For, in the first place, you have proof that he does take bribes, and that he has corrupt dealings.  This is what he admits; but he says that he has done it from public-spirited motives.  Now there is a rule, formed upon a just, solid presumption of law, that, if you find a man guilty of one offence contrary to known law, whenever there is a suspicious case against him of the same nature, the onus probandi that he is not guilty is turned upon him.  Therefore, when I find the regulations broken,—­when I find farms given of more than a lac of rupees,—­when I find them given to the Governor-General’s own banian, contrary to the principle of the regulation, contrary, I say, in the strongest way to it,—­when I find that he accumulates farms beyond the regulated number,—­when I find all these things done, and besides that the banian has great balances of account against him,—­then, by the presumption of law, I am bound to believe that all this was done, not for the servants, but for the master.

It is possible Mr. Hastings might really be in love with Munny Begum; be it so,—­many great men have played the fool for prostitutes, from Mark Antony’s days downwards; but no man ever fell in love with his own banian.  The persons for whom Mr. Hastings was guilty of all this rapine and oppression have neither relations nor kindred whom they own, nor does any trace of friendship exist among them; they do not live in habits of intimacy with any one; they are good fellows and bottle-companions.

* * * * *

I must now proceed to observe upon another matter which has been stated to your Lordships,—­namely, that, as soon as he obtained the majority in the Council, (that beginning of all evils, that opening of Pandora’s box,) by the death of General Clavering and Colonel Monson, the first thing he did was to appoint a commission, called an aumeeny, to go through the whole country, to enter every man’s house, to examine his title-deeds, and to demand his papers of accounts of every kind, for the purpose of enabling himself to take advantage of the hopes and fears of all the parties concerned, and thus to ravage and destroy all their property.

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.