Brown’s case before the Court of Directors of the East India Company

Brown made his case before Court of Directors of the East India Company directly in London on July 2, 1838. He hoped that a prima facie case had been established for conducting a full, strict, impartial, and public inquiry into the events that occurred in Kanara during March and April 1837, and the circumstances following. Public justice, the cries of humanity, the honour of Great Britain, the future preservation of India, and the immediate quiet and contentment of millions of Indians, he stated, demanded that the inquiry should be taken out of the hands of the local authority and conducted by persons selected by the court. Such persons should possess the court’s and public confidence, be wholly unbiased, and being strangers to the scene and to the parties concerned, be strictly impartial between Europeans and Indians. The misconduct of the guilty should be exposed without fear or reservations, and without consideration of rank, station, influence, or connections.

Brown stated that his case rested on the evidence recorded in the great number of official reports and records, transmitted to the governor. It was not he but the million and a half subjects of one of the Madras Provinces, and through them, all subjects of the Indian Empire who were the real suppliants. He admitted that it could be insulting to upright men to have the path which justice and patriotism, public duty and private honor dictated pointed out. However, the court’s unbroken silence of so many months, led him to suspect that it was open only to employees of the East India Company, something, Brown feared, that could grievously impact British interests in India. However, believing there were other reasons, Brown proceeded to provide further official testimony in support of his case, of which he was unaware earlier.

The Special Judicial Commission had arrived in Mangalore on May 3rd with the senior judge being given further duties of the ordinary circuit. Visiting the jail on May 26th, he found many prisoners complaining of unjust arrest and overcrowding. A further visit on June 16th uncovered further complaints, among them that a boy just 10 years old had been in jail for four months, a youth who had not been charged, and four coolies who brought stationery for the public offices confined without the slightest ground for suspicion. The judge also found, in addition to the 237 found in the regular jail, a large number were held incommunicado under military guard. There were many deaths and suicides in jail caused by despair and exposure to frequent executions.

Convinced that innocent persons had been arrested and were suffering, the judge began addressing matters without trying to embarrass the magistrate, or to interfere unnecessarily in his work. He called for a list of prisoners who had not been brought to trial, the date of apprehension, and the grounds for detention, and in particular, details of a prisoner, Pudna Shetty, from Mysore, whose brother had made two fruitless petitions to the magistrate.

The magistrate refused to comply and appealed to the governor who immediately prohibited anyone from seeking clemency for the life of a prisoner, and in order to take the matter out of the hands of the circuit judge, called upon the magistrate to furnish the information he sought directly to him. Next, reviewing the correspondence between the circuit judge and the magistrate, he expressed a very unfavourable opinion of both who “are observed to have given way to their private feelings and idle notions of dignity, and to have acted in a manner which is highly discreditable to them as officers of the Government, and calculated to prove injurious to the public interests.” He stated that “the interference of the Judge with the Magistrate's functions was vexatious.” Both were warned of disciplinary proceedings in case of repetition. In other words, the judge sworn to administer justice without fear or favour according to the Law, was told, if he proceeded to do so, he would be removed from office.

The Commission was effectively dissolved in December by the successive retirement and ill-health of its members. Brown sailed for England on December 6th. About the beginning of March, the Commission was terminated. Simultaneously, the principal collector and magistrate of Kanara was promoted to the more lucrative office of a judge in Salem. Eight months later, the governor, giving reasons for the promotion, stated in view of his repeated insubordination and unjustifiable conduct, it would be more advantageous to employ elsewhere “where his want of discretion will be less detrimental to the public service.”

In London, Brown pleaded that “the most instant, the most urgent, the most pressing, of all those present wants and necessities” was that Indians subjected to local injustice and oppression should be able to directly approach the Court of Directors. In this case, in order to hide the wrongful conduct of the officers, civil and military, at Mangalore, and relying “upon your anticipated silence and tacit approval,”  many had been proclaimed traitors, and a terrible “vengeance has been let loose and wreaked upon their persons, their liberty, their homes, and their property.” Meanwhile, the very same persons who had attempted to abandon Mangalore, and betrayed the trust confided to them by the British people, now portrayed the resultant panic and confusion as a general insurrection and civil war.

Brown proposed that the Court issue orders to the governor to elect immediately two or more Indians as Members of the Council of Government at Madras Presidency.

Brown received no reply from the Court of Directors. On October 26, 1838, from London, he wrote a long letter to the court restating his case. He concluded with the very same words he used to the Government of Madras, “to preserve silence on the subjects of this Letter would be treason to the People of England.”