does take bribes, and that he has corrupt dealings. This is what he admits; but he says, that he has done it from publick spirited motives. Now there is a rule formed upon a just, solid presumption of law; that if you find a man guilty of one offence contrary to known law, whenever there is a suspicious case against him of the same nature, the onus probandi that he is not guilty, is turned upon him. Therefore when I find the regulations broken, when I find farms given of more than a lack of rupees, when I find them given to the Governour General's own banyan, contrary to the principle of the regulation-contrary I say in the strongest way to it, when I find that he accumulates farms beyond the regulated number; when I find all these things done, and besides that the banyan has great balances of account against him, then, by the presumption of law, I am bound to believe that all this was done, not for the servants, but for the master.

It is possible Mr. Hastings might really be in love with Munny Begum; be it so many great men have played the fool for prostitutes, from Mark Antony's days downwards; but no man ever fell in love with his own banyan; the persons for whom Mr. Hastings was guilty of all this rapine and oppression have neither relations nor kindred whom they own; nor does any trace

of friendship exist among them, they do not live in habits of intimacy with any one; they are good fellows and bottle companions.

I must now proceed to observe upon another matter, which has been stated to your Lordships -namely, that as soon as he obtained the majority in the Council, (that beginning of all evils, that opening of Pandora's box) by the death of General Clavering and Colonel Monson, the first thing he did was to appoint a Commission, called an Aumeeny, to go through the whole country, to enter every man's house, to examine his title deeds, and to demand his papers of accounts of every kind, for the purpose of enabling himself to take advantage of the hopes and fears of all the parties concerned, and thus to ravage and destroy all their property.

And whom does he place at the head of this commission to be the manager of the whole affair? Gunga Govin Sing, another banyan of his, and one of his own domestick servants. This we have discovered lately, and not without some surprise; for though I knew he kept a rogue in his house, yet I did not think that it was a common receptacle of thieves and robbers.I did not know till lately, that this Gunga Govin Sing was his domestick servant; but Mr. Hastings, in a Letter to the Court of Directors, calls him his faithful domestick servant, and as

such

such calls upon the Company to reward him. To this banyan all the Company's servants are made subject, they are bound to obey all his orders, and those of his committee. I hope I need not tell your Lordships, what sort of stuff this committee was made of, by which Gunga Govin Sing was enabled to ravage the whole country. But, say his counsel, Mr. Hastings thought that the value of the lands was thoroughly known; they had been investigated three times over, and they were all let by publick auction to the highest bidder. This may or may not be a true test of their value: but it is a test which, as it led to the almost entire confiscation of the landed interest of Bengal, Bahar and Orissa, three great kingdoms, by a 'dash of that man's pen, into the hands of his banyans and creatures, I can never think of it, or of its author, without horrour.

Some people say you ought to hate the crime and love the criminal. No, that is the language of false morality, you ought to hate the crime and the criminal, if the crime is of magnitude. If the crime is a small one, then you ought to be angry. with the crime and reluctant to punish the criminal; but when there are great crimes, then you may hate them together. What! Am I to love Nero?. To fall in love with Heliogabalus ? Is Domitian to be the subject of my affection?

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