No More Learning

? ? 426 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HAITINGS.
to Debi Sing, the third to Cantoo Baboo: this man
is fit to be one next on a par with them. Mr. Larkins, when he comes to explain this article, says, "I believe it is for a part of the Dinagepore peshcush,
which would reduce the balance to about 5,0001. ":
but he does not pretend to know what it is given
for; he gives several guesses at it; " but," he says,
" as I do not know, I shall not pretend to give more
than my conjecture upon it. " He is in the right;
because we shall prove Nundulol never did have any
thing to do with the Dinagepore peshcush. These
are very extraordinary proceedings. It is my business simply to state them to your Lordships now; we will give them in afterwards in evidence, and I
will leave that evidence to be confirmed and fortified
by further observations.
One of the objects of Mr. Larkins's letter is to
illustrate the bonds. He says, " The two first stated
sums " (namely, Dinagepore and Patna, in the paper
marked No. 1, I suppose, for he seems to explain
it to be such) " are sums for a part of which Mr.
Hastings took two bonds: viz. , No. 1539, dated 1st
October, 1780, and No. 1540, dated 2d October, 1780,
each for the sum of current rupees 1,16,000, or sicca rupees one lac. The remainder of that amount was carried to the credit of the head, Four per Cent
Remittance Loan: Mr. Hastings having taken a bond
for it, (No. 89,) which has been since completely
liquidated, conformable to the law. " But before I
proceed with the bonds, I will beg leave to recall
to your Lordships' recollection that Mr. Larkins
states in his letter that these sums were received
in November. How does this agree with another
state of the transaction given by Mr. Hastilngs,
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH. ARTICLE. -FOURTH DAY. 427
namely, that the time of his taking the bonds was
the 1st and 2d of October? Mr. Larkins, therefore,
who has thought proper to say that the money was
received in the month of November, has here given
as extraordinary an instance either of fraudulent accuracy or shameful official inaccuracy as was ever perhaps discovered. The first sums are asserted to
be paid to Mr. Croftes on the 18th and 19th of Asin,
1187. The month of Asin corresponds with the
month of September and part of October, and not
with November; and it is the more extraordinary
that Mr. Larkins should mistake this, because he is
in an office which requires monthly payments, and
consequently great monthly exactness, and a continual transfer from one month to another: we cannot suppose any accountant in England call be more accurately acquainted with the succession of months
than Mr. Larkins must have been with the comparative state of Bengal and English months. How are we to account for this gross inaccuracy? If you
have a poet, if you have a politician, if you have a
moralist inaccurate, you know that these are cases
which, from the narrow bounds of our weak faculties, do not perhaps admit of accuracy. But what is an inaccurate accountant good for? "Silly man,
that dost not know thy own silly trade! " was once
well said: but the trade here is not silly. You do
not even praise an accountant for being accurate, because you have thousands of them; but you justly blame a public accountant who is guilty of a gross
inaccuracy. But what end could his being inaccurate answer? Why not name October as well as November? I know no reason for it; but here is
certainly a gross mistake; and, from the nature of
? ? ? ? 428 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
the thing, it is hardly possible to suppose it to be
a mere mistake. But take it that it is a mistake,
and to have nothing of fraud, but mere carelessness;
this, in a man valued by Mr. Hastings for being very
punctilious and accurate, is extraordinary.
But to return to the bonds. We find a bond taken
in the month of Shawal, 1186, or 1779, but the receipt is said to be in Asin, 1780: that is to say,
there was a year and about three months between
the collection and the receipt; and during all that
period of time an enormous sum of money had lain
in the hands of Gunga Govind Sing, to be employed
when Mr. Hastings should think fit. He employed
it, he says, for the Mahratta expedition. Now he
began that letter on the 29th of November by telling
you that the bribe would not have been taken from
Cheyt Sing, if it had not been at the instigation of an
exigency which it seems required a supply of money,
to be procured lawfully or unlawfully. But in fact
there was no exigency for it before the Berar army
came upon the borders of the country, --that army
which he invited by his careless conduct towards the
Rajah of Berar, and whose hostility he was obliged to
buy off by a sum of money; and yet this bribe was
taken from Cheyt Sing long before he had this occasion
for it. The fund lay in Gunga Govind Sing's hands;
and he afterwards applied to that purpose a part of
this fund, which he must have taken without any
view whatever to the Company's interest. This pretence of the exigency of the Company's affairs is the more extraordinary, because the first receipt of these
moneys was some time in the year 1779 (I have not
got the exact date of the agreement); and it was
but a year before that the Company was so far from
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. - FOURTH DAY. 429
being in distress, that he declared he should have, at
very nearly the period when this bribe became payable, a very large sum (I do not recollect the precise
amount) in their treasury. I cannot certainly tell
when the cabooleat, or agreement, was made; yet I
shall lay open something very extraordinary upon
that subject, and will lead you, step by step, to the
bloody scenes of Debi Sing. Whilst, therefore, Mr.
Hastings was carrying on these transactions, he was
carrying them on without any reference to the pretended object to which he afterwards applied them.
It was an old, premeditated plan; and the money to
be received could not have been designed for an exigency, because it was to be paid by monthly instalments. The case is the same with respect to the
other cabooleats: it could not have been any momentary exigence which he had to provide for by
these sums of money; they were paid regularly, period by period, as a constant, uniform income, to Mr.
Hastings.
You find, then, Mr. Hastings first leaving this sum
of money for a year and three months in the hands
of Gunga Govind Sing; you find, that, when an exigence pressed him by the Mahrattas suddenly invading Bengal, and he was obliged to refer to his bribefund, he finds that fund empty, and that, in supplying money for this exigence, he takes a bond for two thirds of his own money and one third of the Company's. For, as I stated before, Mr. Larkins proves
of one of these accounts, that he took, in the month
of January, for this bribe-money, which, according to
the principles he lays down, was the Company's money, three bonds as for money advanced from his own
cash. Now this sum of three lacs, instead of being
? ? ? ? 430 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
all his own, as it should appear to be in the month of
January, when he took the bonds, or two thirds his
own and one third the Company's, as he said in his
letter of the 29th of November, turns out, by Mr. Larkins's account, paragraph 9, which I wish to mark to
your Lordships, to be two thirds the Company's money and one third his own; and yet it is all confounded under bonds, as if the money had been his own. What can you say to this heroic sharper disguised
under the name of a patriot, when you find him to be
nothing but a downright cheat, first taking money
under the Company's name, then taking their securities to him for their own money, and afterwards entering a false account of them, contradicting that by another account? - and God knows whether the third
be true or false. These are not things that I am to
make out by any conclusion of mine; here they are,
made out by himself and Mr. Larkins, and, comparing them with his letter of the 27th, you find a gross
fraud covered by a direct falsehood.
We have now done with Mr. Larkins's account of
the bonds, and are come to the other species of Mr.
Hastings's frauds, (for there is a great variety in
them,) and first to Cheyt Sing's bribe. Mr. Larkins
came to the knowledge of the bond-money through
Gunga Govind Sing and through Cantoo Baboo. Of
this bribe he was not in the secret originally, but was
afterwards made a confidant in it; it was carried to
him; and the account he gives of it I will state to
your Lordships.
"The fourth sum stated in Mr. Hastings's account
was the produce of sundry payments made to me by
Sadainund, Cheyt Sing's buckshee, who either brought
or sent the gold mohurs to my house, from whence
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. -FOURTH DAY. 431 they were taken by me to Mr. Croftes, either on the same night or early in the morning after: they were made at different times, and I well remember that the same people never caine twice. On the 21st June, 1780, Mr. Hastings sent for me, and desired that I would take charge of a present that had been offered to him by Cheyt Sing's buckshee, under the plea of atoning for the opposition which he had made towards the payment of the extra subsidy for defraying part
of the expenses of the war, butt really in the hope
of its inducing Mr. Hastings to give up that claim; with which view the present had first been offered. Mr. Hastings declared, that, although he would not take this for his own use, he would apply it to that of the Company, in removing Mr. Francis's objections to the want of a fund for defraying the extra expenses of Colonel Camac's detachment. On my return to
the office, I wrote down the substance of what Mr.
Hastings had said to me, and requested Mr. James
Miller, my deputy, to seal it up with his own seal,
and write upon it, that he had then done so at my
request. He was no fulrther informed of my motive
for this than merely that it contained the substance
of a conversation which had passed between me and
another gentleman, which, in case that conversation
should hereafter become the subject of inquiry, I
wished to be able to adduce the memorandum then
made of it, in corroboration of my own testimony;
and although that paper has remained unopened to
this hour, and notwithstanding that I kept no memorandum whatever of the substance thereof, yet, as I have wrote this representation under the most scrupulous adherence to what I conceived to be truth, should it ever become necessary to refer to this paper,
? ? ? ? 432 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
1 am confident that it will not be found to differ materially from the substance of this representation. "
I forgot to mention, that, besides these two bonds,
which Mr. Hastings declared to be the Company's,
and one bond his own, that he slipped into the place
of the bond of his own a much better, namely, a bond
of November, which he never mentioned to the Company till the 22d of May; and this bond for current
rupees 1,74,000, or sicca rupees 1,50,000, was taken
for the payment stated in the paper No. 1 to have
been made to Mr. Croftes on the 11th Aghan, 1187,
which corresponds to the 23d of November, 1780.
This is the Nuddea money, and this is all that you
know of it; you know that this money, for which
he had taken this other bond from the Company, was
not his own neither, but bribes taken from the other
provinces.
I am ashamed to be troublesome to your Lordships
in this dry affair, but. the detection of fraud requires
a good deal of patience and assiduity, and we cannot
wander into anything that can relieve the mind: if it
was in my power to do it, I would do it. I wish,
however, to call your Lordships' attention to this last
bribe before I quit these bonds. Such is the confusion, so complicated, so intricate are these bribe accounts, that there is always something left behind, glean never so much from the paragraphs of Mr.
Hastings and Mr. Larkins. " I could not bring them
to account," says Mr. Larkins. "' They were received
before the 1st and 2d of October. " Why does not the
running treasury account give an account of them?
The Committee of the House of Commons examined
whether the running treasury account had any such
account of sums deposited. No such thing. They
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. - FOURTH DAY. 433
are said by Mr. Hastings to be deposited in June:
they were not deposited in October, nor any account
of them given till the January following. "These
bollds," says he, "I could not enter as regular money, to be entered on the Company's account, or in any public way, until I had had an order of the Governor-General and Council. " But why had not you an order of the Governor-General and Council? We
are not calling on you, Mr. Larkins, for an account
of your conduct: we are calling upon Mr. Hastings
for an account of his conduct, and which he refers to
you to explain. Why did not Mr. Hastings order you
to carry them to the public account? "Because,"
says lie, " there was no other way. " Every one who
knows anything of a treasury or public banking-place
knows, that if any person brings money as belonging
to the public, that the public accountant is bound, no
doubt, to receive it and enter it as such. " But,"
says he, " I could not do it until the account could
be settled, as between debtor and creditor: I did not
do it till I could put on one side durbar charges, secret service, to such an amount, and balance that
again with bonds to Mr. Hastings. " That is, he
could not make an entry regularly in the Company's
books until Mr. Hastings had enabled him to commit
one of the grossest frauds and violations of a public
trust that ever was committed, by ordering that money of the Company's to be considered as his own, and a bond to be taken as a security for it from the Company, as if it was his own.
But to proceed with this deposit. What is the
substance of Mr. Larkins's explanation of it? The
substance of this explanation is, that here was a bribe
received by Mr. Hastings from Cheyt Sing, guarded
VOL. X. 28
? ? ? ? 434 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
with such scrupulous secrecy that it was not carried
to the house of Mr. Croftes, who was to receive it
finally, but to the house of Mr. Larkins, as a less suspected place; and that it was conveyed in various sums, no two people ever returning twice with the various payments which made up that sum of 23,0001. or thereabouts. Now do you want an instance of
prevarication and trickery in an account? If any
person should inquire whether 23,0001. had been paid
by Cheyt Sing to Mr. Hastings, there was not any
one man living, or any person concerned in the
transaction, except Mr Larkins, who received it,. that
could give all account of how much he received, or
who brought it. As no two people are ever his
confidants in the same transaction in Mr. Hastings's
accounts, so here no two people are permitted to have
any share whatever in bringing the several fragments
that make up this sum. This bribe, you might
imagine, would have been entered by Mr. Larkins
to some public account, at least to the fraudulent
account of Mr. Hastings. No such thing. It was
never entered till the November following. It was
not entered till Mr. Francis had left Calcutta. All
these corrupt transactions were carried on privately
by Mr. Hastings alone, without any signification to
his colleagues of his carrying on this patriotic traffic,
as he called it. Your Lordships will also consider
both the person who employs such a fraudulent
accountant, and his ideas of his duty in his office.
These are matters for your Lordships' grave determination; but I appeal to you, upon the face of these accounts, whether you ever saw anything so gross,and whether any man could be daring enough to attempt to impose upon the credulity of the weakest
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. - FOURTH DAY. 435 of mankind, much more to impose upon such a court as this, such accounts as these are.
If the Company had a mind to inquire what is become of all the debts due to them, and where is the cabooleat, he refers them to Gunga Govind Sing. "Give us," say they, "all account of this balance
that remains ill your hands. " "I know," says he,
" of no balance.
" " Why, is there not a cabooleat? "
"Whlere is it? What are the date and circumstances
of it? There is no such cabooleat existing. " This
is the case even where you have the name of the person through whose hands the money passed. But
suppose the inquiry went to the payments of the
Patna. cabooleat. "Here," they say, "we find half
the money due: out of forty thousand pounds there
is only twenty thousand received: give us some
account of it. " Who is to give an account of it?
Here there is no mention made of the name of
the person who had the cabooleat: whom can they
call upon? Mr. Hastings does not remember; Mr.
Larkins does not tell; they can learn nothing about
it. If the Directors had a disposition, and were
honest enough to the Proprietors and the nation to
inquire into it, there is not a hint given, by either
of those persons, who received the Nuddea, who
received the Patna, who received the Dinagepore
peshcush.
But in what court can a suit be instituted, and
against whom, for the recovery of this balance of
40,0001. out of 95,0001. ? I wish your Lordships to
examine strictly this account,-to examine strictly
every part, both of the account itself, and Mr. Larkins's explanation: compare them together, and divine, if you can, what remedy the Company could
? ? ? ? 436 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
have for their loss. Can your Lordships believe that
this can be any other than a systematical, deliberate fraud, grossly conducted? I will not allow
Mr. Hastings to be the man he represents himself
to be: he was supposed to be a man of parts; I
will only suppose him to be a man of mere common sense. Are these the accounts we should expect
from such a man? And yet he and Mr. Larkins
are to be magnified to heaven for great financiers;
and this is to be called book-keeping! This is the
Bengal account saved so miraculously on the 22d of
May.
Next comes the Persian account. You have heard
of a present to which it refers. It has been already
stated, but it must be a good deal farther explained.
Mr. Larkins states that this account was taken from
a paper, of which three lines, and only three lines,
were read to him by a Persian moonshee; and it is
not pretended that this was the whole of it. The
three lines read are as follows.
"From the Nabob" (meaning the Nabob
of Oude) "to the Governor-General,
six lac. 60,000
From Hussein Reza Khan and Hyder Beg
Khan to ditto, three lac. 30,000
And ditto to Mrs. Hastings, one lac. . 10,000. "
Here, I say, are the three lines that were read by a
Persian moonshee. Is he a man you can call to ac
count for these particulars? No: he is an anonymous moonshee; his name is not so much as mentioned by Mr. Larkins, nor hinted at by Mr. Hastings; and you find these sums, which Mr. Hastings
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. -- FOURTH DAY. 437 mentions as a sum in gross given to himself, are not so. They were given by three persons: one, six lacs, was given by the Nabob to the Governor; another,
of three lacs more, by Hussein Reza Khan [and Hyder Beg Khan? ]; and a third, one lac, by both of them clubbing, as a present to Mrs. Hastings. This is the
first discovery that appears of Mrs. Hastings having
been concerned in receiving presents for the Governor-General and others, in addition to Gunga Govind Sing, Cantoo Baboo, and Mr. Croftes. Now, if this
money was not received for the Company, is it proper and right to take it from Mrs. Hastings? Is there
honor and justice in taking from a lady a gratuitous present made to her? Yet Mr. Hastings says he has applied it all to the Company's service. He has done ill, in suffering it to be received at all, if she has
not justly and properly received it. VWhether, in fact,
she ever received this money at all, she not being
upon the spot, as I can find, at the time, (though, to
be sure, a present might be sent her,) I neither affirm nor deny, farther than that, as Mr. Larkins sayvs, there was a sum of 10,0001. from these ministers to
Mrs. Hastings. Whether she ever received any other
money than this, I also neither affirm nor deny.
But in whatever manner Mrs. Hastings received this
or any other money, I must say, in this grave place
in which I stand, that, if the wives of GovernorsGeneral, the wives of Presidents of Council, the wives of the principal officers of the India Company, through
all the various departments, can receive presents, there is an end of the covenants, there'is an end of the act of Parliament, there is an end to every power of restraint. Let a man be but married, and if his
wife may take presents, that moment the acts of
? ? ? ? 438 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
Parliament, the covenants, and all the rest expire.
There is something, too, in the manners of the East
that makes this a much more dangerous practice.
The people of the East, it is well known, have their
zenanah, the apartment for their wives, as a sanctuary which nobody can enter, -a kind of holy of holies, a consecrated place, safe from the rage of war, safe
from the fury of tyranny. The rapacity of man has
here its' bounds: here you shall come, and no farther.
But if English ladies can go into these zenanahs and
there receive presents, the natives of Hindostan cannot be said to have anything left of their own. Every one knows that in the wisest and best time of the Commonwealth of Rome, towards the latter end of it,
(I do not mean the best time for morals, but the
best for its knowledge how to correct evil government, and to choose the proper means for it,) it was
all established rule, that no governor of a province
should take his wife along with him into his province, --wives not being subject to the laws in the
same manner as their husbands; and though I do
not impute to any one any criminality here, I should
think myself guilty of a scandalous dereliction of my
duty, if I did not mention the fact to your Lordships. But I press it no further: here are the
accounts, delivered in by Mr. Larkins at Mr. Hastings's own requisition.
The three lines which were read out of a Persian
paper are followed by a long account of the several species in which this present was received, and
converted by exchange into one common standard.
Now, as these three lines of paper, which are said
to have been read out of a Persian paper, contain
an account of bribes to the amount of 100,0001. ,
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. - FOURTH DAY. 439
and as it is not even insinuated that this was the
whole of the paper, but rather the contrary indirectly implied, I shall leave it for your Lordships, in your serious consideration. to judge what mines of
bribery that paper might contain. For why did not
Mr. Larkins get the whole of that paper read and
translated? The moment any man stops in the
midst of an account, he is stopping in the midst of
a fraud.
My Lords, I have one farther remark to make upon these accounts. The cabooleats, or agreements for the payments of these bribes, amount, in the three
specified provinces, to 95,0001. Do you believe that
these provinces were thus particularly favored? Do
you think that they were chosen as a little demesne
for Mr. Hastings? that they were the only provinces
honored with his protection, so far as to take bribes
from them? Do you perceive anything in their
local situation that should distinguish them from other provinces of Bengal? What is the reason why Dinagepore, Patna, Nuddea, should have the post of
honor assigned them? What reason can be given for
not taking bribes also from Burdwan, fiom Bissunpore, in short, from all the sixty-eight collections which comprise the revenues of Bengal, and for selecting only three? How came he, I say, to be so wicked a servant, that, out of sixty-eight divisions,
he chose only three to supply the exigencies of the
Company? He did not do his duty in making this
distinction, if he thought that bribery was the best
way of supplying the Company's treasury, and that
it formed the most useful and effectual- resource for
them, -which he has declared ovei and over again.
Was it right to lay the whole weight of bribery, ex
? ? ? ? 440 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
tortion, and oppression upon those three provinces,
and neglect the rest? No: you know, and must
know, that he who extorts from three provinces will
extort from twenty, if there are twenty. You have
a standard, a measure of extortion, and that is all: ex
pede Herculem: guess from thence what was extorted
from all Bengal. Do you believe he could be so cruel
to these provinces, so partial to the rest, as to charge
them with that load, with 95,0001. , knowing the
heavy oppression they were sinking under, and leave
all the rest untouched? You will judge of what
is concealed from us by what we have discovered
through various means that have occurred, in consequence both of the guilty conscience of the person
who confesses the fact with respect to these provinces, and of the vigor, perseverance,. and sagacity
of those who have forced from him that discovery.
It is not, therefore, for me to say that the 100,0001.
and 95,0001. only were taken. Where the circumstances entitle me to go on, I must not be stopped,
but at the boundary where human nature has fixed
a barrier.
You have now before you the true reason why he
did not choose that this affair should come before a
court of justice. Rather than this exposure should
be made, he to-day would call for the mountains to
cover him: he would prefer an inquiry into the business of the three seals, into anything foreign to the
subject I am now discussing, in order to keep you
from the discovery of that gross bribery, that shameful peculation, that abandoned prostitution and corruption, which he has practised with indemnity and impunity to this day, from one end of India to the
other.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. - FOURTH DAY. 441
At the head of the only account we have of these
transactions stands Dinagepore; and it now only remains for me to make some observations upon Mr.
Hastings's proceedings in that province. Its name,
then, and that money was taken from it, is all that
appears; but from whom, by what hands, by what
means, under what pretence it was taken, he has not
told you, he has not told his employers. I believe,
however, I can tell from whom it was taken, and I
believe it will appear to your Lordships that it must
have been taken from the unhappy Rajah of Dinagepore; and I shall in a very few words state the circumstances attending, and the service performed for it: from these you will be able to form a just opinion
concerning this bribe.
Dinagepore, a large province, was possessed by
an ancient family, the last of which, about the year
1184 of their era, the Rajah Bija Naut, had no legitimate issue. When he was at the point of death, he
wished to exclude from the succession to the zemindary his half-brother, Ca. ltoo Naut, with whom he
had lived upon ill terms for many years, by adopting
a son. Such an adoption, when a person has a halfbrother, as he had, in my poor judgment is not countenanced by the Gentoo laws. But Gunga Govind Sing, who was placed, by the office he held, at the
head of the registry, where the records were kept
by which the rules of succession according to the
custom of the country are ascertained, became master of these Gentoo laws; and through his means
Mr. Hastings decreed in favor of the adoption. We
find that immediately after this decree Gunga Govind Sing received a cabooleat on Dinagepore for the
sum of 40,0001. , of which it appears that he has
? ? ? ? 442 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
actually exacted 30,0001. , though he has paid to Mr.
Hastings only 20,0001. We find, before the young
Rajah had been in possession a year, his natural
guardians and relations, on one pretence or another,
all turned out of their offices. . The peshcush, or
fixed annual rent, payable to the Company for his
zemindary, fell into arrear, as might naturally be
expected, from the Rajah's inability to pay both his
rent and this exorbitant bribe, extorted from a ruined family. Instantly, under pretext of this arrearage, Gulnga Govind Sing, and the fictitious Committee which Mr. Hastings had made for his wicked purposes, composed of Mr. Anderson, Mr. Shore, and
Mr. Croftes, who were but the tools, as they tell us
themselves, of Gunga Govind Sing, gave that monster of iniquity, Debi Sing, the government of this
family. They put this noble infant, this miserable
Rajah, together with the management of the provinces of Dinagepore and Rungpore, into his wicked
and abominable hands, where the ravages he committed excited what was called a rebellion, that
forced him to fly from the country, and into which I
do not wonder he should be desirous that a political
and not a juridical inquiry should be made. The savage barbarities which were there perpetrated I have
already, in the execution of my duty, brought before this House and my country; and it will be seen,
when we come to the proof, whether what I have
asserted was the effect either of a deluded judgment
or disordered imagination, and whether the facts I
state cannot be substantiated by authentic reports,
and were none of my invention, and, lastly, whether
the means that were taken to discredit them do not
infinitely aggravate the guilt of the offenders. Mr.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. - FOURTH DAY. 443
Hastings wanted to fly from judicial inquiry; he
wanted to put Debi Sing anywhere but in a court
of justice. A court of justice, where a direct assertion is brought forward, and a direct proof applied to it, is an element in which he cannot live for a
moment. He would seek refuge anywhere, even in
the very sanctuary of his accusers, rather than abide
a trial with him in a court of justice. But the House
of Commons was too just not to send him to this
tribunal, whose justice they cannot doubt, whose
penetration he cannot elude, and whose decision will
justify those managers whose characters he attempted to defame.
But this is not all. We find, that, after the cruel
sale of this infant, who was properly and directly
under the guardianship of the Company, (for the
Company acts as steward and dewan of the province,
which office has the guardianship of minors,) after
he had been robbed of 40,0001. by the hands of
Gunga Govind Sing, and afterwards, under pretence
of his being in debt to the Company, delivered into
the hands of that monster, Debi Sing, Mr. Hastings,
by way of anticipation of these charges, and in answer to them, has thought proper to produce the certificate from this unfortunate boy which I will
now again read to you.
"I, Radanaut, Zemindar of Purgunnalh Havelly
Punjera, commonly called Dinagepore: -- As it has
been learnt by me, the mutsuddies, and the respectable officers of my zemindary, that the ministers of England are displeased with the late Governor,
Warren Hastings, Esquire, upon the suspicion that
he oppressed us, took money from us by deceit and
? ? ? ? 444 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
force, and ruined the country; therefore we, upon
the strength of our religion, which we think it incumbent on and necessary for us to abide by, following the rules laid down in giving evidence, declare
the particulars of the acts and deeds of Warren Hastings, Esquire, full of circumspection and caution,
civility and justice, superior to the caution of the
most learned, and, by representing what is fact, wipe
away the doubts that have possessed the minds of
the ministers of England: that Mr. Hastings is possessed of fidelity and confidence, and yielding protection to us; that he is clear of the contamination of
mistrust and wrong, and his mind is free of covetousness or avarice. During the time of his administration, no one saw other conduct than that of protection to the husbandmen, and justice; no inhabitant ever experienced afflictions, no one ever felt oppression from him. Our reputations have always been
guarded from attacks by his prudence, and our families have always been protected by his justice. He
never omitted the smallest instance of kindness to
wards us, but healed the wounds of despair with the
salve of consolation, by means of his benevolent and
kind behavior, never permitting one of us to sink
in the pit of despondence. He supported every one
by his goodness, overset the designs of evil-minded
men by his authority, tied the hands of oppression
with the strong bandage of justice, and by these means
expanded the pleasing appearance of happiness and
joy over us. He reestablished justice and impartiality. We were, during his government, in the enjoyment of perfect happiness and ease, and many of
us are thankful and satisfied. As Mr. Hastings was
well acquainted with our manners and customs, he
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. -FOURTH DAY. 445
was always desirous, in every respect, of doing
whatever would preserve our religious rites, and
guard them against every kind of accident and injury, and at all times protected us.