The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 10 (of 12) eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 468 pages of information about The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 10 (of 12).

The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 10 (of 12) eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 468 pages of information about The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 10 (of 12).

At the head of the only account we have of these transactions stands Dinagepore; and it now only remains for me to make some observations upon Mr. Hastings’s proceedings in that province.  Its name, then, and that money was taken from it, is all that appears; but from whom, by what hands, by what means, under what pretence it was taken, he has not told you, he has not told his employers.  I believe, however, I can tell from whom it was taken, and I believe it will appear to your Lordships that it must have been taken from the unhappy Rajah of Dinagepore; and I shall in a very few words state the circumstances attending, and the service performed for it:  from these you will be able to form a just opinion concerning this bribe.

Dinagepore, a large province, was possessed by an ancient family, the last of which, about the year 1184 of their era, the Rajah Bija Naut, had no legitimate issue.  When he was at the point of death, he wished to exclude from the succession to the zemindary his half-brother, Cantoo Naut, with whom he had lived upon ill terms for many years, by adopting a son.  Such an adoption, when a person has a half-brother, as he had, in my poor judgment is not countenanced by the Gentoo laws.  But Gunga Govind Sing, who was placed, by the office he held, at the head of the registry, where the records were kept by which the rules of succession according to the custom of the country are ascertained, became master of these Gentoo laws; and through his means Mr. Hastings decreed in favor of the adoption.  We find that immediately after this decree Gunga Govind Sing received a cabooleat on Dinagepore for the sum of 40,000_l._, of which it appears that he has actually exacted 30,000_l._, though he has paid to Mr. Hastings only 20,000_l._ We find, before the young Rajah had been in possession a year, his natural guardians and relations, on one pretence or another, all turned out of their offices.  The peshcush, or fixed annual rent, payable to the Company for his zemindary, fell into arrear, as might naturally be expected, from the Rajah’s inability to pay both his rent and this exorbitant bribe, extorted from a ruined family.  Instantly, under pretext of this arrearage, Gunga Govind Sing, and the fictitious Committee which Mr. Hastings had made for his wicked purposes, composed of Mr. Anderson, Mr. Shore, and Mr. Croftes, who were but the tools, as they tell us themselves, of Gunga Govind Sing, gave that monster of iniquity, Debi Sing, the government of this family.  They put this noble infant, this miserable Rajah, together with the management of the provinces of Dinagepore and Rungpore, into his wicked and abominable hands, where the ravages he committed excited what was called a rebellion, that forced him to fly from the country, and into which I do not wonder he should be desirous that a political and not a juridical inquiry should be made.  The savage barbarities which were there perpetrated I have already, in the execution of my

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The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 10 (of 12) from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.