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

If you sanction this practice, if, after all you have exacted from the people by your taxes and public imposts, you are to let loose your servants upon them, to extort by bribery and peculation what they can from them, for the purpose of applying it to the public service only whenever they please, this shocking consequence will follow from it. If your Governor is discovered in taking a bribe, he will say, "What is that to you? mind your business; I intend it for the public service." The man who dares to accuse him loses the favor of the Governor-General and the India Company. They will say, "The Governor has been doing a meritorious action, extorting bribes for our benefit, and you have the impudence to think of prosecuting him." So that the moment the bribe is detected, it is instantly turned into a merit: and we shall prove that this is the case with Mr. Hastings, whenever a bribe has been discovered.

I am now to inform your Lordships, that, when he made these great discoveries to the Court of Directors, he never tells them who gave him the money, upon what occasion he received it, by what hands, or to what purposes he applied it.

When he can himself give no account of his motives, and even declares that he cannot assign any cause, I am authorized and required to find motives for him,—corrupt motives for a corrupt act. There is no one capital act of his administration that did not strongly imply corruption. When a man is known to be free from all imputation of taking money, and it becomes an established part of his character, the errors or even crimes of his administration ought to be, and are in general, traced to other sources. You know it is a maxim. But once convict a man of bribery in any instance, and once by direct evidence, and you are furnished with a rule of irresistible presumption that every other irregular act by which unlawful gain may arise is done upon the same corrupt motive. Semel malus præsumitur semper malus. As for good acts candor, charity, justice oblige me not to assign evil motives, unless they serve some scandalous purpose or terminate in some manifest evil end, so justice, reason, and common sense compel me to suppose that wicked acts have been done upon motives correspondent to their nature: otherwise I reverse all the principles of judgment which can guide the human mind, and accept even the symptoms, the marks and criteria of guilt, as presumptions of innocence. One that confounds good and evil is an enemy to the good.

His conduct upon these occasions may be thought irrational. But, thank God, guilt was never a rational thing: it distorts all the faculties of the mind; it perverts them; it leaves a man no longer in the free use of his reason; it puts him into confusion. He has recourse to such miserable and absurd expedients for covering his guilt as all those who are used to sit in the seat of judgment know have been the cause of detection of half the villanies in the world. To argue that these could not be his reasons, because they were not wise, sound, and substantial, would be to suppose, what is not true, that bad men were always discreet and able. But I can very well from the circumstances discover motives which may affect a giddy, superficial, shattered, guilty, anxious, restless mind, full of the weak resources of fraud, craft, and intrigue, that might induce him to make these discoveries, and to make them in the manner he has done. Not rational, and well-fitted for their purposes, I am very ready to admit. For God forbid that guilt should ever leave a man the free, undisturbed use of his faculties! For as guilt never rose from a true use of our rational faculties, so it is very frequently subversive of them. God forbid that prudence, the first of all the virtues, as well as the supreme director of them all, should ever be employed in the service of any of the vices! No: it takes the lead, and is never found where justice does not accompany it; and if ever it is attempted to bring it into the service of the vices, it immediately subverts their cause. It tends to their discovery, and, I hope and trust, finally to their utter ruin and destruction.

In the first place, I am to remark to your Lordships, that the accounts he has given of one of these sums of money are totally false and contradictory. Now there is not a stronger presumption, nor can one want more reason to judge a transaction fraudulent, than that the accounts given of it are contradictory; and he has given three accounts utterly irreconcilable with each other. He is asked, "How came you to take bonds for this money, if it was not your own? How came you to vitiate and corrupt the state of the Company's records, and to state yourself a lender to the Company, when in reality you were their debtor?" His answer was, "I really cannot tell; I have forgot my reasons; the distance of time is so great," (namely, a time of about two years, or not so long,) "I cannot give an account of the matter; perhaps I had this motive, perhaps I had another," (but what is the most curious,) "perhaps I had none at all which I can now recollect." You shall hear the account which Mr. Hastings himself gives, his own fraudulent representation, of these corrupt transactions. "For my motives for withholding the several receipts from the knowledge of the Council, or of the Court of Directors, and for taking bonds for part of these sums and paying others into the treasury as deposits on my own account, I have generally accounted in my letter to the Honorable the Court of Directors of the 22d of May, 1782,—namely, that I either chose to conceal the first receipts from public curiosity by receiving bonds for the amount, or possibly acted without any studied design which my memory at that distance of time could verify, and that I did not think it worth my care to observe the same means with the rest. It will not be expected that I should be able to give a more correct explanation of my intentions after a lapse of three years, having declared at the time that many particulars had escaped my remembrance; neither shall I attempt to add more than the clearer affirmation of the facts implied in that report of them, and such inferences as necessarily, or with a strong probability, follow them."

My Lords, you see, as to any direct explanation, that he fairly gives it up: he has used artifice and stratagem, which he knows will not do; and at last attempts to cover the treachery of his conduct by the treachery of his memory. Frequent applications were made to Mr. Hastings upon this article from the Company,—gentle hints, gemitus columbæ,—rather, little amorous complaints that he was not more open and communicative; but all these gentle insinuations were never able to draw from him any further account till he came to England. When he came here, he left not only his memory, but all his notes and references, behind in India. When in India the Company could get no account of them, because he himself was not in England; and when he was in England, they could get no account, because his papers were in India. He then sends over to Mr. Larkins to give that account of his affairs which he was not able to give himself. Observe, here is a man taking money privately, corruptly, and which was to be sanctified by the future application of it, taking false securities to cover it, and who, when called upon to tell whom he got the money from, for what ends, and on what occasion, neither will tell in India nor can tell in England, but sends for such an account as he has thought proper to furnish.

I am now to bring before you an account of what I think much the most serious part of the effects of his system of bribery, corruption, and peculation. My Lords, I am to state to you the astonishing and almost incredible means he made use of to lay all the country under contribution, to bring the whole into such dejection as should put his bribes out of the way of discovery. Such another example of boldness and contrivance I believe the world cannot furnish.

I have already shown, amongst the mass of his corruptions, that he let the whole of the lands to farm to the banians; next, that he sold the whole Mahomedan government of that country to a woman. This was bold enough, one should think; but without entering into the circumstances of the revenue change in 1772, I am to tell your Lordships that he had appointed six Provincial Councils, each consisting of many members, who had the ordinary administration of civil justice in that country, and the whole business of the collection of the revenues.

These Provincial Councils accounted to the Governor-General and Council, who in the revenue department had the whole management, control, and regulation of the revenue. Mr. Hastings did in several papers to the Court of Directors declare, that the establishment of these Provincial Councils, which at first he stated only as experimental, had proved useful in the experiment,—and on that use, and upon that experiment, he had sent even the plan of an act of Parliament, to have it confirmed with the last and most sacred authority of this country. The Court of Directors desired, that, if he thought any other method more proper, he would send it to them for their approbation.

Thus the whole face of the British government, the whole of its order and constitution, remained from 1772 to 1781. He had got rid, some time before this period, by death, of General Clavering, by death, of Colonel Monson, and by vexation and persecution, and his consequent dereliction of authority, he had shaken off Mr. Francis. The whole Council consisting only of himself and Mr. Wheler, he, having the casting vote, was in effect the whole Council; and if ever there was a time when principle, decency, and decorum rendered it improper for him to do any extraordinary acts without the sanction of the Court of Directors, that was the time. Mr. Wheler was taken off,—despair perhaps rendering the man, who had been in opposition futilely before, compliable. The man is dead. He certainly did not oppose him; if he had, it would have been in vain. But those very circumstances which rendered it atrocious in Mr. Hastings to make any change induced him to make this. He thought that a moment's time was not to be lost,—that other colleagues might come, where he might be overpowered by a majority again, and not able to pursue his corrupt plans. Therefore he was resolved,—your Lordships will remark the whole of this most daring and systematic plan of bribery and peculation,—he resolved to put it out of the power of his Council in future to check or control him in any of his evil practices.

The first thing he did was to form an ostensible council at Calcutta for the management of the revenues, which was not effectually bound, except it thought fit, to make any reference to the Supreme Council. He delegated to them—that is, to four covenanted servants—those functions which by act of Parliament and the Company's orders were to be exercised by the Council-General; he delegated to four gentlemen, creatures of his own, his own powers, but he laid them out to good interest. It appears odd that one of the first acts to a Governor-General, so jealous of his power as he is known to be, as soon as he had all the power in his own hands, should be to put all the revenues out of his own control. This upon the first view is an extraordinary proceeding. His next step was, without apprising the Court of Directors of his intention, or without having given an idea of any such intention to his colleagues while alive, either those who died in India, or those who afterwards returned to Europe, in one day, in a moment, to annihilate the whole authority of the Provincial Councils, and delegate the whole power to these four gentlemen.

These four gentlemen had for their secretary an agent given them by Mr. Hastings: a name that you will often hear of; a name at the sound of which all India turns pale; the most wicked, the most atrocious, the boldest, the most dexterous villain that ever the rank servitude of that country has produced. My Lords, I am speaking with the most assured freedom, because there never was a friend of Mr. Hastings, there never was a foe of Mr. Hastings, there never was any human person, that ever differed on this occasion, or expressed any other idea of Gunga Govind Sing, the friend of Mr. Hastings, whom he intrusted with this important post. But you shall hear, from the account given by themselves, what the Council thought of their functions, of their efficiency for the charge, and in whose hands that efficiency really was. I beg, hope, and trust, that your Lordships will learn from the persons themselves who were appointed to execute the office their opinion of the real execution of it, in order that you may judge of the plan for which he destroyed the whole English administration in India.

"The Committee must have a dewan, or executive officer, call him by what name you please. This man, in fact, has all the revenue paid at the Presidency at his disposal, and can, if he has any abilities, bring all the renters under contribution. It is little advantage to restrain the Committee themselves from bribery or corruption, when their executive officer has the power of practising both undetected. To display the arts employed by a native on such occasions would fill a volume. He discovers the secret resources of the zemindars and renters, their enemies and competitors; and by the engines of hope and fear, raised upon these foundations, he can work them to his purpose. The Committee, with the best intentions, best abilities, and steadiest application, must after all be a tool in the hands of their dewan."

Your Lordships see what the opinion of the Council was of their own constitution. You see for what it was made. You see for what purposes the great revenue trust was taken from the Council-General, from the supreme government. You see for what purposes the executive power was destroyed. You have it from one of the gentlemen of this commission, at first four in number, and afterwards five, who was the most active, efficient member of it. You see it was made for the purpose of being a tool in the hands of Gunga Govind Sing; that integrity, ability, and vigilance could avail nothing; that the whole country might be laid under contribution by this man, and that he could thus practise bribery with impunity. Thus your Lordships see the delegation of all the authority of the country, above and below, is given by Mr. Hastings to this Gunga Govind Sing. The screen, the veil, spread before this transaction, is torn open by the very people themselves who are the tools in it. They confess they can do nothing; they know they are instruments in the hands of Gunga Govind Sing; and Mr. Hastings uses his name and authority to make them such in the hands of the basest, the wickedest, the corruptest, the most audacious and atrocious villain ever heard of. It is to him all the English authority is sacrificed, and four gentlemen are appointed to be his tools and instruments. Tools and instruments for what? They themselves state, that, if he has the inclination, he has the power and ability to lay the whole country under contribution, that he enters into the most minute secrets of every individual in it, gets into the bottom of their family affairs, and has a power totally to subvert and destroy them; and we shall show upon that head, that he well fulfilled the purposes for which he was appointed. Did Mr. Hastings pretend to say that he destroyed the Provincial Councils for their corruptness or insufficiency, when he dissolved them? No: he says he has no objection to their competency, no charge to make against their conduct, but that he has destroyed them for his new arrangement. And what is his new arrangement? Gunga Govind Sing. Forty English gentlemen were removed from their offices by that change. Mr. Hastings did it, however, very economically; for all these gentlemen were instantly put upon pensions, and consequently burdened the establishment with a new charge. Well, but the new Council was formed and constituted upon a very economical principle also. These five gentlemen, you will have it in proof, with the necessary expenses of their office, were a charge of 62,000l. a year upon the establishment. But for great, eminent, capital services, 62,000l., though a much larger sum than what was thought fit to be allowed for the members of the Supreme Council itself, may be admitted. I will pass it. It shall be granted to Mr. Hastings, that these pensions, though they created a new burden on the establishment, were all well disposed, provided the Council did their duty. But you have heard what they say themselves: they are not there put to do any duty; they can do no duty; their abilities, their integrity, avail them nothing; they are tools in the hands of Gunga Govind Sing. Mr. Hastings, then, has loaded the revenue with 62,000l. a year to make Gunga Govind Sing master of the kingdoms of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa. What must the thing to be moved be, when the machinery, when the necessary tools, for Gunga Govind Sing have cost 62,000l. a year to the Company? There it is; it is not my representation, not the representation of observant strangers, of good and decent people, that understand the nature of that service, but the opinion of the tools themselves.

Now did Mr. Hastings employ Gunga Govind Sing without a knowledge of his character? His character was known to Mr. Hastings: it was recorded long before, when he was turned out of another office. "During my long residence," says he, "in this country, this is the first time I heard of the character of Gunga Govind Sing being infamous. No information I have received, though I have heard many people speak ill of him, ever pointed to any particular act of infamy committed by Gunga Govind Sing. I have no intimate knowledge of Gunga Govind Sing. What I understand of his character has been from Europeans as well as natives." After,—"He had many enemies at the time he was proposed to be employed in the Company's service, and not one advocate among the natives who had immediate access to myself. I think, therefore, if his character had been such as has been described, the knowledge of it could hardly have failed to have been ascertained to me by the specific facts. I have heard him loaded, as I have many others, with general reproaches, but have never heard any one express a doubt of his abilities." Now, if anything in the world should induce you to put the whole trust of the revenues of Bengal, both above and below, into the hands of a single man, and to delegate to him the whole jurisdiction of the country, it must be that he either was, or at least was reputed to be, a man of integrity. Mr. Hastings does not pretend that he is reputed to be a man of integrity. He knew that he was not able to contradict the charge brought against him, and that he had been turned out of office by his colleagues, for reasons assigned upon record, and approved by the Directors, for malversation in office. He had, indeed, crept again into the Calcutta Committee; and they were upon the point of turning him out for malversation, when Mr. Hastings saved them the trouble by turning out the whole Committee, consisting of a president and five members. So that in all times, in all characters, in all places, he stood as a man of a bad character and evil repute, though supposed to be a man of great abilities.

My Lords, permit me for one moment to drop my representative character here, and to speak to your Lordships only as a man of some experience in the world, and conversant with the affairs of men and with the characters of men.

I do, then, declare my conviction, and wish it may stand recorded to 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 40,000l., 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 30,000l. out of 40,000l. 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 10,000l. out of the 40,000l. 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 40,000l., 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.