"Are you acquainted with the situation of the zemindary of Baharbund?—It lies to the eastward of Dinagepore and Rungpore. I was stationed in that neighborhood.—To whom did it originally belong?—I believe, to the zemindary of Radshi, belonging to Ranny Bhowanny.—For what reason was it taken from the Ranny of Radshi and given to Cantoo Baboo?—I do not exactly recollect: I believe, on some plea of incapacity or insufficiency in her to manage it, or some pretended decline in the revenue, owing to mismanagement.—On what terms was it granted to Cantoo Baboo or his son?—I believe it was a grant in perpetuity, at the revenue of Rupees 82,000 or 83,000 per annum.—What amount did he collect from the country?—I cannot tell. The year I was in that neighborhood, the settlement with his under-tenants was something above 3,53,000 rupees. The inhabitants of the country objected to it. They assembled in a body of about five thousand, and were proceeding to Calcutta to make known their grievances to the Committee of Revenue. They were stopped at Cossimbazar by Noor Sing Baboo, the brother of Cantoo Baboo, and there the matter was compromised,—in what manner I cannot say."
Your Lordships see, Mr. Hastings's banian got this zemindary belonging to this venerable lady; unable to protect herself; that it was granted to him without right, title, or purchase. To show you that Mr. Hastings had been in a constant course of such proceeding, here is a petition from a person called —— for some favor from government which it is not necessary now to state. In order to make good his claim, he states what nobody denied, but which is universally known in fact. Says he, "I have never entertained any such intention or idea," that is, of seizing upon other people's zemindaries; "neither am I at all desirous of acquiring any other person's zemindary in this country," &c....
[The document read here is wanting, ending] "as several Calcutta banians have done," &c.
He states it as a kind of constant practice, by which the country had been robbed under Mr. Hastings, known and acknowledged to be so, to seize upon the inheritance of the widow and the fatherless. In this manner did Gunga Govind Sing govern himself, upon the direct precedent of Cantoo Baboo, the banian of Mr. Hastings; and this other instrument of his in like manner calls upon government for favor of some kind or other, upon the same principle and the same precedent.
Your Lordships now see how necessary it was to say something about arbitrary power. For, first, the wicked people of that country (Mr. Hastings's instruments, I mean) pretend right, title, purchase, grant; and when their frauds in all these legal means are discovered, then they fly off, and have recourse to arbitrary power, and say, "It is true I can make out no right, title, grant, or purchase; the parties are minors; I am bound to take care of their right: but you have arbitrary power; you have exercised it upon other occasions; exercise it upon this; give me the rights of other people." This was the last act, and I hope will be the last act, of Mr. Hastings's wicked power, done by the wickedest man in favor of the wickedest man, and by the wickedest means, which failed upon his own testimony.
To bring your Lordships to the end of this business, which I hope will lead me very near to the end of what I have to trouble your Lordships with, I will now state the conduct of the Council, and the resolution about Gunga Govind Sing. I am to inform your Lordships that there was a reference made by the Council to the Committee of Revenue, namely, to Gunga Govind Sing himself,—a reference with regard to the right, title, mode, and proceeding, and many other circumstances; upon which the Committee, being such as I have described, very naturally were silent. Gunga Govind Sing loquitur solus,—in the manner you have just heard; the Committee were the chorus,—they sometimes talk, fill up a vacant part,—but Gunga Govind Sing was the great actor, the sole one. The report of this Committee being laid before the Council, Mr. Stables, one of the board, entered the following minute on the 15th of May, 1785.
"I have perused the several papers upon this subject, and am sorry to observe that the Committee of Revenue are totally silent on the most material points therein, and sending the petition to them has only been so much time thrown away: I mean, on the actual value of the lands in question, what the amount derived from them has been in the last year, and what advantages or disadvantages to government by the sale, and whether, in their opinion, the supposed sale was compulsive or not. But it is not necessary for the discussion of the question respecting the regularity or irregularity of the pretended sale of Salbarry to Gunga Govind Sing, the dewan, to enter into the particular assertions of each party.
"The representations of the Rajah's agent, confirmed by the petitions of his principal, positively assert the sale to have been compulsive and violent; and the dewan as positively denies it, though the fears he expresses, 'that their common enemies would set aside the act before it was complete,' show clearly that they were sensible the act was unjustifiable, if they do not tend to falsify his denial.
"But it is clearly established and admitted by the language and writings of both parties, that there has been a most unwarrantable collusion in endeavoring to alienate the rights of government, contrary to the most positive original laws of the constitution of these provinces, 'that no zemindar and other landholder, paying revenue to government, shall be permitted to alienate his lands without the express authority of that government.'
"The defence set up by Gunga Govind Sing does not go to disavow the transaction; for, if it did, the deed of sale, &c., produced by himself, and the petition to the board for its confirmation, would detect him: on the contrary, he openly admits its existence, and only strives to show that it was a voluntary one on the part of the Ranny and the servants of the Rajah. Whether voluntary or not, it was equally criminal in Gunga Govind Sing, as the public officer of government: because diametrically opposite to the positive and repeated standing orders of that government for the rule of his conduct, as dewan, and native guardian of the public rights intrusted especially to his care; because it was his duty, not only not to be guilty of a breach of those rules himself, but, as dewan, and exercising the efficient office of kanungo, to prevent, detect, expose, and apprise his employers of every instance attempted to the contrary; because it was his duty to prevent the government being defrauded, and the Rajah, a child of nine years old, robbed of his hereditary possessions, as he would have been, if this transaction had not been detected: whereas, on the contrary, the dewan is himself the principal mover and sole instrument in that fraud and robbery, if I am rightly informed, to the amount of 42,474 rupees[1] in perpetuity, by which he alone was to benefit; and because he has even dared to stand forward in an attempt to obtain our sanction, and thereby make us parties to (in my opinion) a false deed and fraudulent transaction, as his own defence now shows the bill of sale and all its collateral papers to be.