|
While, therefore, we have not the least doubt that this memorable execution is
to be attributed to Hastings, we doubt whether it can with justice be reckoned
among his crimes. That his conduct was dictated by a profound policy is evident.
He was in a minority in Council. It was possible that he might long be in a
minority. He knew the native character well. He knew in what abundance
accusations are certain to flow in against the most innocent inhabitant of India
who is under the frown of power. There was not in the whole black population of
Bengal a placeholder, a place-hunter, a government tenant, who did not think
that he might better himself by sending up a deposition against the
Governor-General. Under these circumstances, the persecuted statesman resolved
to teach the whole crew of accusers and witnesses, that, though in a minority at
the council-board, he was still to be feared. The lesson which he gave then was
indeed a lesson not to be forgotten. The head of the combination which had been
formed against him, the richest, the most powerful, the most artful of the
Hindus, distinguished by the favor of those who then held the government, fenced
round by the superstitious reverence of millions, was hanged in broad day before
many thousands of people. Everything that could make the warning impressive,
dignity in the sufferer, solemnity in the proceeding, was found in this case.
The helpless rage and vain struggles of the Council made the triumph more
signal. From that moment the conviction of every native was that it was safer to
take the part of Hastings in a minority than that of Francis in a majority, and
that he who was so venturous as to join in running down the Governor-General
might chance, in the phrase of the Eastern poet, to find a tiger, while beating
the jungle for a deer. The voices of a thousand informers were silenced in an
instant. From that time, whatever difficulties Hastings might have to encounter,
he was never molested by accusations from natives of India.
It is a remarkable circumstance that one of the letters of Hastings to Dr.
Johnson bears date a very few hours after the death of Nuncomar. While the whole
settlement was in commotion, while a mighty and ancient priesthood were weeping
over the remains of their chief, the conqueror in that deadly grapple sat down,
with characteristic self-possession to write about the Tour to the Hebrides,
Jones's Persian Grammar, and the history, traditions, arts, and natural
productions of India.
In the meantime, intelligence of the Rohilla war, and of the first disputes
between Hastings and his colleagues, had reached London. The Directors took part
with the majority, and sent out a letter filled with severe reflections on the
conduct of Hastings. They condemned, in strong but just terms, the iniquity of
undertaking offensive wars merely for the sake of pecuniary advantage. But they
utterly forgot that, if Hastings had by illicit means obtained pecuniary
advantages, he had done so, not for his own benefit, but in order to meet their
demands. To enjoin honesty, and to insist on having what could not be honestly
got, was then the constant practice of the Company. As Lady Macbeth says of her
husband, they "would not play false, and yet would wrongly win."
The Regulating Act, by which Hastings had been appointed Governor-General for
five years, empowered the Crown to remove him on an address from the Company.
Lord North was desirous to procure such an address. The three members of Council
who had been sent out from England were men of his own choice. General
Clavering, in particular, was supported by a large parliamentary connection,
such as no Cabinet could be inclined to disoblige. The wish of the minister was
to displace Hastings, and to put Clavering at the head of the Government. In the
Court of Directors parties were very nearly balanced. Eleven voted against
Hastings; ten for him. The Court of Proprietors was then convened. The great
sale-room presented a singular appearance. Letters had been sent by the
Secretary of the Treasury, exhorting all the supporters of Government who held
India stock to be in attendance. Lord Sandwich marshalled the friends of the
administration with his usual dexterity and alertness. Fifty peers and privy
councilors, seldom seen so far eastward, we counted in the crowd. The debate
lasted till midnight. The opponents of Hastings had a small superiority on the
division; but a ballot was demanded; and the result was that the
Governor-General triumphed by a majority of above a hundred votes over the
combined efforts of the Directors and the Cabinet. The ministers were greatly
exasperated by this defeat. Even Lord North lost his temper, no ordinary
occurrence with him, and threatened to convoke Parliament before Christmas, and
to bring in a bill for depriving the Company of all political power, and for
restricting it to its old business of trading in silks and teas.
Colonel Macleane, who through all this conflict had zealously supported the
cause of Hastings, now thought that his employer was in imminent danger of being
turned out branded with parliamentary censure, perhaps prosecuted. The opinion
of the Crown lawyers had already been taken respecting some parts of the
Governor-General's conduct. It seemed to be high time to think of securing an
honorable retreat. Under these circumstances, Macleane thought himself justified
in producing the resignation with which he had been entrusted. The instrument
was not in very accurate form; but the Directors were too eager to be
scrupulous. They accepted the resignation, fixed on Mr. Wheler, one of their own
body to succeed Hastings, and sent out orders that Genera Clavering, as senior
member of Council, should exercise the functions of Governor-General till Mr.
Wheler should arrive.
But, while these things were passing in England, a great change had taken place
in Bengal. Monson was no more. Only four members of the Government were left.
Clavering and Francis were on one side, Barwell and the Governor-General on the
other; and the Governor-General had the casting vote. Hastings, who had been
during two years destitute of all power and patronage, became at once absolute.
He instantly proceeded to retaliate on his adversaries. Their measures were
reversed: their creatures were displaced. A new valuation of the lands of
Bengal, for the purposes of taxation, was ordered: and it was provided that the
whole inquiry should be conducted by the Governor-General, and that all the
letters relating to it should run in his name. He began, at the same time, to
revolve vast plans of conquest and dominion, plans which he lived to see
realized, though not by himself. His project was to form subsidiary alliances
with the native princes, particularly with those of Oude and Berar, and thus to
make Britain the paramount power in India. While he was meditating these great
designs, arrived the intelligence that he had ceased to be Governor-General,
that his resignation had been accepted, that Wheler was coming out immediately,
and that, till Wheler arrived, the chair was to be filled by Clavering.
Had Hastings still been in a minority, he would probably have retired without a
struggle; but he was now the real master of British India, and he was not
disposed to quit his high place. He asserted that he had never given any
instructions which could warrant the steps taken at home. What his instructions
had been, he owned he had forgotten. If he had kept a copy of them he had
mislaid it. But he was certain that he had repeatedly declared to the Directors
that he would not resign. He could not see how the court possessed of that
declaration from himself, could receive his resignation from the doubtful hands
of an agent. If the resignation were invalid, all the proceedings which were
founded on that resignation were null, and Hastings was still Governor-General.
He afterwards affirmed that, though his agents had not acted in conformity with
his instructions, he would nevertheless have held himself bound by their acts,
if Clavering had not attempted to seize the supreme power by violence. Whether
this assertion were or were not true, it cannot be doubted that the imprudence
of Clavering gave Hastings an advantage. The General sent for the keys of the
fort and of the treasury, took possession of the records, and held a council at
which Francis attended. Hastings took the chair in another apartment, and
Barwell sat with him. Each of the two parties had a plausible show of right.
There was no authority entitled to their obedience within fifteen thousand
miles. It seemed that there remained no way of settling the dispute except an
appeal to arms; and from such an appeal Hastings, confident of his influence
over his countrymen in India, was not inclined to shrink. He directed the
officers of the garrison at Fort William and of all the neighboring stations to
obey no orders but his. At the same time, with admirable judgment, he offered to
submit the case to the Supreme Court, and to abide by its decision. By making
this proposition he risked nothing; yet it was a proposition which his opponents
could hardly reject. Nobody could be treated as a criminal for obeying what the
judges should solemnly pronounce to be the lawful government. The boldest man
would shrink from taking arms in defense of what the judges should pronounce to
be usurpation. Clavering and Francis, after some delay, unwillingly consented to
abide by the award of the court. The court pronounced that the resignation was
invalid, and that therefore Hastings was still Governor-General under the
Regulating Act; and the defeated members of the Council, finding that the sense
of the whole settlement was against them, acquiesced in the decision.
About this time arrived the news that, after a suit which had lasted several
years, the Franconian courts had decreed a divorce between Imhoff and his wife.
The Baron left Calcutta, carrying with him the means of buying an estate in
Saxony. The lady became Mrs. Hastings. The event was celebrated by great
festivities; and all the most conspicuous persons at Calcutta, without
distinction of parties, were invited to the Government-house. Clavering, as the
Mahommedan chronicler tells the story, was sick in mind and body, and excused
himself from joining the splendid assembly. But Hastings, whom, as it should
seem, success in ambition and in love had put into high good-humor, would take
no denial. He went himself to the General's house, and at length brought his
vanquished rival in triumph to the gay circle which surrounded the bride. The
exertion was too much for a frame broken by mortification as well as by disease.
Clavering died a few days later.
Wheler, who came out expecting to be Governor-General, and was forced to content
himself with a seat at the council-board, generally voted with Francis. But the
Governor-General, with Barwell's help and his own casting vote, was still the
master. Some change took place at this time in the feeling both of the Court of
Directors and of the Ministers of the Crown. All designs against Hastings were
dropped; and, when his original term of five years expired, he was quietly
reappointed. The truth is, that the fearful dangers to which the public
interests in every quarter were now exposed, made both Lord North and the
Company unwilling to part with a Governor whose talents, experience, and
resolution, enmity itself was compelled to acknowledge.
The crisis was indeed formidable. That great and victorious empire, on the
throne of which George the Third had taken his seat eighteen years before, with
brighter hopes than had attended the accession of any of the long line of
English sovereigns, had, by the most senseless misgovernment, been brought to
the verge of ruin. In America millions of Englishmen were at war with the
country from which their blood, their language, their religion, and their
institutions were derived, and to which, but a short time before, they had been
as strongly attached as the inhabitants of Norfolk and Leicestershire. The great
powers of Europe, humbled to the dust by the vigor and genius which had guided
the councils of George the Second, now rejoiced in the prospect of a signal
revenge. The time was approaching when our island, while struggling to keep down
the United States of America, and pressed with a still nearer danger by the too
just discontents of Ireland, was to be assailed by France, Spain, and Holland,
and to be threatened by the armed neutrality of the Baltic; when even our
maritime supremacy was to be in jeopardy; when hostile fleets were to command
the Straits of Calpe and the Mexican Sea; when the British flag was to be
scarcely able to protect the British Channel. Great as were the faults of
Hastings, it was happy for our country that at that conjuncture, the most
terrible through which she has ever passed, he was the ruler of her Indian
dominions.
An attack by sea on Bengal was little to be apprehended. The danger was that the
European enemies of England might form an alliance with some native power, might
furnish that power with troops, arms, and ammunition, and might thus assail our
possessions on the side of the land. It was chiefly from the Mahrattas that
Hastings anticipated danger. The original seat of that singular people was the
wild range of hills which runs along the western coast of India. In the reign of
Aurungzebe the inhabitants of those regions, led by the great Sevajee, began to
descend on the possessions of their wealthier and less warlike neighbors. The
energy, ferocity, and cunning of the Mahrattas, soon made them the most
conspicuous among the new powers which were generated by the corruption of the
decaying monarchy. At first they were only robbers. They soon rose to the
dignity of conquerors. Half the provinces of the empire were turned into
Mahratta principalities, Freebooters, sprung from low castes, and accustomed to
menial employments, became mighty Rajahs. The Bonslas, at the head of a band of
plunderers, occupied the vast region of Berar. The Guicowar, which is, being
interpreted, the Herdsman, founded that dynasty which still reigns in Guzerat.
The houses of Scindia and Holkar waxed great in Malwa. One adventurous captain
made his nest on the impregnable rock of Gooti. Another became the lord of the
thousand villages which are scattered among the green rice-fields of Tanjore.
That was the time throughout India of double government. The form and the power
were everywhere separated. The Muscleman nabobs who had become sovereign
princes, the Vizier in Oude, and the Nizam at Hyderabad, still called themselves
the viceroys of the House of Tamerlane. In the same manner the Mahratta states,
though really independent of each other, pretended to be members of one empire.
They all acknowledged, by words and ceremonies, the supremacy of the heir of
Sevajee, a roi faineant who chewed bang and toyed with dancing girls in a state
prison at Sattara, and of his Peshwa or mayor of the palace, a great hereditary
magistrate, who kept a court with kingly state at Poonah, and whose authority
was obeyed in the spacious provinces of Aurungabad and Bejapoor.
Some months before wax was declared in Europe the Government of Bengal was
alarmed by the news that a French adventurer, who passed for a man of quality,
had arrived at Poonah. It was said that he had been received there with great
distinction, that he had delivered to the Peshwa letters and presents from Louis
the Sixteenth, and that a treaty, hostile to England, had been concluded between
France and the Mahrattas.
Hastings immediately resolved to strike the first blow. The title of the Peshwa
was not undisputed. A portion of the Mahratta nation was favorable to a
pretender. The Governor General determined to espouse this pretender's interest,
to move an army across the peninsula of India, and to form a close alliance with
the chief of the house of Bonsla, who ruled Berar, and who, in power and
dignity, was inferior to none of the Mahratta princes.
The army had marched, and the negotiations with Berar were in progress, when a
letter from the English consul at Cairo brought the news that war had been
proclaimed both in London and Paris. All the measures which the crisis required
were adopted by Hastings without a moment's delay. The French factories in
Bengal were seized. Orders were sent to Madras that Pondicherry should instantly
be occupied. Near Calcutta works were thrown up which were thought to render the
approach of a hostile force impossible. A maritime establishment was formed for
the defense of the river. Nine new battalions of sepoys were raised, and a corps
of native artillery was formed out of the hardy Lascars of the Bay of Bengal.
Having made these arrangements, the Governor-General, with calm confidence,
pronounced his presidency secure from all attack, unless the Mahrattas should
march against it in conjunction with the French.
The expedition which Hastings had sent westward was not so speedily or
completely successful as most of his undertakings. The commanding officer
procrastinated. The authorities at Bombay blundered. But the Governor-General
persevered. A new commander repaired the errors of his predecessor. Several
brilliant actions spread the military renown of the English through regions
where no European flag had ever been seen. It is probable that, if a new and
more formidable danger had not compelled Hastings to change his whole policy,
his plans respecting the Mahratta empire would have been carried into complete
effect.
The authorities in England had wisely sent out to Bengal, as commander of the
forces and member of the Council, one of the most distinguished soldiers of that
time. Sir Eyre Coote had, many years before, been conspicuous among the founders
of the British empire in the East. At the council of war which preceded the
battle of Plassey, he earnestly recommended, in opposition to the majority, that
daring course which, after some hesitation, was adopted, and which was crowned
with such splendid success. He subsequently commanded in the south of India
against the brave and unfortunate Lally, gained the decisive battle of Wandewash
over the French and their native allies, took Pondicherry, and made the English
power supreme in the Carnatic. Since those great exploits near twenty years had
elapsed. Coote had no longer the bodily activity which he had shown in earlier
days; nor was the vigor of his mind altogether unimpaired. He was capricious and
fretful, and required much coaxing to keep him in good humor. It must, we fear,
be added that the love of money had grown upon him, and that he thought more
about his allowances, and less about his duties, than might have been expected
from so eminent a member of so noble a profession. Still he was perhaps the
ablest officer that was then to be found in the British army. Among the native
soldiers his name was great and his influence unrivalled. Nor is he yet
forgotten by them. Now and then a white-bearded old sepoy may still be found who
loves to talk of Porto Novo and Pollilore. It is but a short time since one of
those aged men came to present a memorial to an English officer, who holds one
of the highest employments in India. A print of Coote hung in the room. The
veteran recognized at once that face and figure which he had not seen for more
than half a century, and, forgetting his salaam to the living, halted, drew
himself up lifted his hand, and with solemn reverence paid his military
obeisance to the dead.
Coote, though he did not, like Barwell, vote constantly with the
Governor-General, was by no means inclined to join in systematic opposition, and
on most questions concurred with Hastings, who did his best, by assiduous
courtship, and by readily granting the most exorbitant allowances, to gratify
the strongest passions of the old soldier.
It seemed likely at this time that a general reconciliation would put an end to
the quarrels which had, during some years, weakened and disgraced the Government
of Bengal. The dangers of the empire might well induce men of patriotic
feeling--and of patriotic feeling neither Hastings nor Francis was destitute--to
forget private enmities, and to co-operate heartily for the general good. Coote
had never been concerned in faction. Wheler was thoroughly tired of it. Barwell
had made an ample fortune, and, though he had promised that he would not leave
Calcutta while his help was needed in Council, was most desirous to return to
England, and exerted himself to promote an arrangement which would set him at
liberty.
A compact was made, by which Francis agreed to desist from opposition, and
Hastings engaged that the friends of Francis should be admitted to a fair share
of the honors and emoluments of the service. During a few months after this
treaty there was apparent harmony at the council-board.
Harmony, indeed, was never more necessary: for at this moment internal
calamities, more formidable than war itself menaced Bengal. The authors of the
Regulating Act Of 1773 had established two independent powers, the one judicial,
and the other political; and, with a carelessness scandalously common in English
legislation, had omitted to define the limits of either. The judges took
advantage of the indistinctness, and attempted to draw to themselves supreme
authority, not only within Calcutta. but through the whole of the great
territory subject to the Presidency of Fort William. There are few Englishmen
who will not admit that the English law, in spite of modern improvements, is
neither so cheap nor so speedy as might be wished. Still, it is a system which
has grown up among us. In some points it has been fashioned to suit our
feelings; in others, it has gradually fashioned our feelings to suit itself.
Even to its worst evils we are accustomed; and therefore, though we may complain
of them, they do not strike us with the horror and dismay which would be
produced by a new grievance of smaller severity. In India the case is widely
different. English law, transplanted to that country, has all the vices from
which we suffer here; it has them all in a far higher degree; and it has other
vices, compared with which the worst vices from which we suffer are trifles.
Dilatory here, it is far more dilatory in a land where the help of an
interpreter is needed by every judge and by every advocate. Costly here, it is
far more costly in a land into which the legal practitioners must be imported
from an immense distance. All English labor in India, from the labor of the
Governor-General and the Commander-in-Chief, down to that of a groom or a
watchmaker, must be paid for at a higher rate than at home. No man will be
banished, and banished to the torrid zone, for nothing. The rule holds good with
respect to the legal profession. No English barrister will work, fifteen
thousand miles from all his friends, with the thermometer at ninety-six in the
shade, for the emoluments which will content him in chambers that overlook the
Thames. Accordingly, the fees at Calcutta are about three times as great as the
fees of Westminster Hall; and this, though the people of India are, beyond all
comparison, poorer than the people of England. Yet the delay and the expense,
grievous as they are, form the smallest part of the evil which English law,
imported without modifications into India, could not fail to produce. The
strongest feelings of our nature, honor, religion, female modesty, rose up
against the innovation. Arrest on mesne process was the first step in most civil
proceedings; and to a native of rank arrest was not merely a restraint, but a
foul personal indignity. Oaths were required in every stage of every suit; and
the feeling of a quaker about an oath is hardly stronger than that of a
respectable native. That the apartments of a woman of quality should be entered
by strange men, or that her face should be seen by them, are, in the East,
intolerable outrages, outrages which are more dreaded than death, and which can
be expiated only by the shedding of blood. To these outrages the most
distinguished families of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa were now exposed. Imagine
what the state of our own country would be, if a jurisprudence were on a sudden
introduced among us, which should be to us what our jurisprudence was to our
Asiatic subjects. Imagine what the state of our country would be, if it were
enacted that any man, by merely swearing that a debt was due to him, should
acquire a right to insult the persons of men of the most honorable and sacred
callings and of women of the most shrinking delicacy, to horsewhip a general
officer, to put a bishop in the stocks, to treat ladies in the way which called
forth the blow of Wat Tyler. Something like this was the effect of the attempt
which the Supreme Court made to extend its jurisdiction over the whole of the
Company's territory.
A reign of terror began, of terror heightened by mystery for even that which was
endured was less horrible than that which was anticipated. No man knew what was
next to be expected from this strange tribunal. It came from beyond the black
water, as the people of India, with mysterious horror, call the sea. It
consisted of judges not one of whom was familiar with the usages of the millions
over whom they claimed boundless authority. Its records were kept in unknown
characters; its sentences were pronounced in unknown sounds. It had already
collected round itself an army of the worst part the native population,
informers, and false witnesses, and common barrators, and agents of chicane, and
above all, a banditti of bailiffs followers, compared with whom the retainers of
the worst English sponging-houses, in the worst times, might be considered as
upright and tender-hearted. Many natives, highly considered among their
countrymen, were seized, hurried up to Calcutta, flung into the common goal, not
for any crime even imputed, not for any debt that had been proved, but merely as
a precaution till their cause should come to trial There were instances in which
men of the most venerable dignity, persecuted without a cause by extortioners,
died of rage and shame in the gripe of the vile alguazils of Impey. The harems
of noble Mohammedans, sanctuaries respected in the East by governments which
respected nothing else, were burst open by gangs of bailiffs. The Mussulmans,
braver and less accustomed to submission than the Hindus, sometimes stood on
their defense; and there were instances in which they shed their blood in the
doorway, while defending, sword in hand, the sacred apartments of their women.
Nay, it seemed as if even the faint-hearted Bengalee, who had crouched at the
feet of Surajah Dowlah, who had been mute during the administration of
Vansittart, would at length find courage in despair. No Mahratta invasion had
ever spread through the province such dismay as this inroad of English lawyers.
All the injustice of former oppressors, Asiatic and European, appeared as a
blessing when compared with the justice of the Supreme Court.
Every class of the population, English and native, with the exception of the
ravenous pettifoggers who fattened on the misery and terror of an immense
community, cried out loudly against this fearful oppression. But the judges were
immovable. If a bailiff was resisted, they ordered the soldiers to be called
out. If a servant of the Company, in conformity with the orders of the
Government, withstood the miserable catchpoles who, with Impey's writs in their
hands, exceeded the insolence and rapacity of gang-robbers, he was flung into
prison for a contempt. The lapse of sixty years, the virtue and wisdom of many
eminent magistrates who have during that time administered justice in the
Supreme Court, have not effaced from the minds of the people of Bengal the
recollection of those evil days.
Previous |
Critical and Historical Essays, Volume I
| Next
Critical And Historical Essays, Volume I, Thomas Babbington Macaulay,
1843 |
|
Add/Correct a Link