The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 10 (of 12). Edmund Burke

Mr. Hastings to spend time in idle objections to the character of Nundcomar. Let him be as bad as Mr. Hastings represents him. I suppose he was a caballing, bribing, intriguing politician, like others in that country, both black and white. We know associates in dark and evil actions are not generally the best of men; but be that as it will, it generally happens that they are the best of all discoverers. If Mr. Hastings were the accuser of Nundcomar, I should think the presumptions equally strong against Nundcomar, if he had acted as Mr. Hastings has acted.—He was not only competent, but the most competent of all men to be Mr. Hastings's accuser. But Mr. Hastings has himself established both his character and his competency by employing him against Mahomed Reza Khân. He shall not blow hot and cold. In what respect was Mr. Hastings better than Mahomed Reza Khân, that the whole rule, principle, and system of accusation and inquiry should be totally reversed in general, nay, reversed in the particular instance, the moment he became accuser against Mr. Hastings?—Such was the accuser. He was the man that gave the bribes, and, in addition to his own evidence, offers proof by other witnesses.

      What was the accusation? Was the accusation improbable, either on account of the subject-matter or the actor in it? Does such an appointment as that of Munny Begum, in the most barefaced evasion of his orders, appear to your Lordships a matter that contains no just presumptions of guilt, so that, when a charge of bribery comes upon it, you are prepared to reject it, as if the action were so clear and proper that no man could attribute it to an improper motive? And as to the man,—is Mr. Hastings a man against whom a charge of bribery is improbable? Why, he owns it. He is a professor of it. He reduces it into scheme and system. He glories in it. He turns it to merit, and declares it is the best way of supplying the exigencies of the Company. Why, therefore, should it be held improbable?—But I cannot mention this proceeding without shame and horror.

      My Lords, when this man appeared as an accuser of Mr. Hastings, if he was a man of bad character, it was a great advantage to Mr. Hastings to be accused by a man of that description. There was no likelihood of any great credit being given to him.

      This person, who, in one of those sales of which I have already given you some account in the history of the last period of the revolutions of Bengal, had been, or thought he had been, cheated of his money, had made some discoveries, and been guilty of that great irremissible sin in India, the disclosure of peculation. He afterwards came with a second disclosure, and was likely to have odium enough upon the occasion. He directly charged Mr. Hastings with the receipt of bribes, amounting together to about 40,000l. sterling, given by himself, on his own account and that of Munny Begum. The charge was accompanied with every particular which could facilitate proof or detection,—time, place, persons, species, to whom paid, by whom received. Here was a fair opportunity for Mr. Hastings at once to defeat the malice of his enemies and to clear his character to the world. His course was different. He railed much at the accuser, but did not attempt to refute the accusation. He refuses to permit the inquiry to go on, attempts to dissolve the Council, commands his banian not to attend. The Council, however, goes on, examines to the bottom, and resolves that the charge was proved, and that the money ought to go to the Company. Mr. Hastings then broke up the Council,—I will not say whether legally or illegally. The Company's law counsel thought he might legally do it; but he corruptly did it, and left mankind no room to judge but that it was done for the screening of his own guilt: for a man may use a legal power corruptly, and for the most shameful and detestable purposes. And thus matters continued, till he commenced a criminal prosecution against this man,—this man whom he dared not meet as a defendant.

      Mr. Hastings, instead of answering the charge, attacks the accuser. Instead of meeting the man in front, he endeavored to go round, to come upon his flanks and rear, but never to meet him in the face, upon the ground of his accusation, as he was bound by the express authority of law and the express injunctions of the Directors to do. If the bribery is not admitted on the evidence of Nundcomar, yet his suppressing it is a crime, a violation of the orders of the Court of Directors. He disobeyed those instructions; and if it be only for disobedience, for rebellion against his masters, (putting the corrupt motive out of the question,) I charge him for this disobedience, and especially on account of the principles upon which he proceeded in it.

      Then he took another step: he accused Nundcomar of a conspiracy,—which was a way he then and ever since has used, whenever means were taken to detect any of his own iniquities.

      And here it becomes necessary to mention another circumstance of history: that the legislature, not trusting entirely to the Governor-General and Council, had sent out a court of justice to be a counter security against these corruptions, and to detect and punish any such misdemeanors as might appear. And this court I take for granted has done great services.

      Mr. Hastings flew to this court, which was meant to protect in their situations informers against bribery and corruption, rather than to protect the accused from any of the preliminary methods which must indispensably be used for the purpose of detecting their guilt,—he flew to this court, charging this Nundcomar and others with being conspirators.

      A man might be convicted as a conspirator, and yet afterwards live; he might put the matter into other hands, and go on with his information; nothing less than stone-dead would do the business. And here happened an odd concurrence of circumstances. Long before Nundcomar preferred his charge, he knew that Mr. Hastings was plotting his ruin, and that for this purpose he had used a man whom he, Nundcomar, had turned out of doors, called Mohun Persaud. Mr. Hastings had seen papers put upon the board, charging him with this previous plot for the destruction of Nundcomar; and this identical person, Mohun Persaud, whom Nundcomar had charged as Mr. Hastings's associate in plotting his ruin, was now again brought forward as the principal evidence against him. I will not enter (God forbid I should!) into the particulars of the subsequent trial of Nundcomar; but you will find the marks and characters of it to be these. You will find a close connection between Mr. Hastings and the chief-justice, which we shall prove. We shall prove that one of the witnesses who appeared there was a person who had been before, or has since been, concerned with Mr. Hastings in his most iniquitous transactions. You will find, what is very odd, that in this trial for forgery with which this man stood charged, forgery in a private transaction, all the persons who were witnesses or parties to it had been, before or since, the particular friends of Mr. Hastings,—in short, persons from that rabble with whom Mr. Hastings was concerned, both before and since, in various transactions and negotiations of the most criminal kind. But the law took its course. I have nothing more to say than that the man is gone,—hanged justly, if you please; and that it did so happen,—luckily for Mr. Hastings,—it so happened, that the relief of Mr. Hastings, and the justice of the court, and the resolution never to relax its rigor, did all concur just at a happy nick of time and moment; and Mr. Hastings, accordingly, had the full benefit of them all.

      His accuser was supposed to be what men may be, and yet very competent for accusers, namely, one of his accomplices in guilty actions,—one of those persons who may have a great deal to say of bribes. All that I contend for is, that he was in the closest intimacy with Mr. Hastings, was in a situation for giving bribes,—and that Mr. Hastings was proved afterwards to have received a sum of money from him, which may be well referred to bribes.

      This example had its use in the way in which it was intended to operate, and in which alone it could operate. It did not discourage forgeries: they went on at their usual rate, neither more nor less: but it put an end to all accusations against all persons in power for any corrupt practice. Mr. Hastings observes, that no man in India complains of him. It is generally true. The voice of all India is stopped. All complaint was strangled with the same cord that strangled Nundcomar. This murdered not only that accuser, but all future accusation; and not only defeated, but totally vitiated and reversed all the ends for which this country, to its eternal and indelible dishonor, had sent out a pompous embassy of justice to the remotest parts of the globe.

      But though Nundcomar was put out of the way by the means by which he was removed, a part of the charge was not strangled with him. Whilst the process against Nundcomar was carrying on before Sir Elijah Impey, the process was continuing against Mr. Hastings in other modes; the receipt of a part of those bribes from Munny Begum, to the amount of 15,000l., was proved against him, and that a sum to the same amount was to be paid to his associate, Mr. Middleton. As it was proved at Calcutta, so it will be proved at your Lordships' bar