§ Mr. Francismoved, that the 35th clause of the 24th of the King, should be read, viz.—"whereas to pursue schemes of conquest and extension of dominion are measures repugnant to the wish, the honour, and policy of this nation; be it enacted &c.," and then addressed himself to the Speaker to the following effect.—Sir, in moving to have this clause now read, I have two objects, 1st. to remind the House of their own unanimous resolution, on which the subsequent act of Parliament was founded; and then to shew that, in the motion which I propose to submit to the House, I am governed by that resolution, and aim at nothing but to inforce the execution of that law. In this purpose, and on this ground, I hope for the support and concurrence of the House; because I do not believe it, will be asserted by any man, that 866 it is very right to pass laws for the better government of a distant, dominion, and very wrong to inquire whether such laws are obeyed or not In my opinion it would be a wiser policy and a safer practice not to make any laws, than to suffer them to be slighted with impunity. Habits of disobedience are very catching; and they are the more dangerous in proportion to the distance of the offending parties, and to the facility which that distance gives them, to conceal or disguise their transactions. I state these principles generally, as a rational ground of parliamentary suspicion and inquiry, whenever the government of India appear to be engaged in measures which the law prohibits; and not at all meaning to affirm, that such measures, when they are thoroughly examined, may not admit of a sufficient justification. The business and duty of this day does not call upon me to accuse any man, or to affirm that anything deserving the censure of Parliament has been done. My object is to inquire, and then, according to the result of the inquiry, to desist or to proceed. All I contend for, in the first instance, is, that a British governor who commences a war in India, is prima facie doing that which the law prohibits; that his own act of itself puts him on his defence; that he is bound to justify on the case; and that; until he has so justified his conduct, the presumptions are against him. All the authorities of this, country have muted with one voice to condemn arid forbid the carrying on war in India for any purpose but defence, or on any ground but necessity. I need not tell the House that the practice in India has been almost uniformly, or with very short exceptions, directly opposed to the prohibition. While the Directors of the India Company had any power, they certainly laid down very wise principles, and gave very proper orders on this subject. When their power over their own governors was found to be insufficient, the legislature interposed, but, as it appears by the facts, with no more success than the Directors. Since the prohibitory act passed in 1783, I appeal to the House whether we have heard of any thing from India but war and conquest; many victories, and great acquisitions, with only now and then a short interval of repose, to take breath and begin again. There is another ground of presumption against the necessity and justice of these wars, which seems to me as strong and conclusive, as any presumption can be before the contrary is proved; I mean, Sir, that almost all these wars are supposed to originate in acts of provocation and aggression committed by the weak 867 against the strong. The strength of any single Indian state at any time, and now I believe of all of them put together, is not to be compared to the military power and resources of the English. I do not say that these nations have no means of defence, or that the Mahrattas for example, can do us no mischief; but that, considering the great disparity of force, it requires very clear evidence to make it credible, that whereas the disposition of the British power in India, is always, if possible, to preserve the peace, and to be satisfied with what we possess, this excellent disposition is never suffered to prevail because the Indian Princes are so restless and unruly, that we cannot, in common justice to ourselves, retrain from invading them. The fable says, the fierce, rebellious lamb, would never suffer the mild, gentle, moderate wolf to be quiet: it it was not you it was your father. These propositions may be true., but they require some proof; and, when the proof is produced, I shall desire it always to be observed and remembered that the evidence, that comes before us, is ex parte. We hear little or nothing of what the opposite, and possibly the injured party, have to say for themselves. Ever since I have known any thing of Indian affairs, I have found that the prevailing disease of our governments there has been a rage for making war. The strong though ineffectual remedies which have from time to time been applied to this disorder, are a sufficient proof of its existence. That individuals may find their account in the conduct of such wars, I do not mean to dispute. But I deny that they are or can be for the benefit of the India Company or the nation, particularly in the present circumstances of the Company's affairs. In these circumstances, and in actual possession of half the peninsula, you engage in a new war with the Mahrattas, the success of which can give you nothing but an addition of territory, which you cannot keep without an intolerable increase of your military establishments, and a perpetual drain of all your resources, of men as well as money, and which you ought not to keep if you could. Whether the Mahrattas have united in defence of their country, or to carry the war into the heart of our best provinces, as they have done in former times, or with what loss or expense our success against them may have been purchased, are questions on which we are utterly in the dark. By public report alone we are informed, that a war of great, extent at least, and liable to many important consequences, is now carrying on in India, and that no information of it has been communicated to 868 Parliament. Sir, I can safely assure this I House, that the Mahrattas, though not capable of meeting us in the field, or at all likely to encounter us in a pitched battle, are nevertheless very well able to do us a great deal of mischief. In the year 1778, the Presidency of Bombay received and gave their protection to a Mahratta fugitive called Ragoba, and muttered all the force they could collect lo escort him back to Poona and to make themselves masters of that place. If the expedition had succeeded, I do not doubt that the persons who were engaged in it, would have been very well paid for their trouble. The event was, that their army was surrounded, starved, and compelled to capitulate. At some earlier periods of the history of India, the Mahrattas have frequently crossed the rivers arid made rapid incursions into the upper provinces of Bengal and Bahar, carrying universal desolation with them wherever they went, ruining the country, and making it impossible to collect the revenues. I know no reason, why they may not make the same attempts again, and with the same success. With such bodies of horse as they can collect at a very short warning, from fifty to a hundred thousand in different quarters, they may pour into our provinces, over run and lay waste the country, and then make their retreat with the same rapidity, without its being possible for us either to meet or to overtake them. This is their mode of making war, and it has always succeeded with them They are the Tartars of India. In these circumstances, I ask, is it proper or not that Parliament should know, why this war was undertaken, for what purposes it has been pursued, and with what success it has been attended; and finally, has it the sanction and approbation of the Court of Directors, and of his Majesty's ministers? I cannot believe it possible.—If it should be stated, as I have some reason to expect it may, that the papers to which these motions allude, have not in fact been received by the Court of Directors, that answer must silence me for the present, but I must say that, in another point of view, it will be very unsatisfactory. The orders given by lord Wellesley, in consequence of which the hostilities began on the Malabar coast, must have been dated some time in June or early in July last. I beg of the House to observe the dates: we are now in the middle of March; so that 8 months and a half must have elapsed since the orders were given, and no information received at home on that subject. This is a case which the act of Parliament has foreseen and provided for. The words of the law are, that 869 "in all cases, where hostilities shall be commenced or treaty made, the governor general and council shall, by the most expeditious mean they can devise, communicate the same to the Court of Directors, together with a full state of the information and intelligence upon which they shall have commenced such hostilities or made such treaties, and their motives and reasons for the same at large." Until it shall appear in evidence that this delay of information directly from Lord Wellesley is no; owing to any neglect or omission on his part, I am bound to presume that there is a fault somewhere. Supposing the measures in question should appear, upon inquiry, to deserve censure, that cause, of censure will be greatly aggravated by the neglect of sending home; timely information on the whole subject.—I am not able to foresee what sort of objection ran be stated to the motions for papers, I with which I mean to conclude. I rather hope for the acquiescence of the noble lord on the other side. At all events, I hope and expect, that persona character, or the persona confidence due to any man, will not be alleged in bar to this inquiry. At prefect there is no charge, and there ought to be no defence. If have laid sufficient ground for inquiry, we are bound of inquire of crimination should follow, it must be answered, not by character, but by proof, When an inquiry was moved for is this House, in the year 1791, into the causes of; the first war with Tippoo Sultaun, no man's reputation stood higher in the estimation of the public than that of Lord Cornwallis. But I do not remember that any opposition I to the inquiry was set up on the score of his personal character, though none was more generally respected. On the contrary, his Majesty's ministers met the inquiry fairly, and thought they could not defend his conduct better than by giving us all the information they possessed. I hope and I expect that the noble lord, now at the head of the Indian department, will follow that example. He professes to invite and encourage a free discussion of all Indian questions If not, and if the motion, with which I am now about to conclude, should be resisted, I think the House will be reduced to one of these two conclusions; either that there is something in the personal merits of Lord Wellesley, which entitles him to greater confidence than was thought due to Lord Cornwallis; or that there has been something in his conduct, to which no other defence can be applied but a favourable opinion of his character. I move you, Sir, "That there be laid before this House copies 870 or extracts of all dispatches received from the governor general of Bengal, or from the presidencies of fort St. George and Bombay, as far as such dispatches relate to or account for hostilities, now or lately subsisting between the said governments and any of the Mahratta princes or states with the dates of the receipts of such dispatches."—"Copies or extracts of all the correspondence between the said governments and any of the Mahratta princes or states, relative to the said hostilities."—"Copies or extracts of all orders or instructions sent to India by the Court of Directors of the East India Company, on the same subject."—On the question being put from the chair,
Lord Castleraghrose. He expressed his approbation of the candid manner in which the hon. gent, had introduced his motion, and joined issue completely with him in regard to the general principle, that the cause of the war is a very proper subject of parliamentary inquiry. Independent of the acts, he was ready, his lordship said, to admit of the propriety of an inquiry, both as a matter of policy and justice.—But the question was at present, whether such, an inquiry could be safely made in the present circumstances. And here he differed, his lordship said, very materially from the hon. gent. Independently of the disadvantages that might arise from such an investigation, during a war not yet terminated, on which he was not disposed to lay very great stress, he had stronger and very ostensible reasons for objecting to the motion. The government were not in possession of the circumstances that preceded the rupture; and, therefore, any investigation of the kind proposed by the present motion, must necessarily terminate unsatisfactorily, and to the obvious prejudice of the noble lord (Wellesley) to whom the government of India was entrusted. Without having all the circumstances that led to the war, it would be impossible to form a proper estimate of the case, or to do any justice to the conduct of the governor-general. The Mouse must wait, therefore, till the necessary communications be received by his Majesty's government. Such a communication was soon to be expected. That it should have been made sooner was impossible, from the date at which the war took place. It had been said that the war commenced in the beginning of June, but instead of this it was not till the 6th of August that hostilities took place. The communications between the Mysore and Poonah could not be effected in less than a month, and the latest communications received from Madras were of the first of September: there must be 871 necessarily many documents therefore, in regard to the preliminaries, of which government could not be in possession, and which were absolutely necessary to do justice to die noble lord's conduct. He bad no objection to the principle, but be was not able at present to comply with the motion. He was ready, however, as soon as government should be in possession of the necessary documents, net only to comply with the motion, but even apprize the hon. gent, as soon as such dispatches are received.
§ Mr. Johnstonewas of opinion that, though the war might not have commented till the period stated by the noble lord, yet there must necessarily be many circumstances previous to open hostilities which ought certainly to have been communicated to government. It was not of the 6th of August only to which he wished to look back but to trace the war to its source. From the moment that orders had been given, to march the troops from the Mysore, the commencement of the war was certainly to be dated The very march of that army, he would insist, was against the acts and resolutions of the House as much as any event on the 6tb of August. The moment Lord Wellesley issued those orders to his army, he ought to have sent dispatches at the same time to this country, stating his reasons for such measures; But he was apprehensive there was too frequently a suppression of documents. All the proceedings of the government of India ought to appear on the records of the Company, and be regularly transmitted to this country. Were this the case, we should at all times have the fullest information. He was afraid that the war had originated in aggression on our part, and was owing to that spirit of ambition that had been too prevalent in India, and which particularly had characterized the government of the noble lord. But, whatever be the issue of the war, he contended, it mast be disastrous in its consequences. If attended with success, our empire in India must be as large as the two peninsulas, and consequently ready to fall in pieces by its own weight But, should we be defeated in our attempts at aggrandizement, the most probable, consequence is, that we shall be turned out of India, and a period put at once to our empire Here the hon. gent, insisted on the power and influence of the Mahrattas: In our former wars in India, our resources had been derived from there-venues of Bengal, which always remained untouched: but here the case was extremely different. The revenues of Bengal would be immediately affected; and in 872 case of defeat, or in case, which was not; at all improbable, of the enemy laying waste the country, the consequences might be fatal. The present case resembled, in some degree, perhaps that of the Carnatic. The dispatches to which the noble lord alludes to, and for which he desires us to wait, may in all probability contain nothing. Such was the case exactly in the dispatches from Lord Clive, in regard to the Carnatic,
Lord Castlereaghwas ready to admit the importance of the communications in regard to the causes of the war; but the end also of the correspondence was certainly equally important, and absolutely necessary either to justify or condemn the conduct of the governor-general in his commencement of hostilities.
§ Mr. Francisthought that reasons might; have been assigned by the governor-general for the issue of his orders to the troops to march, which had happened two months previous to the period alluded to by the noble lord. He was willing, however, to rely on the engagement which the noble lord had taken on himself to apprize him of the first arrival of the necessary dispatches, and begged leave therefore, at present, to withdraw his motion.—The other orders of the day being disposed of, the House adjourned till to-morrow.