No More Learning

85
a penurious and scanty proportion of the fruits of
their own soil; but those fruits (denied to the wants
of their own children) have for more than fifteen
years past furnished the investment for our trade
with China, and been sent annually out, and without
recompense, to purchase for us that delicate meal
with which your Lordships, and all this auditory,
and all this country, have begun every day for these
fifteen years at their expense. To those beneficent
hands that labor for our benefit the return of the
British government has been cords and hammers and
wedges. But there is a place where these crippled
and disabled hands will act with resistless power.
What is it that they will not pull down, when they
are lifted to heaven against their oppressors? Then
what can withstand such hands? Can the power
that crushed and destroyed them? Powerful in
prayer, let us at least deprecate and thus endeavor
to secure ourselves from the vengeance which these
mashed and disabled hands may pull down upon us.
My Lords, it is an awful consideration: let us think
of it.
But to pursue this melancholy, but necessary detail. I am next to open to your Lordships, what I
am hereafter to prove, that the most substantial
and leading yeomen, the responsible farmers, the
parochial magistrates and chiefs of villages, were
tied two and two by the legs together; and their
tormentors, throwing them with their heads downwards, over a bar, beat them on the soles of the feet with rattans, until the nails fell from the toes; and
then attacking them at their heads, as they hung
downward, as before at their feet, they beat them
with sticks and other instruments of blind fury, un'til
? ? ? ? 86 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
the blood gushed out at their eyes, mouths, and noses.
Not thinking that the ordinary whips and cudgels,
even so administered, were sufficient, to others (and
often also to the same who had suffered as I have
stated) they applied, instead of rattan and bamboo,
whips made of the branches of the bale tree, -a
tree full of sharp and strong thorns, which tear the
skin and lacerate the flesh far worse than ordinary
scourges. For others, exploring with a searching
and inquisitive malice, stimulated by an insatiate rapacity, all the devious paths of Nature for whatever is most unfriendly to man, they made rods of a plant
highly caustic and poisonous, called Bechettea, every
wound of which festers and gangrenes, adds double
and treble to the present torture, leaves a crust of
leprous sores upon the body, and often ends in the
destruction of life itself. At night, these poor innocent sufferers, these martyrs of avarice and extortion, were brought into dungeons; and in the season when
nature takes refuge in insensibility from all the miseries and cares which wait on life, they were three times scourged, and made to reckon the watches of the
night by periods and intervals of torment. They were
then led out, in the severe depth of winter, which there
at certain seasons would be severe to any, to the Indians is most severe and almost intolerable, --they were led out before break of day, and, stiff and sore as
they were with the bruises and wounds of the night,
were plunged into water; and whilst their jaws clung
together with the cold, and their bodies were rendered
infinitely more sensible, the blows and stripes were
renewed upon their backs; and then, delivering then
over to soldiers, they were sent into their farms and
villages to discover where a few handfuls of grain
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. -THIRD DAY. 87
might be found concealed, or to extract some loan
from the remnants of compassion and courage not
subdued in those who had reason to fear that their
own turn of torment would be next, that they should
succeed them in the same punishment, and that their
very humanity, being taken as a proof of their wealth,
would subject them (as it did in many cases subject
them) to the same inhuman tortures. After this circuit of the day through their plundered and ruined villages, they were remanded at night to the same
prison, whipped, as before, at their return to the dungeon, and at morning whipped at their leaving it, and then sent, as before, to purchase, by begging in
the day, the reiteration of the torture in the ilight.
Days of menace, insult, and extortion, nights of
bolts, fetters, and flagellation, succeeded to each
other in the same round, and for a long time made
up all the vicissitude of life to these miserable people.
But there are persons whose fortitude could bear
their own suffering; there are men who are hardened
by their very pains, and the mind, strengthened
even by the torments of the body, rises with a strong
defiance against its oppressor. They were assault-.
ed on the side of their sympathy. Children were
scourged almost to death in the presence of their parents. This was not enough. The son and father were bound close together, face to face and body to
body, and in that situation cruelly lashed together, so
that the blow which escaped the father fell upon the
son, and the blow which missed the son wound over
the back of the parent. The circumstances were combined by so subtle a cruelty that every stroke which did not excruciate the senise should wound and lacerate the sentiments and affections of nature.
? ? ? ? 88 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
On the same principle, and for the same ends, virgins, who had never seen the sun, were dragged from
the inmost sanctuaries of their houses, and in the
open court of justice, in the very place where security
was to be sought against all wrong and all violence,
(but where no judge or lawful magistrate had long
sat, but in their place the ruffians and hangmen of
Warren Hastings occupied the bench,) these virgins,
vainly invoking heaven and earth, in the presence of
their parents, and whilst their shrieks were mingled
with the indignant cries and groans of all the people,
publicly were violated by the lowest and wickedest of
the human race. Wives were torn from the arms
of their husbands, and suffered the same flagitious
wrongs, which were indeed hid in the bottoms of the
dungeons in which their honor and their liberty were
buried together. Often they were taken out of the
refuge of this consoling gloom, stripped naked, and
thus exposed to the world, and then cruelly scourged;
and in order that cruelty might riot in all the circumstances that melt into tenderness the fiercest natures, the nipples of their breasts were put between
the sharp and elastic sides of cleft bamboos. Here in
my hand is my authority; for otherwise one would
think it incredible. But it did not end there. Growing from crime to crime, ripened by cruelty for cruelty, these fiends, at length outraging sex, decency, nature, applied lighted torches and slow fire -- (I cannot proceed for shame and horror! ) - these infernal fuiries planted death in the source of life, and where
that modesty, which, more than reason, distinguishes
men from beasts, retires from the view, and even
shrinks from the expression, there they exercised and
glutted their unnatural, monstrous, and nefarious
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. - THIRD DAY. 89
cruelty, -- there, where the reverence of nature and
the sanctity of justice dares not to pursue, nor venture to describe their practices.
These, my Lords, were sufferings which we feel all
in common, in India and in England, by the general
sympathy of our common nature. But there were in
that province (sold to the tormentors by Mr. Hastings) things done, which, from the peculiar manners
of India, were even worse than all I have laid before
you; as the dominion of manners and the law of
opinion contribute more to their happiness and misery than anything in mere sensitive nature can do.
The women thus treated lost their caste. My
Lords, we are not here to commend or blame the
institutions and prejudices of a whole race of people, radicated in them by a long succession of ages,
on which no reason or argument, on which no vicissitudes of things, no mixtures of men, or foreign conquest, have been able to make the smallest impression. The aboriginal Gentoo inhabitants are all dispersed into tribes or castes,- each caste born to an invariable
rank, rights, and descriptions of employment, so that
one caste cannot by any means pass into another.
With the Gentoos, certain impurities or disgraces,
though without ally guilt of the party, infer loss of
caste; and when the highest caste, that of Brahmin,
which is not only noble, but sacred, is lost, the person
who loses it does not slide down into one lower, but
reputable, - he is wholly driven from all honest society. All the relations of life are at once dissolved.
His parents are no longer his parents; his wife is no
longer his wife; his children, no longer his, are no
longer to regard him as their father. It is something
far worse than complete outlawry, complete attainder,
? ? ? ? 90 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
and universal excommunication. It is a pollution
even to touch him; and if he touches any of his old
caste, they are justified in putting him to death.
Contagion, leprosy, plague, are not so much shunned.
No honest occupation can be followed. He becomes
an halicore, if (which is rare) he survives that miserable degradation.
Upon those whom all the shocking catalogue of
tortures I have mentioned could not make to flinch
one of the modes of losing caste for Brahmins and
other principal tribes was practised. It was to harness a bullock at the court-door, and to put the Brahmin on his back, and to lead him through the towns, with drums beating before him. To intimidate others, this bullock, with drums, (the instrument, according to their ideas, of outrage, disgrace, and utter loss of caste,) was led through the country; and as it
advanced, the country fled before it. When any
Brahmin was seized, he was threatened with this pillory, and for the most part he submitted in a moment
to whatever was ordered. What it was may be thence
judged. But when no possibility existed of complying with the demand, the people by their cries sometimes prevailed on the tyrants to have it commuted for cruel scourging, which was accepted as mercy.
To some Br. ahmins this mercy was denied, and the
act of indelible infamy executed. Of these men one
came to the Company's commissioner with the tale,
and ended with these melancholy words: "'I have
suffered this indignity; my caste is lost; my life is
a burden to me: I call for justice. " He called in
vain.
Your Lordships will not wonder that these monstrous and oppressive demands, exacted with such tor
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. - THIRD DAY. 91
tures, threw the whole province into despair. They
abandoned their crops on the ground. The people,
in a body, would have fled out of its confines; but
bands of soldiers invested the avenues of the province, and, making a line of circumvallation, drove back
those wretches, who sought exile as a relief, into the
prison of their native soil. Not suffered to quit the
district, they fled to the many wild thickets which oppression had scattered through it, and-sought amongst
the jungles, and dens of tigers, a refuge from the tyranny of Warren Hastings. Not able long to exist
here, pressed at once by wild beasts and famine, the
same despair drove them back; and seeking their last
resource in arms, the most quiet, the most passive, the
most timid of the human race rose up in an universal insurrection; and, what will always happen in popular tumults, the effects of the fury of the people fell on the meaner and sometimes the reluctant instruments of the tyranny, who in several places were
massacred. The insurrection began in Rungpore,
and soon spread its fire to the neighboring provinces,
which had been harassed by the same person with the
same oppressions. The English Chief in that province
had been the silent witness, most probably the abettor
and accomplice, of all these horrors. He called in
first irregular, and then regular troops, who by dreadful and universal military execution got the better of
the impotent resistance of unarmed and undisciplined
despair. I am tired with the detail of the cruelties
o; peace. I spare you those of a cruel and inhuman
war, and of the executions which, without law or process, or even the shadow of authority, were ordered
by the English Revenue'Chief in that province.
In our Indian government, whatever grievance is
? ? ? ? 92 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
borne is denied to exist, and all mute despair and
sullen patience is construed into content and satisfaction. But this general insurrection, which at every moment threatened to blaze out afresh, and to involve
all the provinces in its flames, rent in pieces that veil
of fraud and mystery that covers all the miseries of
all the provinces. Calcutta rung with it; and it was
feared it would go to England. The English Chief
in the province, Mr. Goodlad, represented it to Mr.
Hastings's Revenue Committee to be (what it was)
the greatest. and most serious disturbance that ever
happened in Bengal. But, good easy man, he was
utterly unable to guess to what cause it was to be
attributed. He thought there was some irregularity
in the collection, but on the whole judged that it had
little other cause than a general conspiracy of the
husbandmen and landholders, who, as Debi Sing's
lease was near expiring, had determined not to pay
any more revenue.
Mr. Hastings's Committee of Revenue, whilst these
wounds were yet bleeding, and whilst a total failure
was threatened in the rents of these provinces, thought
themselves obliged to make an inquiry with some sort
of appearance of seriousness into the causes of it.
They looked, therefore, about them carefully, and
chose what they judged would be most plausible and
least effective. They thought that it was necessary to
send a special commissioner into the province, and
one, too, whose character would not instantly blast
the credit of his mission. They cast their eyes on
a Mr. Paterson, a servant of the Company, a man
of fair character, and long standing in the service.
Mr. Paterson was a person known to be of a very
cool temper, placid manners, moderate and middle
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. - THIRD DAY. 93
opinions, unconnected with parties; and from such
a character they looked for (what sometimes is to be
expected from it) a compromising, balanced, neutralized, equivocal, colorless, confused report, in which the blame was to be impartially divided between the
sufferer and the oppressor, and in which, according to
the standing manners of Bengal, he would recommend
oblivion as the best remedy, and would end by remarking, that retrospect could have no advantage, and could serve only to irritate and keep alive animosities; and by this kind of equitable, candid, and judge-like proceeding, they hoped the whole complaint would calmly fade away, the sufferers remain
in the possession of their patience, and the tyrant of
his plunder. In confidence of this event from this
presumed character, Mr. Hastings's Committee, in appointing Mr. Paterson their commissioner, were not deficient in arming him with powers equal to the
object of his commission. He was enabled to call
before him all accountants, to compel the production
of all accounts, to examine all persons, - not only to
inquire and to report, but to decide and to redress.
Such is the imperfection of human wisdom that
the Committee totally failed in their well-laid project.
They were totally mistaken in their man. Under
that cold outside the commissioner, Paterson, concealed a firm, manly, and fixed principle, a deciding intellect, and a feeling heart. My Lords, he is the
son of a gentleman of a venerable age and excellent
character in this country, who long filled the seat of
chairman of the Committee of Supply in the House of
Commons, and who is now enjoying repose from his
long labors in an honorable age. The son, as soon as
he was appointed to this commission, was awed by
? ? ? ? 94 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
and dreaded the consequences. He knew to what
temptation he should be exposed, from the known
character of Debi Sing, to suppress or to misrepresent
facts. He therefore took out a letter he had from his
father, which letter was the preservation of his character and destruction of his fortune. This letter he always resorted to in all trying exigencies of his life.
He laid the letter before him, and there was enjoined
such a line of integrity, incorruptness, of bearing
every degree of persecution rather than disguising
truth, that he went up into the country in a proper
frame of mind for doing his duty.
He,went to Rungpore strongly impressed with a
sense of the great trust that was placed in him; and
he had not the least reason to doubt of full support
in the execution of it, -as he, with every other white
man in Bengal, probably, and every black, except two,
was ignorant of the fact, that the Governor-General,
under whose delegated authority he was sent, had
been bribed by the farmer-general of those provinces,
and had sold them to his discretion for a great sum
of money. If Paterson had known this fact, no human consideration would have induced him, or any other man of common prudence, to undertake an inquiry into the conduct of Debi Sing. Pity, my Lords, the condition of an honest servant in Bengal.
But Paterson was ignorant of this dark transaction,
and went simply to perform a duty. He had hardly
set his foot in the province, when the universal, unquestioned, uncontradicted testimony of the whole people, concurring with the manifest evidence of
things which could not lie, with the face of an utterly ruined, undone, depopulated country, and saved from literal and exceptionless depopulation only by
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN OPENING. - THIRD DAY. 95
the exhibition of scattered bands of wild, naked, meagre, half-famished wretches, who rent heaven with
their cries and howlings, left him no sort of doubt of
the real cause of the late tumults. In his first letters
he conveyed his sentiments to the Committee with
these memorable words. " 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.