and with all rigor of exaction produced in effect little
more than 60,000_l._, falling greatly below one half of its original
estimate: so entirely did the administration of Debi Sing exhaust all
the resources of the province; so totally did his baleful influence
blast the very hope and spring of all future revenue.

The administration of Debi Sing was too notoriously destructive not to
cause a general clamor. It was impossible that it should be passed over
without animadversion. Accordingly, in the month of September, 1772, Mr.
Hastings, then at the head of the Committee of Circuit, removed him for
maladministration; and he has since publicly declared on record that he
knew him to be capable of all the most horrid and atrocious crimes that
can be imputed to man.

This brand, however, was only a mark for Mr. Hastings to find him out
hereafter in the crowd, to identify him for his own, and to call him
forth into action, when his virtues should be sufficiently matured for
the services in which he afterwards employed him, through his
instruments, Mr. Anderson and Gunga Govind Sing. In the mean time he
left Debi Sing to the direction of his own good genius.

Debi Sing was stigmatized in the Company's records, his reputation was
gone, but his funds were safe. In the arrangement made by Mr. Hastings,
in the year 1773, by which Provincial Councils were formed, Debi Sing
became deputy-steward, or secretary, (soon in effect and influence
principal steward,) to the Provincial Council of Moorshedabad, the seat
of the old government, and the first province of the kingdom; and to his
charge were committed various extensive and populous provinces, yielding
an annual revenue of one hundred and twenty lacs of rupees, or
1,500,000_l._ This division of Provincial Council included Rungpore,
Edrackpore, and others, where he obtained such a knowledge of their
resources as subsequently to get possession of them.

Debi Sing found this administration composed mostly of young men,
dissipated and fond of pleasure, as is usual at that time of life, but
desirous of reconciling those pleasures, which usually consume wealth,
with the means of making a great and speedy fortune,--at once eager
candidates for opulence, and perfect novices in all the roads that lead
to it. Debi Sing commiserated their youth and inexperience, and took
upon him to be their guide.

There is a revenue in that country, raised by a tax more productive than
laudable. It