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words, that there was no fair way of making the enormous sums sent by the company's servants to England? and do you imagine that there was or could be more honesty and good faith, in the demands for what remained behind in India? Of what nature were the transactions with himself? If you follow the train of his information you must see, that if these great sums were at all lent, it was not property, but spoil that was lent; if not lent, the transaction was not a contract, but a fraud. Either way, if light enough could not be furnished to authorize a full condemnation of these demands, they ought to have been left to the parties, who best knew and understood each other's proceedings. It was not necessary that the authority of government should interpose in favour of claims, whose very foundation was a defiance of that authority, and whose object and end was its entire subversion.

It may be said that this letter was written by the nabob of Arcot in a moody humour, under the influence of some chagrin. Certainly it was; but it is in such humours that truth comes out. And when he tells you from his own knowledge, what every one must presume, from the extreme probability of the thing, whether he told it or not, one such testimony is worth a thousand that contradict that probability, when the parties have a better understanding with each other, and when they have a point to carry, that may unite them in a common deceit.

If this body of private claims of debt, real or devised, were a question, as it is falsely pretended, between the nabob of Arcot as debtor, and Paul Benfield and his associates as creditors, I am sure, I should give myself but little trouble about it. If the hoards of oppression were the fund for satisfying the claims of bribery and peculation, who would wish to interfere between such litigants? If the demands were confined to what might be drawn from the treasures, which the company's records uniformly assert that the nabob is in possession of; or if he had mines of gold or silver, or diamonds, (as we know that he has none,) these gentlemen might break open his hoards, or dig in his mines, without any disturbance from me. But the gentlemen on the other side of the house know as well as I do, and they dare not contradict me, that the nabob of Arcot and his creditors are not adversaries, but collusive parties, and that the whole transaction is under a false colour and false names. The litigation is not, nor ever has been, between their rapacity and his hoarded riches. No it is between him and them combining

and confederating on one side, and the public revenues, and the miserable inhabitants of a ruined country, on the other. These are the real plaintiffs and the real defendants in the suit. Refusing a shilling from his hoards for the satisfaction of any demand, the nabob of Arcot is always ready, nay, he earnestly, and with eagerness and passion, contends for delivering up to these pretended creditors his territory and his subjects. It is therefore not from treasuries and mines, but from the food of your unpaid armies, from the blood withheld from the veins, and whipt out of the backs of the most miserable of men, that we are to pamper extortion, usury, and peculation, under the false names of debtors and creditors of state.

The great patron of these creditors, (to whose honour they ought to erect statues,) the right honourable gentleman, in stating the merits which recommended them to his favour, has ranked them under three grand divisions. The first, the creditors of 1767; then the creditors of the cavalry loan; and lastly, the creditors of the loan in 1777. Let us examine them, one by one, as they pass in review before us.

The first of these loans, that of 1767, he insists, has an indisputable claim upon the public justice. The creditors, he affirms, lent their money publicly; they advanced it with the express knowledge and approbation of the company; and it was contracted at the moderate interest of ten per cent. In this loan the demand is, according to him, not only just, but meritorious in a very high degree; and one would be inclined to believe he thought so, because he has put it last in the provision he has made for these claims.

I readily admit this debt to stand the fairest of the whole; for whatever may be my suspicions concerning a part of it, I can convict it of nothing worse than the most enormous usury. But I can convict upon the spot the right honourable gentleman, of the most daring misrepresentation in every one fact, without any exception, that he has alleged in defence of this loan, and of his own conduct with regard to it. I will shew you that this debt was never contracted with the knowledge of the company; that it had not their approbation; that they received the first intelligence of it with the utmost possible surprise, indignation, and alarm.

So far from being previously apprized of the transaction from its origin, it was two years before the court of directors obtained any official intelligence of it. "The dealings of the

* Mr. Dundas.

Bervants with the nabob were concealed from the first, until they were found out," (says Mr. Sayer, the company's counsel,)" by the report of the country." The presidency, however, at last thought proper to send an official account. On this the directors tell them, "to your great reproach it has been concealed from us. We cannot but suspect this debt to have had its weight in your proposed aggrandizement of Mahomed Ali, [the nabob of Arcot;] but whether it has or has not, certain it is, you are guilty of an high breach of duty in concealing it from us."

These expressions, concerning the ground of the transaction, its effect, and its clandestine nature, are in the letters, bearing date March 17, 1769. After receiving a more full account on the 23d March, 1770, they state, that "Messrs. John Pybus, John Call, and James Bourchier, as trustees for themselves and others of the nabob's private creditors, had proved a deed of assignment upon the nabob and his son of FIFTEEN districts of the nabob's country, the revenues of which yielded, in time of peace, eight lacs of pagodas [£.320,000 sterling] annually; and likewise an assignment of the yearly tribute paid the nabob from the rajah of Tanjore, amounting to four lacs of rupees, [£.40,000."] The territorial revenue, at that time possessed by these gentlemen, without the knowledge or consent of their masters, amounted to three hundred and sixty thousand pounds sterling annually. They were making rapid strides to the entire possession of the country, when the directors, whom the right honourable gentleman states as having authorized these proceedings, were kept in such profound ignorance of this royal acquisition of territorial revenue by their ser vants, that in the same letter they say, "this assignment was obtained by three of the members of your board, in January 1767, yet we do not find the least trace of it upon your consultations, until August 1768, nor do any of your letters to us afford any information relative to such transactions, till the 1st of November, 1768. By your last letters of the 8th of May, 1769, you bring the whole proceedings to light in one view."

As to the previous knowledge of the company, and its sanction to the debts, you see that this assertion of that knowledge is utterly unfounded. But did the directors approve of it, and ratify the transaction when it was known? The very reverse. On the same 3d of March, the directors declare, "upon an impartial examination of the whole conduct of our late governour and council of Fort George (Madras) and on the fullest consideration, that

the said governour and council have, in notorious violation of the trust reposed in them, manifestly preferred the interest of private individuals to that of the company, in permitting the assignment of the revenues of certain valuable districts, to a very large amount, from the nabob to individuals,"-and then highly aggravating their crimes, they add "we order and direct that you do examine, in the most impartial manner, all the above-mentioned transactions; and that you punish by suspension, degradation, dismission, or otherwise, as to you shall seem meet, all and every such servant or servants of the company, who may by you be found guilty of any of the above offences." "We had (say the directors) the mortification to find that the servants of the company, who had been raised, supported, and owed their present opulence to the advantages gained in such service, have in this instance most unfaithfully betrayed their trust, abandoned the company's interest, and prostituted its influence to accomplish the purposes of individuals, whilst the interest of the company is almost wholly neglected, and payment to us rendered extremely precarious." Here then is the rock of approbation of the court of directors, on which the right honourable gentleman says this debt was founded. Any member, Mr. Speaker, who should come into the house, on my reading this sentence of condemnation of the court of directors against their unfaithful servants, might well imagine that he had heard an harsh, severe, unqualified invective against the present ministerial board of controul. So exactly do the proceedings of the patrons of this abuse tally with those of the actors in it, that the expressions used in the condemnation of the one, may serve for the reprobation of the other, without the change of a word.

To read you all the expressions of wrath and indignation fulminated in this dispatch against the meritorious creditors of the right honour. able gentleman, who according to him have been so fully approved by the company, would be to read the whole.

The right honourable gentleman, with an address peculiar to himself, every now and then slides in the presidency of Madras, as synonymous to the company. That the presidency did approve the debt, is certain. But the right honourable gentleman, as prudent in suppressing, as skilful in bringing forward his matter, has not chosen to tell you that the presidency were the very persons guilty of contracting this loan; creditors themselves, and agents and trustees for all the other creditors. For this the court of directors accuse them of

breach of trust; and for this the right honourable gentleman considers them as perfectly good authority for those claims. It is pleasant to hear a gentleman of the law quote the approbation of creditors as an authority for their own debt.

How they came to contract the debt to themselves, how they came to act as agents for those whom they ought to have controuled, is for your inquiry. The policy of this debt was announced to the court of directors, by the very persons concerned in creating it. "Till very lately," (say the presidency,)" the nabob placed his dependence on the company. Now he has been taught by ill advisers, that an inte rest out of doors may stand him in good stead. He has been made to believe that his private creditors have power and interest to over-rule the court of directors."* The nabob was not misinformed. The private creditors instantly qualified a vast number of votes; and having made themselves masters of the court of proprietors, as well as extending a powerful cabal in other places as important, they so completely over turned the authority of the court of directors at home and abroad, that this poor baffled government was soon obliged to lower its tone. It was glad to be admitted into partnership with its own servants. The court of directors establishing the debt which they had reprobated as a breach of trust, and which was planned for the subversion of their authority, settled its payments on a par with those of the public; and even so, were not able to obtain peace or even equality in their demands. All the consequences lay in a regular and irresistible train. By employing their influence for the recovery of this debt, their orders, issued in the same breath, against creating new debts, only animated the strong desires of their servants to this prohibited prolific sport, and it soon produced a swarm of sons and daughters, not in the least degenerated from the virtue of their parents.

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nance from the nabob; even our discarded officers, however unworthy, are received into the nabob's service."* It was indeed a matter of no wonderful sagacity to determine whether the court of directors, with their miserable salaries to their servants, of four or five hundred pounds a year, or the distributor of millions, was most likely to be obeyed. It was an invention beyond the imagination of all the speculatists of our speculating age, to see a government quietly settled in one and the same town, composed of two distinct members; one to pay scantily for obedience, and the other to bribe high for rebellion and revolt.

The next thing which recommends this particular debt to the right honourable gentleman is, it seems, the moderate interest of ten per cent. It would be lost labour to observe on this assertion. The nabob, in a long apolo getic letter for the transaction between him and the body of the creditors, states the fact, as I shall state it to you. In the accumulation of this debt, the first interest paid was from thirty to thirty-six per cent. it was then brought down to twenty-five per cent, at length it was reduced to twenty; and there it found its rest. During the whole process, as often as any of these monstrous interests fell into an arrear, (into which they were continually falling,) the arrear, formed into a new capital,‡ was added to the old, and the same interest of twenty per cent. accrued upon both. The company, having got some scent of the enormous usury which prevailed at Madras, thought it necessary to interfere, and to order all interests to be lowered to ten per cent. This order, which contained no exception, though it by no means pointed particularly to this class of debts, came like a thunder-clap on the nabob. He con

"He [the nabob] is in a great degree the cause of our present inability; by diverting the revenues of the Carnatic through private channels."-"Even this Peshcush the Tanjore tribute] circumstanced as he and we are, he has assigned over to others, who now set themselves in opposition to the company." Consultations, October 11, 1769, on the 12th communicated to the nabob.

† Nabob's letter to Governour Palk. Papers published by the directors in 1775; and papers printed by the same authority, 1781.

See papers printed by order of a general court in 1790, p. 222, and p. 224, as also nabob's letter to Governour Dupre, 19th July, 1771, “I have taken up loans by which I have suffered a loss of upwards of a crore of pagodas [four millions sterling] by interest on an heavy interest."-Letter 15th January, 1772, "Not. withstanding I have taken much trouble, and have made many payments to my creditors, yet the load of my debt, which became so great, by interest and compound interes!, is not cleared."

sidered his political credit as ruined; but to find a remedy to this unexpected evil, he again added to the old principal twenty per cent. interest accruing for the last year. Thus a new fund was formed; and it was on that accumulation of various principals, and interests heaped upon interests, not on the sum originally lent, as the right honourable gentleman would make you believe, that ten per cent. was settled on the whole.

When you consider the enormity of the interest at which these debts were contracted, and the several interests added to the principal, I believe you will not think me so sceptical, if I should doubt, whether for this debt of £.880,000 the nabob ever saw £.100,000 in real money. The right honourable gentleman suspecting, with all his absolute dominion over fact, that he never will be able to defend even this venerable patriarchal job, though sanctified by its numerous issue, and hoary with prescriptive years, has recourse to recrimination, the last resource of guilt. He says that this loan of 1767 was provided for in Mr. Fox's India bill; and judging of others by his own nature and principles, he more than insinuates, that this provision was made, not from any sense of merit in the claim, but from partiality to General Smith, a proprietor, and an agent for that debt. If partiality could have had any weight against justice and policy, with the then ministers and their friends, General Smith had titles to it. But the right honourable gentleman knows as well as I do, that General Smith was very far from looking on himself as partially treated in the arrangements of that time; indeed what man dared to hope for private partiality in that sacred plan for relief to nations?

It is not necessary that the right honourable gentleman should sarcastically call that time to our recollection. Well do I remember every circumstance of that memorable period. God forbid I should forget it. O illustrious disgrace! O victorious defeat! may your memorial be fresh and new to the latest generations! May the day of that generous conflict be stamped in characters never to be cancelled or worn out from the records of time! Let no man hear of us, who shall not hear that in a struggle against the intrigues of courts, and the perfidious levity of the multitude, we fell in the cause of honour, in the cause of our country, in the cause of human nature itself! But if fortune should be as powerful over fame, as she has been prevalent over virtue, at least our conscience is beyond her jurisdiction. My poor share in the support of that great

measure, no man shall ravish from me. It shall be safely lodged in the sanctuary of my heart; never, never to be torn from thence, but with those holds that grapple it to life.

I say, I well remember that bill, and every one of its honest and its wise provisions. It is not true that this debt was ever protected or enforced, or any revenue whatsoever set apart for it. It was left in that bill just where it stood; to be paid or not to be paid out of the nabob's private treasures, according to his own discretion. The company had actualy given it their sanction; though always relying for its validity on the sole security of the faith of him,* who without their knowledge or consent entered into the original obligation. It had no other sanction; it ought to have had no other. So far was Mr. Fox's bill from providing funds for it, as this ministry have wickedly done for this, and for ten times worse transactions, out of the public estate, that an express clause immediately preceded, positively forbidding any British subject from receiving assignments upon any part of the territorial revenue, on any pretence whatsoever.

You recollect, Mr. Speaker, that the chancellor of the exchequer strongly professed to retain every part of Mr. Fox's bill which was intended to prevent abuse; but in his India bill, which (let me do justice) is as able and skilful a performance for its own purposes, as ever issued from the wit of man, premeditating this iniquity-hoc ipsum ut strueret Trojamque aperiret Achivis, expunged this essential clause, broke down the fence which was raised to cover the public property against the rapacity of his partisans, and thus levelling every obstruction, he made a firm, broad, highway for sin and death, for usury and oppression, to renew their ravages throughout the devoted revenues of the Carnatic.

The tenour, the policy, and the consequences of this debt of 1767, are, in the eyes of minis try, so excellent, that its merits are irresisti ble; and it takes the lead to give credit and countenance to all the rest. Along with his chosen body of heavy-armed infantry, and to support it, in the line, the right honourable gentleman has stationed his corps of black cavalry. If there be any advantage between this debt and that of 1769, according to him the cavalry debt has it. It is not a subject of defence; it is a theme of panegyric. Listen to the right honourable gentleman, and you will find it was contracted to save the country; to prevent

The nabob of Arcot. Appendix, No. 3.

mutiny in armies; to introduce economy in revenues; and for all these honourable purposes, it originated at the express desire, and by the representative authority of the company itself.

First, let me say a word to the authority. This debt was contracted not by the authority of the company, not by its representatives, (as the right honourable gentleman has the unparalleled confidence to assert,) but in the evermemorable period of 1777, by the usurped power of those who rebelliously, in conjunction with the nabob of Arcot, had overturned the lawful government of Madras. For that rebellion, this house unanimously directed a public prosecution. The delinquents, after they had subverted government, in order to make to themselves a party to support them in their power, are universally known to have dealt jobs about to the right and to the left, and to any who were willing to receive them. This usurpation, which the right honourable gentleman well knows, was brought about by and for the great mass of these pretended debts, is the authority which is set up by him to represent the company; to represent that company which from the first moment of their hearing of this corrupt and fraudulent transaction, to this hour, have uniformly disowned and disavowed it.

So much for the authority. As to the facts, partly true, and partly colourable, as they stand recorded, they are in substance these.The nabob of Arcot, as soon as he had thrown off the superiority of this country by means of these creditors, kept up a great army which he never paid. Of course, his soldiers were generally in a state of mutiny.* The usurping council say that they laboured hard with their master the nabob, to persuade him to reduce these mutinous and useless troops. He consented; but as usual, pleaded inability to pay them their arrears. Here was a difficulty. The nabob had no money; the company had no money; every public supply was empty. But there was one resource which no season has ever yet dried up in that climate. The soucars were at hand; that is, private English money-jobbers offered their assistance. Messieurs Taylor, Majendie and Call, proposed to advance the small sum of £.160,000 to pay off the nabob's black cavalry, provided the company's authority was given for their loan. This was the great point of policy always aimed at, and pursued through a hundred devices by the servants at Madras. The presidency, who themselves had no authority for the functions they presumed to exercise. very rea

*See Mr Dundas's 1st, 2d and 3d, reports.

dily gave the sanction of the company to those servants who knew that the company, whose sanction was demanded, had positively prohibited all such transactions.

However, so far as the reality of the dealing goes, all is hitherto fair and plausible; and here the right honourable gentleman concludes, with commendable prudence, his account of the business. But here it is I shall beg leave to commence my supplement: for the gentleman's discreet modesty has led him to cut the thread of the story somewhat abruptly. One of the most essential parties is quite forgotten. Why should the episode of the poor nabob be omitted? When that prince chooses it, nobody can tell his story better. Excuse me, if I apply again to my book, and give it you from the first hand; from the nabob himself.

"Mr. Stratton became acquainted with this, and got Mr. Taylor and others to lend me four lacs of pagodas towards discharging the arrears of pay of my troops. Upon this, I wrote a letter of thanks to Mr. Stratton; and upon the faith of this money being paid immediately, I ordered many of my troops to be discharged by a certain day, and lessened the number of my servants. Mr. Taylor, &c. some time after acquainted me, that they had no ready money, but they would grant teeps payable in four months. This astonished me; for I did not know what might happen, when the sepoys were dismissed from my service. I begged of Mr. Taylor and the others to pay this sum to the officers of my regiments at the time they mentioned; and desired the officers, at the same time, to pacify and persuade the men belonging to them, that their pay would be given to them at the end of four months; and that till those arrears were discharged, their pay should be continued to them. Two years are nearly expired since that time, but Mr. Taylor has not yet entirely discharged the arrears of those troops, and I am obliged to continue their pay from that time till this. I hoped to have been able, by this expedient, to have lessened the number of my troops, and discharged the arrears due to them, considering the trifle of interest to Mr. Taylor, and the others, as no great matter; but instead of this, I am oppressed with the burthen of pay due to those troops; and the interest, which is going on to Mr. Taylor from the day the teeps were granted to him." What I have read to you is an extract of a letter from the Carnatic to Governour Rumbold, dated the 22d, and received the 24th of March, 1779.*

*See further Consultations, 3d February, 1778

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