The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 10 (of 12)Burke, Edmund
History
The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 10 (of 12)
Burke, Edmund
Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1760-1820; Political science -- Early works to 1800
Mr. Hastings says,--"I entirely acquit Mr. Goodlad of all the charges:
he has disproved them. It was the duty of the accuser to prove 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 and abilities of Rajah Debi Sing, that I can easily conceive
that it was in his power both to commit the enormities which are laid to
his charge, and to conceal the grounds of them from Mr. Goodlad, who had
no authority but that of receiving the accounts and rents of the
district from Rajah Debi Sing, and occasionally to be the channel of
communication between him and the Committee."
We shall now see what things Mr. Hastings did, what course he was in, a
little before his departure,--with what propriety and consistency of
character he has behaved from the year of the commencement of his
corrupt system, in 1773, to the end of it, when he closed it in 1785,
when the bribes not only mounted the chariot, but boarded the barge,
and, as I shall show, followed him down the Ganges, and even to the sea,
and that he never quitted his system of iniquity, but that it survived
his political life itself.
One of his last political acts was this.
Your Lordships will remember that Mr. Goodlad was sent up into the
country, whose conduct was terrible indeed: for that he could not be in
place and authority in that country, and be innocent, while such things
were doing, I shall prove. But that is not now my consideration.
The Governor-General's minute, just read, is this. "I entirely acquit
Mr. Goodlad of all the charges: he has disproved them. It was the duty
of the accuser to prove them" (the accuser, namely, the commissioner).
"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's account of Rajah Debi Sing? He is presented to him in 1781,
by Gunga Govind Sing, as a person against whose character there could be
no exception, and by him accepted in that light. Upon the occasion I
have mentioned, Mr. Hastings's opinion of him is this: "I so well know
the character and abilities of Rajah Debi Sing, that I can easily
conceive that it was in his power both to commit the enormities which
are laid to his charge, and to conceal the grounds of them from Mr.
Goodlad, who had no authority but that of receiving the accounts and
rents of the district from Rajah Debi Sing, and occasionally to be the
channel of communication between him and the Committee."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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