From these it might, perhaps, be clear that some of the Begums' people had been concerned in the late disturbance; but there was no proof whatever to show that they had acted by the order, or even with the knowledge, of the aged ladies. Above all, it is to be borne in mind that no opportunity was ever allowed the princesses to be heard in their own defence. Yet it was upon such wholly one-sided testimony that Hastings mainly relied for his own justification. "Let this," he wrote to a friend in London, "let this be an answer to the "men of virtue who may exclaim against our breach of faith, "and the inhumanity of dealing war against widows, prin"cesses of high birth, and defenceless old women "old women had very nigh effected our destruction.” * These It was in September, 1781, that the Governor-General and the Visier signed a treaty at Chunar, according to the terms which the former had proposed. Then they parted. Hastings followed in the train of his victorious troops to Benares, and from thence returned to Bengal, while Asaph ul Dowlah wended back his way to Oude. With the assistance of Mr. Middleton, the English Resident at his Court, he prepared to carry into effect his stipulations. But, in resuming the grants of land, he had to encounter the most vehement remonstrances, both from his mother and his minions. His heart was moved by some touch of pity or of shame. Even Mr. Middleton, though the devoted friend, or, to speak more truly perhaps, the humble servant, of the Governor-General, faltered at the long course of exaction that lay before him. Hastings alone was, as ever, unbending, cold, and hard. He sternly reminded the Visier of their plighted compact. He bade, in the most peremptory terms, the Resident proceed on his instructions. "If you," he added, "cannot rely on your own firmness, I will free you from these "charges; I will myself proceed to Lucknow; I will myself "undertake them." ** Thus spurred on, both the Visier and the Resident, *To L. Sulivan, Esq., February 21. 1782. **Letter, December 25. 1781. Burke's Articles of Charge, IV. sec. 12. INDIA.] CRUELTIES COMMITTED ON THE BEGUMS. 313 though wincing, began to move. The Jaghires of the two princesses were forcibly resumed. The city and palace of Fyzabad, in which they dwelt, were surrounded and reduced by a body of British troops. Still, however, the Begums would not part with any portion of their hidden treasure. The difficulty was how to discover or lay hands upon it without profaning, as the races of the East conceive, the sacred bounds of the Zenana. It was resolved to arrest and confine two aged Eunuchs, the heads of the household, and the principal Ministers of the princesses. These men were cast into prison, and loaded with irons; and, on finding them obdurate, an order was issued in January, 1782, that until they yielded they should be debarred from all food. This order, to the shame and opprobrium not only of himself and his employer, but even of the English name in India, bore the signature - I am pained to own it of Nathaniel Middleton. To the pangs of hunger the aged Ministers gave way, and within two days agreed to disburse the sum which was then required. But that sum was only a part of the whole demand. To extort the rest other most rigorous measures were employed. The two prisoners were removed from Fyzabad to Lucknow. The weight of their irons was increased; torture was threatened, and perhaps inflicted; certain it is, at least, that every facility was granted by the British Assistant Resident to the officers of the Visier, who were sent for that purpose to the prison-house. Meanwhile at Fyzabad the palace-gates of the princesses continued to be strictly guarded. Food was allowed to enter, but not always in sufficient quantities for the number of the inmates, so that the Begums might be wrought upon by the distress of their attendants. "The melancholy cries of famine," says a British officer upon the spot, "are more easily ima"gined than described." Thus, through the greater part of 1782, severity followed severity, and sum was exacted after sum. The Ministers were not set free, nor the princesses relieved from duresse until after there had been ob tained from them treasure exceeding in amount one million sterling. Notwithstanding all their pleas of poverty — pleas perfectly justifiable in the face of such oppression there was still remaining in their hands property to the value of at least one million more. It has been urged, yet surely without good reason, that for these acts of barbarity the Visier upon the spot, rather than the Governor-General at a distance, should be held responsible. It has also been contended, that they were no necessary consequence of the original scheme, as framed at Chunar, for despoiling the Dowagers of Oude. And, as regards that scheme, the later apologists of Hastings, discarding for the most part the flimsy pretexts which he put forward at the time, prefer to take their stand on the broad ground that large supplies of money were absolutely needed for the prosecution of the war; and that we should have lost India if we had not plundered the Begums. Certainly, in one respect at least, Hastings may deserve to be far distinguished above the long line of robber-magistrates in story from Verres the prætor, down to Monsieur Rapinat.* He plundered for the benefit of the State, and not for his own. His main thought was ever, that he had a great empire to save and he did save it. Yet, with all due appreciation of his object, and with all due allowance for his difficulties, his conduct to the princesses of Oude appears to me incapable of any valid vindication, and must be condemned as alike repugnant to the principles of justice and humanity. Rumours of abuses in India - of wrangling Councils, * Of Rapinat, who was Commissioner of the Directory in Switzerland, it is said by M. Michaud in the Supplement to the Biog. Univ.: "Il dut une "grande célébrité beaucoup plus à la bizarrerie de son nom qu'à ses dépré"dations, qui au fond ne furent pas plus considérables que celles de tant "d'autres." Here is one of the epigrams against him, which may at least deserve to be ranked with the hoy's broth quibble - the Jus Verrinum --of Cicero: "Un pauvre Suisse que l'on ruine "Si Rapinat vient de rapine INDIA.] COMMITTEES GRANTED BY LORD NORTH. 66 315 rapacious Governors, unjust judges, and unnecessary wars had for some time past already crossed the seas to England. Lord North, sore pressed on other questions, had no motive for resisting, and did not resist, inquiry upon these. In the course of 1781, he agreed to or proposed the appointment of two Committees of the House of Commons; the one 'Select," to consider the state of the administration of justice in Bengal; the other "Secret," to investigate the causes of the war in the Carnatic. The first Committee had for Chairman General Richard Smith, a member of the Opposition; and among its most zealous and untiring members was Edmund Burke. The second, on the contrary, was presided over by a member of the Government — Henry Dundas, at that time Lord Advocate of Scotland. Each Committee presented several able Reports, and collected a great mass of important evidence. Neither Committee showed any tenderness to Hastings. All the worst points in his administration, and, above all, his war with the Rohillas, were unsparingly dragged to light. Impey also was severely censured for his acceptance of the new judicial office created by the Council of Bengal. The case of both of these high functionaries was brought before the House of Commons at nearly the same time, but, as will presently be seen, with very different results. In May, 1782, General Smith moved an Address to the King, praying that His Majesty would recall Sir Elijah Impey "to answer to the charge of having accepted an office "granted by, and tenable at the pleasure of, the servants "of the East India Company, which has a tendency to create "a dependence in the Supreme Court of Judicature upon "those over whose actions the said Court was intended as "a control." This Address appears to have been carried without either division or debate. In the July following Sir Elijah was accordingly summoned home by a letter from the Secretary of State, Lord Shelburne. He returned to England, but several years elapsed before that or any other charge against him came to be publicly preferred. In April, 1782, the main results of the knowledge gathered in the Secret Committee upon Indian wars and Indian policy were unfolded to the House by Mr. Dundas in a lucid and most able speech of three hours. It was then, perhaps, more than on any previous occasion, that he fully showed or saw acknowledged the mastery of debate which he so long retained. A few weeks later he moved a more specific Resolution against Hastings, purporting that it was the duty of the Court of Directors to remove the GovernorGeneral; he "having, in sundry instances, acted in a man"ner repugnant to the honour and policy of this nation." The Rockingham Ministry, urged forward by the fiery vehemence of Burke, gave their support to this Resolution; and no other considerable party in Parliament opposed it. The Court of Directors also, in compliance with its terms, soon afterwards voted an Order of Recall. But when in the October following that Order of Recall came before the Court of Proprietors, the scene was wholly changed. A large majority of the Proprietors showed themselves the steady friends of Hastings. They observed that the wish of only one of the branches of the Legislature had no claim on their obedience; and that the law, as it then stood, gave the right of removing a Governor-General, not to the House of Commons, nor yet to the Ministers of the Crown, but solely to the Court of Directors, subject to their own control. Under these circumstances — deeming the abilities of Hastings essential to the administration of affairs in India encouraged also in their views, on seeing that since the Parliamentary proceedings Lord Rockingham had died, and Burke seceded from office they resolutely rescinded the Order of Recall. They were the better able to pursue an independent course on this occasion, since in 1781 Lord North had passed an Act extending their Constitutional powers for a period of ten years. Thus was Hastings upheld at his post; thus might his energies still maintain the varying fortunes of the war in the Carnatic. To that war he continued to apply most |