Edmund Burke - The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 12 (of 12)

But by Sir Elijah Impey was that order carried up to seize and confiscate the treasures of the Begums. We know that neither the Company nor the Nabob had any claim whatever upon these treasures. On the contrary, we know that two treaties had been made for the protection of them. We know that the Nabob, while he was contesting about some elephants and carriages, and some other things that he said were in the hands of their steward, did allow that the treasures in the custody of his grandmother and of his mother's principal servants were their property. This is the Nabob who is now represented by Mr. Hastings and his counsel to have become the instrument of destroying his mother and grandmother, and everything else that ought to be dear to mankind, throughout the whole train of his family.

Mr. Hastings, having resolved to seize upon the treasures of the Begums, is at a loss for some pretence of justifying the act. His first justification of it is on grounds which all tyrants have ready at their hands. He begins to discover a legal title to that of which he wished to be the possessor, and on this title sets up a claim to these treasures. I say Mr. Hastings set up this claim, because by this time I suppose your Lordships will not bear to hear the Nabob's name on such an occasion. The prisoner pretended, that, by the Mahometan law, these goods did belong to the Nabob; but whether they did or did not, he had himself been an active instrument in the treaty for securing their possession to the Begums,—a security which he attempts to unlock by his constructions of the Mahometan law. Having set up this title, the guaranty still remained; and how is he to get rid of that? In his usual way. "You have rebelled, you have taken up arms against your own son," (for that is the pretext,) "and therefore my guaranty is gone, and your goods, whether you have a title to them or not, are to be confiscated for your rebellion." This is his second expedient by way of justification.

Your Lordships will observe the strange situation in which we are here placed. If the fact of the rebellion can be proved, the discussion of the title to the property in question will be totally useless; for, if the ladies had actually taken up arms to cut the Nabob's throat, it would require no person to come from the dead to prove to us that the Nabob, but not Mr. Hastings, had a right, for his own security and for his own indemnification, to take those treasures, which, whether they belonged to him or not, were employed in hostilities against him. The law of self-defence is above every other law; and if any persons draw the sword against you, violence on your part is justified, and you may use your sword to take from them that property by which they have been enabled to draw their sword against you.

But the prisoner's counsel do not trust to this justification; they set up a title of right to these treasures: but how entirely they have failed in their attempts to substantiate either the one or the other of these his alleged justifications your Lordships will now judge. And first with regard to the title. The treasure, they say, belonged to the state. The grandmother and mother have robbed the son, and kept him out of his rightful inheritance. They then produce the Hedaya to show you what proportion of the goods of a Mussulman, when he dies, goes to his family; and here, certainly, there is a question of law to be tried. But Mr. Hastings is a great eccentric genius, and has a course of proceeding of his own: he first seizes upon the property, and then produces some Mahometan writers to prove that it did not belong to the persons who were in possession of it. You would naturally expect, that, when he was going to seize upon those goods, he would have consulted his Chief-Justice, (for, as Sir Elijah Impey went with him, he might have consulted him,) and have thus learnt what was the Mahometan law: for, though Sir Elijah had not taken his degree at a Mahometan college, though he was not a mufti or a moulavy, yet he had always muftis and moulavies near him, and he might have consulted them. But Mr. Hastings does not even pretend that such consultations or conferences were ever had. If he ever consulted Sir Elijah Impey, where is the report of the case? When were the parties before him? Where are the opinions of the moulavies? Where is the judgment of the Chief-Justice? Was he fit for nothing but to be employed as a messenger, as a common tipstaff? Was he not fit to try these rights, or to decide upon them? He has told you here, indeed, negatively, that he did not know any title Mr. Hastings had to seize upon the property of the Begums, except upon his hypothesis of the rebellion. He was asked if he knew any other. He answered, No. It consequently appears that Mr. Hastings, though he had before him his doctors of all laws, who could unravel for him all the enigmas of all the laws in the world, and who had himself shone upon questions of Mahometan law, in the case of the Nuddea Begum, did not dare to put this case to Sir Elijah Impey, and ask what was his opinion concerning the rights of these people. He was tender, I suppose, of the reputation of the Chief-Justice. For Sir Elijah Impey, though a very good man to write a letter, or take an affidavit in a corner, or run on a message, to do the business of an under-sheriff, tipstaff, or bum-bailiff, was not fit to give an opinion on a question of Mahometan law.

You have heard Ali Ibrahim Khân referred to. This Mahometan lawyer was carried by Mr. Hastings up to Benares, to be a witness of the vast good he had done in that province, and was made Chief-Justice there. All, indeed, that we know of him, except the high character given of him by Mr. Hastings, is, I believe, that he is the Ali Ibrahim Khân whom in the Company's records I find mentioned as a person giving bribes upon some former occasion to Mr. Hastings; but whatever he was besides, he was a doctor of the Mahometan law, he was a mufti, and was made by Mr. Hastings the principal judge in a criminal court, exercising, as I believe, likewise a considerable civil jurisdiction, and therefore he was qualified as a lawyer; and Mr. Hastings cannot object to his qualifications either of integrity or of knowledge. This man was with him. Why did not he consult him upon this law? Why did he not make him out a case of John Doe and Richard Roe, of John Stokes and John à Nokes? Why not say, "Sinub possesses such things, under such and such circumstances: give me your opinion upon the legality of the possession"? No, he did no such thing.

Your Lordships, I am sure, will think it a little extraordinary, that neither this chief-justice made by himself, nor that other chief-justice whom he led about with him in a string,—the one an English chief-justice, with a Mahometan suit in his court, the other a Mahometan chief-justice of the country,—that neither of them was consulted as lawyers by the prisoner. Both of them were, indeed, otherwise employed by him. For we find Ali Ibrahim Khân employed in the same subservient capacity in which Sir Elijah Impey was,—in order, I suppose, to keep the law of England and the law of Mahomet upon a just par: for upon this equality Mr. Hastings always values himself. Neither of these two chief-justices, I say, was ever consulted, nor one opinion taken; but they were both employed in the correspondence and private execution of this abominable project, when the prisoner himself had not either leisure or perhaps courage to give his public order in it till things got to greater ripeness.

To Sir Elijah Impey, indeed, he did put a question; and, upon my word, it did not require an Œdipus or a Sphinx to answer it. Says he, "I asked Sir Elijah Impey." What? a question on the title between the Nabob and his mother? No such thing. He puts an hypothetical question. "Supposing," says he, "a rebellion to exist in that country; will the Nabob be justified in seizing the goods of the rebels?" That is a question decided in a moment; and I must have a malice to Sir Elijah Impey of which I am incapable, to deny the propriety of his answer. But observe, I pray you, my Lords, there is something peculiarly good and correct in it. He does not take upon him to say one word of the actual existence of a rebellion, though he was at the time in the country, and, if there had been any, he must have been a witness to it; but, so chaste was his character as a judge, that he would not touch upon the juries' office. "I am chief-justice here," says he, "though a little wandering out of my orbit; yet still the sacred office of justice is in me. Do you take upon you the fact; I find the law." Were it not for this sacred attention to separate jurisdictions, he might have been a tolerable judge of the fact,—just as good a judge as Mr. Hastings: for neither of them knew it any other way, as it appears afterwards, but by rumor and reports,—reports, I believe, of Mr. Hastings's own raising; for I do not know that Sir Elijah Impey had anything to do with them.