of a due knowledge of and inspection into the management of the territorial revenues, specially and unalienably vested by the legislature in the Governor-General and Council, and to vest the same solely and entirely in the said Warren Hastings. That the reasons assigned by the said Warren Hastings for constituting the said Committee of Revenue are incompatible with those which he professed when he abolished the subordinate Council of Revenue at Moorshedabad: that he has invested the said Committee in the fullest manner with all the powers and authority of the Governor-General and Council; that he has thereby contracted the whole power and office of the Provincial Councils into a small compass, and vested the same in four persons appointed by himself; that he has thereby taken the general transaction and cognizance of revenue business out of the Supreme Council; that the said Committee are empowered to conduct the current business of the revenue department without reference to the Supreme Council, and only report to the board such extraordinary occurrences, claims, and proposals as may require the special orders of the board; that even the instruction to report to the board in extraordinary cases is nugatory and fallacious, being accompanied with limitations which make it impossible for the said board to decide on any questions whatsoever: since it is expressly provided by the said Warren Hastings, that, if the members of the Committee differ in opinion, it is not expected that every dissentient opinion should be recorded; consequently the Supreme Council, on any reference to their board, can see nothing but the resolutions or reasons of the majority of the Committee, without the arguments on which the dissentient opinions might be founded: and since it is also expressly provided by the said Warren Hastings, that the determination of the majority of the Committee should not therefore be stayed, unless it should be so agreed by the majority,—that is, that, notwithstanding the reference to the Supreme Council, the measure shall be executed without waiting for their decision.
That the said Warren Hastings has delivered his opinion, with many arguments to support the same, in favor of long leases of the lands, in preference to annual settlements: that he has particularly declared, "that the farmer who holds his farm for one year only, having no interest in the next, takes what he can with the hand of rigor, which, even in the execution of legal claims, is often equivalent to violence; he is under the necessity of being rigid, and even cruel,—for what is left in arrear after the expiration of his power is at best a doubtful debt, if ever recoverable; he will be tempted to exceed the bounds of right, and to augment his income by irregular exactions, and by racking the tenants, for which pretences will not be wanting, where the farms pass annually from one hand to another; that the discouragements which the tenants feel from being transferred every year to new landlords are a great objection to such short leases; that they contribute to injure the cultivation and dispeople the lands; that, on the contrary, from long farms the farmer acquires a permanent interest in his lands; he will, for his own sake, lay out money in assisting his tenants in improving lands already cultivated, and in clearing and cultivating waste lands."14 That, nevertheless, the said Warren Hastings, having left it to the discretion of the Committee of Revenue, appointed by him in 1781, to fix the time for which the ensuing settlement should be made, and the said Committee having declared, that, with respect to the period of the lease, in general, it appeared to the Committee that to limit them to one year would be the best period, he, the said Warren Hastings, approved of that limitation, in manifest contradiction to all his own arguments, professions, and declarations concerning the fatal consequences of annual leases of the lands; that in so doing the said Warren Hastings did not hold himself bound or restrained by the orders of the Court of Directors, but acted upon his own discretion; and that he has, for partial and interested purposes, exercised that discretion in particular instances against his own general settlement for one year, by granting perpetual leases of farms and zemindaries to persons specially favored by him, and particularly by granting a perpetual lease of the zemindary of Baharbund to his servant Cantoo Baboo on very low terms.
That in all the preceding transactions the said Warren Hastings did act contrary to his duty as Governor of Fort William, contrary to the orders of his employers, and contrary to his own declared sense of expediency, consistency, and justice, and thereby did harass and afflict the inhabitants of the provinces with perpetual changes in the system and execution of the government placed over them, and with continued innovations and exactions, against the rights of the said inhabitants,—thereby destroying all security to private property, and all confidence in the good faith, principles, and justice of the British government. And that the said Warren Hastings, having substituted his own instruments to be the managers and collectors of the public revenue, in the manner hereinbefore mentioned, did act in manifest breach and defiance of an act of the 13th of his present Majesty, by which the ordering and management and government of all the territorial revenues in the kingdoms of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa were vested in the Governor-General and Council, without any power of delegating the said trust and duty to any other persons; and that, by such unlawful delegation of the powers of the Council to a subordinate board appointed by himself, he, the said Warren Hastings, did in effect unite and vest in his own person the ordering, government, and management of all the said territorial revenues; and that for the said illegal act he, the said Warren Hastings, is solely answerable, the same having been proposed and resolved in Council when the Governor-General and Council consisted but of two persons present,—namely, the said Warren Hastings, and the late Edward Wheler, Esquire, and when consequently the Governor-General, by virtue of the casting voice, possessed the whole power of the government. That, in all the changes and innovations hereinbefore described, the pretence used by the said Warren Hastings to recommend and justify the same to the Court of Directors has been, that such changes and innovations would be attended with increase of revenue or diminution of expense to the East India Company; that such pretence, if true, would not have been a justification of such acts; but that such pretence is false and groundless: that during the administration of the said Warren Hastings the territorial revenues have declined; that the charges of collecting the same have greatly increased; and that the said Warren Hastings, by his neglect, mismanagement, and by a direct and intended waste of the Company's property, is chargeable with and answerable for all the said decline of revenue, and all the said increase of expense.
XVI.—MISDEMEANORS IN OUDE
I. That the province of Oude and its dependencies were, before their connection with and subordination to the Company, in a flourishing condition with regard to culture, commerce, and population, and their rulers and principal nobility maintained themselves in a state of affluence and splendor; but very shortly after the period aforesaid, the prosperity both of the country and its chiefs began sensibly and rapidly to decline, insomuch that the revenue of the said province, which, on the lowest estimation, had been found, in the commencement of the British influence, at upwards of three millions sterling annually, (and that ample revenue raised without detriment to the country,) did not in the year 1779 exceed the sum of 1,500,000l., and in the subsequent years did fall much short of that sum, although the rents were generally advanced, and the country grievously oppressed in order to raise it.
II. That in the aforesaid year, 1779, the demands of the East India Company on the Nabob of Oude are stated by Mr. Purling, their Resident at the court of Oude, to amount to the sum of 1,360,000l. sterling and upwards, leaving (upon the supposition that the whole revenue should amount to the sum of 1,500,000l. sterling, to which it did not amount) no more than 140,000l. sterling for the support of the dignity of the household and family of the Nabob, and for the maintenance of his government, as well as for the payment of the public debts due within the province.
III. That by the treaty of Fyzabad a regular brigade of the Company's troops, to be stationed in the dominions of the Nabob of Oude, was kept up at the expense of the said Nabob; in addition to which a temporary brigade of the same troops was added to his establishment, together with several detached corps in the Company's service, and a great part of his own native Troops were put under the command of British officers.
IV. That the expense of the Company's temporary brigade increased in the same year (the year of 1779) upwards of 80,000l. sterling above the estimate, and the expense of the country troops under British officers in the same period increased
14th May, 1772.
