The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 09 (of 12)

That the said Warren Hastings, having first declared that the measures taken by him were for the support of the engagements made by the Presidency of Bombay in favor of Ragoba, did afterwards, when it appeared that those negotiations were entirely laid aside, declare that his apprehension of the consequence of a pretended intrigue between the Mahrattas and the French was the sole motive of all the late measures taken for the support of the Presidency of Bombay; but that neither of the preceding declarations contained the true motives and objects of the said Hastings, whose real purpose, as it appeared soon after, was, to make use of the superiority of the British power in India to carry on offensive wars, and to pursue schemes of conquest, impolitic and unjust in their design, ill-concerted in the execution, and which, as this House has resolved, have brought great calamities on India, and enormous expenses on the East India Company.

That the said Warren Hastings, on the 22d of June, 1778, made the following declaration in Council. "Much less can I agree, that, with such superior advantages as we possess over every power which can oppose us, we should act merely on the defensive. On the contrary, if it be really true that the British arms and influence have suffered so severe a check in the Western world, it is more incumbent on those who are charged with the interests of Great Britain in the East to exert themselves for the retrieval of the national loss. We have the means in our power, and, if they are not frustrated by our own dissensions, I trust that the event of this expedition will yield every advantage for the attainment of which it was undertaken."

That, in pursuance of the principles avowed in the preceding declaration, the said Warren Hastings, on the 9th of July, 1778, did propose and carry it in Council, that an embassy should be sent from Bengal to Moodajee Boosla, the Rajah of Berar,—falsely asserting that the said Rajah "was, by interest and inclination, likely to join in an alliance with the British government, and suggesting that two advantages might be offered to him as the inducements to it: first, the support of his pretensions to the sovereign power" (viz., of the Mahratta empire); "second, the recovery of the captures made on his dominions by Nizam Ali." That the said Hastings, having already given full authority to the Presidency of Bombay to engage the British faith to Ragonaut Row to support him in his pretensions to the government or to the regency of the Mahratta empire, was guilty of a high crime and misdemeanor in proposing to engage the same British faith to support the pretensions of another competitor for the same object; and that, in offering to assist the Rajah of Berar to recover the captures made on his dominions by the Nizam, the said Hastings did endeavor, as far as depended on him, to engage the British nation in a most unjust and utterly unprovoked war against the said Nizam, between whom and the East India Company a treaty of peace and friendship did then subsist, unviolated on his part,—notwithstanding the said Hastings well knew that it made part of the East India Company's fundamental policy to support that prince against the Mahrattas, and to consider him as one of the few remaining chiefs who were yet capable of coping with the Mahrattas, and that it was the Company's true interest to preserve a good understanding with him. That, by holding out such offers to the Rajah of Berar, the said Hastings professed to hope that the Rajah would ardently catch at the objects presented to his ambition: and although the said Hastings did about this time lay it down as a maxim that there is always a greater advantage in receiving solicitations than in making advances, he nevertheless declared to the said Rajah that in the whole of his conduct he had departed from the common line of policy, and had made advances where others in his situation would have waited for solicitation. That the said unjust and dangerous projects did not take effect, because the Rajah of Berar refused to join or be concerned therein; yet so earnest was the said Hastings for the execution of those projects, that in a subsequent letter he daringly and treacherously assured the Rajah, "that, if he had accepted of the terms offered him by Colonel Goddard, and concluded a treaty with the government of Bengal upon them, he should have held the obligation of it superior to that of any engagement formed by the government of Bombay, and should have thought it his duty to maintain it, &c., against every consideration even of the most valuable interests and safety of the English possessions intrusted to his charge." That all the offers of the said Hastings were rejected with slight and contempt by the Rajah of Berar; but the same being discovered, and generally known throughout India, did fill the chief of the princes and states of India with a general suspicion and distrust of the ambitious designs and treacherous principles of the British government, and with an universal hatred of the British nation. That the said princes and states were thereby so thoroughly convinced of the necessity of uniting amongst themselves to oppose a power which kept no faith with any of them, and equally threatened them all, that, renouncing all former enmities against each other, they united in a common confederacy against the English, viz.: the Peshwa, as representative of the Mahratta state, and Moodajee Boosla, the Rajah of Berar, that is, the principal Hindoo powers of India, on one side; and Hyder Ali, and the Nizam of the Deccan, that is, the principal Mahomedan powers of India, on the other: and that in consequence of this confederacy Hyder Ali invaded, overran, and ruined the Carnatic; and that Moodajee Boosla, instead of ardently catching at the objects presented to his ambition by the said Hastings, sent an army to the frontiers of Bengal,—which army the said Warren Hastings was at length forced to buy off with twenty-six lacs of rupees, or 300,000l. sterling, after a series of negotiations with the Mahratta chiefs who commanded that army, founded and conducted on principles so dishonorable to the British name and character, that the Secret Committee of the House of Commons, by whom the rest of the proceedings in that business were reported to the House, have upon due consideration thought it proper to leave out the letter of instructions to Mr. Anderson, viz., those given by the said Warren Hastings to the representative of the British government, and concerning which the said committee have reported in the following terms: "The schemes of policy by which the Governor-General seems to have dictated the instructions he gave to Mr. Anderson" (the gentleman deputed) "will also appear in this document, as well respecting the particular succession to the rauje, as also the mode of accommodating the demand of chout, the establishment of which was apparently the great aim of Moodajee's political manoeuvres, while the Governor-General's wish to defeat it was avowedly more intent on the removal of a nominal disgrace than on the anxiety or resolution to be freed from an expensive, if an unavoidable incumbrance."

That, while the said Warren Hastings was endeavoring to persuade the Rajah of Berar to engage with him in a scheme to place the said Rajah at the head of the Mahratta empire, the Presidency of Bombay, by virtue of the powers specially vested in them for that purpose by the said Hastings, did really engage with Ragonaut Row, the other competitor for the same object, and sent a great part of their military force, established for the defence of Bombay, on an expedition with Ragonaut Row, to invade the dominions of the Peshwa, and to take Poonah, the capital thereof; that this army, being surrounded and overpowered by the Mahrattas, was obliged to capitulate; and then, through the moderation of the Mahrattas, was permitted to return quietly, but very disgracefully, to Bombay. That, supposing the said Warren Hastings could have been justified in abandoning the project of reinstating Ragonaut Row, which he at first authorized and promised to support, and in preferring a scheme to place the Rajah of Berar at the head of the Mahratta empire, he was bound by his duty, as well as injustice to the Presidency of Bombay, to give that Presidency timely notice of such his intention, and to have restrained them positively from resuming their own project; that, on the contrary, the said Warren Hastings did, on the 17th of August, 1778, again authorize the said Presidency "to assist Ragoba with a military force to conduct him to Poonah, and to establish him in the regency there," and, so far from communicating his change of plan to Bombay, did keep it concealed from that Presidency, insomuch that, even so late as the 19th of February, 1779, William Hornby, then Governor of Bombay, declared in Council his total ignorance of the schemes of the said Hastings in the following terms: "The schemes of the Governor-General and Council with regard to the Rajah of Berar being yet unknown to us, it is impossible for us to found any measures on them; yet I cannot help now observing, that, if, as has been conjectured, the gentleman of that Presidency have entertained thoughts of restoring, in his person, the ancient Rajah government, the attempt seems likely to be attended with no small difficulty." That, whereas the said Warren Hastings did repeatedly affirm that it was his intention to support the plan formed by the Presidency of Bombay in favor of Ragoba, and did repeatedly authorize and encourage them to pursue it, he did nevertheless, at the same time, in his letters and declarations to the Peshwa, to the Nizam, and to the Rajah of Berar, falsely and perfidiously affirm, that it never was nor is designed by the English chiefs to give support to Ragonaut Row,—that he (Hastings) had no idea of supporting Ragonaut Row,—and that the detachment he had sent to Bombay was solely to awe the French, without the least design to assist Ragonaut Row. That, supposing it to have been the sole professed intention of the said Hastings, in sending an army across India, to protect Bombay against a Trench invasion, even that pretence was false, and used only to cover the real design of the said Hastings, viz., to engage in projects of war and conquest with the Rajah of Berar. That on the 11th of October, 1778, he informed the said Rajah "that the detachment would soon arrive in his territories, and depend on him [Moodajee Boosla] for its subsequent operations"; that on the 7th of December, 1778, the said Hastings revoked the powers he had before given¹⁹ to the Presidency of Bombay over the detachment, declaring that the event of Colonel Goddard's negotiation with the Rajah of Berar was likely to cause a very speedy and essential change in the design and operations of the detachment; and that on the 4th of March, 1779, the said Hastings, immediately after receiving advice of the defeat of the Bombay army near Poonah, and when Bombay, if at any time, particularly required to be protected against a French invasion, did declare in Council that he wished for the return of the detachment to Berar, and dreaded to hear of its proceeding to the Malabar coast: and therefore, if the said Hastings did not think that Bombay was in danger of being attacked by the French, he was guilty of repeated falsehoods in affirming the contrary for the purpose of covering a criminal design; or, if he thought that Bombay was immediately threatened with that danger, he then was guilty of treachery in ordering an army necessary on that supposition to the immediate defence of Bombay to halt in Berar, to depend on the Rajah of Berar for its subsequent operations, or on the event of a negotiation with that prince, which, as the said Hastings declared, was likely to cause a very speedy and essential change in the design and operations of the detachment; and finally, in declaring that he dreaded to hear of the said detachment's proceeding to the Malabar coast, whither he ought to have ordered it to proceed without delay, if, as he has solemnly affirmed, it was true that he had been told by the highest authority that a powerful armament had been prepared in France, the first object of which was an attack upon Bombay, and that he knew with moral certainty that all the powers of the adjacent continent were ready to join the invasion.

That through the whole of these transactions the said Warren Hastings has been guilty of continued falsehood, fraud, contradiction, and duplicity, highly dishonorable to the character of the British nation; that, in consequence of the unjust and ill-concerted schemes of the said Hastings, the British arms, heretofore respected in India, have suffered repeated disgraces, and great calamities have been thereby brought upon India; and that the said Warren Hastings, as well in exciting and promoting the late unprovoked and unjustifiable war against the Mahrattas, as in the conduct thereof, has been guilty of sundry high crimes and misdemeanors.

That, by the definitive treaty of peace concluded with the Mahrattas at Poorunder, on the 1st of March, 1776, the Mahrattas gave up all right and title to the island of Salsette, unjustly taken from them by the Presidency of Bombay; did also give up to the English Company forever all right and title to their entire shares of the city and purgunnah of Baroach; did also give forever to the English Company a country of three lacs of rupees revenue, near to Baroach; and did also agree to pay to the Company twelve lacs of rupees, in part of the expenses of the English army: and that the terms of the said treaty were honorable and advantageous to the India Company.²⁰

That Warren Hastings, having broken the said treaty, and forced the Mahrattas into another war by a repeated invasion of their country, and having conducted that war in the manner hereinbefore described, did, on the 17th of May, 1782, by the agency of Mr. David Anderson, conclude another treaty of perpetual friendship and alliance with the Mahrattas, by which the said Hastings agreed to deliver up to them all the countries, places, cities, and forts, particularly the island of Bassein, (taken from the Peshwa during the war,) and to relinquish all claim to the country of three lacs of rupees ceded to the Company by the treaty of Poorunder; that the said Warren Hastings did also at the said time, by a private and separate agreement, deliver up to Mahdajee Sindia the whole of the city of Baroach,—that is, not only the share in the said city which the India Company acquired by the treaty of Poorunder, but the other share thereof which the India Company possessed for several years before that treaty; and that among the reasons assigned by Mr. David Anderson for totally stripping the Presidency of Bombay of all their possessions on the Malabar coast, he has declared, "that, from the general tenor of the rest of the treaty, the settlement of Bombay would be in future put on such a footing that it might well become a question whether the possession of an inconsiderable territory without forts would not be attended with more loss than advantage, as it must necessarily occasion considerable expense, must require troops for its defence, and might probably in the end lead, as Sindia apprehended, to a renewal of war."

That the said Warren Hastings, having in this manner put an end to a war commenced by him without provocation, and continued by him without necessity, and having for that purpose made so many sacrifices to the Mahrattas in points of essential interest to the India Company, did consent and agree to other articles utterly dishonorable to the British name and character, having sacrificed or abandoned every one of the native princes who by his solicitations and promises had been engaged to take part with us in the war,—and that he did so without necessity: since it appears that Sindia, the Mahratta chief who concluded the treaty, in every part of his conduct manifested a hearty desire of establishing a peace with us; and that this was the disposition of all the parties in the Mahratta confederacy, who were only kept together by a general dread of their common enemy, the English, and who only waited for a cessation of hostilities with us to return to their habitual and permanent enmity against each other. That the Governor-General and Council, in their letter of 31st August, 1781, made the following declaration to the Court of Directors. "The Mahrattas have demanded the sacrifice of the person of Ragonaut Row, the surrender of the fort and territories of Ahmedabad, and of the fortress of Gualior, which are not ours to give, and which we could not wrest from the proprietors without the greatest violation of public faith. No state of affairs, in our opinions, could warrant our acquiescence to such requisition; and we are morally certain, that, had we yielded to them, such a consciousness of the state of our affairs would have been implied as would have produced an effect the very reverse from that for which it was intended, by raising the presumption of the enemy to exact yet more ignominious terms, or perhaps their refusal to accept of any; nor, in our opinion, would they have failed to excite in others the same belief, and the consequent decision of all parties against us, as the natural consequences of our decline." That the said Hastings himself, in his instructions to Mr. David Anderson, after authorizing him to restore all that we had conquered during the war, expressly "excepted Ahmedabad, and the territory conquered for Futty Sing Gwicowar." That, nevertheless, the said Hastings, in the peace concluded by him, has yielded to every one of the conditions reprobated in the preceding declarations as ignominious and incompatible with public faith.

That the said Warren Hastings did abandon the Ranna of Gohud in the manner already charged; and that the said Ranna has not only lost the fort of Gualior, but all his own country, and is himself a prisoner. That the said Hastings did not interpose to obtain any terms in favor of the Nabob of Bopaul, who was with great reason desirous of concealing from the Mahrattas the attachment he had borne to the English government:²¹ the said Nabob having a just dread of the danger of being exposed to the resentment of the Mahrattas, and no dependence on the faith and protection of the English. That by the ninth article of the treaty with Futty Sing it was stipulated, that, when a negotiation for peace should take place, his interest should be primarily considered; and that Mr. David Anderson, the minister and representative of the Governor-General and Council, did declare to Sindia, that it was indispensably incumbent on us to support Futty Sing's rights: that, nevertheless, every acquisition made for or by the said Futty Sing during the war, particularly the fort and territories of Ahmedabad, were given up by the said Hastings; that Futty Sing was replaced under the subjection of the Peshwa, (whose resentment he had provoked by taking part with us in the war,) and under an obligation to pay a tribute, not specified, to the Peshwa, and to perform such services and to be subject to such obedience as had long been established and customary; and that, no limit being fixed to such tribute or services, the said Futty Sing has been left wholly at the mercy of the Mahrattas.

That, with respect to Ragoba, the said Hastings, in his instructions to Mr. Anderson, dated 4th of November, 1781, contented himself with saying, "We cannot totally abandon the interests of Ragonaut Row. Endeavor to obtain for him an adequate provision." That Mr. Anderson declared to Mahdajee Sindia,²² "that, as we had given Ragoba protection as an independent prince, and not brought him into our settlement as a prisoner, we could not in honor pretend to impose the smallest restraint on his will, and he must be at liberty to go wherever he pleased; that it must rest with Sindia himself to prevail on him to reside in his country: all that we could do was to agree, after a reasonable time, to withdraw our protection from him, and not to insist on the payment of the stipend to him, as Sindia had proposed, unless on the condition of his residing in some part of Sindia's territories."

That, notwithstanding all the preceding declarations, and in violation of the public faith repeatedly pledged to Ragoba, he was totally abandoned by the said Hastings in the treaty, no provision whatever being made even for his subsistence, but on a condition to which he could not submit without the certain loss of his liberty and probable hazard of his life, namely, that he should voluntarily and of his own accord repair to Sindia, and quietly reside with him. That such treacherous desertion of the said Ragoba is not capable of being justified by any plea of necessity: but that in fact no such necessity existed; since it appears that the Nizam, who of all the contracting parties in the confederacy was personally most hostile to Ragoba, did himself propose that Ragoba, might have an option given him of residing within the Company's territories.

That the plan of negotiating a peace with the Mahrattas by application to Sindia, and through his mediation, was earnestly recommended to the said Hastings by the Presidency of Bombay so early as in February, 1779, who stated clearly to him the reasons why such application ought to be made to Sindia in preference to any other of the Mahratta chiefs, and why it would probably be successful; the truth and justice of which reasons were fully evinced in the issue, when the said Hastings, after incurring, by two years' delay, all the losses and distresses of a calamitous war, did actually pursue that very plan with much less effect or advantage than might have been obtained at the time the advice was given. That he neglected the advice of the Presidency of Bombay, and retarded the peace, as well as made its conditions worse, from an obstinate attachment to his project of an alliance offensive and defensive with the Rajah of Berar, the object of which was rather a new war than a termination of the war then existing against the Peshwa.

That the said Hastings did further embarrass and retard the conclusion of a peace by employing different ministers at the courts of the several confederate powers, whom he severally empowered to treat and negotiate a peace. That these ministers, not acting in concert, not knowing the extent of each other's commissions, and having no instructions to communicate their respective proceedings to each other, did in effect counteract their several negotiations. That this want of concert and of simplicity, and the mystery and intricacy in the mode of conducting the negotiation on our part, was complained of by our ministers as embarrassing and disconcerting to us, while it was advantageous to the adverse party, who were thereby furnished with opportunity and pretence for delay, when it suited their purpose, and enabled to play off one set of negotiators against another; that it also created jealousy and distrust in the various contending parties, with whom we were treating at the same time, and to whom we were obliged to make contradictory professions, while it betrayed and exposed to them all our own eagerness and impatience for peace, raising thereby the general claims and pretensions of the enemy. That, while Dalhousie Watherston, Esquire, was treating at Poonah, and David Anderson, Esquire, in Sindia's camp, with separate powers applied to the same object, the minister at Poonah informed the said Watherston, that he had received proposals for peace from the Nabob of Arcot with the approbation of Sir Eyre Coote; that he had returned other proposals to the said Nabob of Arcot, who had assured him, the minister, that those proposals would be acceded to, and that Mr. Macpherson would set out for Bengal, after which orders should be immediately dispatched from the Honorable the Governor-General and Council to the effect he wished; that the said Nabob "had promised to obtain and forward to him the expected orders from Bengal in fifteen days, and that he was therefore every instant in expectation of their arrival,—and observed, that, when General Goddard proposed to send a confidential person to Poonah, he conceived that those orders must have actually reached him": that therefore the treaty formally concluded by David Anderson was in effect and substance the same with that offered and in reality concluded by the Nabob of Arcot, with the exception only of Salsette, which the Nabob of Arcot had agreed to restore to the Mahrattas.

That the intention of the said Warren Hastings, in pressing for a peace with the Mahrattas on terms so dishonorable and by measures so rash and ill-concerted, was not to restore and establish a general peace throughout India, but to engage the India Company in a new war against Hyder Ali, and to make the Mahrattas parties therein. That the eagerness and passion with which the said Hastings pursued this object laid him open to the Mahrattas, who depended thereon for obtaining whatever they should demand from us. That, in order to carry the point of an offensive alliance against Hyder Ali, the said Hastings exposed the negotiation for peace with the Mahrattas to many difficulties and delays. That the Mahrattas were bound by a clear and recent engagement, which Hyder had never violated in any article, to make no peace with us which should not include him; that they pleaded the sacred nature of this obligation in answer to all our requisitions on this head, while the said Hastings, still importunate for his favorite point, suggested to them various means of reconciling a substantial breach of their engagement with a formal observance of it, and taught them how they might at once be parties in a peace with Hyder Ali and in an offensive alliance for immediate hostility against him. That these lessons of public duplicity and artifice, and these devices of ostensible faith and real treachery, could have no effect but to degrade the national character, and to inspire the Mahrattas themselves, with whom we were in treaty, with a distrust in our sincerity and good faith. That the object of this fraudulent policy (viz., the utter destruction of Hyder Ali, and a partition of his dominions) was neither wise in itself, or authorized by the orders and instructions of the Company to their servants; that it was incompatible with the treaty of peace, in which Hyder Ali was included, and contrary to the repeated and best-understood injunctions of the Company,—being, in the first place, a bargain for a new war, and, in the next, aiming at an extension of our territory by conquest. That the best and soundest political opinions on the relations of these states have always represented our great security against the power of the Mahrattas to depend on its being balanced by that of Hyder Ali; and the Mysore country is so placed as a barrier between the Carnatic and the Mahrattas as to make it our interest rather to strengthen and repair that barrier than to level and destroy it. That the said treaty of partition does express itself to be eventual with regard to the making and keeping of peace; but through the whole course of the said Hastings's proceeding he did endeavor to prevent any peace with the Sultan or Nabob of Mysore, Tippoo Sahib, and did for a long time endeavor to frustrate all the methods which could have rendered the said treaty of conquest and partition wholly unnecessary.

That the Mahrattas having taken no effectual step to oblige Hyder Ali to make good the conditions for which they had engaged in his behalf, and the war continuing to be carried on in the Carnatic by Tippoo Sultan, son and successor of Hyder Ali, the Presidency of Fort St. George undertook, upon their own authority, to open a negotiation with the said Tippoo: which measure, though indispensably necessary, the said Hastings utterly disapproved and discountenanced, expressly denying that there was any ground or motive for entering into any direct or separate treaty with Tippoo, and not consenting to or authorizing any negotiation for such treaty, until after a cessation of hostilities had been brought about with him by the Presidency of Fort St. George, in August, 1783, and the ministers of Tippoo had been received and treated with by that Presidency, and commissioners, in return, actually sent by the said Presidency to the court of Poonah: which late and reluctant consent and authority were extorted from him, the said Hastings, in consequence of the acknowledgment of his agent at the court of Mahdajee Sindia, upon whom the said Warren Hastings had depended for enforcing the clauses of the Mahratta treaty, of the precariousness of such dependence, and of the necessity of that direct and separate treaty with Tippoo, so long and so lately reprobated by the said Warren Hastings, notwithstanding the information and entreaties of the Presidency of Fort St. George, as well as the known distresses and critical situation of the Company's affairs. That, though the said Warren Hastings did at length give instructions for negotiating and making peace with Tippoo, expressly adding, that those instructions extended to all the points which occurred to him or them as capable of being agitated or gained upon the occasion,—though the said instructions were sent after the said commissioners by the Presidency of Fort St. George, with directions to obey them,—though not only the said instructions were obeyed, but advantages gained which did not occur to the said Warren Hastings,—though the said peace formed a contrast with the Mahratta peace, in neither ceding any territory possessed by the Company before the war, or delivering up any dependant or ally to the vengeance of his adversaries, but providing for the restoration of all the countries that had been taken from the Company and their allies,—though the Supreme Council of Calcutta, forming the legal government of Bengal in the absence of the said Warren Hastings, ratified the said treaty,—yet the said Warren Hastings, then absent from the seat of government, and out of the province of Bengal, and forming no legal or integral part of the government during such absence, did, after such ratification, usurp the power of acting as a part of such government (as if actually sitting in Council with the other members of the same) in the consideration and unqualified censure of the terms of the said peace.