(38) That the Governor-General and Council and the Chief Justice and other Judges of the Supreme Court of Judicature, shall have power to act as justices of the peace for the said settlement, and for the several settlements and factories subordinate thereto.

(39) That if any Governor-General, or any other persons who are or have been employed in the service of the Company, in any capacity, shall commit any offence against this act, or shall be guilty of any crime, misdemeanour, or offence against any of His Majesty's subjects, or any of the inhabitants of India, all such crimes, offences, and misdemeanours, may be tried in His Majesty's Court of King's Bench.

(40) That in all cases of indictments laid in the Court of King's Bench, for offences committed in India, it shall be lawful for His Majesty's said Court to award writs of mandamus, requiring the Chief Justice and judges of the Supreme Court of Judicature, or the judges of the Mayor's Court at Madras, Bombay, or Bencoolen, to hold a Court, for the examination of witnesses, and receiving other proofs concerning the matters charged in such indictments.

(41) That in case the Chief Justice or judges of the Supreme Court of Judicature shall commit any offence against this act, or be guilty of any corrupt practice, or other offence in the execution of their respective offices, it shall be lawful for His Majesty's Court of King's Bench to award writs of mandamus, requiring the Governor-General and council to cause proceedings to be made concerning the examination of witnesses.

(42) That in all cases of proceedings in Parliament, touching any offence against this act, or any other offences committed in India, it shall be lawful for the Lord High Chancellor, and also for the Speaker of the House of Commons to issue his or their warrants to the Governor-General and council, and to the Chief Justice and judges for the examination of witnesses; and such examination shall be returned to the said Lord High Chancellor, or to the Speaker of the House of Commons.

...

(43) That no proceedings in Parliament touching any offence committed in India, wherein such warrant as aforesaid shall have been issued, shall be discontinued by any prorogation or dissolution of the Parliament.

51. HASTINGS' STRUGGLE WITH HIS COUNCIL

To John Graham, March 25, 1775.

The violation of the engagements of the former government with the Nawab Shuja-uddaula,1 with the other correspondent acts of frenzy which began their administration, and the total stagnation of business during the last six months, except the very little which they have allowed me to do myself at the Revenue Board, are neither removed nor amended by any transactions of mine in the year 1772. I solemnly declare that I do not recollect a single act of theirs which was capable of producing any useful purpose, and scarce one independent of me of which I was not the real object. I think our rulers at home have too much understanding to be the dupes of their malice, or to trust the management of this valuable country to men whose behaviour has been marked with so much design, ill temper, and ignorance.

The resolution taken by me to dissolve the meetings of the Board (or rather to declare them dissolved) on the 13th, 14th and 17th of this month,2 will, I hope, be thought as regular as justified by the occasion. I do not recollect an instance of the Council being called, or continued, without the President's authority; not even in the contests of Mr. Vansittart's Government.

Right or wrong, I had no alternative but to do that or throw up the service. Indeed I consider this as a case which supersedes all forms. Their violence had already carried them to lengths which no rules of the service would allow or justify, nor could I yield without inverting the order of it, and submitting to a degradation to which no power or consideration on earth could have impelled me.

I shall continue the practice which I have begun, of dissolving the meetings of the Council, that is, of leaving them to themselves, as often as they propose new indignities for me. Indeed, I expect to be able to do very little with them, and how the public business is to be conducted I cannot devise.

1 " The former government" is Hastings' own government before the arrival of the new Council. The engagement with Shuja-uddaula is the Treaty of Benares (No. 48 above), which the new Council had insisted on revising after Shuja-uddaula's death.

2 Hastings left the chair, and declared the meetings of Council dissolved, when the majority insisted upon hearing charges against him. In spite of his withdrawal they persisted in using the Council for purposes for which only the Court of Directors or the Courts of Law would have been proper.

The trumpet has been sounded, and the whole host of informers will soon crowd to Calcutta with their complaints and ready depositions. Nuncomar holds his durbar in complete state, sends for zemindars and their vakils, coaxing and threatening them for complaints, which no doubt he will get in abundance, besides what he forges himself. The system which they have laid down for conducting their affairs is, as I am told, after this manner. The General1 rummages the Consultations for disputable matter. . . . Colonel Monson receives, and I have been assured descends to solicit, accusations. Francis writes.

Was it for this that the Legislature of Great Britain formed the new system of Government for Bengal, and armed it with powers extending to every part of the British empire in India?

I cannot temporize and after two years of anguish, I will either retain my seat in comfort, or I will not keep it. I never can be on terms of ease with these men.

(Gleig i. 513.)

52. THE DESTRUCTIVE WORK OF THE MAJORITY

To Laurence Sulivan, March 21, 1776.

The maxims which I laid down for my conduct, and by which it was invariably guided, were these:-First, to implant the authority of the Company, and the sovereignty of Great Britain, in the constitution of this country. Secondly, to abolish all secret influence, and make the government itself responsible for all measures, by making them all pass by its avowed authority. Thirdly, to remove all impediments which prevented the complaints of the people from reaching the ears of the supreme administration, or established an independent despotism in its agents. Fourthly, to relieve the ryots from oppressive taxes. Fifthly, to introduce a regular system of justice and protection into the country. Sixthly, to relieve the distresses of the Company at home; you know how great they were; and pay off their heavy debts here, by a uniform and regular mode of collecting their rents, by savings in expenses, and by foreign acquisitions of wealth. And lastly, to extend the political influence of the Company without enlarging their territory or dividing their military strength.

1 Clavering.

2 The detailed records of proceedings of the Council.

I need not repeat the means which were used to accomplish these ends. The present government has proceeded on principles diametrically opposite to mine. First, they have broken all the arrangements which I made in the Nawab's family in 1772; replaced Mahomed Reza Khan; restored the office of Naib Suba; dismissed the Begum from her office. publicly proclaimed the Nawab's sovereignty, and disclaimed that of the Company. Secondly, they have made their own power uncontrolled, and contrived to preclude its operations from public view, by the pretended independency granted to Mahomed Reza Khan. Thirdly, they have abolished, or rendered of no effect, all the courts of justice, and avow their intentions of restoring the collectorships. Fourthly, they exclaim against me for overcharging the revenue, though I struck off every oppressive article of it, and let the lands on lower terms than the jamma1 of former years, but such only as the lands, under favourable circumstances, might very well bear, allowing for accidents of drought and inundation, which might entitle the farmers to indulgences. These indulgences, whenever they could prove their title to them, I always granted. The majority allow of none; but while they declare the ryots oppressed, refuse to consent to a single remission which might relieve them. . . . Sixthly, they have branded the suspension of the King's tribute with the appellation of violation of public faith; they have called the cession of Kora the sale of others' property; they have called the subsidy which I had fixed with the Vizier at 210,000 rupees (and which they had augmented to 260,000 rupees), and the stipulation for the Rohilla war, a mercenary prostitution of the Company's arms for hire; they have paid off a part of the bonded debt with the means furnished by these acts of injustice, and now lay claim to the whole merit of it, though it is impossible for them to produce a single instance, in the whole period of their administration, of a rupee saved, or a rupee gained, by any measure of theirs, except the late acquisition of Benares, obtained at the expense of twice the amount of its yearly revenue, which the Nawab of Oudh owes to the Company, and which he can never pay them. . . . The Nawab's 2 finances and resources are totally exhausted. His troops are disaffected to a man. They have been permitted to oppose his authority in instances of the most criminal disobedience, and the only severity which has been ever exercised towards them

was in the massacre of 20,000 of his sepoys (at least Bristow 1 computes the loss at that amount) who mutinied for their pay, This horrid event passed about a month ago. (Gleig ii. 30.)

53. SCHEMES OF REFORM

(In the midst of his conflict with the Council, Hastings still laboured to secure an improvement of the system of government. The hostile majority had practically destroyed his new judicial system. He foresaw that the Supreme Court, established by the Act of 1773, was certain to form a source of confusion, since it administered English law, and the limits of its jurisdiction were very vaguely defined. In the following passage from a letter to Lord North, the author of the Act, he makes a suggestion by which the native courts and law might be strengthened and saved from ruin, while conflict of jurisdiction between them and the Supreme Court might be avoided, by placing the native courts under the supervision of the English judges. To this idea he returned in 1780, when the conflict of jurisdictions was at its height (see No. 56). His device was then entirely successful. It formed one of the grounds of his impeachment !)

To Lord North, January 20, 1776.

I persuade myself that I shall stand in no need of any apology for troubling your Lordship with the enclosed sheets. They contain the copy of a plan which I have transmitted to the Court of Directors by this despatch, for the more perfect distribution of justice in these provinces. The design of it may be comprised in a few words. It is, to extend the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of Judicature to all parts of the provinces without any limitation; to confirm the Courts which have been established on the principles of the ancient constitution of the country, by the names of Nizamat and Diwani ; to unite the judges of the Supreme Court with the members of the Council in the control of the latter, and to give the Provincial Councils a legal authority in the internal government of the country, and in the collection of the public revenue.

(Gleig ii. 14.)

54. HASTINGS' DEFENCE OF INDIAN LAW

(One of Hastings' root principles was that Indian law and custom should be as far as possible preserved and respected; and during the first period of his governorship, while his new judicial system was being

1 The agent of the majority at the court of Oudh.

2 The main question was, Who were covered by the term "British subjects"? Did this include all the inhabitants of Bengal, or only the inhabitants of Calcutta and the servants of the Company?