ther incompatible with the
Company's interest nor prejudicial to the rights of others, they will
not be withheld from me. At the request, therefore, of Gunga Govind
Sing, I deliver the accompanying _durkhausts_, or petitions, for grants
of lands lying in different districts, the total _jumma_, or rent, of
which amount to Rupees 2,38,061. 12. 1."
Your Lordships recollect that Mr. Larkins was one of the bribe-agents of
Mr. Hastings,--one, I mean, of a corporation, but not corporate in their
acts. My Lords, Mr. Larkins has told you, he has told us, and he has
told the Court of Directors, that Mr. Hastings parted in a quarrel with
Gunga Govind Sing, because he had not faithfully kept his engagement
with regard to his bribe, and that, instead of 40,000_l._ from
Dinagepore, he had only paid him 30,000_l._ My Lords, that iniquitous
men will defraud one another I can conceive; but you will perceive by
Mr. Hastings's behavior at parting, that he either had in fact received
this money from Gunga Govind Sing, or in some way or other had abundant
reason to be satisfied,--that he totally forgot his anger upon this
occasion, and that at parting his last act was to ratify _grants of
lands_ (so described by Mr. Hastings) to Gunga Govind Sing. Your
Lordships will recollect the tender and forgiving temper of Mr.
Hastings. Whatever little bickerings there might have been between them
about their small money concerns, the purifying waters of the Ganges had
washed away all sins, enmities, and discontent. By some of those arts
which Gunga Govind Sing knows how to practise, (I mean conciliatory,
honest arts,) he had fairly wiped away all resentment out of Mr.
Hastings's mind; and he, who so long remembered the affront offered him
by Cheyt Sing, totally forgets Gunga Govind Sing's fraud of 10,000_l._,
and attempts to make others the instruments of giving him what he calls
his reward.
Mr. Hastings states, among Gunga Govind's merits, that he had, from the
time of its institution, and with a very short intermission, served the
office of dewan to the Calcutta Committee. That short intermission was
when he was turned out of office upon proof of peculation and
embezzlement of public money; but of this cause of the intermission in
the political life and political merits of Gunga Govind Sing Mr.
Hastings does not tell you.
Your Lordships shall now hear what opinion a member of the Provincial
Council at Calcutta, in which he had also served, had
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