The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X | Page 9

Hastings, or in which you did not see Cantoo Baboo. Either the black or white side of Mr. Hastings constantly was visible to the world in every part of these transactions.
With the other gentlemen, who were visible too, I have at present no dealing. Mr. Hastings, instead of using any management on that occasion, instantly set up his power and authority, directly against the majority of the Council, directly against his colleagues, directly against the authority of the East India Company and the authority of the act of Parliament, to put a dead stop to all these inquiries. He broke up the Council, the moment they attempted to perform this part of their duty. As the evidence multiplied upon him, the daring exertions of his power in stopping all inquiries increased continually. But he gave a credit and authority to the evidence by these attempts to suppress it.
Your Lordships have heard that among the body of the accusers of this corruption there was a principal man in the country, a man of the first rank and authority in it, called Nundcomar, who had the management of revenues amounting to 150,000l. a year, and who had, if really inclined to play the small game with which he has been charged by his accusers, abundant means to gratify himself in playing great ones; but Mr. Hastings has himself given him, upon the records of the Company, a character which would at least justify the Council in making some inquiry into charges made by him.
First, he was perfectly competent to make them, because he was in the management of those affairs from which Mr. Hastings is supposed to have received corrupt emolument. He and his son were the chief managers in those transactions. He was therefore perfectly competent to it.--Mr. Hastings has cleared his character; for though it is true, in the contradictions in which Mr. Hastings has entangled himself, he has abused and insulted him, and particularly after his appearance as an accuser, yet before this he has given this testimony of him, that the hatred that had been drawn upon him, and the general obloquy of the English nation, was on account of his attachment to his own prince and the liberties of his country. Be he what he might, I am not disposed, nor have I the least occasion, to defend either his conduct or his memory.
It is to no purpose for Mr. Hastings to spend time in idle objections to the character of Nundcomar. Let him be as bad as Mr. Hastings represents him. I suppose he was a caballing, bribing, intriguing politician, like others in that country, both black and white. We know associates in dark and evil actions are not generally the best of men; but be that as it will, it generally happens that they are the best of all discoverers. If Mr. Hastings were the accuser of Nundcomar, I should think the presumptions equally strong against Nundcomar, if he had acted as Mr. Hastings has acted.--He was not only competent, but the most competent of all men to be Mr. Hastings's accuser. But Mr. Hastings has himself established both his character and his competency by employing him against Mahomed Reza Khan. He shall not blow hot and cold. In what respect was Mr. Hastings better than Mahomed Reza Khan, that the whole rule, principle, and system of accusation and inquiry should be totally reversed in general, nay, reversed in the particular instance, the moment he became accuser against Mr. Hastings?--Such was the accuser. He was the man that gave the bribes, and, in addition to his own evidence, offers proof by other witnesses.
What was the accusation? Was the accusation improbable, either on account of the subject-matter or the actor in it? Does such an appointment as that of Munny Begum, in the most barefaced evasion of his orders, appear to your Lordships a matter that contains no just presumptions of guilt, so that, when a charge of bribery comes upon it, you are prepared to reject it, as if the action were so clear and proper that no man could attribute it to an improper motive? And as to the man,--is Mr. Hastings a man against whom a charge of bribery is improbable? Why, he owns it. He is a professor of it. He reduces it into scheme and system. He glories in it. He turns it to merit, and declares it is the best way of supplying the exigencies of the Company. Why, therefore, should it be held improbable?--But I cannot mention this proceeding without shame and horror.
My Lords, when this man appeared as an accuser of Mr. Hastings, if he was a man of bad character, it was a great advantage to Mr. Hastings to be accused by a man of that description.