that immediately after this decree Gunga Govind
Sing received a cabooleat on Dinagepore for the sum of 40,000_l._, of
which it appears that he has actually exacted 30,000_l._, though he has
paid to Mr. Hastings only 20,000_l._ We find, before the young Rajah had
been in possession a year, his natural guardians and relations, on one
pretence or another, all turned out of their offices. The peshcush, or
fixed annual rent, payable to the Company for his zemindary, fell into
arrear, as might naturally be expected, from the Rajah's inability to
pay both his rent and this exorbitant bribe, extorted from a ruined
family. Instantly, under pretext of this arrearage, Gunga Govind Sing,
and the fictitious Committee which Mr. Hastings had made for his wicked
purposes, composed of Mr. Anderson, Mr. Shore, and Mr. Croftes, who were
but the tools, as they tell us themselves, of Gunga Govind Sing, gave
that monster of iniquity, Debi Sing, the government of this family. They
put this noble infant, this miserable Rajah, together with the
management of the provinces of Dinagepore and Rungpore, into his wicked
and abominable hands, where the ravages he committed excited what was
called a rebellion, that forced him to fly from the country, and into
which I do not wonder he should be desirous that a political and not a
juridical inquiry should be made. The savage barbarities which were
there perpetrated I have already, in the execution of my duty, brought
before this House and my country; and it will be seen, when we come to
the proof, whether what I have asserted was the effect either of a
deluded judgment or disordered imagination, and whether the facts I
state cannot be substantiated by authentic reports, and were none of my
invention, and, lastly, whether the means that were taken to discredit
them do not infinitely aggravate the guilt of the offenders. Mr.
Hastings wanted to fly from judicial inquiry; he wanted to put Debi Sing
anywhere but in a court of justice. A court of justice, where a direct
assertion is brought forward, and a direct proof applied to it, is an
element in which he cannot live for a moment. He would seek refuge
anywhere, even in the very sanctuary of his accusers, rather than abide
a trial with him in a court of justice. But the House of Commons was too
just not to send him to this tribunal, whose justice they cannot doubt,
whose penetration he cannot elude, and whose decision will justify those
managers whose charact