BOOK ment. The grand question therefore still remainXXI ed doubtful, when on the 7th of February, 1787, Mr. Sheridan opened the third charge respecting against Mr. the Begum princesses of Oude, with an eloquence Hastings .1787. Charge respecting and energy which were perhaps never surpassed, the Begums of Oude. and which, in their consequences, proved entirely decisive. The substance of this, as of the other principal charges, has already been recorded in the regular narration of Indian transactions. A slight extract or two from Mr. Sheridan's speech may serve to excite a faint idea of the transcendant ability with which this charge was enforced.—Mr. Sheridan said, "that the conduct of Mr. Hastings respecting the nabob and Begums of Oude comprehended in it every species of human offence. He had been guilty of rapacity at once violent and insatiable, of treachery cool and premeditated, of oppression unprovoked, of barbarity wanton and unmanly. So long since as the year 1775, the Begum princess, widow of Sujah ul Dowla, had written to Mr. Hastings in the following moving terms :- If it is your pleasure that the mother of the late nabob, that myself, his other women, and his infant children, should be reduced to a state of dishonor and distress, we must submit. But if, on the contrary, you call to mind the friendship of the late blessed nabob, you will exert yourself effectually in favor of us who are helpless.' Inflamed by XXII 1787. disappointment at Benares, he hastened to the BOOK fortress of Chunar, to put in execution the atrocious design of instigating the nabob, son of this princess, to parricide and plunder. No sooner had Mr. Hastings determined to invade the substance of justice, than he resolved to avail himself of her judicial forms, and dispatched a messenger for the chief-justice of India to assist him in perpetrating the violence he had meditated. Without a moment's pause, or the shadow of process insti tuted, sentence was pronounced. And thus, at the same time that the sword of government was converted to an assassin's dagger, the pure ermine of justice was stained and soiled with the basest contamination. It was clear to demonstration, that the Begums were not concerned in the insurrection of Benares. No, their treasures were their treason. If (said this eloquent speaker) the mind of Mr. Hastings were susceptible of superstition, he might image the proud spirit of Sujah ul Dowla looking down upon the ruin and devasta. tion of his family; beholding the palace which he had adorned with the spoils of the devoted Rohillas, plundered by his base and perfidious ally; and viewing the man whom on his death-bed he had constituted the guardian of his wife, his mother, and his family, forcibly exposing those dear relations, the objects of his solemn trust, to the rigor of the merciless seasons, or the violence of the XXII. 1787. BOOK more merciless soldiery.-Such were the awful dispensations of retributive justice!-It was not given to that house to witness the tremulous joys of the millions whom the vote of that night would save from the cruelty of corrupted power. But the blessings of the people thus delivered would not be dissipated in empty air. No; they would lift up their prayers to Heaven in gratitude to the power, which, by stretching its mighty arm across the deep, had saved them from ruin and destruction." On this occasion Mr. Pitt acted a part which did him great honor. Though the eloquence of Mr. Sheridan had excited a spirit of enthusiasm in the house, which perhaps no degree of ministerial influence could have counteracted, it would be highly invidious and unjust to attribute the decided conduct of Mr. Pitt on this memorable night to the apprehension of being left in a minority by an attempt to negative the motion. On the contrary he appeared penetrated with a perfect conviction of the atrocity of the facts, and of the strength of the evidence by which they were supported. And the minister, who in the comparatively insignificant business of an election return could so far degrade himself as to countenance, and even publicly to vindicate, an act of deliberate injustice, now felt all the sympathies of humanity, all the energies of virtue, awakened in his breast, XXII 1787. and impelling him to testify, in terms the most ex- BOOK plicit and expressive, his detestation of perfidy som vile, of cruelty so remorseless. On a division the numbers were, in favour of the motion 175, against it 68. On the second of March Mr. Pelham opened the Ferruckacharge relative to the nabob of Ferruckabad. Although Mr. Hastings had, as Mr. Pelham remarked, declared, in relation to the powers exercised by the sezawall or sequestrator of the revenues of Ferruckabad, appointed by the vizier, that it was incompatible with the dignity and honor of the government over which he presided to appear to countenance the exercise of an authority altogether unsupported by equity and justice; and had, to use his own express words, " from motives of common justice caused the dismission of the sezawall," and nominated one of the Company's civil servants, Mr. George Shee, to the same trust; he, in the ensuing year, 1781, by an article of the treaty of Chunar, stipulated with the vizier, that no British resident should in future be appointed at Ferruckabad, and the present one be recalledthus virtually abandoning that country, the protection of which he had so recently and ostentatiously undertaken, to the rapacity and oppression of the vizier. But Mr. Hastings in this, as in almost every other respect, proved unfaithful to his engagements; and, after a short interval, the new bad charge. BOOK sezawall appointed by the vizier, was, by the inXXII. terposition of Mr. Hastings, recalled, and one 1787. Subghut Ulla, on the recommendation of the governor-general, was, by the nabob of Ferruckabad, placed at the head of his affairs. No complaint of a political nature was alleged against this minister during the short period of his administration. But Mr. Hastings, being moved with the highest indignation at the incredible report that the protection of the English government had been purchased at a very great price by the vakeel or resident of the nabob at Calcutta, soon after "withdrew all mediation and interference (to use his own language) which stood between the nabob vizier and the collection of the tribute from Ferruckabad," even sending a military force to support the sezawall appointed by the vizier for the ensuing year. In consequence of this act of virtuous revenge, Mr. Hastings acknowledged that "he had been informed the said sezawall did renew severities formerly exercised in respect to the said nabob Muzuffer Jung." In fact, the evils produced by this re-appointment were so enormous, that Mr. Hastings, to preserve some faint colour of equity, assented to the nomination of Mr. Willes as resident at the court of Ferruckabad, but whose talents and probity were rendered useless by the limitations and impediments to which he was artfully and purposely subjected.-This article of im |