The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 12 (of 12)Burke, Edmund
History
The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 12 (of 12)
Burke, Edmund
Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1760-1820; Political science -- Early works to 1800
And whom does he place at the head of this commission, to be the manager
of the whole affair? Gunga Govind Sing, another banian of his, and one
of his own domestic 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 Govind Sing was his
domestic servant; but Mr. Hastings, in a letter to the Court of
Directors, calls him his faithful domestic servant, and as such calls
upon the Company to reward him. To this banian 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 Govind 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 public 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 banians and creatures, I can never think of it,
or of its author, without horror.
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? No, we hate the crime, and
we hate the criminal ten times more; and if I use indignant language, if
I use the language of scorn and horror with respect to the criminal, I
use the language that becomes me.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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