The task which the Governor-General had imposed upon himself was, I admit, a difficult one; but those who pull down important ancient establishments, who wantonly destroy modes of administration and public institutions under which a country has prospered, are the most mischievous, and therefore the wickedest of men.  It is not a reverse of fortune, it is not the fall of an individual, that we are here talking of.  We are, indeed, sorry for Cheyt Sing and Durbege Sing, as we should be sorry for any individual under similar circumstances.

It is wisely provided in the constitution of our heart, that we should interest ourselves in the fate of great personages.  They are therefore made everywhere the objects of tragedy, which addresses itself directly to our passions and our feelings.  And why?  Because men of great place, men of great rank, men of great hereditary authority, cannot fall without a horrible crash upon all about them.  Such towers cannot tumble without ruining their dependent cottages.

The prosperity of a country, that has been distressed by a revolution which has swept off its principal men, cannot be reestablished without extreme difficulty.  This man, therefore, who wantonly and wickedly destroyed the existing government of Benares, was doubly bound to use all possible care and caution in supplying the loss of those institutions which he had destroyed, and of the men whom he had driven into exile.  This, I say, he ought to have done.  Let us now see what he really did do.

He set out by disposing of all the property of the country as if it was his own.  He first confiscated the whole estates of the Baboos, the great nobility of the country, to the amount of six lacs of rupees.  He then distributed the lands and revenue of the country according to his own pleasure; and as he had seized the lands without our knowing why or wherefore, so the portion which he took away from some persons he gave to others, in the same arbitrary manner, and without any assignable reason.

When we were inquiring what jaghires Mr. Hastings had thought proper to grant, we found, to our astonishment, (though it is natural that his mind should take this turn,) that he endowed several charities with jaghires.  He gave a jaghire to some Brahmins to pray for the perpetual prosperity of the Company, and others to procure the prayers of the same class of men for himself.  I do not blame his Gentoo piety, when I find no Christian piety in the man:  let him take refuge in any superstition he pleases.  The crime we charge is his having distributed the lands of others at his own pleasure.  Whether this proceeded from piety, from ostentation, or from any other motive, it matters not.  We contend that he ought not to have distributed such land at all,—­that he had no right to do so; and consequently, the gift of a single acre of land, by his own private will, was an act of robbery, either from the public or some individual.