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.
a bribe-factor general, a general receiver and agent
of bribes through all that country, Mr.
Edmund Burke
" In my two reports I have
set forth in a general manner the oppressions which
provoked the ryots to rise. I shall, therefore, not
enumerate them now. Every day of my inquiry
serves but to confirm the facts. The wonder would
have been, if they had not risen. It was not collection, but real robbery, aggravated by corporal punishment and every insult of disgrace, - and this not confined to a few, but extended over every individual. Let the mind of man be ever so much inured to servitude, still there is a point where oppressions will
rouse it to resistance. Conceive to yourselves what
must be the situation of a ryot, when he sees everything he has in the world seized, to answer an exaggerated demand, and sold at so low a price as not
to answer one half of that demand, - when he finds
himself so far from being released, that he remains
still subject to corporal punishment. But what must
be his feelings, when his tyrant, seeing that kind of
severity of no avail, adds family disgrace and loss
of caste! You, Gentlemen, who know the reserve of
the natives in whatever concerns their women, and
their attachment to their castes, must allow the full
effect of these prejudices under such circumstances. "
He, however, proceeded with steadiness and method, and in spite of every discouragement which could
be thrown in his way by the power, craft, fraud, and
corruption of the farmer-general, Debi Sing, by the
collusion of the Provincial Chief, and by the decay of
? ? ? ? 96 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
support from his employers, which gradually faded
away and forsook him, as his occasions for it increased. Under all these, and under many more discouragements and difficulties, he made a series of able, clear, and well-digested reports, attended with
such evidence as never before, and, I believe, never
will again appear, of the internal provincial administration of Bengal,- of evils universally understood,
which no one was ever so absurd as to contradict,
and whose existence was never denied, except in
those places where they ought to be rectified, although none before Paterson had the courage to display the particulars. By these reports, carefully collated with the evidence, I have been enabled to
lay before you some of the effects, in one province
and part of another, of Governor Hastings's general
system of bribery.
But now appeared, in the most striking light, the
good policy of Mr. Hastings's system of 1780, in placing this screen of a Committee between him and his
crimes. The Committee had their lesson. Whilst
Paterson is left collecting his evidence and casting up
his accounts in Rungpore, Debi Sing is called up, in
seeming wrath, to the capital, where he is received
as those who have robbed and desolated provinces,
and filled their coffers with seven hundred thousand
pounds sterling, have been usually received at Calcutta, and sometimes in Great Britain. Debi Sinog
made good his ground in Calcutta, and when he had
well prepared his Committee, in due time Paterson
returns, appears, and reports.
Persons even less informed than your Lordships
are well apprised that all officers representing government, and making in that character an author
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. -THIRD DAY. 97
ized inquiry, are entitled to a presumptive credit for
all their proceedings, and that their reports of facts
(where there is no evidence of corruption or malice)
are in the first instance to be taken for truth, especially by those who have authorized the inquiry; and
it is their duty to put the burden of proof to the contrary on those who would impeach or shake the report. Other principles of policy, anld other rules of government, and other maxims of office prevailed in the Committee of Mr. Hastiings's devising. In order to
destroy that just and natural credit of the officer,
and the protection and support they were bound to
afford him, they in an instant shift and reverse all
the relations in which the parties stood.
This executive board, instituted for the protection:
of the revenue and of the people, and which was no
court of justice in fact or name, turned their own
representative officer, reporting facts according to his
duty, into a voluntary accuser who is to make good
his charge at his peril; the farmer-general, whose
conduct was not criminally attacked, but appeared as
one of the grounds of a public inquiry, is turned into
a culprit before a court of justice, against whom everything is to be juridically made out or not admitted; and the members of an executive board, by usurpation
and fraud, erect themselves into judges bound to pro
ceed by strict rules of law.
By this infamous juggle they took away, as far
as in them lay, the credit due to the proceedings of
government. They changed the natural situation of
proofs. They rejected the depositions of Paterson's
witnesses, as not on oath, though they had never
ordered or authorized them so to be taken.
VOL. X.
? ? ? ? 98 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
They went fuirther, and disabled, in a body, all the
deponents themselves, whether on oath or not on oath
by discrediting the whole province as a set of criminals who gave evidence to palliate their own rebellion. They administered interrogatories to the commissioner
instead of the culprit. They took a base fellow, whom
they had themselves ordered their commissioner to
imprison for crimes, (crimes charged on him, not by
the commissioner, but by themselves,) and made him
a complainant and a witness against him in the stupidest and most improbable of all accusations, -namely, that Paterson had menaced him with punishment, if
he did not, in so many words, slander and calumniate Debi Sing; and then the Committee, seating this wretch as an assessor at their own board, who a few
days before would have trembled like a whipped slave
at the look of an European, encouraged him to interrogate their own commissioner.
[Here Mr. Burke was taken ill, and obliged to sit
down. After some time Mr. Burke again addressed
the House. ]
My Lords, I am sorry to break the attention of your
Lordships in such a way. It is a subject that agitates
me. It is long, difficult, and arduous; but with the
blessing of God, if I can, to save you any further
trouble, I will go through it this day.
I am to tell your Lordships, that the next step they
took was, after putting Mr. Paterson as an accuser to
make good a charge which he made out but too much
to their satisfaction, they changed their battery.
[Mr. Burke's illness increased; upon which the House,
on the motion of His Royal Highness the Prince of
Wales, adjourned. ]
? ? ? ? SPEECH
IN
OPENING THE IMPEACHMENT.
FOURTH DAY: TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1788.
M Y 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 noth
? ? ? ? 100 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
ing 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
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. -FOURTH DAY. 101
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
? ? ? ? 102 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
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 reexamine 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
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. - FOURTH DAY. 103
Rungpore; and the other, for a great failure in the
payment of his stipulated revenue. Under this double
accusation, le 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 700,0001. , 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, ilI 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
? ? ? ? 104 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
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
bayol ets.
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. FOURTH DAY. 105
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 Khan, his original patron, and the author of all
his fortunes, -a judge who depends on him, as a
? ? ? ? 106 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
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,
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. - FOURTH DAY. 107
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 40,0001. 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 62,0001. a year,
? ? ? ? 108 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
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 pro
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. -FOURTH DAY. 109
ductive 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
? ? ? ? 110 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
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 characters" &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,
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. -FOURTH DAY. 111
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,
? ? ? ? 112 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
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 coii-.
sider 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 40,0001.
in bribes, and 30,0001. 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. Ihastings that
was not instantly followed with a deficiency inll 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 il:lst re-state to your Lordships, because I wish
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. - FOURTH DAY. 113
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 intentious, 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 penial 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. .
VOL. X. 8
? ? ? ? 114 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
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. Hastiligs; 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 mall 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. Andersoil 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
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. - FOURTH DAY. 115
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.
? ? ? ? 116 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
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; land, 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.
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. -FOURTH DAY. 117
Hastings left Bengal eight or nine, Mr. Hastings had
received from that country a bribe of about 40,0001.
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
? ? ? ? 118 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
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.
set forth in a general manner the oppressions which
provoked the ryots to rise. I shall, therefore, not
enumerate them now. Every day of my inquiry
serves but to confirm the facts. The wonder would
have been, if they had not risen. It was not collection, but real robbery, aggravated by corporal punishment and every insult of disgrace, - and this not confined to a few, but extended over every individual. Let the mind of man be ever so much inured to servitude, still there is a point where oppressions will
rouse it to resistance. Conceive to yourselves what
must be the situation of a ryot, when he sees everything he has in the world seized, to answer an exaggerated demand, and sold at so low a price as not
to answer one half of that demand, - when he finds
himself so far from being released, that he remains
still subject to corporal punishment. But what must
be his feelings, when his tyrant, seeing that kind of
severity of no avail, adds family disgrace and loss
of caste! You, Gentlemen, who know the reserve of
the natives in whatever concerns their women, and
their attachment to their castes, must allow the full
effect of these prejudices under such circumstances. "
He, however, proceeded with steadiness and method, and in spite of every discouragement which could
be thrown in his way by the power, craft, fraud, and
corruption of the farmer-general, Debi Sing, by the
collusion of the Provincial Chief, and by the decay of
? ? ? ? 96 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
support from his employers, which gradually faded
away and forsook him, as his occasions for it increased. Under all these, and under many more discouragements and difficulties, he made a series of able, clear, and well-digested reports, attended with
such evidence as never before, and, I believe, never
will again appear, of the internal provincial administration of Bengal,- of evils universally understood,
which no one was ever so absurd as to contradict,
and whose existence was never denied, except in
those places where they ought to be rectified, although none before Paterson had the courage to display the particulars. By these reports, carefully collated with the evidence, I have been enabled to
lay before you some of the effects, in one province
and part of another, of Governor Hastings's general
system of bribery.
But now appeared, in the most striking light, the
good policy of Mr. Hastings's system of 1780, in placing this screen of a Committee between him and his
crimes. The Committee had their lesson. Whilst
Paterson is left collecting his evidence and casting up
his accounts in Rungpore, Debi Sing is called up, in
seeming wrath, to the capital, where he is received
as those who have robbed and desolated provinces,
and filled their coffers with seven hundred thousand
pounds sterling, have been usually received at Calcutta, and sometimes in Great Britain. Debi Sinog
made good his ground in Calcutta, and when he had
well prepared his Committee, in due time Paterson
returns, appears, and reports.
Persons even less informed than your Lordships
are well apprised that all officers representing government, and making in that character an author
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. -THIRD DAY. 97
ized inquiry, are entitled to a presumptive credit for
all their proceedings, and that their reports of facts
(where there is no evidence of corruption or malice)
are in the first instance to be taken for truth, especially by those who have authorized the inquiry; and
it is their duty to put the burden of proof to the contrary on those who would impeach or shake the report. Other principles of policy, anld other rules of government, and other maxims of office prevailed in the Committee of Mr. Hastiings's devising. In order to
destroy that just and natural credit of the officer,
and the protection and support they were bound to
afford him, they in an instant shift and reverse all
the relations in which the parties stood.
This executive board, instituted for the protection:
of the revenue and of the people, and which was no
court of justice in fact or name, turned their own
representative officer, reporting facts according to his
duty, into a voluntary accuser who is to make good
his charge at his peril; the farmer-general, whose
conduct was not criminally attacked, but appeared as
one of the grounds of a public inquiry, is turned into
a culprit before a court of justice, against whom everything is to be juridically made out or not admitted; and the members of an executive board, by usurpation
and fraud, erect themselves into judges bound to pro
ceed by strict rules of law.
By this infamous juggle they took away, as far
as in them lay, the credit due to the proceedings of
government. They changed the natural situation of
proofs. They rejected the depositions of Paterson's
witnesses, as not on oath, though they had never
ordered or authorized them so to be taken.
VOL. X.
? ? ? ? 98 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
They went fuirther, and disabled, in a body, all the
deponents themselves, whether on oath or not on oath
by discrediting the whole province as a set of criminals who gave evidence to palliate their own rebellion. They administered interrogatories to the commissioner
instead of the culprit. They took a base fellow, whom
they had themselves ordered their commissioner to
imprison for crimes, (crimes charged on him, not by
the commissioner, but by themselves,) and made him
a complainant and a witness against him in the stupidest and most improbable of all accusations, -namely, that Paterson had menaced him with punishment, if
he did not, in so many words, slander and calumniate Debi Sing; and then the Committee, seating this wretch as an assessor at their own board, who a few
days before would have trembled like a whipped slave
at the look of an European, encouraged him to interrogate their own commissioner.
[Here Mr. Burke was taken ill, and obliged to sit
down. After some time Mr. Burke again addressed
the House. ]
My Lords, I am sorry to break the attention of your
Lordships in such a way. It is a subject that agitates
me. It is long, difficult, and arduous; but with the
blessing of God, if I can, to save you any further
trouble, I will go through it this day.
I am to tell your Lordships, that the next step they
took was, after putting Mr. Paterson as an accuser to
make good a charge which he made out but too much
to their satisfaction, they changed their battery.
[Mr. Burke's illness increased; upon which the House,
on the motion of His Royal Highness the Prince of
Wales, adjourned. ]
? ? ? ? SPEECH
IN
OPENING THE IMPEACHMENT.
FOURTH DAY: TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1788.
M Y 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 noth
? ? ? ? 100 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
ing 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
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. -FOURTH DAY. 101
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
? ? ? ? 102 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
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 reexamine 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
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. - FOURTH DAY. 103
Rungpore; and the other, for a great failure in the
payment of his stipulated revenue. Under this double
accusation, le 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 700,0001. , 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, ilI 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
? ? ? ? 104 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
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
bayol ets.
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. FOURTH DAY. 105
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 Khan, his original patron, and the author of all
his fortunes, -a judge who depends on him, as a
? ? ? ? 106 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
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,
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. - FOURTH DAY. 107
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 40,0001. 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 62,0001. a year,
? ? ? ? 108 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
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 pro
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. -FOURTH DAY. 109
ductive 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
? ? ? ? 110 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
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 characters" &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,
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. -FOURTH DAY. 111
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,
? ? ? ? 112 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
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 coii-.
sider 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 40,0001.
in bribes, and 30,0001. 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. Ihastings that
was not instantly followed with a deficiency inll 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 il:lst re-state to your Lordships, because I wish
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. - FOURTH DAY. 113
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 intentious, 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 penial 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. .
VOL. X. 8
? ? ? ? 114 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
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. Hastiligs; 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 mall 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. Andersoil 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
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. - FOURTH DAY. 115
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.
? ? ? ? 116 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
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; land, 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.
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. -FOURTH DAY. 117
Hastings left Bengal eight or nine, Mr. Hastings had
received from that country a bribe of about 40,0001.
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
? ? ? ? 118 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
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.
