The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 10 (of 12). Edmund Burke

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 40,000l. 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 62,000l. 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."

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