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

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 40,000l. 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 40,000l. 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 62,000l. 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 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, 220,000l. 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 160,000l. sterling a year, was with difficulty leased for a yearly sum under 90,000l., and with all rigor of exaction produced in effect little more than 60,000l., 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 1,500,000l. 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.

There is a revenue in that country, raised by a tax more productive than laudable. It is an imposition on public prostitutes, a duty upon the societies of dancing-girls,—those seminaries from which Mr. Hastings has selected an administrator of justice and governor of kingdoms. Debi Sing thought it expedient to farm this tax,—not only because he neglected no sort of gain, but because he regarded it as no contemptible means of power and influence. Accordingly, in plain terms, he opened a legal brothel, out of which he carefully reserved (you may be sure) the very flower of his collection for the entertainment of his young superiors: ladies recommended not only by personal merit, but, according to the Eastern custom, by sweet and enticing names which he had given them. For, if they were to be translated, they would sound,—Riches of my Life, Wealth of my Soul, Treasure of Perfection, Diamond of Splendor, Pearl of Price, Ruby of Pure Blood, and other metaphorical descriptions, that, calling up dissonant passions to enhance the value of the general harmony, heightened the attractions of love with the allurements of avarice. A moving seraglio of these ladies always attended his progress, and were always brought to the splendid and multiplied entertainments with which he regaled his Council. In these festivities, whilst his guests were engaged with the seductions of beauty, the intoxications of the most delicious wines of France, and the voluptuous vapor of perfumed India smoke, uniting the vivid satisfactions of Europe with the torpid blandishments of Asia, the great magician himself, chaste in the midst of dissoluteness, sober in the centre of debauch, vigilant in the lap of negligence and oblivion, attended with an eagle's eye the moment for thrusting in business, and at such times was able to carry without difficulty points of shameful enormity, which at other hours he would not so much as have dared to mention to his employers, young men rather careless and inexperienced than intentionally corrupt. Not satisfied with being pander to their pleasures, he anticipated and was purveyor to their wants, and supplied them with a constant command of money; and by these means he reigned with an uncontrolled dominion over the province and over its governors.

For you are to understand that in many things we are very much misinformed with regard to the true seat of power in India. Whilst we were proudly calling India a British government, it was in substance a government of the lowest, basest, and most flagitious of the native rabble, to whom the far greater part of the English who figured in employment and station had from their earliest youth been slaves and instruments. Banians had anticipated the period of their power in premature advances of money, and have ever after obtained the entire dominion over their nominal masters.

By these various ways and means Debi Sing contrived to add job to job, employment to employment, and to hold, besides the farms of two very considerable districts, various trusts in the revenue,—sometimes openly appearing, sometimes hid two or three deep in false names, emerging into light or shrouding himself in darkness, as successful or defeated crimes rendered him bold or cautious. Every one of these trusts was marked with its own fraud; and for one of those frauds, committed by him in another name, by which he became deeply in balance to the revenue, he was publicly whipped by proxy.

All this while Mr. Hastings kept his eye upon him, and attended to his progress. But as he rose in Mr. Hastings's opinion, he fell in that of his immediate employers. By degrees, as reason prevailed, and the fumes of pleasure evaporated, the Provincial Council emerged from their first dependence, and, finding nothing but infamy attending the councils and services of such a man, resolved to dismiss him. In this strait and crisis of his power the artist turned himself into all shapes. He offered great sums individually, he offered them collectively, and at last put a carte blanche on the table,—all to no purpose. "What are you?—stones? Have I not men to deal with? Will flesh and blood refuse me?"

When Debi Sing found that the Council had entirely escaped, and were proof against his offers, he left them with a sullen and menacing silence. He applied where he had good intelligence that these offers would be well received, and that he should at once be revenged of the Council, and obtain all the ends which through them he had sought in vain.

Without hesitation or scruple Mr. Hastings sold a set of innocent officers,—sold his fellow-servants of the Company, entitled by every duty to his protection,—sold English subjects, recommended by every tie of national sympathy,—sold the honor of the British government itself,—without charge, without complaint, without allegation of crime in conduct, or of insufficiency in talents: he sold them to the most known and abandoned character which the rank servitude of that clime produces. For him he entirely broke and quashed the Council of Moorshedabad, which had been the settled government for twelve years, (a long period in the changeful history of India,)—at a time, too, when it had acquired a great degree of consistency, an official experience, a knowledge and habit of business, and was making full amends for early errors.

For now Mr. Hastings, having buried Colonel Monson and General Clavering, and having shaken off Mr. Francis, who retired half dead from office, began at length to respire; he found elbow-room once more to display his genuine nature and disposition, and to make amends in a riot and debauch of peculation for the forced abstinence to which he was reduced during the usurped dominion of honor and integrity.

It was not enough that the English were thus sacrificed to the revenge of Debi Sing. It was necessary to deliver over the natives to his avarice. By the intervention of bribe-brokerage he united the two great rivals in iniquity, who before, from an emulation of crimes, were enemies to each other,—Gunga Govind Sing and Debi Sing. He negotiated the bribe and the farm of the latter through the former; and Debi Sing was invested in farm for two years with the three provinces of Dinagepore, Edrackpore, and Rungpore,—territories making together a tract of land superior in dimensions to the northern counties of England, Yorkshire included.

To prevent anything which might prove an obstacle on the full swing of his genius, he removed all the restraints which had been framed to give an ostensible credit, to give some show of official order, to the plans of revenue administration framed from time to time in Bengal. An officer, called a dewan, had been established in the provinces, expressly as a check on the person who should act as farmer-general. This office he conferred along with that of farmer-general on Debi Sing, in order that Debi might become an effectual check upon Sing; and thus these provinces, without inspection, without control, without law, and without magistrates, were delivered over by Mr. Hastings, bound hand and foot, to the discretion of the man whom he had before recorded as the destroyer of Purneah, and capable of every the most atrocious wickedness that could be imputed to man.

Fatally for the natives of India, every wild project and every corrupt sale of Mr. Hastings, and those whose example he followed, is covered with a pretended increase of revenue to the Company. Mr. Hastings would not pocket his bribe of 40,000l. for himself without letting the Company in as a sharer and accomplice. For the province of Rungpore, the object to which I mean in this instance to confine your attention, 7,000l. a year was added. But lest this avowed increase of rent should seem to lead to oppression, great and religious care was taken in the covenant so stipulated with Debi Sing, that this increase should not arise from any additional assessment whatsoever on the country, but solely from improvements in the cultivation, and the encouragement to be given to the landholder and husbandman. But as Mr. Hastings's bribe, of a far greater sum, was not guarded by any such provision, it was left to the discretion of the donor in what manner he was to indemnify himself for it.