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Who has not admired that noble speech of my Lord Clive, when reproached on his return from India with making rather too free with jaghires, lakhs, gold mohurs, diamonds, pearls, and what not? "Upon my life," said the hero of Plassy, "when I think of my opportunities, I am surprised I took so little!"
"Deo Roy upon this gave orders for the entertainment of mussulmauns in his service, allotted them jaghires, erected a mosque for their use in the city of Beejanuggur, and commanded that no one should molest them in the exercise of their religion.
For whereas, by the second article of the treaty aforesaid, it was left to the Nabob's discretion whether or not he should resume the landed estates, called jaghires, within his dominions, and notwithstanding the said Hastings, in defence of the said article, did declare that the Nabob should be left to the exercise of his own authority and pleasure respecting them, yet he, the said Hastings, did authorize a violent compulsion to be used towards the said Nabob for accomplishing an universal confiscation of that species of landed property; and in so doing he did also compel the Nabob to break his faith with all the landholders of that description, not only in violating the assurance of his own original grants, but his assurance recently given, when, being pressed by the Company, he, the Nabob, had made a temporary seizure of the profits of the lands aforesaid, in the manner of a compulsory loan, for the repayment of which he gave his bonds and obligations; and although he had at the same time solemnly pledged his faith that he never would again resort to the like oppressive measure, yet he, the said Warren Hastings, did cause him to be compelled to confiscate the estates of at least sixty-seven of the principal persons of his country, comprehending therein his own nearest relations and the ancient friends and dependants of his family: the annual value of the said estates thus confiscated amounting to 435,000l. sterling, or thereabouts, upon an old valuation, but stated by the Resident, Middleton, as being found to yield considerably more.
I should say from these despatches that things do not look peaceful. October 28. Had a letter yesterday from Mr. Elphinstone on Nazarre. It appears to be a fine on descents, &c., of Jaghire lands. I think his opinion will be different from Sir J. Malcolm's the latter wishing to make the Jaghires hereditary, or rather to give a fee simple interest to the actual proprietor. Mr.
And the said Warren Hastings, in his pretended attention to the Nabob's authority, when exercised by his, the said Hastings's, minister, to prevent the establishment of courts of justice for the protection of life and property, at the same time that he did not hesitate, in the case of the confiscation of the jaghires, and the proceedings against the mother and grandmother of the Nabob, totally to supersede his authority, and to force his inclinations in acts which overturned all the laws of property, and offered violence to all the sentiments of natural affection and duty, and accusing at the same time his instruments for not going to the utmost lengths in the execution of his said orders, is guilty of an high crime and misdemeanor.
LXII. That the said Warren Hastings, who did pretend so deep a concern for the indignities supposed to be suffered by the Nabob merely in the limitation and regulation of unnecessary expenses relative to his kitchen, domestics, &c., did show no attention or compassion to the said Nabob, when, in the year 1779, the said Nabob represented, that the pensions of his old servants for thirty years, the expenses of his family and kitchen, together with the jaghires of his grandmother, mother, and aunts, and of his brothers and dependants, given for their support, were not regulated, but stopped.
These Princesses, the mother and grandmother of the reigning Nabob of Oude, had been left by the late sovereign in possession of certain government-estates, or jaghires, as well as of all the treasure that was in his hands at the time of his death, and which the orientalized imaginations of the English exaggerated to an enormous sum.
There remained the reading of papers, filled with words unintelligible to English ears, with lacs and crores, zemindars and aumils, sunnuds and perwannahs, jaghires and nuzzurs. There remained bickerings, not always carried on with the best taste or with the best temper, between the managers of the impeachment and the counsel for the defence, particularly between Mr. Burke and Mr. Law.
"Many of the first nobility deserted the camp and tied with their followers to their jaghires. If this be correct, the reign of Deva Raya II., granting that it lasted as stated by Nuniz for twenty-five years, ended in A.D. 1444.
And it doth appear that one hundred thousand pounds towards the said payment of debts was borrowed at Calcutta by the Nabob's agent there, but at what interest is not known; it appears also that other sums were borrowed for arrear of the interest, on which forty thousand pounds sterling appears in the Company's claims for the current year, and that various deductions were made from the jaghires restored to the Begums, as well as other parts of the Nabob's family; and it did and doth appear that an arrear is still due to the old and new brigade, but whether the same be growing or not doth not appear: yet he hath not hesitated to assert that he had "provided for the complete discharge, in one year, of a debt contracted by the accumulation of many, and from a country whose resources have been wasted and dissipated by three successive years of drought and one of anarchy."
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