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