for similar and greater offences. You have my hearty thanks, and I am sure will have the thanks of all who understand the importance of your conduct.
I am, etc.
W. Pulteney.[319]
Few persons did understand his conduct, and sensitive pride kept his lips sealed. Nevertheless to all unprejudiced minds his conduct needed no defence. On that higher plane where truth and justice are alone considered (for justice is applied truth), Pitt did not swerve from the principles which he at first laid down. From the beginning of the Hastings case he had sought to hold the balances even. He left it open to his colleagues to differ from him. He refused the publication of papers favourable to Hastings where they compromised the welfare of the State or the characters of our Indian feudatories. He insisted that the charges against Hastings should be clearly drawn up, and that he should be allowed to answer those charges in person. On the topic of the Rohilla War he did not speak, doubtless because his mind was not made up. The fact that Parliament had three times re-appointed Hastings after that very censurable event, did in a technical sense screen him from prosecution now. But on the Benares affair, no such plea could be urged. It was a question on which the present Parliament alone had to decide.
The enormous vogue enjoyed by Macaulay’s Essays compels me once more to notice his treatment of Pitt respecting the Benares charge. A man of philosophic temperament once expressed a wish that he was as sure about anything, as the great Whig historian was about everything. This assertiveness peeps through the veil of diffidence which Macaulay donned before delivering the verdict, that any man with a tenth part of Pitt’s abilities ought to have convicted Hastings on the Rohilla charge and acquitted him on the Benares charge.[320] In order to establish this assertion Macaulay passed by the technical plea above named, which must have weighed with Pitt, and then used his powers of special pleading to whittle down Pitt’s arguments on the Benares case, so that they seem to turn ultimately on the trumpery question whether the fine inflicted on the Zamindar was rather too large or not. But we may ask, firstly, was it a small affair to exact half a million sterling from a prince who during three years had been hard pressed, and as a matter of fact had paid up the arrears for which that fine was imposed? Did it concern the Zamindar alone? Did it not concern all the subjects from whom that half million must ultimately be wrung?
Not only did the conduct of Hastings far exceed the limits required by justice; it was also bound up with a question on which the stability of our Indian Empire has ever rested. So long as the feudatories of the British Raj feel confidence in his sense of justice, India is safe. Whenever they have cause to believe that injustice and oppression are the characteristics of his rule, the foundations of the Indian Empire are shaken to their base. Not without reason did Fox declare that the decision on the Benares affair was vital to the preservation of our ascendancy in Bengal. The statesmanlike eye of Pitt, we may be sure, discerned the same truth. Besides, there was an additional reason why he should now more than ever resolve to engrave the names of Justice and Mercy on the newly formed arch of the Indian Government. As has been shown, the recent India Bill placed greatly increased powers in the hands of the Governor-General. Burke and Fox had taunted Pitt with setting up a despotism from which endless suffering must flow. The charge was hollow; but, adorned as it was by splendid rhetoric, it created a deep impression. Was it not well, then, to show by a concrete example that any Viceroy who violated the principles of justice would meet with condign punishment at Westminster? A statesman has to consider, not merely the principles of justice, as applied to an individual; he must also think of the results of his actions on the millions whom they will affect; and we may reasonably infer that among the motives which led Pitt to break with many of his friends not the least was a heartfelt desire to safeguard the relations of the feudatories to the Suzerain Power, and to protect the myriads of Hindoos who had no protection save in the dimly known court of appeal at Westminster.
On the charge respecting the spoliation of the Begums of Oude, Pitt also cast his vote against Hastings; and again a majority followed him. It is questionable whether even the sensationally brilliant oration of Sheridan on this affecting topic moved the House so much as the silent but scornful disapproval expressed in Pitt’s vote.[321] The impeachment was thenceforth inevitable.
With the forensic pageant that ensued we are not here concerned. Thenceforth the case belonged strictly to the legal domain. Its duration throughout the years 1788–95 was certainly discreditable to British law. Hastings out of his never affluent fortunes spent some £71,000 in the vindication of his actions,[322] and at last secured an acquittal. But though men in Europe forgot the case amidst the potent distractions of the French Revolution, the effect of it was not lost upon the Orient. The comparative calm which settled benignly on India for twelve years may be attributed largely to a renewal of confidence in the sense of justice of our people. After the events of the year 1786 princes and peasants alike felt assured that the most transcendent services, if smirched with acts of injustice, would never screen a Viceroy from the censure of the British Parliament.
CHAPTER XI
THE IRISH PROBLEM (1785)
We have the satisfaction of having proposed a system which will not be discredited even by its failure, and we must wait times and seasons for carrying it into effect.—Pitt to the Duke of Rutland, 17th August 1785.