One of the accusations, which we mean to bring against Mr. Hastings, is upon the part of the zemindar Radanaut, of the country of Dinagepore. Now hear what the zemindar says himself "As it has been learned by me, the mutsuddies, and the respectable officers of my zemindary, that the ministers of England are displeased with the late governour, Warren Hastings, Esquire, upon the suspicion, that he oppressed us, took money from us by deceit and force, and ruined the country; therefore we, upon the strength of our religion, which we think it incumbent on and necessary for us to abide by, following the rules laid down in giving evidence, declare the particulars of the acts and deeds of Warren Hastings, Esquire, full of circumspection and caution, civility and justice, superiour to the conduct of the most learned; and by representing what is fact, wipe away the doubts, that have possessed the minds of the ministers of England that Mr. Hastings is possessed of fidelity and confidence, and yielding protection to us; that he is clear of the contamination of mistrust and wrong, and his mind is free of covetousness, or avarice. During the time of his administration no one saw other conduct than that of protection to the husbandman, and justice. No inhabitant ever experienced afflictions; no one ever felt oppression from him; our reputations have always been guarded from attacks by his prudence, and our families have always been protected by his justice. He never omitted the smallest instance of kindness towards us, but healed the wounds of despair with the salve of consolation, by means of his benevolent and kind behaviour, never permitting one of us to sink in the pit of despondence; he supported every one by his goodness, overset the designs of evil-minded men by his authority, tied the hand of oppression with the strong bandage of justice, and by these means expanded the pleasing appearance of happiness and joy over us. He re-established justice and impartiality. We were, during his government, in the enjoyment of perfect happiness and ease, and many of us are thankful and satisfied. As Mr. Hastings was well acquainted with our manners and customs, he was always desirous, in every respect, of doing whatever would preserve our religious rites, and guard them against every kind of accident and injury, and at all times protected us. Whatever we have experienced from him, and whatever happened from him, we have written without deceit or exaggeration." My lords, here is a panegyrick; and, directly contrary to the usual mode of other accusers, we begin by producing the panegyricks, made upon the person, whom we accuse. We shall produce along with the charge, and give as evidence the panegyrick and certificate of the persons, whom we suppose to have suffered these wrongs. We suffer ourselves even to abandon, what might be our last resource, his own confession, by showing, that one of the princes, from whom he confesses, that he took bribes, has given a certificate of the direct contrary. All these things will have their weight upon your lordships' minds; and when we have put ourselves under this disadvantage (what disadvantage it is, your lordships will judge,) at least we shall stand acquitted of unfairness in charging him with crimes, directly contrary to the panegyricks in this paper contained. Indeed, I will say this for him, that general charge and loose accusation may be answered by loose and general panegyrick, and that, if ours were of that nature, this panegyrick would be sufficient to overset our accusation. But we come before your lordships in a different manner, and upon different grounds. I am ordered by the Commons of Great Britain to support the charge, that they have made, and persevere in making, against Warren Hastings, Esquire, late governour-general of Bengal, and now a culprit at your bar: first, for having taken corruptly several bribes, and extorted by force, or under the power and colour of his office, several sums of money from the unhappy natives of Bengal. The next article, which we shall bring before you, is, that he is not only personally corrupted, but that he has personally corrupted all the other servants of the company; those under him, whose corruptions he ought to have controulled, and those above him, whose business it was to controul his corruptions. We purpose to make good to your lordships the first of these by submitting to you, that part of those sums, which are specified in the charge, were taken by him with his own hand, and in his own person; but that much the greater part have been taken from the natives by the instrumentality of his black agents, banyans, and other dependants; whose confidential connexion with him, and whose agency, on his part, in corrupt transactions, if his counsel should be bold enough to challenge us to the proof, we shall fully prove before you. The next part, and the second branch of his corruption, namely, what is commonly called his active corruption, distinguishing the personal under the name of passive, will appear from his having given, under colour of contracts, a number of corrupt and lucrative advantages, from a number of unauthorized and unreasonable grants, pensions, and allowances, by which he corrupted actively the whole service of the company. And, lastly, we shall show, that by establishing a universal connivance from one end of the service to the other, he has not only corrupted and contaminated it in all its parts, but bound it in a common league of iniquity to support mutually each other against the inquiry, that should detect, and the justice, that should punish, their offences. These two charges, namely, of his active, and passive corruption, we shall bring one after the other, as strongly and clearly illustrating, and as powerfully confirming, each other. The first, which we shall bring before you, is his own passive corruption, so we commonly call it. Bribes are so little known in this country, that we can hardly get clear and specifick technical names to distinguish them; but, in future, I am afraid, the conduct of Mr. Hastings will improve our law vocabulary. The first, then, of these offences, with which Mr. Hastings stands charged here, is receiving bribes himself, or through his banyans; every one of these are overt acts of the general charge of bribery, and they are every one of them, separately taken, substantive crimes. But whatever the criminal nature of these acts was-and the nature was very criminal, and the conse quences to the country very dreadful,-yet we mean to prove to your lordships, that they were not single acts, that they were not acts committed, as opportunity offered, or as necessity tempted, or urged upon the occasion; but, that they are parts of a general systematick plan of corruption, for advancing his fortune at the expense of his integrity; that he has, for that purpose, not only taken the opportunity of his own power, but made whole establishments, altered and perverted others, and created complete revolutions in the country's government for the purpose of making the power, which ought to be subservient to legal government, subservient to corruption; that, when he could no longer cover these fraudulent proceedings by artifice, he endeavoured to justify them by principle. These artifices we mean to detect; these principles we mean to attack, and, with your lordships' aid, to demolish, destroy, and subvert for ever. My lords, I must say, that in this business, which is a matter of collusion, concealment, and deceit, your lordships will, perhaps, not feel the same degree of interest as in the others. Hitherto, you have had before you crimes of dignity. You have had before you the ruin and expulsion of great and illustrious families; the breach of solemn publick treaties; the merciless pillage and total subversion of the first houses in Asia but the crimes, which are the most striking to the imagination, are not always the most pernicious in their effects in these high eminent acts of domineering tyranny their very magnitude proves a sort of corrective to their virulence. The occasions, on which they can be exercised, are rare; the persons, upon whom they can be exercised, few; the persons, who can exercise them, in the nature of things, are not many. These high tragick acts of superiour overbearing tyranny are privileged crimes; they are the unhappy dreadful prerogative, they are the distinguished and incommunicable attributes, of superiour wickedness in eminent station. But, my lords, when the vices of low, sordid, and illiberal minds infect that high situation, when theft, bribery, and peculation, attended with fraud, prevarication, falsehood, mis representation, and forgery; when all these follow in one train when these vices, which gender and spawn in dirt, and are nursed in dunghills, come and pollute with their slime that throne, which ought to be a seat of dignity and purity, the evil is much greater: it may operate daily and hourly; it is not only imitable but improvable, and it will be imitated, and will be improved, from the highest to the lowest, through all the gradations of a corrupt government. They are reptile vices. There are situations, in which the acts of the individual are of some moment, the example comparatively of little importance. In the other, the mischief of the example is infinite. My lords, when once a governour-general receives bribes, he gives a signal to universal pillage to all the inferiour parts of the service.-The bridles upon hard-mouthed passion are removed, they are taken away, they are broken; fear and shame, the great guards to virtue next to conscience, are gone;-shame! how can it exist?-it will soon blush away its awkward sensibility; shame, my lords, cannot exist long when it is seen, that crimes, which naturally bring disgrace, are attended with all the outward symbols, characteristics, and rewards of honour and of virtue; when it is seen, that high station, great rank, general applause, vast wealth, follow the commission of peculation and bribery; is it to be believed, that men can long be ashamed of that, which they see to be the road to honour? As to fear, let a governourgeneral once take bribes, there is an end of all fear in the service. What have they to fear? Is it the man, whose example they follow, that is to bring them before a tribunal for their punishment ?-Can he open any inquiry? he cannot; he, that opens a channel of inquiry under these circumstances, opens a high road to his own detection. Can he make any laws to prevent it? none; for he can make no laws to restrain that practice without the breach of his own laws immediately in his own conduct. If we once can admit, for a single instant, in a governour-general, a principle however defended, upon any pretence whatever, to receive bribes in consequence of his office, there is an end of all virtue, an end of the laws, and no hope left in the supreme |