particular _act_ of infamy committed by Gunga Govind
Sing. I have no intimate knowledge of Gunga Govind Sing. What I
understand of his character has been from Europeans as well as natives."
After,--"He had many enemies at the time he was proposed to be employed
in the Company's service, and not _one advocate_ among the natives who
had immediate access to myself. I think, therefore, if his character had
been such as has been described, the knowledge of it could hardly have
failed to have been ascertained to me by the _specific_ facts. I have
heard him loaded, as I have many others, with general reproaches, but
have never heard any one express a doubt of _his abilities_." Now, if
anything in the world should induce you to put the whole trust of the
revenues of Bengal, both above and below, into the hands of a single
man, and to delegate to him the whole jurisdiction of the country, it
must be that he either was, or at least was reputed to be, a man of
integrity. Mr. Hastings does not pretend that he is reputed to be a man
of integrity. He knew that he was not able to contradict the charge
brought against him, and that he had been turned out of office by his
colleagues, for reasons assigned upon record, and approved by the
Directors, for malversation in office. He had, indeed, crept again into
the Calcutta Committee; and they were upon the point of turning him out
for malversation, when Mr. Hastings saved them the trouble by turning
out the whole Committee, consisting of a president and five members. So
that in all times, in all characters, in all places, he stood as a man
of a bad character and evil repute, though supposed to be a man of great
abilities.

My Lords, permit me for one moment to drop my representative character
here, and to speak to your Lordships only as a man of some experience in
the world, and conversant with the affairs of men and with the
characters of men.

I do, then, declare my conviction, and wish it may stand recorded to
posterity, that there never was a _bad man_ that had ability for _good
service_. It is not in the nature of such men; their minds are so
distorted to selfish purposes, to knavish, artificial, and crafty means
of accomplishing those selfish ends, that, if put to any good service,
they are poor, dull, helpless. Their natural faculties never have that
direction; they are paralytic on that side; the muscles, if I may use
the expression, that ought to move it, are all dead. They know