Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 2, 2025
To afford your Lordships some idea of the condition of those who were served up to satisfy Mr. Hastings's hunger and thirst for bribes, I shall read it to you in the very words of the representative tyrant himself, Rajah Debi Sing.
Whilst Paterson is left collecting his evidence and casting up his accounts in Rungpore, Debi Sing is called up, in seeming wrath, to the capital, where he is received as those who have robbed and desolated provinces, and filled their coffers with seven hundred thousand pounds sterling, have been usually received at Calcutta, and sometimes in Great Britain.
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.
Goodlad of all the charges: he has disproved 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," &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 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.
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.
The fund lay in Gunga Govind Sing's hands; and he afterwards applied to that purpose a part of this fund, which he must have taken without any view whatever to the Company's interest. I cannot certainly tell when the cabooleat, or agreement, was made; yet I shall lay open something very extraordinary upon that subject, and will lead you, step by step, to the bloody scenes of Debi Sing.
I shall now proceed to state to your Lordships, that this Debi Sing, fortified by this protection, which was extended even to the lowest of his instruments, thought it high time to assume the superiority that belonged to a personage who had the Governor-General for his pensioner.
Mr. Hastings wanted to fly from judicial inquiry; he wanted to put Debi Sing anywhere but in a court of justice. A court of justice, where a direct assertion is brought forward, and a direct proof applied to it, is an element in which he cannot live for a moment. He would seek refuge anywhere, even in the very sanctuary of his accusers, rather than abide a trial with him in a court of justice.
Hastings, on the accusation of the donor of Mr. Hastings's bribes. He is to answer to the accusations of Debi Sing.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking