The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 10 (of 12). Edmund Burke

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СКАЧАТЬ kept him out of these farms, in order to give the measure a color at least of disinterestedness, and to show that this whole system of corruption and pecuniary oppression was carried on for the benefit of the Company. The Governor-General and Council made an ostensible order by which no collector, or person concerned in the revenue, should have any connection with these farms. This order did not include the Governor-General in the words of it, but more than included him in the spirit of it; because his power to protect a farmer-general in the person of his own servant was infinitely greater than that of any subordinate person. Mr. Hastings, in breach of this order, gave farms to his own banian. You find him the farmer of great, of vast and extensive farms. Another regulation that was made on that occasion was, that no farmer should have, except in particular cases, which were marked, described, and accurately distinguished, a greater farm than what paid 10,000l. a year to government. Mr. Hastings, who had broken the first regulation by giving any farm at all to his banian, finding himself bolder, broke the second too, and, instead of 10,000l., gave him farms paying a revenue of 130,000l. a year to government. Men undoubtedly have been known to be under the dominion of their domestics; such things have happened to great men: they never have happened justifiably in my opinion. They have never happened excusably; but we are acquainted sufficiently with the weakness of human nature to know that a domestic who has served you in a near office long, and in your opinion faithfully, does become a kind of relation; it brings on a great affection and regard for his interest. Now was this the case with Mr. Hastings and Cantoo Baboo? Mr. Hastings was just arrived at his government, and Cantoo Baboo had been but a year in his service; so that he could not in that time have contracted any great degree of friendship for him. These people do not live in your house; the Hindoo servants never sleep in it; they cannot eat with your servants; they have no second table, in which they can be continually about you, to be domesticated with yourself, a part of your being, as people's servants are to a certain degree. These persons live all abroad; they come at stated hours upon matters of business, and nothing more. But if it had been otherwise, Mr. Hastings's connection with Cantoo Baboo had been but of a year's standing; he had before served in that capacity Mr. Sykes, who recommended him to Mr. Hastings. Your Lordships, then, are to judge whether such outrageous violations of all the principles by which Mr. Hastings pretended to be guided in the settlement of these farms were for the benefit of this old, decayed, affectionate servant of one year's standing: your Lordships will judge of that.

      I have here spoken only of the beginning of a great, notorious system of corruption, which branched out so many ways and into such a variety of abuses, and has afflicted that kingdom with such horrible evils from that day to this, that I will venture to say it will make one of the greatest, weightiest, and most material parts of the charge that is now before you; as I believe I need not tell your Lordships that an attempt to set up the whole landed interest of a kingdom to auction must be attended, not only in that act, but every consequential act, with most grievous and terrible consequences.

      My Lords, I will now come to a scene of peculation of another kind: namely, a peculation by the direct sale of offices of justice,—by the direct sale of the successions of families,—by the sale of guardianships and trusts, held most sacred among the people of India: by the sale of them, not, as before, to farmers, not, as you might imagine, to near relations of the families, but a sale of them to the unfaithful servants of those families, their own perfidious servants, who had ruined their estates, who, if any balances had accrued to the government, had been the cause of those debts. Those very servants were put in power over their estates, their persons, and their families, by Mr. Hastings, for a shameful price. It will be proved to your Lordships, in the course of this business, that Mr. Hastings has done this in another sacred trust, the most sacred trust a man can have,—that is, in the case of those vakeels, (as they call them,) agents, or attorneys, who had been sent to assert and support the rights of their miserable masters before the Council-General. It will be proved that these vakeels were by Mr. Hastings, for a price to be paid for it, put in possession of the very power, situation, and estates of those masters who sent them to Calcutta to defend them from wrong and violence. The selling offices of justice, the sale of succession in families, of guardianships and other sacred trusts, the selling masters to their servants, and principals to the attorneys they employed to defend themselves, were all parts of the same system; and these were the horrid ways in which he received bribes beyond any common rate.

      When Mr. Hastings was appointed in the year 1773 to be Governor-General of Bengal, together with Mr. Barwell, General Clavering, Colonel Monson, and Mr. Francis, the Company, knowing the former corrupt state of their service, (but the whole corrupt system of Mr. Hastings at that time not being known or even suspected at home,) did order them, in discharge of the spirit of the act of Parliament, to make an inquiry into all manner of corruptions and malversations in office, without the exception of any persons whatever. Your Lordships are to know that the act did expressly authorize the Court of Directors to frame a body of instructions, and to give orders to their new servants appointed under the act of Parliament, lest it should be supposed that they, by their appointment under the act, could supersede the authority of the Directors. The Directors, sensible of the power left in them over their servants by the act of Parliament, though their nomination was taken from them, did, agreeably to the spirit and power of that act, give this order.

      The Council consisted of two parties: Mr. Hastings and Mr. Barwell, who were chosen and kept there upon the idea of their local knowledge; and the other three, who were appointed on account of their great parts and known integrity. And I will venture to say that those three gentlemen did so execute their duty in India, in all the substantial parts of it, that they will serve as a shield to cover the honor of England, whenever this country is upbraided in India.

      They found a rumor running through the country of great peculations and oppressions. Soon after, when it was known what their instructions were, and that the Council was ready, as is the first duty of all governors, even when there is no express order, to receive complaints against the oppressions and corruptions of government in any part of it, they found such a body (and that body shall be produced to your Lordships) of corruption and peculation in every walk, in every department, in every situation of life, in the sale of the most sacred trusts, and in the destruction of the most ancient families of the country, as I believe in so short a time never was unveiled since the world began.

      Your Lordships would imagine that Mr. Hastings would at least ostensibly have taken some part in endeavoring to bring these corruptions before the public, or that he would at least have acted with some little management in his opposition. But, alas! it was not in his power; there was not one, I think, but I am sure very few, of these general articles of corruption, in which the most eminent figure in the crowd, the principal figure as it were in the piece, was not Mr. Hastings himself. There were a great many others involved; for all departments were corrupted and vitiated. But you could not open a page in which you did not see Mr. Hastings, or in which you did not see Cantoo Baboo. Either the black or white side of Mr. Hastings constantly was visible to the world in every part of these transactions.

      With the other gentlemen, who were visible too, I have at present no dealing. Mr. Hastings, instead of using any management on that occasion, instantly set up his power and authority, directly against the majority of the Council, directly against his colleagues, directly against the authority of the East India Company and the authority of the act of Parliament, to put a dead stop to all these inquiries. He broke up the Council, the moment they attempted to perform this part of their duty. As the evidence multiplied upon him, the daring exertions of his power in stopping all inquiries increased continually. But he gave a credit and authority to the evidence by these attempts to suppress it.

      Your Lordships have heard that among the body of the accusers of this corruption there was a principal man in the country, a man of the first rank and authority in it, called Nundcomar, who had the management of revenues amounting to 150,000l. a year, and who had, if really inclined to play the small game with which he has been charged by his accusers, abundant means to gratify himself in playing great ones; but Mr. Hastings has himself given him, upon the records of the Company, a character which would at least justify the Council in making some inquiry into charges made by him.

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