The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 10 (of 12). Edmund BurkeЧитать онлайн книгу.
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 62,000l. 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) 40,000l. 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 30,000l. 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