Kitabı oku: «The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 08 (of 12)», sayfa 28

"Such being the present deplorable state of Furruckabad and its districts, in the ensuing year it will be in vain to look for revenue, if some regulations equal to the exigency be not adopted. The whole country will be divided between the neighboring powerful aumils, the refractory zemindars, and banditti of robbers; and the Patans, who might be made useful subjects, will fly from the scene of anarchy. The crisis appears now come, that either some plan of government should be resolved on, so as to form faithful subjects on the frontier, or the country be given up to its fate: and if it be abandoned, there can be little doubt but that the Mahrattas will gladly seize on a station so favorable to incursions into the Vizier's dominions, will attach to their interests the Hindoo zemindars, and possess themselves of forts, which, with little expense being made formidable, would give employment perhaps to the whole of our force, should it be ever necessary to recover them."

That the Council at Calcutta, on the representation aforesaid made by the Resident at Furruckabad, did propose and record a plan for the better government of the said country, but did delay the execution of the same until the arrangements made by the said Hastings with the Nabob Vizier should be known; but the said Hastings, as far as in him lay, did entirely set aside any plan that could be formed for that purpose upon the basis of a British Resident at Furruckabad, by engaging with the said Nabob Vizier that no British influence shall be employed within his dominions, and he has engaged to that prince not to abandon him to any other mode of relation; and he has informed the Court of Directors that the territories of the Nabob of Oude will be ruined, if Residents are sent into them, observing, that "Residents never will be sent for any other purposes than those of vengeance and corruption."

That the said Warren Hastings did declare to the Court of Directors, that in his opinion the mode of relief most effectual, and most lenient with regard to Furruckabad, would be to nominate one of the family of the prince to superintend his affairs and to secure the payments; but this plan, which appears to be most connected with the rights of the ruling family, whilst it provides against the imbecility of the natural lord, and is free from his objection to a Resident, is the only one which the said Hastings never has executed, or even proposed to execute.

That the said Hastings, by the agreements aforesaid, has left the Company in such an alternative, that they can neither relieve the said prince of Furruckabad from oppression without a breach of the engagements entered into by him, the said Hastings, with the Nabob Vizier in the name of the Company, nor suffer him to remain under the said oppression without violating all faith and all the rules of justice with regard to him. And the said Hastings hath directly made or authorized no less than six revolutions in less than five years in the aforesaid harassed province; by which frequent and rapid changes of government, all of them made in contradiction to all his own declared motives and reasons for the several acts successively done and undone in this transaction, the distresses of the country and the disorders in its administration have been highly aggravated; and in the said irregular proceedings, and in the gross and complicated violations of faith with all parties, the said Hastings is guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors.

VI.—DESTRUCTION OF THE RAJAH OF SAHLONE

I. That the late Nabob of Oude, Sujah ul Dowlah, did (on what reasons of policy or pretences of justice is unknown) dispossess a certain native person of distinction, or eminent Rajah, residing in the country of Sahlone, "the lineal descendant of the most powerful Hindoo family in that part of Hindostan," of his patrimonial estate, and conferred the same, or part of the same, on his, the Nabob's, mother, as a jaghire, or estate, for the term of her life: and the mother of the Nabob, in order to quiet the country, and to satisfy in some measure the principal and other inhabitants, did allow and pay a certain pension to the said Rajah; which pension, on the general confiscation of jaghires, made at the instigation of the said Warren Hastings, and by the letting the lands so confiscated to farmers at rack-rents, was discontinued and refused to be paid; and the discontinuance of the said pension, "on account of the personal respect borne to the Rajah, (as connections with him are sought for, and thought to confer honor,)" did cause an universal discontent and violent commotions in the district of Sahlone, and other parts of the province of Oude, with great consequent effusion of blood, and interruption, if not total discontinuance, to the collection of the revenues in those parts, other than as the same was irregularly, and with great damage to the country, enforced by British troops.

II. That Mr. Lumsdaine, the officer employed to reduce those disordered parts of the province to submission, after several advantages gained over the Rajah and his adherents, and expelling him from the country, did represent the utter impossibility of bringing it to a permanent settlement "merely by forcible methods; as in any of his [the Rajah's] incursions it would not be necessary to bring even a force with him, as the zemindars [landed proprietors and freeholders] are much attached to the Rajah, whom they consider as their hereditary prince, and never fail to assist him, and that his rebellion against government is not looked on as a crime": and Mr. Lumsdaine declared it "as his clear opinion, that the allowing the said Rajah a pension suitable to his rank and influence in the country would be the most certain mode of obtaining a permanent peace,"—alleging, among other cogent reasons, "that the expense of the force necessary to be employed to subdue the country might be spared, and employed elsewhere, and that the people would return to their villages with their cattle and effects, and of course government have some security for the revenue, whereas at present they have none." And the representation containing that prudent and temperate counsel, given by a military man of undoubted information and perfect experience in the local circumstances of the country, was transmitted by the Resident, Bristow, to the said Warren Hastings, who did wilfully and criminally omit to order any relief to the said Rajah in conformity to the general sense and wishes of the inhabitants, a compliance with whose so reasonable an expectation his duty in restoring the tranquillity of the country and in retrieving the honor of the English government did absolutely require; but instead of making such provision, a price was set upon his head, and several bodies of British troops being employed to pursue him, after many skirmishes and much bloodshed and mutual waste of the country, the said Rajah, honored and respected by the natives, was hunted down, and at length killed in a thicket.