Here, my Lords, I must beg you to recollect Mr. Hastings's proceeding
with Gunga Govind Sing, and to contrast his conduct towards these two
peculators with his proceeding towards Durbege Sing. Such a comparison
will let your Lordships into the secret of one of the prisoner's motives
of conduct upon such occasions. When you will find a man pillaging and
desolating a country, in the manner Jagher Deo Seo is described by Mr.
Hastings to have done, but who takes care to secure to himself the
spoil, you will likewise find that such a man is safe, secure,
unpunished. Your Lordships will recollect the desolation of Dinagepore.
You will recollect that the rapacious Gunga Govind Sing, (the coadjutor
of Mr. Hastings in peculation,) out of 80,000_l._ which he had received
on the Company's account, retained 40,000_l._ for his own use, and that,
instead of being turned out of his employment and treated with rigor and
cruelty, he was elevated in Mr. Hastings's grace and favor, and never
called upon for the restoration of a penny. Observe, my Lords, the
difference in his treatment of men who have wealth to purchase impunity,
or who have secrets to reveal, and of another who has no such merit, and
is poor and insolvent.
We have shown your Lordships the effects of Mr.
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