For the sort of persons to whom Mr. Hastings was in the habit of farming out the revenues of the provinces, and the motives for which they were appointed, we must refer to particulars which came out on his trial respecting such men as Kelleram, Govind Sing, and Deby Sing; but nothing can give a more lively idea of the horrid treatment which awaited the poor natives under such monsters as these collectors, than the statements then made of the practices of the last mentioned person, Deby or Devi Sing. This man was declared to have been placed on his post for corrupt ends. He was a man of the most infamous character; yet that did not prevent Mr. Hastings placing him in such a responsible office, though he himself declared on the trial that he “so well knew the character and abilities of Rajah Deby Sing that he could easily conceive it was in his power both to commit great enormities and to conceal the real grounds of them from the British collectors in the district.”— Well, notwithstanding this opinion, the Rajah offered a very convenient sum of money, four lacs of rupees—upwards of 40,000_l._—and he was appointed renter of the district of Dinagepore. Complaints of his cruelties were not long in arriving at Calcutta. Mr. Patterson, a gentleman in the Company’s service, was sent as a commissioner to inquire into the charges against him; and the account of them, as given by Mr. Patterson, is thus quoted by Mills, from “The History of the Trial of Warren Hastings, Esq.” “The poor ryots, or husbandmen, were treated in a manner that would never gain belief if it was not attested by the records of the Company: and Mr. Burke thought it necessary to apologize to their lordships for the horrid relation with which he would be obliged to harrow their feelings. The worthy Commissioner Patterson, who had authenticated the particulars of this relation, had wished, that for the credit of human nature, he might have drawn a veil over them; but as he had been sent to inquire into them, he must, in the discharge of his duty state those particulars, however shocking they were to his feelings. The cattle and corn of the husbandmen were sold for a third of their value, and their huts reduced to ashes! The unfortunate owners were obliged to borrow from usurers, that they might discharge their bonds, which had unjustly and illegally been extorted from them while they were in confinement; and such was the determination of the infernal fiend, Devi Sing, to have these bonds discharged, that the wretched husbandmen were obliged to borrow money, not at twenty, or thirty, or forty, or fifty, but at SIX HUNDRED per cent. to satisfy him! Those who could not raise the money were most cruelly tortured. _Cords were drawn tight round their fingers, till the flesh of the four on each hand was actually incorporated, and became one solid mass. The fingers were then separated again by wedges of iron and wood driven in between them!_