HC Deb 01 June 1808 vol 11 cc767-98

On the motion of sir Thomas Turton, the order for resuming the adjourned debate on the Carnatic Question (see p 392), was read. No person rising to speak, the question was put on the first Resolution, and the gallery was cleared for a division; but Mr. Sheridan having suggested to sir T. Turton to withdraw his Resolutions of fact and distinct charges, in order to bring the whole matter more satisfactorily to issue on the general question, whether lord Wellesley's conduct in the transactions with respect to the Carnatic, was or was not consistent, with justice, or with the character and honour of the British nation? a debate arose on this proposition, on which strangers were again admitted. When the gallery was re-opened,

Mr. Wellesley Pole

was speaking. He had no objection to come to issue this or any other night upon any charge the right hon. gent, or any other person, might have to prefer against lord Wellesley. He would not sit silent when it was insinuated that his noble relative or his friends wished to stifle inquiry. It was no evidence of a disposition to blink the question, that lord Wellesley's friends were desirous to come to the vote without provoking a fresh debate. The debate on the former night had closed with a speech from an hon. member (colonel Allan), who had been an eye-witness of the transactions in the Carnatic, and who was in no way connected with lord Wellesley, declaring the whole of the matter contained in the charges to be gross and unfounded calumnies. In the full confidence not only of the innocence, but of the highly meritorious conduct of lord Wellesley, he was ready to meet any thing that the right hon. gent. (Mr. Sheridan) had to urge, however awful it may be to contend with the great talents and eloquence of that right hon. gent, matured and methodized on this question by a six years preparation. He knew the magnitude of the powers he should have to contend with, but in the cause of truth he should not be deficient in boldness. He knew he expressed himself warmly on this subject; but during the last six years, and more particularly during the last three years, he had exhibited, as every one must allow, no small stock of patience. He did not pretend to be so callous as not to feel indignation when the hon. baronet who brought these charges said, that lord Wellesley's conduct in India had been such as to convince him that no man could retain honour or honesty in that country. The hon. baronet, in thus expressing himself, only used his parliamentary privilege of freedom of speech, but he had gone to the full extent of that privilege in using language which he dared not use elsewhere. He contended, that the judgment of the house, however pronounced, after the discussion and investigation that had taken place, would be decisive of the case. If the decision should be unfavourable to lord Wellesley, he would bow to it as a fair condemnation; if it should be favourable, he would rely on it as a full and fair acquittal. He was convinced that lord Wellesley had been actuated by no principles but a regard for the honour and interest of his country; and in this conviction he boldly met those accusations, which, if he thought them at all founded in fact, he should shrink from, and hide his face at a distance from this house and from the society in which he had the honour to associate.

Mr. Sheridan

regretted that the hon. gent had so totally misconceived him. He had never said that that hon. gent. or any of his friends, were anxious to blink the question; but he had said the very reverse. He had said, too, what he would repeat, that moving the previous question was not the way to obtain for the noble marquis the honourable and satisfactory investigation so much wished for by his friends. It was not directly meeting the very serious charges brought against that noble lord. As to the part he took in the present question, the hon. gent. knew well that he could not be influenced by any other motive than a sense of public duty. As to the fraternal intemperance of the hon. gent, he was willing, if not to approve at least to overlook it; at the same time he denied that any thing had ever fallen from him that went to impeach the private moral character of the noble marquis; though he always thought, and was still of opinion, that that noble lord betrayed too often a mischievous ambition, that might be ultimately ruinous to the British interests in the East. He would repeat his wish, that the worthy baronet would wave his antecedent Resolutions, and come at once to the immediate point at issue, as to lord Wellesley's conduct with respect to the Carnatic.

Mr. Wellesley Pole

stated, that when the hon. baronet had opened his Resolutions, an hon. friend of his (Mr. Wallace), gave notice that he would move the previous question on the Resolutions of fact, and a direct negative on the criminating Resolution, for which he proposed to substitute a resolution of approbation.

Sir John Anstruther

thought it a most extraordinary proceeding, that after the course just stated should have been laid down in the presence of the right hon. gent, a fortnight since, and he had heard it, and was ready to speak on it without exception, he all at once came forward this night to reverse all that had been done, and substitute a general question. Nothing but the previous question would be a proper proceeding on some of the Resolutions. The others were to be met directly in the most decided manner.

Mr. Wallace

felt himself warranted by the practice of parliament in proposing the previous question on the Resolutions of fact. To the criminatory Resolution he proposed a direct negative, to be followed up with a Resolution of approbation. There could be no question that a decision on these Resolutions would fully convey the sense of the house. The hon. baronet who opened the charge, and every other person who spoke on the question treated of it in its full extent.

Sir Thomas Turton

considered that his Resolution ought to be agreed to without a question. On the fourth Resolution, which was criminating, he thought the house ought to go into a committee. Finding that the Resolutions were to be met in this manner, he should divide the house on every one of them; and on the fourth, criminating lord Wellesley, not personally, but in his acts, he should again state to the house his reasons for confirming the Resolution.

The question being called for, the house divided on the first Resolution. Two divisions then took place in succession. That on the first Resolution was

For the previous question 102
For the Resolution 18
Majority —84

On the second Resolution, the numbers were

For the previous question 109
For the Resolution 21
Majority —88

For about an hour after this strangers were excluded from the gallery. On our return we found

Mr. G. Johnstone

addressing the house, and condemning in strong terms the conduct pursued towards the young prince of the Carnatic, Ally Hussian, who had been, for no crime, punished with greater severity than was merited by the guilty person who had preceded him; and no man could entertain a doubt as to the manner in which he came by his end, after he had been given into the power of another prince. It had been asked, whether the government, of India would put a young man upon the throne of the Carnatic, who was suspected not to be cordially their friend? If there was any foundation for that argument, it was one of much greater validity for excluding Omdut ul Omrah. The father, who possessed his inheritance in the greatest splendour, had much more means of doing mischief than his son. An hon. gent, who spoke on a former debate had greatly misrepresented the fact when he said the Nabob of the Carnatic owed his power to the East India Company. At one time it was owing to the assistance the Company received from the nabob Wallajah, that our existence was preserved along the coast bordering on his territories, when the French attacked us near Fort St. David. It was said the nabobs were only a sort of lords, and that they had no authority in the country. The very contrary of this was the fact. The nabob was a legitimate sovereign, and the East India Company acknowledged him as such, by holding territory from him.—The hon. gent, then entered into a history of various transactions in India, to shew that it was contrary to the principles and practice of our government at former periods, to keep possession of the territory of native princes. At the conclusion of a war with Tippoo Sultaun, his territories, which we had taken possession of during hostilities, were restored to him. In op- position to this and other acts of a similar kind, was our own convenience to be set up a plea for injustice? The letters of lord Cornwallis had been quoted, during a former debate, in order to justify this proceeding. But the conduct of lord Cornwallis was that of his actually giving up the territory he possessed as belonging to the nabob; and was it not extraordinary that this act should have been quoted for the purpose of justifying an opposite conduct? The act to which the attention of the house was now called, arose out of a conviction, that to establish our dominion in the East, no part of the territories belonging to native princes should be suffered to remain in their hands. But he would ask if this system had answered in point of policy? Were we gainers by it, even in mere profit? No: the very reverse was the fact. As soon as we got possession of any additional territory in India, the establishment necessary to support it, had eat up the profit; and it was now a well-known fact, that we received less money, in point of revenue, from the extensive dominions in our possession, than we received when we held them from the nabob. It was evident, therefore, the system had not answered, either in policy, or in pecuniary advantage. As to security, we had acquired none: for every day proved that the vast extent of our dominions in the East, made the security less and less. If the house wanted an example, he would call to their recollection the mutiny at Vellore. It had always been the sentiment of lord Cornwallis, that it was only by moderation and justice that we could ever expect to render our dominions in Asia secure, and prevent those passions and heart-burnings which so frequently occurred in those distant possessions.

Mr. Whitshed Keene

entered into a defence of the government of India, in depriving the nabob of his dominions; because he had shewn a manifest disposition to favour and aid the French. The greatest abuses, he said, existed in the Carnatic. The hon. member then went so far back into the history of the Carnatic as the year 1768, and pointed out such abuses as he thought rendered the interference of the India government highly necessary. He spoke at considerable length in exculpation of the noble marquis, and in favour of the previous question. He enumurated the important services he had rendered his country, which were manifest from the documents upon the table of the house, and he was convinced that from a fair consideration of the subject, the house must acquit the noble marquis of the criminal part of the charge. He contrasted the conduct of other governors of India, who had returned with unstained character, with that of the noble marquis, and contended that he, as well as they, was entitled to the approbation of his country. He was well persuaded that no other measures than those adopted by the noble marquis could have secured the fidelity of the nabob of Arcot; and he thought, from the peculiar circumstances of the country, he was fully warranted in the line of conduct he pursued. Any body who could trace the origin of our connection with the nabob, would observe that the actions of the noble marquis were marked by a degree of prudence and firmness highly becoming his situation in India.

Mr. Grant

confessed he had little to say upon the general merits of the subject, after it had been so fully discussed by several gentlemen on both sides of the house; but as he understood that there were many other gentlemen who were anxious to debate the last Resolution, as well as himself, he should propose, from the lateness of the hour, to postpone the further discussion upon that branch of the question till an early day.—[A cry of go on! go on!]— The hon. gent, resumed, by observing, that the question, as it at present stood, was reduced simply to, whether in his conduct the noble marquis was actuated by a sense of justice, of necessity, or of policy. The hon. gent. then entered into a history of the interference of France, by sending agents to Tippoo Saib, which was held by the governors of India as a ground for their interference in the affairs of the Carnatic. He detailed the gradual series of encroachments made by the British government in the affairs and territories of the nabobs, until the period that we in fact assumed the sovereignty of their territory. In our first intercourse and treaties, we had considered that power as a principal; but at length, by our unjust encroachments, we became in fact ourselves the principals, and reduced them to the situation of vassals to ourselves. We deprived the sovereign of all his political consequence, and of the power he originally possessed. Such conduct on our parts might be reconciled to our policy, and those principles of aggrandizement which characterized all our acts of interference with the native powers of India, but it could neither be reconciled to principles of common justice or the law of nations. Although he admitted there were some irregularities on the part of the nabob, yet we ought to adhere in some degree to common justice, and not take advantage of a trifling act of irregularity of that power which we acknowledged as independent, and violate the laws of common humanity, by hurling the monarch from his throne. This was really a case in which we were more interested for our own advantage, than for the welfare of that unfortunate prince, in whose behalf we pretended to interfere, he would ask, what were the pretences upon which we interfered with the nabob? They were various. The first was, that he had violated the treaty with us, in refusing to procure us supplies of provisions and carriages. And from this it was inferred, that his views towards us, were hostile and declaratory of war. In his opinion, the nabob had acted in the most natural manner that a prince in his situation could do; and he was convinced that his conduct arose from the consideration of his peculiar situation, and not from any hostile disposition towards us: he acted as others had done on similar occasions. On another occasion it was said, he refused to advance money and troops to harrass his country. Now, really, when he heard such frivolous and contemptible pretexts for such oppressive conduct, he felt disposed to arraign the understandings of those persons who urged them. He defended the nabob from the charge, that in 1773 he evinced a hostile intention to the British government, because, he did not take an active part in their wars, from motives of self-preservation and of common interest; and contended that the nabob of Arcot's conduct, during his intercourse with the East India government, was marked by a most faithful attachment to its interests, and by a steady adherence to the general terms of the treaties. In 1779, when there was a confederacy entered into among the native powers of India against the India government, what was the conduct of Mahommed All? Did he join in the confederacy, or did he even abet it? No: the very first intimation he received of the existence of such a combination, he communicated the information to the governor general, and strongly recommended the most speedy and effectual remedy for the consequences likely to ensue. Upon the subject of all these alleged charges he begged to say, that the government of India did not even think themselves justified in their conduct; but had determined, at all hazards, to seize upon the territories of the nabob, and had even expressed their determination so to do, long before they became possessed of those documents upon which they now grounded their right of interference with that power. With respect to the interpretation put upon the language in the correspondence of the nabob, prejudicial to him, as expressive of his intention of hostility towards the India government, he remarked that that interpretation was erroneous, and too literal. For it should be remembered, that this correspondence was in the Asiatic style of writing, whose principal characteristic was that of allegory and metaphor, and consequently the matter therein should not be appreciated according to the poetical figures, applied to express ideas, which, if taken in their literal sense, would convey a different meaning to what they really were. Under all the circumstances of this transaction, he contended that, admitting the nabob to be guilty of all these imputed crimes, yet the governor general had exceeded his powers, by neglecting to adopt those necessary forms to be attended to in a cause like this. His conduct was there-tore illegal, and upon these grounds, and a great many more which he would not trespass on the attention of the house by enumerating, he supported the Resolution,

Mr. S. R. Lushington.

—Mr. Speaker; differing as I do entirely from the hon. member who has just sat down, from the hon. baronet who opened the debate on a former night, and from the hon. member (Mr. G. Johnstone) who spoke from the floor, I shall state the reasons for that difference, for the consideration of the house. Without following each of those, hon. members through the lengthened detail of their speeches, I shall endeavour to reply to the propositions they have laboured to establish, and which were, I believe, in abstract these: that in the beginning of the connexion between the East India Company and the family of Mahomed Ally, the Company were indebted to them for their preservation and protection in the Carnatic; that in the progress of that connexion, the Company received from Mahomed Ally repeated proofs of kindness and generosity; but that his government and that of his son and successor, Omdut ul Omrah, was distracted by the interference of the Company, and that war and misery resulted to the people from the ambition and usurpation of their governments: that after a long course of faithful and honourable alliance on the part of those nabobs, their posterity have been degraded without cause or justice: that this act of violence has carried its own punishment, for that we receive fewer resources by our possession of the Carnatic than we formerly derived from the willing hands of the nabob. Sir, believing, as I conscientiously do, that the exact reverse of these propositions is the truth; that the Company owe nothing to the father of Mahomed Ally; that to himself they were uniformly benefactors and protectors; that all the faith in the alliance with him was on their part, and all the treachery on his; and that after a long course of suffering and distress from his evil counsels, they have done what true policy, a just construction of the law of nations, and humanity to the people of the Carnatic, fully support; I shall explain to the house the grounds of this opinion. The misrepresentation which has been made of our situation on the coast of Coromandel during the administration of Anwar ud deen Cawn, renders it necessary for me to trouble the house with a short reference to our condition at that early period. Whoever has any knowledge of the records of the East India Company, or of our genera! history in India, must know, that for more than a century before the arrival of Anwar ud deen Cawn in the Carnatic, the Company had carried on a lucrative commerce on the coast of Coromandel. The emperor had granted to them a few villages in the vicinity of Madras and fort St. David; and his local officer, the nabob of Arcot, was bound by the emperor's sunnuds to protect, and did actually protect them, in their peaceful occupations. The integrity of their dealings excited the confidence of the natives, and the security enjoyed in their possessions soon attracted a numerous population; occupied in this tranquil manner, the Company coveted no other possessions; trade was the sole object of their institution, and their endeavours were confined to its advancement. But when Anwar ud deen Cawn arrived in the province, the Company were drawn from these peaceful pursuits, and compelled to engage in the turbulent scenes of war. Anwar ud deen Cawn, the father of Mahomed Ally, was charged by the nikarh with the guardianship of the minor nabob of Arcot, Seed Mahomed Cawn. This youth was basely murdered in his palace, in mid-day, in a very few months after he was confided to the protection of Anwar ud deen Cawn; and this atrocious act of violence so soon succeeding the murder of Abdalla, cast a yet deeper stain upon the character of Anwar ud deen Cawn. The people of Arcot beheld this action with horror; they recurred with gratitude and affection to the mild and generous administration of the family of Seed Mahomed Cawn; and they saw in the violent death of this beloved youth, the termination of that fostering care which had so long protected them; they apprehended from the intrusion of a stranger into the government of the province, that spirit of ravage which too commonly distinguishes a violent and unjust possession, Unfortunately for the unoffending people of the Carnatic, these fears proved too true; for from that moment until the hour in which lord Clive signed the treaty which is now the subject of our deliberations, a period of near sixty years, the people of the Carnatic have been scourged with the plagues of war, famine, neglect, and oppression: but to the English East India Company the succession of Anwar ud deen Cawn proved, in its very beginning, nearly fatal. Dupleix, governor of Pondicherry, soon discovered that avarice was the ruling passion of Anwar ud deen Cawn, and he succeeded in obtaining his connivance in an attack upon Madras, which terminated in its capture by the Trench, when a large treasure, a vessel laden with valuable cloths, and all their shipping, fell into the hands of their enemies. In vain were remonstrances and intreaties addressed to Anwar ud deen Cawn; he adopted no effectual measures to redress those misfortunes which were accumulating upon the English under his eye; for he withheld that protection which he was bound by the sunnuds of the empire to extend to them. The only factory which remained to us was fort St. David; and although the army of Anwar ud deen Cawn under his two sons, Ma-phooz Cawn and Mahomed Ally, marched towards Pondicherry upon the plea of punishing the insult offered to the emperor's authority by the seizure of Madras, and actually made an attack upon a party of the French troops in the vicinity of fort St. David, Dupleix soon contrived to purchase their return to Arcot, and carried into execution his design of attacking fort St. David. In vain was the most moving appeal again directed to Maphooz Cawn and Mahomed Ally in this extremity of the English affairs; ineffectually were such sums of money as were then left, offered for their continuance in the neighbourhood until the English fleet should return, or even for a period of tan days. The French used the treasure they had seized at Madras in bribing higher, and the army of Anwar ud deen returned to Arcot. Happily, however, the English fleet, this nation's best hope in every crisis of her affairs, appeared in the roads of fort St. David, and dispelled the gathering destruction. Such was the nature of the assistance and protection which the English received from the first of the family of Mahomed Ally, and which the honourable member (Mr. Johnstone) has spoken of in such terms of approbation; but when he shall have consulted the records of those times with more diligence, he will find that the confidence of the Company's servants, and the treachery of Anwar ud deen Cawn, involved them in almost irremediable misfortune, from which he left them to extricate themselves. Anwar ud deen had, however, very soon reason to repent his desertion of the English; it left the French at liberty to combine with the relations of Seed Mahomed to avenge his murder; and in a battle fought, against a confederated force under Chunda Snhib, supported by the French, Anwar ud deen was slain by a soldier in the French service, his army routed, his eldest son Maphooz Cawn taken prisoner, and his second son Mahomed Ally fled with a single attendant to the fortress of Trichinopoly, one hundred and fifty miles distant. At this desperate moment Mahomed Ally, who was only the second son of his father, set out upon the speculative idea, which the turbulence of the times induced him to form, of succeeding to his father; but possessing neither treasures, troops, nor title, he had no reasonable prospect but to defend Trichinopoly with the few adherents whom he could collect, until he should be able to make some terms with his enemies. They were supported by a victorious army, ample funds, and powerful connections; whilst he had no chance of succour but from the English; and even that support which he might have expected to receive from their known hostility to the French, he could hardly hope to derive, after his father's desertion of fort St. George and fort St. David still strongly impressed on the minds of the sufferers. He applied for aid to the Company's government with doubt and diffidence, and it was at first granted in a very limited degree; but Mahomed Ally's poverty and distress, which shut out every other hope of relief when disappointed of the assistance of the soubah, together with the progress made by the French in the Carnatic, induced the Company's servants to espouse his cause more warmly. But notwithstanding the aid he derived from the Company, the ill success of his undisciplined rabble, in some excursions which they rashly made from Trichinopoly, rendered his prospects of success so hopeless, that he formally proposed to retire from the country and relinquish his pretensions to the Company; he offered to deliver over the whole of his countries to the Company's sole disposal, provided they would allow him an annual income of two lacs of pagodas, and that he would bind himself and his heirs to the agreement for ever. But the Company refused to take advantage of an offer which was urged by his distresses; they chose rather to preserve inviolate their reputation for uprightness and generosity (which in the language of the nabob was 'as the brightness of the day'); they trusted to his gratitude for remuneration when he should be liberated from his difficulties, and be free to act from the spontaneous impulse of his mind. They accordingly rendered him every assistance which their counsel, their troops, and their treasures, could supply; and after an eventful war of fifteen years, they established him in the government of the Carnatic, at a vast expence of British blood and treasure. I shall now, sir, advert to the manner in which Mahomed Ally discharged this debt of gratitude. The ambition which had only slumbered in his breast during adversity, awakened with renovated strength after he had subdued all his enemies. He avowed the design of becoming soubahdar of the Dekan; and when he found that to assist schemes of foreign conquest and aggrandisement; and of internal oppression, was contrary to the wise policy of the Company's local governments, he endeavoured to undermine their authority by bribery and intrigue. In the pursuit of this purpose he bought over the worst servants of the Company, with the revenues of those countries which the British arms had acquired and delivered up to him; and he obstructed the counsels and conduct of their better officers by every sort of coun- teraction and defamation. On one occasion he raised a faction that destroyed the lawful government of the Company; and the uniform principle of his policy was, to pay those who were too low in pride or in principle to refuse money, in exact proportion to the value of those interests of the Company which it was in their power to sacrifice. In elucidation of this statement I shall here read to the house a record of the transactions of those times, before which the hon. gentleman opposite (Mr. Windham seconded the speech of Mr. Burke from which the following extract is made) must bow with deference and respect. 'Every man who opposes the government and its measures finds an immediate countenance from the nabob: even our discarded officers, however unworthy, are received into the nabob's service. The nabob is in a great degree the cause of our present inability (Oct. 11, 1769), by diverting the revenues of the Carnatic through private channels. In speaking of the nabob's conduct, 20th July, 1778: No sense of a common danger in case of a war could prevail on him to furnish the Company with what is absolutely necessary to assemble an army; though it is beyond a doubt, that money to a large amount is now hoarded up in his coffers at Chepauk, and tunkaws are granted to individuals upon some of his most valuable countries. The creditors inspired into the mind of the nabob of Arcot (then a dependant on the Company, of the humblest order) a scheme of the most wild and desperate ambition that I believe ever was admitted into the thoughts of a man so situated. First, they persuaded him to consider himself as a principal member in the political system of Europe; in the next place, they held out to him, and he readily imbibed, the idea of the general empire of Indostan. In pursuance of this project, they extinguished the Company as a sovereign power in that part of India; they with drew the Company's garrisons out of all the posts and strong holds of the Carnatic; they declined to receive the ambassadors from foreign courts, and remitted them to the nabob of Arcot; they ' fell upon, and totally destroyed, the oldest ally of the company, the king of Tanjore; and plundered the country to the amount of five millions sterling, one after another, in the nabob's name, but with English force, and brought into a miserable servitude all the princes and great independant nobility of a vast country. In proportion to these treasons and violences, which ruined the people, the fund of the nabob's debt grew and flourished. And let not the whole odium of these measures fall upon the creditors, to the exclusion of his highness: they were in perfect concordance with the feelings and wishes of his mind. Upon this subject let us again bear what Mr. Burke has said. 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 struggle 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 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 whipped out of the backs of the most miserable of men, that we are to pamper extortion, usury, and peculation. But the most wretched of the consequences which resulted from the infatuated counsels and intrigues of Mahomed Ally, was the sanguinary warfare with Hyder Ally; and which the honourable baronet (sir T. Turton) has most erroneously charged as one of the crimes of the Company's government towards Mahomed Ally, as if his intrigues had not been the principal cause of that calamity. (Sir T. Turton here rose and appealed to the house whether he had made use of this expression.) Mr. Lushington resumed:—Sir, if I have misstated the observations of the hon. baronet, I sincerely beg his pardon; but when the house considers the length of that hon. baronet's speech (more than four hours), it is as probable that he should have forgot some expressions of it as that I should; certain however I am, that the statement which I have made was the impression which this part of his speech left upon my mind; and the general impres- sion which his speech made upon me was this, that under the guise of a meretricious sensibility, he was the pander to the most licentious system of corruption and misrule that ever disgraced the name and authority of this country. Sir, my opinion that the invasion of Hyder Ally was in a great measure attributable to Mahomed Ally's councils, is derived from Mr. Burke, and I shall here read that passage of his works to the house. From that time forward a continued plot was carried on within the divan, black and white, of the nabob of Arcot, for the destruction of Hyder Ally. When at length Hyder Ally found that he had to do with men who were the determined enemies of human intercourse itself, he decreed to make the Carnatic an everlasting monument of his vengeance; then ensued a scene of woe the like of which no eye had seen, no heart conceived, and which no tongue can adequately tell; all the horrors of war before known or heard of were mercy to that new havoc. I will not wound the feelings of this house by quoting this description more at huge; but I can assure them, from personal observation, and from the sad tales of some who survived the plagues of war and famine, that this is not the language of poetry or fiction; it is a real picture of the most dreadful series of misfortunes that ever afflicted mankind. And what was the conduct of the nabob of Arcot, whilst this hurricane of misery was raging? Did and compunctious feelings of conscience for the evils which he had brought upon his people, produce any change in his infatuated counsels? Did he shew any disposition to repair his former wickedness, or to repose in sincere alliance and confidence upon the Company's government r The opportunity of returning to a better estimation of his duties and interests was peculiarly favourable, for the nobleman who then administered that government would have upheld him in every wise and virtuous resolution; this, however, did not consist with his highness's views. In an hour of alarm he had consented to transfer the management of his country to lord Macartney; but he soon removed every claim of merit founded upon this concession, by a system of counteraction that obstructed much of that benefit which had otherwise been derived from it. Sir, my hon. friend (colonel Allan) who spoke from this side of the house in the former night's debate, traced with so much accuracy and ability the course of lord Mac- artney's conduct and sentiments in regard to Mahomed Ally and the Carnatic, that I will not trespass upon the time of this house, or weaken the force of his arguments, by any further references to that period. I shall advance in my statement to the year 1787, when our connection with Mahomed Ally assumed a more definite shape. In that year sir A. Campbell entered into a treaty with the nabob, prescribing in explicit terms the duties of the two contracting parties. The Company was solely intrusted with the military defence of the Carnatic, and the protection of the nabob from all his enemies. The nabob was bound to provide from the revenues an annual subsidy of nine lacs of pagodas, to be paid to the Company, and twelve lacs on account of his creditors; and to put a stop to those mischiefs which had arisen from his intrigues and emissaries in the courts of native states in India, a clause was expressly introduced as follows; His highness will not enter into any political negotiations or controversies with any state or power without the consent or approbation of the president in council of Fort St. George. From this period until 1790, Mahomed Ally held the Carnatic under this treaty; at that time lord Cornwallis engaged in the war against Tippoo Sultan, and at the close of it restored the country to the nabob, subject to the conditions of the treaty of 1792, which is now the object of our deliberation. With the permission of the house, I will read the preamble of that treaty, as the best explanation of lord Cornwallis's intentions in making it. Whereas a certain engagement, was entered into between the hon. English East India Company and his highness the nawaub of the Carnatic, bearing dale 24th February 1787, for the purpose of cementing an everlasting friendship with each other, and of contributing mutually towards the defence of the Carnatic and countries dependant thereon; whereby it was stipulated that the said Company should maintain a military force, and that the said nawaub should pay annually a certain sum of money arising from the revenues of the Carnatic, and should furnish sufficient and satisfactory security, under certain conditions expressed in the said engagement, for the regular payment of the sum stipulated to the said Company; and whereas it appears by the representations of the said nawaub, that the resources of the Carnatic are not competent to enable him to perform the stipulations in the said engagement; and whereas it further appears that the security which the said nawaub agreed in the above-mentioned engagement to furnish for the due payment of the stipulated sum to the Company, is in its nature inadequate to the end intended; wherefore the engagement aforesaid shall henceforth be considered by the contracting parties as annulled, and in lieu thereof the following articles agreed to. From this preamble to the treaty of 1792, it will be seen, that in forming a new treaty with Mahomed Ally, lord Comwallis had two principal objects in view; first, the generous one of relieving the nabob from a payment which he believed burthensome to him, and his lordship accordingly reduced his annual payments from twenty-one to fifteen lacs of sicca pagodas; secondly, to obtain a real security for the payment of the subsidy to the Company in all time to come. The security provided was the mortgage of particular districts, which were to be taken by the Company in the event of failure; and that these districts might not be injured by that system of extortion and usury by which the people had been so cruelly oppressed, and the Carnatic so much exhausted, it was stipulated that his highness should not, on any account, grant tunkaws, and in order to render the breach of this part of the treaty more improbable and difficult, it was further stipulated, that any tunkaws which might be granted should become void, in event of the districts coming into the Company's hands; thus-providing a double security against the violation of this article of the treaty: the first part of the clause pledging the nabob's faith as our ally, the last part operating on the fears of the money-lenders. The importance which lord Cornwallis attached to the security provided by the clause of the treaty here alluded to, and to the preservation of that security from acts of injury and waste, is sufficiently shewn by the relinquishment of six lacs of pagodas annually. This large cession had been unjustifiable on any other ground, but if the nabob had fulfilled this part of the treaty it had been well bestowed. The evils which had arisen from this system in past times were well known to lord Cornwallis, and his humane mind anxiously desired to prevent the possibility of their recurrence We know what a scene the Carnatic had presented during these operations; they had been described by Burke in the following words:?Inconsequence of this double game, all the territorial revenues have, at one time or other, been covered by those locusts the English soucars; not one single foot of the Carnatic has escaped them, a territory as large as England. During these operations, what a scene has that country presented! The usurious European assignee supersedes the nabob's native farmer of the revenues, the farmer flies to the nabob's presence to claim his bargain, whilst his servants murmur for wages and his soldiers mutiny for pay; the mortgage to the European assignee is then resumed, and the native farmer replaced, again to be removed on the new clamour of the European assignee. Every man of rank and landed fortune being long since extinguished, the remaining miserable last cultivator, who grows to the soil, after having his back scored by the farmer, has it again flayed by the whip of the assignee, and is thus by a ravenous, because a short-lived, succession of claimants, lashed from oppressor to oppressor, whilst a single drop of blood is left as the means of extorting a single grain of corn. Do not think I paint; far, very far from it; I do not reach the fact, nor approach to it; men of respectable condition, men equal to your substantial English yeomen, are daily tied up and scourged to answer the multiplied demands of various contending and contradictory titles, all issuing from one and the same source Tyrannous exaction brings on servile concealment, and that again calls forth tyrannous coercion; they move in a circle, mutually producing and produced; till at length nothing of humanity is left in the government; no trait of integrity, spirit, or manliness, in the people. It was under impressions such as are here described, that lord Cornwallis had written to the court of directors in the year 1790, in the terms quoted by my honourable friend (colonel Allan) in the former debate; and after two years further experience and local observation of the state of the Carnatic, lord Cornwallis determined to relinquish six lacs of pagodas annually to the nabob, without acquiring any other concession for the Company than the following clauses, intended to put an end to that clandestine influence which the worst Europeans had so long-exercised at the durbar, and the right to collect the poligar tribute at the Company's own expence and risk. 'In consequence of this measure, whereby the districts mentioned in the schedule No. 2, become responsible for any arrears that may accrue in the payment of the above stipulated kists, the said nawaub agrees that he will not grant tunkaws or assignments on any account on the revenues thereof; and if, contrary to this condition, any tunkaws or assignments should exist when the said districts or any of them shall be assumed by the said Company, such tunkaws or assignments shall be declared by the said Company and the said nawaub to be of no value, nor shall they remain in effect. It appears to me quite evident, as I have already stated, that the intention of lord Cornwallis in framing this clause was, first to bind the faith of the nabob against the breach of it, and secondly to operate upon the fears of the tunkhadars, so as to restrain them from encouraging the nabob to the secret violation of it. But the men who had established an usurious connection at the durbar, saw from the moment that the treaty of 1792 was published, that the faithful execution of these clauses would destroy their profit, by putting an end to that secret influence which had so long alienated the nabob's confidence from the local government of the Company, and precluded the possibility of any reform in his administration: it was therefore suggested to the nabob, that as the clause contained a specific penalty which attached only upon the money-lender, his highness might break his faith with the Company without fear of any evil consequence to himself; and as he had always contended with eagerness and passion for delivering up to his pretended creditors his territories and his subjects, he again indulged in this inveterate habit. The calamitous process of these tunkaws has been most ably and minutely described by lord Hobart, who was continually embroiled with the durbar and its agents on account of the breach of this part of the treaty. Whoever has read the minute and the letter of lord Hobart to the court of directors, dated 15th September 1792, will recollect, that lord Hobart regarded the granting of these tunkaws by the nabob as a fundamental violation of the letter and spirit of the treaty of 1723. Nor was his lordship singular in this opinion; I speak from personal knowledge when I say, that all the best servants of the Company entertained the same opinion; and we know that the government at home and the court of di- rectors, fully concurred in this conclusion, as appears from many of their public dispatches, and particularly the following, dated 5th June 1799, to the government of fort St. George. We have been advised by the earl of Mornington, that the nabob continues to oppose a determined resolution to the modification of the treaty of 1792, which has been repeatedly proposed to him. At the same time we observe that his highness has distinctly acknowledged that he is in the practice of raising money annually by assignments of the revenues of those districts which form the security for the payment of the Company's subsidy. As this practice is unquestionably contrary to the letter, and subversive of the spirit, of that treaty, we direct, that immediately upon the receipt hereof you adopt the necessary measures for taking possession in the name of the Company of the whole or any part of the said districts, the revenue of which shall appear to be so assigned; and that you continue to hold the same, and collect the rents thereof, in order that the Company may not in future be deprived of the only security which they possess under the before mentioned treaty, to answer any failure in the nabob in the discharge of his subsidy: you will immediately communicate to the nabob the determination we have come to, and the orders you have received relative to this point. I have entered into this detail to shew, that the interpretation subsequently put upon this article of the treaty (and the conduct of Omdut ul Omrah in regard to it) by marquis Wellesley and by lord Clive, was not an arbitrary or hasty construction of those noble lords; but that it was the impartial concurring judgment of the Company's best servants at fort St. George, of lord Hobart, of the court of directors, and of the board of controul, for a period of 7 years. If, therefore, the arrangement made with Azeem ul Dowiah upon the death of Omdut ul Omrah, and the absolute refusal of Ally Hussein to give the Company a security against the future breach of the treaty of 1792, had rested on this ground alone, I should have contended that it was warranted by the letter and spirit of the instructions transmitted by the court of directors to India (who had also expressly ordered that the country should not be restored to the nabob in the event of war, until a better arrangement could be made with him); that it was justified by the law of nations, and the duties of humanity to our fellow-creatures.—But the house know that the arrangement made with Azeem ul Dowlah, is supported also upon other grounds: I mean of course the treacherous correspondence discovered at Seringapatam, coupled with the embarrassments opposed by the nabob to the collection and movement of our supplies during the last war with Tippoo. I shall now briefly examine that evidence. This part of the question has already received a very ample discussion in India, where every argument and objection could be best felt and appreciated. It has been carefully investigated by men possessed of that knowledge of the Eastern languages and manners, which rendered them peculiarly fitted for this trust; men whose characters were never tainted by the breath of slander until the hon. baronet delivered his speech in the former debate; and who, far from deserving such treatment, are entitled, for their public honour and public usefulness, to the protection and applause of this house. The right hon. member who spoke second in this debate on a former night, delivered his sentiments with so much perspicuity and judgment upon the nature of this evidence, that I shall confine my remarks to those impressions which local knowledge, and a tolerable acquaintance with Persian correspondence, have suggested to me during the examination of it. In doing so, I shall follow the order in which the correspondence is recorded; not imitating the example of the hon. baronet, who in pursuit of his purpose of throwing a ridicule upon this evidence, thought fit to postpone the burden of examining the cypher (which he knew to be the document of the most hostile tendency, and essentially necessary to give the true meaning of certain passages in other letters) until he had slurred over all the other documents. In examining the first number, I am reminded that the honourable director, in adverting to this evidence, seated that nothing could be more unjust that to attach any imputation upon the character or truth of Wallajah or Omdut ul Omrah on account of this correspondence, since the Parts regarded as most obnoxious were communicated in the presence of lord Cornwallis and sir William Medows. Sir, it is evident to me that the honourable director has not accurately examined this correspondence. Those professions where Wallajah attempts to raise himself in the estimation of Tippoo by a gross calumny against the British government, his ally, were not made in the presence of lord Cornwallis and sir Wm. Medows, nor was any part of the correspondence communicated to either of them. The instance to which I allude, is where Wallajah speaks of the war undertaken by lord Cornwallis against Tippoo sultan in the year 1780. Wallajah knew perfectly well that lord Cornwallis had engaged in that war from the generous resolution of protecting our helpless ally the rajah of Travaneore; and yet Wallajah tells Tippoo Sultan's vakeels, May God long preserve Tippoo Sultan, who is the pillar of the religion of Mahomed! Night and day I used to be absolved in this contemplation, and to pray for his highness's prosperity; I call God to witness this fact, because the confederacy of their allies was for the subversion of the Mahomedan religion. It is solely to be attributed to the divine goodness, that the prayers of us sinners have been accepted; believe it true that I from, my heart desire the welfare of the sultan. Three days afterwards, when lord Cornwallis and sir W. Medows were present with the vakeels, Wallajah took occasion to observe, that we (the vakeels) considered him to have been an enemy; whereas he declared in the presence of God that he was not, and is not; that on the contrary he was a friend and well-wisher; and that he had opposed the breach between your majesty and the allied states to such a degree, that every one decided in his own mind that inwardly your majesty and his highness were one; and he desired us to ask lord Cornwallis and sir W. Medows, who were present, whether he said true or not. Every person acquainted with the situation of Wallajah, knows that he did oppose the war, and the cause of that opposition. We know he feared, if war did take place, that lord Cornwallis would be necessitated to assume the temporary possession of the Carnatic; and rather than this should happen, Wallajah was perfectly willing and anxious' that the rajah of Travaneore, like himself a helpless ally of our government, should be abandoned by the British government to the violence of Tippoo. Let those who are acquainted with the mind of lord Cornwallis judge what would have been his feelings, if Wallajah had told the vakeels of Tippoo in his lordship's presence, that he had attacked their master, not in defence of the rajah of Travaneore, but to subvert the Mahomedan religion. This communication was however made by Wallajah, but to the vakeels in secret, not in the presence or with the knowledge of lord Cornwallis; far therefore from considering the offensive nature of the first speech to the vakeels on the 10th of June, as done away by that made in the presence of lord Cornwallis on the 13th of June, or that any part of the criminality of the whole of this correspondence is explained by any communication that took place with the knowledge of lord Cornwallis, it appears to me that the reference made to lord Cornwallis and general Medows in the presence of the vakeels, was one of those studied contrivances in which his highness was so fertile, and by which he endeavoured to gain, by general professions of friendship for Tippoo in the hearing of lord Cornwallis, the confidence of the vakeels in his previous defamation of his lordship's motives for entering into the war. In the few remarks which the hon. baronet bestowed upon the cypher, he declared that the use of such instruments was a common occurrence in India; and that it was impossible to conceive a cypher like this, so simple and limited in its expressions, capable of being intended or used for any treacherous or hostile purpose. I certainly differ entirely from the hon. baronet in his opinion of the frequent use of cyphers of this description in India; in the affairs of private life such instruments never are used, and even in political transactions the use of a cypher is a very rare occurrence. But the hon. baronet would prove nothing by-proving the use of such cyphers in political correspondence in India, because Wallajah and Omdut ul Onirah were wisely interdicted by the treaty of 1792 (as they had been by the treaty of 1787) from entering into any negotiations or political correspondence with any European or native powers without the consent of the said Company.' It has, however, been suggested, that this cypher was intended to conduct a marriage between the families of Tippoo and Wallajah. I will not detain the house by going into all the reasoning founded upon other parts of the evidence, written and oral, to shew the absurdity of this proposition; but I will state plainly upon a view of the cypher itself, the utter impossibility of applying it to any purpose of marriage. The only expression in it which might lead to such a supposition in the mind of a person ignorant of eastern manners and languages, is the word 'ring;' but as a ring is not used in eastern marriages, it can have no reference to that ceremony. Rejecting therefore this absurd, irrational proposition, which is directly contradicted by the evidence of the vakeels, and all the circumstances so forcibly stated by the right hon. gent. (Mr. Wallace) in the former debate, I must look for a different explanation of the intention of this cypher. Upon the first view of this document, the opprobrious terms in which the three allies are designated, cannot fail to strike attention; but it has still been asserted to be so limited as to preclude the use of it in any matter of policy or secrecy. This assertion made a due impression upon me when I first heard it; and I felt it my duty to put it to the test by composing a letter that should describe an atrocious intention (such as the massacre at Vellore), and then endeavour to render it into the language of this cypher, so that it would be unintelligible to a person not possessed of it, and easily understood by a person having the cypher. I can assure the hon. gent, opposite that I found no difficulty whatever in applying this cypher in this manner, and further that this sort of metaphorical cypher best corresponds with the genius and character of the people. The next document which was particularly objected to by the hon. baronet was, the translation of a copy of a letter of Tippoo Sultan to Wallajah, in which some of the terms are actually used. The hon. baronet asked, as this was only a copy of a letter, who could say that the original was ever sent it might have been composed by Tippoo for amusement, and: honourable members in this house well know that themselves sometimes composed letters which they did not afterwards send. Sir, when I recollect the manner and the place where this letter was found, that it was discovered in the office of Tippoo Sultan, and when I recollect the remarkable regularity of the sultan in matters of business, I cannot subscribe to the puerile idea of the hon. baronet, that this letter might have been composed for amusement. The honourable baronet, and others of us, may write letters, or compose speeches intended to be spoke, and which we have no opportunity of speaking; but in affairs of state, when I find in an office of state a copy of a letter sent, I cannot reconcile to my mind the absurdity of de- nying all credit to it because it might not have been sent. This sort of objection may be very proper in a court of law; but I trust that those who have to guard the safety of this country from foreign treachery, will not wait for this sort of evidence before they act against impending danger. The objection made by the hon. baronet to the next number was, I think, of a nature equally unreasonable. It is a translation of a copy of a letter from Tippoo Sultan to Omdut ul Omrah, the nabob of the Camatic; and as this letter is dated 29th November 1792, when Omdut ul Omrah was not nabob of the Carnatic, this circumstance made the letter look to the honourable baronet like a forgery. The hon. baronet dwelt very largely upon this point; but divested of all the inflated language in which he represented it, the matter is very simple. The title given to Tippoo Sultan and Omdut ul Omrah, is probably not one tenth part of the original Persian title; the title must be regarded as the arbitrary act of the translator, who did not chuse to waste his time in translating all the nonsense of these titles; but knowing that Omdut ul Omrah was nabob of the Carnatic at the time he was translating the letter, he gave him the title which he then possessed: such is the obvious solution of this great mystery. The next letter which I shall notice is No. 11: it is from the vakeels of Tippoo to their master, where Omdut ul Omrah says: You will give my respectful compliments by way of remembrance to his majesty, and inform him that he may consider me from my heart attached to him; and that, please God, at a proper occasion, my fidelity towards him shall be made manifest to him.' Sir, I am disposed in the examination of this correspondence to make the largest allowance for the exaggerated professions of friendship which the natives, and particularly the princes, of India, are in the habit of making to each other; but when those professions are accompanied by actions, we can no longer doubt the sincerity of the intention. I remember what anxiety the British government suffered from the treacherous conduct of Omdut ul Omrah, in promising money which be afterwards withheld, and from the hostile obstructions of his affairs to our supplies in the war against Tippoo in 1799; and I do firmly believe that he did then fulfil the professions which he had made in 1792 to the sultan to the utmost limit of his power, consistent with the prudent con- cealment of his purpose from lord Wellesley's discernment. The hon. baronet treated with a considerable degree of ridicule, a translation of a note written with a pencil upon a half-sheet of post-paper, with an envelope of English paper, by his highness Omdut ul Omrah, apparently addressed to Gholam Ally khan.' This letter, though signed Gholam Hussein, was imputed to Omdut ul Omrah, and without any evidence was assigned to Gholam Ally khan. These objections of the hon. baronet's are carefully removed: Omdut ul Omrah often signed the name of Gholam Hussein to his letters, and frequently made use of English paper and a pencil. I have myself received a letter of this description from him; and Mr. Edmonstone, the translator, than whom perhaps there never was a gentleman in India more skilful in Persian writing, knew Omdut ul Omrah's hand-writing perfectly well. In regard to the letter being apparently addressed to Gholam Ally khan, it is almost impossible to assign it to any other person. From the contents of the letter, it was cordially addressed to a syeed in the confidence of Omdut ul Omrah, about the person of Tippoo, and connected with Ally Rizza Cawn: such was Gholam Ally's situation; he was a syeed, and had been with Ally Rizza, the channel of communication between Omdut ul Omrah and Tippoo, and was still at Seringapatam. The last letter which I shall notice is one written by Omdut ul Omrah to Gholam Ally khan, in the year 1797, when he was nabob of the Gamatic. To this letter and the contents of it the hon. baronet objected, as being of the most trivial nature; and in regard to the communications alluded to in it as having been made by two of Tippoo's agents, Mahomed Ghauss, and Mahomed Ghose khan, it was not possible to consider that they could be charged with any communications hostile to the British government, being men of low rank and character. I am perfectly aware that these men were very different in their qualities and dignity from Gholam Ally khan and Rizza Ally khan; but I contend that they had enough of both for any purpose of treachery or violence against us. This is the sort of person generally employed in India upon such occasions; and as a proof that such is the custom, I will here read to the house a passage from Orme's history very applicable to this question. Orme says:?The secrets of the princes of Hin- dostan are very difficult to be discovered: in affairs of consequence nothing except in the most equivocal terms is ever given by them in writing; and whenever the matter is of great importance or iniquity, it is trusted to a messenger, a man of low rank and great cunning, who bears a letter of recommendation testifying that he is to be trusted in all he says; so indefinite a commission reserves to the lord who gives it the resource of disavowing the transaction of his agent, and this he never fails to do whenever the iniquity is discovered. Deriving my knowledge of India from this pure authority, and from a local residence of eleven years, I deem it my duty to state to the house, that I regard this correspondence as the evidence of a treacherous spirit of hostility on the part of Wallajah and Omdut ul Omrah; and far from being surprized that the proof is not of that nature to satisfy the interested feelings of the partisans of those nabobs, or the doubting minds of some few of the gentlemen opposite, lam rather surprised that so much has been discovered in writing; for I must repeat upon my own knowledge, what I have already stated upon the authority of Orme. that in matters of great iniquity seldom is any thing committed by the natives of India to writing; they thoroughly understand the arts of verbal prevarication; in the examination of a witness, so little does he regard the truth, that he will vary his testimony according to his feelings and interests, and according to the impression which he thinks his first assertion may have made upon you. The exposure of his verbal contradictions he scarcely regards, and never considers his case hopeless until a document appears against him. In this case I am satisfied from the evidence in writing, connected with what I know of the conduct of Omdut ul Omrah during the war against Tippoo, that he had cherished the counsels and intentions of that prince, defamed the character of our alliance, and had violated the letter and spirit of the treaty of 1792, for purposes hostile to our interests and security. It has been contended that, although the hostile conduct of Wallajah and Omdut ul Omrah had forfeited their right to the Company's protection, yet Ally Hussein, the innocent heir of the latter, not having partaken in his guilt, ought not to have suffered for it. Sir, I am sure no person could feel more sincerely than lord Clive for the necessity which called upon him to act against Ally Hussein; and the whole of the proceedings upon your table shew how anxiously and humanely that noble lord endeavoured to preserve to Ally Hussein a situation of affluence and dignity. But lord Clive was not at liberty to intrust the rights and security of the Company in the Carnatic to those very ministers who had been the counsellors of Omdut ul Omrah, and were the guardians of Ally Hussein; and therefore he exercised that which is the right and duty of nations, to call upon the son to repair the mischief of the father. The extract which I hold in my hand, written by Mr. Domat upon the public law of nations, appears to me unanswerable upon this point, and I shall with the leave of the house read it to them. An heir or successor, from the very circumstance of his possessing the inheritance, is not only bound for the engagements of the person whom he succeeds, but cannot be discharged from the obligation which the deceased may have occasioned by his crimes or offences, neither under the pretext that he derives no benefit from their crimes or offences, nor because there may have been no accusation or condemnation against the deceased. For though the offence or injury committed by the deceased were of such a nature as never to have yielded; any positive profit to himself, yet the heir or successor, as he reaps advantages by the inheritance, is bound for the reparation of the damages occasioned by the offence of the person to whose possessions he succeeds.—Having thus shortly stated to the house my opinions upon the evidence, founded upon a tolerable knowledge of Persian correspondence, I have no hesitation in giving it as the unbiassed feeling of my mind, that lord Wellesley and lord Clive would have deserved the reproaches of this country, if, knowing as they did how grossly the treaty had been violated in granting tunkaws, and in maintaining a secret hostile correspondence, they had been restrained by any fear of the personal enmity which it might excite from insisting upon an arrangement like that concluded with Azeem ul Dowlah. For nearly 50 years the Company had been wasting their other revenues and accumulating an immense debt in support of the expences of their connection with Mahomed Ally; from the year I760 until 1786, the Company were satisfied to protect the whole of the Carnatic for a payment little exceeding four lacs, leaving his highness to riot in corruption and personal ostentation upon a revenue of 260,000 lacs annually; and when at length this connexion is broken, after the waste of the Bengal revenues, after the waste of torrents of British blood, there is a debt often millions upon the country, composed in some instances of bribes paid in the shape of bonds for obstructing the Company's government, and equal in its amount to all the nabob ever paid to the Company for their protection. Having already described, from the works of Burke, the nature of the nabob's government down to the year 1782, and subsequently from the opinions of lord Macartney, sir A. Campbell, lord Cornwallis, and lord Hobart, I may assert, without any appearance of arrogance, upon my own personal observation, that all I ever saw of his highness's government either at Madras, where I resided six years, or in the interior of the provinces, where I continued five years, has fully confirmed to me the literal truth of every thing stated by those illustrious persons. With such impressions of the calamity resulting from this management, I could not but rejoice in the measure which extinguished the source of so many evils; and as there seems to be a doubt entertained of the benefits which have been derived to the people from the change of government, I shall explain to the house, in a few words, in what great particulars this difference between the government of the Company and that of the nabob of the Carnatic consists. And first I would say a few words upon the pecuniary consequences of this arrangement, which have been s-o much misstated by the hon. member (Mr. G. Johnstone) who spoke from the floor. That hon. member has declared that the Company have received, since their possession of the Carnatic, less as a net revenue, than they before derived as subsidy from the nabob. In the opening of his speech that hon. member avowed that he took shame to himself for not having studied the voluminous papers before the house, so as to speak in the manner he desired upon this great question; and certainly, sir, the part of his speech in regard to the revenues of the Carnatic, is a very perfect illustration of the justness of this his confession. Had that hon. member read the statements which (at my instance) have been laid upon the table of this house, he would have seen that the net average revenues derived from the Carnatic since the treaty made with Azeem ud Dowlah by lord Clive, have been nearly eighteen lacs of star pagodas yearly, which is exactly double the amount received in subsidy annually from Wallajah or Omdut ul Omrah. Such are the happy consequences of this arrangement upon the Company's finances. The house will, I trust, pardon me, if I detain them for a short time longer in explaining the effects of the change of government upon the people of the Carnatic. Sir, that country is refreshed by few living brooks, or running streams, and it has rain only at a season; great part of the cultivation of the lands (and of course the subsistence of the people) depends upon the preservation of these rains in large reservoirs or tanks, which are to be found in every village, the sacred works of former princes and benefactors. To keep these tanks in repair, requires means far beyond the faculties of the common farmer, or cultivator of the soil; and if not repaired they soon fall into decay, whereby great part of the benefit they were intended to dispense is lost. To these works Mahomed Ally and Omdut ul Omrah paid scarcely any attention; every where the tanks were in a state of ruin, whilst the revenues, which arise almost entirely from the cultivation of the lands, were rigorously collected according to the old accounts of cultivation in the villages. Hence the continual oppression of the people, whose miseries were embittered by reflecting that their poverty was owing to the parsimony of their ruler. In the company's districts, large sums have always been expended upon the tanks; and I do, sir, exult in the prospect of that plenty which the repair of the tanks in the Carnatic will unquestionably dispense through every village. The next great difference between the company, regards the religions and charitable establishments of the people. The hon. gentlemen opposite are, I dare say, not aware that nearly one-tenth of the revenues of the Carnatic are under various heads applicable to these eatablishments. These are also the pious gifts of the Hindoo princes, and the due appropriation of them is regarded with the deepest interest by all the classes of Hindoos in the Carnatic under the nabob's government; these religious allowances formed the fund upon which his unprincipled servants preyed with impunity; and it has been the wise determination of the company's government to secure this sacred resource from fraud and peculation, and to apply it wholly to its original pious uses, the support and repair of the pagodas and choultries, and the subsistence of thousands whose livelihood and comfort altogether depend upon the faithful application of these grants. Sir, I know what happiness this measure extends through those extensive provinces, and I trust that it will ever be continued. The last point which I shall notice is the administration of justice, and this in fact comprises every thing Under the nabob's administration there was no justice at all: it was an annual struggle between his tyrannous exactions and the endeavours of the people to evade them; hence the great mass of the people were discontented, and ever looking to a change. Upon the rumour of an internal commotion, or the approach of an invading army, they endeavoured to increase the general disorder instead of feeling an interest in quelling it. The Company have established in part, and propose to institute throughout the Carnatic, a fixed assessment of the landed revenue; and regular judicial courts, where justice is administered by a person liberally rewarded, and whose honour and interest it is to decide impartially and diligently. This system protects with equal justice the persons and property of individuals against each other and against the government, and will soon substitute the blessings of good order for the miseries of tyranny and injustice. Upon the whole then, sir, I rejoice in the treaty made with Azeem ud Dowlah; I see that it is justified by the law of nations, that it is in the highest degree beneficial to the Company, and above all, that it dispenses happiness to millions; I shall therefore cordially vote against the hon. baronet's motions, and in favour of the previous question and amendment, as proposed by the right hon. gent, who spoke second in the former debate.

The house then became clamorous for the question, when a division took place:

For the previous question 128
For the Resolution 17
Majority —111

Before the gallery was opened, the house again divided on the fourth Resolution,

For the previous question 124
For the Resolution 15
Majority —109

Sir Thomas Turton,

on his return into the house after this division, observed, that the numbers on his side were so few, that he. should not now proceed to move his other two Resolutions, but would consent to postpone them, if the right hon. gent. (Mr. Wallace) would consent to postpone his resolution of approbation.

Mr. Wallace

said, that after the complete defeat which the cause of the hon. bart. had sustained, he might well forbear moving any Resolution of approbation; for what approbation could be stronger than that testified by the majorities with which the hon. baronet's Resolutions had been rejected? He saw no reason, however, for entering into any further discussion on a future day; but would now read the Resolution with which he intended to close the business. It was as follows: "That it is the opinion of this house, that the marquis Wellesley and lord Clive, in their conduct relative to the Carnatic, were influenced solely by an anxious zeal and solicitude to promote the permanent security, welfare, and prosperity, of the British possessions in India."

Sir T. Turton

determined not to proceed any further, but moved that the other orders of the day be now read, intimating, that this day fortnight he should move his other two Resolutions. The Chancellor of the Exchequer and sir John Anstruther were perfectly indifferent when the hon. baronet should move them. What had passed in the debate of this night, and in the former debate, had completely shewn how unanswerable were the arguments which had been urged on their side; and they were confident that when the public saw the state of the divisions, after so many boasts, and so many procrastinations, they would not fail to form a just opinion of die nature of the whole proceeding.—The other orders of the day were then disposed of, and the house adjourned, at three o'clock on Thursday morning.