posterity, that there never was a _bad man_ that had ability for _good
service_. It is not in the nature of such men; their minds are so
distorted to selfish purposes, to knavish, artificial, and crafty means
of accomplishing those selfish ends, that, if put to any good service,
they are poor, dull, helpless. Their natural faculties never have that
direction; they are paralytic on that side; the muscles, if I may use
the expression, that ought to move it, are all dead. They know nothing,
but how to pursue selfish ends by wicked and indirect means. No man ever
knowingly employed a bad man on account of his abilities, but for evil
ends. Mr. Hastings knew this man to be bad; all the world knew him to be
bad; and how did he employ him? In such a manner as that he might be
controlled by others? A great deal might be said for him, if this had
been the case. There might be circumstances in which such a man might be
used in a subordinate capacity. But who ever thought of putting such a
man virtually in possession of the whole authority both of the Committee
and the Council-General, and of the revenues of the whole country?
As soon as we find Gunga Govind Sing here, we find him employed in the
way in which he was meant to be employed: that is to say, we find him
employed in taking corrupt bribes and corrupt presents for Mr. Hastings.
Though the Committee were tools in his hands, he was a tool in the hands
of Mr. Hastings; for he had, as we shall prove, constant, uniform, and
close communications with Mr. Hastings. And, indeed, we may be saved a
good deal of the trouble of proof; for Mr. Hastings himself, by
acknowledging him to be his bribe-broker, has pretty well authenticated
a secret correspondence between them. For the next great bribe as yet
discovered to be taken by Mr. Hastings, about the time of his great
operation of 1781, was the bribe of 40,000_l._, which we charge to have
been privately taken from one of two persons, but from which is not yet
ascertained, but paid to him through this flagitious black agent of his
iniquities, Gunga Govind Sing. The discovery is made by another agent of
his, called Mr. Larkins, one of his white bribe-confidants, and by him
made Accountant-General to the Supreme Presidency. For this sum, so
clandestinely and corruptly taken, he received a bond to himself, on his
own account, as for money lent to the Company. For, upon the frequent,
pressing, tender solicitations of the Court of Directors, always
insinuated to him in a very delicate manner, Mr. Hastings had written to
Mr. Larkins to find out, if he could, some of his own bribes; and
accordingly Mr. Larkins sent over an account of various bribes,--an
account which, even before it comes directly in evidence before you, it
will be pleasant to your Lordships to read. In this account, under the
head, "_Dinagepore, No. 1_," I find "_Duplicate copy of the particulars
of debts, in which the component parts of sundry sums received on the
account of the Honorable Company of Merchants trading to the East Indies
were received by Mr. Hastings and paid to the Sub-Treasurer_." We find
here, "_Dinagepore peshcush, four lacs of rupees, cabooleat_": that is,
an agreement to pay four lacs of rupees, of which three were received
and one remained in balance at the time this account was made out. All
that we can learn from this account, after all our researches, after all
the Court of Directors could do to squeeze it out of him, is, that he
received from Dinagepore, at twelve monthly payments, a sum of about
three lacs of rupees, upon an engagement to pay him four; that is, he
received about 30,000_l._ out of 40,000_l._ which was to be paid him:
and we are told that he received this sum through the hands of Gunga
Govind Sing; and that he was exceedingly angry with Gunga Govind Sing
for having kept back or defrauded him of the sum of 10,000_l._ out of
the 40,000_l._ To keep back from him the fourth part of the whole bribe
was very reprehensible behavior in Gunga Govind Sing, certainly very
unworthy of the great and high trust which Mr. Hastings reposed in his
integrity. My Lords, this letter tells us Mr. Hastings was much
irritated at Gunga Govind Sing. You will hereafter see how Mr. Hastings
behaves to persons against whom he is irritated for their frauds upon
him in their joint concerns. In the mean time Gunga Govind Sing rests
with you as a person with whom Mr. Hastings is displeased on account of
infidelity in the honorable trust of bribe undertaker and manager.
My Lords, you are not very much enlightened, I believe, by seeing these
words, _Dinagepore peshcush_. We find a province, we find a sum of
money, we find an agent, and we find a receiver. The _province_ is
_Dinagepore_, the _agent_ is _Gunga Govind Sing_, the _sum_ agreed on is
40,000_l._, and the _receiver_ of a part of that is _Mr. Hastings_. This
is all that can be seen. Who it was that gave this sum of money to Mr.
Hastings in this manner does no way appear; it is _murder by persons
unknown_: and this is the way in which Mr. Hastings, after all the
reiterated solicitations of Parliament, of the Company, and the public,
has left the account of this bribe.
Let us, however, now see what was the state of transactions at
Dinagepore at that period. For, if Mr. Hastings in the transactions at
that period did anything for that country, it must be presumed this
money was given for those acts; for Mr. Hastings confesses it was a sum
of money corruptly received, but honestly applied. It does not signify
much, at first view, from whom he received it; it is enough to fix upon
him that he did receive it. But because the consequences of his bribes
make the main part of what I intend to bring before your Lordships, I
shall beg to state to you, with your indulgence, what I have been able
to discover by a very close investigation of the records respecting this
business of Dinagepore.
Dinagepore, Rungpore, and Edrackpore make a country, I believe, pretty
nearly as large as all the northern counties of England, Yorkshire
included. It is no mean country, and it has a prince of great, ancient,
illustrious descent at the head of it, called the Rajah of Dinagepore.
I find, that, about the month of July, 1780, the Rajah of Dinagepore,
after a long and lingering illness, died, leaving an half-brother and an
adopted son. A litigation respecting the succession instantly arose in
the family; and this litigation was of course referred to, and was
finally to be decided by, the Governor-General in Council,--being the
ultimate authority to which the decision of all these questions was to
be referred. This cause came before Mr. Hastings, and I find that he
decided the question in favor of the adopted son of the Rajah against
his half-brother. I find that upon that decision a rent was settled, and
a peshcush, or fine, paid. So that all that is in this transaction is
fair and above-board: there is a dispute settled; there is a fine paid;
there is a rent reserved to the Company; and the whole is a fair
settlement. But I find along with it very extraordinary acts; for I find
Mr. Hastings taking part in favor of the minor, agreeably to the
principles of others, and contrary to his own. I find that he gave the
guardianship of this adopted son to the brother of the Ranny, as she is
called, or the widow of the deceased Rajah; and though the hearing and
settling of this business was actually a part of the duty of his office,
yet I find, that, when the steward of the province of Dinagepore was
coming down to represent this case to Mr. Hastings, Mr. Hastings, on
pretence that it would only tend to increase the family dissensions, so
far from hearing fully all the parties in this business, not only sent
him back, but ordered him to be actually turned out of his office. If,
then, the 40,000_l._ be the same with the money taken from the Rajah in
1780, to which account it seems to refer, (for it was taken in regular
payments, beginning July, 1780, and ending at the same period in 1781,)
it was a sum of money corruptly taken by him as a judge in a litigation
of inheritance between two great parties. So that he received the sum of
40,000_l._ for a judgment; which, whether that judgment was right or
wrong, true or false, he corruptly received.
This sum was received, as your Lordships will observe, through Gunga
Govind Sing. He was the broker of the agreement: he was the person who
was to receive it by monthly instalments, and he was to pay it to Mr.
Hastings. His son was in the office of Register-General of the whole
country, who had in his custody all the papers, documents, and
everything which could tend to settle a litigation among the parties. If
Mr. Hastings took this bribe from the Rajah of Dinagepore, he took a
bribe from an infant of five years old through the hands of the
Register. That is, the judge receives a bribe through the hands of the
keeper of the genealogies of the family, the records and other
documents, which must have had the principal share in settling the
question.
This history of this Dinagepore peshcush is the public one received by
the Company, and which is entered upon the record,--but not the private,
and probably the true history of this corrupt transaction.
Very soon after this decision, very soon after this peshcush was given,
we find all the officers of the young Rajah, who was supposed to have
given it, turned out of their employment by Gunga Govind Sing,--by the
very man who received the peshcush for Mr. Hastings. We find them all
turned out of their employments; we find them all accused, without any
appearance or trace in the records of any proof of embezzlement, of
neglect in the education of the minor Rajah, of the mismanagement of his
affairs, or the allotment of an unsuitable allowance. And accordingly,
to prevent the relations of his adopted mother, to prevent those who
might be supposed to have an immediate interest in the family, from
abusing the trust of his education and the trust of the management of
his fortune, Gunga Govind Sing, (for I trust your Lordships would not
suffer me, if I had a mind, to quote that tool of a thing, the Committee
of Revenue, bought at 62,000_l._ a year,--you would not suffer me to
name it, especially when you know all the secret agency of bribes in the
hand of Gunga Govind Sing,)--this Gunga Govind Sing produces soon after
another character, to whom he consigns the custody of the whole family
and the whole province.
I will do Mr. Hastings the justice to say, that, if he had known there
was another man more accomplished in all iniquity than Gunga Govind
Sing, he would not have given him the first place in his confidence. But
there is another next to him in the country, whom you are to hear of
by-and-by, called Debi Sing. This person, in the universal opinion of
all Bengal, is ranked next to Gunga Govind Sing; and, what is very
curious, they have been recorded by Mr. Hastings as rivals in the same
virtues.
Arcades ambo,
Et cantare pares, et respondere parati.
But Mr. Hastings has the happiest modes in the world: these rivals were
reconciled on this occasion, and Gunga Govind Sing appoints Debi Sing,
superseding all the other officers for no reason whatever upon record.
And because, like champions, they ought to go in pairs, there is an
English gentleman, one Mr. Goodlad, whom you will hear of presently,
appointed along with him. Absolute strangers to the Rajah's family, the
first act they do is to cut off a thousand out of sixteen hundred a
month from his allowance. They state (though there was a great number of
dependants to maintain) that six hundred would be enough to maintain
him. There appears in the account of these proceedings to be such a
flutter about the care of the Rajah, and the management of his
household: in short, that there never was such a tender guardianship as,
always with the knowledge of Mr. Hastings, is exercised over this poor
Rajah, who had just given (if he did give) 40,000_l._ for _his own_
inheritance, if it was his due,--for the inheritance of _others_, if it
was not his due. One would think he was entitled to some mercy; but,
probably because the money could not otherwise be supplied, his
establishment was cut down by Debi Sing and Mr. Goodlad a thousand a
month, which is just twelve thousand a year.
When Mr. Hastings had appointed those persons to the guardianship who
had an interest in the management of the Rajah's education and fortune,
one should have thought, before they were turned out, he would at least
have examined whether such a step was proper or not. No: they were
turned out without any such examination; and when I come to inquire into
the proceedings of Gunga Govind Sing's Committee, I do not find that the
new guardians have brought to account one single shilling they received,
appointed as they were by that council newly made to superintend all the
affairs of the Rajah. There is not one word to be found of an account:
Debi Sing's honor, fidelity, and disinterestedness, and that of Mr.
Goodlad, is sufficient; and that is the way in which the management and
superintendence of one of the greatest houses in that country is given
to the guardianship of strangers. And how is it managed? We find Debi
Sing in possession of the Rajah's family, in possession of his affairs,
in the management of his whole zemindary; and in the course of the next
year he is to give him in farm the whole of the revenues of these three
provinces. Now whether the peshcush was received for the nomination of
the Rajah as a bribe in judgment, or whether Mr. Hastings got it from
Debi Sing as a bribe in office, for appointing him to the guardianship
of a family that did not belong to him, and for the dominion of three
great and once wealthy provinces,--(which is best or worst I shall not
pretend to determine,)--you find the Rajah in his possession; you find
his education, his household, in his possession; the public revenues are
in his possession; they are given over to him.
If we look at the records, the letting of these provinces appears to
have been carried on by the new Committee of Revenue, as the course and
order of business required it should. But by the investigation into Mr.
Hastings's money transactions, the insufficiency and fallacy of these
records is manifest beyond a doubt. From this investigation it is
discovered that it was in reality a bargain secretly struck between the
Governor-General and Debi Sing, and that the Committee were only
employed in the mere official forms. From the time that Mr. Hastings
new-modelled the revenue system, nothing is seen in its true shape. We
now know, in spite of the fallacy of these records, who the true grantor
was: it will not be amiss to go a little further in supplying their
defects, and to inquire a little concerning the grantee. This makes it
necessary for me to inform your Lordships who Debi Sing is.
[_Mr. Burke read the Committee's recommendation of Debi Sing to the
Governor-General and Council; but the copy of the paper alluded to
is wanting._]
* * * * *
Here is a choice; here is Debi Sing presented for his knowledge in
business, his trust and fidelity, and that he is a person against whom
no objection can be made. This is presented to Mr. Hastings, by him
recorded in the Council Books, and by him transmitted to the Court of
Directors. Mr. Hastings has since recorded, that he knew this Debi Sing,
(though he here publicly authorizes the nomination of him to all that
great body of trusts,)--that he knew him to be a man completely capable
of the most atrocious iniquities that were ever charged upon man. Debi
Sing is appointed to all those great trusts, through the means of Gunga
Govind Sing, from whom he (Mr. Hastings) had received 30,000_l._ as a
part of a bribe.
Now, though it is a large field, though it is a thing that I must
confess I feel a reluctance almost in venturing to undertake, exhausted
as I am, yet such is the magnitude of the affair, such the evil
consequences that followed from a system of bribery, such the horrible
consequences of superseding all the persons in office in the country to
give it into the hands of Debi Sing, that, though it is the public
opinion, and though no man that has ever heard the name of Debi Sing
does not know that he was only second to Gunga Govind Sing, yet it is
not to my purpose, unless I prove that Mr. Hastings knew his character
at the very time he accepts him as a person against whom no exception
could be made.
It is necessary to inform your Lordships who this Debi Sing was, to whom
these great trusts were committed, and those great provinces given.
It may be thought, and not unnaturally, that, in this sort of corrupt
and venal appointment to high trust and office, Mr. Hastings has no
other consideration than the money he received. But whoever thinks so
will be deceived. Mr. Hastings was very far from indifferent to the
character of the persons he dealt with. On the contrary, he made a most
careful selection; he had a very scrupulous regard to the aptitude of
the men for the purposes for which he employed them, and was much guided
by his experience of their conduct in those offices which had been sold
to them upon former occasions.
Except Gunga Govind Sing, (whom, as justice required, Mr. Hastings
distinguished by the highest marks of his confidence,) there was not a
man in Bengal, perhaps not upon earth, a match for this Debi Sing. He
was not an unknown subject, not one rashly taken up as an experiment. He
was a tried man; and if there had been one more desperately and
abandonedly corrupt, more wildly and flagitiously oppressive, to be
found unemployed in India, large as his offers were, Mr. Hastings would
not have taken this money from Debi Sing.
Debi Sing was one of those who in the early stages of the English power
in Bengal attached himself to those natives who then stood high in
office. He courted Mahomed Reza Khân, a Mussulman of the highest rank,
of the tribe of Koreish, whom I have already mentioned, then at the head
of the revenue, and now at the head of the criminal justice of Bengal,
with all the supple assiduity of which those who possess no valuable art
or useful talent are commonly complete masters. Possessing large funds,
acquired by his apprenticeship and novitiate in the lowest frauds, he
was enabled to lend to this then powerful man, in the several
emergencies of his variable fortune, very large sums of money. This
great man had been brought down by Mr. Hastings, under the orders of the
Court of Directors, upon a cruel charge, to Calcutta. He was accused of
many crimes, and acquitted, 220,000_l._ in debt: that is to say, as soon
as he was a great debtor, he ceased to be a great criminal.
Debi Sing obtained by his services no slight influence over Mahomed Reza
Khân, a person of a character very different from his.
From that connection he was appointed to the farm of the revenue, and
inclusively of the government of Purneah, a province of very great
extent, and then in a state of no inconsiderable opulence. In this
office he exerted his talents with so much vigor and industry that in a
very short time the province was half depopulated and totally ruined.
The farm, on the expiration of his lease, was taken by a set of
adventurers in this kind of traffic from Calcutta. But when the new
undertakers came to survey the object of their future operations and
future profits, they were so shocked at the hideous and squalid scenes
of misery and desolation that glared upon them in every quarter, that
they instantly fled out of the country, and thought themselves but too
happy to be permitted, on the payment of a penalty of twelve thousand
pounds, to be released from their engagements.
To give in a few words as clear an idea as I am able to give of the
immense volume which might be composed of the vexations, violence, and
rapine of that tyrannical administration, the territorial revenue of
Purneah, which had been let to Debi Sing at the rate of 160,000_l._
sterling a year, was with difficulty leased for a yearly sum under
90,000_l._, and with all rigor of exaction produced in effect little
more than 60,000_l._, falling greatly below one half of its original
estimate: so entirely did the administration of Debi Sing exhaust all
the resources of the province; so totally did his baleful influence
blast the very hope and spring of all future revenue.
The administration of Debi Sing was too notoriously destructive not to
cause a general clamor. It was impossible that it should be passed over
without animadversion. Accordingly, in the month of September, 1772, Mr.
Hastings, then at the head of the Committee of Circuit, removed him for
maladministration; and he has since publicly declared on record that he
knew him to be capable of all the most horrid and atrocious crimes that
can be imputed to man.
This brand, however, was only a mark for Mr. Hastings to find him out
hereafter in the crowd, to identify him for his own, and to call him
forth into action, when his virtues should be sufficiently matured for
the services in which he afterwards employed him, through his
instruments, Mr. Anderson and Gunga Govind Sing. In the mean time he
left Debi Sing to the direction of his own good genius.
Debi Sing was stigmatized in the Company's records, his reputation was
gone, but his funds were safe. In the arrangement made by Mr. Hastings,
in the year 1773, by which Provincial Councils were formed, Debi Sing
became deputy-steward, or secretary, (soon in effect and influence
principal steward,) to the Provincial Council of Moorshedabad, the seat
of the old government, and the first province of the kingdom; and to his
charge were committed various extensive and populous provinces, yielding
an annual revenue of one hundred and twenty lacs of rupees, or
1,500,000_l._ This division of Provincial Council included Rungpore,
Edrackpore, and others, where he obtained such a knowledge of their
resources as subsequently to get possession of them.
Debi Sing found this administration composed mostly of young men,
dissipated and fond of pleasure, as is usual at that time of life, but
desirous of reconciling those pleasures, which usually consume wealth,
with the means of making a great and speedy fortune,--at once eager
candidates for opulence, and perfect novices in all the roads that lead
to it. Debi Sing commiserated their youth and inexperience, and took
upon him to be their guide.