The Crescent of the Sultan

The first inquiry meeting was mainly focused on Hastings' various issues around 1772. It was obvious that Fox had made sufficient preparations, so much so that Burke just looked at the inquiry with a smile throughout. , completely hands-off.

It doesn't matter if he doesn't intervene. Little Pete will definitely intervene. This is the first question about Warren Hastings. The public is very enthusiastic at this time. If something big happens to Hastings, Flaws are not conducive to subsequent cold treatment.

Hastings on the stage was already sweating frequently. He was not very clean to begin with. As long as Fox wanted to prick him, he could come out in no time.

What's more, this is London, not Mumbai. After leaving his home court, Hastings felt like a lamb waiting to be slaughtered.

He kept looking at Pete who was sitting in the audience, but the other party never looked at him.

In fact, Peter also noticed Hastings' embarrassment at this time, but when he saw the report about Hastings that his friend gave him, little Peter couldn't help but sigh.

Although England has never taken official corruption seriously, the first Governor-General of India was really good at playing.

By this time Fox had stopped and Edmund Burke began to speak.

"Gentlemen, you have now heard Mr. Hastings's principles for the administration of Asia under the British Empire.

Here he declares his view that he is an autocratic prince; that he is to wield arbitrary power; and of course all his actions are covered with that shield.

"I know," said he, "the constitution of Asia only from its practice. Will your lords stoop to listen to the corrupt practices of mankind in framing the principles of government?"

He has arbitrary power! —My friends, the East India Company has no arbitrary power given to him; the King has no arbitrary power given to him; nor do you; nor the House of Commons; nor the whole Legislature.

We have no arbitrary power to give, because arbitrary power is something that no one can have and no one can give.

No one can legally govern himself according to his own will, much less by his own will.

We are born to obey—created equal, high and low, to rule and rule, to a great, immutable, pre-existing law, prior to all our means, prior to all our wiles, to all our thoughts and all our senses are supreme and prior to our existence, through which we are woven and connected in the eternal framework of the universe, from which we cannot stir.

This great law does not come from our covenant or covenant;

On the contrary, it gives to our covenants and covenants all the force and sanction they can possess: it does not come from our vain institutions.

Every good gift is God's, all power is God's; He who gives power, and from whom alone it arises, never suffers from the exercise of power on a less solid foundation than the power itself .

If, then, all human dominion over men is the result of the divine nature, then it is subject to an eternal law given to it, which no human authority can assign; neither to those who exercise it, nor to those who are subject to it. the person to whom it binds;

And if they were mad enough to make a definite contract, they should relieve the magistrate from his duties, and declare that their life, liberty, and property depended not on rules and laws, but on the capriciousness of his will, then this The covenant will be void.

This arbitrary power is not acquired by conquest.

Nor can any monarch possess it by inheritance; for no one can succeed by fraud, rape, and violence.

He who gives and arbitrarily acquires power is a criminal; no one but one must do all he can to resist it, wherever it shows its face to the world.

Law and arbitrary power are always in a state of hostility.

Name me magistrate and I will name property; call me power and I will name protection.

To say that anyone can have arbitrary power is a contradiction in terms, religiously blasphemous, and politically evil.

This obligation is included in every patent office.

What other existence does a magistrate have? Assuming power is absurd in its conception.

Judges are guided and governed by the eternal laws of justice, which we are all bound to obey.

We may bite our chains if we will; but we are to know ourselves, and be taught that man is born to be governed by the law; and that he who substitutes the will is the enemy of God.

Gentlemen, I do not now call your attention to this—that Mr. Hastings's government is a whole government that oppresses, robs individuals, and plunders the public.

To defeat the ends which all governments should have in common.

In the name of the House of Commons of England, at the last moment of my application to you, I accuse Warren Hastings of all these scoundrels.

Gentlemen, what is it that we want here, a great act of national justice? Do we want a career, my friends? You have oppressed princes, you have deposed first-rate women, you have desolate provinces, you have ruined kingdoms.

Do you want a criminal, my friends? When had so many sins been accused?

No, my friends, you must not expect to punish any other such criminal from India. Warren Hastings's legacy in India was insufficient to nourish such another criminal.

My lords, do you want a prosecutor?

You have before you the House of Commons of Great Britain as prosecutor; and I believe, my friends, that the sun, in its benevolent progress round the world, has no more glorious sight than that of mankind, separated from distant peoples by the physical limits and barriers of nature opened, united by the bonds of social and moral community—the indignities and cruelties which all England's Houses of Commons hated as much as their own, offered to all Indian peoples.

Do we want a court? My friends, no example from antiquity, the modern world, nothing within the reach of human imagination, can provide us with such a tribunal. We safely place the interests of India and humanity in your hands.

I therefore, by order of the House of Commons, impeach Warren Hastings for the high crime of arbitrariness against the State.

I impeach him in the name of the House of Commons of Great Britain for betraying the confidence of Parliament.

I impeach him in the name of all the Houses of Commons in Great Britain, whose national character he has dishonored.

I impeach him in the name of the people of India whose laws, rights and freedoms he has subverted; whose property he has destroyed; whose country he has razed to the ground and left to desolation.

I impeach him in the name and on the grounds of those eternal laws of justice which he has violated.

I impeach him in the name of humanity itself, which he cruelly offends, injures, and oppresses, of both sexes, in every age, class, situation, and condition of life.

My friends, in the name of the House of Commons, surrounded by them at this terrible end, I testify to the advancing generations, between whom we stand as links in the great chain of the eternal order.

We call on the country, we call on the world to witness that this House has shrunk from the absence of labor; that we have not prevaricated; that we have not compromised on crime; that we have struggled with crime, vice, excessive wealth, the vast corruption and overwhelming influence of the East We are not afraid of any stench in this long war.

Gentlemen, how happy it is that Providence has placed us in such a state that we are every moment on the verge of some great mutation. There is one thing, and one thing only, that defies all mutation: that which existed before the world, and which will survive in the very fabric of the world itself - I mean justice.

This justice, originating from the Divine, takes its place in the breast of each of us to provide guidance for ourselves and others, and when He comes to call us to live the tone of the good life after this earth has been burnt to ashes, it will Stand before the great Judge our defender or accuser. "

The atmosphere at the scene has been completely mobilized by Burke. It is obvious that Burke does not intend to give Little Pete a chance to make a comeback.

Just when Hastings was already overwhelmed, Pitt finally took action.

Regardless of the crimes Hastings committed, and regardless of the impact Hastings' outcome had on his party and policies, he would have kept him simply because of his service to England in India.

Wilberforce stood up, cleared his throat, and then looked at the host Edmund Burke on the stage.

Edmund Burke then waved Fox to stop speaking, and looked at Little Pitt and Wilberforce who stood up with a playful expression, as if waiting for each other's performance.

"Gentlemen, I have no intention of denying Hastings, the former Governor-General of India, anything other than vote-buying.

Yes, he did do a lot of things in India that were not so "civilized" and not in line with "gentlemanly behavior."

However, this is not for himself, but for the country.

Since April 1772, when Warren Hastings took over as Chairman of the Council, he had been busy dealing with the Great Famine in Bengal.

Gentlemen also know the horror of this famine. Almost one-third of the Bengalis died, and without Mr. Hastings's vigorous rescue, this number would be even more shocking.

England's investment in India since the last century will be in vain. The sacrifices of the Seven Years War, the situation that Clive fought for his life, etc., everything will cease to exist. Is this what you gentlemen want to see? Of?

In such a critical time, how can we suppress it without severe punishment?

After the Bengal Famine, Governor Hastings's first concern was to implement the instructions received from home and carry out a thorough reform of the system of government.

General Clive's plan to govern through local proxies had proved a failure.

It was Governor Hastings who resolved “to step forward as responsible man and take it upon himself to administer the whole Indian district under our control.

Under his arrangement, all administrative officials came to Calcutta from various places.

Governor Hastings established Calcutta as the first city in Asia.

This reform dealt a heavy blow to the local forces in India who were fighting against us, and gave Hastings the upper hand in the second collision with the cunning Brahmins, which was undoubtedly beneficial to us.

Governor Hastings simultaneously instituted reforms to land revenue lease settlements, and the police and military systems were placed on a new footing in the land.

A man of high energy, Governor Hastings captured every detail.

In terms of financial matters, as an independent economic measure, the annual nominal tax paid to Bengal by the Nawab's area was reduced by half under the reforms of Governor Hastings.

Lord Macaulay blamed the reduction on Hastings' financial immorality.

But in fact, this accusation is obviously unfounded.

The money was used by Governor Hastings in his monetary transactions with Shuja-ud-Daula.

Hastings deftly used the money in his own master plan to resolve the diplomatic crisis.

He not only allowed the Mahrattas to retreat, reduced the expenditure of the army, won over the local princes, but also appeased the Mughal emperor.

So, was Hastings thinking about the so-called bribery for himself or for his country?

Just as you are asking him, is he dedicated to the country or out of personal selfishness?

You gentlemen all have your own answers. "

Wilberforce then bowed gracefully and sat down, leaving only Fox's ugly face and Burke's expression of unclear meaning.

The first inquiry was over, Hastings had survived the first round, and little Pitt had some time to breathe.

The defeat of southern France, the panic of Prussia and Austria, the threat gradually emerging from the Ottoman Empire, the disobedient Venetians, and Russia that could be exploited.

He wanted to play a game of chess, a big game, and win for England the game that began with the death of Louis XVI.