to all the local commerce thereof, and therefore | lick auction, or even by private contract, there was, unqualified for the management of such a concern; as he affirmed, no sale, did, under pretence of and that the said Sullivan, instead of executing finding a market for the same, engage the company the contract himself, did, shortly after obtaining the in an enterprise of great and certain expence, subsame, assign it over to John Benn, and others; ject to a manifest risk, and full of disgrace to the and in consideration of such assignment did re- East India company, not only in their political ceive from the said Benn a great sum of money. character, as a great sovereign power in India, but That from the preceding facts, as well as from in their commercial character, as an eminent and sundry other circumstances of restrictions taken off, respectable body of merchants: and that the exe(particularly by abolishing the office of inspector cution of this enterprise was accompanied with into the quality of the opium,) and of beneficial sundry other engagements with other persons, in clauses introduced, it appears that the said Warren all of which the company's interest was constantly Hastings gave this contract to the said Stephen sacrificed to that of individuals favoured by the Sullivan in contradiction to the orders of the court said Warren Hastings. of directors, and without any regard to the interests of the India company, for the sole purpose of creating an instant fortune for the said Sullivan at the expence of the India company, without any claim of service or pretence of merit on his part, and without any apparent motive whatever, except that of securing or rewarding the attachment and support of his father, Lawrence Sullivan, a person of great authority and influence in the direction of the company's affairs, and notoriously attached to and connected with the said Warren Hastings.

That the said Stephen Sullivan neither possessed nor pretended to possess, any skill in the business of his contract; that he exerted no industry, nor shewed, or could shew, any exactness in the performance of it, since he immediately sold the contract for a sum of money to another person, (for the sole purpose of which sale, it must be presumed the same was given,) by which person another profit was to be made; and by that person the same was again sold to a third, by whom a third profit was to be made.

That the said Warren Hastings, at the very time when he engaged the company in a contract for engrossing the whole of the opium produced in Bengal and Bahar in the ensuing four years on terms of such exorbitant profit to the contractor, affirmed, that" there was little prospect of selling "the opium in Bengal at a reasonable price; and "that it was but natural to suppose, that the price "of opium would fall from the demand being "lessened:"-that in a letter, dated the 5th of May 1781, he informed the directors," that owing "to the indifferent state of the markets last season "to the eastward, and the very enhanced rates of "insurance, which the war had occasioned, they "had not been able to dispose of the opium of "the present year to so great an advantage as they expected; and that more than one half of it "remained still in their warehouses."-That the said Warren Hastings was guilty of a manifest breach of trust to his constituents and his employers in monopolizing for their pretended use an article of commerce, for which he declared no purchasers had offered, and that there was little prospect of any offering; and the price of which, he said, it was but natural to suppose would fall. That the said Warren Hastings having, by his own act, loaded the company with a commodity, for which, either in the ordinary and regular course of pub

That the said Warren Hastings first engaged in a scheme to import one thousand four hundred and sixty chests of opium, on the company's account, on board a ship belonging to Cudbert Thornhill, half of which was to be disposed of in a coasting voyage, and the remainder in Canton.That, besides the freight and commission payable to the said Thornhill on this adventure, twelve pieces of cannon belonging to the company were lent for arming the ship; though his original proposal was, that the ship should be armed at his expence.-That this part of the adventure, depending for its success on a prudent and fortunate management of various sales and resales in the course of a circuitous voyage, and being exposed to such risk both of sea and enemy, that all private traders had declined to be concerned in it, was particularly unfit for a great trading company, and could not be undertaken on their account with any rational prospect of advantage.

That the said Warren Hastings soon after engaged in another scheme for exporting two thousand chests of opium directly to China on the company's account, and for that purpose accepted of an offer made by Henry Watson, the company's chief engineer, to convey the same in a vessel of his own, and to deliver it to the company's supercargoes.-That after the offer of the said Henry Watson had been accepted, a letter from him was produced at the board, in which he declared, that he was unable to equip the ship with a proper number of cannon, and requested, that he might be furnished with thirty-six guns from the company's stores at Madras, with which request the board complied. That it appears, that George Williamson, the company's auctioneer at Calcutta, having complained, that by this mode of exporting the opium which used to be sold by publick auction, he lost his commission as auctioneer, the board allowed him to draw a commission of one per cent. on all the opium which had been or was to be exported. That it appears that the contractor for opium (whose proper duties and emoluments as contractor ended with the delivery of the opium) was also allowed to draw a commission on the opium then shipping on the company's account; but for what reason, or on what pretence, does not appear.

That the said Warren Hastings, in order to pay the said Stephen Sullivan in advance for the opium

furnished, or to be furnished, by him in the first | factory estimate the loss to the company, includyear of his contract, did borrow the sum of twenty ing port-charges, demurrage, and factory charges lacks of rupees at eight per cent. or two hundred allowed the captain, at sixty-nine thousand nine thousand pounds sterling, to be repaid by draughts hundred and ninety-three dollars, or about twenty to be drawn on the company by their super-cargoes thousand pounds sterling. in China, provided the opium consigned to them should arrive safe; but that if the adventure failed, whether by the loss of the ships, or otherwise, the subscribers to the above loan were to be repaid their capital and interest out of the company's treasury in Bengal.

That the company's factory at China, after stating the foregoing facts to the court of directors, conclude with the following general observations thereon:-" on a review of these circum"stances, with the extravagant and unusual terms "of the freight, demurrage, factory-charges, &c. That the said Warren Hastings, having in this " &c. we cannot help being of opinion, that primanner purchased a commodity, for which he said "vate considerations have been suffered to interthere was no sale, and paid for it with money, "fere too much for any benefit, that may have which he was obliged to borrow at a high interest," been intended to the honourable company. We was still more criminal in his attempt, or pretended" hope for the honourable court's approbation of plan, to introduce it clandestinely into China. That the importation of opium into China is forbidden by the Chinese government; that the opium, on seizure, is burnt; the vessel, that imports it, confiscated; and the Chinese, in whose possession it may be found for sale, punished with death.

That the governour-general and council were well aware of the existence of these prohibitions and penalties, and did therefore inform the supercargoes in China, that the ship belonging to the said Henry Watson would enter the river at China as an armed ship, and would not be reported, as bearing a cargo of opium; that being a contraband trade. That of the above two ships, the first, belonging to Cudbert Thornhill, was taken by the French; and that the second, arriving in China, did occasion much embarrassment and distress to the company's super-cargoes there, who had not been previously consulted on the formation of the plan, and were exposed to great difficulty and hazard in the execution of their part of it. That the ship was delayed, at a demurrage of an hundred dollars a day, for upwards of three months, waiting in vain for a better market. The

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our conduct in this affair. The novelty and "nature of the consignments have been the source "of much trouble and anxiety; and though we "wished to have had it in our power to do more, we may truly say we have exceeded our expecta"tions."

That every part of this transaction, from the monopoly, with which it commenced, to the contraband dealing, with which it concluded, criminates the said Warren Hastings, with wilful disobedience of orders, and a continued breach of trust; that every step taken in it was attended with heavy loss to the company, and with a sacrifice of their interest to that of individuals, and that, if finally a profit had resulted to the company from such a transaction, no profit attending it could compensate for the probable risk, to which their trade in China was thereby exposed; or for the certain dishonour and consequent distrust, which the East India company must incur in the eyes of the Chinese government by being engaged in a low clandestine traffick, prohibited by the laws of the country.

XIII. APPOINTMENT OF R. J. SULLIVAN.

THAT, in the month of February 1781, Mr. | Richard Joseph Sullivan, secretary to the select committee at Fort St. George, applied to them for leave to proceed to Calcutta on his private affairs. That, being the confidential secretary to the select committee at Fort St. George, and consequently possessed of all the views and secrets of the company, as far as they related to that government, he went privately into the service of the nabob of Arcot; and under the pretence of proceeding to Calcutta on his private business, undertook a commission from the said nabob to the governour-general and council, to negociate with

them in favour of certain projects of the said nabob, which had been reprobated by the company.

That the said Sullivan was soon after appointed back again by the said Warren Hastings to the office of resident at the durbar of the said nabob of Arcot. That it was a high crime and misdemeanour in the said Hastings to encourage so dangerous an example in the company's service, and to interfere unnecessarily with the government of Madras in the discharge of the duties peculiarly ascribed to them by the practice and orders of the company, for the purpose of appointing to a great and confidential situation a man, who had so re

cently committed a breach of trust to his em- | pany's service, though that fact was known at ployers.

XIV. RANNA OF GOHUD.

Hastings has complained of the insufficiency of the laws of this kingdom to enforce this doctrine" by "the punishment of persons in the possession of "power, who may be impelled by the provocation of ambition, avarice, or vengeance, stronger than "the restrictions of integrity and honour, to the "violation of this just and wise maxim."

to our own possessions. In the hands of the ranna it can be of no prejudice to us; and "notwithstanding the present prospect of a per"manent peace betwixt us and the Mahrattas, it "seems highly expedient, that there should always" "remain some strong barrier to separate us, on "this side of India, from that warlike and power"ful nation."

That the said Hastings, in thus departing from these his own principles, with a full and just sense of the guilt he would thereby incur, and in sacrificing the allies of this country "to the provoca

That the said Warren Hastings was highly culpable in abandoning the said ranna to the fury of his enemies, thereby forfeiting the honour, and injuring the credit, of the British nation in India," tions of ambition, avarice, or vengeance," in notwithstanding the said Hastings was fully con- violation of the national faith and justice, did vinced, and had professed, "that the most sacred commit a gross and wilful breach of his duty, and "observance of treaties, justice, and good faith, was thereby guilty of an high crime and misde"were necessary to the existence of the national "interests in that country."-And though the said

meanour.

PART I.

XV. REVENUES.

anny, or collection of the revenues:- that about the year 1770 the provinces of Bengal and Bahar were visited with a dreadful famine and mortality, by which at least one third of the inhabitants perished:-that Warren Hastings, Esquire, has declared, " that he had always heard the loss of

THAT the property of the lands of Bengal is, according to the laws and customs of that country, an inheritable property, and that it is, with few exceptions, vested in certain natives, called" inhabitants reckoned at a third, and in many zemindars, or landholders, under whom other na- "places near one half, of the whole; and that he tives, called talookdars and ryots, hold certain "knew not by what means such a loss could be subordinate rights of property, or occupancy, in "recruited in four or five years, and believed it the said lands-that the said natives are Hindoos, " impossible." That nevertheless the revenue was and that their rights and privileges are grounded violently kept up to its former standard, that is, upon the possession of regular grants, a long se- in the two years immediately preceding the apries of family succession, and fair purchase:pointment of the said Warren Hastings to the gothat it appears, that Bengal has been under the vernment of Fort William ; in consequence of dominion of the Mogul, and subject to a Ma- which the remaining two thirds of the inhabitants hommedan government, for above two hundred were obliged to pay for the lands now left withyears-that, while the Mogul government was out cultivation; and that from the year 1770 to in its vigour, the property of zemindars was held the year 1775 the country had languished, and sacred; and that either by voluntary grant from the the evil continued enhancing every day :—that said Mogul, or by composition with him, the native the said Warren Hastings, in a letter to the secret Hindoos were left in the free, quiet, and undisturb-committee of the court of directors, dated 1st Seped possession of their lands, on the single condition tember 1772, declared, "that the lands had sufof paying a fixed, certain, and unalterable revenue," fered unheard-of depopulation by the famine or quit rent, to the Mogul government :-that this "and mortality of 1769;-that the collections revenue, or quitrent, was called the Aussil Jumma, violently kept up to their former standard, had or original ground-rent, of the provinces, and was "added to the distress of the country, and threatnot encreased from the time when it was first set- "ened a general decay of the revenue, unless imtled in 1573 to 1740, when the regular and effec- "mediate remedies were applied to prevent it." tive Mogul government ended:-that, from that That the said Warren Hastings has declared, time to 1765, invasions, usurpations, and various" that, by intrusting the collections to the hererevolutions took place in the government of Ben- ditary zemindars, the people would be treated gal, in consequence of which the country was con- "with more tenderness, the rents more improved, siderably reduced and impoverished, when the "and cultivation more likely to be encouraged; East India company received from the present "that they have a perpetual interest in the counMogul emperour, Shâ Alum, a grant of the dew- try; that their inheritance cannot be removed;