Volume 10 — SPEECH IN OPENING THE IMPEACHMENT. FOURTH DAY: TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1788.

My Lords,—In any great undertaking, a failure in the midst of it, even from infirmity, though to be regarded principally as a misfortune, is attended with some slight shadow of disgrace; but your Lordships' humanity, and your love of justice, have remedied everything, and I therefore proceed with confidence this day.

My Lords, I think (to the best of my remembrance) the House adjourned at the period of time in which I was endeavoring to illustrate the mischiefs that happened from Mr. Hastings's throwing off his responsibility, by delegating his power to a nominal Council, and in reality to a black bad man, a native of the country, of the worst character that could be found in it,—and the consequence of it, in preventing the detection and the punishment of the grossest abuses that ever were known to be committed in India, or any other part of the world.

My Lords, I stated to you that Mr. Commissioner Paterson was sent into that country. I stated that he was sent into it with all the authority of government, with power to hear, and not only to hear and to report, but to redress, the grievances which he should find in the country. In short, there was nothing wanting to his power but an honest support. Your Lordships will be convinced that the road to fortune was easy to him. Debi Sing for a favorable report would have given a large sum of money. Your Lordships will be convinced that the Committee would not have received such a report as a proof of bribery. They would rather consider him as a man whose conduct tended to conciliate, and to soften troublesome and difficult matters, and to settle the order of government as soon as possible.

Some of the things contained in his reports I have taken the liberty of laying before your Lordships, but very faintly, very imperfectly, and far short of my materials. I have stated, that the criminal, against whom the commissioner had made his report, instead of being punished by that strong hand of power which Mr. Hastings has thought proper to use upon other occasions, when he has endeavored to make princes, or persons in the rank and with the attributes of sovereign princes, feel whenever they have incurred his private resentments,—that this man was put into every situation of offence or defence which the most litigious and prevaricating laws that ever were invented in the very bosom of arbitrary power could afford him, or by which peculation and power were to be screened from the cries of an oppressed people.

Mr. Paterson, I stated, from being a commissioner directed to report, under the authority of government, to that government, was considered as a voluntary accuser, obliged to make good the articles of his charge. But I believe I stated that he did not long remain in that condition.

I shall now proceed to state to your Lordships, that this Debi Sing, fortified by this protection, which was extended even to the lowest of his instruments, thought it high time to assume the superiority that belonged to a personage who had the Governor-General for his pensioner. No longer the sneaking tone of apology; no longer the modest allegations that the commissioner was misinformed;—he boldly accuses the representative of English government of forgery in order to destroy him; he criminates and recriminates, and lays about him without mercy.

Things were now in a proper train; the Committee find the cause growing and ripening to their wishes;—answers, replies, objections, and interrogatories,—accounts opposed to accounts,—balances now on the one side, now on the other,—now debtor becomes creditor, and creditor debtor,—until the proceedings were grown to the size of volumes, and the whole well fitted to perplex the most simple facts, and to darken the meridian sunshine of public notoriety. They prepared a report for the Governor-General and Council suitable to the whole tenor of their proceedings. Here the man whom they had employed and betrayed appeared in a new character. Observe their course with him. First he was made a commissioner. Then he was changed from a commissioner to be a voluntary accuser. He now undergoes another metamorphosis: he appears as a culprit before Mr. Hastings, on the accusation of the donor of Mr. Hastings's bribes. He is to answer to the accusations of Debi Sing. He is permitted to find materials for his own defence; and he, an old Company's servant, is to acknowledge it as a favor to be again suffered to go into the province, without authority, without station, without public character, under the discountenance and frowns, and in a manner under prosecution, of the government. As a favor, he is suffered to go again into Rungpore, in hopes of finding among the dejected, harassed, and enslaved race of Hindoos, and in that undone province, men bold enough to stand forward, against all temptations of emolument, and at the risk of their lives, with a firm adherence to their original charge,—and at a time when they saw him an abandoned and persecuted private individual, whom they had just before looked upon as a protecting angel, carrying with him the whole power of a beneficent government, and whom they had applied to, as a magistrate of high and sacred authority, to hear the complaints and to redress the grievances of a whole people.

A new commission of junior servants was at the same time sent out to review and reëxamine the cause, to inquire into the inquiry, to examine into the examination, to control the report, to be commissioners upon the commission of Mr. Paterson. Before these commissioners he was made to appear as an accused person, and was put upon his defence, but without the authority and without the favor which ought to go with an accused person for the purpose of enabling him to make out such defence.

These persons went down into that country, and, after spending a long time in mere matters of form, found they could not do without a representative of Debi Sing, and accordingly they ordered Debi Sing to send up his vakeel.

I forgot to state to your Lordships what the condition of Debi Sing was during this proceeding. This man had been ordered to Calcutta on two grounds: one, on the matter of his flagitious misconduct at Rungpore; and the other, for a great failure in the payment of his stipulated revenue. Under this double accusation, he was to be considered, according to the usual mode of proceeding in such cases, as a prisoner; and he was kept, not in the common gaol of Calcutta, not in the prison of the fort, not in that gaol in which Rajah Nundcomar, who had been prime-minister of the empire, was confined, but, according to the mild ways of that country, where they choose to be mild, and the persons are protected by the official influence of power, under a free custody. He was put under a guard of sepoys, but not confined to his house; he was permitted to go abroad, where he was daily in conference with those who were to judge him; and having an address which seldom fails, and a dexterity never wanting to a man possessed of 700,000l., he converted this guard into a retinue of honor: their bayonets were lowered, their muskets laid aside; they attended him with their side-arms, and many with silver verges in their hands, to mark him out rather as a great magistrate attended by a retinue than a prisoner under guard.

When he was ordered to send a vakeel to defend his conduct, he refused to send him. Upon which the commissioners, instead of saying, "If you will not send your agent, we will proceed in our inquiry without him," (and, indeed, it was not made necessary by the commission that he should be there either by vakeel or otherwise,) condescendingly admitted his refusal, and suffered him to come up in person. He accordingly enters the province, attended with his guard, in the manner I have before mentioned, more as a person returning in triumph from a great victory than as a man under the load of all those enormous charges which I have stated. He enters the province in this manner; and Mr. Paterson, who saw himself lately the representative of the India Company, (an old servant of the Company is a great man in that country,) was now left naked, destitute, without any mark of official situation or dignity. He was present, and saw all the marks of imprisonment turned into marks of respect and dignity to this consummate villain whom I have the misfortune of being obliged to introduce to your Lordships' notice. Mr. Paterson, seeing the effect of the proceeding everywhere, seeing the minds of the people broken, subdued, and prostrate under it, and that, so far from having the means of detecting the villanies of this insolent criminal, appearing as a magistrate, he had not the means of defending even his own innocence, because every kind of information fled and was annihilated before him, represented to these young commissioners that this appearance of authority tended to strike terror into the hearts of the natives, and to prevent his receiving justice. The Council of Calcutta took this representation into their deliberate consideration; they found that it was true, that, if he had such an attendance any longer in this situation, (and a large attendance it was, such as the Chancellor of this kingdom or the Speaker of the House of Commons does not appear with,) it would have an evil appearance. On the other hand, say they, "If he should be left under a guard, the people would consider him as under disgrace." They therefore took a middle way, and ordered the guard not to attend him with fixed bayonets, which had the appearance of the custody of a prisoner, but to lower their muskets and unfix their bayonets.

The next step of these commissioners is to exclude Mr. Paterson from all their deliberations; and in order that both parties might be put on an equality, one would naturally conclude that the culprit, Debi Sing, was likewise excluded. Far from it: he sat upon the bench. Need I say any more upon this subject? The protection followed.

In this situation Mr. Paterson wrote one of the most pathetic memorials that ever was penned to the Council of Calcutta, submitting to his hard fate, but standing inflexibly to his virtue that brought it upon him. To do the man justice, he bore the whole of this persecution like an hero. He never tottered in his principles, nor swerved to the right or to the left from the noble cause of justice and humanity in which he had been engaged; and when your Lordships come to see his memorials, you will have reason to observe that his abilities are answerable to the dignity of his cause, and make him worthy of everything that he had the honor to suffer for it.

To cut short the thread of this shocking series of corruption, oppression, fraud, and chicanery, which lasted for upwards of four years: Paterson remains without employment; the inhabitants of great provinces, whose substance and whose blood was sold by Mr. Hastings, remain without redress; and the purchaser, Debi Sing, that corrupt, iniquitous, and bloody tyrant, instead of being proceeded against by the Committee in a civil suit for retribution to the sufferers, is handed over to the false semblance of a trial, on a criminal charge, before a Mahometan judge,—an equal judge, however. The judge was Mahomed Reza Khân, his original patron, and the author of all his fortunes,—a judge who depends on him, as a debtor depends upon his creditor. To that judge is he sent, without a distinct charge, without a prosecutor, and without evidence. The next ships will bring you an account of his honorable acquittal.

I have stated before that I considered Mr. Hastings as responsible for the characters of the people he employed,—doubly responsible, if he knew them to be bad. I therefore charge him with putting in situations in which any evil may be committed persons of known evil characters.

My Lords, I charge him, as chief governor, with destroying the institutions of the country, which were designed to be, and ought to have been, controls upon such a person as Debi Sing.

An officer, called dewan, or steward of the country, had always been placed as a control on the farmer; but that no such control should in fact exist, that he, Debi Sing, should be let loose to rapine, slaughter, and plunder in the country, both offices were conferred on him. Did Mr. Hastings vest these offices in him? No: but if Mr. Hastings had kept firm to the duties which the act of Parliament appointed him to execute, all the revenue appointments must have been made by him; but, instead of making them himself, he appointed Gunga Govind Sing to make them; and for that appointment, and for the whole train of subordinate villany which followed the placing iniquity in the chief seat of government, Mr. Hastings is answerable. He is answerable, I say, first, for destroying his own legal capacity, and, next, for destroying the legal capacity of the Council, not one of whom ever had, or could have, any true knowledge of the state of the country, from the moment he buried it in the gulf of mystery and of darkness, under that collected heap of villany, Gunga Govind Sing. From that moment he destroyed the power of government, and put everything into his hands: for this he is answerable.

The Provincial Councils consisted of many members, who, though they might unite in some small iniquities perhaps, could not possibly have concealed from the public eye the commission of such acts as these. Their very numbers, their natural competitions, the contentions that must have arisen among them, must have put a check, at least, to such a business. And therefore, Mr. Hastings having destroyed every check and control above and below, having delivered the whole into the hands of Gunga Govind Sing, for all the iniquities of Gunga Govind Sing he is responsible.

But he did not know Debi Sing, whom he employed. I read, yesterday, and trust it is fresh in your Lordships' remembrance, that Debi Sing was presented to him by that set of tools, as they call themselves, who acted, as they themselves tell us they must act, entirely and implicitly under Gunga Govind Sing,—that is to say, by Gunga Govind Sing himself, the confidential agent of Mr. Hastings.

Mr. Hastings is further responsible, because he took a bribe of 40,000l. from some person in power in Dinagepore and Rungpore, the countries which were ravaged in this manner, through the hands of Gunga Govind Sing,—through the medium of that very person whom he had appointed to exercise all the authorities of the Supreme Council above and of all subordinate Councils below. Having, therefore, thus appointed a Council of tools in the hands of Gunga Govind Sing, at the expense of 62,000l. a year, to supersede all the English provincial authorities,—having appointed them for the purpose of establishing a bribe-factor general, a general receiver and agent of bribes through all that country, Mr. Hastings is responsible for all the consequences of it.

I have thought it necessary, and absolutely necessary it is, to state what the consequence of this clandestine mode of supplying the Company's exigencies was. Your Lordships will see that their exigencies are to be supplied by the ruin of the landed interest of a province, the destruction of the husbandmen, and the ruin of all the people in it. This is the consequence of a general bribe-broker, an agent like Gunga Govind Sing, superseding all the powers and controls of government.

But Mr. Hastings has not only reduced bribery to a system of government practically, but theoretically. For when he despaired any longer of concealing his bribes from the penetrating eye of Parliament, then he took another mode, and declared, as your Lordships will see, that it was the best way of supplying the necessities of the East India Company in the pressing exigencies of their affairs; that thus a relief to the Company's affairs might be yielded, which, in the common, ostensible mode, and under the ordinary forms of government, and publicly, never would be yielded to them. So that bribery with him became a supplement to exaction.

The best way of showing that a theoretical system is bad is to show the practical mischiefs that it produces: because a thing may look specious in theory, and yet be ruinous in practice; a thing may look evil in theory, and yet be in its practice excellent. Here a thing in theory, stated by Mr. Hastings to be productive of much good, is in reality productive of all those horrible mischiefs I have stated. That Mr. Hastings well knew this appears from an extract of the Bengal Revenue Consultations, 21st January, 1785, a little before he came away.

Mr. Hastings says,—"I entirely acquit Mr. Goodlad of all the charges: he has disproved them. It was the duty of the accuser to prove them. Whatever crimes may be established against Rajah Debi Sing, it does not follow that Mr. Goodlad was responsible for them; and I so well know the character and abilities of Rajah Debi Sing, that I can easily conceive that it was in his power both to commit the enormities which are laid to his charge, and to conceal the grounds of them from Mr. Goodlad, who had no authority but that of receiving the accounts and rents of the district from Rajah Debi Sing, and occasionally to be the channel of communication between him and the Committee."

We shall now see what things Mr. Hastings did, what course he was in, a little before his departure,—with what propriety and consistency of character he has behaved from the year of the commencement of his corrupt system, in 1773, to the end of it, when he closed it in 1785, when the bribes not only mounted the chariot, but boarded the barge, and, as I shall show, followed him down the Ganges, and even to the sea, and that he never quitted his system of iniquity, but that it survived his political life itself.

One of his last political acts was this.

Your Lordships will remember that Mr. Goodlad was sent up into the country, whose conduct was terrible indeed: for that he could not be in place and authority in that country, and be innocent, while such things were doing, I shall prove. But that is not now my consideration.

The Governor-General's minute, just read, is this. "I entirely acquit Mr. Goodlad of all the charges: he has disproved them. It was the duty of the accuser to prove them" (the accuser, namely, the commissioner). "Whatever crimes may be established against Rajah Debi Sing, it does not follow that Mr. Goodlad was responsible for them; and I so well know the character," &c., &c., &c.

Now your Lordships perceive he has acquitted Mr. Goodlad. He is clear. Be it that he is fairly and conscientiously acquitted. But what is Mr. Hastings's account of Rajah Debi Sing? He is presented to him in 1781, by Gunga Govind Sing, as a person against whose character there could be no exception, and by him accepted in that light. Upon the occasion I have mentioned, Mr. Hastings's opinion of him is this: "I so well know the character and abilities of Rajah Debi Sing, that I can easily conceive that it was in his power both to commit the enormities which are laid to his charge, and to conceal the grounds of them from Mr. Goodlad, who had no authority but that of receiving the accounts and rents of the district from Rajah Debi Sing, and occasionally to be the channel of communication between him and the Committee."

Thus your Lordships see what Mr. Hastings's opinion of Debi Sing was. We shall prove it at another time, by abundance of clear and demonstrative evidence, that, whether he was bad or no, (but we shall prove that bad he was indeed,) even he could hardly be so bad as he was in the opinion which Mr. Hastings entertained of him; who, notwithstanding, now disowns this mock Committee, instituted by himself, but, in reality, entirely managed by Gunga Govind Sing. This Debi Sing was accepted as an unexceptionable man; and yet Mr. Hastings knows both his power of doing mischief and his artifice in concealing it. If, then, Mr. Goodlad is to be acquitted, does it not show the evil of Mr. Hastings's conduct in destroying those Provincial Councils which, as I have already stated, were obliged to book everything, to minute all the circumstances which came before them, together with all the consultations respecting them? He strikes at the whole system at once, and, instead of it, he leaves an Englishman, under pretence of controlling Gunga Govind Sing's agent, appointed for the very purpose of giving him bribes, in a province where Mr. Hastings says that agent had the power of committing such enormities, and which nobody doubts his disposition to commit,—he leaves him, I say, in such a state of inefficiency, that these iniquities could be concealed (though every one true) from the person appointed there to inspect his conduct! What, then, could be his business there? Was it only to receive such sums of money as Debi Sing might put into his hands, and which might have been easily sent to Calcutta? Was he to be of use as a communication between Debi Sing and the Committee, and in no other way? Here, then, we have that English authority which Mr. Hastings left in the country,—here the native authority which he settled, and the establishment of native iniquity in a regular system under Gunga Govind Sing,—here the destruction of all English inspection. I hope I need say no more to prove to your Lordships that this system, taken nakedly as it thus stands, founded in mystery and obscurity, founded for the very express purpose of conveying bribes, as the best mode of collecting the revenue and supplying the Company's exigencies through Gunga Govind Sing, would be iniquitous upon the face and the statement of it. But when your Lordships consider what horrid effects it produced, you will easily see what the mischief and abomination of Mr. Hastings's destroying these Provincial Councils and protecting these persons must necessarily be. If you had not known in theory, you must have seen it in practice.

But when both practice and theory concur, there can be no doubt that a system of private bribery for a revenue, and of private agency for a constitutional government, must ruin the country where it prevails, must disgrace the country that uses it, and finally end in the destruction of the revenue. For what says Mr. Hastings? "I was to have received 40,000l. in bribes, and 30,000l. was actually applied to the use of the Company." Now I hope I shall demonstrate, if not, it will be by some one abler than me demonstrated, in the course of this business, that there never was a bribe received by Mr. Hastings that was not instantly followed with a deficiency in the revenue,—this is clear, and what we undertake to prove,—and that Debi Sing himself was, at the time Mr. Hastings came away, between twenty and thirty thousand pounds debtor to the Company. So that, in truth, you always find a deficiency of revenue nearly equal, and in some instances I shall show double, to all the bribes Mr. Hastings received: from whence it will be evident that he never could nor did receive them under that absurd and strange idea of a resource to government.

I must re-state to your Lordships, because I wish you never to forget, that this Committee of Revenue was, in their own opinion, and from their own certain knowledge and mere motion, if motion can be attributed originally to instruments, mere tools; that they knew that they were tools in the hands of Gunga Govind Sing. There were two persons principal in it,—Mr. Shore, who was the acting President, and Mr. Anderson, who was President in rank, and President in emolument, but absent for a great part of the time upon a foreign embassy. It is the recorded opinion of the former, (for I must beg leave to read again a part of the paper which has already been read to your Lordships,) that "the Committee, with the best intentions, best abilities, and steadiest application, must, after all, be a tool in the hands of their dewan."

Now do you believe, in the first place, that men will long have abilities, will long have good intentions, and will long, above all, have steady application, when they know they are but tools in the hands of another,—when they know they are tools for his own corrupt purposes?

In the next place, I must beg leave to state to you, that, on the constitution of this Committee, Mr. Hastings made them all take a solemn oath that they would never receive any present whatever. It was not enough to trust to a general covenant; it was not enough to trust to the penal act of 1773: he bound the Committee by a new oath, and forced them to declare that they would not receive any bribes. As soon as he had so secured them against receiving bribes, he was resolved to make them inefficient,—a good way to secure them against bribes, by taking from them the power of bribe-worthy service. This was a good counter-security to their oath. But Mr. Hastings put a dewan there, against whom there was no security; he let loose this dewan to frustrate their intentions, their application, their abilities, and oath: that is, there was a person at that board who was more than the board itself, who might riot in peculation and plunder from one end of the country to the other. He was there to receive bribes for Mr. Hastings; the Committee were to be pure with impotent hands; and then came a person with ample power for Mr. Hastings himself. And lest this person should not have power enough in this Committee, he is made the general bribe-broker to Mr. Hastings. This secret under-current, as your Lordships will see, is to counteract everything, and, as fast as one part is rendered pure, totally to corrupt all the rest.

But, my Lords, this was not the private opinion of Mr. Shore only, a man of great abilities, and intimately acquainted with the revenue, who must know when he was in a situation to do good and when not. The other gentleman whom I have mentioned, Mr. Hastings's confidant in everything but his bribes, and supposed to be in his closest secrets, is Mr. Anderson. I should remark to your Lordships, that Mr. Anderson is a man apparently of weak nerves, of modest and very guarded demeanor, as we have seen him in the House of Commons; it is in that way only I have the honor of knowing him. Mr. Anderson being asked whether he agreed in the opinion and admitted the truth of his friend Mr. Shore's statement relative to the dewan of the Committee, his answer was this: "I do not think that I should have written it quite so strong, but I do in a great measure agree to it: that is, I think there is a great deal of truth in the observation; I think, in particular, that it would require great exertion in the Committee, and great abilities on the part of the President, to restrain effectually the conduct of the dewan; I think it would be difficult for the Committee to interpose a sufficient control to guard against all the abuses of the dewan."

There is the real President of the Committee,—there the most active, efficient member of it. They are both of one opinion concerning their situation: and I think this opinion of Mr. Anderson is still more strong; for, as he thinks he should have written it with a little more guard, but should have agreed in substance, you must naturally think the strongest expression the truest representation of the circumstance.

There is another circumstance that must strike your Lordships relative to this institution. It is where the President says that the use of the President would be to exert his best abilities, his greatest application, his constant guard,—for what?—to prevent his dewan from being guilty of bribery and being guilty of oppressions. So here is an executive constitution in which the chief executive minister is to be in such a situation and of such a disposition that the chief employment of the presiding person in the Committee is to guard against him and to prevent his doing mischief. Here is a man appointed, of the greatest possible power, of the greatest possible wickedness, in a situation to exert that power and wickedness for the destruction of the country, and without doubt it would require the greatest ability and diligence in the person at the head of that Council to prevent it. Such a constitution, allowed and alleged by the persons themselves who composed it, was, I believe, never heard of in the world.

Now that I have done with this part of the system of bribery, your Lordships will permit me to follow Mr. Hastings to his last parting scene. He parted with his power, he parted with his situation, he parted with everything, but he never could part with Gunga Govind Sing. He was on his voyage, he had embarked, he was upon the Ganges, he had quitted his government; and his last dying sigh, his last parting voice, was "Gunga Govind Sing!" It ran upon the banks of the Ganges, as another plaintive voice ran upon the banks of another river (I forget whose); his last accents were, "Gunga, Gunga Govind Sing!" It demonstrates the power of friendship.

It is said by some idle, absurd moralists, that friendship is a thing that cannot subsist between bad men; but I will show your Lordships the direct contrary; and, after having shown you what Gunga Govind Sing was, I shall bring before you Mr. Hastings's last act of friendship for him. Not that I have quite shown you everything, but pretty well, I think, respecting this man. There is a great deal concerning his character and conduct that is laid by, and I do believe, that, whatever time I should take up in expatiating upon these things, there would be "in the lowest deep still a lower deep"; for there is not a day of the inquiry that does not bring to light more and more of this evil against Mr. Hastings.

But before I open the papers relative to this act of Mr. Hastings's friendship for Gunga Govind Sing, I must re-state some circumstances, that your Lordships may understand thoroughly the nature of it. Your Lordships may recollect, that, about the time of the succession of the minor Rajah of Dinagepore, who was then but five or six years of age, and when Mr. Hastings left Bengal eight or nine, Mr. Hastings had received from that country a bribe of about 40,000l. There is a fidelity even in bribery; there is a truth and observance even in corruption; there is a justice, that, if money is to be paid for protection, protection should be given. My Lords, Mr. Hastings received this bribe through Gunga Govind Sing; then, at least, through Gunga Govind Sing he ought to take care that that Rajah should not be robbed,—that he should not be robbed, if Gunga Govind Sing could help it,—that, above all, he should not be robbed by Gunga Govind Sing himself. But your Lordships will find that the last act of Mr. Hastings's life was to be an accomplice in the most cruel and perfidious breach of faith, in the most iniquitous transaction, that I do believe ever was held out to the indignation of the world with regard to private persons. When he departed, on the 16th of February, 1785, when he was on board, in the mouth of the Ganges, and preparing to visit his native country, let us see what the last act of his life then was. Hear the last tender accents of the dying swan upon the Ganges.

"The regret which I cannot but feel in relinquishing the service of my honorable employers would be much embittered, were it accompanied by the reflection that I have neglected the merits of a man who deserves no less of them than of myself, Gunga Govind Sing, who from his earliest youth had been employed in the collection of the revenues, and was about eleven years ago selected for his superior talents to fill the office of dewan to the Calcutta Committee. He has from that time, with a short intermission, been the principal native agent in the collection of the Company's revenues; and I can take upon myself to say that he has performed the duties of his office with fidelity, diligence, and ability. To myself he has given proofs of a constancy and attachment which neither the fears nor expectations excited by the prevalence of a different influence could shake,—and at a time, too, when these qualities were so dangerous, that, far from finding them amongst the generality of his countrymen, I did not invariably meet with them amongst my own. With such a sense of his merits, it is natural that I should feel a desire of rewarding him,—for justice, gratitude, generosity, and even policy, demand it; and I resort to the board for the means of performing so necessary a duty, in full confidence, that, as those which I shall point out are neither incompatible with the Company's interest nor prejudicial to the rights of others, they will not be withheld from me. At the request, therefore, of Gunga Govind Sing, I deliver the accompanying durkhausts, or petitions, for grants of lands lying in different districts, the total jumma, or rent, of which amount to Rupees 2,38,061. 12. 1."

Your Lordships recollect that Mr. Larkins was one of the bribe-agents of Mr. Hastings,—one, I mean, of a corporation, but not corporate in their acts. My Lords, Mr. Larkins has told you, he has told us, and he has told the Court of Directors, that Mr. Hastings parted in a quarrel with Gunga Govind Sing, because he had not faithfully kept his engagement with regard to his bribe, and that, instead of 40,000l. from Dinagepore, he had only paid him 30,000l. My Lords, that iniquitous men will defraud one another I can conceive; but you will perceive by Mr. Hastings's behavior at parting, that he either had in fact received this money from Gunga Govind Sing, or in some way or other had abundant reason to be satisfied,—that he totally forgot his anger upon this occasion, and that at parting his last act was to ratify grants of lands (so described by Mr. Hastings) to Gunga Govind Sing. Your Lordships will recollect the tender and forgiving temper of Mr. Hastings. Whatever little bickerings there might have been between them about their small money concerns, the purifying waters of the Ganges had washed away all sins, enmities, and discontent. By some of those arts which Gunga Govind Sing knows how to practise, (I mean conciliatory, honest arts,) he had fairly wiped away all resentment out of Mr. Hastings's mind; and he, who so long remembered the affront offered him by Cheyt Sing, totally forgets Gunga Govind Sing's fraud of 10,000l., and attempts to make others the instruments of giving him what he calls his reward.

Mr. Hastings states, among Gunga Govind's merits, that he had, from the time of its institution, and with a very short intermission, served the office of dewan to the Calcutta Committee. That short intermission was when he was turned out of office upon proof of peculation and embezzlement of public money; but of this cause of the intermission in the political life and political merits of Gunga Govind Sing Mr. Hastings does not tell you.

Your Lordships shall now hear what opinion a member of the Provincial Council at Calcutta, in which he had also served, had of him.

"Who is Gunga Govind Sing?" The answer is, "He was, when I left Bengal, dewan to the Committee of Revenue.—What was his office and power during Mr. Hastings's administration since 1780?—He was formerly dewan to the Provincial Council stationed at Calcutta, of which I was a member. His conduct then was licentious and unwarrantable, oppressive and extortionary. He was stationed under us to be an humble and submissive servant, and to be of use to us in the discharge of our duty. His conduct was everything the reverse. We endeavored to correct the mischiefs he was guilty of as much as possible. In one attempt to release fifteen persons illegally confined by him, we were dismissed our offices: a different pretence was held out for our dismission, but it was only a pretence. Since his appointment as dewan to the present Committee of Revenue, his line of conduct has only been a continuance of what I have described, but upon a larger scale.—What was the general opinion of the natives of the use he made of his power? He was looked up to by the natives as the second person in the government, if not the first. He was considered as the only channel for obtaining favor and employment from the Governor. There is hardly a native family of rank or credit within the three provinces whom he has not some time or other distressed and afflicted; scarce a zemindary that he has not dismembered and plundered.—Were you in a situation to know this to be true?—I certainly was.—What was the general opinion, and your own, concerning his wealth?—It is almost impossible to form a competent judgment, his means of acquiring it have been so extensive. I had an account shown to me, about July, 1785, stating his acquisitions at three hundred and twenty lacs of rupees,—that is, 3,200,000l."

My Lords, I have only to add, that, from the best inquiries I have been able to make, those who speak highest of his wealth are those who obtain the greatest credit. The estimate of any man's wealth is uncertain; but the enormity of his wealth is universally believed. Yet Mr. Hastings seemed to act as if he needed a reward; and it is therefore necessary to inquire what recommended him particularly to Mr. Hastings. Your Lordships have seen that he was on the point of being dismissed for misbehavior and oppression by that Calcutta Committee his services to which Mr. Hastings gives as one proof of his constant and uniform good behavior. "He had executed," he says, "the duties of his office with fidelity, diligence, and ability." These are his public merits; but he has private merits. "To myself," says he, "he has given proofs of constancy and attachment."

Now we, who have been used to look very diligently over the Company's records, and to compare one part with another, ask what those services were, which have so strongly recommended him to Mr. Hastings, and induced him to speak so favorably of his public services. What those services are does not appear; we have searched the records for them, (and those records are very busy and loquacious,) about that period of time during which Mr. Hastings was laboring under an eclipse, and near the dragon's mouth, and all the drums of Bengal beating to free him from this dangerous eclipse. During this time there is nothing publicly done, there is nothing publicly said, by Gunga Govind Sing. There were, then, some services of Gunga Govind Sing that lie undiscovered, which he takes as proofs of attachment. What could they be? They were not public; nobody knows anything of them; they must, by reference to the time, as far as we can judge of them, be services of concealment: otherwise, in the course of this business, it will be necessary, and Mr. Hastings will find occasion, to show what those personal services of Gunga Govind Sing to him were. His services to Gunga Govind Sing were pretty conspicuous: for, after he was turned out for peculation, Mr. Hastings restored him to his office; and when he had imprisoned fifteen persons illegally and oppressively, and when the Council were about to set them at liberty, they were set at liberty themselves, they were dismissed their offices. Your Lordships see, then, what his public services were. His private services are unknown: they must be, as we conceive from their being unknown, of a suspicious nature; and I do not go further than suspicion, because I never heard, and I have not been without attempts to make the discovery, what those services were that recommended him to Mr. Hastings.

Having looked at his public services, which are well-known scenes of wickedness, barbarity, and corruption, we next come to see what his reward is. Your Lordships hear what reward he thought proper to secure for himself; and I believe a man who has power like Gunga Govind Sing, and a disposition like Gunga Govind Sing, can hardly want the means of rewarding himself; and if every virtue rewards itself, and virtue is said to be its own reward, the virtue of Gunga Govind Sing was in a good way of seeking its own reward. Mr. Hastings, however, thought it was not right that such a man should reward himself, but that it was necessary for the honor and justice of government to find him a reward. Then the next thing is, what that reward shall be. It is a grant of lands. Your Lordships will observe, that Mr. Hastings declares some of these lands to be unoccupied, others occupied, but not by the just owners. Now these were the very lands of the Rajah of Dinagepore from whence he had taken the bribe of 40,000l. My Lords, this was a monstrous thing. Mr. Hastings had the audacity, as his parting act, when he was coming to England, and ought to have expected (whatever he did expect) the responsibility of this day,—he was, I say, shameless enough not only to give this recommendation, but to perpetuate the mischiefs of his reign, as he has done, to his successors: for he has really done so, by making it impossible, almost, to know anything of the true state of that country; and he has thereby made them much less responsible and criminal than before in any ill acts they may have done since his time. But Mr. Hastings not only recommends and backs the petition of Gunga Govind Sing with his parting authority, which authority he made the people there believe would be greater in England than it was in India, but he is an evidence; he declares, that, "to his own knowledge, these lands are vacant, and confessedly, therefore, by the laws of this as well as of most other countries, in the absolute gift of government."

My Lords, as I said, Mr. Hastings becomes a witness, and I believe in the course of the proceedings you will find a false witness, for Gunga Govind Sing. "To my own knowledge," says he, "they are vacant." Why, I cannot find that Mr. Hastings had ever been in Dinagepore; or if he had, it must have been only as a passenger. He had not the supervision of the district, in any other sense than with that kind of eagle eye which he must have had over all Bengal, and which he had for no other purposes than those for which eagles' eyes are commonly used. He becomes, you see, a witness for Gunga Govind Sing, and orders to be given him, as a recompense for all the iniquitous acts this man committed, the lands of that very Rajah who through the hands of Gunga Govind Sing had given an enormous bribe to Mr. Hastings. These lands were not without an ownership, but were lands in the hands of the Rajah, and were to be severed from the zemindary, and given to Gunga Govind Sing. The manner of obtaining them is something so shocking, and contains such a number of enormities completed in one act, that one can scarce imagine how such a compound could exist.

This man, besides his office of dewan to the Calcutta Committee, which gave him the whole management and power of the revenue, was, as I have stated, at the head of all the registers in the kingdom, whose duty it was to be a control upon him as dewan. As Mr. Hastings destroyed every other constitutional settlement of the country, so the office which was to be a check upon Gunga Govind Sing, namely, the register of the country, had been superseded, and revived in another shape, and given to the own son of this very man. God forbid that a son should not be under a certain and reasonable subordination! But though in this country we know a son may possibly be free from the control of his father, yet the meanest slave is not in a more abject condition of slavery than a son is in that country to his father; for it extends to the power of a Roman parent. The office of register is to take care that a full and fair rent is secured to government; and above all, it is his business to take care of the body of laws, the Rawaj-ul-Mulk, or custom of the country, of which he is the guardian as the head of the law. It was his business to secure that fundamental law of the government, and fundamental law of the country, that a zemindary cannot be split, or any portion of it separated, without the consent of the government. This man betrayed his trust, and did privately, contrary to the duty of his office, get this minor Rajah, who was but an infant, who was but nine years old at the time, to make over to him a part of his zemindary, to a large amount, under color of a fraudulent and fictitious sale. By the laws of that country, by the common laws of Nature, the act of this child was void. The act was void as against the government, by giving a zemindary without the consent of the government to the very man who ought to have prevented such an act. He has the same sacred guardianship of minors that the Chancellor of England has. This man got to himself those lands by a fraudulent, and probably forged deed,—for that is charged too; but whether it was forged or not, this miserable minor was obliged to give the lands to him: he did not dare to quarrel with him upon such an article; because he who would purchase could take. The next step was to get one of his nearest relations to seem to give a consent; because taking it of the minor was too gross. The relation, who could no more consent by the law of that country than the law of this, gave apparently his consent. And these were the very lands that Mr. Hastings speaks of as "lands entirely at the disposal of government."

All this came before the Council. The moment Mr. Hastings was gone, India seemed a little to respire; there was a vast, oppressive weight taken off it, there was a mountain removed from its breast; and persons did dare then, for the first time, to breathe their complaints. And accordingly, this minor Rajah got some person kind enough to tell him that he was a minor, that he could not part with his estate; and this, with the other shocking and illegal parts of the process, was stated by him to the Council, who had Mr. Hastings's recommendation of Gunga Govind Sing before them. The Council, shocked to see a minor attempted to be dispossessed in such a manner by him who was the natural guardian of all minors, shocked at such an enormous, daring piece of iniquity, began to inquire further, and to ask, "How came this his near relation to consent?" He was apparently partner in the fraud. Partner in the fraud he was, but not partner in the profit; for he was to do it without getting anything for it: the wickedness was in him, and the profit in Gunga Govind Sing. In consequence of this inquiry, the man comes down to account for his conduct, and declares another atrocious iniquity, that shows you the powers which Gunga Govind Sing possessed. "Gunga Govind Sing," says he, "is master of the country; he had made a great festival for the burial of his mother; all those of that caste ought to be invited to the funeral festival; he would have disgraced me forever, if I had not been invited to that funeral festival." These funeral festivals, you should know, are great things in that country, and celebrated in this manner, and, you may depend upon it, in a royal manner by him, upon burying his mother: any person left out was marked, despised, and disgraced. "But he had it in his power, and I was threatened to be deprived of my caste by his register, who had the caste in his absolute disposition." Says he, "I was under terror, I was under duress, and I did it."

Gunga Govind Sing was fortified by the opinion, that the Governor, though departed, virtually resided in that country. God grant that his power may be extirpated out of it now! I doubt it; but, most assuredly, it was residing in its plenitude when he departed from thence; and there was not a man in India who was not of opinion, either that he was actually to return to govern India again, or that his power is such in England as that he might govern it here. And such were the hopes of those who had intentions against the estates of others. Gunga Govind Sing, therefore, being pressed to the wall by this declaration of the Rajah's relation, when he could say nothing against it, when it was clear and manifest, and there were only impudent barefaced denials, and asseverations against facts which carried truth with themselves, did not in his answer pretend to say that a zemindary might be parted without the consent of the government, that a minor might be deprived of it, that the next relation had a power of disposing of it. He did indeed say, but nobody believed him, that he had used no force upon this relation; but as every one knew the act would be void, he was driven to Mr. Hastings's great refuge,—he was driven to say, "The government in this country has arbitrary power; the power of government is everything, the right of the subject nothing; they have at all times separated zemindaries from their lawful proprietors. Give me what Mr. Hastings has constantly given to other people without any right, or shadow or semblance of right at all." God knows, it is well that I walk with my authority in my hand; for there are such crimes, such portentous, incredible crimes, to be brought before your Lordships, that it would hardly be believed, were it not that I am constantly, as I hope I shall constantly be, guarded with evidence, and that the strongest that can be, even the evidence of the parties themselves.

"From your inquiry," Gunga Govind Sing says to the Council, "every circumstance will appear in its true colors. With respect to the alienation of parts of zemindaries, the extent and consequence of the great zemindars depend in a great measure on the favor and countenance of the ruling powers. By what means did this zemindar of Dinagepore get possession of Purgunnah Buttassim after the death of Rycobad Chowdry in 1158, of Purgunnah Coolygong after the death of Sahebrance Chowderanne in the same year, notwithstanding his heirs existed, and of Purgunnah Suntoe, &c., during the lifetime of Sumboonant, the zemindar, in 1167, all without right, title, or pecuniary consideration? This has been the case with many purgunnahs in his zemindary, and indeed exists in many other zemindaries besides since the Company's accession. Ramkissen, in 1172, got possession of Nurrulloor, the zemindary of Mahomed Ali. The purgunnah of Ichanguipore, &c., was in three divisions in 1173. The petition of Govind Deo Sheopersaud was made over to the son of Bousser Chowdry, possessor of the third share. Purgunnah Baharbund belonged to the zemindary of Ranny Bhowanny, and in 1180 was made over to Lucknaut Nundy. All these changes took place in the lifetime of the rightful possessors, without right, title, or purchase."

Your Lordships have not heard before of Lucknaut Nundy. He was the son of a person of whom your Lordships have heard before, called Cantoo Baboo, the banian of Mr. Hastings. Mr. Hastings has proved in abundance of other cases that a grant to father and son is the same thing. The fathers generally take out grants in the names of their sons: and the Ranny Bhowanny, possessing the zemindary of Radshi, an old lady of the first rank and family in India, was stripped of part of her zemindary, and it was given to Lucknaut Nundy, the son of Mr. Hastings's banian; and then (you see the consequence of good examples) comes Gunga Govind Sing, and says, "I am as good a man as he; there is a zemindary given; then do as much for Gunga Govind Sing as you have done for Cantoo Baboo." Here is an argument drawn from the practice of Mr. Hastings. And this shows your Lordships the necessity of suppressing such iniquities by punishing the author of them. You will punish Mr. Hastings, and no man will hereafter dare to rob minors, no man will hereafter dare to rob widows, to give to the vilest of mankind, their own base instruments for their own nefarious purposes, the lands of others, without right, title, or purchase.

My Lords, I will not after this state to you the false representation of the value of these lands which this man gave in to government. He represented it to be much less than it was, when he desired the grant of them,—as shall be stated, when it comes before your Lordships, at the proper time. But at present I am only touching upon principles, and bringing examples so far as they illustrate principles, and to show how precedents spread.

I believe your Lordships will conceive better of the spirit of these transactions by my intermixing with them, as I shall endeavor to do, as much as possible of the grounds of them. I will venture to say, that no description that I can give, no painting, if I was either able or willing to paint, could make these transactions appear to your Lordships with the strength which they have in themselves; and your Lordships will be convinced of this, when you see, what nobody could hardly believe, that a man can say, "It was given to others without right, title, or purchase,—give it to me without right, title, or purchase; give me the estates of minors without right, title, or purchase, because Mr. Hastings gave the estates of widows without right, title, or purchase."

Of this exemplary grant, of this pattern for future proceedings, I will show your Lordships the consequence. I will read to your Lordships part of the examination of a witness, taken from a report of a committee of the House of Commons.

"Are you acquainted with the situation of the zemindary of Baharbund?—It lies to the eastward of Dinagepore and Rungpore. I was stationed in that neighborhood.—To whom did it originally belong?—I believe, to the zemindary of Radshi, belonging to Ranny Bhowanny.—For what reason was it taken from the Ranny of Radshi and given to Cantoo Baboo?—I do not exactly recollect: I believe, on some plea of incapacity or insufficiency in her to manage it, or some pretended decline in the revenue, owing to mismanagement.—On what terms was it granted to Cantoo Baboo or his son?—I believe it was a grant in perpetuity, at the revenue of Rupees 82,000 or 83,000 per annum.—What amount did he collect from the country?—I cannot tell. The year I was in that neighborhood, the settlement with his under-tenants was something above 3,53,000 rupees. The inhabitants of the country objected to it. They assembled in a body of about five thousand, and were proceeding to Calcutta to make known their grievances to the Committee of Revenue. They were stopped at Cossimbazar by Noor Sing Baboo, the brother of Cantoo Baboo, and there the matter was compromised,—in what manner I cannot say."

Your Lordships see, Mr. Hastings's banian got this zemindary belonging to this venerable lady; unable to protect herself; that it was granted to him without right, title, or purchase. To show you that Mr. Hastings had been in a constant course of such proceeding, here is a petition from a person called —— for some favor from government which it is not necessary now to state. In order to make good his claim, he states what nobody denied, but which is universally known in fact. Says he, "I have never entertained any such intention or idea," that is, of seizing upon other people's zemindaries; "neither am I at all desirous of acquiring any other person's zemindary in this country," &c....

[The document read here is wanting, ending] "as several Calcutta banians have done," &c.

He states it as a kind of constant practice, by which the country had been robbed under Mr. Hastings, known and acknowledged to be so, to seize upon the inheritance of the widow and the fatherless. In this manner did Gunga Govind Sing govern himself, upon the direct precedent of Cantoo Baboo, the banian of Mr. Hastings; and this other instrument of his in like manner calls upon government for favor of some kind or other, upon the same principle and the same precedent.

Your Lordships now see how necessary it was to say something about arbitrary power. For, first, the wicked people of that country (Mr. Hastings's instruments, I mean) pretend right, title, purchase, grant; and when their frauds in all these legal means are discovered, then they fly off, and have recourse to arbitrary power, and say, "It is true I can make out no right, title, grant, or purchase; the parties are minors; I am bound to take care of their right: but you have arbitrary power; you have exercised it upon other occasions; exercise it upon this; give me the rights of other people." This was the last act, and I hope will be the last act, of Mr. Hastings's wicked power, done by the wickedest man in favor of the wickedest man, and by the wickedest means, which failed upon his own testimony.

To bring your Lordships to the end of this business, which I hope will lead me very near to the end of what I have to trouble your Lordships with, I will now state the conduct of the Council, and the resolution about Gunga Govind Sing. I am to inform your Lordships that there was a reference made by the Council to the Committee of Revenue, namely, to Gunga Govind Sing himself,—a reference with regard to the right, title, mode, and proceeding, and many other circumstances; upon which the Committee, being such as I have described, very naturally were silent. Gunga Govind Sing loquitur solus,—in the manner you have just heard; the Committee were the chorus,—they sometimes talk, fill up a vacant part,—but Gunga Govind Sing was the great actor, the sole one. The report of this Committee being laid before the Council, Mr. Stables, one of the board, entered the following minute on the 15th of May, 1785.

"I have perused the several papers upon this subject, and am sorry to observe that the Committee of Revenue are totally silent on the most material points therein, and sending the petition to them has only been so much time thrown away: I mean, on the actual value of the lands in question, what the amount derived from them has been in the last year, and what advantages or disadvantages to government by the sale, and whether, in their opinion, the supposed sale was compulsive or not. But it is not necessary for the discussion of the question respecting the regularity or irregularity of the pretended sale of Salbarry to Gunga Govind Sing, the dewan, to enter into the particular assertions of each party.

"The representations of the Rajah's agent, confirmed by the petitions of his principal, positively assert the sale to have been compulsive and violent; and the dewan as positively denies it, though the fears he expresses, 'that their common enemies would set aside the act before it was complete,' show clearly that they were sensible the act was unjustifiable, if they do not tend to falsify his denial.

"But it is clearly established and admitted by the language and writings of both parties, that there has been a most unwarrantable collusion in endeavoring to alienate the rights of government, contrary to the most positive original laws of the constitution of these provinces, 'that no zemindar and other landholder, paying revenue to government, shall be permitted to alienate his lands without the express authority of that government.'

"The defence set up by Gunga Govind Sing does not go to disavow the transaction; for, if it did, the deed of sale, &c., produced by himself, and the petition to the board for its confirmation, would detect him: on the contrary, he openly admits its existence, and only strives to show that it was a voluntary one on the part of the Ranny and the servants of the Rajah. Whether voluntary or not, it was equally criminal in Gunga Govind Sing, as the public officer of government: because diametrically opposite to the positive and repeated standing orders of that government for the rule of his conduct, as dewan, and native guardian of the public rights intrusted especially to his care; because it was his duty, not only not to be guilty of a breach of those rules himself, but, as dewan, and exercising the efficient office of kanungo, to prevent, detect, expose, and apprise his employers of every instance attempted to the contrary; because it was his duty to prevent the government being defrauded, and the Rajah, a child of nine years old, robbed of his hereditary possessions, as he would have been, if this transaction had not been detected: whereas, on the contrary, the dewan is himself the principal mover and sole instrument in that fraud and robbery, if I am rightly informed, to the amount of 42,474 rupees[1] in perpetuity, by which he alone was to benefit; and because he has even dared to stand forward in an attempt to obtain our sanction, and thereby make us parties to (in my opinion) a false deed and fraudulent transaction, as his own defence now shows the bill of sale and all its collateral papers to be.

"If offences of this dark tendency and magnitude were not to be punished in a public manner, the high example here set the natives employed under the government by their first native officer would very soon render our authority contemptible, and operate to the destruction of the public revenues. I will not dwell further on the contradictions in these papers before us on this subject.

"But I beg leave to point out how tenacious the government have been of insuring implicit obedience to their rules on this subject in particular, and in prohibiting conduct like that here exhibited against their public officer, and how sacredly they have viewed the public institutes on this subject, which have been violated and trampled on; and it will suffice to show their public orders on a similar instance which happened some time ago, and which the dewan, from his official situation, must have been a party in detecting.

"I desire the board's letter to the Committee on this subject, dated the 31st May, 1782, may be read, and a copy be annexed to this minute.

"I therefore move the board that Gunga Govind Sing may be forthwith required to surrender the original deeds produced by him as a title to the grant of Salbarry, in order that they may be returned to the Rajah's agents, to be made null and void.

"I further move the board, that the dewan, Gunga Govind Sing, together with his naib, Prawn Kishin Sing, his son, and all his dependants, be removed from their offices, and that the Roy Royan, Rajah Rajebullub, whose duty only Gunga Govind Sing virtually is to perform, be reinstated in the exercise of the duties of his department; and that Gunga Govind Sing be ordered to deliver up all official papers of the circar to the Committee of Revenue and the Roy Royan, and that they be ordered accordingly to take charge of them, and finally settle all accounts."

This motion was overruled, and no final proceeding appears.

My Lords, you have heard the proceedings of the court before which Gunga Govind Sing thought proper to appeal, in consequence of the power and protection of Mr. Hastings being understood to exist after he left India, and authenticated by his last parting deed. Your Lordships will judge by that last act of Mr. Hastings what the rest of his whole life was.

My Lords, I do not mean now to go further than just to remind your Lordships of this, that Mr. Hastings's government was one whole system of oppression, of robbery of individuals, of destruction of the public, and of suppression of the whole system of the English government, in order to vest in the worst of the natives all the powers that could possibly exist in any government,—in order to defeat the ends which all governments ought in common to have in view. Thus, my Lords, I show you at one point of view what you are to expect from him in all the rest. I have, I think, made out as clear as can be to your Lordships, so far as it was necessary to go, that his bribery and peculation was not occasional, but habitual,—that it was not urged upon him at the moment, but was regular and systematic. I have shown to your Lordships the operation of such a system on the revenues.

My Lords, Mr. Hastings pleads one constant merit to justify those acts,—namely, that they produce an increase of the public revenue; and accordingly he never sells to any of those wicked agents any trusts whatever in the country, that you do not hear that it will considerably tend to the increase of the revenue. Your Lordships will see, when he sold to wicked men the province of Bahar in the same way in which Debi Sing had this province of Dinagepore, that consequences of a horrid and atrocious nature, though not to so great an extent, followed from it. I will just beg leave to state to your Lordships, that the kingdom of Bahar is annexed to the kingdom of Bengal; that this kingdom was governed by another Provincial Council; that he turned out that Provincial Council, and sold that government to two wicked men: one of no fortune at all, and the other of a very suspicious fortune; one a total bankrupt, the other justly excommunicated for his wickedness in his country, and then in prison for misdemeanors in a subordinate situation of government. Mr. Hastings destroyed the Council that imprisoned him; and, instead of putting one of the best and most reputable of the natives to govern it, he takes out of prison this excommunicated wretch, hated by God and man,—this bankrupt, this man of evil and desperate character, this mismanager of the public revenue in an inferior station; and, as he had given Bengal to Gunga Govind Sing, he gave this province to Rajahs Kelleram and Cullian Sing. It was done upon this principle, that they would increase and very much better the revenue. These men seemed to be as strange instruments for improving a revenue as ever were chosen, I suppose, since the world began. Perhaps their merit was giving a bribe of 40,000l. to Mr. Hastings. How he disposed of it I don't know. He says, "I disposed of it to the public, and it was in a case of emergency." You will see in the course of this business the falsehood of that pretence; for you will see, though the obligation is given for it as a round sum of money, that the payment was not accomplished till a year after; that therefore it could not answer any immediate exigence of the Company. Did it answer in an increase of the revenue? The very reverse. Those persons who had given this bribe of 40,000l. at the end of that year were found 80,000l. in debt to the Company. The Company always loses, when Mr. Hastings takes a bribe; and when he proposes an increase of the revenue, the Company loses often double. But I hope and trust your Lordships will consider this idea of a monstrous rise of rent, given by men of desperate fortunes and characters, to be one of the grievances instead of one of the advantages of this system.

It has been necessary to lay these facts before you, (and I have stated them to your Lordships far short of their reality, partly through my infirmity, and partly on account of the odiousness of the task of going through things that disgrace human nature,) that you may be enabled fully to enter into the dreadful consequences which attend a system of bribery and corruption in a Governor-General. On a transient view, bribery is rather a subject of disgust than horror,—the sordid practice of a venal, mean, and abject mind; and the effect of the crime seems to end with the act. It looks to be no more than the corrupt transfer of property from one person to another,—at worst a theft. But it will appear in a very different light, when you regard the consideration for which the bribe is given,—namely, that a Governor-General, claiming an arbitrary power in himself, for that consideration delivers up the properties, the liberties, and the lives of an whole people to the arbitrary discretion of any wicked and rapacious person, who will be sure to make good from their blood the purchase he has paid for his power over them. It is possible that a man may pay a bribe merely to redeem himself from some evil. It is bad, however, to live under a power whose violence has no restraint except in its avarice. But no man ever paid a bribe for a power to charge and tax others, but with a view to oppress them. No man ever paid a bribe for the handling of the public money, but to peculate from it. When once such offices become thus privately and corruptly venal, the very worst men will be chosen (as Mr. Hastings has in fact constantly chosen the very worst); because none but those who do not scruple the use of any means are capable, consistently with profit, to discharge at once the rigid demands of a severe public revenue and the private bribes of a rapacious chief magistrate. Not only the worst men will be thus chosen, but they will be restrained by no dread whatsoever in the execution of their worst oppressions. Their protection is sure. The authority that is to restrain, to control, to punish them is previously engaged; he has his retaining fee for the support of their crimes. Mr. Hastings never dared, because he could not, arrest oppression in its course, without drying up the source of his own corrupt emolument. Mr. Hastings never dared, after the fact, to punish extortion in others, because he could not, without risking the discovery of bribery in himself. The same corruption, the same oppression, and the same impunity will reign through all the subordinate gradations.

A fair revenue may be collected without the aid of wicked, violent, and unjust instruments. But when once the line of just and legal demand is transgressed, such instruments are of absolute necessity; and they comport themselves accordingly. When we know that men must be well paid (and they ought to be well paid) for the performance of honorable duty, can we think that men will be found to commit wicked, rapacious, and oppressive acts with fidelity and disinterestedness for the sole emolument of dishonest employers? No: they must have their full share of the prey, and the greater share, as they are the nearer and more necessary instruments of the general extortion. We must not, therefore, flatter ourselves, when Mr. Hastings takes 40,000l. in bribes for Dinagepore and its annexed provinces, that from the people nothing more than 40,000l. is extorted. I speak within compass, four times forty must be levied on the people; and these violent sales, fraudulent purchases, confiscations, inhuman and unutterable tortures, imprisonment, irons, whips, fines, general despair, general insurrection, the massacre of the officers of revenue by the people, the massacre of the people by the soldiery, and the total waste and destruction of the finest provinces in India, are things of course,—and all a necessary consequence involved in the very substance of Mr. Hastings's bribery.

I therefore charge Mr. Hastings with having destroyed, for private purposes, the whole system of government by the six Provincial Councils, which he had no right to destroy.

I charge him with having delegated to others that power which the act of Parliament had directed him to preserve unalienably in himself.

I charge him with having formed a committee to be mere instruments and tools, at the enormous expense of 62,000l. per annum.

I charge him with having appointed a person their dewan to whom these Englishmen were to be subservient tools,—whose name, to his own knowledge, was, by the general voice of India, by the general recorded voice of the Company, by recorded official transactions, by everything that can make a man known, abhorred, and detested, stamped with infamy; and with giving him the whole power which he had thus separated from the Council-General, and from the Provincial Councils.

I charge him with taking bribes of Gunga Govind Sing.

I charge him with not having done that bribe-service which fidelity even in iniquity requires at the hands of the worst of men.

I charge him with having robbed those people of whom he took the bribes.

I charge him with having fraudulently alienated the fortunes of widows.

I charge him with having, without right, title, or purchase, taken the lands of orphans, and given them to wicked persons under him.

I charge him with having removed the natural guardians of a minor Rajah, and with having given that trust to a stranger, Debi Sing, whose wickedness was known to himself and all the world, and by whom the Rajah, his family, and dependants were cruelly oppressed.

I charge him with having committed to the management of Debi Sing three great provinces; and thereby with having wasted the country, ruined the landed interest, cruelly harassed the peasants, burnt their houses, seized their crops, tortured and degraded their persons, and destroyed the honor of the whole female race of that country.

In the name of the Commons of England, I charge all this villany upon Warren Hastings, in this last moment of my application to you.

My Lords, what is it that we want here to a great act of national justice? Do we want a cause, my Lords? You have the cause of oppressed princes, of undone women of the first rank, of desolated provinces, and of wasted kingdoms.

Do you want a criminal, my Lords? When was there so much iniquity ever laid to the charge of any one? No, my Lords, you must not look to punish any other such delinquent from India. Warren Hastings has not left substance enough in India to nourish such another delinquent.

My Lords, is it a prosecutor you want? You have before you the Commons of Great Britain as prosecutors; and I believe, my Lords, that the sun, in his beneficent progress round the world, does not behold a more glorious sight than that of men, separated from a remote people by the material bounds and barriers of Nature, united by the bond of a social and moral community,—all the Commons of England resenting, as their own, the indignities and cruelties that are offered to all the people of India.

Do we want a tribunal? My Lords, no example of antiquity, nothing in the modern world, nothing in the range of human imagination, can supply us with a tribunal like this. My Lords, here we see virtually, in the mind's eye, that sacred majesty of the crown, under whose authority you sit, and whose power you exercise. We see in that invisible authority, what we all feel in reality and life, the beneficent powers and protecting justice of his Majesty. We have here the heir-apparent to the crown, such as the fond wishes of the people of England wish an heir-apparent of the crown to be. We have here all the branches of the royal family, in a situation between majesty and subjection, between the sovereign and the subject,—offering a pledge in that situation for the support of the rights of the crown and the liberties of the people, both which extremities they touch. My Lords, we have a great hereditary peerage here,—those who have their own honor, the honor of their ancestors and of their posterity to guard, and who will justify, as they have always justified, that provision in the Constitution by which justice is made an hereditary office. My Lords, we have here a new nobility, who have risen and exalted themselves by various merits,—by great military services which have extended the fame of this country from the rising to the setting sun. We have those who, by various civil merits and various civil talents, have been exalted to a situation which they well deserve, and in which they will justify the favor of their sovereign, and the good opinion of their fellow-subjects, and make them rejoice to see those virtuous characters that were the other day upon a level with them now exalted above them in rank, but feeling with them in sympathy what they felt in common with them before. We have persons exalted from the practice of the law, from the place in which they administered high, though subordinate, justice, to a seat here, to enlighten with their knowledge and to strengthen with their votes those principles which have distinguished the courts in which they have presided.

My Lords, you have here also the lights of our religion, you have the bishops of England. My Lords, you have that true image of the primitive Church, in its ancient form, in its ancient ordinances, purified from the superstitions and the vices which a long succession of ages will bring upon the best institutions. You have the representatives of that religion which says that their God is love, that the very vital spirit of their institution is charity,—a religion which so much hates oppression, that, when the God whom we adore appeared in human form, He did not appear in a form of greatness and majesty, but in sympathy with the lowest of the people, and thereby made it a firm and ruling principle that their welfare was the object of all government, since the Person who was the Master of Nature chose to appear Himself in a subordinate situation. These are the considerations which influence them, which animate them, and will animate them, against all oppression,—knowing that He who is called first among them, and first among us all, both of the flock that is fed and of those who feed it, made Himself "the servant of all."

My Lords, these are the securities which we have in all the constituent parts of the body of this House. We know them, we reckon, we rest upon them, and commit safely the interests of India and of humanity into your hands. Therefore it is with confidence, that, ordered by the Commons,

I impeach Warren Hastings, Esquire, of high crimes and misdemeanors.

I impeach him in the name of the Commons of Great Britain in Parliament assembled, whose Parliamentary trust he has betrayed.

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

I impeach him in the name of the people of India, whose laws, rights, and liberties he has subverted, whose properties he has destroyed, whose country he has laid waste and desolate.

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

I impeach him in the name of human nature itself, which he has cruelly outraged, injured, and oppressed, in both sexes, in every age, rank, situation, and condition of life.

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