Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 25.djvu/146

H Hastings immediately wrote to the British resident at the nawáb's camp, urging him to use his influence to mitigate all harshness, and to impress on the nawáb that Englishmen disapproved ‘with abhorrence of every species of inhumanity and oppression.’ Mill rightly condemns the home authorities, who found fault with the action of Hastings and yet made no amends to the Rohillas. ‘They were so much the less excusable than the Vazir and Mr. Hastings that these actors in the scene denied its injustice’ (, bk. v. ch. i.).

In 1773 Hastings recorded on the minutes of council a paper on the principles of criminal justice, as applied to the offence of dacoity or gang robbery, then and long after prevalent in Bengal. In 1774 the same subject again attracted Hastings's attention, and the employment of special native magistrates was the plan which commended itself to him. He made the complaint, often repeated since his time, that one cause of the evil was ‘the regularity and precision which has been introduced in our courts of justice.’ He desired to revert to the old summary process of native governments, who were wont to trace the landholders by whom the dacoits were maintained, and to proceed against them. He was thus for introducing the non-regulation system even before the regulations themselves.

Before these matters had been finally disposed of, a great change took place in Bengal politics. Up to that time the council in Calcutta had consisted of a large number of officials holding other posts, and the executive power had been absorbed by a committee of three, of which the governor was president with a casting vote. It was thus that Clive had been able to carry out the unpalatable reforms of his second administration [see CLIVE]. But now, in virtue of the ‘Regulating Act,’ a new council of five was created, three being sent out from home. Hastings was declared governor-general with a magnificent salary, but with only a single vote in the council. At the same time a supreme court of justice was established with vague general powers; and the four judges sent out to hold that court, whose chief was Hastings's old schoolfellow Impey, were, like the new councillors, entire strangers to India. The court, being composed of professed lawyers, did its duty in a technical and jealous spirit. The councillors, biassed against Anglo-Indians, acted as if bound by a mutual pledge to oppose Hastings and Richard Barwell [q. v.], his old colleague and present supporter. Muhamad Raza and Nand Kumar and some of the civil servants were ready to supply information. From secret hints the new councillors evolved an imputed fabric of corruption. Specific charges of corruption were sent in by Nand Kumar to the council on 11 March. Hastings and Barwell withdrew from the council, where their honour was being discussed, and in April 1775 brought a case of conspiracy against the rája and two Englishmen named Fowke; Hastings having already written home threatening to resign if not supported by the directors. But before the conspiracy case could ripen for decision Nand Kumar was suddenly arrested (6 May 1775) on a charge of forgery instituted by a native, with some appearance of assistance from Durham, the advocate-general. Whether Durham was really the instigator, and, if so, was acting under instructions from Hastings, or whether he was prompted to assist the complainant by a desire to extort money out of a rich man whom he knew to be in trouble, is among the unsearchable secrets of history. The quarrel between the rája and the ostensible complainant was, in any case, one of several years' standing, and an action had been twice part heard—in which the alleged forgery had been used—before the establishment of the supreme court. Nand Kumar was committed by two justices on the day of his arrest; the grand jury found a true bill, and the trial commenced on 8 June and lasted more than a week. On the morning of 16 June the rája was found guilty and sentenced to death, all the judges concurring. The sheriff fixed 5 Aug. for the execution, which took place accordingly. The conduct of the chief justice, Sir Elijah Impey [q. v.], was afterwards impugned by the House of Commons, and he was threatened with an impeachment for his share in these proceedings, but he defended himself with success. In the subsequent impeachment of Hastings the matter was revived by Burke, but was held irrelevant, and Burke had to submit to a public reprimand from the house, 4 May 1789 (, Speeches, &c. ii. 112). (Mill's account of these transactions is corrected in many places by the notes in H. H. Wilson's edition of the ‘History of India,’ 1848.)

Macaulay's famous account of these proceedings is that of a reckless advocate, not of a judicial critic. There is no attempt at serious demonstration either that Hastings believed Nand Kumar innocent, or that he inspired the prosecution for forgery. An attentive examination of the facts will show that the chief justice was only one of a number of persons who were satisfied that Nand Kumar deserved his fate. Among those persons was the native historian of the time. There is no evidence that Hastings thought otherwise, or that he had any ground for interfering to prevent the law from taking its