Minute of Meff. WHELER and MACPHERSON,

The Board having already paffed their opinion in terms of the fulleft approbation upon the Governor-General's conduct, and management, in the fuppreffion of the rebellion of Cheit Sing, and the regulation of the Province and City of Benares, they think it unnecessary to repeat their opinion of those measures.

They cannot, at the fame time, but remark that the explanations which the Governor-General has given in fome parts of his proceedings, during his first difcuffions with Cheit Sing, and fubfequent to the convulfion, are rather an open avowal of the motives that actuated his mind, than the guarded representations of a public officer, ftating to his employers the measures which an extraordinary fituation influenced, dictated, and justi fied,

To a liberal and candid tribunal, fuch was the natural and certainly the wifeft appeal. The generofity and juftice of a British tribunal looks more to the real motives and zeal of their agent, than to the preconcerted artifice of his conduct, or the legal discriminations of his defence. Even where a public measure is unsuccessful, the re

sponsibility

fponfibility rifqued by the agent, if risqued upon public principles, is frequently his juftification, and, in many cafes, entitles him to applaufe.

In these distant dominions, if the ruling fervants of the State attend more to thofe rules and forms which protect from responsibility, than to an ardent pursuit of the public intereft under every private rifque, the hands of administration may secure themselves againft condemnation, even though the country should be loft through their mifmanage

ment.

It was not by avoiding perfonal responsibility, that the fervants of the public established the British influence in Afia, nor is it by fuch cold precautions that our power is to be maintained,

pecially at an hour of general hoftility against us. The Board are led into these observations, from an ingenuous confideration of the difficulties. in which the Governor-General found himself involved at Benares, and a conviction of the motives under which he acted. The first were furmounted with ability and fortitude; the latter they most fincerely believe do him real honour. Easy would be the task to approve the suppression of the rebellion, and to ftand difconnected with any responsibility, by justifying those acts which certainly precipitated the ftorm from the cloud in which it had gathered.

Acts,

ト

Acts, which judges at a distance, judges unop preffed with the natural embarraffments of this, government, may with great fpeciousness of

ar

gument condemn. But the Board wish not, they cannot permit themfelves to proceed. fo difingenuously or guardedly. They are at the fame, time aware that in a rigid investigation of the whole of this business, the following questions will be afked:

ift. Where were the Governor-General's par ticular inftructions for fuch extraordinary demands, upon Cheit Sing?

2d. Why was that Chief put in arreft, when, he offered to make every conceffion?

3dly. Whether there was not a compact between him and the Company which specified that he was only to pay them a certain annual tribute?

Subsequent to the maffacre of our troops, and the events that followed, no questions will be asked. In answer to the first question, the Board think the Governor-General was fully authorized by the general tenor of his inftructions.

The Governor-General having a deciding vote, could have written out and approved more par

ticular

ticular inftructions. There was a delicacy in the mode he preferred, and it compofed a greater refponfibility..

In regard to the fecond queftion, it is evident from Cheit Sing's anfwers, and preparations, and the whole tenor of his conduct before, and at the time, that nothing but arreft could have convinced him of the Governor-General's determination.

That the arrest was not intended to proceed further than the payment of a proper fine to the Company, who stood in the place of his sovereign and benefactor, is evinced by the GovernorGeneral's Answer to Cheit Sing after his confinement.

Had a total revolution in the adminiftration of the Zemidarry been intended, the arreft must have been affected with more force and greater marks of severity.

That the officers who went to execute this fervice, were convinced that no measure of determined feverity was intended against Cheit Sing, appears from that unfortunate want of precaution which coft them and their followers their lives.

The third question involves much argument, yet is fully anfwered by that part of the GovernorGeneral's narrative, which difcuffes the Sunnud, under which Cheit Sing ruled the province, and which was fo liberally granted by the Company. The correspondence with the Indian states, fhews clearly their ideas of the rights of Zemidars, and Rajahs protected in their Zemidaries by fuperior power. Had Cheit Sing been an Ally and a Sovereign Prince, who paid only a fixed fubfidy, his military preparations and his infidious conduct under pretences of poverty, in disappointing the expectations of the government for the army under Major Camac juftified, together with his correfpondence with our enemies, the feverest exaction of aid to affift the Company in their diftreffes, and to atone for his ingratitude and treachery to a power who protected him, and to whom he owed his fituation.

The Governor-General delivers in the following Minute, in consequence of that of the Board, entered on the proceedings of the 14th ult.

The Governor-General acknowledges his obligations to the Board, for this repeated inftance of the liberal manner in which they have been pleafed to record his judgment on his conduct. Had it been expreffed in the fimple terms of official

appro