SELECT COMMITTEE MOVED FOR. (Hansard, 7 July 1863)

§ SIR FITZROY KELLY

^* I feel that I shall not in vain solicit the attention and the indulgence of the House, when I state that the Motion which I have to make, for a Select Committee to inquire into the claims of His Highness Azeem Jah to the title and dignity of Nawab of the Carnatic, involves at once the honour of the Crown and the good faith of the country. In 1801 a treaty, which I shall satisfy the House is now binding upon Her Majesty the Queen, was entered into between the East India Company, then the rulers of India, and Azeem-ul-Dowlah, under which that Prince was recognised as Nawab of the Carnatic; and His Highness granted and made over to the Company the entire administration of the civil and military affairs of the Carnatic, with the collection of its revenues, saving and reserving to the Nawab one-fifth of the amount, or about £116,000 a year, for the maintenance of his dignity, and the support of his family and dependents. The alliance between the Company and the Princes of this house had been cemented 367 and established by many previous treaties, and the Nawabs had from the earliest period of the modern history of Hindostan been ever found among the most faithful and effective of the allies of England. In 1749 Anwar-ood-Deen fell gallantly fighting side by side, with British soldiers, against the French, at the age of 104. His son and successor, Mahomet Ali, better known as Wallah Jah, throughout his reign, which lasted till 1795, stood by and supported the Company in all their long and sanguinary conflicts with the French, with Hyder Ali, and with Tippoo Sahib. Omdul-ul-Omrah, his son, was also the faithful ally of the Company until his death, in 1801. At that period the Company, who had for a quarter of a century struggled to obtain the command of the civil and military resources of the Carnatic—and who had now, with the powerful aid of this line of princes, overcome their enemies, and established peace throughout the Peninsula of India—thought this a fitting opportunity to obtain their long desired object. The Nawab had left a son, Ali Houssain, upon whose legitimacy some doubt existed, or was suggested by the Company themselves, and to him they proprosed the cession, virtually, of the Government of the Carnatic, by transferring to them the administration of its affairs and the collection of its revenues. The offer was unhesitatingly and peremptorily refused by Ali Houssain; but the nephew of Omdul, Azeem-ul-Dowlah, was prevailed upon to grant all that was demanded by the Company, upon the condition that he should be recognised as the Nawab of the Carnatic, with the reservation of the one-fifth of its revenues; and the treaty of the 31st of July 1801 was made. He died in 1819, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Azeem Jah, upon whose right of succession under the treaty no question was raised by the Government of India. In 1825 his son, then in his minority, Mahomed Ghouse Khan at once succeeded him without opposition, and without question. Throughout his minority, his uncle Azeem Jah, the Prince who now appeals to this House, assumed the office of guardian to his nephew, and was treated as such, and as presumptive heir to the Nawabship, by the Company and their officers throughout the Carnatic, until the death of Mahomed in 1855. Then, for the first time, the East India Company refused to fulfil the treaty, and to recognise the title of Azeem Jah to the succession, and declared that the treaty 368 existed for the life only of Azeem-ul-Dowlah. I have now to call the attention of the House to the language of this treaty. It is insisted by the Government that it endured only for the life of Azeem-ul-Dowlah; that his successors, for two or three generations, were recognised only as matter of grace and favour; and that it is now competent to them to consider the treaty at an end, and to degrade the hereditary Prince Azeem Jah to the condition of a subject and a dependent upon their bounty; but to retain to themselves the exclusive dominion of the Carnatic, its civil and military resources, and its revenues. I, on the other hand, have to submit to the House that the treaty is binding, as well on the British Government as on the Nawabs of the Carnatic, for all time to come; but that if it be otherwise, and if the treaty expired upon the death of Azeem-ul-Dowlah in 1819, although the Queen, who has assumed the rights and the position of the East India Company, may, as matter of policy, refuse to recognise Prince Azeem Jah, or any other particular individual as Nawab of the Carnatic, Her Majesty has ceased to possess the rights conveyed to the Company under the treaty over the subjects, or the affairs, or the resources, or the revenues of that country. And now for the treaty itself. It is entitled "A Treaty with Azeem-ul-Dowlah, 1801"— Treaty for settling the Succession to the Soubahdarry of the Territories of Arcot, and for vesting the Administration of the Civil and Military Government of the Carnatic Pagen Ghaut, in the United Company of Merchants trading to the East Indies. Whereas the several treaties which have been concluded between the United Company of Merchants of England trading to the East Indies, and their Highnesses heretofore Nabobs of the Carnatic, have been intended to cement and identify the interests of the contracting parties; and whereas, in conformity to the spirit of the alliance, the said Company did, by the treaty concluded on the 12th July 1792, with the late Nabob, Wallah Jah, relinquish extensive pecuniary advantages, acquired by the previous Treaty of 1787, with the view and on the consideration of establishing a more adequate security for the interests of the British Government in the Carnatic; and whereas subsequent experience has proved that the intention of the contracting parties has not been fulfilled by the provisions of any of the treaties heretofore concluded between them; and whereas the Musnud of the Soubahdarry of Arcot having become vacant, the Prince Azeem-ul-Dowlah Bahadoor has been established by the English East India Company in the rank, property, and possessions of his ancestors, heretofore Nawabs of the Carnatic; and whereas the said Company and his Highness the said Prince 369 Azeem-ul-Dowlah Bahadoor have judged it expedient that additional provisions should at this time be made for the purpose of supplying the defects of all former engagements, and of establishing the connection between the said contracting parties on a permanent basis of security, in all times to come; wherefore the following treaty is now established and concluded by Edward Lord Clive, by and with the sanction and authority of the Marquess Wellesley, K. P., Governor General, on behalf of the said United Company on the one part, and his Highness the Nawab Azeem-ul-Dowlah, on his own behalf, on the other part, for settling the succession to the Soubahdarry of the territories of Arcot, and for vesting the administration of the Civil and Military Government of the Carnatic in the United Company of Merchants of England trading to the East Indies. Article I. The Nawab Azeem-ul-Dowlah Bahadoor is hereby formally established in the state and rank, with the dignities dependent thereon, of his ancestors, heretofore Nawabs of the Carnatic, and the possession thereof is hereby guaranteed by the Honourable East India Company to his said Highness Azeem-ul-Dowlah Bahadoor, who has accordingly succeeded to the Soubahdarry of the territories of Arcot. Article II. Such parts of the treaties heretofore concluded between the said East India Company and their Highnesses heretofore Nawabs of the Carnatic, as are calculated to strengthen the alliance, to cement the friendship, and to identify the interests of the contracting parties, are hereby renewed and confirmed, and accordingly, the friends and enemies of either are the friends and enemies of both parties. It will be observed, in the first place, that this is a treaty for settling the succession to the Soubahdarry of Arcot, and for vesting the administration of the civil and military government of the Carnatic in the Company. I would ask if this be consistent with a treaty to expire with the life of a man who might have died the next day or the next hour? The settling of the succession in the Nawab, and the Testing of the administration of the Carnatic in the Company, are equally, and in the same language, and to the same effect, provided for by the treaty. Was the succession to cease, and the Government of the Carnatic to continue against the will of the Nawabs, and at the pleasure of the Company? Again, the Prince is established "in the rank, property, and possessions of his ancestors, heretofore Nawabs of the Carnatic." Does that indicate a temporary, or an hereditary succession? The treaty is made "to establish the connection between the contracting parties on a permanent basis of security in all times to come." Is, then, the treaty to last in all times to come, in favour and for the benefit of the Company, but to cease to the prejudice of the Prince, with his life? In the first article the Nawab 370 is established "in the state, rank, and dignities of his ancestors;" and in Article 2, to which I entreat special attention, it is expressly provided that "such parts of former treaties as are calculated to strengthen the alliance, to cement the friendship, and to identify the interests of the contracting parties, are renewed and confirmed." Now, it is essential to observe what former treaties, and with what effect, are hereby confirmed. And first, by the Treaty of 1768, reciting that the Emperor Shah Allum had granted to Wallah Jah, his eldest son, and their heirs for ever, the government of the Carnatic, the East India Company, in conjunction with the Nawab, agrees with the Soubah of the Deccan that the Nawab Wallah Jah, his son, and their heirs, in succession, shall enjoy for ever the government of the Carnatic. This treaty being confirmed and incorporated with the Treaty of 1801, how can it be said that the Company had not recognised the hereditary right of the heirs and successors of Wallah Jah to the Government of this country? Then again, by the Treaty of 1787, the company and Wallah Jah, for himself, his heirs and successors, to place the defence and protection of the Carnatic on a solid and lasting foundation, agree that certain forts shall be placed in the hands of the Company, large subsidies paid to them, certain of the revenues consigned to them, and that for the satisfaction of the Nawab, his heirs and successors, an account shall be annually furnished. In 1792 another treaty by the Nawab in his own name, and for himself and his successors, to which Omdul-ul-Omrah was a party, binding also his own heirs, from the beginning to the end imports endurance and perpetuity. These treaties, then, being all made part of the Treaty of 1801, it becomes impossible for this country or the Crown to contend that the contract with the Nawab was otherwise than hereditary and perpetual. Then by the Treaty of 1801 itself, in Article 4, the administration of the civil and military governments of all the territories and dependencies of the Carnatic are for ever vested in the Company; and by Article 5, one-fifth part of the revenues of the Carnatic are to be annually allotted for the maintenance and support of the Nawab and his family. And now it is contended that the grant of the Carnatic and its resources and revenues to the Company is perpetual, but the reservation of the one-fifth of the revenues to the Nawab ex- 371 pires with his life. No Parliament, no court of law, no man of honour and intelligence, no tribunal on the face of the earth can maintain so dishonest, so senseless, so impossible a construction. But let us see how this treaty was considered, what interpretation was put on it by the highest authorities of Great Britain on the one side, and of India and its Princes on the other, at the time and after the time when the treaty was made. Upon the accession of the Nawab in 1801 a proclamation was issued by the Company in which His Highness the Nawab Azeem-ul-Dowlah is said to have succeeded to the hereditary rights of his father, and by the full acknowledgment of the Honourable Company, to the possession of the said Musnud, that their mutual engagements are unconditional, and liable to no change whatever; and that they shall last as long as the sun and moon shall endure. The barons, noblemen, grandees, and great officers of state are required to yield due obedience to the Company "by virtue of the rights and powers acquired to the said Company by compact with the present lawful Nawab of the Carnatic." So by a declaration, Fort St. George, 1801, to the native courts of Hyderabad and Poonah, and to the Governors of Bombay and Ceylon— His Highness Prince Azeem-ul-Dowlah having entered into engagements for the express purpose of reviving the alliance between the Company and his illustrious ancestors, the British Government has now resolved on supporting and establishing the hereditary pretensions of the Prince. Lord Clive himself, then Governor of Madras, on the 18th December 1801, addressing the members of the family of the Nawab, said, "that the new arrangement was made to preserve to that respectable family its ancient rank among the princes of Hindostan;" and also, "that His Highness succeeded to the rights of his illustrious ancestors, heretofore the Nawabs of the Carnatic;" adding, "and it is my especial duty to resist every attempt to violate the principles of the alliance now firmly and perpetually established." And Lord Clive again, in 1803, recorded in a minute of his office, that— An arrangement was therein proposed for their consideration, intended to secure to his Highness and his family the honours and immunities enjoyed by his predecessors, heretofore Nawabs of the Carnatic, under provisions of public treaties. But one of the most remarkable proofs of the hereditary character and effect of this treaty is afforded by the fact, that the 372 Prince having addressed an autograph letter to George III., in which he expressly states, "In virtue of my right of inheritance derived from my grandfather and father, the Company were pleased to install me in the Musnud of the Carnatic." His Majesty King George III. replied— We congratulate your Highness on your accession to the Musnud of your ancestors. Your Highness may be assured that we shall seize every occasion of affording you proofs of regard, and of continuing to your Highness, and to your family, our special friendship and protection. It is little to add that that Prince addressed most of the Native Powers of India with whom he had ever been in communication, informing them that he had succeeded by hereditary right and title, to the rank and the dominions of his ancestors; and the East India Company, by every public act and declaration, affirmed this view and interpretation of the treaty, and of the relation subsisting between them and the Nawab, until in our own times, to the dishonour and discredit of the Government of England, the treaty was repudiated or perverted from its real effect, and the claim was made to retain all that was granted to great Britain, and to withhold and to confiscate all that belonged and was reserved to the Princes of the Carnatic. But it was not only at the time of the treaty, but when the Musnud descended upon the issue of Azeem-ul-Dowlah, that the Company continued to recognise the perpetual operation of the treaty. In 1819, Azeem-Jah, the eldest son of Azeem-ul-Dowlah, was proclaimed as his successor in the rank and title of Nawab and Soubahdar of the Carnatic, and he was informed by the Government of India that "a new treaty was unnecessary, as the Governor General considered his Highness to be ipso facto a party to the treaty concluded with his father in 1801." If this be so with the eldest son, upon what conceivable pretence can it be alleged that the second son, upon the death of the eldest and his issue, is not likewise ipso facto a party to that treaty? The Governor of Madras addressed the son of Azeem-ul-Dowlah in these words— It is with infinite satisfaction I have the honour to congratulate your Highness upon ascending the Musnud in the direct line of succession to your late father, of blessed memory. Sir Thomas Munro, the Governor of Madras, some time afterwards, in a Government minute declares— By the 10th article the rank of the Nawab, as a Prince, and as an ally of the British Govern- 373 ment is declared. No change in the political situation of the Nawab has taken place since 1801. He is still Prince of the Carnatic, and he is a party to the treaty, by which one-fifth part of the revenue is secured to him. Without a breach of the treaty we cannot, except with his consent, alter any one of the articles. The Nawab is still Prince of the Carnatic, and reserves in that capacity one-fifth of the net revenue. The acts of the State upon the death of Azeem Jah, which took place in 1825, are quite conclusive to this effect. They announced— His Highness Gholam Mahomed Ghouse, only son of His Highness Azeem Jah Bahadoor, was on the 22nd September 1825 proclaimed successor to his deceased father in the rank and title of Nawab Soubadhar. During the minority of the Nawab the affairs of the Durbar will be conducted y His Highness Azeem Jah Bahadoor, brother of the late Nawab, with the title of Naib-i-Mooktar (Regent). Again, in a letter from the Court of Directors of the 14th January 1829: "The Nawab being an infant, and in declining health, and the Naib-i-Mooktar being next heir, in case of his demise," and so forth. And in July 1829 the Directors expressed their approval of certain proceedings "on the ground of the Naib-i-Mooktar being the next heir, in the case of the decease of his nephew Mahomed Ghouse Khan." And, indeed, as late as 1843 the Marquess of Tweeddale writes upon some question of precedence that had arisen— His Lordship in Council observes that His Highness Azeem Jah Bahadoor does not hold the place in list No. 1, to which he is entitled in consideration of the position he legally occupied in communication with the British Government, and of that he still holds in relation to His Highness the Nawab, and to his succession to the Musnud. It is impossible, after the publication to the world of these acts of state and solemn declarations, for the Government of this country to contend that the treaty expired with the life of Azeem-ul-Dowlah. If we can imagine for a moment a treaty in such terms between England and Russia, or England and France, or England and the United States, what Member of this House, what gentleman in all England, will step forward and say that the Government would dare to contend that the treaty was perpetual as to all that it conferred upon this country, but that it expired with the life of the reigning Sovereign of France, or of Russia, or with the Presidency of the President of the United States? If therefore, the treaty ceased with the life of Azeem-ul-Dowlah, when and how did Great Britain become possessed of the civil and military resources, and of the 374 revenues of the Carnatic? But the late East India Company took a different and a strange view of the effect of this treaty. In 1855, without cause assigned, without explanation, they rejected the claim of the Prince to be recognised as Nawab of the Carnatic; for two years they left him without an answer to his application, and at length insulted him with an offer of £10,000 a year, upon condition that he would submit to a degradation from his princely rank and become one of the millions of the subjects of the British Crown in India. This offer was afterwards increased to £15,000 a year; but it also was rejected, with that respect, indeed, with which the princes of this race have ever addressed the representatives of the British Crown, but with the indignation becoming an independent Sovereign upon such an occasion. This unfortunate Prince is thus reduced to indigence and to dependence, and unable to obtain justice at the hands of the Company, and I lament to add, of the Crown; he appeals to the last tribunal existing under the Constitution—the British House of Commons. The question under the treaty of 1801 was whether it was binding on the East India Company during the life only of the party to the treaty, Azeem-ul-Dowlah, or during the lives of his successors; and if a Committee were granted, I should satisfy them that if it expired with Azeem-ul-Dowlah in 1819 as far as the provisions for his benefit were concerned, it also expired at the same time as far as regarded the benefits derived under it by the East India Company. If the right of the family to the Nawabship had ceased on his death in 1819, so likewise did the right of the Company to the revenues of the Carnatic; and the Government had no more claim to them and to the administration of the country than the Emperor of China, or any other foreign Sovereign. I have carefully considered the numerous minutes and papers, which, though never communicated to the Prince, have at last been laid upon the table of this House; but I have been unable to find a single statement or argument in support of the refusal to recognise the rights of this family. The grounds, whatever they may have been, on which the Government of India have based their unworthy and dishonest policy in reference to the Nawab, have never been made known to that Prince. He has been treated with cold indifference, and with contemptuous silence. He is utterly igno- 375 rant to this hour of the reasons alleged for the degradation to which he has been subjected. It may, indeed, be said that the existence of these nominal and unreal sovereignties in India is contrary to the policy which has been adopted by our Government there, and perhaps occasionally to some extent approved by the Parliament of this country; and I do not deny that much inconvenience may result from the existence of a Prince with a court, and family, and retinue, above and beyond the law, in the midst of a great native population, subject to the dominion of the British Crown. I cannot, however, admit that the first principles of justice and of international good faith are to be sacrificed to any considerations of policy or of expediency; but I do not hesitate to say, although I have no direct authority from the Nawab of the Carnatic, that I am persuaded His Highness would be ready to agree to any arrangement with the British Crown, consistent with his honour and his dignity, under which his family and dependants might be brought at once within the protection and under the control of the law. Then it has been said that proofs have been found to exist of some correspondence, miscalled treasonable, between the father, or the grandfather, or the great-grandfather of the Nawab, and Tippoo Sahib; but I utterly deny the truth of these allegations, and am ready to submit the charge to the most searching investigation; and the more so, that no impartial writer upon the events of that period has been found to support these unworthy accusations on the part of the East India Company. Mr. Mill, in his history of India, expressly says— Not only does this evidence afford no proof of a criminal correspondence with Tippoo on the part of the Nawab, but the total inability of the English to procure further evidence, with all the records of the Mysore Government in their hands, and all the living agents of it within their absolute power, is a proof to the contrary; since it is not credible that the criminal correspondence should have existed and not have left more traces of itself.' But that I would not detain the House, I could confirm this remarkable historical statement by the testimony of all the highest officers of the Crown, or the Company in India, from the beginning to the end of the eventful reigns of Hyder Ali and Tippoo Sahib. And even if it were true, that at this remote period the ancestors of the Prince had been unfaithful to the British cause, is their offence to be visited, at the distance 376 of more than half a century, upon their unoffending descendants? So it has been insinuated, rather than asserted, that the Prince has led an immoral or a discreditable domestic life. He denies the charge; and he is ready to meet it, here or elsewhere, by whomsoever preferred, and by whatever evidence it may be sought to be supported. I have little more to say. The Prince appeals from the injustice or the malice of his enemies, to the testimony of his fellow-countrymen and his neighbours, who have been witnesses to the fidelity with which, in the most trying times, and especially during the late mutiny, he has adhered with spotless honour and unswerving good faith to his engagements with the British Government, and to the British Crown. His case is supported by Petitions in his favour from tens of thousands of his countrymen, at Madras and elsewhere in the Carnatic. He appeals with confidence to this House, to the Crown, and to the country, and I trust that his appeal will not be made in vain. I beg to move— That a Select Committee be appointed, to inquire into the claims of His Highness Azeem Jah to the title and dignity of Nawab of the Carnatic; and otherwise in respect of the Treaty entered into between His Highness's father Azeem-ul-Dowlah and the East India Company, on the 31st day of July, 1801, and the circumstances attending the same.