compelled to sell their rice to these monopolizing Europeans, we have reason to suspect that they could be no other than persons of some rank in our service; otherwise, we apprehend they would not have presumed on having influence sufficient to prevent an enquiry into their proceedings.

(Hunter, Annals of Rural Bengal, 399.)

36. THE NEED FOR RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT

(The state of things described in the foregoing excerpts obviously called for drastic reform. William Bolts, whose recommendations, contained in his Preface, are printed below, saw that the only effective cure would be the assumption of direct responsibility. The Directors were not ready to go so far. But the fear of bankruptcy made them resolve at least to undertake the direct collection of the revenues, and fortunately they selected, in Warren Hastings, a man for this task who saw much further than themselves. Meanwhile the English Government had also awakened to a sense of these iniquities; and the Act of 1773 was the result.)

In this new situation of the society (Company) so widely different from its original institution, their true commercial interests appear almost entirely misunderstood or neglected; and it may be safely said, there is scarcely any public spirit apparent among their leaders, either in England or in India. The loaves and fishes are the grand, almost the sole object. The questions, How many lacs shall I put in my pocket? or, How many sons, nephews, or dependents shall I provide for, at the expence of the miserable inhabitants of the subjected dominions? are those which of late have been the foremost to be propounded by the Chiefs of the Company on both sides the ocean. Hence the dominions in Asia, like the distant Roman provinces, during the decline of that empire, have been abandoned, as lawful prey, to every species of peculators; insomuch that many of the servants of the Company after exhibiting such scenes of barbarity as can scarcely be paralleled in the history of any country, have returned to England loaded with wealth; where, intrenching themselves in borough or East-India stock influence, they have set justice at defiance, either in the cause of their country or of oppressed innocence.

The soil, revenues, justice, and interior government of these countries are entirely in the hands of the English East India Company; the prince, whom they call the Grand Mogul, being the mere instrument of their power, set up by

them, and supported by a pension for the serving of their own private purposes; the pretended Nawabs of Bengal and Behar being the actual stipendiary servants of the said Company, and the Diwani, under which title they pretend to hold those territorial possessions, being a mere fiction, invented for the private purposes of the Company and their

servants.

The revenues of the provinces of Bengal, Behar, and part of Orissa, which the Company collect, were in the year 1765 estimated to amount to upwards of three millions six hundred thousand pounds sterling per annum, and by proper management they might with ease have been improved by this time to six millions. Besides, there are immense commercial advantages which might be made of those territories by this kingdom; but at present, under the ridiculous plan of a double government, they are every way exhausted by plunder and oppression; and while this nation is gazing after the fruit, the Company and their substitutes are suffered to be rooting up the tree.

The

The different interests of the Company, as sovereigns of Bengal and at the same time as monopolizers of all the trade and commerce of those countries, operate in direct opposition, and are mutually destructive of each other; so that without a new system, the progress must be from bad to worse. Company, if left to pursue its present system, will ruin itself; the possessions in Bengal will be beggared, and this kingdom deprived of the advantages of those possessions which might be the means of greatly relieving the circumstances of the nation, and of raising it to a state of prosperity and power almost beyond example.

It is the wisdom and power of the Legislature alone that can prevent the total impoverishment or loss of the Bengal provinces, either of which misfortunes might now prove fatal in its consequences to this kingdom. This can only be effected by law for securing the impartial administration of justice throughout those dominions; for preventing the commission of those oppressions and irregularities which have of late years prevailed, to the disgrace of British government; for more easily and effectually punishing in India the authors of such enormities when committed, and for improving and rendering permanent those resources which the nation has a right to expect from the conquered countries. Such laws would equally tend to promote the laudable and desirable object

of regaining and securing an interest in the hearts of the subjected natives, who wish only to receive their protection and happiness from a British Sovereign; in which state of things this nation might long possess the Bengal provinces, even against the combined efforts of Indian enemies and European rivals.

(Bolts, Considerations on Indian Affairs, 1772, Preface.)

CHAPTER IV

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF EFFICIENT AND RESPONSIBLE

GOVERNMENT

Warren Hastings

1772-1785

THE period of the Governorship (1772-74), and GovernorGeneralship (1774-85) of Warren Hastings was the most critical in the history of British India. When the period opened, the Company was on the verge of bankruptcy, in spite of the assumption of control over the public revenues of Bengal. Its servants were demoralised and corrupted by the temptations to which they were exposed. Its relation to the native government was unreal and unhealthy. Its supremacy had hitherto proved to be nothing but a curse to the inhabitants of the huge provinces, which it neither ruled itself nor allowed the native powers to rule freely. Even if the Company did not sink under the burden of its own financial disorganisation, it seemed certain that its power would collapse before any formidable combination of the native states. From these evils it was saved by the genius of one man, working in the face of incredible obstacles. When Warren Hastings returned to England in 1785, to be impeached by an ungrateful country, the Company which he served was in a sound financial condition, though it had just waged great wars against the most powerful states of India such as would have ruined it fifteen years earlier; its territories had been effectively brought under its direct responsible government; the whole system of administration had been purified, clarified, and

reorganised, and the foundations laid upon which the admirable structure of later days was to rise; the worst abuses among its servants had been removed; its subjects enjoyed a prosperity and a complete immunity from the ravages of invasion such as had long been strange to them; to all of them, in a degree never before known in India, equal and impartial justice had been thrown open; and the British power in India, without materially extending its limits,1 had in the course of a double war with the Mahrattas and Hyder Ali, established its position as the most formidable power in India. And all this had been achieved at a time when little aid was to be expected from England, and when in every other region of the world British prestige had sunk to its lowest ebb as a result of the disasters of the American Revolutionary War. Such was the achievement of the greatest Englishman who has ever laboured in India. It is not too much to say that the work of Warren Hastings in these years constitutes the real establishment of the British power in India. For that reason it has seemed necessary to allot to it a much larger proportionate space than can be allowed to other periods.

The period of Warren Hastings falls into three clearly marked sections: (1) From 1772 to 1774 he was President of Bengal under the old regulations; and it is during this period that his main reforms in government were effected. (2) In 1774, under the terms of the Regulating Act, he became Governor-General, and his authority extended in some degree, for the first time, over Madras and Bombay. But he was from the first overridden by the majority of his Council, who, under the terms of the Act, had equal votes with himself; and until the death of Colonel Monson in 1776 enabled him, by the use of his casting-vote, to obtain a majority, he cannot be held responsible for the government. During this period many grave blunders were committed, which added to Hastings' difficulties in the future. (3) From 1776 to 1785 he

1 The only considerable acquisition of territory during the governorship of Hastings was the zemindari of Benares, ceded by Oudh. This was acquired by a treaty forced upon Oudh in 1775 by the majority of Hastings' Council, and in face of his opposition.