The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 11 (of 12)Burke, Edmund
History
The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 11 (of 12)
Burke, Edmund
Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1760-1820; Political science -- Early works to 1800
Here, my Lords, I must beg you to recollect Mr. Hastings's proceeding
with Gunga Govind Sing, and to contrast his conduct towards these two
peculators with his proceeding towards Durbege Sing. Such a comparison
will let your Lordships into the secret of one of the prisoner's motives
of conduct upon such occasions. When you will find a man pillaging and
desolating a country, in the manner Jagher Deo Seo is described by Mr.
Hastings to have done, but who takes care to secure to himself the
spoil, you will likewise find that such a man is safe, secure,
unpunished. Your Lordships will recollect the desolation of Dinagepore.
You will recollect that the rapacious Gunga Govind Sing, (the coadjutor
of Mr. Hastings in peculation,) out of 80,000_l._ which he had received
on the Company's account, retained 40,000_l._ for his own use, and that,
instead of being turned out of his employment and treated with rigor and
cruelty, he was elevated in Mr. Hastings's grace and favor, and never
called upon for the restoration of a penny. Observe, my Lords, the
difference in his treatment of men who have wealth to purchase impunity,
or who have secrets to reveal, and of another who has no such merit, and
is poor and insolvent.
We have shown your Lordships the effects of Mr. Hastings's government
upon the country and its inhabitants; and although I have before
suggested to you some of its effects upon the army of the Company, I
will now call your attention to a few other observations on that
subject. Your Lordships will, in the first place, be pleased to attend
to the character which he gives of this army. You have heard what he
tells you of the state of the country in which it was stationed, and of
the terror which it struck into the inhabitants. The appearance of an
English soldier was enough to strike the country people with affright
and dismay: they everywhere, he tells you, fled before them. And yet
they are the officers of this very army who are brought here as
witnesses to express the general satisfaction of the people of India. To
be sure, a man who never calls Englishmen to an account for any robbery
or injury whatever, who acquits them, upon their good intentions,
without any inquiry, will in return for this indemnity have their good
words. We are not surprised to find them coming with emulation to your
bar to declare him possessed of all virtues, and that nobody has or can
have a right to complain of him. But we, my Lords, protest against these
indemnities; we protest against their good words; we protest against
their testimonials; and we insist upon your Lordships trying him, not
upon what this or that officer says of his good conduct, but upon the
proved result of the actions tried before you. Without ascribing,
perhaps, much guilt to men who must naturally wish to favor the person
who covers their excesses, who suffers their fortunes to be made, you
will know what value to set upon their testimony. The Commons look on
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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