collecting the rice into stores. They did so. They knew the least violence prevailed. The unhappy Indians, resigned that the Gentoos would rather die than violate the to despair, confined themselves to the request of succours principles of their religion by eating flesh. The alternative they did not obtain, and peacefully awaited the relief of would, therefore, be between giving what they had, or death. dying! The inhabitants sunk. They that cultivated the land and saw the harvest at the disposal of others, planted in doubt: scarcity ensued. Then the monopoly was easier managed; sickness ensued. In some districts, the living left the bodies of their numerous dead unburied." Let us next see what says the celebrated Abbé Raynal, a foreign historian, and the light in which this event is regarded by foreigners:-" It was by a drought in 1769, at the season when the rains are expected, that there was a failure of the great harvest of 1769, and the less harvest of 1770. It is true that the rice on the higher grounds did not suffer greatly by this disturbance of the seasons, but there was far from a sufficient quantity for the nourishment of all the inhabitants of the country; add to which, the English, who were engaged beforehand to take proper care of their subsistence, as well as of the sepoys belonging to them, did not fail to keep locked up in their magazines a part of the grain, though the harvest was insufficient. This scourge did not fail to make itself felt throughout Bengal. Rice, which is commonly sold for one sol (d.) for three pounds, was gradually raised so high as four and even six sols (3d.) for one pound; neither, indeed, was there any to be found, except where the English had taken care to collect it for their own use. "The unhappy Indians were perishing every day by thousands under this want of sustenance, without any means of help, and without any revenue. They were to be seen in their villages, along the public ways, in the midst of our European colonies, pale, meagre, emaciated, fainting, consumed by famine-some stretched on the ground in expectation of dying; others scarcely able to drag themselves on to seek any nourishment, and throwing themselves at the feet of the Europeans, entreating them to take them in as their slaves. "To this description, which makes humanity shudder, let us add other objects, equally shocking. Let imagination enlarge upon them, if possible. Let us represent to ourselves infants deserted, some expiring on the breasts of their mothers; everywhere the dying and the dead mingled together; on all sides the groans and the tears of despair, and we shall then have some faint idea of the horrible spectacle which Bengal presented for the space of six weeks. "During this whole time the Ganges was covered with carcases. The fields and highways were choked up with them; infectious vapours filled the air, and diseases multiplied; and, one evil succeeding another, it appeared not improbable that the plague would carry off the total population of the unfortunate kingdom. It appears, by calculations pretty generally acknowledged, that the famine carried off a fourth part, that is to say, about three millions! What is still more remarkable is, that such a multitude of human creatures, amidst this terrible distress, remained in absolute inactivity. All the Europeans, especially all the English, were possessed of magazines. These were not touched. Private houses were so, too. No revolt, no massacre, not "Let us now represent to ourselves any part of Europe afflicted with such a calamity. What disorder! what fury! what atrocious acts! Europeans would have contended for food dagger in hand; some flying, some pursuing, and, without remorse, massacreing one another! In the blindness of despair, they would trample under foot all authority. "Had it been the fate of the English to have had the like events to dread, on the part of the people of Bengal, perhaps the famine would have been less general, and less destructive. For, if we set aside the charge of monopoly, will any one undertake to defend them against the reproach of negligence and insensibility? And in what a crisis have they merited this reproach? In the very instant of time in which the life or death of several millions of their fellow-creatures were in their power. One would think that, in such alternative, the very love of human kind, that innate sentiment in all hearts, might have inspired them with resources." Besides succeeding to the government of a country, whose chief province was thus exhausted, the finances of the company were equally drained, both in Calcutta and at home, and the immediate demands on Hastings from the directors were for money, money, money! As one means of raising this money, they sent him a secret order to break one of their most solemn engagements with the native princes. When they bribed Meer Jaffier to depose his master, by offering to set him in his seat, and received in return the enormous sums mentioned for this elevation, they settled on Meer Jaffier and his descendants an annual income of thirty-two lacs of rupees, or three hundred and sixty thousand pounds. But Meer Jaffier was now dead, and his eldest son died during the famine. The second son was made nabob, a weak youth in a weak government, and as the company saw that he could not help himself, they ordered Hastings to reduce the income to one-half. This was easily done; but this was not enough, disgraceful as it was. Mohammed Reza Khan, who had been appointed by the company the nabob's naib dewan, or minister, on the ground that he was not only a very able but very honest man, they ordered to be arrested on pretended pleas of maladministration. He and all his family and partisans must be secured, but not in an open and abrupt way, which might alarm the province; they were to be inveigled down from Moorshedabad to Calcutta, on pretence of affairs of government, and there detained. Nuncomar, the Hindoo, who had been displaced, in order to set up Mohammed, who was a Mussulman, and who had been removed on the ground of being one of the most consummate rogues in India, was to be employed as evidence against Mohammed. The company had pronounced Nuncomar as guilty of forgery and of treachery, in conveying information, injurious to the company, to the French at Pondicherry. They had stigmatised him, and justly, "as of that wicked and turbulent disposition, that no harmony can subsist in society, where he has the opportunity of interfering." Yet it was this Nuncomar, who had been incessantly plying the directors A.D 1771.] INIQUITOUS PROCEEDINGS OF HASTINGS. with base suggestions against Mohammed, on which they were now determined to act. Knowing the utter villany of Nuncomar, and willing to profit by it, the directors instructed Hastings to avail themselves of all the information which the envy and malice of Nuncomar were sure to furnish, but to take care not to put him into any office as a reward. They knew that his object was to be made naib dewan, or minister, instead of Mohammed; but he was by no means to consent. He might be recompensed by a sum of money. Such was the business Hastings was ordered to perform; such an one as the Inquisition might have employed its familiars in, and as secretly communicated. "Yet," says lord Mahon, “right or wrong, he was in no degree responsible for these acts. They arose from the peremptory and positive commands of the directors at home." And Knight's History says, "No choice was left to their paid servant, which Hastings was, but implicit obedience, or disgrace and dismissal." But is this the language of a Christian historian? Does the execution of wicked actions, under command, exempt the doer from all moral responsibility? And was there no alternative but the execution of them, or dismissal and disgrace, left to Hastings? Certainly there was a far more honourable-a glorious alternative, that of resigning rather than be the instrument of such baseness and injustice. But Hastings was not of that high moral stamp-such was not the spirit of the East India school. Hastings proceeded to obey, and from that moment became particeps criminis, and prepared to advance further in that dishonest course. Hastings fully carried out the orders of the secret committee of the India House. He had Mohammed seized in his bed, at midnight, by a battalion of sepoys; Shitab Roy, the naib of Bahar, who acted under Mohammed at Patna, was also secured; and these two great officers and their chief agents were sent down to Calcutta under guard, and there put into what Hastings called "an easy confinement." In this confinement they lay many months, all which time Nuncomar was in full activity preparing the charges against them. Shitab Roy, like Mohammed, stood high in the estimation of his countrymen of both faiths; he had fought on the English side with signal bravery, and appears to have been a man of high honour and feeling. But these things weighed for nothing with Hastings or his masters in Leadenhall-street. He hoped to draw large sums of money from these men; but he was disappointed. Though he himself arranged the court that tried them, and brought up upwards of a hundred witnesses against them, no malpractice whatever could be proved against them, and they were acquitted. They were therefore honourably restored, the reader will say. By no means. Such were not the intentions of the company or of Hastings. Whilst Mohammed and Shitab Roy had been in prison, Hastings had been up at Moorshedabad, had abolished the office of naib in both Patna and Moorshedabad, removed all the government business to Calcutta, cut down the income of the young nabob, Muharek-al-Dowla, to one half, according to his instructions, and reduced the nabob himself to a mere puppet. His uncle, Ahteram-ul-Dowlah, had solicited, as the existing eldest male relative, to be his minister and gardian, but Hastings set him aside, and appointed a lady 353 of the harem, called Munny or Minnee Begum, to those offices. The young nabob's own mother would have been the proper person, if a woman was to have the office; but independent of this, the giving the office to a woman at all in that country was a matter of astonishment. This Munny Begum had been a dancing-girl, and had nothing in her character to recommend her to the office, except that she was a determined enemy of Mohammed Rheza Khan. Nuncomar was rewarded by his son Goordas, who "had no dangerous abilities," being appointed steward of the nabob's household; and Nuncomar was himself to be strictly watched that he did no mischief; for Hastings, having done all this, still wrote to the directors that he knew Nuncomar to be a traitor and a scoundrel, and had only used him because no one else could or would do the things he had done. "It is," said he, "on his abilities and on the activity of his ambition and hatred to Mohammed that I depend. And," he adds, "had I not been guided by the caution you have been pleased to enjoin me, yet my own knowledge of the character of Nuncomar would have restrained me from yielding him any trust or authority which could prove detri. mental to the company's interests." Thus had Hastings, fulfilling to the tittle the secret instructions of the secret committee of the India House, as completely swept away every engagement into which the company had entered with Meer Jaffier for the possession of Bengal as if they had never existed. He had transferred the whole government to Calcutta, with all the courts of justice, so that, writes Hastings, "the authority of the company is fixed in this country without any possibility of competition, and beyond the power of any but themselves to shake it." In all this wholesale injustice the only glimpse of a sense of it was shown in sending back Shitab Roy to Patna, clothed in a robe of state, and mounted on a richlycaparisoned elephant, to hold some nominal office there; but the high-minded man sunk and died soon after, as it was said, of a broken heart, of a feeling evidently of the injustice and ingratitude to which he had been subjected. The manner in which Hastings had executed the orders of the directors in this business showed that he was prepared to go all lengths in maintaining their interests in India. He immediately proceeded to give an equally striking proof of this. We have seen that when the Mogul Shah Alum applied to the English to assist him in recovering his territories, they promised to conduct him in triumph to Delhi, and place him firmly on the grand musnud of all India; but when, in consequence of this engagement, he had made over to them by a public dewannee or grant, Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa, they found it inconvenient to fulfil their contract, and made over to him Allahabad and Corah instead, with an annual payment of twenty-six lacs of rupees two hundred and sixty thousand pounds. The payment of this large sum, too, was regarded by the company, now in the deepest debt, as unnecessary, and Hastings had orders to reduce it. It appears that the money was at no time duly paid, and had now been withheld altogether for more than two years. The mogul, thus disappointed in the promises of restoration by the English, and now again in the payment of this stipulated tribute, turned to the Mahrattas, and offered to make over the little proviac s of Allahabad and the emperor flings himself into the hands of the Mahrattas, | name of Rohilcund. These brave warriors would gladly or any other power, we are disengaged from him, and it may open a fair opportunity of withholding the twenty-six lacs of rupees we now pay him." The opportunity had now come, and was immediately seized on by Hastings to rescind the payment of the money altogether, and he prepared to seize the two provinces of Allahabad and Corah. "Thus," adds Mill, "they had plundered the unhappy emperor of twenty-six lacs of rupees per annum, and the two provinces of Corah and Allahabad, which they sold to the vizier (the nabob of Oude) for fifty lacs of rupees, on the plea that he had forfeited them by his alliance with the Mahrattas; as though he were not free, if one party would not assist him to regain his rights, to seck that assistance from another." have been allies of the English, and applied to Sujah Dowlah to bring about such an alliance. Dowlah made fair promises, but he had other views. He hoped, by the assistance of the English, to conquer Rohilcund and add it to Oude. He had no hope that his rabble of the plains could stand against this brave mountain race, and he now artfully stated to Hastings that the Mahrattas were at war with the Rohillas. If they conquered them, they would next attack Oude, and, succeeding there, would descend the Ganges and spread over all Bahar and Bengal. He therefore proposed that the English should assist him to conquer Rohilcund for himself, and add it to Oude. For this service he would pay all the expenses of the campaign, the English army would with his long white beard, seated on his charger, and vainly | English officers and soldiers denounced the proceedings with endeavouring to recall his flying troops. When he found that he could not he gave a great shout, and, galloping forward, was riddled by the balls of the enemy. The nabob of Oude demanded the body, that he might have it cut in pieces, and his head carried on a pike round the country, but colonel Champion had it wrapped in shawls, and sent honourably to his family. In the whole of this campaign nothing could be more disgraceful every way than the conduct of the troops of Oude. They took care to keep behind during the fighting, but to horror. It was now, however, in vain that Hastings called on the nabob to restrain his soldiers, for, if he did not plunder, how was he to pay the stipulated forty lacs of rupees; and if he ruined and burnt out the natives, how were they, Hastings asked, to pay any taxes to him as his new subjects? All this was disgraceful enough, but this was not all. Shah Alum now appeared upon the scene, and produced a contract betwixt himself and the nabob, which had been made unknown to Hastings, by which the nabob of Oude stipulated that, on condition of the mogul advancing against the Rohillas from the south of Delhi he should receive a large share of the conquered territory and the plunder. The nabob now refused to fulfil the agreement, on the plea that the mogul ought to have come and fought, and Hastings sanctioned that view of the case. One chief of the Rohillas alone stood out; Fyzoola Khan took up a strong position in the north of the province, and the nabob was glad to grant him a jaghire in Rohilcund, as the price of submission. The rest of the Rohillas returned to their own country, Sujah Dowlah remained in possession of it, and Hastings returned to Calcutta with his ill-gotten booty. This was one of the cases which excited so much indignation in England when Burke brought it against Hastings on his trial; and when some member of parliament endeavoured to excuse him on the plea that the Rohillas were not natives of Rohilcund, Mr. Wilberforce exclaimed, "Why, what are we but the Rohillas of Bengal?" But Hastings had scarcely terminated these iniquitous proceedings, when the new members of council, appointed under the Regulations Acts, arrived. On the 19th of October, 1774, landed the three councillors, Clavering, Monson, and Francis; Barwell had been some time in India. The presence of the three just arrived was eminently unwelcome to Hastings. He knew that they came with no friendly disposition towards him, and that Philip Francis, in particular, was most hostile. Francis was the one who possessed by far the most able mind and the most determined will. All circumstances have ever pointed to him as the author of the "Letters of Junius." From the moment that government gave him an appointment in the War Office, George III. announced to his friends that Junius would be heard of no more, and he never was. Assuming, therefore, that Francis was the author of Junius, you would imagine him not only a man of high ability, but of equal assumption of consequence and vindictive temperament. Such, indeed, Francis showed himself. The letter of the court of directors recommended unanimity of councils, but nothing was further from the views of the new members from Europe. As they were three, and Hastings and Barwell only two, they constituted a majority, and from the first moment commenced to undo almost everything that he had done, and carried their object. They denounced, and with too much justice, the Rohilla war; they demanded that the whole correspondence of Middleton, the agent sent to the court of Oude by Hastings, should be laid before them. Hastings refused to produce much of it, as entirely of a private and personal nature; and they asserted that this was because these letters would not bear the light, and that the whole of Hastings' connection with Sujah Dowlah was the result of mercenary motives. In this they did the governor-general injustice, for, though he drew money sternly and by all means from the India chiefs and people, it was rather for the company than for himself. They ordered the recall of Middleton from Oude, deaf to the protests of Hastings, that this was stamping his conduct with public odium, and weakening the hands of government in the eyes of the natives. Still, Middleton was recalled, and Mr. Bristow sent in his place. Hastings wrote home in the utmost alarm both to the directors and to lord North, prognosticating the greatest confusion and calamity from this state of anarchy; and Sujah Dowlah, regarding the proceedings of the new members of council as directed against himself, and seeing in astonishment the authority of Hastings apparently at an end, was so greatly terrified, that he sickened and died. The council now recalled the English troops from Rohilcund; and Bristow demanded, in the name of the council, from Asoff-ul-Dowlah, the young nabob, a full payment of all arrears; and announced that, Sujah Dowlah being dead, the treaty with him was at an end. Under pressure of these demands, Bristow, by instructions from the new regnant members of the council, compelled the young nabob to enter into a fresh treaty with them; and in this treaty they introduced a clause to the full as infamous as anything which Hastings had done. In return for renewing the possession of the provinces of Corah and Allahabad, they compelled him to cede to them the territory of Cheyte Sing, the rajah of Benares, though this did not at all belong to the nabob of Oude, and was, moreover, guaranteed to Cheyte Sing by Hastings, in solemn treaty. The revenue of Cheyte Sing, thus lawlessly taken possession of, amounted to twenty-two million of rupees; and the nabob of Oude was also, on his own account, bound to discharge all his father's debts and engagements to the and company, to raise greatly the pay to the company's brigade. Hastings utterly refused to sanction these proceedings; but the directors at home, who cared not how or whence money came, warmly approved of the proceedings. Nor did the new councillors confine their overbearing conduct to the presidency of Bengal. The new act gave them authority over the other presidencies, and they proceeded to exercise it without any regard to their own ignorance of the affairs of those other distant presidencies, or the real acquaintance with them of the respective councils. The council of Bombay was just then engaged in a transaction which, had the new members at Calcutta contemplated it justly, would have done them honour. The council of Bombay had long coveted the rich island of Salsette, lying near Bombay. A great confusion had arisen amongst the Mahrattas, in consequence of the assassination of Narrain Row, the peishwa, and the contending claims of different competitors for his throne, and the council of Bombay took advantage of the opportunity to send out a force, which seized the fort and island of Salsette. Once in possession of it, and desirous of obtaining other possessions in Surat, the council entered into treaty with Ragoba, the competitor whom, for the time, they chose to consider the rightful peishwa, who yielded Salsette, Bassein, and other places, on condition that the English should support him against the claimants. Accordingly, colonel Keating was sent with a force to assist Ragoba; and at this point the affair had arrived when the new councillors at Calcutta interfered. They first sharply reprimanded the council of Bombay, and then dispatched colonel Upton thither to decide the matter. Instead of ordering him, however, to see that justice was done, he was instructed to take part with the stronger of the Mahratta factions, and, finding that Salsette, Bassein, and the rest of the territory, had been obtained by treaty from Ragoba, he decided for Ragoa Ragoba was to be supported by all the power of the English |