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.

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 cri