and ripening to their wishes;--answers, replies, objections, and
interrogatories,--accounts opposed to accounts,--balances now on the one
side, now on the other,--now debtor becomes creditor, and creditor
debtor,--until the proceedings were grown to the size of volumes, and
the whole well fitted to perplex the most simple facts, and to darken
the meridian sunshine of public notoriety. They prepared a report for
the Governor-General and Council suitable to the whole tenor of their
proceedings. Here the man whom they had employed and betrayed appeared
in a new character. Observe their course with him. First he was made a
commissioner. Then he was changed from a commissioner to be a voluntary
accuser. He now undergoes another metamorphosis: he appears as a culprit
before Mr. Hastings, on the accusation of the donor of Mr. Hastings's
bribes. He is to answer to the accusations of Debi Sing. He is permitted
to find materials for his own defence; and he, an old Company's servant,
is to acknowledge it as a favor to be again suffered to go into the
province, without authority, without station, without public character,
under the discountenance and frowns, and in a manner under prosecution,
of the government. As a favor, he is suffered to go again into Rungpore,
in hopes of finding among the dejected, harassed, and enslaved race of
Hindoos, and in that undone province, men bold enough to stand forward,
against all temptations of emolument, and at the risk of their lives,
with a firm adherence to their original charge,--and at a time when they
saw _him_ an abandoned and persecuted private individual, whom they had
just before looked upon as a protecting angel, carrying with him the
whole power of a beneficent government, and whom they had applied to, as
a magistrate of high and sacred authority, to hear the complaints and to
redress the grievances of a whole people.
A new commission of junior servants was at the same time sent out to
review and reëxamine the cause, to inquire into the inquiry, to examine
into the examination, to control the report, to be commissioners upon
the commission of Mr. Paterson. Before these commissioners he was made
to appear as an accused person, and was put upon his defence, but
without the authority and without the favor which ought to go with an
accused person for the purpose of enabling him to make out such defence.
These persons went down into that country, and, after spending a long
time in mere matters of form, found they could not do without a
representative of Debi Sing, and accordingly they ordered Debi Sing to
send up his _vakeel_.
I forgot to state to your Lordships what the condition of Debi Sing was
during this proceeding. This man had been ordered to Calcutta on two
grounds: one, on the matter of his flagitious misconduct at Rungpore;
and the other, for a great failure in the payment of his stipulated
revenue. Under this double accusation, he was to be considered,
according to the usual mode of proceeding in such cases, as a prisoner;
and he was kept, not in the common gaol of Calcutta, not in the prison
of the fort, not in that gaol in which Rajah Nundcomar, who had been
prime-minister of the empire, was confined, but, according to the mild
ways of that country, where they choose to be mild, and the persons are
protected by the official influence of power, under a free custody. He
was put under a guard of sepoys, but not confined to his house; he was
permitted to go abroad, where he was daily in conference with those who
were to judge him; and having an address which seldom fails, and a
dexterity never wanting to a man possessed of 700,000_l._, he converted
this guard into a retinue of honor: their bayonets were lowered, their
muskets laid aside; they attended him with their side-arms, and many
with silver verges in their hands, to mark him out rather as a great
magistrate attended by a retinue than a prisoner under guard.
When he was ordered to send a vakeel to defend his conduct, he refused
to send him. Upon which the commissioners, instead of saying, "If you
will not send your agent, we will proceed in our inquiry without him,"
(and, indeed, it was not made necessary by the commission that he should
be there either by vakeel or otherwise,) condescendingly admitted his
refusal, and suffered him to come up in person. He accordingly enters
the province, attended with his guard, in the manner I have before
mentioned, more as a person returning in triumph from a great victory
than as a man under the load of all those enormous charges which I have
stated. He enters the province in this manner; and Mr. Paterson, who saw
himself lately the representative of the India Company, (an old servant
of the Company is a great man in that country,) was now left naked,
destitute, without any mark of official situation or dignity. He was
present, and saw all the marks of imprisonment turned into marks of
respect and dignity to this consummate villain whom I have the
misfortune of being obliged to introduce to your Lordships' notice. Mr.
Paterson, seeing the effect of the proceeding everywhere, seeing the
minds of the people broken, subdued, and prostrate under it, and that,
so far from having the means of detecting the villanies of this insolent
criminal, appearing as a magistrate, he had not the means of defending
even his own innocence, because every kind of information fled and was
annihilated before him, represented to these young commissioners that
this appearance of authority tended to strike terror into the hearts of
the natives, and to prevent his receiving justice. The Council of
Calcutta took this representation into their deliberate consideration;
they found that it was true, that, if he had such an attendance any
longer in this situation, (and a large attendance it was, such as the
Chancellor of this kingdom or the Speaker of the House of Commons does
not appear with,) it would have an evil appearance. On the other hand,
say they, "_If he should be left under a guard, the people would
consider him as under disgrace._" They therefore took a middle way, and
ordered the guard not to attend him with fixed bayonets, which had the
appearance of the custody of a prisoner, but to lower their muskets and
unfix their bayonets.
The next step of these commissioners is to exclude Mr. Paterson from all
their deliberations; and in order that both parties might be put on an
equality, one would naturally conclude that the culprit, Debi Sing, was
likewise excluded. Far from it: he sat upon the bench. Need I say any
more upon this subject? The protection followed.
In this situation Mr. Paterson wrote one of the most pathetic memorials
that ever was penned to the Council of Calcutta, submitting to his hard
fate, but standing inflexibly to his virtue that brought it upon him. To
do the man justice, he bore the whole of this persecution like an hero.
He never tottered in his principles, nor swerved to the right or to the
left from the noble cause of justice and humanity in which he had been
engaged; and when your Lordships come to see his memorials, you will
have reason to observe that his abilities are answerable to the dignity
of his cause, and make him worthy of everything that he had the honor to
suffer for it.
To cut short the thread of this shocking series of corruption,
oppression, fraud, and chicanery, which lasted for upwards of four
years: Paterson remains without employment; the inhabitants of great
provinces, whose substance and whose blood was sold by Mr. Hastings,
remain without redress; and the purchaser, Debi Sing, that corrupt,
iniquitous, and bloody tyrant, instead of being proceeded against by the
Committee in a civil suit for retribution to the sufferers, is handed
over to the false semblance of a trial, on a criminal charge, before a
Mahometan judge,--an equal judge, however. The judge was Mahomed Reza
Khân, his original patron, and the author of all his fortunes,--a judge
who depends on him, as a debtor depends upon his creditor. To that
judge is he sent, without a distinct charge, without a prosecutor, and
without evidence. The next ships will bring you an account of his
honorable acquittal.
I have stated before that I considered Mr. Hastings as responsible for
the characters of the people he employed,--doubly responsible, if he
_knew_ them to be bad. I therefore charge him with putting in situations
in which any evil may be committed persons of known evil characters.
My Lords, I charge him, as chief governor, with destroying the
institutions of the country, which were designed to be, and ought to
have been, controls upon such a person as Debi Sing.
An officer, called dewan, or steward of the country, had always been
placed as a control on the farmer; but that no such control should in
fact exist, that he, Debi Sing, should be let loose to rapine,
slaughter, and plunder in the country, both offices were conferred on
him. Did Mr. Hastings vest these offices in him? No: but if Mr. Hastings
had kept firm to the duties which the act of Parliament appointed him to
execute, all the revenue appointments must have been made by him; but,
instead of making them himself, he appointed Gunga Govind Sing to make
them; and for that appointment, and for the whole train of subordinate
villany which followed the placing iniquity in the chief seat of
government, Mr. Hastings is answerable. He is answerable, I say, first,
for destroying his own legal capacity, and, next, for destroying the
legal capacity of the Council, not one of whom ever had, or could have,
any true knowledge of the state of the country, from the moment he
buried it in the gulf of mystery and of darkness, under that collected
heap of villany, Gunga Govind Sing. From that moment he destroyed the
power of government, and put everything into his hands: for this he is
answerable.
The Provincial Councils consisted of many members, who, though they
might unite in some small iniquities perhaps, could not possibly have
concealed from the public eye the commission of such acts as these.
Their very numbers, their natural competitions, the contentions that
must have arisen among them, must have put a check, at least, to such a
business. And therefore, Mr. Hastings having destroyed every check and
control above and below, having delivered the whole into the hands of
Gunga Govind Sing, for all the iniquities of Gunga Govind Sing he is
responsible.
But he did not know Debi Sing, whom he employed. I read, yesterday, and
trust it is fresh in your Lordships' remembrance, that Debi Sing was
presented to him by that set of tools, as they call themselves, who
acted, as they themselves tell us they must act, entirely and implicitly
under Gunga Govind Sing,--that is to say, by Gunga Govind Sing himself,
the confidential agent of Mr. Hastings.
Mr. Hastings is further responsible, because he took a bribe of
40,000_l._ 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
62,000_l._ a year, to supersede all the English provincial
authorities,--having appointed them for the purpose of establishing a
bribe-factor general, a general receiver and agent of bribes through all
that country, Mr. Hastings is responsible for all the consequences of
it.
I have thought it necessary, and absolutely necessary it is, to state
what the consequence of this clandestine mode of supplying the Company's
exigencies was. Your Lordships will see that their exigencies are to be
supplied by the ruin of the landed interest of a province, the
destruction of the husbandmen, and the ruin of all the people in it.
This is the consequence of a general bribe-broker, an agent like Gunga
Govind Sing, superseding all the powers and controls of government.
But Mr. Hastings has not only reduced bribery to a system of government
practically, but theoretically. For when he despaired any longer of
concealing his bribes from the penetrating eye of Parliament, then he
took another mode, and declared, as your Lordships will see, that it was
the best way of supplying the necessities of the East India Company in
the pressing exigencies of their affairs; that thus a relief to the
Company's affairs might be yielded, which, in the common, ostensible
mode, and under the ordinary forms of government, and publicly, never
would be yielded to them. So that bribery with him became a supplement
to exaction.
The best way of showing that a theoretical system is bad is to show the
practical mischiefs that it produces: because a thing may look specious
in theory, and yet be ruinous in practice; a thing may look evil in
theory, and yet be in its practice excellent. Here a thing in theory,
stated by Mr. Hastings to be productive of much good, is in reality
productive of all those horrible mischiefs I have stated. That Mr.
Hastings well knew this appears from an extract of the Bengal Revenue
Consultations, 21st January, 1785, a little before he came away.
Mr. Hastings says,--"I entirely acquit Mr. Goodlad of all the charges:
he has disproved them. It was the duty of the accuser to prove them.
Whatever crimes may be established against Rajah Debi Sing, it does not
follow that Mr. Goodlad was responsible for them; and I so well know the
character and abilities of Rajah Debi Sing, that I can easily conceive
that it was in his power both to commit the enormities which are laid to
his charge, and to conceal the grounds of them from Mr. Goodlad, who had
no authority but that of receiving the accounts and rents of the
district from Rajah Debi Sing, and occasionally to be the channel of
communication between him and the Committee."
We shall now see what things Mr. Hastings did, what course he was in, a
little before his departure,--with what propriety and consistency of
character he has behaved from the year of the commencement of his
corrupt system, in 1773, to the end of it, when he closed it in 1785,
when the bribes not only mounted the chariot, but boarded the barge,
and, as I shall show, followed him down the Ganges, and even to the sea,
and that he never quitted his system of iniquity, but that it survived
his political life itself.
One of his last political acts was this.
Your Lordships will remember that Mr. Goodlad was sent up into the
country, whose conduct was terrible indeed: for that he could not be in
place and authority in that country, and be innocent, while such things
were doing, I shall prove. But that is not now my consideration.
The Governor-General's minute, just read, is this. "I entirely acquit
Mr. Goodlad of all the charges: he has disproved them. It was the duty
of the accuser to prove them" (the accuser, namely, the commissioner).
"Whatever crimes may be established against Rajah Debi Sing, it does not
follow that Mr. Goodlad was responsible for them; and I so well know the
character," &c., &c., &c.
Now your Lordships perceive he has acquitted Mr. Goodlad. He is clear.
Be it that he is fairly and conscientiously acquitted. But what is Mr.
Hastings's account of Rajah Debi Sing? He is presented to him in 1781,
by Gunga Govind Sing, as a person against whose character there could be
no exception, and by him accepted in that light. Upon the occasion I
have mentioned, Mr. Hastings's opinion of him is this: "I so well know
the character and abilities of Rajah Debi Sing, that I can easily
conceive that it was in his power both to commit the enormities which
are laid to his charge, and to conceal the grounds of them from Mr.
Goodlad, who had no authority but that of receiving the accounts and
rents of the district from Rajah Debi Sing, and occasionally to be the
channel of communication between him and the Committee."
Thus your Lordships see what Mr. Hastings's opinion of Debi Sing was. We
shall prove it at another time, by abundance of clear and demonstrative
evidence, that, whether he was bad or no, (but we shall prove that bad
he was indeed,) _even he_ could hardly be so bad as he was in the
opinion which Mr. Hastings entertained of him; who, notwithstanding, now
disowns this mock Committee, instituted by himself, but, in reality,
entirely managed by Gunga Govind Sing. This Debi Sing was accepted as an
unexceptionable man; and yet Mr. Hastings knows both his power of doing
mischief and his artifice in concealing it. If, then, Mr. Goodlad is to
be acquitted, does it not show the evil of Mr. Hastings's conduct in
destroying those Provincial Councils which, as I have already stated,
were obliged to book everything, to minute all the circumstances which
came before them, together with all the consultations respecting them?
He strikes at the whole system at once, and, instead of it, he leaves an
Englishman, under pretence of controlling Gunga Govind Sing's agent,
appointed for the very purpose of giving him bribes, in a province where
Mr. Hastings says that agent had the power of committing such
enormities, and which nobody doubts his disposition to commit,--he
leaves him, I say, in such a state of inefficiency, that these
iniquities could be concealed (though every one true) from the person
appointed there to inspect his conduct! What, then, could be his
business there? Was it only to receive such sums of money as Debi Sing
might put into his hands, and which might have been easily sent to
Calcutta? Was he to be of use as a communication between Debi Sing and
the Committee, and in no other way? Here, then, we have that English
authority which Mr. Hastings left in the country,--here the native
authority which he settled, and the establishment of native iniquity in
a regular system under Gunga Govind Sing,--here the destruction of all
English inspection. I hope I need say no more to prove to your Lordships
that this system, taken nakedly as it thus stands, founded in mystery
and obscurity, founded for the very express purpose of conveying
bribes, as the best mode of collecting the revenue and supplying the
Company's exigencies through Gunga Govind Sing, would be iniquitous upon
the face and the statement of it. But when your Lordships consider what
horrid effects it produced, you will easily see what the mischief and
abomination of Mr. Hastings's destroying these Provincial Councils and
protecting these persons must necessarily be. If you had not known in
theory, you must have seen it in practice.
But when both practice and theory concur, there can be no doubt that a
system of private bribery for a revenue, and of private agency for a
constitutional government, must ruin the country where it prevails, must
disgrace the country that uses it, and finally end in the destruction of
the revenue. For what says Mr. Hastings? "I was to have received
40,000_l._ in bribes, and 30,000_l._ was actually applied to the use of
the Company." Now I hope I shall demonstrate, if not, it will be by some
one abler than me demonstrated, in the course of this business, that
there never was a bribe received by Mr. Hastings that was not instantly
followed with a deficiency in the revenue,--this is clear, and what we
undertake to prove,--and that Debi Sing himself was, at the time Mr.
Hastings came away, between twenty and thirty thousand pounds debtor to
the Company. So that, in truth, you always find a deficiency of revenue
nearly equal, and in some instances I shall show double, to all the
bribes Mr. Hastings received: from whence it will be evident that he
never could nor did receive them under that absurd and strange idea of a
resource to government.
I must re-state to your Lordships, because I wish you never to forget,
that this Committee of Revenue was, in their own opinion, and from their
own certain knowledge and mere motion, if motion can be attributed
originally to instruments, mere tools; that they knew that they were
tools in the hands of Gunga Govind Sing. There were two persons
principal in it,--Mr. Shore, who was the acting President, and Mr.
Anderson, who was President in rank, and President in emolument, but
absent for a great part of the time upon a foreign embassy. It is the
recorded opinion of the former, (for I must beg leave to read again a
part of the paper which has already been read to your Lordships,) that
"the Committee, with the best intentions, best abilities, and steadiest
application, must, after all, be a tool in the hands of their dewan."
Now do you believe, in the first place, that men will long have
abilities, will long have good intentions, and will long, above all,
have steady application, when they know they are but tools in the hands
of another,--when they know they are tools for his own corrupt purposes?
In the next place, I must beg leave to state to you, that, on the
constitution of this Committee, Mr. Hastings made them all take a solemn
oath that they would never receive any present whatever. It was not
enough to trust to a general covenant; it was not enough to trust to the
penal act of 1773: he bound the Committee by a new oath, and forced them
to declare that they would not receive any bribes. As soon as he had so
secured them against receiving bribes, he was resolved to make them
inefficient,--a good way to secure them against bribes, by taking from
them the power of bribe-worthy service. This was a good counter-security
to their oath. But Mr. Hastings put a dewan there, against whom there
was no security; he let loose this dewan to frustrate their intentions,
their application, their abilities, and oath: that is, there was a
person at that board who was more than the board itself, who might riot
in peculation and plunder from one end of the country to the other. He
was there to receive bribes for Mr. Hastings; the Committee were to be
pure with impotent hands; and then came a person with ample power for
Mr. Hastings himself. And lest this person should not have power enough
in this Committee, he is made the general bribe-broker to Mr. Hastings.
This secret under-current, as your Lordships will see, is to counteract
everything, and, as fast as one part is rendered pure, totally to
corrupt all the rest.
But, my Lords, this was not the private opinion of Mr. Shore only, a man
of great abilities, and intimately acquainted with the revenue, who must
know when he was in a situation to do good and when not. The other
gentleman whom I have mentioned, Mr. Hastings's confidant in everything
but his bribes, and supposed to be in his closest secrets, is Mr.
Anderson. I should remark to your Lordships, that Mr. Anderson is a man
apparently of weak nerves, of modest and very guarded demeanor, as we
have seen him in the House of Commons; it is in that way only I have the
honor of knowing him. Mr. Anderson being asked whether he agreed in the
opinion and admitted the truth of his friend Mr. Shore's statement
relative to the dewan of the Committee, his answer was this: "I do not
think that I should have written it quite so strong, but I do in a great
measure agree to it: that is, I think there is a great deal of truth in
the observation; I think, in particular, that it would require great
exertion in the Committee, and great abilities on the part of the
President, to restrain effectually the conduct of the dewan; I think it
would be difficult for the Committee to interpose a sufficient control
to guard against all the abuses of the dewan."
There is the real President of the Committee,--there the most active,
efficient member of it. They are both of one opinion concerning their
situation: and I think this opinion of Mr. Anderson is still more
strong; for, as he thinks he should have written it with a little more
guard, but should have agreed in substance, you must naturally think the
strongest expression the truest representation of the circumstance.