Here is a choice; here is Debi Sing presented for his knowledge in business, his trust and fidelity, and that he is a person against whom no objection can be made.  This is presented to Mr. Hastings, by him recorded in the Council Books, and by him transmitted to the Court of Directors.  Mr. Hastings has since recorded, that he knew this Debi Sing, (though he here publicly authorizes the nomination of him to all that great body of trusts,)—­that he knew him to be a man completely capable of the most atrocious iniquities that were ever charged upon man.  Debi Sing is appointed to all those great trusts, through the means of Gunga Govind Sing, from whom he (Mr. Hastings) had received 30,000_l._ as a part of a bribe.

Now, though it is a large field, though it is a thing that I must confess I feel a reluctance almost in venturing to undertake, exhausted as I am, yet such is the magnitude of the affair, such the evil consequences that followed from a system of bribery, such the horrible consequences of superseding all the persons in office in the country to give it into the hands of Debi Sing, that, though it is the public opinion, and though no man that has ever heard the name of Debi Sing does not know that he was only second to Gunga Govind Sing, yet it is not to my purpose, unless I prove that Mr. Hastings knew his character at the very time he accepts him as a person against whom no exception could be made.

It is necessary to inform your Lordships who this Debi Sing was, to whom these great trusts were committed, and those great provinces given.

It may be thought, and not unnaturally, that, in this sort of corrupt and venal appointment to high trust and office, Mr. Hastings has no other consideration than the money he received.  But whoever thinks so will be deceived.  Mr. Hastings was very far from indifferent to the character of the persons he dealt with.  On the contrary, he made a most careful selection; he had a very scrupulous regard to the aptitude of the men for the purposes for which he employed them, and was much guided by his experience of their conduct in those offices which had been sold to them upon former occasions.

Except Gunga Govind Sing, (whom, as justice required, Mr. Hastings distinguished by the highest marks of his confidence,) there was not a man in Bengal, perhaps not upon earth, a match for this Debi Sing.  He was not an unknown subject, not one rashly taken up as an experiment.  He was a tried man; and if there had been one more desperately and abandonedly corrupt, more wildly and flagitiously oppressive, to be found unemployed in India, large as his offers were, Mr. Hastings would not have taken this money from Debi Sing.