the hand of God. The cafe of a general famine is known to relax the severity even of the most rigorous government. Mr. Haftings does not deny, or fhew the leaft doubt of the fact. The representation is humble, and almost abject. On this representation from a great Prince, of the diftrefs of his fubjects, Mr. Haftings falls into a violent paffion; such as (it seems) would be unjustifiable in any one who speaks of any part of his conduct. He declares, "that the demands, the tone in which they were afferted, and the feafon in which they were made, are all equally alarming, and appear to him to require an adequate degree of firmness in this board, in opposition to them.”He proceeds to deal out very unreserved language on the perfon and character of the Nabob, and his Ministers. He declares, that in a divifion between him and the Nabob, "the

Strongest must decide." With regard to the urgent and instant neceffity, from the failure of the crops, he fays, " that perhaps expedients may be found for affording a gradual relief from the burden of which he fo heavily complains, and it shall be my endeavour to seek them out :" And, left he fhould be fufpected of too much hafte to alleviate füfferings, and to remove violence, he says, "that these must be gradually applied, and their complete affect may be diftant; and this, I conceive, is all he can claim of right."

This complete effect of his lenity is diftant indeed. Rejecting this demand (as he calls the Nabob's abject fupplication) he attributes it, as he usually does all things of the kind, to the divifion in their government; and fays, this is a powerful motive with me (however inclined I might be, upon any other occafion, to yield to some part of his demand) to give them an abfolute and unconditional refufal upon the prefent; and even to bring to punishment, if my influence can produce that effect, thofe incendiaries who have endeavoured to make themselves the infiruments of divifion between us."

Here, Sir, is much heat and paffion; but no more confideration of the diftrefs of the country, from a failure of the

means

means of fubfiftence, and (if poffible) the worfe evil of an useless and licentious foldiery, than if they were the moft contemptible of all trifles. A letter is written in confequence, in such a style of lofty defpotism, as, I believe, has hitherto been unexampled and unheard of in the records of the Eaft. The troops were continued. The gradual relief, whofe effects were to be fo diftant, has never been fubftantially and beneficially applied-and the country is ruined.

Mr. Haftings, two years after, when it was too late, faw the abfolute neceffity of a removal of the intolerable grievance of this licentious foldiery, which, under a pretence of defending it, held the country under military execution. A new treaty and arrangement, according to the pleasure of Mr. Haftings, took place; and this new treaty was broken in the old manner, in every effential article. The foldiery were again fent, and again let loose. The effect of all his manœuvres, from which it seems he was fanguine enough to entertain hopes, upon the state of the country, he himself informs us "the event has proved the reverse of thefe hopes, and accumulation of diftrefs, debasement, and dissatisfaction to the Nabob, and disappointment and difgrace to me. Every measure (which he had himself proposed) had been so conducted as to give him cause of displeasure; there are no officers eftablished by which his affairs could be regularly conducted; mean, incapable, and indigent men, have been appointed. A number of the districts without authority, and without the means of perfonal protection; fome of them have been murdered by the Zemindars, and those Zemindars, instead of punishment, have been permitted to retain their Zemindaries, with independent authority; all the other Zemindars fuffered to rife up in rebellion, and to infult the authority of the Sircar, without any attempt made to suppress them; and the Company's debt, instead of being discharged by the affignments and extraordinary fources of money provided for that purpose, is likely to exceed even the VOL. II.

F

amount

amount at which it ftood at the time in which the arrangement with his Excellency was concluded." The Houfe will fimile at the refource on which the Directors take credit as fuch a certainty in their curious account.

This is Mr. Haftings's own narrative of the effects of his own fettlement. This is the ftate of the country, which we have been told is in perfect peace and order; and, what is curious, he informs us, that every part of this was foretold to him in the order and manner in which it happened, at the very time he made his arrangement of men and measures.

The invariable course of the Company's policy is this:Either they set up fome Prince too odious to maintain himself without the neceffity of their affiftance, or they foon render him odious, by making him the inftrument of their government. In that cafe, troops are bountifully fent to him to maintain his authority. That he fhould have no want of affistance, a civil gentleman, called a Resident, is kept at his Court, who, under the pretence of providing duly for the pay of these troops, gets affignments on the revenue into his hands. Under this provincial management, debts foon accumulate; new affignments are inade for thefe debts; until, step by step, the whole revenue, and with it the whole power of the country, is delivered into his hands. The military do not behold, without a virtuous emulation, the moderate gains of the civil department. They feel that, in a country driven. to habitual rebellion by the civil government, the military is neceffary; and they will not permit their fervices to go unrewarded. Tracts of country are delivered over to their discretion. Then it is found proper to convert their commanding officers into farmers of revenue. Thus, between the well-paid civil, and well rewarded military establishment, the fituation of the natives may be eafily conjectured. The authority of the regular and lawful government is every where, and in every point, extinguished. Disorders and violences. arife; they are repreffed by other disorders and other violences.

Where

Wherever the collectors of the revenue, and the farming colonels and mojors, move, ruin is about them, rebellion before and behind them. The people in crowds fly out of the country; and the frontier is guarded by lines of troops, not to exclude an enemy, but to prevent the escape of the iuhabi

tants.

By these means, in the course of not more than four or five years, this once-opulent and flourishing country, which, by the accounts given in the Bengal confultations, yielded more than three crores of Sicca rupees, that is, above three millions fterling, annually, is reduced, as far as I can discover, in a matter purposely involved in the utmost perplexity, to lefs than one million three hundred thousand pounds, and that exacted by every mode of rigour that can be devised. To complete the business, most of the wretched remnants of this revenue are mortgaged, and delivered into the hands of the ufurers at Benares, (for there alone are to be found fome lingering remains of the ancient wealth of these regions) at an intereft of near thirty per cent. per annum.

The revenues, in this manner, failing, they seized upon the eftates of every person of eminence in the country, and, under the name of refumption, confifcated their property. I wish, Sir, to be understood universally and literally, when I affert, that there is not left one man of property and fubftance, for his rank, in the whole of these provinces; in provinces which are nearly the extent of England and Wales taken together. Not one landholder, not one banker, not one merchant, not one even of those who usually perish laft, the ultimum moriens in a ruined state, no one farmer of revenue.

One country for a while remained, which flood as an island in the midst of the grand waste of the Company's dominion. My right honourable friend, in his admirable speech on moving the bill, just touched the fituation, the offences, and the pupishment, of a native prince, called Fizulla Khân. This man, by policy and force, had protected himself from the general extirpation

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tirpation of the Rohilla chiefs. He was fecured (if that were any fecurity) by a treaty. It was ftated to you, as it was ftated by the enemies of that unfortunate man, "that the whole of his country is, what the whole country of the Rohillas was, cultivated like a garden, without one neglected spot in it." Another accufer fays, "Fizulla Khân, though a bad foldier, (that is the true fource of his misfortune) has approved himself a good aumil; having, it is fuppofed, in the course of a few years, at leaft doubled the population and revenue of his country." In another part of the correspondence he is charged with making his country an afylum for the oppreffed peasants, who fly from the territories of Oud. The improvement of his revenue, arifing from this fingle crime, (which Mr. Haftings confiders as tantamount to treafon) is ftated at an hundred and fifty thousand pounds a year.

Dr. Swift fomewhere fays, that he who could make two blades of grafs grow where but one grew before, was a greater benefactor to the human race than all the politicians that ever exifted. This prince, who would have been deified by antiquity, who would have been ranked with Ofiris, and Bacchus, and Ceres, and the divinities moft propitious to men, was, for those very merits, by name attacked by the Company's government, as a cheat, a robber, a traitor. In the fame breath in which he was accused as a rebel, he was ordered at once to furnish 5000 horse. On delay, or (according to the technical phrase, when any remonftrance is made to them) "on evafion," he was declared a violator of treaties, and every thing he had was to be taken from him. Not one word, however, of horse in this treaty.

The territory of this Fizulla Khân, Mr. Speaker, is less than the county of Norfolk. It is an inland country, full feven hundred miles from any fea port, and not distinguished for any one confiderable branch of manufacture whatsoever. From this territory a punctual payment was made to the British Resident of 150,000l. fterling a year. The demand

of