fulfilled" Fiat justitia, ruat cœlum". rectors. I think that the reputation of equity and moderation is so necessary to the preservation of our possessions in India, that if the rich dominions of the Rohillas had been annexed to our territory, the acquisition could not have made up for the loss of character we have sustained. I think nothing that was possible to be proposed could make up for it. The principle upon which Mr. Hastings acted was horrible; it was the principle upon which the most insignificant mercenary states form their measures of acting. What a principle for a great nation; for the English nation! It was no less than this, in the most express terms-You must pay me, and I will exterminate them. This was the language held by the man who was entrusted with the government of the greatest territory belonging to the British empire, or perhaps to any empire; Give me the forty lacks of rupees, and I will break through the orders I have received from my masters, and you shall make use of their army to exterminate the Rohillas, and take possession of their country. But behold what follows. In the year 1782 he is accused of partiality to Sujah Dowlah; his reply is ready, he makes the Company participators in the crime, and by pretending their advantage, endeavours to evade the punishment due to such behaviour. "I did not," says he, It is in every respect a clear point, that Sujah Dowlah had no claim upon you for your assistance, whether there was a guarantee, or whether there was no such connexion existing. The attestation of any treaty-and sir Robert Barker's signature was no more-can never be considered as a guarantee. As well might the signature of Mr. Oswald and Mr. Franklin, to the treaty of the last peace, be considered as a guarantee that this" mean to serve Sujah Dowlah; I made this country and America should perform the engagement to serve you, by bringing to conditions they separately agreed upon your treasury a sum of money, and drawwith France. I think it must be equally ing him nearer the frontiers of the convincing to all who attend to the true Mahrattas; so that by his dread of them, state of this business, that if there was a he may be more dependant upon you.' guarantee, it only tended to increase the The whole and every part of this transaccriminality of this conduct. There are tion forms a picture of so sad and crooked the orders of the Company against alla policy, that it is infinitely detestable. offensive alliances; and there is the security of the country depending upon the strict compliance with these orders. No one can doubt, that the orders of the Company are clear, and that the disobedience of these orders is as clear. With regard to the justice of the war, it is impossible, in my opinion, that any human mind can feel, that it is not highly unjust in every respect, and in the most extensive degree. No principle that could tend to justify it was ever defended until this period and that, too, in a British House of Commons. Much difference has arisen about the policy of restricting servants in Asia from entering into offensive war. I must own, that I am on that subject entirely of the opinion of the di But this was not only a war merely of con- LETTER from Colonel Champion to "Dear Sir; I have the pleasure to send you a short address for the Board, requesting permission to repair to the Presidency, and I beg you will not fail to present it, as soon as credible accounts shall arrive of dishonour with which Mihebullah Khan, his brother Fittihulla Khan, late proprietors of this city and this country, have been used, is known all over these parts; a relation of them would swell this leter to an immense size, and withal prove very disagreeable reading; I send you ansiations of two letters, and a cosy of a third, which, affecting as they are, will convey but a faint idea of the treatment these unhappy people have met with.-I could not help compassionating such unparalleled misery; and my requests to the Vizier to shew lenity were frequent, but as fruitless as were the advices which I almost hourly gave him regarding the destruction of the villages, with respect to which I am now constrained to declare, that although he always promised as fairly as I could wish, yet he did not observe one of them, nor cease to overspread the country with flames, till three days after the fate of Hafez Rhamet was decided; but that gentleman, as in all points, excepting such as immediately respect the operations of the field, he is solely entitled to prescribe; the reputation of the British name is in his hands, and the line which has been laid down for me is clear." any officers being on the way to Bengal, Extract of a LETTER from Colonel "In compliance with the Board's desire, I am now to mention a very unpleasing subject, the Vizier's treatment of the family of Hafez Rhamet, &c. The inhumanity and Translation of a LETTER from a wife of Hafez Rhamet Khan to Colonel Champion, "The English gentleman, renowned through Indostan for justice, equity, and compassionating the miserable. Hafez Rhamet Khan for forty years governed this country, and the very beasts of the forest trembled at his bravery. The will of God is resistless; he is slain, and to his children not an atom remains, but they are cast from their habitations, naked, and exposed to the winds and the heat, and the burning sand, and perishing for want even of rice and water: how shall I either write or state my condition? my sighs dry my ink and scorch my paper. It is evident as the sun the English are brave and merciful, and whosoever they subdue, their children they preserve, who forget their sorrows by the kind treatment they receive; nor draw they the sword in an hundred thousand people; to-day I am in unjust cause. Yesterday I was of an want even of a cup of water; and where I commanded, I am prisoner: fortune is fickle, she raises the humble, and lowers the exalted: but I am innocent, and if any one is guilty, it is Hafez: but why should the innocent be punished for the errors of their father? I am taken like a beast in a snare, without resting-place by night, or shade by day. From you, Sir, I hope justice and compassion; for I am as a bird confined in a cage; it is better to give up life by the dagger, than famish thus by hunger and thirst; you, I hope, Sir, will reflect on my state, or my misfortunes will be doubled; I have nothing left; pardon this paper. "R. E. ROBerts. Extract of a LETTER from Colonel Champion, dated June 15th, 1774. "I am most heartily disposed to believe that the Board could not have suspected their orders would have had such consequences as have fallen out; they could not have foreseen so sudden and so total an expulsion and downfall of a whole race of people; they could not have supposed that a man, exalted and supported by the British arms, would have paid so little deference to the advice and counsel of a British commander: nor was it possible to conceive that a man who himself had tasted the gall of misfortune, should be so totally unmindful of the unbounded, and unparalleled grace shown to him, as to delight in denying a single ray of benevolence to others; such however has been the case; and in this intimation of it, I have discharged that which was incumbent upon me. I too can say that the Nabob, as an agent of oppression, is alone culpable; but whilst all Asia well knows that the English gave him the rod, and whilst they in vain look up to them as those who ought, if not to direct its application, at least prevent an ill use being made of that rod; will they not conclude that the scourges which the agent gives are connived at? Will they not say every English chief is a sujah?" Extract of a LETTER to the Governor we can believe, that the respectable gentleman here traduced, could have been privy to so horrid a purpose? Could he have so entirely overcome the feelings of humanity? Could he have been so lost to every sense of honour, as to prostitute the English troops, and to stain the glory of the British name, by subscribing to a preconcerted massacre! What is not his excellency capable of advancing? But with regard to all this, the noble lord (Mornington) says, he considers Mr. Hastings as not at all blameable, that he did all that from behaving with cruelty; but that he was in his power to prevent Sujah Dowlah could not turn his face against a prince whom he had engaged to assist. Why did he not? The principles of humanity and equity are paramount to all treaties and all ties. He ought to have made use of his power to prevent the violation of the sacred obligations of humanity. Sujah Dowlah and his troops were nothing. It was easily in the power of our people to have put an entire end, and to have prevented the ravage they made among the Rohillas. Whatever are your engage. ments with any ally, you must never forget the rights of mercy and humanity; and when you find those who are with you unwilling to act their part, you ought to prevent them from making a bad use of the rod you have put into their hands. It is a greater motive for opposing their violence, that you have contributed to put it in their power to abuse victory. But at all times, and on every occasion, you are obliged to do all that is possible for you to do, to prevent cruelty. I refer not to Puffendorf and Grotius; every man who has the feelings of a man is capable of judging. Does it require any investigation of minute relations in points of justice and equity, to decide, that you ought to put a stop to cruelty and barbarity whenever it is in your power so to do? These cruelties are not, indeed, chargeable on Mr. Hastings personally; but when I state, that he levied an unjust "Consider, my friend," says his excellency the Vizier, repeatedly to Mr. Hastwar, the consequences that follow he is ings, "that it was my absolute determina-guilty of: with all the mischief occasioned tion to extirpate the Rohillas, and that I requested the assistance of the English for that purpose." However well it is known, (continued Mr. Fox) that his excellency is equal to the barbarous design for which he thus publicly and daringly avows that he solicited the aid of the English, is it possible by these means he is chargeable. In the prosecution of a war founded on justice, it cannot be said, that we draw upon ourselves the guilt of all the evils that may happen: but it is far otherwise in an unjust war. Having departed from rectitude and justice in the outset, every farther deviation, even without our immediate act, is additional guilt heaped upon our heads, But it has been said, that Mr. Hastings | cenary bargain for a sum of money, to is not liable to be charged with it, as he destroy a people against whom we had no was at a distance, and could not remedy ground for complaint. What an example the evil. Neither is this a true represen- to future governors, should this action tation: Mr. Hastings had intelligence of have the sanction or the approbation of the cruelties that were practised, and he this House! I have not enlarged upon the did not take the means to put a stop to cruelties in the execution of this business; them, which were entirely in his power: the business itself speaks enough to your he even refused, at the requisition of col. passions, and it ought to speak to your Champion, to give relief to the severities passions. Vengeance is due to the inwhich were suffered by that unhappy peo-jured Rohillas. It is due to the character ple; and the reason he gives is, that Sujah Dowlah, if they were to control him, might make that a pretence of refusing the stipulated sum he had agreed to pay. The whole transaction, from beginning to the end, was carried on for the purpose of acquiring these forty lacks of rupees: for that sum, the character, the dignity, the honour of the English nation was basely and treacherously exposed to sale. I think I have now gone over the four principal features of this business, in a manner indeed very desultory, owing to the time of the night at which I speak, and which makes me desirous to hasten through the business as soon as possible. The four principal matters to which I wish to draw your attention are-First, the direct disobedience of the orders of his masters, approved by himself, and perfectly well understood by him. Secondly, I have endeavoured to prove to you, that the war was entered into, on our part, without any kind of obligation upon us so to do. Thirdly, I have spoken to the justice of it. And last of all, to the policy of this war. In all these, I think I have demonstrated, that there is not a shadow of ground to stand up in defence of Mr. Hastings. His orders are clear, and his disobedience of those orders equally clear. I think I have made it also obvious to the conviction of every one, that Mr. Hastings was under no obligation to give the assistance to Sujah Dowlah that he did give; that there was no claim upon us in any respect of the matter; and that in this light it was understood, both by Sujah Dowlah, and by Mr. Hastings, and by the council. I have also endeavoured to prove, that the action was most unjust, cruel, and inhuman, in Sujah Dowlah, and still more so in us; because it was in our power to prevent it. By our countenance it was accomplished; and the whole iniquity of the ruin of these people falls upon this nation. I have lastly spoken to the policy of it, and I hope neither its policy nor justice will ever be defended by this House. It was no other than a mer If of this country, stained and violated in so In this corner of the world, happily for us, we see few atrocious acts of cruelty, and are strangers to that fierceness of temper and unfeeling disposition which prevails very much in other quarters of the globe. The people we converse with are in general mild and humane; and have an external politeness and softness of manner, which we suppose to be the natural effect of these qualities; and whereever we meet with that external appearance in any man, we are apt to persuade ourselves that he is possessed of these virtues: but in fact they have no natural connexion in themselves; and we often find that those who are of an insinuating, soft, and engaging manner, conceal more cruelty and inveterate hatred in their tempers, and have less of real sensibility for the distresses of others, than men of a very different external appearance: mer whose manner appears full of warmth an passion, have generally more real tender- | ness and humanity than others, who are calm, cool, and collected in their behaviour. But how ought the character of Mr. Hastings to be tried? We cannot judge of it from what any persons in India can tell of him. There is, in my opinion, a much more certain mode of judging-from his despotism in India. Uncontrolled power always corrupts the heart, renders a man hardened to the distresses of others, and destroys the finer feelings of the mind. No man has ever been able to enjoy great power without being made worse by it; but the true mode of judging of any man's character is by his actions, and the effect of his actions. I read Mr. Hastings's character in the ruin of Hindostan, in the desolation of the country of the Rohillas; these mark a character extremely different from the accounts presented to us by partiality, or particular habit. If Mr. Hastings had possessed the feeling which it is alleged he does, would he not have reflected before he committed an army, powerful enough to do any mischief, under the direction of such a prince as Sujah Dowlah, whose cruel and perfidious disposition was sufficiently known to him? It is said, you are not to consult the character of the princes with whom you are engaged: but you ought to consult them so far as to know the length to which you can put confidence in them. And knowing the character of Sujah Dowlah, Mr. Hastings undoubtedly deserved great blame for suffering him to possess so great an authority over the British troops; and he ought most certainly to have given the strictest orders to prevent his exercising any cruelty over the inhabitants of that devoted country, which he had suffered them to attack. But, on the contrary, we find Mr. Hastings exciting Sujah Dowlah to the full accomplishment of his purposes, and afterwards giving up the devoted Rohillas to the will of this tyrant. In every light in which I can view this war, it appears to be equally indefensible, equally disgraceful to the character of this nation; I think it leads to every thing that is bad; and if the principle of this transaction should be approved of by this House, the governors of India will have little restraint upon their actions, and certainly will believe it little necessary to observe any other laws than those which rapacity and violence may dictate. An hon. gentleman was pleased to blame my right hon. friend, for charging Mr. Hastings with a transaction which passed so many years previous to this period; but he ought to recollect, that this is not the first time the Rohilla war has been condemned, and that severely too. We have upon the Journals. of the House a specific resolution against the Rohilla war, censuring it in as severe terms as can be made use of, framed and passed on the motion of the learned gentleman (Mr. Dundas), who is desirous of treating all that system which he had so strenuously maintained at a former period, as a mere chimæra. For it is not this resolution alone, but that whole plan, that code of laws esteemed so necessary to the government of India, which is wholly overturned by the approbation of this transaction; they must remain so much dead letter; a monument of the zeal of their author, who now has abandoned what he once so eagerly contended for, and has displayed an example of inconsistency scarcely equalled in the political history of this country. If the resolutions which the learned gentleman brought forward had any meaning; if they were to be taken in their obvious sense; in the sense they were by all at the time of their being brought forward understood; they certainly amounted to a full and total reprobation of the measures carried on in India by the governor-general, Mr. Hastings: they pointed out the necessity of a change in the whole of the mode of administering our affairs in that part of the world, and by being adopted by this House, we have become pledged to see them put in execution. This is the first opportunity we have had of shewing our determination to enforce them; and if this is omitted, it will be justly considered as an entire relinquishment of the plan of moderation and equity we thought so necessary at that time to establish. What colouring the learned gentleman can possibly give to his behaviour, it is impossible to conjecture. After having so solemnly bound himself to carry on this inquiry, to evade it in the manner he has done, is too shameful to admit of apology. Can he assert that he did not mean that Mr. Hastings should be charged with the crimes he has imputed to him? Did he intend to calumniate him in his absence, and when Mr. Hastings had an opportunity of defending himself, to shrink from the accusation, and leaving the stigma which he had thrown upon that gentleman |