ing those who were subjected to their authority or influ

ence:

Whether the provinces have been infested with robbers, or plundering Seneassies, as much during my administration as in the times preceding it:

Whether the provinces have suffered the calamities either of war or famine during my administration; or whether they have not enjoyed both uninterrupted peace and abundance, though our Government and nation were for years engaged in wars with powerful states and neighbours, and were at one time threatened with a dearth from the same causes which produced one in 1768:

Whether I have oppressed the reiats by intolerable or unequal taxes, for the public service; or whether I have not rather multiplied the sources of the public wealth, and equalised the burthens imposed on the people.

Whether I have neglected the administration of justice; or whether I have not established Courts of Civil and Criminal Justice, and supported both in the exercise of their functions beyond the experience of any former times:

Whether I have offended, or discountenanced the laws, customs, and religious worship of the country; or whether I have not respected, protected, and conformed to them:

Whether I have shown a disregard to science; or whether I have not, on the contrary, by public endowments, by persona! attentions, and by the selection of men for appointments suited to their talents, given effectual encouragement to it:

Whether in my public negociations, and in my general intercourse, I have made use of artifice and trick, or of truth and plain-dealing:

Whether I have affected a display of state; whether I have ever shown an inordinate solicitude for my personal safety; or whether I have not been thought to err in the opposite

extremes:

Whether I left the country in a worse or in a better state of population and cultivation than I found it:

And lastly, whether the English name, power, and influence were ever greater, more respected, or more extensively known in India before than during my administration, and particularly at the close of it.

The persons who can be most instrumental in collecting the suffrages which I require, are Gunga Govin Sing; Allee Ibraheem Cawn; Beneram, or Bissumbes Pundit; Rajah Govindram; Tofuzzel Hossein Cawn; Mowlary Majud O'Deen,

or his brother Muftee Ahmed; and I believe I may venture to join Mahdajee Sindia. I would wish at least to have his testimony, and those of every other chief with whom our Government was in connexion; Moodajee, the ministers of Poona, Nizam al Moolk, Assof o'Dowlah, and the Nabob Wallah Jah.

I cannot prescribe the means. Perhaps I have been too particular in detailing the ends. But you must make allowance for my anxiety, and the cause which I have to make me more than ordinarily anxious.

If you think that you can undertake this commission with an assurance of its complete execution, you will of course (as I should on every account wish) first propose it to Lord Cornwallis for his approbation. If he objects to it, there must of course be an end to it. Even from the little which I know of his Lordship, and from his general character, I give him credit for qualities incompatible with such a supposition, and assure myself besides that he will not in Bengal have changed the opinion which he entertained of me in England for a worse.

I wil not ask your forgiveness for wishing to impose on you so much trouble; but I ought if I thought that it might eventually draw on you the same enmities which are now directed at me. I confess, I think such may be the consequence, though I rather hope that the crisis of this phrenzy may terminate with me. If it does not, I am not sure that any conduct will be a safeguard against it.

You will readily comprehend that I do not mean to use the justification which I solicit from your means for any purpose of meeting the impending trial; for though I am certain that every artifice will be put in practice to protect it, it will be impossible to extend the delay beyond another sessions; I mean another after the present. The result, therefore, of this plan can be of no other benefit to me than that of retrieving my character from the injury which it may have received from the present prosecution, and its legal consequences. These must all have ceased long before the result of my commission can arrive in England. I am not sure that the House of Commons will vote an impeachment. I cannot be certain that the same prejudices, the same intrigues, and the same influence may not follow me into the House of Lords, though in judicial matters the character of that assembly stands hitherto unimpeached. But I have been told by judgments much better informed than those of common men, that much

is to be apprehended, even in that assembly, from the respect paid to a decided judgment of the House of Commons, and yet more to the ascribed inclination of the minister; and I myself have my doubts of another kind. The charges may prove so numerous and complicated, that every mind will not be able to comprehend them, or to retain even what they do comprehend; and the tedious and artificial examination of the witnesses to every charge will, with other process, take up such a length of time, that the aged, infirm, and indifferent will not sit out the trial. I may therefore lose many verdicts in my favour. None will be lost to those which are predetermined against me. I am almost ashamed of these suspicions, yet, after what has passed, how can I avoid them? I have been condemned by one assembly for having intended by a resolution, which was confined to my own breast, to exact a fine from Cheyt Sing exceeding his offences, admitted to be great, and a fine, if moderate, admitted to be a legal and proper punishment. I have been condemned for permitting the jagheers and treasures to be taken from the mother of the Nabod Assof o’Dowlah, because in the evidence adduced by my prosecutor to prove my guilt, I had not brought proofs sufficient of the Begum's rebellion against her sovereign, and hostility to our nation; though the charge, black and rancorous as it is, and the admired harangue of the mover of the charge, fabricated with the labour of months, and the combination of all the powers of a great party, both stated in terms that the money produced by these exactions was applied to the relief of the public necessities, and they have not dared to suggest that I took or attempted to take any part of it to my own use. Let, however, this business end as it will, a great portion of mankind will think they judge with candour, if, unable to comprehend any part of the accusations, they acquit me, at a guess, of some, and conclude that where so much is alleged against me, much of it must be necessarily true. The plan which I have recommended may be productive of that species of evidence which the meanest capacity will understand, and which will most effectually and totally efface every prejudice against me. Let it arrive when it will, whether I shall have received an absolute and unqualified, acquittal, or a condemnation; whether I am alive or dead, it will answer the end for which I want it. I am ever, my dear Shore, your most affectionate friend.

(Memoirs of the Life of the Right Hon. Warren Hastings, by Rev. G. R. Gleis, Lond., 1841, III, p. 321.)

231. Cession of India to the English Crown

(1858)

Nolan

In 1858 the old East India Company formally resigned its interests in India, and the land became entirely subject to the crown of England. There were many reasons for this step; the old government had not proved entirely faithful to the trusts reposed in it, and there was need for a more stable form of rule. The proclamation made by the Queen sets forth the policy adopted by England in assuming control. It must be remembered that at the time of the transfer the India Mutiny was in progress; hence the clauses as to the enforcement of justice and the granting of clemency. It is probable that to this fact was also due the tenderness displayed for the religious feelings of the natives.

PROCLAMATION BY THE QUEEN IN COUNCIL TO THE PRINCES, CHIEFS, AND PEOPLE OF INDIA

VICTORIA, by the grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and of the Colonies and Dependencies thereof in Europe, Asia, Africa, America, and Australia, Queen, Defender of the Faith.

Whereas, for divers weighty reasons, we have resolved, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in Parliament assembled, to take upon ourselves the government of the territories in India heretofore administered in trust for us by the Honourable East India Company,

Now, therefore, we do by these presents notify and declare that, by the advice and consent aforesaid, we have taken upon ourselves the said government; and we hereby call upon all our subjects within the said territories to be faithful, and to bear true allegiance to us, our heirs and successors, and to submit themselves to the authority of those whom we may hereafter, from time to time, see fit to appoint to administer the government of our said territories, in our name and on our behalf.

And we, reposing especial trust and confidence in the loyalty, ability, and judgment of our right trusty and wellbeloved cousin and counsellor, Charles John, Viscount Canning, do hereby constitute and appoint him, the said Viscount Canning, to be our first Viceroy and Governor-General in and over our said territories, and to administer the government thereof in our name, and generally to act in our name and on our behalf, subject to such orders and regulations as he shall, from time to time, receive from us through one of our Principal Secretaries of State.

And we do hereby confirm in their several offices, civil and military, all persons now employed in the service of the Honourable East India Company, subject to our future pleasure, and to such laws and regulations as may hereafter be enacted.

We hereby announce to the native princes of India that all treaties and engagements made with them by or under the authority of the Honourable East India Company are by us accepted, and will be scrupulously maintained, and we look for the like observance on their part.

We desire no extension of our present territorial possessions; and, while we will permit no aggression upon our dominions or our rights to be attempted with impunity, we shall sanction no encroachment on those of others. We shall respect the rights, dignity, and honour of native princes as our own; and we desire that they, as well as our own subjects, should enjoy that prosperity and that social advancement which can only be secured by internal peace and good government.

We hold ourselves bound to the natives of our Indian territories by the same obligations of duty which bind us to all our other subjects, and those obligations, by the blessing of Almighty God, we shall faithfully and conscientiously fulfil.

Firmly relying ourselves on the truth of Christianity, and acknowledging with gratitude the solace of religion, we disclaim alike the right and desire to impose our convictions on any of our subjects. We declare it to be our royal will and pleasure that none be in anywise favoured, none molested or disquieted, by reason of their religious faith or observances, but that all shall alike enjoy the equal and impartial protection of the law; and we do strictly charge and enjoin all those who may be in authority under us that they abstain from all interference with the religious belief or worship of any of our subjects on pain of our highest displeasure.

And it is our further will that, so far as may be, our subjects, of whatever race or creed, be freely and impartially admitted to offices in our service, the duties of which they may be qualified, by their education, ability, and integrity, duly to discharge.

We know, and respect, the feelings of attachment with which the natives of India regard the lands inherited by them from their ancestors, and we desire to protect them in all rights connected therewith, subject to the equitable demands. of the State; and we will that, generally, in framing and ad