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<h2>THE WORKS
<br /><br />
<span style="font-size: 71%">OF</span>
<br /><br />
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE<br />

<br />
<span style="font-size: 200%">EDMUND BURKE</span></h2>

<h3>IN TWELVE VOLUMES<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: smaller">VOLUME THE TENTH</span></h3>
<p />
<div style="text-align: center">
<img src="https://brian.carnell.com/wiki/_media/etext:e:edmund-burke-the-works-of-001.png" alt="BURKE COAT OF ARMS." title="BURKE COAT OF ARMS" />
</div>
<p />
<p style="text-align: center; text-indent: 0"><b>London</b><br />

<br />

JOHN C. NIMMO<br />
<br />
14, KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND, W.C.<br />

MDCCCLXXXVII<br /></p>

<hr style="width: 65%;" />




<h2><a name="CONTENTS_OF_VOL_X" id="CONTENTS_OF_VOL_X"></a>CONTENTS OF VOL. X.</h2>





<ul class="TOCSub"><li><a href="#SPEECHES_IN_THE_IMPEACHMENT">SPEECHES IN THE IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS, ESQUIRE, LATE GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF BENGAL.</a></li>

<li><ul class="TOCSub"><li>    <a href="#SPEECH_IN_OPENING">SPEECH IN OPENING THE IMPEACHMENT.</a></li>
<li><ul class="TOCSub"><li>      <a href="#THIRD_DAY_MONDAY_FEBRUARY_18_1788">THIRD DAY: MONDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1788</a>                    <span class="tocright"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></span></li>
<li>      <a href="#FOURTH_DAY_TUESDAY_FEBRUARY_19_1788">FOURTH DAY: TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 19</a>                       <span class="tocright"><a href="#Page_99">99</a></span></li></ul></li></ul></li>


<li><ul class="TOCSub"><li><a href="#SPEECH_ON_THE_SIXTH_ARTICLE_OF_CHARGE">SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE OF CHARGE.</a></li>
<li><ul class="TOCSub"><li>      <a href="#FIRST_DAY_TUESDAY_APRIL_21_1789">FIRST DAY: TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 1789</a>                    <span class="tocright"><a href="#Page_149">149</a></span></li>
<li>      <a href="#SECOND_DAY_SATURDAY_APRIL_25_1789">SECOND DAY: SATURDAY, APRIL 25</a>                        <span class="tocright"><a href="#Page_240">240</a></span></li>
<li>      <a href="#THIRD_DAY_TUESDAY_MAY_5_1789">THIRD DAY: TUESDAY, MAY 5</a>                             <span class="tocright"><a href="#Page_306">306</a></span></li>
<li>      <a href="#FOURTH_DAY_THURSDAY_MAY_7_1789">FOURTH DAY: THURSDAY, MAY 7</a>                           <span class="tocright"><a href="#Page_396">396</a></span></li></ul></li></ul></li></ul>


<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">{1}</a></span></p>



<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><a name="SPEECHES_IN_THE_IMPEACHMENT" id="SPEECHES_IN_THE_IMPEACHMENT"></a>SPEECHES<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 50%;">IN</span><br />
<br />
THE IMPEACHMENT<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 50%;">OF</span><br />
<br />
WARREN HASTINGS, ESQUIRE<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 50%;">LATE GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF BENGAL.</span></h2>

<hr style="width: 25%;" />

<h2><a name="SPEECH_IN_OPENING" id="SPEECH_IN_OPENING"></a>SPEECH IN OPENING.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 75%;">(CONTINUED.)</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 75%;">FEBRUARY, 1788.</span></h2>

<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">{2}</a></span></p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">{3}</a></span></p>



<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><a name="THIRD_DAY_MONDAY_FEBRUARY_18_1788" id="THIRD_DAY_MONDAY_FEBRUARY_18_1788"></a></p>
<h2>SPEECH<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 50%;">IN</span><br />
<br />
OPENING THE IMPEACHMENT.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 75%;">THIRD DAY: MONDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1788.</span></h2>


<p>My Lords,&mdash;The gentlemen who are appointed
by the Commons to manage this prosecution,
have directed me to inform your Lordships, that they
have very carefully and attentively weighed the magnitude
of the subject which they bring before you
with the time which the nature and circumstances of
affairs allow for their conducting it.</p>

<p>My Lords, on that comparison, they are very apprehensive,
that, if I should go very largely into a preliminary
explanation of the several matters in charge,
it might be to the prejudice of an early trial of the
substantial merits of each article. We have weighed
and considered this maturely. We have compared
exactly the time with the matter, and we have found
that we are obliged to do as all men must do who
would manage their affairs practicably, to make our
opinion of what might be most advantageous to the
business conform to the time that is left to perform
it in. We must, as all men must, submit affairs to
time, and not think of making time conform to our
wishes; and therefore, my Lords, I very willingly
fall in with the inclinations of the gentlemen with
whom I have the honor to act, to come as soon as
possible to close fighting, and to grapple immediately<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">{4}</a></span>
and directly with the corruptions of India,&mdash;to bring
before your Lordships the direct articles, to apply the
evidence to the articles, and to bring the matter forward
for your Lordships' decision in that manner
which the confidence we have in the justice of our
cause demands from the Commons of Great Britain.</p>

<p>My Lords, these are the opinions of those with
whom I have the honor to act, and in their opinions
I readily acquiesce. For I am far from wishing to
waste any of your Lordships' time upon any matter
merely through any opinion I have of the nature of
the business, when at the same time I find that in
the opinion of others it might militate against the
production of its full, proper, and (if I may so say)
its immediate effect.</p>

<p>It was my design to class the crimes of the late
Governor of Bengal,&mdash;to show their mutual bearings,&mdash;how
they were mutually aided and grew and
were formed out of each other. I proposed first of
all to show your Lordships that they have their root
in that which is the origin of all evil, avarice and rapacity,&mdash;to
show how that led to prodigality of the
public money,&mdash;and how prodigality of the public
money, by wasting the treasures of the East India
Company, furnished an excuse to the Governor-General
to break its faith, to violate all its most solemn
engagements, and to fall with a hand of stern, ferocious,
and unrelenting rapacity upon all the allies and
dependencies of the Company. But I shall be obliged
in some measure to abridge this plan; and as your
Lordships already possess, from what I had the honor
to state on Saturday, a general view of this matter,
you will be in a condition to pursue it when the
several articles are presented.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">{5}</a></span></p>

<p>My Lords, I have to state to-day the root of all
these misdemeanors,&mdash;namely, the pecuniary corruption
and avarice which gave rise and primary
motion to all the rest of the delinquencies charged
to be committed by the Governor-General.</p>

<p>My Lords, pecuniary corruption forms not only,
as your Lordships will observe in the charges before
you, an article of charge by itself, but likewise so
intermixes with the whole, that it is necessary to
give, in the best manner I am able, a history of that
corrupt system which brought on all the subsequent
acts of corruption. I will venture to say there is no
one act, in which tyranny, malice, cruelty, and oppression
can be charged, that does not at the same
time carry evident marks of pecuniary corruption.</p>

<p>I stated to your Lordships on Saturday last the
principles upon which Mr. Hastings governed his
conduct in India, and upon which he grounds his defence.
These may all be reduced to one short word,&mdash;<i>arbitrary
power</i>. My Lords, if Mr. Hastings had
contended, as other men have often done, that the
system of government which he patronizes, and on
which he acted, was a system tending on the whole
to the blessing and benefit of mankind, possibly something
might be said for him for setting up so wild,
absurd, irrational, and wicked a system,&mdash;something
might be said to qualify the act from the intention;
but it is singular in this man, that, at the time he
tells you he acted on the principles of arbitrary power,
he takes care to inform you that he was not blind
to the consequences. Mr. Hastings foresaw that the
consequences of this system was corruption. An arbitrary
system, indeed, must always be a corrupt one.
My Lords, there never was a man who thought he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">{6}</a></span>
had no law but his own will, who did not soon find
that he had no end but his own profit. Corruption
and arbitrary power are of natural unequivocal generation,
necessarily producing one another. Mr. Hastings
foresees the abusive and corrupt consequences,
and then he justifies his conduct upon the necessities
of that system. These are things which are
new in the world; for there never was a man, I believe,
who contended for arbitrary power, (and there
have been persons wicked and foolish enough to contend
for it,) that did not pretend, either that the system
was good in itself, or that by their conduct they
had mitigated or had purified it, and that the poison,
by passing through their constitution, had acquired
salutary properties. But if you look at his defence
before the House of Commons, you will see that that
very system upon which he governed, and under
which he now justifies his actions, did appear to himself
a system pregnant with a thousand evils and a
thousand mischiefs.</p>

<p>The next thing that is remarkable and singular in
the principles upon which the Governor-General acted
is, that, when he is engaged in a vicious system which
clearly leads to evil consequences, he thinks himself
bound to realize all the evil consequences involved in
that system. All other men have taken a directly
contrary course: they have said, "I have been engaged
in an evil system, that led, indeed, to mischievous
consequences, but I have taken care, by
my own virtues, to prevent the evils of the system
under which I acted."</p>

<p>We say, then, not only that he governed arbitrarily,
but corruptly,&mdash;that is to say, that he was a giver
and receiver of bribes, and formed a system for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">{7}</a></span>
purpose of giving and receiving them. We wish your
Lordships distinctly to consider that he did not only
give and receive bribes accidentally, as it happened,
without any system and design, merely as the opportunity
or momentary temptation of profit urged him
to it, but that he has formed plans and systems of
government for the very purpose of accumulating
bribes and presents to himself. This system of Mr.
Hastings's government is such a one, I believe, as the
British nation in particular will disown; for I will
venture to say, that, if there is any one thing which
distinguishes this nation eminently above another, it
is, that in its offices at home, both judicial and in the
state, there is less suspicion of pecuniary corruption
attaching to them than to any similar offices in any
part of the globe, or that have existed at any time:
so that he who would set up a system of corruption,
and attempt to justify it upon the principle of utility,
that man is staining not only the nature and character
of office, but that which is the peculiar glory of
the official and judicial character of this country; and
therefore, in this House, which is eminently the guardian
of the purity of all the offices of this kingdom,
he ought to be called eminently and peculiarly to
account. There are many things, undoubtedly, in
crimes, which make them frightful and odious; but
bribery, filthy hands, a chief governor of a great empire
receiving bribes from poor, miserable, indigent
people, this is what makes government itself base,
contemptible, and odious in the eyes of mankind.</p>

<p>My Lords, it is certain that even tyranny itself may
find some specious color, and appear as a more severe
and rigid execution of justice. Religious persecution
may shield itself under the guise of a mistaken and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">{8}</a></span>
over-zealous piety. Conquest may cover its baldness
with its own laurels, and the ambition of the conqueror
may be hid in the secrets of his own heart under a veil
of benevolence, and make him imagine he is bringing
temporary desolation upon a country only to promote
its ultimate advantage and his own glory. But in the
principles of that governor who makes nothing but
money his object there can be nothing of this. There
are here none of those specious delusions that look
like virtues, to veil either the governed or the governor.
If you look at Mr. Hastings's merits, as he calls
them, what are they? Did he improve the internal
state of the government by great reforms? No
such thing. Or by a wise and incorrupt administration
of justice? No. Has he enlarged the boundary
of our government? No: there are but too strong
proofs of his lessening it. But his pretensions to
merit are, that he squeezed more money out of the
inhabitants of the country than other persons could
have done,&mdash;money got by oppression, violence, extortion
from the poor, or the heavy hand of power
upon the rich and great.</p>

<p>These are his merits. What we charge as his demerits
are all of the same nature; for, though there
is undoubtedly oppression, breach of faith, cruelty,
perfidy, charged upon him, yet the great ruling principle
of the whole, and that from which you can never
have an act free, is money,&mdash;it is the vice of base
avarice, which never is, nor ever appears even to the
prejudices of mankind to be, anything like a virtue.
Our desire of acquiring sovereignty in India undoubtedly
originated first in ideas of safety and necessity;
its next step was a step of ambition. That ambition,
as generally happens in conquest, was followed by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">{9}</a></span>
gains of money; but afterwards there was no mixture
at all; it was, during Mr. Hastings's time, altogether
a business of money. If he has extirpated a nation,
I will not say whether properly or improperly, it is
because (says he) you have all the benefit of conquest
without expense; you have got a large sum of money
from the people, and you may leave them to be governed
by whom and as they will. This is directly
contrary to the principles of conquerors. If he has
at any time taken any money from the dependencies
of the Company, he does not pretend that it was obtained
from their zeal and affection to our cause, or
that it made their submission more complete: very far
from it. He says they ought to be independent, and
all that you have to do is to squeeze money from
them. In short, money is the beginning, the middle,
and the end of every kind of act done by Mr. Hastings:
pretendedly for the Company, but really for
himself.</p>

<p>Having said so much about the origin, the first
principle, both of that which he makes his merit and
which we charge as his demerit, the next step is, that
I should lay open to your Lordships, as clearly as I
can, what the sense of his employers, the East India
Company, and what the sense of the legislature itself,
has been upon those merits and demerits of money.</p>

<p>My Lords, the Company, knowing that these money
transactions were likely to subvert that empire which
was first established upon them, did, in the year 1765,
send out a body of the strongest and most solemn
covenants to their servants, that they should take no
presents from the country powers, under any name
or description, except those things which were publicly
and openly taken for the use of the Company,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">{10}</a></span>&mdash;namely,
<i>territories</i> or <i>sums of money</i> which might be
obtained by treaty. They distinguished such presents
as were taken from any persons privately, and
unknown to them, and without their authority, from
subsidies: and that this is the true nature and construction
of their order I shall contend and explain
afterwards to your Lordships. They have said, nothing
shall be taken for their private use; for though
in that and in every state there may be subsidiary
treaties by which sums of money may be received,
yet they forbid their servants, their governors, whatever
application they might pretend to make of them,
to receive, under any other name or pretence, more
than a certain, marked, simple sum of money, and this
not without the consent and permission of the Presidency
to which they belong. This is the substance,
the principle, and the spirit of the covenants, and will
show your Lordships how radicated an evil this of
bribery and presents was judged to be.</p>

<p>When these covenants arrived in India, the servants
refused at first to execute them,&mdash;and suspended the
execution of them, till they had enriched themselves
with presents. Eleven months elapsed, and it was not
till Lord Clive reached the place of his destination
that the covenants were executed: and they were not
executed then without some degree of force. Soon
afterwards the treaty was made with the country
powers by which Sujah ul Dowlah was re&euml;stablished
in the province of Oude, and paid a sum of 500,000<i>l.</i>
to the Company for it. It was a public payment, and
there was not a suspicion that a single shilling of private
emolument attended it. But whether Mr. Hastings
had the example of others or not, their example
could not justify his briberies. He was sent there to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">{11}</a></span>
put an end to all those examples. The Company did
expressly vest him with that power. They declared
at that time, that the whole of their service was totally
corrupted by bribes and presents, and by extravagance
and luxury, which partly gave rise to them,
and these, in their turn, enabled them to pursue those
excesses. They not only reposed trust in the integrity
of Mr. Hastings, but reposed trust in his remarkable
frugality and order in his affairs, which they
considered as things that distinguished his character.
But in his defence we have him quite in another character,&mdash;no
longer the frugal, attentive servant, bred
to business, bred to book-keeping, as all the Company's
servants are; he now knows nothing of his own
affairs, knows not whether he is rich or poor, knows
not what he has in the world. Nay, people are
brought forward to say that they know better than
he does what his affairs are. He is not like a careful
man bred in a counting-house, and by the Directors
put into an office of the highest trust on account of
the regularity of his affairs; he is like one buried in
the contemplation of the stars, and knows nothing of
the things in this world. It was, then, on account of
an idea of his great integrity that the Company put
him into this situation. Since that he has thought
proper to justify himself, not by clearing himself of
receiving bribes, but by saying that no bad consequences
resulted from it, and that, if any such evil
consequences did arise from it, they arose rather from
his inattention to money than from his desire of acquiring
it.</p>

<p>I have stated to your Lordships the nature of the
covenants which the East India Company sent out.
Afterwards, when they found their servants had re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">{12}</a></span>fused
to execute these covenants, they not only very
severely reprehended even a moment's delay in their
execution, and threatened the exacting the most strict
and rigorous performance of them, but they sent a
commission to enforce the observance of them more
strongly; and that commission had it specially in
charge never to receive presents. They never sent
out a person to India without recognizing the grievance,
and without ordering that presents should not
be received, as the main fundamental part of their duty,
and upon which all the rest depended, as it certainly
must: for persons at the head of government
should not encourage that by example which they
ought by precept, authority, and force to restrain in
all below them. That commission failing, another
commission was preparing to be sent out with the
same instructions, when an act of Parliament took it
up; and that act, which gave Mr. Hastings power,
did mould in the very first stamina of his power this
principle, in words the most clear and forcible that
an act of Parliament could possibly devise upon the
subject. And that act was made not only upon a
general knowledge of the grievance, but your Lordships
will see in the reports of that time that Parliament
had directly in view before them the whole of
that monstrous head of corruption under the name
of presents, and all the monstrous consequences that
followed it.</p>

<p>Now, my Lords, every office of trust, in its very
nature, forbids the receipt of bribes. But Mr. Hastings
was forbidden it, first, by his official situation,&mdash;next,
by covenant,&mdash;and lastly, by act of Parliament:
that is to say, by all the things that bind mankind, or
that can bind them,&mdash;first, moral obligation inherent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">{13}</a></span>
in the duty of their office,&mdash;next, the positive injunctions
of the legislature of the country,&mdash;and lastly,
a man's own private, particular, voluntary act and
covenant. These three, the great and only obligations
that bind mankind, all united in the focus of this single
point,&mdash;that they should take no presents.</p>

<p>I am to mark to your Lordships, that this law and
this covenant did consider indirect ways of taking
presents&mdash;taking them by others, and such like&mdash;directly
in the very same light as they considered
taking them by themselves. It is perhaps a much
more dangerous way; because it adds to the crime a
false, prevaricating mode of concealing it, and makes
it much more mischievous by admitting others into
the participation of it. Mr. Hastings has said, (and
it is one of the general complaints of Mr. Hastings,)
that he is made answerable for the acts of other men.
It is a thing inherent in the nature of his situation.
All those who enjoy a great superintending trust,
which is to regulate the whole affairs of an empire,
are responsible for the acts and conduct of other men,
so far as they had anything to do with appointing
them, or holding them in their places, or having any
sort of inspection into their conduct. But when a
Governor presumes to remove from their situations
those persons whom the public authority and sanction
of the Company have appointed, and obtrudes upon
them by violence other persons, superseding the orders
of his masters, he becomes doubly responsible for
their conduct. If the persons he names should be
of notorious evil character and evil principles, and
if this should be perfectly known to himself, and of
public notoriety to the rest of the world, then another
strong responsibility attaches on him for the acts of
those persons.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">{14}</a></span></p>

<p>Governors, we know very well, cannot with their
own hands be continually receiving bribes,&mdash;for then
they must have as many hands as one of the idols in
an Indian temple, in order to receive all the bribes
which a Governor-General may receive,&mdash;but they
have them vicariously. As there are many offices, so
he has had various officers for receiving and distributing
his bribes; he has a great many, some white
and some black agents. The white men are loose
and licentious; they are apt to have resentments,
and to be bold in revenging them. The black men
are very secret and mysterious; they are not apt to
have very quick resentments, they have not the same
liberty and boldness of language which characterize
Europeans; and they have fears, too, for themselves,
which makes it more likely that they will conceal
anything committed to them by Europeans. Therefore
Mr. Hastings had his black agents, not one, two,
three, but many, disseminated through the country:
no two of them, hardly, appear to be in the secret of
any one bribe. He has had likewise his white agents,&mdash;they
were necessary,&mdash;a Mr. Larkins and a Mr.
Croftes. Mr. Croftes was sub-treasurer, and Mr.
Larkins accountant-general. These were the last
persons of all others that should have had anything
to do with bribes; yet these were some of his agents
in bribery. There are few instances, in comparison
of the whole number of bribes, but there are some,
where two men are in the secret of the same bribe.
Nay, it appears that there was one bribe divided
into different payments at different times,&mdash;that one
part was committed to one black secretary, another
part to another black secretary. So that it is almost
impossible to make up a complete body of all his bri<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">{15}</a></span>bery:
you may find the scattered limbs, some here and
others there; and while you are employed in picking
them up, he may escape entirely in a prosecution for
the whole.</p>

<p>The first act of his government in Bengal was the
most bold and extraordinary that I believe ever entered
into the head of any man,&mdash;I will say, of
any tyrant. It was no more or less than a general,
almost exceptless confiscation, in time of profound
peace, of all the landed property in Bengal, upon
most extraordinary pretences. Strange as this may
appear, he did so confiscate it; he put it up to a
pretended public, in reality to a private corrupt auction;
and such favored landholders as came to it
were obliged to consider themselves as not any longer
proprietors of the estates, but to recognize themselves
as farmers under government: and even those few
that were permitted to remain on their estates had
their payments raised at his arbitrary discretion; and
the rest of the lands were given to farmers-general,
appointed by him and his committee, at a price fixed
by the same arbitrary discretion.</p>

<p>It is necessary to inform your Lordships that the
revenues of Bengal are, for the most part, territorial
revenues, great quit-rents issuing out of lands. I
shall say nothing either of the nature of this property,
of the rights of the people to it, or of the mode of exacting
the rents, till that great question of revenues,
one of the greatest which we shall have to lay before
you, shall be brought before your Lordships particularly
and specially as an article of charge. I only
mention it now as an exemplification of the great
principle of corruption which guided Mr. Hastings's
conduct.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">{16}</a></span></p>

<p>When the ancient nobility, the great princes, (for
such I may call them,) a nobility, perhaps, as ancient
as that of your Lordships, (and a more truly noble
body never existed in that character,)&mdash;my Lords,
when all the nobility, some of whom have borne the
rank and port of princes, all the gentry, all the freeholders
of the country, had their estates in that manner
confiscated,&mdash;that is, either given to themselves to
hold on the footing of farmers, or totally confiscated,&mdash;when
such an act of tyranny was done, no doubt
some good was pretended. This confiscation was
made by Mr. Hastings, and the lands let to these
farmers for five years, upon an idea which always
accompanies his acts of oppression, the idea of <i>moneyed
merit</i>. He adopted this mode of confiscating the
estates, and letting them to farmers, for the avowed
purpose of seeing how much it was possible to take
out of them. Accordingly, he set them up to this
wild and wicked auction, as it would have been, if it
had been a real one,&mdash;corrupt and treacherous, as it
was,&mdash;he set these lands up for the purpose of making
that discovery, and pretended that the discovery
would yield a most amazing increase of rent. And
for some time it appeared so to do, till it came to the
touchstone of experience; and then it was found that
there was a defalcation from these monstrous raised
revenues which were to cancel in the minds of the
Directors the wickedness of so atrocious, flagitious,
and horrid an act of treachery. At the end of five
years what do you think was the failure? No less
than 2,050,000<i>l.</i> Then a new source of corruption
was opened,&mdash;that is, how to deal with the balances:
for every man who had engaged in these transactions
was a debtor to government, and the remission of that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">{17}</a></span>
debt depended upon the discretion of the Governor-General.
Then the persons who were to settle the
composition of that immense debt, who were to see
how much was recoverable and how much not, were
able to favor, or to exact to the last shilling; and
there never existed a doubt but that not only upon
the original cruel exaction, but upon the remission
afterwards, immense gains were derived. This will
account for the manner in which those stupendous
fortunes which astonish the world have been made.
They have been made, first by a tyrannous exaction
from the people who were suffered to remain in
possession of their own land as farmers,&mdash;then by
selling the rest to farmers at rents and under hopes
which could never be realized, and then getting money
for the relaxation of their debts. But whatever
excuse, and however wicked, there might have been
for this wicked act, namely, that it carried upon the
face of it some sort of appearance of public good,&mdash;that
is to say, that sort of public good which Mr. Hastings
so often professed, of ruining the country for the
benefit of the Company,&mdash;yet, in fact, this business
of balances is that <i>nidus</i> in which have been nustled
and bred and born all the corruptions of India, first
by making extravagant demands, and afterwards by
making corrupt relaxations of them.</p>

<p>Besides this monstrous failure, in consequence of
a miserable exaction by which more was attempted
to be forced from the country than it was capable of
yielding, and this by way of experiment, when your
Lordships come to inquire who the farmers-general of
the revenue were, you would naturally expect to find
them to be the men in the several countries who had
the most interest, the greatest wealth, the best knowl<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">{18}</a></span>edge
of the revenue and resources of the country in
which they lived. Those would be thought the natural,
proper farmers-general of each district. No such
thing, my Lords. They are found in the body of
people whom I have mentioned to your Lordships.
They were almost all let to Calcutta banians. Calcutta
banians were the farmers of almost the whole.
They sub-delegated to others, who sometimes had
sub-delegates under them <i>ad infinitum</i>. The whole
formed a system together, through the succession of
black tyrants scattered through the country, in which
you at last find the European at the end, sometimes
indeed not hid very deep, not above one between him
and the farmer, namely, his banian directly, or some
other black person to represent him. But some have
so managed the affair, that, when you inquire who
the farmer is,&mdash;Was such a one farmer? No. Cantoo
Baboo? No. Another? No,&mdash;at last you find
three deep of fictitious farmers, and you find the European
gentlemen, high in place and authority, the
real farmers of the settlement. So that the zemindars
were dispossessed, the country racked and
ruined, for the benefit of an European, under the
name of a farmer: for you will easily judge whether
these gentlemen had fallen so deeply in love with the
banians, and thought so highly of their merits and
services, as to reward <i>them</i> with all the possessions
of the great landed interest of the country. Your
Lordships are too grave, wise, and discerning, to
make it necessary for me to say more upon that subject.
Tell me that the banians of English gentlemen,
dependants on them at Calcutta, were the farmers
throughout, and I believe I need not tell your Lordships
for whose benefit they were farmers.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">{19}</a></span></p>

<p>But there is one of these who comes so nearly, indeed
so precisely, within this observation, that it is impossible
for me to pass him by. Whoever has heard
of Mr. Hastings's name, with any knowledge of Indian
connections, has heard of his banian, Cantoo Baboo.
This man is well known in the records of the Company,
as his agent for receiving secret gifts, confiscations,
and presents. You would have imagined that
he would at least have kept <i>him</i> out of these farms, in
order to give the measure a color at least of disinterestedness,
and to show that this whole system of corruption
and pecuniary oppression was carried on for
the benefit of the Company. The Governor-General
and Council made an ostensible order by which no
collector, or person concerned in the revenue, should
have any connection with these farms. This order
did not include the Governor-General in the words
of it, but more than included him in the spirit of it;
because his power to protect a farmer-general in the
person of his own servant was infinitely greater than
that of any subordinate person. Mr. Hastings, in
breach of this order, gave farms to his own banian.
You find him the farmer of great, of vast and extensive
farms. Another regulation that was made on
that occasion was, that no farmer should have, except
in particular cases, which were marked, described,
and accurately distinguished, a greater farm than
what paid 10,000<i>l.</i> a year to government. Mr. Hastings,
who had broken the first regulation by giving
any farm at all to his banian, finding himself bolder,
broke the second too, and, instead of 10,000<i>l.</i>, gave
him farms paying a revenue of 130,000<i>l.</i> a year to
government. Men undoubtedly have been known
to be under the dominion of their domestics; such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">{20}</a></span>
things have happened to great men: they never have
happened justifiably in my opinion. They have never
happened excusably; but we are acquainted sufficiently
with the weakness of human nature to know
that a domestic who has served you in a near office
long, and in your opinion faithfully, does become a
kind of relation; it brings on a great affection and
regard for his interest. Now was this the case with
Mr. Hastings and Cantoo Baboo? Mr. Hastings was
just arrived at his government, and Cantoo Baboo
had been but a year in his service; so that he could
not in that time have contracted any great degree of
friendship for him. These people do not live in your
house; the Hindoo servants never sleep in it; they
cannot eat with your servants; they have no second
table, in which they can be continually about you, to
be domesticated with yourself, a part of your being,
as people's servants are to a certain degree. These
persons live all abroad; they come at stated hours
upon matters of business, and nothing more. But
if it had been otherwise, Mr. Hastings's connection
with Cantoo Baboo had been but of a year's standing;
he had before served in that capacity Mr. Sykes,
who recommended him to Mr. Hastings. Your Lordships,
then, are to judge whether such outrageous violations
of all the principles by which Mr. Hastings
pretended to be guided in the settlement of these
farms were for the benefit of this old, decayed, affectionate
servant of one year's standing: your Lordships
will judge of that.</p>

<p>I have here spoken only of the beginning of a great,
notorious system of corruption, which branched out
so many ways and into such a variety of abuses, and
has afflicted that kingdom with such horrible evils<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">{21}</a></span>
from that day to this, that I will venture to say it
will make one of the greatest, weightiest, and most
material parts of the charge that is now before you;
as I believe I need not tell your Lordships that an
attempt to set up the whole landed interest of a
kingdom to auction must be attended, not only in
that act, but every consequential act, with most grievous
and terrible consequences.</p>

<p>My Lords, I will now come to a scene of peculation
of another kind: namely, a peculation by the direct
sale of offices of justice,&mdash;by the direct sale of the
successions of families,&mdash;by the sale of guardianships
and trusts, held most sacred among the people of India:
by the sale of them, not, as before, to farmers, not,
as you might imagine, to near relations of the families,
but a sale of them to the unfaithful servants of those
families, their own perfidious servants, who had ruined
their estates, who, if any balances had accrued
to the government, had been the cause of those debts.
Those very servants were put in power over their estates,
their persons, and their families, by Mr. Hastings,
for a shameful price. It will be proved to your
Lordships, in the course of this business, that Mr.
Hastings has done this in another sacred trust, the
most sacred trust a man can have,&mdash;that is, in the
case of those <i>vakeels</i>, (as they call them,) agents,
or attorneys, who had been sent to assert and support
the rights of their miserable masters before the Council-General.
It will be proved that these vakeels
were by Mr. Hastings, for a price to be paid for it,
put in possession of the very power, situation, and
estates of those masters who sent them to Calcutta to
defend them from wrong and violence. The selling
offices of justice, the sale of succession in families, of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">{22}</a></span>
guardianships and other sacred trusts, the selling
masters to their servants, and principals to the attorneys
they employed to defend themselves, were all
parts of the same system; and these were the horrid
ways in which he received bribes beyond any common rate.</p>

<p>When Mr. Hastings was appointed in the year
1773 to be Governor-General of Bengal, together with
Mr. Barwell, General Clavering, Colonel Monson, and
Mr. Francis, the Company, knowing the former corrupt
state of their service, (but the whole corrupt
system of Mr. Hastings at that time not being known
or even suspected at home,) did order them, in discharge
of the spirit of the act of Parliament, to make
an inquiry into all manner of corruptions and malversations
in office, without the exception of any persons
whatever. Your Lordships are to know that the
act did expressly authorize the Court of Directors to
frame a body of instructions, and to give orders to
their new servants appointed under the act of Parliament,
lest it should be supposed that they, by their
appointment under the act, could supersede the authority
of the Directors. The Directors, sensible of
the power left in them over their servants by the act
of Parliament, though their nomination was taken
from them, did, agreeably to the spirit and power of
that act, give this order.</p>

<p>The Council consisted of two parties: Mr. Hastings
and Mr. Barwell, who were chosen and kept
there upon the idea of their local knowledge; and
the other three, who were appointed on account of
their great parts and known integrity. And I will
venture to say that those three gentlemen did so execute
their duty in India, in all the substantial parts<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">{23}</a></span>
of it, that they will serve as a shield to cover the
honor of England, whenever this country is upbraided
in India.</p>

<p>They found a rumor running through the country
of great peculations and oppressions. Soon after,
when it was known what their instructions were, and
that the Council was ready, as is the first duty of all
governors, even when there is no express order, to
receive complaints against the oppressions and corruptions
of government in any part of it, they found
such a body (and that body shall be produced to your
Lordships) of corruption and peculation in every
walk, in every department, in every situation of life,
in the sale of the most sacred trusts, and in the destruction
of the most ancient families of the country,
as I believe in so short a time never was unveiled
since the world began.</p>

<p>Your Lordships would imagine that Mr. Hastings
would at least ostensibly have taken some part in endeavoring
to bring these corruptions before the public,
or that he would at least have acted with some little
management in his opposition. But, alas! it was not
in his power; there was not one, I think, but I am
sure very few, of these general articles of corruption,
in which the most eminent figure in the crowd, the
principal figure as it were in the piece, was not Mr.
Hastings himself. There were a great many others
involved; for all departments were corrupted and
vitiated. But you could not open a page in which
you did not see Mr. 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.</p>

<p>With the other gentlemen, who were visible too,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">{24}</a></span>
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.</p>

<p>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 150,000<i>l.</i> 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.</p>

<p>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.&mdash;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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">{25}</a></span>
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.</p>

<p>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.&mdash;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 Kh&acirc;n. He shall not blow
hot and cold. In what respect was Mr. Hastings
better than Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n, 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?&mdash;Such was the accuser. He
was the man that gave the bribes, and, in addition to
his own evidence, offers proof by other witnesses.</p>

<p>What was the accusation? Was the accusation
improbable, either on account of the subject-matter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">{26}</a></span>
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,&mdash;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?&mdash;But I cannot mention
this proceeding without shame and horror.</p>

<p>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. There was no
likelihood of any great credit being given to him.</p>

<p>This person, who, in one of those sales of which I
have already given you some account in the history
of the last period of the revolutions of Bengal, had
been, or thought he had been, cheated of his money,
had made some discoveries, and been guilty of that
great irremissible sin in India, the disclosure of
peculation. He afterwards came with a second disclosure,
and was likely to have odium enough upon
the occasion. He directly charged Mr. Hastings with
the receipt of bribes, amounting together to about
40,000<i>l.</i> sterling, given by himself, on his own account
and that of Munny Begum. The charge was accompanied
with every particular which could facilitate
proof or detection,&mdash;time, place, persons, species, to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">{27}</a></span>
whom paid, by whom received. Here was a fair
opportunity for Mr. Hastings at once to defeat the
malice of his enemies and to clear his character to
the world. His course was different. He railed
much at the accuser, but did not attempt to refute
the accusation. He refuses to permit the inquiry to
go on, attempts to dissolve the Council, commands his
banian not to attend. The Council, however, goes
on, examines to the bottom, and resolves that the
charge was proved, and that the money ought to go
to the Company. Mr. Hastings then broke up the
Council,&mdash;I will not say whether legally or illegally.
The Company's law counsel thought he might legally
do it; but he corruptly did it, and left mankind no
room to judge but that it was done for the screening
of his own guilt: for a man may use a legal power
corruptly, and for the most shameful and detestable
purposes. And thus matters continued, till he commenced
a criminal prosecution against this man,&mdash;this
man whom he dared not meet as a defendant.</p>

<p>Mr. Hastings, instead of answering the charge, attacks
the accuser. Instead of meeting the man in
front, he endeavored to go round, to come upon his
flanks and rear, but never to meet him in the face,
upon the ground of his accusation, as he was bound
by the express authority of law and the express injunctions
of the Directors to do. If the bribery is not
admitted on the evidence of Nundcomar, yet his suppressing
it is a crime, a violation of the orders of the
Court of Directors. He disobeyed those instructions;
and if it be only for disobedience, for rebellion against
his masters, (putting the corrupt motive out of the
question,) I charge him for this disobedience, and especially
on account of the principles upon which he
proceeded in it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">{28}</a></span></p>

<p>Then he took another step: he accused Nundcomar
of a conspiracy,&mdash;which was a way he then and
ever since has used, whenever means were taken to
detect any of his own iniquities.</p>

<p>And here it becomes necessary to mention another
circumstance of history: that the legislature, not
trusting entirely to the Governor-General and Council,
had sent out a court of justice to be a counter
security against these corruptions, and to detect and
punish any such misdemeanors as might appear.
And this court I take for granted has done great
services.</p>

<p>Mr. Hastings flew to this court, which was meant
to protect in their situations informers against bribery
and corruption, rather than to protect the accused
from any of the preliminary methods which must indispensably
be used for the purpose of detecting their
guilt,&mdash;he flew to this court, charging this Nundcomar
and others with being conspirators.</p>

<p>A man might be convicted as a conspirator, and
yet afterwards live; he might put the matter into
other hands, and go on with his information; nothing
less than <i>stone-dead</i> would do the business. And
here happened an odd concurrence of circumstances.
Long before Nundcomar preferred his charge, he
knew that Mr. Hastings was plotting his ruin, and
that for this purpose he had used a man whom he,
Nundcomar, had turned out of doors, called Mohun
Persaud. Mr. Hastings had seen papers put upon
the board, charging him with this previous plot for
the destruction of Nundcomar; and this identical person,
Mohun Persaud, whom Nundcomar had charged
as Mr. Hastings's associate in plotting his ruin, was
now again brought forward as the principal evidence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">{29}</a></span>
against him. I will not enter (God forbid I should!)
into the particulars of the subsequent trial of Nundcomar;
but you will find the marks and characters
of it to be these. You will find a close connection
between Mr. Hastings and the chief-justice, which we
shall prove. We shall prove that one of the witnesses
who appeared there was a person who had been before,
or has since been, concerned with Mr. Hastings
in his most iniquitous transactions. You will find,
what is very odd, that in this trial for forgery with
which this man stood charged, forgery in a private
transaction, all the persons who were witnesses or
parties to it had been, before or since, the particular
friends of Mr. Hastings,&mdash;in short, persons from that
rabble with whom Mr. Hastings was concerned, both
before and since, in various transactions and negotiations
of the most criminal kind. But the law took its
course. I have nothing more to say than that the
man is gone,&mdash;hanged justly, if you please; and that
it did so happen,&mdash;luckily for Mr. Hastings,&mdash;it so
happened, that the relief of Mr. Hastings, and the justice
of the court, and the resolution never to relax its
rigor, did all concur just at a happy nick of time and
moment; and Mr. Hastings, accordingly, had the full
benefit of them all.</p>

<p>His accuser was supposed to be what men may be,
and yet very competent for accusers, namely, one of
his accomplices in guilty actions,&mdash;one of those persons
who may have a great deal to say of bribes. All
that I contend for is, that he was in the closest intimacy
with Mr. Hastings, was in a situation for giving
bribes,&mdash;and that Mr. Hastings was proved afterwards
to have received a sum of money from him,
which may be well referred to bribes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">{30}</a></span></p>

<p>This example had its use in the way in which it
was intended to operate, and in which alone it could
operate. It did not discourage forgeries: they went
on at their usual rate, neither more nor less: but it
put an end to all accusations against all persons in
power for any corrupt practice. Mr. Hastings observes,
that no man in India complains of him. It is
generally true. The voice of all India is stopped.
All complaint was strangled with the same cord
that strangled Nundcomar. This murdered not only
that accuser, but all future accusation; and not only
defeated, but totally vitiated and reversed all the ends
for which this country, to its eternal and indelible
dishonor, had sent out a pompous embassy of justice
to the remotest parts of the globe.</p>

<p>But though Nundcomar was put out of the way by
the means by which <i>he</i> was removed, a part of the
charge was not strangled with him. Whilst the process
against Nundcomar was carrying on before Sir
Elijah Impey, the process was continuing against Mr.
Hastings in other modes; the receipt of a part of
those bribes from Munny Begum, to the amount of
15,000<i>l.</i>, was proved against him, and that a sum to
the same amount was to be paid to his associate, Mr.
Middleton. As it was proved at Calcutta, so it will
be proved at your Lordships' bar to your entire satisfaction
by records and living testimony now in England.
It was, indeed, obliquely admitted by Mr. Hastings
himself.</p>

<p>The excuse for this bribe, fabricated by Mr. Hastings,
and taught to Munny Begum, when he found
that she was obliged to prove it against him, was,
that it was given to him for his entertainment,
according to some pretended custom, at the rate of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">{31}</a></span>
200<i>l.</i> sterling a day, whilst he remained at Moorshedabad.
My Lords, this leads me to a few reflections
on the apology or defence of this bribe. We shall
certainly, I hope, render it clear to your Lordships
that it was not paid in this manner as a daily allowance,
but given in a gross sum. But take it in his
own way, it was no less illegal, and no less contrary
to his covenant; but if true under the circumstances,
it was an horrible aggravation of his crime. The first
thing that strikes is, that visits from Mr. Hastings are
pretty severe things, and hospitality at Moorshedabad
is an expensive virtue, though for provision it is one
of the cheapest countries in the universe. No wonder
that Mr. Hastings lengthened his visit, and made
it extend near three months. Such hosts and such
guests cannot be soon parted. Two hundred pounds
a day for a visit! It is at the rate of 78,000<i>l.</i> a year
for himself; and as I find his companion was put on
the same allowance, it will be 146,000<i>l.</i> a year for
hospitality to two English gentlemen. I believe that
there is not a prince in Europe who goes to such
expensive hospitality of splendor.</p>

<p>But that you may judge of the true nature of this
hospitality of corruption, I must bring before you the
business of the visitor and the condition of the host,
as stated by Mr. Hastings himself, who best knows
what he was doing. He was, then, at the old capital
of Bengal at the time of this expensive entertainment,
on a business of retrenchment, and for the establishment
of a most harsh, rigorous, and oppressive economy.
He wishes the task were assigned to spirits of a
less gentle kind. By Mr. Hastings's account, he was
giving daily and hourly wounds to his humanity in
depriving of their sustenance hundreds of persons of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">{32}</a></span>
the ancient nobility of a great fallen kingdom. Yet
it was in the midst of this galling duty, it was at that
very moment of his tender sensibility, that, from the
collected morsels plucked from the famished mouths
of hundreds of decayed, indigent, and starving nobility,
he gorged his ravenous maw with 200<i>l.</i> a day for
his entertainment. In the course of all this proceeding
your Lordships will not fail to observe he is never
corrupt, but he is cruel; he never dines with comfort,
but where he is sure to create a famine. He never
robs from the loose superfluity of standing greatness;
he devours the fallen, the indigent, the necessitous.
His extortion is not like the generous rapacity of the
princely eagle, who snatches away the living, struggling
prey; he is a vulture, who feeds upon the prostrate,
the dying, and the dead. As his cruelty is more
shocking than his corruption, so his hypocrisy has
something more frightful than his cruelty; for whilst
his bloody and rapacious hand signs proscriptions,
and now sweeps away the food of the widow and the
orphan, his eyes overflow with tears, and he converts
the healing balm that bleeds from wounded humanity
into a rancorous and deadly poison to the race of
man.</p>

<p>Well, there was an end to this tragic entertainment,
this feast of Tantalus. The few left on the pension-list,
the poor remnants that had escaped, were they
paid by his administratrix and deputy, Munny Begum?
Not a shilling. No fewer than forty-nine petitions,
mostly from the widows of the greatest and most
splendid houses of Bengal, came before the Council,
praying in the most deplorable manner for some sort
of relief out of the pittance assigned them. His colleagues,
General Clavering, Colonel Monson, and Mr.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">{33}</a></span>
Francis, men who, when England is reproached for the
government of India, will, I repeat it, as a shield be
held up between this nation and infamy, did, in conformity
to the strict orders of the Directors, appoint
Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n to his old offices, that is, to the
general superintendency of the household and the administration
of justice, a person who by his authority
might keep some order in the ruling family and
in the state. The Court of Directors authorized them
to assure those offices to him, with a salary reduced
indeed to 30,000<i>l.</i> a year, during his good behavior.
But Mr. Hastings, as soon as he obtained a majority
by the death of the two best men ever sent to India,
notwithstanding the orders of the Court of Directors,
in spite of the public faith solemnly pledged to Mahomed
Reza Kh&acirc;n, without a shadow of complaint,
had the audacity to dispossess him of all his offices,
and appoint his bribing patroness, the old dancing-girl,
Munny Begum, once more to the viceroyalty and all
its attendant honors and functions.</p>

<p>The pretence was more insolent and shameless
than the act. Modesty does not long survive innocence.
He brings forward the miserable pageant of
the Nabob, as he called him, to be the instrument
of his own disgrace, and the scandal of his family
and government. He makes him to pass by his
mother, and to petition us to appoint Munny Begum
once more to the administration of the viceroyalty.
He distributed Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n's salary as a
spoil.</p>

<p>When the orders of the Court to restore Mahomed
Reza Kh&acirc;n, with their opinion on the corrupt cause
of his removal, and a second time to pledge to him
the public faith for his continuance, were received,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">{34}</a></span>
Mr. Hastings, who had been just before a pattern of
obedience, when the despoiling, oppressing, imprisoning,
and persecuting this man was the object, yet,
when the order was of a beneficial nature, and pleasant
to a well-formed mind, he at once loses all his
old principles, he grows stubborn and refractory, and
refuses obedience. And in this sullen, uncomplying
mood he continues, until, to gratify Mr. Francis, in
an agreement on some of their differences, he consented
to his proposition of obedience to the appointment
of the Court of Directors. He grants to his
arrangement of convenience what he had refused to
his duty, and replaces that magistrate. But mark
the double character of the man, never true to anything
but fraud and duplicity. At the same time
that he publicly replaces this magistrate, pretending
compliance with his colleague and obedience to his
masters, he did, in defiance of his own and the public
faith, privately send an assurance to the Nabob, that
is, to Munny Begum,&mdash;informs her that he was compelled
by necessity to the present arrangement in
favor of Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n, but that on the first
opportunity he would certainly displace him again.
And he kept faith with his corruption; and to show
how vainly any one sought protection in the lawful
authority of this kingdom, he displaced Mahomed
Reza Kh&acirc;n from the lieutenancy and controllership,
leaving him only the judicial department miserably
curtailed.</p>

<p>But does he adhere to his old pretence of freedom
to the Nabob? No such thing. He appoints an absolute
master to him under the name of Resident,
a creature of his personal favor, Sir John D'Oyly,
from whom there is not one syllable of correspondence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">{35}</a></span>
and not one item of account. How grievous this
yoke was to that miserable captive appears by a paper
of Mr. Hastings, in which he acknowledges that
the Nabob had offered, out of the 160,000<i>l.</i> payable to
him yearly, to give up to the Company no less than
40,000<i>l.</i> a year, in order to have the free disposal of
the rest. On this all comment is superfluous. Your
Lordships are furnished with a standard by which
you may estimate his real receipt from the revenue
assigned to him, the nature of the pretended Residency,
and its predatory effects. It will give full credit to
what was generally rumored and believed, that substantially
and beneficially the Nabob never received
fifty out of the one hundred and sixty thousand
pounds; which will account for his known poverty
and wretchedness, and that of all about him.</p>

<p>Thus by his corrupt traffic of bribes with one scandalous
woman he disgraced and enfeebled the native
Mahomedan government, captived the person of the
sovereign, and ruined and subverted the justice of
the country. What is worse, the steps taken for the
murder of Nundcomar, his accuser, have confirmed
and given sanction not only to the corruptions then
practised by the Governor-General, but to all of which
he has since been guilty. This will furnish your
Lordships with some general idea which will enable
you to judge of the bribe for which he sold the
country government.</p>

<p>Under this head you will have produced to you full
proof of his sale of a judicial office to a person called
Kh&acirc;n Jehan Kh&acirc;n, and the modes he took to frustrate
all inquiry on that subject, upon a wicked and
false pretence, that, according to his religious scruples,
he could not be sworn.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">{36}</a></span></p>

<p>The great end and object I have in view is to show
the criminal tendency, the mischievous nature of these
crimes, and the means taken to elude their discovery.
I am now giving your Lordships that general view
which may serve to characterize Mr. Hastings's administration
in all the other parts of it.</p>

<p>It was not true in fact, as Mr. Hastings gives out,
that there was nothing now against him, and that,
when he had got rid of Nundcomar and his charge,
he got rid of the whole. No such thing. An immense
load of charges of bribery remained. They
were coming afterwards from every part of the province;
and there was no office in the execution of
justice which he was not accused of having sold in
the most flagitious manner.</p>

<p>After all this thundering the sky grew calm and
clear, and Mr. Hastings sat with recorded peculation,
with peculation proved upon oath on the minutes of
that very Council,&mdash;he sat at the head of that Council
and that board where his peculations were proved
against him. These were afterwards transmitted and
recorded in the registers of his masters, as an eternal
monument of his corruption, and of his high disobedience,
and flagitious attempts to prevent a discovery
of the various peculations of which he had
been guilty, to the disgrace and ruin of the country
committed to his care.</p>

<p>Mr. Hastings, after the execution of Nundcomar, if
he had intended to make even a decent and commonly
sensible use of it, would naturally have said, "This
man is justly taken away who has accused me of these
crimes; but as there are other witnesses, as there are
other means of a further inquiry, as the man is gone
of whose perjuries I might have reason to be afraid,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">{37}</a></span>
let us now go into the inquiry." I think he did very
ill not to go into the inquiry when the man was alive;
but be it so, that he was afraid of him, and waited till
he was removed, why not afterwards go into such an
inquiry? Why not go into an inquiry of all the other
peculations and charges upon him, which were innumerable,
one of which I have just mentioned in particular,
the charge of Munny Begum, of having received
from her, or her adopted son, a bribe of 40,000<i>l.</i>?</p>

<p>Is it fit for a governor to say, will Mr. Hastings say
before this august assembly, "I may be accused in a
court of justice,&mdash;I am upon my defence,&mdash;let all
charges remain against me,&mdash;I will not give you an
account"? Is it fit that a governor should sit with
recorded bribery upon him at the head of a public
board and the government of a great kingdom, when
it is in his power by inquiry to do it away? No:
the chastity of character of a man in that situation
ought to be as dear to him as his innocence. Nay,
more depended upon it. His innocence regarded himself;
his character regarded the public justice, regarded
his authority, and the respect due to the English
in that country. I charge it upon him, that not
only did he suppress the inquiry to the best of his
power, (and it shall be proved,) but he did not in any
one instance endeavor to clear off that imputation and
reproach from the English government. He went
further; he never denied hardly any of those charges
at the time. They are so numerous that I cannot
be positive; some of them he might meet with some
sort of denial, but the most part he did not.</p>

<p>The first thing a man under such an accusation
owes to the world is to deny the charge; next, to put
it to the proof; and lastly, to let inquiry freely go on.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">{38}</a></span>
He did not permit this, but stopped it all in his power.
I am to mention some exceptions, perhaps, hereafter,
which will tend to fortify the principle tenfold.</p>

<p>He promised, indeed, the Court of Directors (to
whom he never denied the facts) a full and liberal
explanation of these transactions; which full and liberal
explanation he never gave. Many years passed;
even Parliament took notice of it; and he never
gave them a liberal explanation, or any explanation
at all of them. A man may say, "I am threatened
with a suit in a court, and it may be very disadvantageous
to me, if I disclose my defence." That
is a proper answer for a man in common life, who
has no particular character to sustain; but is that
a proper answer for a governor accused of bribery,
that accusation transmitted to his masters, and his
masters giving credit to it? Good God! is that a
state in which a man is to say, "I am upon the defensive&mdash;I
am on my guard,&mdash;I will give you no satisfaction,&mdash;I
have promised it, but I have already
deferred it for seven or eight years"? Is not this
tantamount to a denial?</p>

<p>Mr. Hastings, with this great body of bribery
against him, was providentially freed from Nundcomar,
one of his accusers, and, as good events do not
come alone, (I think there is some such proverb,) it
did so happen that all the rest, or a great many of
them, ran away. But, however, the recorded evidence
of the former charges continued; no new evidence
came in; and Mr. Hastings enjoyed that happy repose
which branded peculation, fixed and eternized upon
the records of the Company, must leave upon a mind
conscious of its own integrity.</p>

<p>My Lords, I will venture to say, there is no man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">{39}</a></span>
but owes something to his character. It is the grace,
undoubtedly, of a virtuous, firm mind often to despise
common, vulgar calumny; but if ever there is an
occasion in which it does become such a mind to disprove
it, it is the case of being charged in high office
with pecuniary malversation, pecuniary corruption.
There is no case in which it becomes an honest man,
much less a great man, to leave upon record specific
charges against him of corruption in his government,
without taking any one step whatever to refute them.</p>

<p>Though Mr. Hastings took no step to refute the
charges, he took many steps to punish the authors of
them; and those miserable people who had the folly
to make complaints against Mr. Hastings, to make
them under the authority of an act of Parliament,
under every sanction of public faith, yet, in consequence
of those charges, every person concerned in
them has been, as your Lordships will see, since his
restoration to power, absolutely undone, brought from
the highest situation to the lowest misery, so that
they may have good reason to repent they ever trusted
an English Council, that they ever trusted a Court
of Directors, that they ever trusted an English act
of Parliament, that they ever dared to make their
complaints.</p>

<p>And here I charge upon Mr. Hastings, that, by
never taking a single step to defeat or detect the
falsehood of any of those charges against him, and
by punishing the authors of them, he has been guilty
of such a subversion of all the principles of British
government as will deserve, and will I dare say meet,
your Lordships' most severe animadversion.</p>

<p>In the course of this inquiry we find a sort of
pause in his peculations, a sort of gap in the history,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">{40}</a></span>
as if pages were torn out. No longer we meet with
the same activity in taking money that was before
found; not even a trace of complimentary presents
is to be found in the records during the time whilst
General Clavering, Colonel Monson, and Mr. Francis
formed the majority of the Council. There seems
to have been a kind of truce with that sort of conduct
for a while, and Mr. Hastings rested upon his
arms. However, the very moment Mr. Hastings returned
to power, peculation began again just at the
same instant; the moment we find him free from the
compulsion and terror of a majority of persons otherwise
disposed than himself, we find him at his peculation
again.</p>

<p>My Lords, at this time very serious inquiries had
begun in the House of Commons concerning peculation.
They did not go directly to Bengal, but they
began upon the coast of Coromandel, and with the
principal governors there. There was, however, an
universal opinion (and justly founded) that these inquiries
would go to far greater lengths. Mr. Hastings
was resolved, then, to change the whole course
and order of his proceeding. Nothing could persuade
him, upon any account, to lay aside his system
of bribery: that he was resolved to persevere in.
The point was now to reconcile it with his safety.
The first thing he did was to attempt to conceal it;
and accordingly we find him depositing very great
sums of money in the public treasury through the
means of the two persons I have already mentioned,
namely, the deputy-treasurer and the accountant,&mdash;paying
them in and taking bonds for them as money
of his own, and bearing legal interest. This was his
method of endeavoring to conceal some at least of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">{41}</a></span>
bribes: for I would not suggest, nor have your Lordships
to think, that I believe that these were his only
bribes,&mdash;for there is reason to think there was an
infinite number besides; but it did so happen that
they were those bribes which he thought might be
discovered, some of which he knew were discovered,
and all of which he knew might become the subject
of a Parliamentary inquiry.</p>

<p>Mr. Hastings said he might have concealed them
forever. Every one knows the facility of concealing
corrupt transactions everywhere, in India particularly.
But this is by himself proved not to be universally
true, at least not to be true in his own opinion;
for he tells you, in his letter from Cheltenham, that
he <i>would</i> have concealed the Nabob's 100,000<i>l.</i>, but
that the magnitude rendered it easy of discovery.
He, therefore, avows an intention of concealment.</p>

<p>But it happens here, very singularly, that this sum,
which his fears of discovery by <i>others</i> obliged him to
discover <i>himself</i>, happens to be one of those of which
no trace whatsoever appears, except merely from the
operation of his own apprehensions. There is no
collateral testimony: Middleton knew nothing of it;
Anderson knew nothing of it; it was not directly
communicated to the faithful Larkins or the trusty
Croftes;&mdash;which proves, indeed, the facility of concealment.
The fact is, you find the application always
upon the discovery. But concealment or discovery
is a thing of accident.</p>

<p>The bribes which I have hitherto brought before
your Lordships belong to the first period of his bribery,
before he thought of the doctrine on which he
has since defended it. There are many other bribes
which we charge him with having received during<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">{42}</a></span>
this first period, before an improving conversation
and close virtuous connection with great lawyers had
taught him how to practise bribes in such a manner
as to defy detection, and instead of punishment to
plead merit. I am not bound to find order and consistency
in guilt: it is the reign of disorder. The
order of the proceeding, as far as I am able to trace
such a scene of prevarication, direct fraud, falsehood,
and falsification of the public accounts, was this.
From bribes he knew he could never abstain; and
his then precarious situation made him the more rapacious.
He knew that a few of his former bribes
had been discovered, declared, recorded,&mdash;that for
the moment, indeed, he was secure, because all informers
had been punished and all concealers rewarded.
He expected hourly a total change in the
Council, and that men like Clavering and Monson
might be again joined to Francis, that some great
avenger should arise from their ashes,&mdash;"<i>Exoriare,
aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor</i>,"&mdash;and that a more severe
investigation and an infinitely more full display
would be made of his robbery than hitherto had been
done. He therefore began, in the agony of his guilt,
to cast about for some device by which he might continue
his offence, if possible, with impunity,&mdash;and
possibly make a merit of it. He therefore first carefully
perused the act of Parliament forbidding bribery,
and his old covenant engaging him not to receive
presents. And here he was more successful than upon
former occasions. If ever an act was studiously
and carefully framed to prevent bribery, it is that
law of the 13th of the King, which he well observes
admits no latitudes of construction, no subterfuge,
no escape, no evasion. Yet has he found a defence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">{43}</a></span>
of his crimes even in the very provisions which were
made for their prevention and their punishment.
Besides the penalty which belongs to every informer,
the East India Company was invested with a fiction
of property in all such bribes, in order to drag them
with more facility out of the corrupt hands which
held them. The covenant, with an exception of
one hundred pounds, and the act of Parliament, without
any exception, declared that the Governor-General
and Council should receive no presents <i>for their
own use</i>. He therefore concluded that the system
of bribery and extortion might be clandestinely and
safely carried on, provided the party taking the bribes
had an inward intention and mental reservation that
they should be privately applied to the Company's
service in any way the briber should think fit, and
that on many occasions this would prove the best
method of supply for the exigencies of their service.</p>

<p>He accordingly formed, or pretended to form, a private
bribe exchequer, collateral with and independent
of the Company's public exchequer, though in some
cases administered by those whom for his purposes
he had placed in the regular official department.
It is no wonder that he has taken to himself an extraordinary
degree of merit. For surely such an invention
of finance, I believe, never was heard of,&mdash;an
exchequer wherein extortion was the assessor,
fraud the cashier, confusion the accountant, concealment
the reporter, and oblivion the remembrancer:
in short, such as I believe no man, but one driven by
guilt into frenzy, could ever have dreamed of.</p>

<p>He treats the official and regular Directors with
just contempt, as a parcel of mean, mechanical book-keepers.
He is an eccentric book-keeper, a Pindaric<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">{44}</a></span>
accountant. I have heard of "the poet's eye in a
fine frenzy rolling." Here was a revenue exacted
from whom he pleased, at what times he pleased, in
what proportions he pleased, through what persons he
pleased, by what means he pleased, to be accounted
for or not, at his discretion, and to be applied to what
service he thought proper. I do believe your Lordships
stand astonished at this scheme; and indeed I
should be very loath to venture to state such a scheme
at all, however I might have credited it myself, to any
sober ears, if, in his defence before the House of Commons,
and before the Lords, he had not directly admitted
the fact of taking the bribes or forbidden presents,
and had not in those defences, and much more fully
in his correspondence with the Directors, admitted
the fact, and justified it upon these very principles.</p>

<p>As this is a thing so unheard-of and unexampled
in the world, I shall first endeavor to account as well
as I can for his motives to it, which your Lordships
will receive or reject, just as you shall find them tally
with the evidence before you: I say, his motives to
it; because I contend that public valid reasons for it
he could have none; and the idea of making the corruption
of the Governor-General a resource to the
Company never did or could for a moment enter into
his thoughts. I shall then take notice of the juridical
constructions upon which he justifies his acting
in this extraordinary manner; and lastly, show you
the concealments, prevarications, and falsehoods with
which he endeavors to cover it. Because wherever
you find a concealment you make a discovery. Accounts
of money received and paid ought to be regular
and official.</p>

<p>He wrote over to the Court of Directors, that there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">{45}</a></span>
were certain sums of money he had received and
which were not his own, but that he had received
them for their use. By this time his intercourse with
gentlemen of the law became more considerable than
it had been before. When first attacked for presents,
he never denied the receipt of them, or pretended to
say they were for public purposes; but upon looking
more into the covenants, and probably with better
legal advice, he found that no money could be legally
received for his own use; but as these bribes were
directly given and received as for his own use, yet
(says he) "there was an inward destination of them
in my own mind to your benefit, and to your benefit
have I applied them."</p>

<p>Now here is a new system of bribery, contrary to
law, very ingenious in the contrivance, but, I believe,
as unlikely to produce its intended effect upon the
mind of man as any pretence that was ever used.
Here Mr. Hastings changes his ground. Before, he
was accused as a peculator; he did not deny the fact;
he did not refund the money; he fought it off; he
stood upon the defensive, and used all the means in his
power to prevent the inquiry. That was the first era
of his corruption,&mdash;a bold, ferocious, plain, downright
use of power. In the second, he is grown a little
more careful and guarded,&mdash;the effect of subtilty.
He appears no longer as a defendant; he holds himself
up with a firm, dignified, and erect countenance,
and says, "I am not here any longer as a delinquent,
a receiver of bribes, to be punished for what I have
done wrong, or at least to suffer in my character for
it. No: I am a great inventive genius, who have gone
out of all the ordinary roads of finance, have made
great discoveries in the unknown regions of that sci<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">{46}</a></span>ence,
and have for the first time established the corruption
of the supreme magistrate as a principle of
resource for government."</p>

<p>There are crimes, undoubtedly, of great magnitude,
naturally fitted to create horror, and that
loudly call for punishment, that have yet no idea of
<i>turpitude</i> annexed to them; but unclean hands, bribery,
venality, and peculation are offences of turpitude,
such as, in a governor, at once debase the person
and degrade the government itself, making it not
only <i>horrible</i>, but vile and contemptible in the eyes of
all mankind. In this humiliation and abjectness of
guilt, he comes here not as a criminal on his defence,
but as a vast fertile genius who has made astonishing
discoveries in the art of government,&mdash;"<i>Dicam insigne,
recens, alio indictum ore</i>"&mdash;who, by his flaming
zeal and the prolific ardor and energy of his mind, has
boldly dashed out of the common path, and served
his country by new and untrodden ways; and now
he generously communicates, for the benefit of all
future governors and all future governments, the
grand arcanum of his long and toilsome researches.
He is the first, but, if we do not take good
care, he will not be the last, that has established
the corruption of the supreme magistrate among the
settled resources of the state; and he leaves this
principle as a bountiful donation, as the richest deposit
that ever was made in the treasury of Bengal.
He claims glory and renown from that by which
every other person since the beginning of time has
been dishonored and disgraced. It has been said of
an ambassador, that he is a person employed to tell
lies for the advantage of the court that sends him.
His is patriotic bribery, and public-spirited corrup<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">{47}</a></span>tion.
He is a peculator for the good of his country.
It has been said that private vices are public benefits.
He goes the full length of that position, and turns his
private peculation into a public good. This is what
you are to thank him for. You are to consider him
as a great inventor upon this occasion. Mr. Hastings
improves on this principle. He is a robber in
gross, and a thief in detail,&mdash;he steals, he filches, he
plunders, he oppresses, he extorts,&mdash;all for the good
of the dear East India Company,&mdash;all for the advantage
of his honored masters, the Proprietors,&mdash;all in
gratitude to the dear perfidious Court of Directors,
who have been in a practice to heap "insults on his
person, slanders on his character, and indignities on
his station,&mdash;who never had the confidence in him
that they had in the meanest of his predecessors."</p>

<p>If you sanction this practice, if, after all you have
exacted from the people by your taxes and public
imposts, you are to let loose your servants upon them,
to extort by bribery and peculation what they can
from them, for the purpose of applying it to the public
service only whenever they please, this shocking
consequence will follow from it. If your Governor
is discovered in taking a bribe, he will say, "What
is that to you? mind your business; I intend it
for the public service." The man who dares to accuse
him loses the favor of the Governor-General
and the India Company. They will say, "The Governor
has been doing a meritorious action, extorting
bribes for our benefit, and you have the impudence
to think of prosecuting him." So that the moment
the bribe is detected, it is instantly turned into a
merit: and we shall prove that this is the case with
Mr. Hastings, whenever a bribe has been discovered.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">{48}</a></span></p>

<p>I am now to inform your Lordships, that, when he
made these great discoveries to the Court of Directors,
he never tells them who gave him the money, upon
what occasion he received it, by what hands, or to
what purposes he applied it.</p>

<p>When he can himself give no account of his motives,
and even declares that he cannot assign any
cause, I am authorized and required to find motives
for him,&mdash;corrupt motives for a corrupt act. There
is no one capital act of his administration that did not
strongly imply corruption. When a man is known
to be free from all imputation of taking money, and
it becomes an established part of his character, the
errors or even crimes of his administration ought to
be, and are in general, traced to other sources. You
know it is a maxim. But once convict a man of
bribery in any instance, and once by direct evidence,
and you are furnished with a rule of irresistible presumption
that every other irregular act by which
unlawful gain may arise is done upon the same corrupt
motive. <i>Semel malus pr&aelig;sumitur semper malus.</i>
As for good acts candor, charity, justice oblige me
not to assign evil motives, unless they serve some
scandalous purpose or terminate in some manifest
evil end, so justice, reason, and common sense compel
me to suppose that wicked acts have been done upon
motives correspondent to their nature: otherwise I
reverse all the principles of judgment which can guide
the human mind, and accept even the symptoms, the
marks and criteria of guilt, as presumptions of innocence.
One that confounds good and evil is an enemy
to the good.</p>

<p>His conduct upon these occasions may be thought
irrational. But, thank God, guilt was never a rational<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">{49}</a></span>
thing: it distorts all the faculties of the mind; it perverts
them; it leaves a man no longer in the free
use of his reason; it puts him into confusion. He
has recourse to such miserable and absurd expedients
for covering his guilt as all those who are used to sit
in the seat of judgment know have been the cause of
detection of half the villanies in the world. To argue
that these could not be his reasons, because they were
not wise, sound, and substantial, would be to suppose,
what is not true, that bad men were always discreet
and able. But I can very well from the circumstances
discover motives which may affect a giddy, superficial,
shattered, guilty, anxious, restless mind, full
of the weak resources of fraud, craft, and intrigue,
that might induce him to make these discoveries, and
to make them in the manner he has done. Not rational,
and well-fitted for their purposes, I am very
ready to admit. For God forbid that guilt should
ever leave a man the free, undisturbed use of his
faculties! For as guilt never rose from a true use of
our rational faculties, so it is very frequently subversive
of them. God forbid that prudence, the first of
all the virtues, as well as the supreme director of them
all, should ever be employed in the service of any of
the vices! No: it takes the lead, and is never found
where justice does not accompany it; and if ever it
is attempted to bring it into the service of the vices, it
immediately subverts their cause. It tends to their
discovery, and, I hope and trust, finally to their utter
ruin and destruction.</p>

<p>In the first place, I am to remark to your Lordships,
that the accounts he has given of one of these sums
of money are totally false and contradictory. Now
there is not a stronger presumption, nor can one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">{50}</a></span>
want more reason to judge a transaction fraudulent,
than that the accounts given of it are contradictory;
and he has given three accounts utterly irreconcilable
with each other. He is asked, "How came you to
take bonds for this money, if it was not your own?
How came you to vitiate and corrupt the state of the
Company's records, and to state yourself a lender to
the Company, when in reality you were their debtor?"
His answer was, "I really cannot tell; I have forgot
my reasons; the distance of time is so great," (namely,
a time of about two years, or not so long,) "I
cannot give an account of the matter; perhaps I had
this motive, perhaps I had another," (but what is the
most curious,) "perhaps I had none at all which I
can now recollect." You shall hear the account
which Mr. Hastings himself gives, his own fraudulent
representation, of these corrupt transactions. "For
my motives for withholding the several receipts from
the knowledge of the Council, or of the Court of Directors,
and for taking bonds for part of these sums
and paying others into the treasury as deposits on my
own account, I have generally accounted in my letter
to the Honorable the Court of Directors of the 22d of
May, 1782,&mdash;namely, that I either chose to conceal the
first receipts from public curiosity by receiving bonds
for the amount, or possibly acted without any studied
design which my memory at that distance of time
could verify, and that I did not think it worth my
care to observe the same means with the rest. It will
not be expected that I should be able to give a more
correct explanation of my intentions after a lapse of
three years, having declared at the time that many
particulars had escaped my remembrance; neither
shall I attempt to add more than the clearer affirma<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">{51}</a></span>tion
of the facts implied in that report of them, and
such inferences as necessarily, or with a strong probability,
follow them."</p>

<p>My Lords, you see, as to any direct explanation,
that he fairly gives it up: he has used artifice and
stratagem, which he knows will not do; and at last
attempts to cover the treachery of his conduct by
the treachery of his memory. Frequent applications
were made to Mr. Hastings upon this article from the
Company,&mdash;gentle hints, <i>gemitus columb&aelig;</i>,&mdash;rather,
little amorous complaints that he was not more open
and communicative; but all these gentle insinuations
were never able to draw from him any further account
till he came to England. When he came here, he
left not only his memory, but all his notes and references,
behind in India. When in India the Company
could get no account of them, because he himself
was not in England; and when he was in England,
they could get no account, because his papers were
in India. He then sends over to Mr. Larkins to give
that account of his affairs which he was not able to
give himself. Observe, here is a man taking money
privately, corruptly, and which was to be sanctified
by the future application of it, taking false securities
to cover it, and who, when called upon to tell whom
he got the money from, for what ends, and on what
occasion, neither will tell in India nor can tell in
England, but sends for such an account as he has
thought proper to furnish.</p>

<p>I am now to bring before you an account of what I
think much the most serious part of the effects of
his system of bribery, corruption, and peculation.
My Lords, I am to state to you the astonishing and
almost incredible means he made use of to lay all the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">{52}</a></span>
country under contribution, to bring the whole into
such dejection as should put his bribes out of the
way of discovery. Such another example of boldness
and contrivance I believe the world cannot furnish.</p>

<p>I have already shown, amongst the mass of his
corruptions, that he let the whole of the lands to farm
to the banians; next, that he sold the whole Mahomedan
government of that country to a woman. This
was bold enough, one should think; but without entering
into the circumstances of the revenue change in
1772, I am to tell your Lordships that he had appointed
six Provincial Councils, each consisting of many
members, who had the ordinary administration of civil
justice in that country, and the whole business of the
collection of the revenues.</p>

<p>These Provincial Councils accounted to the Governor-General
and Council, who in the revenue department
had the whole management, control, and
regulation of the revenue. Mr. Hastings did in several
papers to the Court of Directors declare, that the
establishment of these Provincial Councils, which at
first he stated only as experimental, had proved useful
in the experiment,&mdash;and on that use, and upon
that experiment, he had sent even the plan of an act
of Parliament, to have it confirmed with the last and
most sacred authority of this country. The Court of
Directors desired, that, if he thought any other method
more proper, he would send it to them for their
approbation.</p>

<p>Thus the whole face of the British government, the
whole of its order and constitution, remained from
1772 to 1781. He had got rid, some time before
this period, by death, of General Clavering, by death,
of Colonel Monson, and by vexation and persecution,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">{53}</a></span>
and his consequent dereliction of authority, he had
shaken off Mr. Francis. The whole Council consisting
only of himself and Mr. Wheler, he, having
the casting vote, was in effect the whole Council;
and if ever there was a time when principle, decency,
and decorum rendered it improper for him to do any
extraordinary acts without the sanction of the Court
of Directors, that was the time. Mr. Wheler was
taken off,&mdash;despair perhaps rendering the man, who
had been in opposition futilely before, compliable.
The man is dead. He certainly did not oppose him;
if he had, it would have been in vain. But those
very circumstances which rendered it atrocious in
Mr. Hastings to make any change induced him to
make this. He thought that a moment's time was
not to be lost,&mdash;that other colleagues might come,
where he might be overpowered by a majority again,
and not able to pursue his corrupt plans. Therefore
he was resolved,&mdash;your Lordships will remark the
whole of this most daring and systematic plan of bribery
and peculation,&mdash;he resolved to put it out of the
power of his Council in future to check or control
him in any of his evil practices.</p>

<p>The first thing he did was to form an ostensible
council at Calcutta for the management of the revenues,
which was not effectually bound, except it
thought fit, to make any reference to the Supreme
Council. He delegated to them&mdash;that is, to four
covenanted servants&mdash;those functions which by act
of Parliament and the Company's orders were to be
exercised by the Council-General; he delegated to
four gentlemen, creatures of his own, his own powers,
but he laid them out to good interest. It appears odd
that one of the first acts to a Governor-General, so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">{54}</a></span>
jealous of his power as he is known to be, as soon as
he had all the power in his own hands, should be to
put all the revenues out of his own control. This
upon the first view is an extraordinary proceeding.
His next step was, without apprising the Court of
Directors of his intention, or without having given
an idea of any such intention to his colleagues while
alive, either those who died in India, or those who
afterwards returned to Europe, in one day, in a moment,
to annihilate the whole authority of the Provincial
Councils, and delegate the whole power to these
four gentlemen.</p>

<p>These four gentlemen had for their secretary an
agent given them by Mr. Hastings: a name that you
will often hear of; a name at the sound of which all
India turns pale; the most wicked, the most atrocious,
the boldest, the most dexterous villain that ever
the rank servitude of that country has produced. My
Lords, I am speaking with the most assured freedom,
because there never was a friend of Mr. Hastings,
there never was a foe of Mr. Hastings, there never was
any human person, that ever differed on this occasion,
or expressed any other idea of Gunga Govind Sing, the
friend of Mr. Hastings, whom he intrusted with this
important post. But you shall hear, from the account
given by themselves, what the Council thought
of their functions, of their efficiency for the charge,
and in whose hands that efficiency really was. I beg,
hope, and trust, that your Lordships will learn from
the persons themselves who were appointed to execute
the office their opinion of the real execution of
it, in order that you may judge of the plan for which
he destroyed the whole English administration in
India.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">{55}</a></span></p>

<p>"The Committee must have a dewan, or executive
officer, call him by what name you please. This
man, in fact, has all the revenue paid at the Presidency
at his disposal, and can, if he has any abilities,
bring all the renters under contribution. It is little
advantage to restrain the Committee themselves from
bribery or corruption, when their executive officer
has the power of practising both undetected. To
display the arts employed by a native on such occasions
would fill a volume. He discovers the secret
resources of the zemindars and renters, their enemies
and competitors; and by the engines of hope and fear,
raised upon these foundations, he can work them to
his purpose. The Committee, with the best intentions,
best abilities, and steadiest application, must
after all be a tool in the hands of their dewan."</p>

<p>Your Lordships see what the opinion of the Council
was of their own constitution. You see for what
it was made. You see for what purposes the great
revenue trust was taken from the Council-General,
from the supreme government. You see for what
purposes the executive power was destroyed. You
have it from one of the gentlemen of this commission,
at first four in number, and afterwards five, who was
the most active, efficient member of it. You see it was
made for the purpose of being a tool in the hands of
Gunga Govind Sing; that integrity, ability, and vigilance
could avail nothing; that the whole country
might be laid under contribution by this man, and that
he could thus practise bribery with impunity. Thus
your Lordships see the delegation of all the authority
of the country, above and below, is given by Mr. Hastings
to this Gunga Govind Sing. The screen, the veil,
spread before this transaction, is torn open by the very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">{56}</a></span>
people themselves who are the tools in it. They confess
they can do nothing; they know they are instruments
in the hands of Gunga Govind Sing; and Mr.
Hastings uses his name and authority to make them
such in the hands of the basest, the wickedest, the
corruptest, the most audacious and atrocious villain
ever heard of. It is to him all the English authority
is sacrificed, and four gentlemen are appointed to be
his tools and instruments. Tools and instruments
for what? They themselves state, that, if he has the
inclination, he has the power and ability to lay the
whole country under contribution, that he enters into
the most minute secrets of every individual in it, gets
into the bottom of their family affairs, and has a power
totally to subvert and destroy them; and we shall
show upon that head, that he well fulfilled the purposes
for which he was appointed. Did Mr. Hastings
pretend to say that he destroyed the Provincial Councils
for their corruptness or insufficiency, when he
dissolved them? No: he says he has no objection to
their competency, no charge to make against their
conduct, but that he has destroyed them for his new
arrangement. And what is his new arrangement?
Gunga Govind Sing. Forty English gentlemen were
removed from their offices by that change. Mr. Hastings
did it, however, very economically; for all these
gentlemen were instantly put upon pensions, and
consequently burdened the establishment with a new
charge. Well, but the new Council was formed and
constituted upon a very economical principle also.
These five gentlemen, you will have it in proof, with
the necessary expenses of their office, were a charge
of 62,000<i>l.</i> a year upon the establishment. But for
great, eminent, capital services, 62,000<i>l.</i>, though a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">{57}</a></span>
much larger sum than what was thought fit to be allowed
for the members of the Supreme Council itself,
may be admitted. I will pass it. It shall be granted
to Mr. Hastings, that these pensions, though they created
a new burden on the establishment, were all
well disposed, provided the Council did their duty.
But you have heard what they say themselves: they
are not there put to do any duty; they can do no duty;
their abilities, their integrity, avail them nothing;
they are tools in the hands of Gunga Govind Sing.
Mr. Hastings, then, has loaded the revenue with
62,000<i>l.</i> a year to make Gunga Govind Sing master
of the kingdoms of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa.
What must the thing to be moved be, when the machinery,
when the necessary tools, for Gunga Govind
Sing have cost 62,000<i>l.</i> a year to the Company?
There it is; it is not my representation, not the representation
of observant strangers, of good and decent
people, that understand the nature of that service,
but the opinion of the tools themselves.</p>

<p>Now did Mr. Hastings employ Gunga Govind Sing
without a knowledge of his character? His character
was known to Mr. Hastings: it was recorded long
before, when he was turned out of another office.
"During my long residence," says he, "in this country,
this is the first time I heard of the character of
Gunga Govind Sing being infamous. No information
I have received, though I have heard <i>many</i> people
speak ill of him, ever pointed to any particular <i>act</i> 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,&mdash;"He had many enemies
at the time he was proposed to be employed in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">{58}</a></span>
the Company's service, and not <i>one advocate</i> 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 <i>specific</i>
facts. I have heard him loaded, as I have many
others, with general reproaches, but have never heard
any one express a doubt of <i>his abilities</i>." 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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>I do, then, declare my conviction, and wish it may<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">{59}</a></span>
stand recorded to posterity, that there never was a
<i>bad man</i> that had ability for <i>good service</i>. 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 nothing, but how to pursue selfish ends
by wicked and indirect means. No man ever knowingly
employed a bad man on account of his abilities,
but for evil ends. Mr. Hastings knew this man to be
bad; all the world knew him to be bad; and how did
he employ him? In such a manner as that he might
be controlled by others? A great deal might be said
for him, if this had been the case. There might be
circumstances in which such a man might be used
in a subordinate capacity. But who ever thought
of putting such a man virtually in possession of the
whole authority both of the Committee and the
Council-General, and of the revenues of the whole
country?</p>

<p>As soon as we find Gunga Govind Sing here, we
find him employed in the way in which he was meant
to be employed: that is to say, we find him employed
in taking corrupt bribes and corrupt presents for Mr.
Hastings. Though the Committee were tools in his
hands, he was a tool in the hands of Mr. Hastings;
for he had, as we shall prove, constant, uniform, and
close communications with Mr. Hastings. And, indeed,
we may be saved a good deal of the trouble of
proof; for Mr. Hastings himself, by acknowledging him
to be his bribe-broker, has pretty well authenticated a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">{60}</a></span>
secret correspondence between them. For the next
great bribe as yet discovered to be taken by Mr. Hastings,
about the time of his great operation of 1781,
was the bribe of 40,000<i>l.</i>, which we charge to have
been privately taken from one of two persons, but from
which is not yet ascertained, but paid to him through
this flagitious black agent of his iniquities, Gunga Govind
Sing. The discovery is made by another agent
of his, called Mr. Larkins, one of his white bribe-confidants,
and by him made Accountant-General to the
Supreme Presidency. For this sum, so clandestinely
and corruptly taken, he received a bond to himself, on
his own account, as for money lent to the Company.
For, upon the frequent, pressing, tender solicitations
of the Court of Directors, always insinuated to him in
a very delicate manner, Mr. Hastings had written to
Mr. Larkins to find out, if he could, some of his own
bribes; and accordingly Mr. Larkins sent over an
account of various bribes,&mdash;an account which, even
before it comes directly in evidence before you, it will
be pleasant to your Lordships to read. In this account,
under the head, "<i>Dinagepore, No. 1</i>," I find
"<i>Duplicate copy of the particulars of debts, in which
the component parts of sundry sums received on the account
of the Honorable Company of Merchants trading
to the East Indies were received by Mr. Hastings and
paid to the Sub-Treasurer</i>." We find here, "<i>Dinagepore
peshcush, four lacs of rupees, cabooleat</i>": that is,
an agreement to pay four lacs of rupees, of which
three were received and one remained in balance at
the time this account was made out. All that we can
learn from this account, after all our researches, after
all the Court of Directors could do to squeeze it out
of him, is, that he received from Dinagepore, at twelve<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">{61}</a></span>
monthly payments, a sum of about three lacs of rupees,
upon an engagement to pay him four; that is, he
received about 30,000<i>l.</i> out of 40,000<i>l.</i> which was to
be paid him: and we are told that he received this
sum through the hands of Gunga Govind Sing; and
that he was exceedingly angry with Gunga Govind
Sing for having kept back or defrauded him of the
sum of 10,000<i>l.</i> out of the 40,000<i>l.</i> To keep back
from him the fourth part of the whole bribe was very
reprehensible behavior in Gunga Govind Sing, certainly
very unworthy of the great and high trust
which Mr. Hastings reposed in his integrity. My
Lords, this letter tells us Mr. Hastings was much irritated
at Gunga Govind Sing. You will hereafter see
how Mr. Hastings behaves to persons against whom
he is irritated for their frauds upon him in their
joint concerns. In the mean time Gunga Govind
Sing rests with you as a person with whom Mr. Hastings
is displeased on account of infidelity in the honorable
trust of bribe undertaker and manager.</p>

<p>My Lords, you are not very much enlightened,
I believe, by seeing these words, <i>Dinagepore peshcush</i>.
We find a province, we find a sum of money, we find
an agent, and we find a receiver. The <i>province</i> is
<i>Dinagepore</i>, the <i>agent</i> is <i>Gunga Govind Sing</i>, the <i>sum</i>
agreed on is 40,000<i>l.</i>, and the <i>receiver</i> of a part of
that is <i>Mr. Hastings</i>. This is all that can be seen.
Who it was that gave this sum of money to Mr. Hastings
in this manner does no way appear; it is <i>murder
by persons unknown</i>: and this is the way in which
Mr. Hastings, after all the reiterated solicitations of
Parliament, of the Company, and the public, has left
the account of this bribe.</p>

<p>Let us, however, now see what was the state of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">{62}</a></span>
transactions at Dinagepore at that period. For, if
Mr. Hastings in the transactions at that period did
anything for that country, it must be presumed this
money was given for those acts; for Mr. Hastings confesses
it was a sum of money corruptly received, but
honestly applied. It does not signify much, at first
view, from whom he received it; it is enough to fix
upon him that he did receive it. But because the
consequences of his bribes make the main part of what
I intend to bring before your Lordships, I shall beg
to state to you, with your indulgence, what I have
been able to discover by a very close investigation
of the records respecting this business of Dinagepore.</p>

<p>Dinagepore, Rungpore, and Edrackpore make a
country, I believe, pretty nearly as large as all the
northern counties of England, Yorkshire included.
It is no mean country, and it has a prince of great,
ancient, illustrious descent at the head of it, called
the Rajah of Dinagepore.</p>

<p>I find, that, about the month of July, 1780, the Rajah
of Dinagepore, after a long and lingering illness,
died, leaving an half-brother and an adopted son.
A litigation respecting the succession instantly arose
in the family; and this litigation was of course referred
to, and was finally to be decided by, the Governor-General
in Council,&mdash;being the ultimate authority
to which the decision of all these questions was
to be referred. This cause came before Mr. Hastings,
and I find that he decided the question in favor of the
adopted son of the Rajah against his half-brother. I
find that upon that decision a rent was settled, and
a peshcush, or fine, paid. So that all that is in this
transaction is fair and above-board: there is a dispute
settled; there is a fine paid; there is a rent reserved<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">{63}</a></span>
to the Company; and the whole is a fair settlement.
But I find along with it very extraordinary acts; for
I find Mr. Hastings taking part in favor of the minor,
agreeably to the principles of others, and contrary to
his own. I find that he gave the guardianship of
this adopted son to the brother of the Ranny, as she
is called, or the widow of the deceased Rajah; and
though the hearing and settling of this business was
actually a part of the duty of his office, yet I find,
that, when the steward of the province of Dinagepore
was coming down to represent this case to Mr. Hastings,
Mr. Hastings, on pretence that it would only
tend to increase the family dissensions, so far from
hearing fully all the parties in this business, not only
sent him back, but ordered him to be actually turned
out of his office. If, then, the 40,000<i>l.</i> be the same
with the money taken from the Rajah in 1780, to
which account it seems to refer, (for it was taken in
regular payments, beginning July, 1780, and ending
at the same period in 1781,) it was a sum of money
corruptly taken by him as a judge in a litigation of
inheritance between two great parties. So that he
received the sum of 40,000<i>l.</i> for a judgment; which,
whether that judgment was right or wrong, true or
false, he corruptly received.</p>

<p>This sum was received, as your Lordships will
observe, through Gunga Govind Sing. He was the
broker of the agreement: he was the person who
was to receive it by monthly instalments, and he was
to pay it to Mr. Hastings. His son was in the office
of Register-General of the whole country, who had
in his custody all the papers, documents, and everything
which could tend to settle a litigation among
the parties. If Mr. Hastings took this bribe from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">{64}</a></span>
the Rajah of Dinagepore, he took a bribe from an
infant of five years old through the hands of the
Register. That is, the judge receives a bribe through
the hands of the keeper of the genealogies of the
family, the records and other documents, which must
have had the principal share in settling the question.</p>

<p>This history of this Dinagepore peshcush is the
public one received by the Company, and which is
entered upon the record,&mdash;but not the private, and
probably the true history of this corrupt transaction.</p>

<p>Very soon after this decision, very soon after this
peshcush was given, we find all the officers of the
young Rajah, who was supposed to have given it,
turned out of their employment by Gunga Govind
Sing,&mdash;by the very man who received the peshcush
for Mr. Hastings. We find them all turned out of
their employments; we find them all accused, without
any appearance or trace in the records of any proof
of embezzlement, of neglect in the education of the
minor Rajah, of the mismanagement of his affairs,
or the allotment of an unsuitable allowance. And
accordingly, to prevent the relations of his adopted
mother, to prevent those who might be supposed to
have an immediate interest in the family, from abusing
the trust of his education and the trust of the
management of his fortune, Gunga Govind Sing, (for
I trust your Lordships would not suffer me, if I had
a mind, to quote that tool of a thing, the Committee
of Revenue, bought at 62,000<i>l.</i> a year,&mdash;you would
not suffer me to name it, especially when you know
all the secret agency of bribes in the hand of Gunga
Govind Sing,)&mdash;this Gunga Govind Sing produces
soon after another character, to whom he consigns<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">{65}</a></span>
the custody of the whole family and the whole province.</p>

<p>I will do Mr. Hastings the justice to say, that, if he
had known there was another man more accomplished
in all iniquity than Gunga Govind Sing, he would
not have given him the first place in his confidence.
But there is another next to him in the country,
whom you are to hear of by-and-by, called Debi
Sing. This person, in the universal opinion of all
Bengal, is ranked next to Gunga Govind Sing; and,
what is very curious, they have been recorded by Mr.
Hastings as rivals in the same virtues.</p>

<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i8">Arcades ambo,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Et cantare pares, et respondere parati.<br /></span>
</div></div>

<p class="noindent">But Mr. Hastings has the happiest modes in the
world: these rivals were reconciled on this occasion,
and Gunga Govind Sing appoints Debi Sing, superseding
all the other officers for no reason whatever
upon record. And because, like champions, they
ought to go in pairs, there is an English gentleman,
one Mr. Goodlad, whom you will hear of presently,
appointed along with him. Absolute strangers to the
Rajah's family, the first act they do is to cut off a
thousand out of sixteen hundred a month from his
allowance. They state (though there was a great
number of dependants to maintain) that six hundred
would be enough to maintain him. There appears
in the account of these proceedings to be such a flutter
about the care of the Rajah, and the management
of his household: in short, that there never was such
a tender guardianship as, always with the knowledge
of Mr. Hastings, is exercised over this poor Rajah,
who had just given (if he did give) 40,000<i>l.</i> for <i>his
own</i> inheritance, if it was his due,&mdash;for the inheri<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">{66}</a></span>tance
of <i>others</i>, if it was not his due. One would
think he was entitled to some mercy; but, probably
because the money could not otherwise be supplied,
his establishment was cut down by Debi Sing and
Mr. Goodlad a thousand a month, which is just
twelve thousand a year.</p>

<p>When Mr. Hastings had appointed those persons
to the guardianship who had an interest in the management
of the Rajah's education and fortune, one
should have thought, before they were turned out, he
would at least have examined whether such a step
was proper or not. No: they were turned out without
any such examination; and when I come to inquire
into the proceedings of Gunga Govind Sing's Committee,
I do not find that the new guardians have
brought to account one single shilling they received,
appointed as they were by that council newly made
to superintend all the affairs of the Rajah. There
is not one word to be found of an account: Debi
Sing's honor, fidelity, and disinterestedness, and that
of Mr. Goodlad, is sufficient; and that is the way
in which the management and superintendence of
one of the greatest houses in that country is given
to the guardianship of strangers. And how is it
managed? We find Debi Sing in possession of the
Rajah's family, in possession of his affairs, in the
management of his whole zemindary; and in the
course of the next year he is to give him in farm the
whole of the revenues of these three provinces. Now
whether the peshcush was received for the nomination
of the Rajah as a bribe in judgment, or whether
Mr. Hastings got it from Debi Sing as a bribe in office,
for appointing him to the guardianship of a family
that did not belong to him, and for the dominion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">{67}</a></span>
of three great and once wealthy provinces,&mdash;(which
is best or worst I shall not pretend to determine,)&mdash;you
find the Rajah in his possession; you find his
education, his household, in his possession; the public
revenues are in his possession; they are given
over to him.</p>

<p>If we look at the records, the letting of these provinces
appears to have been carried on by the new
Committee of Revenue, as the course and order of
business required it should. But by the investigation
into Mr. Hastings's money transactions, the insufficiency
and fallacy of these records is manifest
beyond a doubt. From this investigation it is discovered
that it was in reality a bargain secretly struck
between the Governor-General and Debi Sing, and
that the Committee were only employed in the mere
official forms. From the time that Mr. Hastings
new-modelled the revenue system, nothing is seen
in its true shape. We now know, in spite of the
fallacy of these records, who the true grantor was:
it will not be amiss to go a little further in supplying
their defects, and to inquire a little concerning the
grantee. This makes it necessary for me to inform
your Lordships who Debi Sing is.</p>

<div class="blockquote"><p>[<i>Mr. Burke read the Committee's recommendation of
Debi Sing to the Governor-General and Council; but
the copy of the paper alluded to is wanting.</i>]</p></div>

<hr style="width: 45%;" />

<p>Here is a choice; here is Debi Sing presented for
his knowledge in business, his trust and fidelity, and
that he is a person against whom no objection can be
made. This is presented to Mr. Hastings, by him
recorded in the Council Books, and by him transmit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">{68}</a></span>ted
to the Court of Directors. Mr. Hastings has
since recorded, that he knew this Debi Sing, (though
he here publicly authorizes the nomination of him
to all that great body of trusts,)&mdash;that he knew him
to be a man completely capable of the most atrocious
iniquities that were ever charged upon man. Debi
Sing is appointed to all those great trusts, through the
means of Gunga Govind Sing, from whom he (Mr.
Hastings) had received 30,000<i>l.</i> as a part of a bribe.</p>

<p>Now, though it is a large field, though it is a thing
that I must confess I feel a reluctance almost in venturing
to undertake, exhausted as I am, yet such is
the magnitude of the affair, such the evil consequences
that followed from a system of bribery, such the
horrible consequences of superseding all the persons
in office in the country to give it into the hands of
Debi Sing, that, though it is the public opinion, and
though no man that has ever heard the name of Debi
Sing does not know that he was only second to Gunga
Govind Sing, yet it is not to my purpose, unless I
prove that Mr. Hastings knew his character at the
very time he accepts him as a person against whom
no exception could be made.</p>

<p>It is necessary to inform your Lordships who this
Debi Sing was, to whom these great trusts were committed,
and those great provinces given.</p>

<p>It may be thought, and not unnaturally, that, in
this sort of corrupt and venal appointment to high
trust and office, Mr. Hastings has no other consideration
than the money he received. But whoever
thinks so will be deceived. Mr. Hastings was very
far from indifferent to the character of the persons he
dealt with. On the contrary, he made a most careful
selection; he had a very scrupulous regard to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">{69}</a></span>
aptitude of the men for the purposes for which he
employed them, and was much guided by his experience
of their conduct in those offices which had been
sold to them upon former occasions.</p>

<p>Except Gunga Govind Sing, (whom, as justice required,
Mr. Hastings distinguished by the highest
marks of his confidence,) there was not a man in
Bengal, perhaps not upon earth, a match for this Debi
Sing. He was not an unknown subject, not one
rashly taken up as an experiment. He was a tried
man; and if there had been one more desperately and
abandonedly corrupt, more wildly and flagitiously oppressive,
to be found unemployed in India, large as
his offers were, Mr. Hastings would not have taken
this money from Debi Sing.</p>

<p>Debi Sing was one of those who in the early stages
of the English power in Bengal attached himself to
those natives who then stood high in office. He
courted Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n, a Mussulman of the
highest rank, of the tribe of Koreish, whom I have
already mentioned, then at the head of the revenue,
and now at the head of the criminal justice of Bengal,
with all the supple assiduity of which those who possess
no valuable art or useful talent are commonly
complete masters. Possessing large funds, acquired
by his apprenticeship and novitiate in the lowest
frauds, he was enabled to lend to this then powerful
man, in the several emergencies of his variable fortune,
very large sums of money. This great man
had been brought down by Mr. Hastings, under the
orders of the Court of Directors, upon a cruel charge,
to Calcutta. He was accused of many crimes, and
acquitted, 220,000<i>l.</i> in debt: that is to say, as soon
as he was a great debtor, he ceased to be a great
criminal.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">{70}</a></span></p>

<p>Debi Sing obtained by his services no slight influence
over Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n, a person of a character
very different from his.</p>

<p>From that connection he was appointed to the farm
of the revenue, and inclusively of the government of
Purneah, a province of very great extent, and then in
a state of no inconsiderable opulence. In this office
he exerted his talents with so much vigor and industry
that in a very short time the province was half
depopulated and totally ruined.</p>

<p>The farm, on the expiration of his lease, was taken
by a set of adventurers in this kind of traffic from
Calcutta. But when the new undertakers came to
survey the object of their future operations and future
profits, they were so shocked at the hideous and
squalid scenes of misery and desolation that glared
upon them in every quarter, that they instantly fled
out of the country, and thought themselves but too
happy to be permitted, on the payment of a penalty
of twelve thousand pounds, to be released from their
engagements.</p>

<p>To give in a few words as clear an idea as I am
able to give of the immense volume which might be
composed of the vexations, violence, and rapine of
that tyrannical administration, the territorial revenue
of Purneah, which had been let to Debi Sing at the
rate of 160,000<i>l.</i> sterling a year, was with difficulty
leased for a yearly sum under 90,000<i>l.</i>, and with all
rigor of exaction produced in effect little more than
60,000<i>l.</i>, 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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">{71}</a></span></p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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<i>l.</i> 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.</p>

<p>Debi Sing found this administration composed mostly
of young men, dissipated and fond of pleasure, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">{72}</a></span>
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,&mdash;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.</p>

<p>There is a revenue in that country, raised by a tax
more productive than laudable. It is an imposition
on public prostitutes, a duty upon the societies of dancing-girls,&mdash;those
seminaries from which Mr. Hastings
has selected an administrator of justice and governor
of kingdoms. Debi Sing thought it expedient
to farm this tax,&mdash;not only because he neglected no
sort of gain, but because he regarded it as no contemptible
means of power and influence. Accordingly,
in plain terms, he opened a legal brothel, out
of which he carefully reserved (you may be sure) the
very flower of his collection for the entertainment of
his young superiors: ladies recommended not only by
personal merit, but, according to the Eastern custom,
by sweet and enticing names which he had given
them. For, if they were to be translated, they would
sound,&mdash;Riches of my Life, Wealth of my Soul,
Treasure of Perfection, Diamond of Splendor, Pearl
of Price, Ruby of Pure Blood, and other metaphorical
descriptions, that, calling up dissonant passions
to enhance the value of the general harmony, heightened
the attractions of love with the allurements of
avarice. A moving seraglio of these ladies always attended
his progress, and were always brought to the
splendid and multiplied entertainments with which
he regaled his Council. In these festivities, whilst
his guests were engaged with the seductions of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">{73}</a></span>
beauty, the intoxications of the most delicious wines
of France, and the voluptuous vapor of perfumed
India smoke, uniting the vivid satisfactions of Europe
with the torpid blandishments of Asia, the great
magician himself, chaste in the midst of dissoluteness,
sober in the centre of debauch, vigilant in the
lap of negligence and oblivion, attended with an eagle's
eye the moment for thrusting in business, and
at such times was able to carry without difficulty
points of shameful enormity, which at other hours
he would not so much as have dared to mention to
his employers, young men rather careless and inexperienced
than intentionally corrupt. Not satisfied
with being pander to their pleasures, he anticipated
and was purveyor to their wants, and supplied them
with a constant command of money; and by these
means he reigned with an uncontrolled dominion
over the province and over its governors.</p>

<p>For you are to understand that in many things we
are very much misinformed with regard to the true
seat of power in India. Whilst we were proudly
calling India a British government, it was in substance
a government of the lowest, basest, and most
flagitious of the native rabble, to whom the far greater
part of the English who figured in employment
and station had from their earliest youth been slaves
and instruments. Banians had anticipated the period
of their power in premature advances of money, and
have ever after obtained the entire dominion over
their nominal masters.</p>

<p>By these various ways and means Debi Sing contrived
to add job to job, employment to employment,
and to hold, besides the farms of two very considerable
districts, various trusts in the revenue,&mdash;some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">{74}</a></span>times
openly appearing, sometimes hid two or three
deep in false names, emerging into light or shrouding
himself in darkness, as successful or defeated crimes
rendered him bold or cautious. Every one of these
trusts was marked with its own fraud; and for one
of those frauds, committed by him in another name,
by which he became deeply in balance to the revenue,
he was publicly whipped <i>by proxy</i>.</p>

<p>All this while Mr. Hastings kept his eye upon him,
and attended to his progress. But as he rose in Mr.
Hastings's opinion, he fell in that of his immediate
employers. By degrees, as reason prevailed, and the
fumes of pleasure evaporated, the Provincial Council
emerged from their first dependence, and, finding
nothing but infamy attending the councils and services
of such a man, resolved to dismiss him. In
this strait and crisis of his power the artist turned
himself into all shapes. He offered great sums individually,
he offered them collectively, and at last put
a <i>carte blanche</i> on the table,&mdash;all to no purpose.
"What are you?&mdash;stones? Have I not men to deal
with? Will flesh and blood refuse me?"</p>

<p>When Debi Sing found that the Council had entirely
escaped, and were proof against his offers, he
left them with a sullen and menacing silence. He
applied where he had good intelligence that these
offers would be well received, and that he should at
once be revenged of the Council, and obtain all the
ends which through them he had sought in vain.</p>

<p>Without hesitation or scruple Mr. Hastings sold a
set of innocent officers,&mdash;sold his fellow-servants of
the Company, entitled by every duty to his protection,&mdash;sold
English subjects, recommended by every
tie of national sympathy,&mdash;sold the honor of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">{75}</a></span>
British government itself,&mdash;without charge, without
complaint, without allegation of crime in conduct,
or of insufficiency in talents: he sold them to the
most known and abandoned character which the rank
servitude of that clime produces. For <i>him</i> he entirely
broke and quashed the Council of Moorshedabad,
which had been the settled government for twelve
years, (a long period in the changeful history of India,)&mdash;at
a time, too, when it had acquired a great
degree of consistency, an official experience, a knowledge
and habit of business, and was making full
amends for early errors.</p>

<p>For now Mr. Hastings, having buried Colonel Monson
and General Clavering, and having shaken off Mr.
Francis, who retired half dead from office, began at
length to respire; he found elbow-room once more
to display his genuine nature and disposition, and to
make amends in a riot and debauch of peculation for
the forced abstinence to which he was reduced during
the usurped dominion of honor and integrity.</p>

<p>It was not enough that the English were thus sacrificed
to the revenge of Debi Sing. It was necessary
to deliver over the natives to his avarice. By the intervention
of bribe-brokerage he united the two great
rivals in iniquity, who before, from an emulation of
crimes, were enemies to each other,&mdash;Gunga Govind
Sing and Debi Sing. He negotiated the bribe and
the farm of the latter through the former; and Debi
Sing was invested in farm for two years with the three
provinces of Dinagepore, Edrackpore, and Rungpore,&mdash;territories
making together a tract of land superior
in dimensions to the northern counties of England,
Yorkshire included.</p>

<p>To prevent anything which might prove an obstacle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">{76}</a></span>
on the full swing of his genius, he removed all the
restraints which had been framed to give an ostensible
credit, to give some show of official order, to the plans
of revenue administration framed from time to time
in Bengal. An officer, called a <i>dewan</i>, had been established
in the provinces, expressly as a check on the
person who should act as farmer-general. This office
he conferred along with that of farmer-general on
Debi Sing, in order that Debi might become an effectual
check upon Sing; and thus these provinces,
without inspection, without control, without law, and
without magistrates, were delivered over by Mr. Hastings,
bound hand and foot, to the discretion of the
man whom he had before recorded as the destroyer
of Purneah, and capable of every the most atrocious
wickedness that could be imputed to man.</p>

<p>Fatally for the natives of India, every wild project
and every corrupt sale of Mr. Hastings, and those
whose example he followed, is covered with a pretended
increase of revenue to the Company. Mr.
Hastings would not pocket his bribe of 40,000<i>l.</i> for
himself without letting the Company in as a sharer
and accomplice. For the province of Rungpore, the
object to which I mean in this instance to confine
your attention, 7,000<i>l.</i> a year was added. But lest
this avowed increase of rent should seem to lead to
oppression, great and religious care was taken in the
covenant so stipulated with Debi Sing, that <i>this</i> increase
should not arise from any additional assessment
whatsoever on the country, but solely from
improvements in the cultivation, and the encouragement
to be given to the landholder and husbandman.
But as Mr. Hastings's bribe, of a far greater sum, was
not guarded by any such provision, it was left to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">{77}</a></span>
discretion of the donor in what manner he was to
indemnify himself for it.</p>

<p>Debi Sing fixed the seat of his authority at Dinagepore,
where, as soon as he arrived, he did not lose a
moment in doing his duty. If Mr. Hastings can forget
his covenant, you may easily believe that Debi
Sing had not a more correct memory; and accordingly,
as soon as he came into the province, he instantly
broke every covenant which he had entered into as a
restraint on his avarice, rapacity, and tyranny, which,
from the highest of the nobility and gentry to the
lowest husbandmen, were afterwards exercised, with
a stern and unrelenting impartiality, upon the whole
people. For, notwithstanding the province before
Debi Sing's lease was, from various causes, in a state
of declension, and in balance for the revenue of the
preceding year, at his very first entrance into office
he forced from the zemindars or landed gentry an
enormous increase of their tribute. They refused
compliance. On this refusal he threw the whole body
of zemindars into prison, and thus in bonds and fetters
compelled them to sign their own ruin by an increase
of rent which they knew they could never realize.
Having thus gotten them under, he added exaction
to exaction, so that every day announced some new
and varied demand, until, exhausted by these oppressions,
they were brought to the extremity to which he
meant to drive them, the sale of their lands.</p>

<p>The lands held by the zemindars of that country are
of many descriptions. The first and most general are
those that pay revenue; the others are of the nature
of demesne lands, which are free, and pay no rent to
government. The latter are for the immediate support
of the zemindars and their families,&mdash;as from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">{78}</a></span>
the former they derive their influence, authority, and
the means of upholding their dignity. The lands of
the former description were immediately attached,
sequestered, and sold for the most trifling consideration.
The rent-free lands, the best and richest lands
of the whole province, were sold,&mdash;sold for&mdash;what
do your Lordships think? They were sold for less
than one year's purchase,&mdash;at less than one year's
purchase, at the most underrated value; so that the
fee-simple of an English acre of rent-free land sold at
the rate of seven or eight shillings. Such a sale, on
such terms, strongly indicated the purchaser. And
how did it turn out in fact? The purchaser was the
very agent and instrument of Mr. Hastings, Debi
Sing himself. He made the exaction; he forced the
sale; he reduced the rate; and he became the purchaser
at less than one year's purchase, and paid with
the very money which he had extorted from the miserable
vendors.</p>

<p>When he had thus sold and separated these lands,
he united the whole body of them, amounting to about
7,000<i>l.</i> sterling a year (but, according to the rate of
money and living in that country, equivalent to a rental
in England of 30,000<i>l.</i> a year); and then having
raised in the new letting, as on the sale he had fraudulently
reduced those lands, he reserved them as an
estate for himself, or to whomsoever resembling himself
Mr. Hastings should order them to be disposed.</p>

<p>The lands, thus sold for next to nothing, left of
course the late landholder still in debt. The failure
of fund, the rigorous exaction of debt, and the multiplication
of new arbitrary taxes next carried off the
goods.</p>

<p>There is a circumstance attending this business<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">{79}</a></span>
which will call for your Lordships' pity. Most of the
landholders or zemindars in that country happened
at that time to be women. The sex there is in a state
certainly resembling imprisonment, but guarded as
a sacred treasure with all possible attention and respect.
None of the coarse male hands of the law
can reach them; but they have a custom, very cautiously
used in all good governments there, of employing
female bailiffs or sergeants in the execution of the
law, where that sex is concerned. Guards, therefore,
surrounded the houses; and then female sergeants
and bailiffs entered into the habitations of these female
zemindars, and held their goods and persons in execution,&mdash;nothing
being left but what was daily threatened,
their life and honor. The landholders, even
women of eminent rank and condition, (for such the
greatest part of the zemindars then were,) fled from
the ancient seats of their ancestors, and left their
miserable followers and servants, who in that country
are infinitely numerous, without protection and without
bread. The monthly instalment of Mr. Hastings's
bribe was become due, and his rapacity must be fed
from the vitals of the people.</p>

<p>The zemindars, before their own flight, had the
mortification to see all the lands assigned to charitable
and to religious uses, the humane and pious foundations
of themselves and their ancestors, made to support
infirmity and decrepitude, to give feet to the
lame and eyes to the blind, and to effect which they
had deprived themselves of many of the enjoyments
of life, cruelly sequestered and sold at the same market
of violence and fraud where their demesne possessions
and their goods had been before made away
with. Even the lands and funds set aside for their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">{80}</a></span>
funeral ceremonies, in which they hoped to find an
end to their miseries, and some indemnity of imagination
for all the substantial sufferings of their lives,&mdash;even
the very feeble consolations of death, were, by
the same rigid hand of tyranny,&mdash;a tyranny more
consuming than the funeral pile, more greedy than
the grave, and more inexorable than death itself,&mdash;seized
and taken to make good the honor of corruption
and the faith of bribery pledged to Mr. Hastings or
his instruments.</p>

<p>Thus it fared with the better and middling orders
of the people. Were the lower, the more industrious,
spared? Alas! as their situation was far more helpless,
their oppression was infinitely more sore and
grievous, the exactions yet more excessive, the demand
yet more vexatious, more capricious, more arbitrary.
To afford your Lordships some idea of the condition
of those who were served up to satisfy Mr. Hastings's
hunger and thirst for bribes, I shall read it to you in
the very words of the representative tyrant himself,
Rajah Debi Sing. Debi Sing, when he was charged
with a fraudulent sale of the ornaments of gold and
silver of women, who, according to the modes of that
country, had starved themselves to decorate their unhappy
persons, argued on the improbability of this part
of the charge in these very words.</p>

<p>"It is notorious," says he, "that poverty generally
prevails amongst the husbandmen of Rungpore, more
perhaps than in any other parts of the country.
They are seldom possessed of any property, except at
the time they reap their harvest; and at others barely
procure their subsistence. And this is the cause that
such numbers of them were swept away by the famine.
Their effects are only a little earthen-ware, and their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">{81}</a></span>
houses only a handful of straw, the sale of a <i>thousand</i>
of which would not perhaps produce twenty
shillings."</p>

<p>These were the opulent people from whose superfluities
Mr. Hastings was to obtain a gift of 40,000<i>l.</i>,
over and above a large increase of rent, over and
above the exactions by which the farmer must reimburse
himself for the advance of the money by which
he must obtain the natural profit of the farm as well
as supply the peculium of his own avarice.</p>

<p>Therefore your Lordships will not be surprised at
the consequences. All this unhappy race of little
farmers and tillers of the soil were driven like a herd
of cattle by his extortioners, and compelled by imprisonments,
by fetters, and by cruel whippings, to
engage for more than the whole of their substance or
possible acquisition.</p>

<p>Over and above this, there was no mode of extortion,
which the inventive imagination of rapacity
could contrive, that was not contrived, and was not
put in practice. On its own day your Lordships will
hear, with astonishment, detestation, and horror, the
detail of these tyrannous inventions; and it will appear
that the aggregate of these superadded demands
amounted to as great a sum as the whole of the compulsory
rent on which they were piled.</p>

<p>The country being in many parts left wholly waste
and in all parts considerably depopulated by the first
rigors, the full rate of the district was exacted from
the miserable survivors. Their burdens were increased,
as their fellow-laborers, to whose joint efforts
they were to owe the means of payment, diminished.
Driven to make payments beyond all possible
calculation, previous to receipts and above their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">{82}</a></span>
means, in a very short time they fell into the hands
of usurers.</p>

<p>The usurers, who under such a government held
their own funds by a precarious tenure, and were to
lend to those whose substance was still more precarious,
to the natural hardness and austerity of that race
of men had additional motives to extortion, and made
their terms accordingly. And what were the terms
these poor people were obliged to consent to, to answer
the bribes and peshcush paid to Mr. Hastings?&mdash;five,
ten, twenty, forty per cent? No! at an interest
of six hundred per cent per annum, payable
by the day! A tiller of land to pay six hundred
per cent to discharge the demands of government!
What exhaustless fund of opulence could supply this
destructive resource of wretchedness and misery?
Accordingly, the husbandman ground to powder between
the usurer below and the oppressor above, the
whole crop of the country was forced at once to market;
and the market glutted, overcharged, and suffocated,
the price of grain fell to the fifth part of its
usual value. The crop was then gone, but the debt
remained. An universal treasury extent and process
of execution followed on the cattle and stock, and was
enforced with more or less rigor in every quarter.
We have it in evidence, that in those sales five cows
were sold for not more than seven or eight shillings.
All other things were depreciated in the same proportion.
The sale of the instruments of husbandry succeeded
to that of the corn and stock. Instances there
are, where, all other things failing, the farmers were
dragged from the court to their houses, in order to
see them first plundered, and then burnt down before
their faces. It was not a rigorous collection of revenue,
it was a savage war made upon the country.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">{83}</a></span></p>

<p>The peasants were left little else than their families
and their bodies. The families were disposed of. It
is a known observation, that those who have the fewest
of all other worldly enjoyments are the most tenderly
attached to their children and wives. The most
tender of parents sold their children at market. The
most fondly jealous of husbands sold their wives. The
tyranny of Mr. Hastings extinguished every sentiment
of father, son, brother, and husband!</p>

<p>I come now to the last stage of their miseries.
Everything visible and vendible was seized and sold.
Nothing but the bodies remained.</p>

<p>It is the nature of tyranny and rapacity never to
learn moderation from the ill-success of first oppressions;
on the contrary, all oppressors, all men thinking
highly of the methods dictated by their nature,
attribute the frustration of their desires to the want
of sufficient rigor. Then they redouble the efforts of
their impotent cruelty, which producing, as they must
ever produce, new disappointments, they grow irritated
against the objects of their rapacity; and then
rage, fury, and malice, implacable because unprovoked,
recruiting and reinforcing their avarice, their
vices are no longer human. From cruel men they
are transformed into savage beasts, with no other vestiges
of reason left but what serves to furnish the inventions
and refinements of ferocious subtlety, for
purposes of which beasts are incapable and at which
fiends would blush.</p>

<p>Debi Sing and his instruments suspected, and in a
few cases they suspected justly, that the country people
had purloined from their own estates, and had
hidden in secret places in the circumjacent deserts,
some small reserve of their own grain to maintain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">{84}</a></span>
themselves during the unproductive months of the
year, and to leave some hope for a future season.
But the under-tyrants knew that the demands of Mr.
Hastings would admit no plea for delay, much less
for subtraction of his bribe, and that he would not
abate a shilling of it to the wants of the whole human
race. These hoards, real or supposed, not being discovered
by menaces and imprisonment, they fell upon
the last resource, the naked bodies of the people.
And here, my Lords, began such a scene of cruelties
and tortures as I believe no history has ever presented
to the indignation of the world,&mdash;such as I am
sure, in the most barbarous ages, no politic tyranny,
no fanatic persecution, has ever yet exceeded. Mr.
Paterson, the commissioner appointed to inquire into
the state of the country, makes his own apology and
mine for opening this scene of horrors to you in the
following words: "That the punishments inflicted
upon the ryots, both of Rungpore and Dinagepore,
for non-payment, were in many instances of such a
nature that I would rather wish to draw a veil over
them than shock your feelings by the detail, but that,
however disagreeable the task may be to myself, it is
absolutely necessary, for the sake of justice, humanity,
and the honor of government, that they should
be exposed, to be prevented in future."</p>

<p>My Lords, they began by winding cords round the
fingers of the unhappy freeholders of those provinces,
until they clung to and were almost incorporated with
one another; and then they hammered wedges of
iron between them, until, regardless of the cries of
the sufferers, they had bruised to pieces and forever
crippled those poor, honest, innocent, laborious hands,
which had never been raised to their mouths but with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">{85}</a></span>
a penurious and scanty proportion of the fruits of
their own soil; but those fruits (denied to the wants
of their own children) have for more than fifteen
years past furnished the investment for our trade
with China, and been sent annually out, and without
recompense, to purchase for us that delicate meal
with which your Lordships, and all this auditory,
and all this country, have begun every day for these
fifteen years at their expense. To those beneficent
hands that labor for our benefit the return of the
British government has been cords and hammers and
wedges. But there is a place where these crippled
and disabled hands will act with resistless power.
What is it that they will not pull down, when they
are lifted to heaven against their oppressors? Then
what can withstand such hands? Can the power
that crushed and destroyed them? Powerful in
prayer, let us at least deprecate and thus endeavor
to secure ourselves from the vengeance which these
mashed and disabled hands may pull down upon us.
My Lords, it is an awful consideration: let us think
of it.</p>

<p>But to pursue this melancholy, but necessary detail.
I am next to open to your Lordships, what I
am hereafter to prove, that the most substantial
and leading yeomen, the responsible farmers, the
parochial magistrates and chiefs of villages, were
tied two and two by the legs together; and their
tormentors, throwing them with their heads downwards,
over a bar, beat them on the soles of the feet
with rattans, until the nails fell from the toes; and
then attacking them at their heads, as they hung
downward, as before at their feet, they beat them
with sticks and other instruments of blind fury, until<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">{86}</a></span>
the blood gushed out at their eyes, mouths, and noses.
Not thinking that the ordinary whips and cudgels,
even so administered, were sufficient, to others (and
often also to the same who had suffered as I have
stated) they applied, instead of rattan and bamboo,
whips made of the branches of the bale tree,&mdash;a
tree full of sharp and strong thorns, which tear the
skin and lacerate the flesh far worse than ordinary
scourges. For others, exploring with a searching
and inquisitive malice, stimulated by an insatiate rapacity,
all the devious paths of Nature for whatever
is most unfriendly to man, they made rods of a plant
highly caustic and poisonous, called <i>Bechettea</i>, every
wound of which festers and gangrenes, adds double
and treble to the present torture, leaves a crust of
leprous sores upon the body, and often ends in the
destruction of life itself. At night, these poor innocent
sufferers, these martyrs of avarice and extortion,
were brought into dungeons; and in the season when
nature takes refuge in insensibility from all the miseries
and cares which wait on life, they were three
times scourged, and made to reckon the watches of the
night by periods and intervals of torment. They were
then led out, in the severe depth of winter, which there
at certain seasons would be severe to any, to the Indians
is most severe and almost intolerable,&mdash;they
were led out before break of day, and, stiff and sore as
they were with the bruises and wounds of the night,
were plunged into water; and whilst their jaws clung
together with the cold, and their bodies were rendered
infinitely more sensible, the blows and stripes were
renewed upon their backs; and then, delivering them
over to soldiers, they were sent into their farms and
villages to discover where a few handfuls of grain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">{87}</a></span>
might be found concealed, or to extract some loan
from the remnants of compassion and courage not
subdued in those who had reason to fear that their
own turn of torment would be next, that they should
succeed them in the same punishment, and that their
very humanity, being taken as a proof of their wealth,
would subject them (as it did in many cases subject
them) to the same inhuman tortures. After this circuit
of the day through their plundered and ruined
villages, they were remanded at night to the same
prison, whipped, as before, at their return to the dungeon,
and at morning whipped at their leaving it,
and then sent, as before, to purchase, by begging in
the day, the reiteration of the torture in the night.
Days of menace, insult, and extortion, nights of
bolts, fetters, and flagellation, succeeded to each
other in the same round, and for a long time made
up all the vicissitude of life to these miserable people.</p>

<p>But there are persons whose fortitude could bear
their own suffering; there are men who are hardened
by their very pains, and the mind, strengthened
even by the torments of the body, rises with a strong
defiance against its oppressor. They were assaulted
on the side of their sympathy. Children were
scourged almost to death in the presence of their parents.
This was not enough. The son and father
were bound close together, face to face and body to
body, and in that situation cruelly lashed together, so
that the blow which escaped the father fell upon the
son, and the blow which missed the son wound over
the back of the parent. The circumstances were combined
by so subtle a cruelty that every stroke which
did not excruciate the sense should wound and lacerate
the sentiments and affections of nature.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">{88}</a></span></p>

<p>On the same principle, and for the same ends, virgins,
who had never seen the sun, were dragged from
the inmost sanctuaries of their houses, and in the
open court of justice, in the very place where security
was to be sought against all wrong and all violence,
(but where no judge or lawful magistrate had long
sat, but in their place the ruffians and hangmen of
Warren Hastings occupied the bench,) these virgins,
vainly invoking heaven and earth, in the presence of
their parents, and whilst their shrieks were mingled
with the indignant cries and groans of all the people,
publicly were violated by the lowest and wickedest of
the human race. Wives were torn from the arms
of their husbands, and suffered the same flagitious
wrongs, which were indeed hid in the bottoms of the
dungeons in which their honor and their liberty were
buried together. Often they were taken out of the
refuge of this consoling gloom, stripped naked, and
thus exposed to the world, and then cruelly scourged;
and in order that cruelty might riot in all the circumstances
that melt into tenderness the fiercest natures,
the nipples of their breasts were put between
the sharp and elastic sides of cleft bamboos. Here in
my hand is my authority; for otherwise one would
think it incredible. But it did not end there. Growing
from crime to crime, ripened by cruelty for cruelty,
these fiends, at length outraging sex, decency, nature,
applied lighted torches and slow fire&mdash;(I cannot
proceed for shame and horror!)&mdash;these infernal
furies planted death in the source of life, and where
that modesty, which, more than reason, distinguishes
men from beasts, retires from the view, and even
shrinks from the expression, there they exercised and
glutted their unnatural, monstrous, and nefarious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">{89}</a></span>
cruelty,&mdash;there, where the reverence of nature and
the sanctity of justice dares not to pursue, nor venture
to describe their practices.</p>

<p>These, my Lords, were sufferings which we feel all
in common, in India and in England, by the general
sympathy of our common nature. But there were in
that province (sold to the tormentors by Mr. Hastings)
things done, which, from the peculiar manners
of India, were even worse than all I have laid before
you; as the dominion of manners and the law of
opinion contribute more to their happiness and misery
than anything in mere sensitive nature can do.</p>

<p>The women thus treated lost their caste. My
Lords, we are not here to commend or blame the
institutions and prejudices of a whole race of people,
radicated in them by a long succession of ages,
on which no reason or argument, on which no vicissitudes
of things, no mixtures of men, or foreign conquest,
have been able to make the smallest impression.
The aboriginal Gentoo inhabitants are all dispersed into
tribes or castes,&mdash;each caste born to an invariable
rank, rights, and descriptions of employment, so that
one caste cannot by any means pass into another.
With the Gentoos, certain impurities or disgraces,
though without any guilt of the party, infer loss of
caste; and when the highest caste, that of Brahmin,
which is not only noble, but sacred, is lost, the person
who loses it does not slide down into one lower, but
reputable,&mdash;he is wholly driven from all honest society.
All the relations of life are at once dissolved.
His parents are no longer his parents; his wife is no
longer his wife; his children, no longer his, are no
longer to regard him as their father. It is something
far worse than complete outlawry, complete attainder,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">{90}</a></span>
and universal excommunication. It is a pollution
even to touch him; and if he touches any of his old
caste, they are justified in putting him to death.
Contagion, leprosy, plague, are not so much shunned.
No honest occupation can be followed. He becomes
an <i>halicore</i>, if (which is rare) he survives that miserable
degradation.</p>

<p>Upon those whom all the shocking catalogue of
tortures I have mentioned could not make to flinch
one of the modes of losing caste for Brahmins and
other principal tribes was practised. It was to harness
a bullock at the court-door, and to put the Brahmin
on his back, and to lead him through the towns,
with drums beating before him. To intimidate others,
this bullock, with drums, (the instrument, according
to their ideas, of outrage, disgrace, and utter loss
of caste,) was led through the country; and as it
advanced, the country fled before it. When any
Brahmin was seized, he was threatened with this pillory,
and for the most part he submitted in a moment
to whatever was ordered. What it was may be thence
judged. But when no possibility existed of complying
with the demand, the people by their cries sometimes
prevailed on the tyrants to have it commuted
for cruel scourging, which was accepted as mercy.
To some Brahmins this mercy was denied, and the
act of indelible infamy executed. Of these men one
came to the Company's commissioner with the tale,
and ended with these melancholy words: "I have
suffered this indignity; my caste is lost; my life is
a burden to me: I call for justice." He called in
vain.</p>

<p>Your Lordships will not wonder that these monstrous
and oppressive demands, exacted with such tor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">{91}</a></span>tures,
threw the whole province into despair. They
abandoned their crops on the ground. The people,
in a body, would have fled out of its confines; but
bands of soldiers invested the avenues of the province,
and, making a line of circumvallation, drove back
those wretches, who sought exile as a relief, into the
prison of their native soil. Not suffered to quit the
district, they fled to the many wild thickets which oppression
had scattered through it, and sought amongst
the jungles, and dens of tigers, a refuge from the tyranny
of Warren Hastings. Not able long to exist
here, pressed at once by wild beasts and famine, the
same despair drove them back; and seeking their last
resource in arms, the most quiet, the most passive, the
most timid of the human race rose up in an universal
insurrection; and, what will always happen in popular
tumults, the effects of the fury of the people fell
on the meaner and sometimes the reluctant instruments
of the tyranny, who in several places were
massacred. The insurrection began in Rungpore,
and soon spread its fire to the neighboring provinces,
which had been harassed by the same person with the
same oppressions. The English Chief in that province
had been the silent witness, most probably the abettor
and accomplice, of all these horrors. He called in
first irregular, and then regular troops, who by dreadful
and universal military execution got the better of
the impotent resistance of unarmed and undisciplined
despair. I am tired with the detail of the cruelties
of peace. I spare you those of a cruel and inhuman
war, and of the executions which, without law or process,
or even the shadow of authority, were ordered
by the English Revenue Chief in that province.</p>

<p>In our Indian government, whatever grievance is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">{92}</a></span>
borne is denied to exist, and all mute despair and
sullen patience is construed into content and satisfaction.
But this general insurrection, which at every
moment threatened to blaze out afresh, and to involve
all the provinces in its flames, rent in pieces that veil
of fraud and mystery that covers all the miseries of
all the provinces. Calcutta rung with it; and it was
feared it would go to England. The English Chief
in the province, Mr. Goodlad, represented it to Mr.
Hastings's Revenue Committee to be (what it was)
the greatest and most serious disturbance that ever
happened in Bengal. But, good easy man, he was
utterly unable to guess to what cause it was to be
attributed. He thought there was some irregularity
in the collection, but on the whole judged that it had
little other cause than a general conspiracy of the
husbandmen and landholders, who, as Debi Sing's
lease was near expiring, had determined not to pay
any more revenue.</p>

<p>Mr. Hastings's Committee of Revenue, whilst these
wounds were yet bleeding, and whilst a total failure
was threatened in the rents of these provinces, thought
themselves obliged to make an inquiry with some sort
of appearance of seriousness into the causes of it.
They looked, therefore, about them carefully, and
chose what they judged would be most plausible and
least effective. They thought that it was necessary to
send a special commissioner into the province, and
one, too, whose character would not instantly blast
the credit of his mission. They cast their eyes on
a Mr. Paterson, a servant of the Company, a man
of fair character, and long standing in the service.
Mr. Paterson was a person known to be of a very
cool temper, placid manners, moderate and middle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">{93}</a></span>
opinions, unconnected with parties; and from such
a character they looked for (what sometimes is to be
expected from it) a compromising, balanced, neutralized,
equivocal, colorless, confused report, in which
the blame was to be impartially divided between the
sufferer and the oppressor, and in which, according to
the standing manners of Bengal, he would recommend
oblivion as the best remedy, and would end by remarking,
that retrospect could have no advantage,
and could serve only to irritate and keep alive animosities;
and by this kind of equitable, candid, and
judge-like proceeding, they hoped the whole complaint
would calmly fade away, the sufferers remain
in the possession of their patience, and the tyrant of
his plunder. In confidence of this event from this
presumed character, Mr. Hastings's Committee, in appointing
Mr. Paterson their commissioner, were not
deficient in arming him with powers equal to the
object of his commission. He was enabled to call
before him all accountants, to compel the production
of all accounts, to examine all persons,&mdash;not only to
inquire and to report, but to decide and to redress.</p>

<p>Such is the imperfection of human wisdom that
the Committee totally failed in their well-laid project.
They were totally mistaken in their man. Under
that cold outside the commissioner, Paterson, concealed
a firm, manly, and fixed principle, a deciding
intellect, and a feeling heart. My Lords, he is the
son of a gentleman of a venerable age and excellent
character in this country, who long filled the seat of
chairman of the Committee of Supply in the House of
Commons, and who is now enjoying repose from his
long labors in an honorable age. The son, as soon as
he was appointed to this commission, was awed by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">{94}</a></span>
and dreaded the consequences. He knew to what
temptation he should be exposed, from the known
character of Debi Sing, to suppress or to misrepresent
facts. He therefore took out a letter he had from his
father, which letter was the preservation of his character
and destruction of his fortune. This letter he
always resorted to in all trying exigencies of his life.
He laid the letter before him, and there was enjoined
such a line of integrity, incorruptness, of bearing
every degree of persecution rather than disguising
truth, that he went up into the country in a proper
frame of mind for doing his duty.</p>

<p>He went to Rungpore strongly impressed with a
sense of the great trust that was placed in him; and
he had not the least reason to doubt of full support
in the execution of it,&mdash;as he, with every other white
man in Bengal, probably, and every black, except two,
was ignorant of the fact, that the Governor-General,
under whose delegated authority he was sent, had
been bribed by the farmer-general of those provinces,
and had sold them to his discretion for a great sum
of money. If Paterson had known this fact, no human
consideration would have induced him, or any
other man of common prudence, to undertake an inquiry
into the conduct of Debi Sing. Pity, my Lords,
the condition of an honest servant in Bengal.</p>

<p>But Paterson was ignorant of this dark transaction,
and went simply to perform a duty. He had hardly
set his foot in the province, when the universal, unquestioned,
uncontradicted testimony of the whole
people, concurring with the manifest evidence of
things which could not lie, with the face of an utterly
ruined, undone, depopulated country, and saved
from literal and exceptionless depopulation only by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">{95}</a></span>
the exhibition of scattered bands of wild, naked, meagre,
half-famished wretches, who rent heaven with
their cries and howlings, left him no sort of doubt of
the real cause of the late tumults. In his first letters
he conveyed his sentiments to the Committee with
these memorable words. "In my two reports I have
set forth in a general manner the oppressions which
provoked the ryots to rise. I shall, therefore, not
enumerate them now. Every day of my inquiry
serves but to confirm the facts. The wonder would
have been, if they had not risen. It was not collection,
but real robbery, aggravated by corporal punishment
and every insult of disgrace,&mdash;and this not confined
to a few, but extended over every individual.
Let the mind of man be ever so much inured to servitude,
still there is a point where oppressions will
rouse it to resistance. Conceive to yourselves what
must be the situation of a ryot, when he sees everything
he has in the world seized, to answer an exaggerated
demand, and sold at so low a price as not
to answer one half of that demand,&mdash;when he finds
himself so far from being released, that he remains
still subject to corporal punishment. But what must
be his feelings, when his tyrant, seeing that kind of
severity of no avail, adds family disgrace and loss
of caste! You, Gentlemen, who know the reserve of
the natives in whatever concerns their women, and
their attachment to their castes, must allow the full
effect of these prejudices under such circumstances."</p>

<p>He, however, proceeded with steadiness and method,
and in spite of every discouragement which could
be thrown in his way by the power, craft, fraud, and
corruption of the farmer-general, Debi Sing, by the
collusion of the Provincial Chief, and by the decay of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">{96}</a></span>
support from his employers, which gradually faded
away and forsook him, as his occasions for it increased.
Under all these, and under many more discouragements
and difficulties, he made a series of
able, clear, and well-digested reports, attended with
such evidence as never before, and, I believe, never
will again appear, of the internal provincial administration
of Bengal,&mdash;of evils universally understood,
which no one was ever so absurd as to contradict,
and whose existence was never denied, except in
those places where they ought to be rectified, although
none before Paterson had the courage to display
the particulars. By these reports, carefully
collated with the evidence, I have been enabled to
lay before you some of the effects, in one province
and part of another, of Governor Hastings's general
system of bribery.</p>

<p>But now appeared, in the most striking light, the
good policy of Mr. Hastings's system of 1780, in placing
this screen of a Committee between him and his
crimes. The Committee had their lesson. Whilst
Paterson is left collecting his evidence and casting up
his accounts in Rungpore, Debi Sing is called up, in
seeming wrath, to the capital, where he is received
as those who have robbed and desolated provinces,
and filled their coffers with seven hundred thousand
pounds sterling, have been usually received at Calcutta,
and sometimes in Great Britain. Debi Sing
made good his ground in Calcutta, and when he had
well prepared his Committee, in due time Paterson
returns, appears, and reports.</p>

<p>Persons even less informed than your Lordships
are well apprised that all officers representing government,
and making in that character an author<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">{97}</a></span>ized
inquiry, are entitled to a presumptive credit for
all their proceedings, and that their reports of facts
(where there is no evidence of corruption or malice)
are in the first instance to be taken for truth, especially
by those who have authorized the inquiry; and
it is their duty to put the burden of proof to the contrary
on those who would impeach or shake the report.</p>

<p>Other principles of policy, and other rules of government,
and other maxims of office prevailed in the
Committee of Mr. Hastings's devising. In order to
destroy that just and natural credit of the officer,
and the protection and support they were bound to
afford him, they in an instant shift and reverse all
the relations in which the parties stood.</p>

<p>This executive board, instituted for the protection
of the revenue and of the people, and which was no
court of justice in fact or name, turned their own
representative officer, reporting facts according to his
duty, into a voluntary accuser who is to make good
his charge at his peril; the farmer-general, whose
conduct was not criminally attacked, but appeared as
one of the grounds of a public inquiry, is turned into
a culprit before a court of justice, against whom everything
is to be juridically made out or not admitted;
and the members of an executive board, by usurpation
and fraud, erect themselves into judges bound to proceed
by strict rules of law.</p>

<p>By this infamous juggle they took away, as far
as in them lay, the credit due to the proceedings of
government. They changed the natural situation of
proofs. They rejected the depositions of Paterson's
witnesses, as not on oath, though they had never
ordered or authorized them so to be taken.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">{98}</a></span></p>

<p>They went further, and disabled, in a body, all the
deponents themselves, whether on oath or not on oath
by discrediting the whole province as a set of criminals
who gave evidence to palliate their own rebellion.
They administered interrogatories to the commissioner
instead of the culprit. They took a base fellow, whom
they had themselves ordered their commissioner to
imprison for crimes, (crimes charged on him, not by
the commissioner, but by themselves,) and made him
a complainant and a witness against him in the stupidest
and most improbable of all accusations,&mdash;namely,
that Paterson had menaced him with punishment, if
he did not, in so many words, slander and calumniate
Debi Sing; and then the Committee, seating this
wretch as an assessor at their own board, who a few
days before would have trembled like a whipped slave
at the look of an European, encouraged him to interrogate
their own commissioner.</p>

<p>[<i>Here Mr. Burke was taken ill, and obliged to sit
down. After some time Mr. Burke again addressed
the House.</i>]</p>

<p>My Lords, I am sorry to break the attention of your
Lordships in such a way. It is a subject that agitates
me. It is long, difficult, and arduous; but with the
blessing of God, if I can, to save you any further
trouble, I will go through it this day.</p>

<p>I am to tell your Lordships, that the next step they
took was, after putting Mr. Paterson as an accuser to
make good a charge which he made out but too much
to their satisfaction, they changed their battery.</p>

<p>[<i>Mr. Burke's illness increased; upon which the House,
on the motion of His Royal Highness the Prince of
Wales, adjourned.</i>]<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">{99}</a></span></p>



<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><a name="FOURTH_DAY_TUESDAY_FEBRUARY_19_1788" id="FOURTH_DAY_TUESDAY_FEBRUARY_19_1788"></a></p>
<h2>SPEECH<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 50%;">IN</span><br />
<br />
OPENING THE IMPEACHMENT.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 50%;">FOURTH DAY: TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1788.</span></h2>


<p>My Lords,&mdash;In any great undertaking, a failure
in the midst of it, even from infirmity,
though to be regarded principally as a misfortune,
is attended with some slight shadow of disgrace; but
your Lordships' humanity, and your love of justice,
have remedied everything, and I therefore proceed
with confidence this day.</p>

<p>My Lords, I think (to the best of my remembrance)
the House adjourned at the period of time
in which I was endeavoring to illustrate the mischiefs
that happened from Mr. Hastings's throwing off his
responsibility, by delegating his power to a nominal
Council, and in reality to a black bad man, a native
of the country, of the worst character that could be
found in it,&mdash;and the consequence of it, in preventing
the detection and the punishment of the grossest
abuses that ever were known to be committed in India,
or any other part of the world.</p>

<p>My Lords, I stated to you that Mr. Commissioner
Paterson was sent into that country. I stated that
he was sent into it with all the authority of government,
with power to hear, and not only to hear and
to report, but to redress, the grievances which he
should find in the country. In short, there was noth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">{100}</a></span>ing
wanting to his power but an honest support.
Your Lordships will be convinced that the road to
fortune was easy to him. Debi Sing for a favorable
report would have given a large sum of money.
Your Lordships will be convinced that the Committee
would not have received such a report as a proof
of bribery. They would rather consider him as a
man whose conduct tended to conciliate, and to
soften troublesome and difficult matters, and to settle
the order of government as soon as possible.</p>

<p>Some of the things contained in his reports I have
taken the liberty of laying before your Lordships,
but very faintly, very imperfectly, and far short of
my materials. I have stated, that the criminal,
against whom the commissioner had made his report,
instead of being punished by that strong hand
of power which Mr. Hastings has thought proper to
use upon other occasions, when he has endeavored
to make princes, or persons in the rank and with the
attributes of sovereign princes, feel whenever they
have incurred his private resentments,&mdash;that this
man was put into every situation of offence or defence
which the most litigious and prevaricating
laws that ever were invented in the very bosom of
arbitrary power could afford him, or by which peculation
and power were to be screened from the cries
of an oppressed people.</p>

<p>Mr. Paterson, I stated, from being a commissioner
directed to report, under the authority of government,
to that government, was considered as a voluntary
accuser, obliged to make good the articles of his
charge. But I believe I stated that he did not long
remain in that condition.</p>

<p>I shall now proceed to state to your Lordships, that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">{101}</a></span>
this Debi Sing, fortified by this protection, which
was extended even to the lowest of his instruments,
thought it high time to assume the superiority that
belonged to a personage who had the Governor-General
for his <i>pensioner</i>. No longer the sneaking tone
of apology; no longer the modest allegations that
the commissioner was misinformed;&mdash;he boldly accuses
the representative of English government of
forgery in order to destroy him; he criminates and
recriminates, and lays about him without mercy.</p>

<p>Things were now in a proper train; the Committee
find the cause growing and ripening to their wishes;&mdash;answers,
replies, objections, and interrogatories,&mdash;accounts
opposed to accounts,&mdash;balances now on the
one side, now on the other,&mdash;now debtor becomes
creditor, and creditor debtor,&mdash;until the proceedings
were grown to the size of volumes, and the whole
well fitted to perplex the most simple facts, and to
darken the meridian sunshine of public notoriety.
They prepared a report for the Governor-General
and Council suitable to the whole tenor of their
proceedings. Here the man whom they had employed
and betrayed appeared in a new character.
Observe their course with him. First he was made
a commissioner. Then he was changed from a commissioner
to be a voluntary accuser. He now undergoes
another metamorphosis: he appears as a culprit
before Mr. Hastings, on the accusation of the donor
of Mr. Hastings's bribes. He is to answer to the accusations
of Debi Sing. He is permitted to find materials
for his own defence; and he, an old Company's
servant, is to acknowledge it as a favor to be again
suffered to go into the province, without authority,
without station, without public character, under the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">{102}</a></span>
discountenance and frowns, and in a manner under
prosecution, of the government. As a favor, he is
suffered to go again into Rungpore, in hopes of finding
among the dejected, harassed, and enslaved race
of Hindoos, and in that undone province, men bold
enough to stand forward, against all temptations of
emolument, and at the risk of their lives, with a firm
adherence to their original charge,&mdash;and at a time
when they saw <i>him</i> an abandoned and persecuted
private individual, whom they had just before looked
upon as a protecting angel, carrying with him the
whole power of a beneficent government, and whom
they had applied to, as a magistrate of high and sacred
authority, to hear the complaints and to redress
the grievances of a whole people.</p>

<p>A new commission of junior servants was at the
same time sent out to review and re&euml;xamine the cause,
to inquire into the inquiry, to examine into the examination,
to control the report, to be commissioners
upon the commission of Mr. Paterson. Before these
commissioners he was made to appear as an accused
person, and was put upon his defence, but without
the authority and without the favor which ought to go
with an accused person for the purpose of enabling
him to make out such defence.</p>

<p>These persons went down into that country, and,
after spending a long time in mere matters of form,
found they could not do without a representative of
Debi Sing, and accordingly they ordered Debi Sing
to send up his <i>vakeel</i>.</p>

<p>I forgot to state to your Lordships what the condition
of Debi Sing was during this proceeding. This
man had been ordered to Calcutta on two grounds:
one, on the matter of his flagitious misconduct at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">{103}</a></span>
Rungpore; and the other, for a great failure in the
payment of his stipulated revenue. Under this double
accusation, he was to be considered, according to the
usual mode of proceeding in such cases, as a prisoner;
and he was kept, not in the common gaol of Calcutta,
not in the prison of the fort, not in that gaol in which
Rajah Nundcomar, who had been prime-minister of
the empire, was confined, but, according to the mild
ways of that country, where they choose to be mild,
and the persons are protected by the official influence
of power, under a free custody. He was put under
a guard of sepoys, but not confined to his house; he
was permitted to go abroad, where he was daily in
conference with those who were to judge him; and
having an address which seldom fails, and a dexterity
never wanting to a man possessed of 700,000<i>l.</i>, he
converted this guard into a retinue of honor: their
bayonets were lowered, their muskets laid aside; they
attended him with their side-arms, and many with
silver verges in their hands, to mark him out rather
as a great magistrate attended by a retinue than a
prisoner under guard.</p>

<p>When he was ordered to send a vakeel to defend
his conduct, he refused to send him. Upon which
the commissioners, instead of saying, "If you will not
send your agent, we will proceed in our inquiry without
him," (and, indeed, it was not made necessary
by the commission that he should be there either by
vakeel or otherwise,) condescendingly admitted his
refusal, and suffered him to come up in person. He
accordingly enters the province, attended with his
guard, in the manner I have before mentioned, more
as a person returning in triumph from a great victory
than as a man under the load of all those enormous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">{104}</a></span>
charges which I have stated. He enters the province
in this manner; and Mr. Paterson, who saw himself
lately the representative of the India Company, (an
old servant of the Company is a great man in that
country,) was now left naked, destitute, without any
mark of official situation or dignity. He was present,
and saw all the marks of imprisonment turned into
marks of respect and dignity to this consummate villain
whom I have the misfortune of being obliged to
introduce to your Lordships' notice. Mr. Paterson,
seeing the effect of the proceeding everywhere, seeing
the minds of the people broken, subdued, and
prostrate under it, and that, so far from having the
means of detecting the villanies of this insolent criminal,
appearing as a magistrate, he had not the means
of defending even his own innocence, because every
kind of information fled and was annihilated before
him, represented to these young commissioners that
this appearance of authority tended to strike terror
into the hearts of the natives, and to prevent his
receiving justice. The Council of Calcutta took this
representation into their deliberate consideration;
they found that it was true, that, if he had such an
attendance any longer in this situation, (and a large
attendance it was, such as the Chancellor of this kingdom
or the Speaker of the House of Commons does
not appear with,) it would have an evil appearance.
On the other hand, say they, "<i>If he should be left under
a guard, the people would consider him as under
disgrace.</i>" They therefore took a middle way, and
ordered the guard not to attend him with fixed bayonets,
which had the appearance of the custody of a
prisoner, but to lower their muskets and unfix their
bayonets.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">{105}</a></span></p>

<p>The next step of these commissioners is to exclude
Mr. Paterson from all their deliberations; and in order
that both parties might be put on an equality,
one would naturally conclude that the culprit, Debi
Sing, was likewise excluded. Far from it: he sat
upon the bench. Need I say any more upon this
subject? The protection followed.</p>

<p>In this situation Mr. Paterson wrote one of the
most pathetic memorials that ever was penned to the
Council of Calcutta, submitting to his hard fate, but
standing inflexibly to his virtue that brought it upon
him. To do the man justice, he bore the whole of
this persecution like an hero. He never tottered in
his principles, nor swerved to the right or to the left
from the noble cause of justice and humanity in which
he had been engaged; and when your Lordships come
to see his memorials, you will have reason to observe
that his abilities are answerable to the dignity of his
cause, and make him worthy of everything that he
had the honor to suffer for it.</p>

<p>To cut short the thread of this shocking series
of corruption, oppression, fraud, and chicanery, which
lasted for upwards of four years: Paterson remains
without employment; the inhabitants of great provinces,
whose substance and whose blood was sold by
Mr. Hastings, remain without redress; and the purchaser,
Debi Sing, that corrupt, iniquitous, and bloody
tyrant, instead of being proceeded against by the
Committee in a civil suit for retribution to the sufferers,
is handed over to the false semblance of a trial,
on a criminal charge, before a Mahometan judge,&mdash;an
equal judge, however. The judge was Mahomed
Reza Kh&acirc;n, his original patron, and the author of all
his fortunes,&mdash;a judge who depends on him, as a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">{106}</a></span>
debtor depends upon his creditor. To that judge is
he sent, without a distinct charge, without a prosecutor,
and without evidence. The next ships will bring
you an account of his honorable acquittal.</p>

<p>I have stated before that I considered Mr. Hastings
as responsible for the characters of the people he employed,&mdash;doubly
responsible, if he <i>knew</i> them to be
bad. I therefore charge him with putting in situations
in which any evil may be committed persons of
known evil characters.</p>

<p>My Lords, I charge him, as chief governor, with
destroying the institutions of the country, which were
designed to be, and ought to have been, controls upon
such a person as Debi Sing.</p>

<p>An officer, called dewan, or steward of the country,
had always been placed as a control on the farmer;
but that no such control should in fact exist, that
he, Debi Sing, should be let loose to rapine, slaughter,
and plunder in the country, both offices were
conferred on him. Did Mr. Hastings vest these offices
in him? No: but if Mr. Hastings had kept firm
to the duties which the act of Parliament appointed
him to execute, all the revenue appointments must
have been made by him; but, instead of making them
himself, he appointed Gunga Govind Sing to make
them; and for that appointment, and for the whole
train of subordinate villany which followed the placing
iniquity in the chief seat of government, Mr.
Hastings is answerable. He is answerable, I say,
first, for destroying his own legal capacity, and, next,
for destroying the legal capacity of the Council, not
one of whom ever had, or could have, any true knowledge
of the state of the country, from the moment
he buried it in the gulf of mystery and of darkness,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">{107}</a></span>
under that collected heap of villany, Gunga Govind
Sing. From that moment he destroyed the power of
government, and put everything into his hands: for
this he is answerable.</p>

<p>The Provincial Councils consisted of many members,
who, though they might unite in some small
iniquities perhaps, could not possibly have concealed
from the public eye the commission of such acts as
these. Their very numbers, their natural competitions,
the contentions that must have arisen among
them, must have put a check, at least, to such a business.
And therefore, Mr. Hastings having destroyed
every check and control above and below, having
delivered the whole into the hands of Gunga Govind
Sing, for all the iniquities of Gunga Govind Sing he
is responsible.</p>

<p>But he did not know Debi Sing, whom he employed.
I read, yesterday, and trust it is fresh in
your Lordships' remembrance, that Debi Sing was
presented to him by that set of tools, as they call
themselves, who acted, as they themselves tell us
they must act, entirely and implicitly under Gunga
Govind Sing,&mdash;that is to say, by Gunga Govind Sing
himself, the confidential agent of Mr. Hastings.</p>

<p>Mr. Hastings is further responsible, because he
took a bribe of 40,000<i>l.</i> from some person in power
in Dinagepore and Rungpore, the countries which
were ravaged in this manner, through the hands of
Gunga Govind Sing,&mdash;through the medium of that
very person whom he had appointed to exercise all
the authorities of the Supreme Council above and of
all subordinate Councils below. Having, therefore,
thus appointed a Council of tools in the hands of
Gunga Govind Sing, at the expense of 62,000<i>l.</i> a year,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">{108}</a></span>
to supersede all the English provincial authorities,&mdash;having
appointed them for the purpose of establishing
a bribe-factor general, a general receiver and agent
of bribes through all that country, Mr. Hastings is
responsible for all the consequences of it.</p>

<p>I have thought it necessary, and absolutely necessary
it is, to state what the consequence of this clandestine
mode of supplying the Company's exigencies
was. Your Lordships will see that their exigencies
are to be supplied by the ruin of the landed interest
of a province, the destruction of the husbandmen,
and the ruin of all the people in it. This is the consequence
of a general bribe-broker, an agent like
Gunga Govind Sing, superseding all the powers and
controls of government.</p>

<p>But Mr. Hastings has not only reduced bribery to
a system of government practically, but theoretically.
For when he despaired any longer of concealing his
bribes from the penetrating eye of Parliament, then he
took another mode, and declared, as your Lordships
will see, that it was the best way of supplying the
necessities of the East India Company in the pressing
exigencies of their affairs; that thus a relief to the
Company's affairs might be yielded, which, in the common,
ostensible mode, and under the ordinary forms
of government, and publicly, never would be yielded
to them. So that bribery with him became a supplement
to exaction.</p>

<p>The best way of showing that a theoretical system
is bad is to show the practical mischiefs that it produces:
because a thing may look specious in theory,
and yet be ruinous in practice; a thing may look evil
in theory, and yet be in its practice excellent. Here
a thing in theory, stated by Mr. Hastings to be pro<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">{109}</a></span>ductive
of much good, is in reality productive of
all those horrible mischiefs I have stated. That Mr.
Hastings well knew this appears from an extract
of the Bengal Revenue Consultations, 21st January,
1785, a little before he came away.</p>

<p>Mr. Hastings says,&mdash;"I entirely acquit Mr. Goodlad
of all the charges: he has disproved them. It
was the duty of the accuser to prove them. Whatever
crimes may be established against Rajah Debi
Sing, it does not follow that Mr. Goodlad was responsible
for them; and I so well know the character and
abilities of Rajah Debi Sing, that I can easily conceive
that it was in his power both to commit the enormities
which are laid to his charge, and to conceal the
grounds of them from Mr. Goodlad, who had no authority
but that of receiving the accounts and rents
of the district from Rajah Debi Sing, and occasionally
to be the channel of communication between him and
the Committee."</p>

<p>We shall now see what things Mr. Hastings did,
what course he was in, a little before his departure,&mdash;with
what propriety and consistency of character he
has behaved from the year of the commencement of
his corrupt system, in 1773, to the end of it, when he
closed it in 1785, when the bribes not only mounted
the chariot, but boarded the barge, and, as I shall
show, followed him down the Ganges, and even to
the sea, and that he never quitted his system of iniquity,
but that it survived his political life itself.</p>

<p>One of his last political acts was this.</p>

<p>Your Lordships will remember that Mr. Goodlad
was sent up into the country, whose conduct was
terrible indeed: for that he could not be in place
and authority in that country, and be innocent, while<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">{110}</a></span>
such things were doing, I shall prove. But that is
not now my consideration.</p>

<p>The Governor-General's minute, just read, is this.
"I entirely acquit Mr. Goodlad of all the charges:
he has disproved them. It was the duty of the accuser
to prove them" (the accuser, namely, the commissioner).
"Whatever crimes may be established
against Rajah Debi Sing, it does not follow that Mr.
Goodlad was responsible for them; and I so well
know the character," &amp;c., &amp;c., &amp;c.</p>

<p>Now your Lordships perceive he has acquitted Mr.
Goodlad. He is clear. Be it that he is fairly and conscientiously
acquitted. But what is Mr. Hastings's
account of Rajah Debi Sing? He is presented to him
in 1781, by Gunga Govind Sing, as a person against
whose character there could be no exception, and by
him accepted in that light. Upon the occasion I have
mentioned, Mr. Hastings's opinion of him is this: "I
so well know the character and abilities of Rajah Debi
Sing, that I can easily conceive that it was in his
power both to commit the enormities which are laid to
his charge, and to conceal the grounds of them from
Mr. Goodlad, who had no authority but that of receiving
the accounts and rents of the district from Rajah
Debi Sing, and occasionally to be the channel of communication
between him and the Committee."</p>

<p>Thus your Lordships see what Mr. Hastings's opinion
of Debi Sing was. We shall prove it at another
time, by abundance of clear and demonstrative evidence,
that, whether he was bad or no, (but we shall
prove that bad he was indeed,) <i>even he</i> could hardly
be so bad as he was in the opinion which Mr. Hastings
entertained of him; who, notwithstanding, now disowns
this mock Committee, instituted by himself, but,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">{111}</a></span>
in reality, entirely managed by Gunga Govind Sing.
This Debi Sing was accepted as an unexceptionable
man; and yet Mr. Hastings knows both his power of
doing mischief and his artifice in concealing it. If,
then, Mr. Goodlad is to be acquitted, does it not show
the evil of Mr. Hastings's conduct in destroying those
Provincial Councils which, as I have already stated,
were obliged to book everything, to minute all the circumstances
which came before them, together with
all the consultations respecting them? He strikes at
the whole system at once, and, instead of it, he leaves
an Englishman, under pretence of controlling Gunga
Govind Sing's agent, appointed for the very purpose
of giving him bribes, in a province where Mr. Hastings
says that agent had the power of committing such
enormities, and which nobody doubts his disposition
to commit,&mdash;he leaves him, I say, in such a state of
inefficiency, that these iniquities could be concealed
(though every one true) from the person appointed
there to inspect his conduct! What, then, could be
his business there? Was it only to receive such sums
of money as Debi Sing might put into his hands, and
which might have been easily sent to Calcutta? Was
he to be of use as a communication between Debi
Sing and the Committee, and in no other way?
Here, then, we have that English authority which
Mr. Hastings left in the country,&mdash;here the native
authority which he settled, and the establishment of
native iniquity in a regular system under Gunga
Govind Sing,&mdash;here the destruction of all English
inspection. I hope I need say no more to prove to
your Lordships that this system, taken nakedly as it
thus stands, founded in mystery and obscurity, founded
for the very express purpose of conveying bribes,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">{112}</a></span>
as the best mode of collecting the revenue and supplying
the Company's exigencies through Gunga Govind
Sing, would be iniquitous upon the face and
the statement of it. But when your Lordships consider
what horrid effects it produced, you will easily
see what the mischief and abomination of Mr. Hastings's
destroying these Provincial Councils and protecting
these persons must necessarily be. If you had
not known in theory, you must have seen it in practice.</p>

<p>But when both practice and theory concur, there
can be no doubt that a system of private bribery for
a revenue, and of private agency for a constitutional
government, must ruin the country where it prevails,
must disgrace the country that uses it, and finally
end in the destruction of the revenue. For what
says Mr. Hastings? "I was to have received 40,000<i>l.</i>
in bribes, and 30,000<i>l.</i> was actually applied to the
use of the Company." Now I hope I shall demonstrate,
if not, it will be by some one abler than me
demonstrated, in the course of this business, that
there never was a bribe received by Mr. Hastings that
was not instantly followed with a deficiency in the
revenue,&mdash;this is clear, and what we undertake to
prove,&mdash;and that Debi Sing himself was, at the time
Mr. Hastings came away, between twenty and thirty
thousand pounds debtor to the Company. So that, in
truth, you always find a deficiency of revenue nearly
equal, and in some instances I shall show double, to
all the bribes Mr. Hastings received: from whence
it will be evident that he never could nor did receive
them under that absurd and strange idea of a resource
to government.</p>

<p>I must re-state to your Lordships, because I wish<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">{113}</a></span>
you never to forget, that this Committee of Revenue
was, in their own opinion, and from their own certain
knowledge and mere motion, if motion can be attributed
originally to instruments, mere tools; that
they knew that they were tools in the hands of Gunga
Govind Sing. There were two persons principal in
it,&mdash;Mr. Shore, who was the acting President, and
Mr. Anderson, who was President in rank, and President
in emolument, but absent for a great part of the
time upon a foreign embassy. It is the recorded opinion
of the former, (for I must beg leave to read again
a part of the paper which has already been read to your
Lordships,) that "the Committee, with the best intentions,
best abilities, and steadiest application, must,
after all, be a tool in the hands of their dewan."</p>

<p>Now do you believe, in the first place, that men
will long have abilities, will long have good intentions,
and will long, above all, have steady application,
when they know they are but tools in the hands
of another,&mdash;when they know they are tools for his
own corrupt purposes?</p>

<p>In the next place, I must beg leave to state to you,
that, on the constitution of this Committee, Mr. Hastings
made them all take a solemn oath that they
would never receive any present whatever. It was
not enough to trust to a general covenant; it was
not enough to trust to the penal act of 1773: he
bound the Committee by a new oath, and forced them
to declare that they would not receive any bribes.
As soon as he had so secured them against receiving
bribes, he was resolved to make them inefficient,&mdash;a
good way to secure them against bribes, by taking
from them the power of bribe-worthy service. This
was a good counter-security to their oath. But Mr.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">{114}</a></span>
Hastings put a dewan there, against whom there was
no security; he let loose this dewan to frustrate their
intentions, their application, their abilities, and oath:
that is, there was a person at that board who was
more than the board itself, who might riot in peculation
and plunder from one end of the country to the
other. He was there to receive bribes for Mr. Hastings;
the Committee were to be pure with impotent
hands; and then came a person with ample power for
Mr. Hastings himself. And lest this person should
not have power enough in this Committee, he is made
the general bribe-broker to Mr. Hastings. This secret
under-current, as your Lordships will see, is to
counteract everything, and, as fast as one part is rendered
pure, totally to corrupt all the rest.</p>

<p>But, my Lords, this was not the private opinion of
Mr. Shore only, a man of great abilities, and intimately
acquainted with the revenue, who must know when
he was in a situation to do good and when not. The
other gentleman whom I have mentioned, Mr. Hastings's
confidant in everything but his bribes, and
supposed to be in his closest secrets, is Mr. Anderson.
I should remark to your Lordships, that Mr. Anderson
is a man apparently of weak nerves, of modest
and very guarded demeanor, as we have seen him in
the House of Commons; it is in that way only I have
the honor of knowing him. Mr. Anderson being asked
whether he agreed in the opinion and admitted the
truth of his friend Mr. Shore's statement relative to
the dewan of the Committee, his answer was this:
"I do not think that I should have written it quite
so strong, but I do in a great measure agree to it:
that is, I think there is a great deal of truth in the
observation; I think, in particular, that it would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">{115}</a></span>
require great exertion in the Committee, and great
abilities on the part of the President, to restrain effectually
the conduct of the dewan; I think it would be
difficult for the Committee to interpose a sufficient
control to guard against all the abuses of the dewan."</p>

<p>There is the real President of the Committee,&mdash;there
the most active, efficient member of it. They
are both of one opinion concerning their situation:
and I think this opinion of Mr. Anderson is still more
strong; for, as he thinks he should have written it
with a little more guard, but should have agreed in
substance, you must naturally think the strongest expression
the truest representation of the circumstance.</p>

<p>There is another circumstance that must strike
your Lordships relative to this institution. It is
where the President says that the use of the President
would be to exert his best abilities, his greatest
application, his constant guard,&mdash;for what?&mdash;to
prevent his dewan from being guilty of bribery and
being guilty of oppressions. So here is an executive
constitution in which the chief executive minister
is to be in such a situation and of such a disposition
that the chief employment of the presiding person
in the Committee is to guard against him and to prevent
his doing mischief. Here is a man appointed,
of the greatest possible power, of the greatest possible
wickedness, in a situation to exert that power and
wickedness for the destruction of the country, and
without doubt it would require the greatest ability
and diligence in the person at the head of that Council
to prevent it. Such a constitution, allowed and
alleged by the persons themselves who composed it,
was, I believe, never heard of in the world.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">{116}</a></span></p>

<p>Now that I have done with this part of the system
of bribery, your Lordships will permit me to follow
Mr. Hastings to his last parting scene. He parted
with his power, he parted with his situation, he parted
with everything, but he never could part with
Gunga Govind Sing. He was on his voyage, he had
embarked, he was upon the Ganges, he had quitted
his government; and his last dying sigh, his last parting
voice, was "Gunga Govind Sing!" It ran upon
the banks of the Ganges, as another plaintive voice ran
upon the banks of another river (I forget whose); his
last accents were, "Gunga, Gunga Govind Sing!"
It demonstrates the power of friendship.</p>

<p>It is said by some idle, absurd moralists, that
friendship is a thing that cannot subsist between
bad men; but I will show your Lordships the direct
contrary; and, after having shown you what Gunga
Govind Sing was, I shall bring before you Mr. Hastings's
last act of friendship for him. Not that I have
quite shown you everything, but pretty well, I think,
respecting this man. There is a great deal concerning
his character and conduct that is laid by, and I
do believe, that, whatever time I should take up in
expatiating upon these things, there would be "in the
lowest deep still a lower deep"; for there is not a
day of the inquiry that does not bring to light more
and more of this evil against Mr. Hastings.</p>

<p>But before I open the papers relative to this act of
Mr. Hastings's friendship for Gunga Govind Sing, I
must re-state some circumstances, that your Lordships
may understand thoroughly the nature of it. Your
Lordships may recollect, that, about the time of the
succession of the minor Rajah of Dinagepore, who
was then but five or six years of age, and when Mr.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">{117}</a></span>
Hastings left Bengal eight or nine, Mr. Hastings had
received from that country a bribe of about 40,000<i>l.</i>
There is a fidelity even in bribery; there is a truth
and observance even in corruption; there is a justice,
that, if money is to be paid for protection, protection
should be given. My Lords, Mr. Hastings received
this bribe through Gunga Govind Sing; then, at least,
through Gunga Govind Sing he ought to take care
that that Rajah should not be robbed,&mdash;that he
should not be robbed, if Gunga Govind Sing could
help it,&mdash;that, above all, he should not be robbed by
Gunga Govind Sing himself. But your Lordships
will find that the last act of Mr. Hastings's life was
to be an accomplice in the most cruel and perfidious
breach of faith, in the most iniquitous transaction, that
I do believe ever was held out to the indignation of
the world with regard to private persons. When he
departed, on the 16th of February, 1785, when he was
on board, in the mouth of the Ganges, and preparing
to visit his native country, let us see what the last act
of his life then was. Hear the last tender accents of
the dying swan upon the Ganges.</p>

<p>"The regret which I cannot but feel in relinquishing
the service of my honorable employers would be
much embittered, were it accompanied by the reflection
that I have neglected the merits of a man who deserves
no less of them than of myself, Gunga Govind
Sing, who from his earliest youth had been employed
in the collection of the revenues, and was about eleven
years ago selected for his superior talents to fill the
office of dewan to the Calcutta Committee. He has
from that time, with a short intermission, been the
principal native agent in the collection of the Company's
revenues; and I can take upon myself to say that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">{118}</a></span>
he has performed the duties of his office with fidelity,
diligence, and ability. To myself he has given
proofs of a constancy and attachment which neither the
fears nor expectations excited by the prevalence of a
different influence could shake,&mdash;and at a time, too,
when these qualities were so dangerous, that, far from
finding them amongst the generality of his countrymen,
I did not invariably meet with them amongst my
own. With such a sense of his merits, it is natural that
I should feel a desire of rewarding him,&mdash;for justice,
gratitude, generosity, and even policy, demand it;
and I resort to the board for the means of performing
so necessary a duty, in full confidence, that, as those
which I shall point out are neither incompatible with
the Company's interest nor prejudicial to the rights
of others, they will not be withheld from me. At the
request, therefore, of Gunga Govind Sing, I deliver
the accompanying <i>durkhausts</i>, or petitions, for grants
of lands lying in different districts, the total <i>jumma</i>,
or rent, of which amount to Rupees 2,38,061. 12. 1."</p>

<p>Your Lordships recollect that Mr. Larkins was one
of the bribe-agents of Mr. Hastings,&mdash;one, I mean,
of a corporation, but not corporate in their acts.
My Lords, Mr. Larkins has told you, he has told us,
and he has told the Court of Directors, that Mr. Hastings
parted in a quarrel with Gunga Govind Sing, because
he had not faithfully kept his engagement with
regard to his bribe, and that, instead of 40,000<i>l.</i> from
Dinagepore, he had only paid him 30,000<i>l.</i> My
Lords, that iniquitous men will defraud one another
I can conceive; but you will perceive by Mr. Hastings's
behavior at parting, that he either had in fact
received this money from Gunga Govind Sing, or in
some way or other had abundant reason to be satis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">{119}</a></span>fied,&mdash;that
he totally forgot his anger upon this occasion,
and that at parting his last act was to ratify
<i>grants of lands</i> (so described by Mr. Hastings) to
Gunga Govind Sing. Your Lordships will recollect
the tender and forgiving temper of Mr. Hastings.
Whatever little bickerings there might have been between
them about their small money concerns, the
purifying waters of the Ganges had washed away all
sins, enmities, and discontent. By some of those arts
which Gunga Govind Sing knows how to practise, (I
mean conciliatory, honest arts,) he had fairly wiped
away all resentment out of Mr. Hastings's mind; and
he, who so long remembered the affront offered him
by Cheyt Sing, totally forgets Gunga Govind Sing's
fraud of 10,000<i>l.</i>, and attempts to make others the
instruments of giving him what he calls his reward.</p>

<p>Mr. Hastings states, among Gunga Govind's merits,
that he had, from the time of its institution, and with
a very short intermission, served the office of dewan
to the Calcutta Committee. That short intermission
was when he was turned out of office upon proof of
peculation and embezzlement of public money; but
of this cause of the intermission in the political life
and political merits of Gunga Govind Sing Mr. Hastings
does not tell you.</p>

<p>Your Lordships shall now hear what opinion a
member of the Provincial Council at Calcutta, in
which he had also served, had of him.</p>

<p>"Who is Gunga Govind Sing?" The answer is,
"He was, when I left Bengal, dewan to the Committee
of Revenue.&mdash;What was his office and power
during Mr. Hastings's administration since 1780?&mdash;He
was formerly dewan to the Provincial Council
stationed at Calcutta, of which I was a member. His<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">{120}</a></span>
conduct then was licentious and unwarrantable, oppressive
and extortionary. He was stationed under
us to be an humble and submissive servant, and to be
of use to us in the discharge of our duty. His conduct
was everything the reverse. We endeavored to
correct the mischiefs he was guilty of as much as
possible. In one attempt to release fifteen persons
illegally confined by him, we were dismissed our offices:
a different pretence was held out for our dismission,
but it was only a pretence. Since his appointment
as dewan to the present Committee of Revenue,
his line of conduct has only been a continuance of
what I have described, but upon a larger scale.&mdash;What
was the general opinion of the natives of the
use he made of his power? He was looked up to by
the natives as the second person in the government,
if not the first. He was considered as the only channel
for obtaining favor and employment from the
Governor. There is hardly a native family of rank
or credit within the three provinces whom he has not
some time or other distressed and afflicted; scarce
a zemindary that he has not dismembered and plundered.&mdash;Were
you in a situation to know this to be
true?&mdash;I certainly was.&mdash;What was the general opinion,
and your own, concerning his wealth?&mdash;It is almost
impossible to form a competent judgment, his
means of acquiring it have been so extensive. I had
an account shown to me, about July, 1785, stating his
acquisitions at three hundred and twenty lacs of rupees,&mdash;that
is, 3,200,000<i>l.</i>"</p>

<p>My Lords, I have only to add, that, from the best
inquiries I have been able to make, those who speak
highest of his wealth are those who obtain the greatest
credit. The estimate of any man's wealth is un<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">{121}</a></span>certain;
but the enormity of his wealth is universally
believed. Yet Mr. Hastings seemed to act as if he
needed a reward; and it is therefore necessary to
inquire what recommended him particularly to Mr.
Hastings. Your Lordships have seen that he was on
the point of being dismissed for misbehavior and oppression
by that Calcutta Committee his services to
which Mr. Hastings gives as one proof of his constant
and uniform good behavior. "He had executed," he
says, "the duties of his office with fidelity, diligence,
and ability." These are his public merits; but he
has private merits. "To myself," says he, "he has
given proofs of constancy and attachment."</p>

<p>Now we, who have been used to look very diligently
over the Company's records, and to compare one part
with another, ask what those services were, which
have so strongly recommended him to Mr. Hastings,
and induced him to speak so favorably of his public
services. What those services are does not appear;
we have searched the records for them, (and those
records are very busy and loquacious,) about that period
of time during which Mr. Hastings was laboring
under an eclipse, and near the dragon's mouth,
and all the drums of Bengal beating to free him from
this dangerous eclipse. During this time there is
nothing publicly done, there is nothing publicly said,
by Gunga Govind Sing. There were, then, some
services of Gunga Govind Sing that lie undiscovered,
which he takes as proofs of attachment. What could
they be? They were not public; nobody knows anything
of them; they must, by reference to the time,
as far as we can judge of them, be services of concealment:
otherwise, in the course of this business, it will
be necessary, and Mr. Hastings will find occasion, to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">{122}</a></span>
show what those personal services of Gunga Govind
Sing to him were. <i>His</i> services to Gunga Govind
Sing were pretty conspicuous: for, after he was turned
out for peculation, Mr. Hastings restored him to his
office; and when he had imprisoned fifteen persons
illegally and oppressively, and when the Council were
about to set them at liberty, they were set at liberty
themselves, they were dismissed their offices. Your
Lordships see, then, what his public services were.
His private services are unknown: they must be, as
we conceive from their being unknown, of a suspicious
nature; and I do not go further than suspicion, because
I never heard, and I have not been without attempts
to make the discovery, what those services were
that recommended him to Mr. Hastings.</p>

<p>Having looked at his public services, which are
well-known scenes of wickedness, barbarity, and corruption,
we next come to see what his reward is.
Your Lordships hear what reward he thought proper
to secure for himself; and I believe a man who has
power like Gunga Govind Sing, and a disposition like
Gunga Govind Sing, can hardly want the means of
rewarding himself; and if every virtue rewards itself,
and virtue is said to be its own reward, the virtue of
Gunga Govind Sing was in a good way of seeking its
own reward. Mr. Hastings, however, thought it was
not right that such a man should reward himself, but
that it was necessary for the honor and justice of government
to find him a reward. Then the next thing
is, what that reward shall be. It is a grant of lands.
Your Lordships will observe, that Mr. Hastings declares
some of these lands to be unoccupied, others
occupied, but not by the just owners. Now these
were the very lands of the Rajah of Dinagepore from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">{123}</a></span>
whence he had taken the bribe of 40,000<i>l.</i> My Lords,
this was a monstrous thing. Mr. Hastings had the
audacity, as his parting act, when he was coming to
England, and ought to have expected (whatever he
did expect) the responsibility of this day,&mdash;he was,
I say, shameless enough not only to give this recommendation,
but to perpetuate the mischiefs of his
reign, as he has done, to his successors: for he has
really done so, by making it impossible, almost, to
know anything of the true state of that country; and
he has thereby made them much less responsible and
criminal than before in any ill acts they may have
done since his time. But Mr. Hastings not only
recommends and backs the petition of Gunga Govind
Sing with his parting authority, which authority he
made the people there believe would be greater in
England than it was in India, but he is an evidence;
he declares, that, "to his own knowledge, these lands
are vacant, and confessedly, therefore, by the laws of
this as well as of most other countries, in the absolute
gift of government."</p>

<p>My Lords, as I said, Mr. Hastings becomes a witness,
and I believe in the course of the proceedings
you will find a false witness, for Gunga Govind Sing.
"To my own knowledge," says he, "they are vacant."
Why, I cannot find that Mr. Hastings had ever been
in Dinagepore; or if he had, it must have been only
as a passenger. He had not the supervision of the
district, in any other sense than with that kind of
eagle eye which he must have had over all Bengal,
and which he had for no other purposes than those
for which eagles' eyes are commonly used. He becomes,
you see, a witness for Gunga Govind Sing, and
orders to be given him, as a recompense for all the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">{124}</a></span>
iniquitous acts this man committed, the lands of that
very Rajah who through the hands of Gunga Govind
Sing had given an enormous bribe to Mr. Hastings.
These lands were not without an ownership, but
were lands in the hands of the Rajah, and were to
be severed from the zemindary, and given to Gunga
Govind Sing. The manner of obtaining them is something
so shocking, and contains such a number of
enormities completed in one act, that one can scarce
imagine how such a compound could exist.</p>

<p>This man, besides his office of dewan to the Calcutta
Committee, which gave him the whole management
and power of the revenue, was, as I have stated, at the
head of all the registers in the kingdom, whose duty
it was to be a control upon him as dewan. As Mr.
Hastings destroyed every other constitutional settlement
of the country, so the office which was to be a
check upon Gunga Govind Sing, namely, the register
of the country, had been superseded, and revived in
another shape, and given to the own son of this very
man. God forbid that a son should not be under
a certain and reasonable subordination! But though
in this country we know a son may possibly be free
from the control of his father, yet the meanest slave
is not in a more abject condition of slavery than a son
is in that country to his father; for it extends to the
power of a Roman parent. The office of register is to
take care that a full and fair rent is secured to government;
and above all, it is his business to take care
of the body of laws, the <i>Rawaj-ul-Mulk</i>, or custom
of the country, of which he is the guardian as the
head of the law. It was his business to secure that
fundamental law of the government, and fundamental
law of the country, that a zemindary cannot be split,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">{125}</a></span>
or any portion of it separated, without the consent of
the government. This man betrayed his trust, and
did privately, contrary to the duty of his office, get
this minor Rajah, who was but an infant, who was
but nine years old at the time, to make over to him a
part of his zemindary, to a large amount, under color
of a fraudulent and fictitious sale. By the laws of that
country, by the common laws of Nature, the act of
this child was void. The act was void as against the
government, by giving a zemindary without the consent
of the government to the very man who ought to
have prevented such an act. He has the same sacred
guardianship of minors that the Chancellor of England
has. This man got to himself those lands by a
fraudulent, and probably forged deed,&mdash;for that is
charged too; but whether it was forged or not, this
miserable minor was obliged to give the lands to him:
he did not dare to quarrel with him upon such an
article; because he who would purchase could take.
The next step was to get one of his nearest relations
to seem to give a consent; because taking it of the
minor was too gross. The relation, who could no
more consent by the law of that country than the law
of this, gave apparently his consent. And these were
the very lands that Mr. Hastings speaks of as "lands
entirely at the disposal of government."</p>

<p>All this came before the Council. The moment
Mr. Hastings was gone, India seemed a little to respire;
there was a vast, oppressive weight taken off it,
there was a mountain removed from its breast; and
persons did dare then, for the first time, to breathe
their complaints. And accordingly, this minor Rajah
got some person kind enough to tell him that he was
a minor, that he could not part with his estate; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">{126}</a></span>
this, with the other shocking and illegal parts of the
process, was stated by him to the Council, who had
Mr. Hastings's recommendation of Gunga Govind
Sing before them. The Council, shocked to see a minor
attempted to be dispossessed in such a manner
by him who was the natural guardian of all minors,
shocked at such an enormous, daring piece of iniquity,
began to inquire further, and to ask, "How
came this his near relation to consent?" He was apparently
partner in the fraud. Partner in the fraud
he was, but not partner in the profit; for he was to do
it without getting anything for it: the wickedness
was in him, and the profit in Gunga Govind Sing.
In consequence of this inquiry, the man comes down
to account for his conduct, and declares another atrocious
iniquity, that shows you the powers which Gunga
Govind Sing possessed. "Gunga Govind Sing,"
says he, "is master of the country; he had made a
great festival for the burial of his mother; all those
of that caste ought to be invited to the funeral festival;
he would have disgraced me forever, if I had not
been invited to that funeral festival." These funeral
festivals, you should know, are great things in that
country, and celebrated in this manner, and, you may
depend upon it, in a royal manner by him, upon burying
his mother: any person left out was marked, despised,
and disgraced. "But he had it in his power,
and I was threatened to be deprived of my caste by
his register, who had the caste in his absolute disposition."
Says he, "I was under terror, I was under
duress, and I did it."</p>

<p>Gunga Govind Sing was fortified by the opinion,
that the Governor, though departed, virtually resided
in that country. God grant that his power may<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">{127}</a></span>
be extirpated out of it now! I doubt it; but, most
assuredly, it was residing in its plenitude when he
departed from thence; and there was not a man in
India who was not of opinion, either that he was
actually to return to govern India again, or that his
power is such in England as that he might govern it
here. And such were the hopes of those who had intentions
against the estates of others. Gunga Govind
Sing, therefore, being pressed to the wall by this declaration
of the Rajah's relation, when he could say
nothing against it, when it was clear and manifest,
and there were only impudent barefaced denials, and
asseverations against facts which carried truth with
themselves, did not in his answer pretend to say that
a zemindary might be parted without the consent of
the government, that a minor might be deprived of
it, that the next relation had a power of disposing
of it. He did indeed say, but nobody believed him,
that he had used no force upon this relation; but as
every one knew the act would be void, he was driven
to Mr. Hastings's great refuge,&mdash;he was driven to
say, "The government in this country has arbitrary
power; the power of government is everything, the
right of the subject nothing; they have at all times
separated zemindaries from their lawful proprietors.
Give me what Mr. Hastings has constantly given to
other people without any right, or shadow or semblance
of right at all." God knows, it is well that
I walk with my authority in my hand; for there are
such crimes, such portentous, incredible crimes, to be
brought before your Lordships, that it would hardly
be believed, were it not that I am constantly, as I
hope I shall constantly be, guarded with evidence, and
that the strongest that can be, even the evidence of
the parties themselves.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">{128}</a></span></p>

<p>"From your inquiry," Gunga Govind Sing says
to the Council, "every circumstance will appear in
its true colors. With respect to the alienation of
parts of zemindaries, the extent and consequence of
the great zemindars depend in a great measure on
the favor and countenance of the ruling powers.
By what means did this zemindar of Dinagepore get
possession of Purgunnah Buttassim after the death
of Rycobad Chowdry in 1158, of Purgunnah Coolygong
after the death of Sahebrance Chowderanne
in the same year, notwithstanding his heirs existed,
and of Purgunnah Suntoe, &amp;c., during the lifetime
of Sumboonant, the zemindar, in 1167, all without
right, title, or pecuniary consideration? This has
been the case with many purgunnahs in his zemindary,
and indeed exists in many other zemindaries
besides since the Company's accession. Ramkissen,
in 1172, got possession of Nurrulloor, the zemindary
of Mahomed Ali. The purgunnah of Ichanguipore,
&amp;c., was in three divisions in 1173. The petition
of Govind Deo Sheopersaud was made over to the
son of Bousser Chowdry, possessor of the third share.
Purgunnah Baharbund belonged to the zemindary
of Ranny Bhowanny, and in 1180 was made over
to Lucknaut Nundy. All these changes took place
in the lifetime of the rightful possessors, without
right, title, or purchase."</p>

<p>Your Lordships have not heard before of Lucknaut
Nundy. He was the son of a person of whom your
Lordships have heard before, called Cantoo Baboo, the
banian of Mr. Hastings. Mr. Hastings has proved
in abundance of other cases that a grant to father
and son is the same thing. The fathers generally
take out grants in the names of their sons: and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">{129}</a></span>
the Ranny Bhowanny, possessing the zemindary of
Radshi, an old lady of the first rank and family in
India, was stripped of part of her zemindary, and it
was given to Lucknaut Nundy, the son of Mr. Hastings's
banian; and then (you see the consequence of
good examples) comes Gunga Govind Sing, and says,
"I am as good a man as he; there is a zemindary
given; then do as much for Gunga Govind Sing as
you have done for Cantoo Baboo." Here is an argument
drawn from the practice of Mr. Hastings. And
this shows your Lordships the necessity of suppressing
such iniquities by punishing the author of them.
You will punish Mr. Hastings, and no man will hereafter
dare to rob minors, no man will hereafter dare
to rob widows, to give to the vilest of mankind, their
own base instruments for their own nefarious purposes,
the lands of others, without right, title, or purchase.</p>

<p>My Lords, I will not after this state to you the false
representation of the value of these lands which this
man gave in to government. He represented it to be
much less than it was, when he desired the grant of
them,&mdash;as shall be stated, when it comes before your
Lordships, at the proper time. But at present I am
only touching upon principles, and bringing examples
so far as they illustrate principles, and to show how
precedents spread.</p>

<p>I believe your Lordships will conceive better of the
spirit of these transactions by my intermixing with
them, as I shall endeavor to do, as much as possible
of the grounds of them. I will venture to say, that
no description that I can give, no painting, if I was
either able or willing to paint, could make these transactions
appear to your Lordships with the strength<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">{130}</a></span>
which they have in themselves; and your Lordships
will be convinced of this, when you see, what nobody
could hardly believe, that a man can say, "It was
given to others without right, title, or purchase,&mdash;give
it to me without right, title, or purchase; give
me the estates of minors without right, title, or purchase,
because Mr. Hastings gave the estates of widows
without right, title, or purchase."</p>

<p>Of this exemplary grant, of this pattern for future
proceedings, I will show your Lordships the consequence.
I will read to your Lordships part of the
examination of a witness, taken from a report of a
committee of the House of Commons.</p>

<p>"Are you acquainted with the situation of the
zemindary of Baharbund?&mdash;It lies to the eastward
of Dinagepore and Rungpore. I was stationed in that
neighborhood.&mdash;To whom did it originally belong?&mdash;I
believe, to the zemindary of Radshi, belonging
to Ranny Bhowanny.&mdash;For what reason was it taken
from the Ranny of Radshi and given to Cantoo Baboo?&mdash;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.&mdash;On what terms was it granted to
Cantoo Baboo or his son?&mdash;I believe it was a grant in
perpetuity, at the revenue of Rupees 82,000 or 83,000
per annum.&mdash;What amount did he collect from the
country?&mdash;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 Cossim<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">{131}</a></span>bazar
by Noor Sing Baboo, the brother of Cantoo
Baboo, and there the matter was compromised,&mdash;in
what manner I cannot say."</p>

<p>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
&mdash;&mdash; 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," &amp;c....</p>

<div class="blockquote"><p>[<i>The document read here is wanting, ending</i>] "as
several Calcutta banians have done," &amp;c.</p></div>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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 instru<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">{132}</a></span>ments,
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.</p>

<p>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,&mdash;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 <i>loquitur solus</i>,&mdash;in
the manner you have just heard; the Committee
were the chorus,&mdash;they sometimes talk, fill up a vacant
part,&mdash;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.</p>

<p>"I have perused the several papers upon this subject,
and am sorry to observe that the Committee of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">{133}</a></span>
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.</p>

<p>"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.</p>

<p>"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.'</p>

<p>"The defence set up by Gunga Govind Sing does
not go to disavow the transaction; for, if it did, the
deed of sale, &amp;c., produced by himself, and the petition
to the board for its confirmation, would detect
him: on the contrary, he openly admits its existence,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">{134}</a></span>
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 <i>kanungo</i>,
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<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor" title="Vakeel states Mofussil Jumma, of Salbarry, for 1,191
">[1]</a> 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.</p>

<p>"If offences of this dark tendency and magnitude
were not to be punished in a public manner, the high<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">{135}</a></span>
example here set the natives employed under the government
by their first native officer would very soon
render our authority contemptible, and operate to
the destruction of the public revenues. I will not
dwell further on the contradictions in these papers
before us on this subject.</p>

<p>"But I beg leave to point out how tenacious the
government have been of insuring implicit obedience
to their rules on this subject in particular, and in
prohibiting conduct like that here exhibited against
their public officer, and how sacredly they have
viewed the public institutes on this subject, which
have been violated and trampled on; and it will suffice
to show their public orders on a similar instance
which happened some time ago, and which the dewan,
from his official situation, must have been a party in
detecting.</p>

<p>"I desire the board's letter to the Committee on
this subject, dated the 31st May, 1782, may be read,
and a copy be annexed to this minute.</p>

<p>"I therefore move the board that Gunga Govind
Sing may be forthwith required to surrender the
original deeds produced by him as a title to the grant
of Salbarry, in order that they may be returned to
the Rajah's agents, to be made null and void.</p>

<p>"I further move the board, that the dewan, Gunga
Govind Sing, together with his naib, Prawn Kishin
Sing, his son, and all his dependants, be removed
from their offices, and that the Roy Royan, Rajah
Rajebullub, whose duty only Gunga Govind Sing virtually
is to perform, be reinstated in the exercise of
the duties of his department; and that Gunga Govind
Sing be ordered to deliver up all official papers of
the circar to the Committee of Revenue and the Roy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">{136}</a></span>
Royan, and that they be ordered accordingly to take
charge of them, and finally settle all accounts."</p>

<p>This motion was overruled, and no final proceeding
appears.</p>

<p>My Lords, you have heard the proceedings of the
court before which Gunga Govind Sing thought proper
to appeal, in consequence of the power and protection
of Mr. Hastings being understood to exist after he
left India, and authenticated by his last parting deed.
Your Lordships will judge by that last act of Mr.
Hastings what the rest of his whole life was.</p>

<p>My Lords, I do not mean now to go further than
just to remind your Lordships of this, that Mr. Hastings's
government was one whole system of oppression,
of robbery of individuals, of destruction of the
public, and of suppression of the whole system of the
English government, in order to vest in the worst of
the natives all the powers that could possibly exist in
any government,&mdash;in order to defeat the ends which
all governments ought in common to have in view.
Thus, my Lords, I show you at one point of view
what you are to expect from him in all the rest. I
have, I think, made out as clear as can be to your
Lordships, so far as it was necessary to go, that his
bribery and peculation was not occasional, but habitual,&mdash;that
it was not urged upon him at the moment,
but was regular and systematic. I have shown
to your Lordships the operation of such a system on
the revenues.</p>

<p>My Lords, Mr. Hastings pleads one constant merit
to justify those acts,&mdash;namely, that they produce an
increase of the public revenue; and accordingly he
never sells to any of those wicked agents any trusts
whatever in the country, that you do not hear that it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">{137}</a></span>
will considerably tend to the increase of the revenue.
Your Lordships will see, when he sold to wicked men
the province of Bahar in the same way in which Debi
Sing had this province of Dinagepore, that consequences
of a horrid and atrocious nature, though not to
so great an extent, followed from it. I will just beg
leave to state to your Lordships, that the kingdom
of Bahar is annexed to the kingdom of Bengal; that
this kingdom was governed by another Provincial
Council; that he turned out that Provincial Council,
and sold that government to two wicked men: one of
no fortune at all, and the other of a very suspicious
fortune; one a total bankrupt, the other justly excommunicated
for his wickedness in his country, and then
in prison for misdemeanors in a subordinate situation
of government. Mr. Hastings destroyed the Council
that imprisoned him; and, instead of putting one of
the best and most reputable of the natives to govern
it, he takes out of prison this excommunicated
wretch, hated by God and man,&mdash;this bankrupt, this
man of evil and desperate character, this mismanager
of the public revenue in an inferior station; and, as
he had given Bengal to Gunga Govind Sing, he gave
this province to Rajahs Kelleram and Cullian Sing.
It was done upon this principle, that they would increase
and very much better the revenue. These men
seemed to be as strange instruments for improving
a revenue as ever were chosen, I suppose, since the
world began. Perhaps their merit was giving a bribe
of 40,000<i>l.</i> to Mr. Hastings. How he disposed of it
I don't know. He says, "I disposed of it to the public,
and it was in a case of emergency." You will
see in the course of this business the falsehood of that
pretence; for you will see, though the obligation is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">{138}</a></span>
given for it as a round sum of money, that the payment
was not accomplished till a year after; that
therefore it could not answer any immediate exigence
of the Company. Did it answer in an increase of the
revenue? The very reverse. Those persons who
had given this bribe of 40,000<i>l.</i> at the end of that
year were found 80,000<i>l.</i> in debt to the Company.
The Company always loses, when Mr. Hastings takes
a bribe; and when he proposes an increase of the revenue,
the Company loses often double. But I hope
and trust your Lordships will consider this idea of a
monstrous rise of rent, given by men of desperate fortunes
and characters, to be one of the grievances instead
of one of the advantages of this system.</p>

<p>It has been necessary to lay these facts before you,
(and I have stated them to your Lordships far short
of their reality, partly through my infirmity, and
partly on account of the odiousness of the task of
going through things that disgrace human nature,)
that you may be enabled fully to enter into the dreadful
consequences which attend a system of bribery
and corruption in a Governor-General. On a transient
view, bribery is rather a subject of disgust than
horror,&mdash;the sordid practice of a venal, mean, and
abject mind; and the effect of the crime seems to end
with the act. It looks to be no more than the corrupt
transfer of property from one person to another,&mdash;at
worst a theft. But it will appear in a very different
light, when you regard the consideration for
which the bribe is given,&mdash;namely, that a Governor-General,
claiming an arbitrary power in himself, for
that consideration delivers up the properties, the liberties,
and the lives of an whole people to the arbitrary
discretion of any wicked and rapacious person,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">{139}</a></span>
who will be sure to make good from their blood the
purchase he has paid for his power over them. It is
possible that a man may pay a bribe merely to redeem
himself from some evil. It is bad, however, to
live under a power whose violence has no restraint
except in its avarice. But no man ever paid a bribe
for a power to charge and tax others, but with a view
to oppress them. No man ever paid a bribe for the
handling of the public money, but to peculate from
it. When once such offices become thus privately
and corruptly venal, the very worst men will be chosen
(as Mr. Hastings has in fact constantly chosen
the very worst); because none but those who do not
scruple the use of any means are capable, consistently
with profit, to discharge at once the rigid demands
of a severe public revenue and the private bribes of a
rapacious chief magistrate. Not only the worst men
will be thus chosen, but they will be restrained by no
dread whatsoever in the execution of their worst oppressions.
Their protection is sure. The authority
that is to restrain, to control, to punish them is previously
engaged; he has his retaining fee for the support
of their crimes. Mr. Hastings never dared,
because he could not, arrest oppression in its course,
without drying up the source of his own corrupt
emolument. Mr. Hastings never dared, after the
fact, to punish extortion in others, because he could
not, without risking the discovery of bribery in himself.
The same corruption, the same oppression, and
the same impunity will reign through all the subordinate
gradations.</p>

<p>A fair revenue may be collected without the aid of
wicked, violent, and unjust instruments. But when
once the line of just and legal demand is trans<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">{140}</a></span>gressed,
such instruments are of absolute necessity;
and they comport themselves accordingly. When we
know that men must be well paid (and they ought to
be well paid) for the performance of honorable duty,
can we think that men will be found to commit wicked,
rapacious, and oppressive acts with fidelity and
disinterestedness for the sole emolument of dishonest
employers? No: they must have their full share of
the prey, and the greater share, as they are the nearer
and more necessary instruments of the general extortion.
We must not, therefore, flatter ourselves,
when Mr. Hastings takes 40,000<i>l.</i> in bribes for Dinagepore
and its annexed provinces, that from the
people nothing more than 40,000<i>l.</i> is extorted. I
speak within compass, four times forty must be levied
on the people; and these violent sales, fraudulent
purchases, confiscations, inhuman and unutterable
tortures, imprisonment, irons, whips, fines, general
despair, general insurrection, the massacre of the
officers of revenue by the people, the massacre of the
people by the soldiery, and the total waste and destruction
of the finest provinces in India, are things
of course,&mdash;and all a necessary consequence involved
in the very substance of Mr. Hastings's bribery.</p>

<p>I therefore charge Mr. Hastings with having destroyed,
for private purposes, the whole system of
government by the six Provincial Councils, which
he had no right to destroy.</p>

<p>I charge him with having delegated to others that
power which the act of Parliament had directed him
to preserve unalienably in himself.</p>

<p>I charge him with having formed a committee to
be mere instruments and tools, at the enormous expense
of 62,000<i>l.</i> per annum.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">{141}</a></span></p>

<p>I charge him with having appointed a person their
dewan to whom these Englishmen were to be subservient
tools,&mdash;whose name, to his own knowledge,
was, by the general voice of India, by the general
recorded voice of the Company, by recorded official
transactions, by everything that can make a man
known, abhorred, and detested, stamped with infamy;
and with giving him the whole power which he
had thus separated from the Council-General, and
from the Provincial Councils.</p>

<p>I charge him with taking bribes of Gunga Govind
Sing.</p>

<p>I charge him with not having done that bribe-service
which fidelity even in iniquity requires at the
hands of the worst of men.</p>

<p>I charge him with having robbed those people of
whom he took the bribes.</p>

<p>I charge him with having fraudulently alienated
the fortunes of widows.</p>

<p>I charge him with having, without right, title, or
purchase, taken the lands of orphans, and given them
to wicked persons under him.</p>

<p>I charge him with having removed the natural
guardians of a minor Rajah, and with having given
that trust to a stranger, Debi Sing, whose wickedness
was known to himself and all the world, and by
whom the Rajah, his family, and dependants were
cruelly oppressed.</p>

<p>I charge him with having committed to the management
of Debi Sing three great provinces; and
thereby with having wasted the country, ruined the
landed interest, cruelly harassed the peasants, burnt
their houses, seized their crops, tortured and degraded
their persons, and destroyed the honor of the
whole female race of that country.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">{142}</a></span></p>

<p>In the name of the Commons of England, I charge
all this villany upon Warren Hastings, in this last
moment of my application to you.</p>

<p>My Lords, what is it that we want here to a great
act of national justice? Do we want a cause, my
Lords? You have the cause of oppressed princes,
of undone women of the first rank, of desolated provinces,
and of wasted kingdoms.</p>

<p>Do you want a criminal, my Lords? When was
there so much iniquity ever laid to the charge of any
one? No, my Lords, you must not look to punish
any other such delinquent from India. Warren
Hastings has not left substance enough in India to
nourish such another delinquent.</p>

<p>My Lords, is it a prosecutor you want? You have
before you the Commons of Great Britain as prosecutors;
and I believe, my Lords, that the sun, in his
beneficent progress round the world, does not behold
a more glorious sight than that of men, separated
from a remote people by the material bounds and
barriers of Nature, united by the bond of a social
and moral community,&mdash;all the Commons of England
resenting, as their own, the indignities and
cruelties that are offered to all the people of India.</p>

<p>Do we want a tribunal? My Lords, no example
of antiquity, nothing in the modern world, nothing
in the range of human imagination, can supply us
with a tribunal like this. My Lords, here we see
virtually, in the mind's eye, that sacred majesty of
the crown, under whose authority you sit, and whose
power you exercise. We see in that invisible authority,
what we all feel in reality and life, the beneficent
powers and protecting justice of his Majesty. We
have here the heir-apparent to the crown, such as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">{143}</a></span>
the fond wishes of the people of England wish an
heir-apparent of the crown to be. We have here all
the branches of the royal family, in a situation between
majesty and subjection, between the sovereign
and the subject,&mdash;offering a pledge in that situation
for the support of the rights of the crown and the liberties
of the people, both which extremities they
touch. My Lords, we have a great hereditary peerage
here,&mdash;those who have their own honor, the
honor of their ancestors and of their posterity to
guard, and who will justify, as they have always
justified, that provision in the Constitution by which
justice is made an hereditary office. My Lords, we
have here a new nobility, who have risen and exalted
themselves by various merits,&mdash;by great military services
which have extended the fame of this country
from the rising to the setting sun. We have those
who, by various civil merits and various civil talents,
have been exalted to a situation which they well deserve,
and in which they will justify the favor of their
sovereign, and the good opinion of their fellow-subjects,
and make them rejoice to see those virtuous
characters that were the other day upon a level
with them now exalted above them in rank, but
feeling with them in sympathy what they felt in common
with them before. We have persons exalted
from the practice of the law, from the place in which
they administered high, though subordinate, justice,
to a seat here, to enlighten with their knowledge and
to strengthen with their votes those principles which
have distinguished the courts in which they have
presided.</p>

<p>My Lords, you have here also the lights of our religion,
you have the bishops of England. My Lords,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">{144}</a></span>
you have that true image of the primitive Church, in
its ancient form, in its ancient ordinances, purified
from the superstitions and the vices which a long succession
of ages will bring upon the best institutions.
You have the representatives of that religion which
says that their God is love, that the very vital spirit
of their institution is charity,&mdash;a religion which so
much hates oppression, that, when the God whom we
adore appeared in human form, He did not appear in
a form of greatness and majesty, but in sympathy with
the lowest of the people, and thereby made it a firm
and ruling principle that their welfare was the object
of all government, since the Person who was the Master
of Nature chose to appear Himself in a subordinate
situation. These are the considerations which influence
them, which animate them, and will animate
them, against all oppression,&mdash;knowing that He who
is called first among them, and first among us all,
both of the flock that is fed and of those who feed it,
made Himself "the servant of all."</p>

<p>My Lords, these are the securities which we have
in all the constituent parts of the body of this House.
We know them, we reckon, we rest upon them, and
commit safely the interests of India and of humanity
into your hands. Therefore it is with confidence,
that, ordered by the Commons,</p>

<p>I impeach Warren Hastings, Esquire, of high
crimes and misdemeanors.</p>

<p>I impeach him in the name of the Commons of
Great Britain in Parliament assembled, whose Parliamentary
trust he has betrayed.</p>

<p>I impeach him in the name of all the Commons of
Great Britain, whose national character he has dishonored.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">{145}</a></span></p>

<p>I impeach him in the name of the people of India,
whose laws, rights, and liberties he has subverted,
whose properties he has destroyed, whose country he
has laid waste and desolate.</p>

<p>I impeach him in the name and by virtue of those
eternal laws of justice which he has violated.</p>

<p>I impeach him in the name of human nature itself,
which he has cruelly outraged, injured, and oppressed,
in both sexes, in every age, rank, situation, and condition
of life.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">{146}</a></span></p>


<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>

<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Vakeel states Mofussil Jumma, of Salbarry, for 1,191
</p>



<div class='ctr'>
<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
<tr><td align='center'>S* R*</td><td align='left'>96,229</td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>Purchase money</td><td align='left'>53,755</td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>Per annum, loss</td><td align='left' class="bt">42,474</td></tr>
</table></div>
</div>
</div>

<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">{147}</a></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><a name="SPEECH_ON_THE_SIXTH_ARTICLE_OF_CHARGE" id="SPEECH_ON_THE_SIXTH_ARTICLE_OF_CHARGE"></a></p>
<h2>SPEECHES<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 50%;">IN</span><br />
<br />
THE IMPEACHMENT<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 50%;">OF</span><br />
<br />
WARREN HASTINGS, ESQUIRE,<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 50%;">LATE GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF BENGAL.</span></h2>

<hr style="width: 45%;" />


<h2>SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE OF CHARGE.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 50%;">April and May, 1789.</span></h2>

<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">{148}</a></span></p>



<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2>NOTE.</h2>


<div class="blockquote"><p>After Mr. Burke had concluded the opening speeches, the
first article of the impeachment was brought forward, on the 22d
of February, 1788, by Mr. Fox, and supported by Mr. Grey on
the 25th. After the evidence upon this article had been adduced,
it was summed up and enforced by Mr. Anstruther, on the 11th
day of April following.</p>

<p>The next article with which the Commons proceeded was
brought forward on the 15th of April, 1788, by Mr. Adam, and
supported by Mr. Pelham; and the evidence, in part upon the
second article of charge, was summed up and enforced, on the 3d
of June, by Mr. Sheridan.</p>

<p>On the 21st of April, 1789, Mr. Burke opened the sixth charge,
bribery and corruption, in the following speech, which was continued
on the 25th of April, and on the 6th and 7th May, in
the same session.</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">{149}</a></span></p>



<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><a name="FIRST_DAY_TUESDAY_APRIL_21_1789" id="FIRST_DAY_TUESDAY_APRIL_21_1789"></a></p>
<h2>SPEECH<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 50%;">ON</span><br />
<br />
THE SIXTH ARTICLE OF CHARGE.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 50%;">FIRST DAY: TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 1789.</span></h2>


<p>My Lords,&mdash;An event which had spread for a
considerable time an universal grief and consternation
through this kingdom, and which in its issue
diffused as universal and transcendent a joy, has
in the circumstances both of our depression and of our
exaltation produced a considerable delay, if not a total
suspension, of the most important functions of
government.</p>

<p>My Lords, we now resume our office,&mdash;and we
resume it with new and redoubled alacrity, and, we
trust, under not less propitious omens than when we
left it, in this House, at the end of the preceding session.
We come to this duty with a greater degree
of earnestness and zeal, because we are urged to it by
many and very peculiar circumstances. This day we
come from an House where the last steps were taken
(and I suppose something has happened similar in
this) to prepare our way to attend with the utmost
solemnity, in another place, a great national thanksgiving
for having restored the sovereign to his Parliament
and the Parliament to its sovereign.</p>

<p>But, my Lords, it is not only in the house of prayer
that we offer to the First Cause the acceptable homage
of our rational nature,&mdash;my Lords, in this House, at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">{150}</a></span>
this bar, in this place, in every place where His commands
are obeyed, His worship is performed. And,
my Lords, I must boldly say, (and I think I shall
hardly be contradicted by your Lordships, or by any
persons versed in the law which guides us all,) that
the highest act of religion, and the highest homage
which we can and ought to pay, is an imitation of
the Divine perfections, as far as such a nature can
imitate such perfections, and that by this means alone
we can make our homage acceptable to Him.</p>

<p>My Lords, in His temple we shall not forget that
His most distinguished attribute is justice, and that
the first link in the chain by which we are held to the
Supreme Judge of All is justice; and that it is in this
solemn temple of representative justice we may best
give Him praise, because we can here best imitate His
divine attributes. If ever there was a cause in which
justice and mercy are not only combined and reconciled,
but incorporated, it is in this cause of suffering
nations, which we now bring before your Lordships
this second session of Parliament, unwearied and unfatigued
in our persevering pursuit; and we feel it
to be a necessary preliminary, a necessary fact, a necessary
attendant and concomitant of every public
thanksgiving, that we should express our gratitude
by our virtues, and not merely with our mouths, and
that, when we are giving thanks for acts of mercy,
we should render ourselves worthy of them by doing
acts of mercy ourselves. My Lords, these considerations,
independent of those which were our first movers
in this business, strongly urge us at present to
pursue with all zeal and perseverance the great cause
we have now in hand. And we feel this to be the
more necessary, because we cannot but be sensible that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">{151}</a></span>
light, unstable, variable, capricious, inconstant, fastidious
minds soon tire in any pursuit that requires
strength, steadiness, and perseverance. Such persons,
who we trust are but few, and who certainly do not
resemble your Lordships nor us, begin already to say,
How long is this business to continue? Our answer
is, It is to continue till its ends are obtained.</p>

<p>We know, that, by a mysterious dispensation of
Providence, injury is quick and rapid, and justice
slow; and we may say that those who have not patience
and vigor of mind to attend the tardy pace of
justice counteract the order of Providence, and are
resolved not to be just at all. We, therefore, instead
of bending the order of Nature to the laxity of our
characters and tempers, must rather confirm ourselves
by a manly fortitude and virtuous perseverance to
continue within those forms, and to wrestle with injustice,
until we have shown that those virtues which
sometimes wickedness debauches into its cause, such
as vigor, energy, activity, fortitude of spirit, are called
back and brought to their true and natural service,&mdash;and
that in the pursuit of wickedness, in the following
it through all the winding recesses and mazes of
its artifices, we shall show as much vigor, as much
constancy, as much diligence, energy, and perseverance,
as any others can do in endeavoring to elude the
laws and triumph over the justice of their country.
My Lords, we have thought it the more necessary to
say this, because it has been given out that we might
faint in this business. No: we follow, and trust we
shall always follow, that great emblem of antiquity, in
which the person who held out to the end of a long
line of labors found the reward of all the eleven in the
twelfth. Our labor, therefore, will be our reward;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">{152}</a></span>
and we will go on, we will pursue with vigor and
diligence, in a manner suitable to the Commons of
Great Britain, every mode of corruption, till we have
thoroughly eradicated it.</p>

<p>I think it necessary to say a word, too, upon another
circumstance, of which there is some complaint,
as if some injustice had arisen from voluntary delay
on our part.</p>

<p>I have already alluded to, first, the melancholy,
then the joyful occasion of this delay; and I shall
now make one remark on another part of the complaint,
which I understand was formally made to
your Lordships soon after we had announced our
resolution to proceed in this great cause of suffering
nations before you. It has been alleged, that the
length of the pursuit had already very much distressed
the person who is the object of it,&mdash;that it leaned
upon a fortune unequal to support it,&mdash;and that
30,000<i>l.</i> had been already spent in the preliminary
preparations for the defence.</p>

<p>My Lords, I do admit that all true, genuine, and
unadulterated justice considers with a certain degree
of tenderness the person whom it is called to punish,
and never oppresses those by the process who ought
not to be oppressed but by the sentence of the court
before which they are brought. The Commons have
heard, indeed, with some degree of astonishment, that
30,000<i>l.</i> hath been laid out by Mr. Hastings in this
business. We, who have some experience in the
conduct of affairs of this nature, we, who profess to
proceed with regard not to the economy so much as
to the rigor of this prosecution, (and we are justified
by our country in so doing,) upon a collation and
comparison of the public expenses with those which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">{153}</a></span>
the defendant is supposed to have incurred, are much
surprised to hear it. We suppose that his solicitors
can give a good account to him of those expenses,&mdash;that
the thing is true,&mdash;and that he has actually,
through them, incurred this expense. We have nothing
to do with this: but we shall remove any degree
of uneasiness from your Lordships' minds, and from
our own, when we show you in the charge which we
shall bring before you this day, that one bribe only
received by Mr. Hastings, the smallest of his bribes,
or nearly the smallest, the bribe received from Rajah
Nobkissin, is alone more than equal to have paid all
the charges Mr. Hastings is stated to have incurred;
and if this be the case, your Lordships will not be
made very uneasy in a case of bribery by finding that
you press upon the sources of peculation.</p>

<p>It has also been said that we weary out the public
patience in this cause. The House of Commons do
not call upon your Lordships to do anything of which
they do not set the example. They have very lately
sat in the Colchester Committee as many, within one
or two, days successively as have been spent in this
trial interruptedly in the course of two years. Every
cause deserves that it should be tried according to
its nature and circumstances; and in the case of the
Colchester Committee, in the trial of paltry briberies
of odd pounds, shillings, and pence, in the corruption
of a returning officer, who is but a miller, they spent
nearly the same number of days that we have been
inquiring into the ruin of kingdoms by the peculation
and bribery of the chief governor of the provinces of
Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa. Therefore God forbid
that we should faint at thrice thirty days, if the proceedings
should be drawn into such a length, when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">{154}</a></span>
for a small crime as much time has been spent as has
yet been spent in this great cause!</p>

<p>Having now cleared the way with regard to the
local and temporary circumstances of this case,&mdash;having
shown your Lordships that too much time has
not been spent in it,&mdash;having no reason to think,
from the time which has hitherto been spent, that
time will be unnecessarily spent in future,&mdash;I trust
your Lordships will think that time ought neither to
be spared nor squandered in this business: we will
therefore proceed, article by article, as far as the discretion
of the House of Commons shall think fit, for
the justice of the case, to limit the inquiry, or to
extend it.</p>

<p>We are now going to bring before your Lordships
the sixth article. It is an article of charge of bribery
and corruption against Mr. Hastings; but yet
we must confess that we feel some little difficulty <i>in
limine</i>. We here appear in the name and character
not only of representatives of the Commons of Great
Britain, but representatives of the inhabitants of Bengal:
and yet we have had lately come into our hands
such ample certificates, such full testimonials, from
every person in whose cause we complain, that we
shall appear to be in the strangest situation in the
world,&mdash;the situation of persons complaining, who
are disavowed by the persons in whose name and
character they complain. This would have been a
very great difficulty in the beginning, especially as it
is come before us in a flood-tide of panegyric. No
encomium can be more exalted or more beautifully
expressed. No language can more strongly paint
the perfect satisfaction, the entire acquiescence, of
all the nations of Bengal, and their wonderful ad<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">{155}</a></span>miration
of the character of the person whom we
have brought as a criminal to your bar upon their
part. I do admit that it is a very awkward circumstance;
but yet, at the same time, the same candor
which has induced the House of Commons to bring
before you the bosom friends and confidants of Mr.
Hastings as their evidence will not suffer them to
suppress or withhold for a moment from your Lordships
this universal voice of Bengal, as an attestation
in Mr. Hastings's favor, and we shall produce it as a
part of our evidence. Oh, my Lords, consider the
situation of a people who are forced to mix their
praises with their groans, who are forced to sign,
with hands which have been in torture, and with
the thumb-screws but just taken from them, an attestation
in favor of the person from whom all their
sufferings have been derived! When we prove to
you the things that we shall prove, this will, I hope,
give your Lordships a full, conclusive, and satisfactory
proof of the misery to which these people have
been reduced. You will see before you, what is so
well expressed by one of our poets as the homage
of tyrants, "that homage with the mouth which the
heart would fain deny, but dares not." Mr. Hastings
has received that homage, and that homage we
mean to present to your Lordships: we mean to present
it, because it will show your Lordships clearly,
that, after Mr. Hastings has ransacked Bengal from
one end to the other, and has used all the power which
he derives from having every friend and every dependant
of his in every office from one end of that government
to the other, he has not, in all those panegyrics,
those fine high-flown Eastern encomiums, got one
word of refutation or one word of evidence against<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">{156}</a></span>
any charge whatever which we produce against him.
Every one knows, that, in the course of criminal
trials, when no evidence of <i>alibi</i> can be brought,
when all the arts of the Old Bailey are exhausted,
the last thing produced is evidence to character.
His cause, therefore, is gone, when, having ransacked
Bengal, he has nothing to say for his conduct, and at
length appeals to his character. In those little papers
which are given us of our proceedings in our
criminal courts, it is always an omen of what is to
follow: after the evidence of a murder, a forgery, or
robbery, it ends in his character: "He has an admirable
character; I have known him from a boy; he
is wonderfully good; he is the best of men; I would
trust him with untold gold": and immediately follows,
"Guilty,&mdash;Death." This is the way in which,
in our courts, character is generally followed by sentence.
The practice is not modern. Undoubtedly
Mr. Hastings has the example of criminals of high
antiquity; for Caius Verres, Antonius, and every
other man who has been famous for the pillage and
destruction of provinces, never failed to bring before
their judges the attestations of the injured to their
character. Voltaire says, "<i>Les bons mots sont toujours
redits</i>." A similar occasion has here produced
a similar conduct. He has got just the same character
as Caius Verres got in another cause; and the
<i>laudationes</i>, which your Lordships know always followed,
to save trouble, we mean ourselves to give
your Lordships; we mean to give them with this
strong presumption of guilt, that in all this panegyric
there is not one word of defence to a single
article of charge; they are mere lip-honors: but we
think we derive from those panegyrics, which Mr.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">{157}</a></span>
Hastings has had sent over as evidence to supply
the total want of it, an indication of the impossibility
of attaining it. Mr. Hastings has brought them
here, and I must say we are under some difficulty
about them, and the difficulty is this. We think we
can produce before your Lordships proofs of barbarity
and peculation by Mr. Hastings; we have the proofs
of them in specific provinces, where those proofs may
be met by contrary proofs, or may lose their weight
from a variety of circumstances. We thought we
had got the matter sure, that everything was settled,
that he could not escape us, after he had himself confessed
the bribes he had taken from the specific provinces.
But in what condition are we now? We
have from those specific provinces the strongest attestations
that there is not any credit to be paid to
his own acknowledgments. In short, we have the
complaints, concerning these crimes of Mr. Hastings,
of the injured persons themselves; we have his own
confessions; we shall produce both to your Lordships.
But these persons now declare, that not only their own
complaints are totally unfounded, but that Mr. Hastings's
confessions are not true, and not to be credited.
These are circumstances which your Lordships will
consider in the view you take of this wonderful body
of attestation.</p>

<p>It is a pleasant thing to see in these addresses the
different character and modes of eloquence of different
countries. In those that will be brought before your
Lordships you will see the beauty of chaste European
panegyric improved by degrees into high, Oriental,
exaggerated, and inflated metaphor. You will see
how the language is first written in English, then
translated into Persian, and then retranslated into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">{158}</a></span>
English. There may be something amusing to your
Lordships in this, and the beauty of these styles may,
in this heavy investigation, tend to give a little gayety
and pleasure. We shall bring before you the European
and Asiatic incense. You will have the perfume-shops
of the two countries.</p>

<p>One of the accusations which we mean to bring
against Mr. Hastings is upon the part of the Zemindar
Radanaut, of the country of Dinagepore. Now
hear what the Zemindar says himself. "As it has
been learned by me, the mutsuddies, and the respectable
officers of my zemindary, that the ministers
of England are displeased with the late Governor,
Warren Hastings, Esquire, upon the suspicion that
he oppressed us, took money from us by deceit and
force, and ruined the country, therefore we, upon the
strength of our religion, which we think it incumbent
on and necessary for us to abide by, following the
rules laid down in giving evidence, declare the particulars
of the acts and deeds of Warren Hastings,
Esquire, full of circumspection and caution, civility
and justice, superior to the conduct of the most
learned, and, by representing what is fact, wipe away
the doubts that have possessed the minds of the ministers
of England; that Mr. Hastings is possessed of
fidelity and confidence, and yielding protection to us;
that he is clear of the contamination of mistrust and
wrong, and his mind is free of covetousness or avarice.
During the time of his administration no one
saw other conduct than that of protection to the husbandman,
and justice. No inhabitant ever experienced
afflictions, no one ever felt oppression from him;
our reputations have always been guarded from attacks
by his prudence, and our families have always<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">{159}</a></span>
been protected by his justice. He never omitted the
smallest instance of kindness towards us, but healed
the wounds of despair with the salve of consolation
by means of his benevolent and kind behavior, never
permitting one of us to sink in the pit of despondence.
He supported every one by his goodness, overset the
designs of evil-minded men by his authority, tied the
hand of oppression with the strong bandage of justice,
and by these means expanded the pleasing appearance
of happiness and joy over us. He re&euml;stablished
justice and impartiality. We were during his government
in the enjoyment of perfect happiness and
ease, and many of us are thankful and satisfied. As
Mr. Hastings was well acquainted with our manners
and customs, he was always desirous, in every respect,
of doing whatever would preserve our religious rites,
and guard them against every kind of accident and injury,
and at all times protected us. Whatever we have
experienced from him, and whatever happened from
him, we have written without deceit or exaggeration."</p>

<p>My Lords, here is a panegyric; and, directly contrary
to the usual mode of other accusers, we begin
by producing the panegyrics made upon the person
whom we accuse. We shall produce along with the
charge, and give as evidence, the panegyric and certificate
of the persons whom we suppose to have suffered
these wrongs. We suffer ourselves even to
abandon, what might be our last resource, his own
confession, by showing that one of the princes from
whom he confesses that he took bribes has given a
certificate of the direct contrary.</p>

<p>All these things will have their weight upon your
Lordships' minds; and when we have put ourselves
under this disadvantage, (what disadvantage it is your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">{160}</a></span>
Lordships will judge,) at least we shall stand acquitted
of unfairness in charging him with crimes directly
contrary to the panegyrics in this paper contained.
Indeed, I will say this for him, that general charge
and loose accusation may be answered by loose and
general panegyric, and that, if ours were of that
nature, this panegyric would be sufficient to overset
our accusation. But we come before your Lordships
in a different manner and upon different grounds.
I am ordered by the Commons of Great Britain to
support the charge that they have made, and persevere
in making, against Warren Hastings, Esquire,
late Governor-General of Bengal, and now a culprit
at your bar: First, for having taken corruptly several
bribes, and extorted by force, or under the power
and color of his office, several sums of money from
the unhappy natives of Bengal. The next article
which we shall bring before you is, that he is not only
personally corrupted, but that he has personally corrupted
all the other servants of the Company,&mdash;those
under him, whose corruptions he ought to have controlled,
and those above him, whose business it was to
control his corruptions.</p>

<p>We purpose to make good to your Lordships the
first of these, by submitting to you, that part of those
sums which are specified in the charge were taken by
him with his own hand and in his own person, but
that much the greater part have been taken from the
natives by the instrumentality of his black agents,
banians, and other dependants,&mdash;whose confidential
connection with him, and whose agency on his part
in corrupt transactions, if his counsel should be bold
enough to challenge us to the proof, we shall fully
prove before you. The next part, and the second<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">{161}</a></span>
branch of his corruption, namely, what is commonly
called his active corruption, distinguishing the personal
under the name of passive, will appear from his
having given, under color of contracts, a number of
corrupt and lucrative advantages from a number of
unauthorized and unreasonable grants, pensions, and
allowances, by which he corrupted actively the whole
service of the Company. And, lastly, we shall show,
that, by establishing a universal connivance from one
end of the service to the other, he has not only corrupted
and contaminated it in all its parts, but bound
it in a common league of iniquity to support mutually
each other against the inquiry that should detect and
the justice that should punish their offences. These
two charges, namely, of his active and passive corruption,
we shall bring one after the other, as strongly
and clearly illustrating and as powerfully confirming
each other.</p>

<p>The first which we shall bring before you is his own
passive corruption,&mdash;so we commonly call it. Bribes
are so little known in this country that we can hardly
get clear and specific technical names to distinguish
them; but in future, I am afraid, the conduct of Mr.
Hastings will improve our law vocabulary. The first,
then, of these offences with which Mr. Hastings stands
charged here is receiving bribes himself, or through
his banians. Every one of these are overt acts of the
general charge of bribery, and they are every one
of them, separately taken, substantive crimes. But
whatever the criminal nature of these acts was, (and
the nature was very criminal, and the consequences
to the country very dreadful,) yet we mean to prove
to your Lordships that they were not single acts, that
they were not acts committed as opportunity offered,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">{162}</a></span>
or as necessity tempted or urged upon the occasion,
but that they are parts of a general systematic plan
of corruption, for advancing his fortune at the expense
of his integrity; that he has, for that purpose, not
only taken the opportunity of his own power, but
made whole establishments, altered and perverted
others, and created complete revolutions in the country's
government, for the purpose of making the power
which ought to be subservient to legal government
subservient to corruption; that, when he could no
longer cover these fraudulent proceedings by artifice,
he endeavored to justify them by principle. These
artifices we mean to detect; these principles we mean
to attack, and, with your Lordships' aid, to demolish,
destroy, and subvert forever.</p>

<p>My Lords, I must say, that in this business, which
is a matter of collusion, concealment, and deceit, your
Lordships will, perhaps, not feel the same degree of
interest as in the others. Hitherto you have had before
you crimes of dignity: you have had before you
the ruin and expulsion of great and illustrious families,
the breach of solemn public treaties, the merciless
pillage and total subversion of the first houses in
Asia. But the crimes which are the most striking to
the imagination are not always the most pernicious
in their effects: in these high, eminent acts of domineering
tyranny, their very magnitude proves a sort
of corrective to their virulence. The occasions on
which they can be exercised are rare; the persons
upon whom they can be exercised few; the persons
who can exercise them, in the nature of things, are
not many. These high tragic acts of superior, overbearing
tyranny are privileged crimes; they are the
unhappy, dreadful prerogative, they are the distin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">{163}</a></span>guished
and incommunicable attributes, of superior
wickedness in eminent station.</p>

<p>But, my Lords, when the vices of low, sordid, and
illiberal minds infect that high situation,&mdash;when theft,
bribery, and peculation, attended with fraud, prevarication,
falsehood, misrepresentation, and forgery&mdash;when
all these follow in one train,&mdash;when these
vices, which gender and spawn in dirt, and are
nursed in dunghills, come and pollute with their
slime that throne which ought to be a seat of dignity
and purity, the evil is much greater; it may operate
daily and hourly; it is not only imitable, but improvable,
and it will be imitated, and will be improved,
from the highest to the lowest, through all
the gradations of a corrupt government. They are
reptile vices. There are situations in which the acts
of the individual are of some moment, the example
comparatively of little importance. In the other, the
mischief of the example is infinite.</p>

<p>My Lords, when once a Governor-General receives
bribes, he gives a signal to universal pillage to all the
inferior parts of the service. The bridles upon hard-mouthed
passion are removed; they are taken away;
they are broken. Fear and shame, the great guards
to virtue next to conscience, are gone. Shame! how
can it exist?&mdash;it will soon blush away its awkward
sensibility. Shame, my Lords, cannot exist long,
when it is seen that crimes which naturally bring
disgrace are attended with all the outward symbols,
characteristics, and rewards of honor and of virtue,&mdash;when
it is seen that high station, great rank, general
applause, vast wealth follow the commission of
peculation and bribery. Is it to be believed that men
can long be ashamed of that which they see to be the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">{164}</a></span>
road to honor? As to fear, let a Governor-General
once take bribes, there is an end of all fear in the service.
What have they to fear? Is it the man whose
example they follow that is to bring them before a
tribunal for their punishment? Can he open any inquiry?
He cannot: he that opens a channel of inquiry
under these circumstances opens a high-road
to his own detection. Can he make any laws to prevent
it? None: for he can make no laws to restrain
that practice without the breach of his own laws immediately
in his own conduct. If we once can admit,
for a single instant, in a Governor-General, a principle,
however defended, upon any pretence whatever,
to receive bribes in consequence of his office, there is
an end of all virtue, an end of the laws, and no hope
left in the supreme justice of the country. We are
sensible of all these difficulties; we have felt them;
and perhaps it has required no small degree of exertion
for us to get the better of these difficulties
which are thrown in our way by a Governor-General
accepting bribes, and thereby screening and protecting
the whole service in such iniquitous proceedings.</p>

<p>With regard to this matter, we are to state to your
Lordships, in order to bring it fully and distinctly before
you, what the nature of this distemper of bribery
is in the Indian government. We are to state
what the laws and rules are which have been opposed
to prevent it, and the utter insufficiency of all that
have been proposed: to state the grievance, the instructions
of the Company and government, the acts
of Parliament, the constructions upon the acts of
Parliament. We are to state to your Lordships the
particular situation of Mr. Hastings; we are to
state the trust the Company had in him for the pre<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">{165}</a></span>vention
of all those evils; and then we are to prove
that every evil, that all those grievances which the law
intended to prevent, which there were covenants to
restrain, and with respect to which there were encouragements
to smooth and make easy the path of duty,
Mr. Hastings was invested with a special, direct, and
immediate trust to prevent. We are to prove to your
Lordships that he is the man who, in his own person
collectively, has done more mischief than all those
persons whose evil practices have produced all those
laws, those regulations, and even his own appointment.</p>

<p>The first thing that we shall do is to state, and which
we shall prove in evidence, that this vice of bribery
was the ancient, radical, endemical, and ruinous distemper
of the Company's affairs in India, from the
time of their first establishment there. Very often
there are no words nor any description which can
adequately convey the state of a thing like the direct
evidence of the thing itself: because the former might
be suspected of exaggeration; you might think that
which was really fact to be nothing but the coloring
of the person that explained it; and therefore I think
that it will be much better to give to your Lordships
here a direct state of the Presidency at the time when
the Company enacted those covenants which Mr. Hastings
entered into, and when they took those measures
to prevent the very evils from persons placed in those
very stations and in those very circumstances in which
we charge Mr. Hastings with having committed the
offences we now bring before you.</p>

<p>I wish your Lordships to know that we are going to
read a consultation of Lord Clive's, who was sent out
for the express purpose of reforming the state of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">{166}</a></span>
Company, in order to show the magnitude of the pecuniary
corruptions that prevailed in it.</p>

<div class="blockquote">
<p>"It is from a due sense of the regard we owe and
profess to your interests and to our own honor, that
we think it indispensably necessary to lay open to your
view a series of transactions too notoriously known
to be suppressed, and too affecting to your interest,
to the national character, and to the existence of the
Company in Bengal, to escape unnoticed and uncensured,&mdash;transactions
which seem to demonstrate that
every spring of this government was smeared with
corruption, that principles of rapacity and oppression
universally prevailed, and that every spark of sentiment
and public spirit was lost and extinguished in
the unbounded lust of unmerited wealth.</p>

<p>"To illustrate these positions, we must exhibit to
your view a most unpleasing variety of complaints,
inquiries, accusations, and vindications, the particulars
of which are entered in our Proceedings and the
Appendix,&mdash;assuring you that we undertake this task
with peculiar reluctance, from the personal regard we
entertain for some of the gentlemen whose characters
will appear to be deeply affected.</p>

<p>"At Fort St. George we received the first advices
of the demise of Mir Jaffier and of Sujah Dowlah's
defeat. It was there firmly imagined that no definite
measures would be taken, either in respect to a peace
or filling the vacancy in the nizamut, before our arrival,&mdash;as
the 'Lapwing' arrived in the month of January
with your general letter, and the appointment
of a committee with express powers to that purpose,
for the successful exertion of which the happiest occasion
now offered. However, a contrary resolution<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">{167}</a></span>
prevailed in the Council. The opportunity of acquiring
immense fortunes was too inviting to be neglected,
and the temptation too powerful to be resisted. A
treaty was hastily drawn up by the board, or rather
transcribed, with few unimportant additions, from
that concluded with Mir Jaffier,&mdash;and a deputation,
consisting of Messrs. Johnstone, senior, Middleton, and
Leycester, appointed to raise the natural son of the deceased
Nabob to the subahdarry, in prejudice of the
claim of the grandson; and for this measure such
reasons are assigned as ought to have dictated a diametrically
opposite resolution. Meeran's son was a
minor, which circumstance alone would have naturally
brought the whole administration into our hands,
at a juncture when it became indispensably necessary
we should realize that shadow of power and influence
which, having no solid foundation, was exposed
to the danger of being annihilated by the first stroke
of adverse fortune. But this inconsistence was not
regarded; nor was it material to the views for precipitating
the treaty, which was pressed on the young
Nabob at the first interview, in so earnest and indelicate
a manner as highly disgusted him and chagrined
his ministers; while not a single rupee was stipulated
for the Company, whose interests were sacrificed, that
their servants might revel in the spoils of a treasury
before impoverished, but now totally exhausted.</p>

<p>"This scene of corruption was first disclosed, at
a visit the Nabob was paid, to Lord Clive and the
gentlemen of the Committee, a few days after our
arrival. He there delivered to his Lordship a letter
filled with bitter complaints of the insults and indignities
he had been exposed to, and the embezzlement
of near twenty lacs of rupees, issued from his treas<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">{168}</a></span>ury
for purposes unknown, during the late negotiations.
So public a complaint could not be disregarded,
and it soon produced an inquiry. We referred
the letter to the board, in expectation of obtaining
a satisfactory account of the application of
this money, and were answered only by a warm remonstrance
entered by Mr. Leycester against that
very Nabob in whose elevation he boasts of having
been a principal agent.</p>

<p>"Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n, the Naib Subah, was then
called upon to account for this large disbursement
from the treasury; and he soon delivered to the
Committee the very extraordinary narrative entered
in our Proceedings the 6th of June, wherein he specifies
the several names and sums, by whom paid, and
to whom, whether in cash, bills, or obligations. So
precise, so accurate an account as this of money for
secret and venal services was never, we believe, before
this period, exhibited to the Honorable Court of Directors,&mdash;at
least, never vouched by such undeniable
testimony and authentic documents: by Juggut Seet,
who himself was obliged to contribute largely to the
sums demanded; by Muley Ram, who was employed
by Mr. Johnstone in all those pecuniary transactions;
by the Nabob and Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n, who were
the heaviest sufferers; and, lastly, by the confession
of the gentlemen themselves whose names are specified
in the distribution list.</p>

<p>"Juggut Seet expressly declared in his narrative,
that the sum which he agreed to pay the deputation,
amounting to 125,000 rupees, was extorted by menaces;
and since the close of our inquiry, and the
opinions we delivered in the Proceedings of the 21st
June, it fully appears that the presents from the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">{169}</a></span>
Nabob and Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n, exceeding the immense
sum of seventeen lacs, were not the voluntary
offerings of gratitude, but contributions levied on the
weakness of the government, and violently exacted
from the dependent state and timid disposition of the
minister. The charge, indeed, is denied on the one
hand, as well as affirmed on the other. Your honorable
board must therefore determine how far the circumstance
of extortion may aggravate the crime of
disobedience to your positive orders, the exposing the
government in a manner to sale, and receiving the
infamous wages of corruption from opposite parties
and contending interests. We speak with boldness,
because we speak from conviction founded upon indubitable
facts, that, besides the above sums specified
in the distribution account to the amount of 228,125
pounds sterling, there was likewise to the value of
several lacs of rupees procured from Nundcomar and
Roydullub, each of whom aspired at and obtained a
promise of that very employment it was predetermined
to bestow on Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n.</p>

<p>(Signed at the end)</p>

<p class="noindent">
<span style="margin-left: 12em;">"CLIVE.<br /></span>
<span style="margin-left: 12.5em;">W<sup>M</sup> B. SUMNER.<br /></span>
<span style="margin-left: 12.5em;">JOHN CARNAC.<br /></span>
<span style="margin-left: 12.5em;">H. VERELST.<br /></span>
<span style="margin-left: 12.5em;">FRA<sup>S</sup> SYKES."<br /></span>
</p>
</div>

<p>This paper cannot be denied to be a paper of
weight and authenticity, because it is signed by a
gentleman now in this House, who sits on one side
of the gentleman at your bar, as his bail. This
grievance, therefore, so authenticated, so great, and
described in so many circumstances, I think it might<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">{170}</a></span>
be sufficient for me, in this part of the business, to
show was, when Mr. Hastings was sent to India, a
prevalent evil.</p>

<p>But, my Lords, it is necessary that I should show
to you something more, because, <i>prima fronte</i>, this
is some exculpation of Mr. Hastings: for, if he was
only a partaker in a general misconduct, it was
rather <i>vitium loci et vitium temporis</i> than <i>vitium
hominis</i>. This might be said in his exculpation.
But I am next to show your Lordships the means
which the Company took for removing this grievance;
and that Mr. Hastings's peculiar trust, the
great specific ground of his appointment, was a confidence
that he would eradicate this very evil, of
which we are going to prove that he has been one
of the principal promoters. I wish your Lordships
to advert to one particular circumstance,&mdash;namely,
that the two persons who were bidders at this time,
and at this auction of government, for the favor and
countenance of the Presidency at Calcutta, were
Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n and Rajah Nundcomar. I
wish your Lordships to recollect this by-and-by, when
we shall bring before you the very same two persons,
who, in the same sort of transaction, and in circumstances
exactly similar, or very nearly so, were candidates
for the favor of Mr. Hastings.</p>

<p>My Lords, our next step will be to show you that
the Company in 1768 had made a covenant expressly
forbidding the taking of presents of above 400<i>l.</i> value
in each present by the Governor-General. I take it
for granted, this will not be much litigated. They renewed
and enforced that with other covenants and
other instructions; and at last came an act of Parliament,
in the clearest, the most definite, the most spe<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">{171}</a></span>cific
words that all the wisdom of the legislature, intent
upon the eradication of this evil, could use, to
prevent the receiving of presents.</p>

<p>My Lords, I think it is necessary to state, that
there has been some little difficulty concerning this
word, <i>presents</i>. Bribery and extortion have been
covered by the name of presents, and the authority
and practice of the East has been adduced as a palliation
of the crime. My Lords, no authority of the
East will be a palliation of the breach of laws enacted
in the West: and to those laws of the West, and not
the vicious customs of the East, we insist upon making
Mr. Hastings liable. But do not your Lordships
see that this is an entire mistake? that there never
was any custom of the East for it? I do not mean
vicious practices and customs, which it is the business
of good laws and good customs to eradicate. There
are three species of presents known in the East,&mdash;two
of them payments of money known to be legal, and
the other perfectly illegal, and which has a name exactly
expressing it in the manner our language does.
It is necessary that your Lordships should see that
Mr. Hastings has made use of a perversion of the
names of authorized gifts to cover the most abominable
and prostituted bribery. The first of those presents is
known in the country by the name of <i>peshcush</i>: this
<i>peshcush</i> is a fine paid, upon the grant of lands, to
the sovereign, or whoever grants them. The second
is the <i>nuzzer</i>, or <i>nuzzerana</i>, which is a tribute of acknowledgment
from an inferior to a superior. The
last is called <i>reshwat</i>, in the Persian language,&mdash;that
is to say, a bribe, or sum of money clandestinely
and corruptly taken,&mdash;and is as much distinguished
from the others as, in the English language, a fine or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">{172}</a></span>
acknowledgment is distinguished from a bribe. To
show your Lordships this, we shall give in evidence,
that, whenever a peshcush or fine is paid, it is a sum
of money publicly paid, and paid in proportion to the
grant,&mdash;and that the sum is entered upon the very
grant itself. We shall prove the nuzzer is in the
same manner entered, and that all legal fees are indorsed
upon the body of the grant for which they are
taken: and that they are no more in the East than
in the West any kind of color or pretence for corrupt
acts, which are known by the circumstance of their
being clandestinely taken, and which are acknowledged
and confessed to be illegal and corrupt. Having
stated that Mr. Hastings, in some of the evidence
that we shall produce, endeavors to confound these
three things, I am only to remark that the nuzzer is
generally a very small sum of money, that it sometimes
amounts to one gold mohur, that sometimes it
is less, and that, in all the records of the Company, I
have never known it exceed one gold mohur, or about
thirty-five shillings,&mdash;passing by the fifty gold mohurs
which were given to Mr. Hastings by Cheyt Sing,
and a hundred gold mohurs which were given to the
Mogul, as a nuzzer, by Mahomed Ali, Nabob of Arcot.</p>

<p>The Company, seeing that this nuzzer, though
small in each sum, might amount at last to a large
tax upon the country, (and it did so in fact,) thought
proper to prohibit any sum of money to be taken upon
any pretext whatever; and the Company in the
year 1775 did expressly explode the whole doctrine
of peshcush, nuzzer, and every other private lucrative
emolument, under whatever name, to be taken by
the Governor-General, and did expressly send out an
order that that was the construction of the act, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">{173}</a></span>
that he was not even to take a nuzzer. Thus we
shall show that that act had totally cut up the whole
system of bribery and corruption, and that Mr. Hastings
had no sort of color whatever for taking the
money which we shall prove he has taken.</p>

<p>I know that positive prohibitions, that acts of Parliament,
that covenants, are things of very little validity
indeed, as long as all the means of corruption
are left in power, and all the temptations to corrupt
profit are left in poverty. I should really think that
the Company deserved to be ill served, if they had
not annexed such appointments to great trusts as
might secure the persons intrusted from the temptations
of unlawful emolument, and, what in all cases
is the greatest security, given a lawful gratification
to the natural passions of men. Matrimony is to be
used, as a true remedy against a vicious course of
profligate manners; fair and lawful emoluments, and
the just profits of office, are opposed to the unlawful
means which might be made use of to supply them.
For, in truth, I am ready to agree, that for any man
to expect a series of sacrifices without a return in
blessings, to expect labor without a prospect of reward,
and fatigue without any means of securing
rest, is an unreasonable demand in any human creature
from another. Those who trust that they shall
find in men uncommon and heroic virtues are themselves
endeavoring to have nothing paid them but the
common returns of the worst parts of human infirmity.
And therefore I shall show your Lordships that
the Company did provide large, ample, abundant
means for supporting the Governor-General,&mdash;that
Lord Clive, in the year 1765, and the Council with
him, of which Mr. Sumner, I am glad and proud to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">{174}</a></span>
say, was one, did fix such an allowance as they
thought a sufficient security to the Governor-General
against the temptations attendant upon his situation;
and therefore, after they had fixed this sum, they
say, "that, although by this means the Governor will
not be able to amass a million or half a million in
the space of two or three years, yet he will acquire
a very handsome independency, and be in that very
situation which a man of honor and true zeal for
the service would wish to possess. Thus situated, he
may defy all opposition in Council; he will have
nothing to ask, nothing to propose, but what he wishes
for the advantage of his employers; he may defy
the law, because there can be no foundation for a bill
of discovery; and he may defy the obloquy of the
world, because there can be nothing censurable in
his conduct. In short, if stability can be insured to
such a government as this, where riches have been
acquired in abundance in a small space of time, by
all ways and means, and by men with or without capacities,
it must be effected by a Governor thus restricted,"&mdash;that
is, a Governor restricted from every
emolument but that of his salary. I must remark,
that this salary and these emoluments were not settled
upon the vague speculations of men taking the
measure of their necessities for India from the manners
of England; but it was fixed by the Council
themselves,&mdash;fixed in India,&mdash;fixed by those who
knew and were in the situation of the Governor-General,
and who knew what was necessary to support
his dignity and to preserve him from the temptation
of corruption: and they have laid open to you such a
body of advantages arising from it as would lead any
man, who had a regard to his honor or conscience, to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">{175}</a></span>
think himself happy in having such a provision made
for him, and at the same time every temptation to
act corruptly removed far from him.</p>

<p>The emoluments of the office, though reduced from
the original plan which Lord Clive had proposed,
may be computed at near 30,000<i>l.</i> a year, when Mr.
Hastings was President: 22,000<i>l.</i> in certain money,
and the rest in other advantages. Whatever it was,
I have shown that it was thought sufficient by those
who were the best judges, and who, in carving for
others, were carving for themselves their own allowance
at the time. But, my Lords, I am to give a
better opinion of the sufficiency of that provision to
guard against the temptation, out of Mr. Hastings's
own mouth. He says, in his letter to the Court of
Directors, "Although I disclaim the consideration of
my own interest in these speculations, and flatter myself
that I proceed upon more liberal grounds, yet I
am proud to avow the feelings of an honest ambition
that stimulates me to aspire at the possession of my
present station for years to come. Those who know
my natural turn of mind will not ascribe this to sordid
views. A very few years' possession of the government
would undoubtedly enable me to retire with
a fortune amply fitted to the measure of my desires,
were I to consult only my ease: but in my present
situation I feel my mind expand to something greater;
I have catched the desire of applause in public
life."</p>

<p>Here Mr. Hastings confesses that the emoluments
affixed to office were not only sufficient for the purposes
and ends which the nature of his office demanded,
and the support of present dignity, but that they
were sufficient to secure him, in a very few years, a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">{176}</a></span>
comfortable retreat; but his object in wishing to hold
his office long was <i>to catch applause in public life</i>.
What an unfortunate man is he, who has so often
told us, in so many places, and through so many
mouths, that, after fourteen years' possession of an
office which was to make him a comfortable fortune
in a few years, he is at length bankrupt in fortune,
and for his applause in public life is now at your
Lordships' bar, and his accuser is his country! This,
my Lords, is to be unfortunate: but there are some
misfortunes that never do or ever can arrive but
through crimes. He was a deserter from the path
of honor. At the turning of the two ways he made a
glorious choice,&mdash;he caught at the applause of ambition:
which though I am ready to consent is not virtue,
yet surely a generous ambition for applause for
public services in life is one of the best counterfeits
of virtue, and supplies its place in some degree; and
it adds a lustre to real virtue, where it exists as the
substratum of it. Human nature, while it is made
as it is, never can wholly repudiate it for its imperfection,
because there is something yet more perfect.
But what shall we say to the deserter of that cause,
who, having glory and honor before him, has chosen
to plunge himself into the downward road to sordid
riches?</p>

<p>My Lords, I have shown the grievances that existed.
I have shown the means that existed to put Mr.
Hastings beyond a temptation to those practices of
which we accuse him, even in his own opinion,&mdash;if
he will not follow his example in the House of Commons,
and disavow this letter, as he has done his defence
before them, and say he never wrote it. That
situation which was to afford him a comfortable for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">{177}</a></span>tune
in a few years he has held for many years, and
therefore he has not one excuse to make for himself;
but I shall show your Lordships much greater and
stronger proofs, that will lean heavy upon him in the
day of your sentence. The first, the peculiar, trust
that was put in him, was to redress all those grievances.</p>

<p>My Lords, I have stated to you the condition of
India in 1765. You may suppose that the means
that were taken, the regulations that were made by
the Company at that period of time, had operated
their effect, and that by the beginning of the year
1772, when Mr. Hastings came first to his government,
these evils did not then require, perhaps, so
vigorous an example, or so much diligence in putting
an end to them; but, my Lords, I have to show you
a very melancholy truth, that, notwithstanding all
these means, the Company was of opinion that all
these disorders had increased, and accordingly they
say, without entering into all the grievous circumstances
of this letter, which was wrote on the 10th
of April, 1773, "We wish we could refute the observation,
that almost every attempt made by us and
our administration at your Presidency for reforming
abuses has rather increased them, and added to the
misery of a country we are so anxious to protect and
cherish." They say, that, "when oppression pervades
the whole country, when youths have been suffered
with impunity to exercise sovereign jurisdiction
over the natives, and to acquire rapid fortunes by monopolizing
of commerce, it cannot be a wonder to us
or yourselves that Dadney merchants do not come
forward to contract with the Company, that the manufactures
find their way through foreign channels, or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">{178}</a></span>
that our investments are at once enormously dear
and of a debased quality. It is evident, then, that
the evils which have been so destructive to us lie too
deep for any partial plans to reach or correct; it is
therefore our resolution to aim at the root of those
evils, and we are happy in having reason to believe
that in every just and necessary regulation we shall
meet with the approbation and support of the legislature,
who consider the public as materially interested
in the Company's prosperity."</p>

<p>This is to show your Lordships that Mr. Hastings
was armed with great powers to correct great abuses,
and that there was reposed in him a special trust for
that purpose. And now I shall show, by the twenty-fifth
paragraph of the same letter, that they intrusted
Mr. Hastings with this very great power from some
particular hope they had, not only of his abstaining
himself, which is a thing taken for granted, but of his
restraining abuses through every part of the service;
and therefore they say, "that, in order to effectuate
this great end, the first step must be to restore perfect
obedience and due subordination to your administration.
Our Governor and Council must reassume and
exercise their delegated powers upon every just occasion,&mdash;punish
delinquents, cherish the meritorious,
discountenance that luxury and dissipation which, to
the reproach of government, prevailed in Bengal.
Our President, Mr. Hastings, we trust, will set the
example of temperance, economy, and application;
and upon this, we are sensible, much will depend.
And here we take occasion to indulge the pleasure
we have in acknowledging Mr. Hastings's services
upon the coast of Coromandel, in constructing with
equal labor and ability the plan which has so much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">{179}</a></span>
improved our investments there; and as we are persuaded
he will persevere in the same laudable pursuit
through every branch of our affairs in Bengal,
he, in return, may depend on the steady support and
favor of his employers." Here are not only laws to
restrain abuse, here are not only salaries to prevent
the temptation to it, but here are praises to animate
and encourage him, here is what very few men, even
bad in other respects, have resisted,&mdash;here is a great
trust put in him, to call upon him with particular
vigor and exertion to prevent all abuses through the
settlement, and particularly these abuses of corruption.
Much trust is put in his frugality, his order, his
management of his private affairs; and from thence
they hope that he would not ruin his own fortune, but
improve it by honorable means, and teach the Company's
servants the same order and management, in
order to free them from temptation to rapacity in
their own particular situations. There have been
known to be men, otherwise corrupt and vicious, who,
when great trust was put in them, have called forth
principles of honor latent in their minds; and men
who were nursed, in a manner, in corruption have
been not only great reformers by institution, but
greater reformers by the example of their own conduct.
Then I am to show, that, soon after his coming
to that government, there were means given him
instantly of realizing those hopes and expectations, by
putting into his hands several arduous and several
difficult commissions.</p>

<p>My Lords, in the year 1772 the Company had received
alarming advices of many disorders throughout
the country: there were likewise, at the same
time, circumstances in the state of the government<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">{180}</a></span>
upon which they thought it necessary to make new
regulations. The famine which prevailed in and
devastated Bengal, and the ill use that was made of
that calamity to aggravate the distress for the advantage
of individuals, produced a great many complaints,
some true, some exaggerated, but universally spread,
as I believe is in the memory of those who are not very
young among us. This obliged the Company to a
very serious consideration of an affair which dishonored
and disgraced their government, not only at
home, but through all the countries in Europe, much
more than perhaps even more grievous and real oppressions
that were exercised under them. It had
alarmed their feelings, it had been marked, and had
called the attention of the public upon them in an
eminent manner.</p>

<p>Your Lordships remember the death of Jaffier Ali
Kh&acirc;n, the first of those subahs who introduced the
English power into Bengal. He died about four or
five years before this period. He was succeeded by
two of his sons, who succeeded to one another in a
very rapid succession. The first was the person of
whom we have read an account to you. He was the
natural son of the Nabob by a person called Munny
Begum, who, for the corrupt gifts the circumstances
of which we have recited, had, in prejudice of the lawful
issue of the Nabob, been raised to the <i>musnud</i>;
but as bastard slips, it is said in King Richard, (an
abuse of a Scripture phrase,) do not take deep root,
this bastard slip, Nujim ul Dowlah, shortly died, and
the legitimate son, Syef ul Dowlah, succeeded him.
After him another legitimate son, Mobarek ul Dowlah,
succeeded in a minority. When I say <i>succeeded</i>, I
wish your Lordships to understand that there is no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">{181}</a></span>
regular succession in the office of subah or viceroy
of the kingdom; but, in general, succession has been
considered, and persons have been put in that place
upon some principles resembling a regular succession.
That regular succession had been broken in favor of
a natural son, and the mother of that natural son did
obtain the superiority in the female part of the family
for a time.</p>

<p>In consequence of these two circumstances, namely,
the famine, and the abuses that were supposed to
arise from it, and from the circumstance of the minority
of Mobarek ul Dowlah, who now reigns or
appears to reign,&mdash;in consequence of these two circumstances,
the Company gave two sets of orders.</p>

<p>The first order related to Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n,
who was (as your Lordships remember I took, in the
beginning of this affair, means of explaining) lord-deputy
of the province under the native government,
the English holding the dewanny,&mdash;and deputy dewan,
or high-steward, under the name of the English,
and had the command of the whole revenue;
and who was accused before the Company (the channel
of which accusation we now learn) of having
aggravated that famine by a monopoly for his own
benefit. The Company, upon these loose and general
charges, ordered that he should be divested of his
office, that he should be brought down to Calcutta,
and there be obliged to render an account of his conduct.</p>

<p>The next regulation they made was concerning the
effective government of the country, which was become
vacant by the removal of Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n. The
offices which he held were in effect these: he was
guardian to the Nabob by the appointment of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">{182}</a></span>
Company; he had the care and management of his
family; he had the care of the public justice; and he
represented that shadow of government to foreign
nations which it was the policy of the Company, at
that time, to keep up. This was the person whom
Mr. Hastings was ordered to remove; in consequence
of which removal all these offices were to be supplied,&mdash;of
guardian of the Nabob's person and manager of
his family, of chief magistrate, and of representative
of the fallen dignity of the native government to the
foreign nations which traded to Bengal.</p>

<p>To these orders was added an instruction of a very
remarkable nature, which was a third trust that was
given to Mr. Hastings: that during the Nabob's minority
he should reduce the annual allowance, which
was thirty-two lacs, to sixteen; and that to prevent
the abuse of this restricted sum, and to prevent its
being directed by the minister's authority to other
purposes than that for which the Company allowed
it, (that is to say, allowed him out of what was his
own,) of these sixteen lacs an account was to be
regularly kept, as a check upon the person so appointed,
which account was ordered to be transmitted
to Calcutta, and to be sent to England.</p>

<p>Now we are to show your Lordships what Mr. Hastings's
conduct was upon all these occasions; and for
this we mean to produce testimony recorded in the
Company's books, and authentic documents taken
from the public offices of that country. At the same
time I do admit that there never was a positive testimony
that did not stand something in need of the support
of presumption: for, as we know that witnesses
may be perjured, and as we know that documents
can be forged, we have recourse to a known principle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">{183}</a></span>
in the laws of all countries, that circumstances cannot
lie; and therefore, if the testimony that is given was
ever so clear and positive, yet, if it is contrary to the
circumstances of the country, if it is contrary to the
circumstances of the facts to which it alludes, if the
deposition is totally adverse and alien to the characters
of the persons, then I will say, that, though the
testimonies should be many, though they should be
consistent, and though they should be clear, yet they
will still leave some degree of hesitation and doubt
upon every mind timorous in the execution of justice,
as every mind ought to be. If, for instance, ten witnesses
were to swear that the Chief-Justice of England,
that the Lord High-Chancellor, or the Archbishop
of Canterbury, was seen, in the robes of his
function, at noonday, robbing upon the highway, it
is not the clearness, the weight, the authority of testimonies,
that could make me believe it; I should
attribute it to any cause, either corruption, mistake,
error, or madness, rather than believe that fact.
Why? Because it is totally alien to the character of
the persons, the situation, the circumstances, and to
all the rules of probability. But if, on the contrary,
the crime charged has a perfect relation with the person,
with his known conduct, with his known habits,
with the situation and circumstances of the place that
he is in, and with the very corrupt inherent nature of
the act that he does, then much less proof than we
are able to produce will serve; and according to the
nature and strength of the presumptions arising from
the inherent nature of a vicious principle and vicious
motives in the act, will be strengthened the weakest
evidence, or, if it comes to a sufficient height, the
whole burden of proof will be turned upon the party<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">{184}</a></span>
accused. And thus we shall think ourselves bound
to show your Lordships, in every step of this proceeding,
that there is an inherent presumption of corruption
in every act. We shall show the presumptions
which preceded, we shall show the presumptions which
accompanied the proof; and these, with the subsequent
presumptions, will make it impossible to disbelieve
them. Such a body of proof was never given
upon any such occasion: and it is such proof as will
prevail against the whole voice of corruption, that
amazing, active, diligent, spreading voice, which has
been made, by buzzing in every part of this country,
sometimes to sound like the public voice; it will put
it to silence, by showing that your Lordships have
proceeded upon the strongest evidence, active and
passive.</p>

<p>First, Mr. Hastings received a positive order to
seize upon Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n. That order he
executed with a military promptitude of obedience,
which will show your Lordships what are the services
which are congenial to his own mind, and which find
in him always a ready acquiescence, a faithful agent,
and a spirited instrument in the execution. The very
day after he received the order, he sent up, privately,
without communicating with the Council, from whom
he was not ordered to keep this proceeding a secret,&mdash;he
sent up, and found that great and respectable man
and respectable magistrate, who was in all those high
offices which I have stated: and if I was to compare
them to circumstances and situations in this country,
I should say he had united in himself the character
of First Lord of the Treasury, the character of Chief-Justice,
the character of Lord High-Chancellor, and
the character of Archbishop of Canterbury: a man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">{185}</a></span>
of great gravity, dignity, and authority, and advanced
in years; had once 100,000<i>l.</i> a year for the support
of his dignity, and had at that time 50,000<i>l.</i> This
man, sitting in his garden, reposing himself after the
toils of his situation, (for he was one of the most
laborious men in the world,) was suddenly arrested,
and, without a moment's respite, dragged down to
Calcutta, and there by Mr. Hastings (exceeding the
orders of the Company) confined near two years
under a guard of soldiers. Mr. Hastings kept this
great man for several months without even attempting
the trial upon him. How he tried him afterwards
your Lordships may probably in the course of this
business inquire; and you will then judge, from the
circumstances of that trial, that, as he was not tried
for his crime, so neither was he acquitted for his
innocence;&mdash;but at present I leave him in that situation.
Mr. Hastings, unknown to the Council, having
executed the orders of the Company in the last
degree of rigor to this unhappy man, keeps him in
that situation, without a trial, under a guard, separated
from his country, disgraced and dishonored, and
by Mr. Hastings's express order not suffered either to
make a visit or receive a visitor.</p>

<p>There was another commission for Mr. Hastings
contained in these orders. The Company, because
they were of opinion that justice could not be easily
obtained while the first situations of the country were
filled with this man's adherents, desired Mr. Hastings
to displace them: leaving him a very large power,
and confiding in his justice, prudence, and impartiality
not to abuse a trust of such delicacy. But
we shall prove to your Lordships that Mr. Hastings
thought it necessary to turn out, from the highest to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">{186}</a></span>
the lowest, several hundreds of people, for no other
reason than that they had been put in their employments
by that very man whom the English government
had formerly placed there. If <i>we</i> were to insist that
we could not possibly try Mr. Hastings, or come at
his wickedness, until we had eradicated his influence
in Bengal, and left not one man in it who was during
his government in any place or office whatever, yet,
though we should readily admit that we could not do
the whole without it, at the same time, rather than
make a general massacre of every person presumed to
be under his influence, we would leave some of his
crimes unproved. He did avow and declare, that,
unless he turned all these persons out of their offices,
he could never hope to come at the truth of any
charges against Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n, against whom
no specific charge had been made. Yet, upon loose
and general charges, did he seize upon this man,
confine him in this manner, and every person who
derived any place or authority from him, high or low,
was turned out. Mr. Hastings had in the Company's
orders something to justify him in rigor, but he had
likewise a prudential power over that rigor; and he
not only treated this man in the manner described,
but every human creature connected with him, as if
they had been all guilty, without any charge whatever
against them. These are his reasons for taking
this extraordinary step.</p>

<p>"I pretend not to enter into the views of others.
My own were these. Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n's influence
still prevailed generally throughout the country. In
the Nabob's household, and at the capital, it was scarce
affected by his present disgrace. His favor was still
courted, and his anger dreaded. Who, under such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">{187}</a></span>
discouragements, would give information or evidence
against him? His agents and creatures filled every
office of the nizamut and dewanny. How was the
truth of his conduct to be investigated by these?
It would be superfluous to add other arguments to
show the necessity of prefacing the inquiry by breaking
his influence, removing his dependants, and putting
the direction of all the affairs which had been
committed to his care into the hands of the most
powerful or active of his enemies."</p>

<p>My Lords, if <i>we</i> of the House of Commons were to
desire and to compel the East India Company, or to
address the crown, to remove, according to their several
situations and several capacities, every creature
that had been put into office by Mr. Hastings, because
we could otherwise make no inquiry into his conduct,
should we not be justified by his own example
in insisting upon the removal of every creature of the
reigning power before we could inquire into his conduct?
We have not done that, though we feel, as he
felt, great disadvantages in proceeding in the inquiry
while every situation in Bengal is notoriously held by
his creatures,&mdash;always excepting the first of all, but
which we could show is nothing under such circumstances.
Then what do I infer from this,&mdash;from his
obedience to the orders of the Company, carried so
much beyond necessity, and prosecuted with so much
rigor,&mdash;from the inquiry being suspended for so long
a time,&mdash;from every person in office being removed
from his situation,&mdash;from all these precautions being
used as prefatory to the inquiry, when he himself says,
that, after he had used all these means, he found not
the least benefit and advantage from them? The use
I mean to make of this is, to let your Lordships see<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">{188}</a></span>
the great probability and presumption that Mr. Hastings,
finding himself in the very selfsame situation
that had occurred the year before, when Nundcomar
was sold to Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n, of selling Mahomed
Reza Kh&acirc;n to Nundcomar, made a corrupt use of it,
and that, as Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n was not treated
with severity for his crimes, so neither was he acquitted
for his innocence. The Company had given
Mr. Hastings severe orders, and very severely had he
executed them. The Company gave him no orders
not to institute a present inquiry; but he, under pretence
of business, neglected that inquiry, and suffered
this man to languish in prison to the utter ruin of his
fortune.</p>

<p>We have in part shown your Lordships what Mr.
Hastings's own manner of proceeding with regard to
a public delinquent is; but at present we leave Mahomed
Reza Kh&acirc;n where he was. Do your Lordships
think that there is no presumption of Mr. Hastings
having a corrupt view in this business, and of his
having put this great man, who was supposed to be
of immense wealth, under contributions? Mr. Hastings
never trusted his colleagues in this proceeding;
and what reason does he give? Why, he supposed
that they must be bribed by Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n.
"For," says he, "as I did not know their characters
at that time, I did not know whether Mahomed
Reza Kh&acirc;n had not secured them to his interest by
the known ways in which great men in the East secure
men to their interest." He never trusted his
colleagues with the secret; and the person that he
employed to prosecute Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n was his
bitter enemy, Nundcomar. I will not go the length
of saying that the circumstance of enmity disables a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">{189}</a></span>
person from being a prosecutor; under some circumstances
it renders a man incompetent to be a witness;
but this I know, that the circumstance of having no
other person to rely upon in a charge against any
man but his enemy, and of having no other principle
to go upon than what is supposed to be derived out
of that enmity, must form some considerable suspicion
against the proceeding. But in this he was justified
by the Company; for Nundcomar, the great rival
of Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n, was in the worst situation
with the Company as to his credit. This Nundcomar's
politics in the country had been by Mr. Hastings
himself, and by several persons joined with him,
cruelly represented to the Company; and accordingly
he stood so ill with them, by reason of Mr. Hastings's
representations and those of his predecessors, that the
Company ordered and directed, that, if he could be
of any use in the inquiry into Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n's
conduct, some reward should be given him suitable
to his services; but they caution Mr. Hastings at the
same time against giving him any trust which he
might employ to the disadvantage of the Company.
Now Mr. Hastings began, before he could experience
any service from him, by giving him his reward, and
not the base reward of a base service, <i>money</i>, but
every trust and power which he was prohibited from
giving him. Having turned out every one of Mahomed
Reza Kh&acirc;n's dependants, he filled every office, as he
avows, with the creatures of Nundcomar. Now when
he uses a cruel and rigorous obedience in the case of
Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n, when he breaks through the
principles of his former conduct with regard to Nundcomar,
when he gives <i>him</i>, Nundcomar, trust, whom
he was cautioned not to trust, and when he gives him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">{190}</a></span>
that reward before any service could be done,&mdash;I say,
when he does this, in violation of the Company's orders
and his own principles, it is the strongest evidence
that he now found them in the situation in
which they were in 1765, when bribes were notoriously
taken, and that each party was mutually sold
to the other, and faith kept with neither. The situation
in which Mr. Hastings thus placed himself should
have been dreaded by him of all things, because he
knew it was a situation in which the most outrageous
corruption had taken place before.</p>

<p>There is another circumstance which serves to
show that in the persecution of these great men, and
the persons employed by them, he could have no
other view than to extort money from them. There
was a person of the name of Shitab Roy, who had a
great share in the conduct of the revenues of Bahar.
Mr. Hastings, in the letter to the Company, complaining
of the state of their affairs, and saying that there
were great and suspicious balances in the kingdom
of Bahar, does not even name the name of Shitab Roy.
There was an English counsellor, a particular friend
of Mr. Hastings's, there, under whose control Shitab
Roy acted. Without any charges, without any orders
from the Company, Mr. Hastings dragged down
that same Shitab Roy, and in the same ignominious
prison he kept him the same length of time, that is,
one year and three months, without trial; and when
the trial came on, there was as much appearance of
collusion in the trial as there was of rigor in the previous
process. This is the manner in which Mr. Hastings
executed the command of the Company for removing
Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n.</p>

<p>When a successor to Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n was to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">{191}</a></span>
be appointed, your Lordships naturally expect, from
the character I have given of him, and from the
nature of his functions, that Mr. Hastings would be
particularly precise, would use the utmost possible
care in nominating a person to succeed him, who
might fulfil the ends and objects of his employment,
and be at the same time beyond all doubt and suspicion
of corruption in any way whatever. Let us
now see how he fills up that office thus vacant.
When the Company ordered Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n to
be dispossessed of his office, they ordered at the same
time that the salary of his successor should be reduced:
that 30,000<i>l.</i> was a sufficient recompense for
that office. Your Lordships will see by the allowance
for the office, even reduced as it was, that they
expected some man of great eminence, of great consequence,
and fit for those great and various trusts.
They cut off the dewanny from it, that is, the collection
of the revenues; and having lessened his labors,
they lessened his reward.&mdash;They ordered that
this person, who was to be guardian of the Nabob in
his minority, and who was to represent the government,
should have but 30,000<i>l.</i> The order they give
is this.</p>

<p>"And that as Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n can no longer
be considered by us as one to whom such a power can
safely be committed, we trust to your local knowledge
the selection of some person well qualified for the
affairs of government, and of whose attachment to
the Company you shall be well assured. Such person
you will recommend to the Nabob, to succeed
Mahomed Reza, as minister of the government, and
guardian of the Nabob's minority; and we persuade
ourselves that the Nabob will pay such regard to your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">{192}</a></span>
recommendation as to invest him with the necessary
power and authority.</p>

<p>"As the advantages which the Company may receive
from the appointment of such minister will
depend on his readiness to promote our views and
advance our interest, we are willing to allow him so
liberal a gratification as may excite his zeal and insure
his attachment to the Company; we therefore
empower you to grant to the person whom you shall
think worthy of this trust an annual allowance not
exceeding three lacs of rupees, which we consider not
only as a munificent reward for any services he shall
render the Company, but sufficient to enable him to
support his station with suitable rank and dignity.
And here we must add, that, in the choice you shall
make of a person to be the active minister of the Nabob's
government, we hope and trust that you will
show yourselves worthy of the confidence we have
placed in you by being actuated therein by no other
motives than those of the public good and the safety
and interest of the Company."</p>

<p>My Lords, here they have given a reward, and they
have described a person fit to succeed in all capacities
the man whom they had thought fit to depose. Now,
as we have seen how Mr. Hastings obeyed the Company's
orders in the manner of removing Mahomed
Reza Kh&acirc;n from his office, let us see how he obeyed
their order for filling it up. Your Lordships will
naturally suppose that he made all the orders of
Mahometan and Hindoo princes to pass in strict review
before him; that he had considered their age,
authority, dignity, the goodness of their manners;
and upon the collation of all these circumstances had
chosen a person fit to be a regent to guard the Na<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">{193}</a></span>bob's
minority from all rapacity whatever, and fit to
instruct him in everything. I will give your Lordships
Mr. Hastings's own idea of the person necessary
to fill such offices.</p>

<p>"That his rank ought to be such as at least ought
not to wound the Nabob's honor, or lessen his credit
in the estimation of the people, by the magisterial
command which the new guardian must exercise
over him,&mdash;with abilities and vigor of mind equal
to the support of that authority; and the world will
expect that the guardian be especially qualified by
his own acquired endowments to discharge the duties
of that relation in the education of his young pupil,
to inspire him with sentiments suitable to his
birth, and to instruct him in the principles of his religion."</p>

<p>This, upon another occasion, is Mr. Hastings's
sense of the man who ought to be placed in that situation
of trust in which the Company ordered him to
place him. Did Mr. Hastings obey that order? No,
my Lords, he appointed no man to fill that office.
What, no man at all? No, he appointed no person
at all in the sense which is mentioned there, which
constantly describes a person at least of the male sex:
he appointed a woman to fill that office; he appointed
a woman, in a country where no woman can be seen,
where no woman can be spoken to by any one without
a curtain between them; for all these various
duties, requiring all these qualifications described by
himself, he appointed a woman. Do you want more
proof than this violent transgression of the Company's
orders upon that occasion that some corrupt motive
must have influenced him?</p>

<p>My Lords, it is necessary for me to state the situa<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">{194}</a></span>tion
of the family, that you may judge from thence
of the corrupt motives of Mr. Hastings's proceedings.
The Nabob Jaffier Ali Kh&acirc;n had among the women
of his seraglio a person called Munny Begum. She
was a dancing-girl, whom he had seen at some entertainment;
and as he was of a licentious turn, this
dancing-girl, in the course of her profession as a prostitute,
so far inveigled the Nabob, that, having a child
or pretending to have had a child by him, he brought
her into the seraglio; and the Company's servants
sold to that son the succession of that father. This
woman had been sold as a slave,&mdash;her profession a
dancer, her occupation a prostitute. And, my Lords,
this woman having put her natural son, as we state,
and shall prove, in the place of the legitimate offspring
of the Nabob, having got him placed by the Company's
servants on the musnud, she came to be at the head
of that part of the household which relates to the
women: which is a large and considerable trust in
a country where polygamy is admitted, and where
women of great rank may possibly be attended by two
thousand of the same sex in inferior situations. As
soon as the legitimate son of the Nabob came to the
musnud, there was no ground for keeping this woman
any longer in that situation; and upon an application
of the Company to Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n to know who
ought to have the right of superiority, he answered,
as he ought to have done, that, though all the women
of the seraglio ought to have honor, yet the mother
of the Nabob ought to have the superiority of it.
Therefore this woman was removed, and the mother
of the Nabob was placed in her situation. In that
situation Mr. Hastings found the seraglio. If his duties
had gone no further than the regulation of an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">{195}</a></span>
Eastern household, he ought to have kept the Nabob's
mother there by the rules of that country.</p>

<p>What did he do? Not satisfied with giving to this
prostitute every favor that she could desire, (and
money must be the natural object of such a person,)
Mr. Hastings deposes the Nabob's own mother, turns
her out of the employment, and puts at the head of
the seraglio this prostitute, who at the best, in relation
to him, could only be a step-mother. If you heard no
more, do your Lordships want anything further to
convince you that this must be a violent, atrocious,
and corrupt act,&mdash;suppose it had gone no further
than the seraglio? But when I call this woman a
dancing-girl, I state something lower than Europeans
have an idea of respecting that situation. She was
born a slave, bred a dancing-girl. Her dancing was
not any of those noble and majestic movements which
make part of the entertainment of the most wise, of
the education of the most virtuous, which improve the
manners without corrupting the morals of all civilized
people, and of which, among uncivilized people, the
professors have their due share of admiration; but
these dances were not decent to be seen nor fit to be
related. I shall pass them by. Your Lordships are
to suppose the lowest degree of infamy in occupation
and situation, when I tell you that Munny Begum
was a slave and a dancing-girl.</p>

<p>The history of the Munny Begum is this. "At a
village called Balkonda, near Sekundra, there lived a
widow, who, from her great poverty, not being able to
bring up her daughter Munny, gave her to a slave-girl
belonging to Summin Ali Kh&acirc;n, whose name was
Bissoo. During the space of five years she lived at
Shahjehanabad, and was educated by Bissoo after the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">{196}</a></span>
manner of a dancing-girl. Afterwards the Nabob
Shamut Jung, upon the marriage of Ikram ul Dowlah,
brother to the Nabob Surajah ul Dowlah, sent for
Bissoo Beg's set of dancing-girls from Shahjehanabad,
of which Munny Begum was one, and allowed them
ten thousand rupees for their expenses, to dance at
the wedding. While the ceremony was celebrating,
they were kept by the Nabob; but some months afterwards
he dismissed them, and they took up their residence
in this city. Mir Mahomed Jaffier Kh&acirc;n then
took them into keeping, and allowed Munny and her
set five hundred rupees per month, till at length,
finding that Munny was pregnant, he took her into
his own house. She gave birth to the Nabob Nujim
ul Dowlah, and in this manner has she remained in
the Nabob's family ever since."</p>

<p>Now it required a very peculiar mode of selection
to take such a woman, so circumstanced, (resembling
whom there was not just such another,) to depose
the Nabob's own mother from the superiority of the
household, and to substitute this woman. It would
have been an abominable abuse, and would have implied
corruption in the grossest degree, if Mr. Hastings
had stopped there. He not only did this, but he
put <i>her</i>, this woman, in the very place of Mahomed
Reza Kh&acirc;n: he made her guardian, he made her
regent, he made her viceroy, he made her the representative
of the native government of the country in
the eyes of strangers. There was not a trust, not a
dignity in the country, which he did not put, during
the minority of this unhappy person, her step-son, into
the hands of this woman.</p>

<p>Reject, if you please, the strong presumption of
corruption in disobeying the order of the Company<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">{197}</a></span>
directing him to select a <i>man</i> fit to supply the place
of Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n, to exercise all the great and
arduous functions of government and of justice, as
well as the regulation of the Nabob's household; and
then I will venture to say, that neither your Lordships,
nor any man living, when he hears of this
appointment, does or can hesitate a moment in concluding
that it is the result of corruption, and that
you only want to be informed what the corruption
was. Here is such an arrangement as I believe never
was before heard of: a secluded woman in the place
of a man of the world; a fantastic dancing-girl in the
place of a grave magistrate; a slave in the place of a
woman of quality; a common prostitute made to superintend
the education of a young prince; and a
step-mother, a name of horror in all countries, made
to supersede the natural mother from whose body the
Nabob had sprung.</p>

<p>These are circumstances that leave no doubt of
the grossest and most flagrant corruption. But was
there no application made to Mr. Hastings upon that
occasion? The Nabob's uncle, whom Mr. Hastings
declares to be a man of no dangerous ambition, no
alarming parts, no one quality that could possibly exclude
him from that situation, makes an application
to Mr. Hastings for that place, and was by Mr. Hastings
rejected. The reason he gives for his rejection
is, because he cannot put any man in it without danger
to the Company, who had ordered him to put
a man into it. One would imagine the trust to be
placed in him was such as enabled him to overturn
the Company in a moment. Now the situation in
which the Nabob's uncle, Yeteram ul Dowlah, would
have been placed was this: he would have had no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">{198}</a></span>
troops, he would have had no treasury, he would have
had no collections of revenue, nothing, in short, that
could have made him dangerous, but he would have
been an absolute pensioner and dependant upon the
Company, though in high office; and the least attempt
to disturb the Company, instead of increasing,
would have been subversive of his own power. If
Mr. Hastings should still insist that there might be
danger from the appointment of a man, we shall prove
that he was of opinion that there could be no danger
from any one,&mdash;that the Nabob himself was a mere
shadow, a cipher, and was kept there only to soften
the English government in the eyes and opinion of
the natives.</p>

<p>My Lords, I will detail these circumstances no
further, but will bring some collateral proofs to show
that Mr. Hastings was at that very time conscious of
the wicked and corrupt act he was doing. For, besides
this foolish principle of policy, which he gives
as a reason for defying the orders of the Company,
and for insulting the country, that had never before
seen a woman in that situation, and <i>his</i> declaration
to the Company, that their government cannot
be supported by private justice, (a favorite maxim,
which he holds upon all occasions,) besides these
reasons which he gave for his politic injustice, he
gives the following. The Company had ordered that
30,000<i>l.</i> should be given to the person appointed.
He knew that the Company could never dream of
giving this woman 30,000<i>l.</i> a year, and he makes use
of that circumstance to justify him in putting her
in that place: for he says, the Company, in the distressed
state of its affairs, could never mean to give
30,000<i>l.</i> a year for the office which they order to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">{199}</a></span>
filled; and accordingly, upon principles of economy,
as well as upon principles of prudence, he sees there
could be no occasion for giving this salary, and that
it will be saved to the Company. But no sooner had
he given her the appointment than that appointment
became a ground for giving her that money. The
moment he had appointed her, he overturns the very
principle upon which he had appointed her, and gives
the 30,000<i>l.</i> to her, and the officers under her, saving
not one shilling to the Company by this infamous
measure, which he justified only upon the principle
of economy. The 30,000<i>l.</i> was given, the principle
of economy vanished, a shocking arrangement was
made, and Bengal saw a dancing-girl administering
its justice, presiding over all its remaining power,
wealth, and influence, exhibiting to the natives of the
country their miserable state of degradation, and the
miserable dishonor of the English Company in Mr.
Hastings's abandonment of all his own pretences.</p>

<p>But there is a still stronger presumption. The
Company ordered that this person, who was to have
the management of the Nabob's revenue, and who
was to be his guardian, should keep a strict account,
which account should be annually transmitted to the
Presidency, and by the Presidency to Europe; and
the purpose of it was, to keep a control upon the reduced
expenses of the sixteen lac which were ordered
in the manner I mentioned. Your Lordships will
naturally imagine that that control was kept safe.
No, here is the order of the Directors, and you will
see how Mr. Hastings obeyed it.</p>

<p>"As the disbursement of the sums allotted to the
Nabob for the maintenance of his household and family
and the support of his dignity will pass through<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">{200}</a></span>
the hands of the minister who shall be selected by
you, conformable to our preceding orders, we expect
that you will require such minister to deliver annually
to your board a regular and exact account of the
application of the several sums paid by the Company
to the Nabob. This you will strictly examine; and we
trust that you will not suffer any part of the Nabob's
stipend to be appropriated to the minister's own use,
or wasted among the unnecessary dependants of the
court, but that the whole amount be applied to the
purposes for which it was assigned by us."</p>

<p>One would have imagined, that, after Mr. Hastings
had made so suspicious an arrangement, (I will not
call it by any worse name,) he would have removed
all suspicion with regard to money,&mdash;that he would
have obeyed the Company by constituting the control
which they had ordered to be placed over a man,
even a fit man, and a man worthy of the trust committed
to him. But what is his answer, when three
years after he is desired to produce this account?
His answer is,&mdash;"I can save the board the trouble
of this reference by acquainting them that no such
accounts have ever been transmitted, nor, as I can
affirm with most certain knowledge, any orders given
for that purpose, either to Gourdas, to whose office it
did not properly belong, nor to the Begum, who had
the actual charge and responsibility of those disbursements."</p>

<p>He has given to this woman the charge of all the
disbursements of the Company; the officer whom
you would imagine would be responsible was not responsible,
but to this prostitute and dancing-girl the
whole of the revenue was given; when he was ordered
to transmit that account, he not only did not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">{201}</a></span>
produce that account, but had given no order that it
should be kept: so that no doubt can be left upon
your Lordships' minds, that the sixteen lac, which
were reserved for the support of the dignity of the
government of that country, were employed for the
purpose of Mr. Hastings's having a constant bank,
from which he should draw every corrupt emolument
he should think fit for himself and his associates.
Thus your Lordships see that he appointed an improper
person to the trust without any control, and
that the very accounts which were to be the guardians
of his purity, and which were to remove suspicion
from him, he never so much as directed or ordered.
If any one can doubt that that transaction
was in itself corrupt, I can only say that his mind
must be constituted in a manner totally different
from that which prevails in any of the higher or lower
branches of judicature in any country in the world.
The suppression of an account is a proof of corruption.</p>

<p>When Mr. Hastings committed these acts of violence
against Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n, when he proceeded
to make arrangements in the Company's affairs of
the same kind with those in which corruption had
been before exercised, he was bound by a particular
responsibility that there should be nothing mysterious
in his own conduct, and that at least all the accounts
should be well kept. He appointed a person nominally
for that situation,&mdash;namely, the Rajah Gourdas.
Who was he? A person acting, he says, under
the influence of Rajah Nundcomar, whom he had
declared was not fit to be employed or trusted: all
the offices were filled by him. But had Rajah Gourdas,
whose character is that of an excellent man,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">{202}</a></span>
against whom there could lie no reasonable objection
on account of his personal character, and whose want
of talents was to be supplied by those of Nundcomar,
(and of <i>his</i> parts Mr. Hastings spoke as highly as
possible,)&mdash;had he, I say, the management? No:
but Munny Begum. Did she keep any accounts?
No.</p>

<p>Mr. Hastings was ordered, and a very disagreeable
and harsh order it was, to take away one half of the
Nabob's allowance which he had by treaty. I do
not charge Mr. Hastings with this reduction: he had
nothing to do with that. Sixteen lac were cut off,
and sixteen left; these two sums had been distributed,
one for the support of the seraglio and the dignity
of the state, the other for the court establishment
and the household. The sixteen lac which was left,
therefore, required to be well economized, and well
administered. There was a rigor in the Company's
order relative to it, which was, that it should take
place from an antedated time, that is, a whole year
prior to the communication of their order to the
Nabob. The order was, that the Nabob's stipend
should be reduced to sixteen lac a year from the
month of January. Mr. Hastings makes this reflection
upon it, in order to leave no doubt upon your
mind of his integrity in administering that great
trust: he says,&mdash;</p>

<p>"Your order for the reduction of the Nabob's stipend
was communicated to him in the month of December,
1771. He remonstrated against it, and desired
it might be again referred to the Company.
The board entirely acquiesced in his remonstrance,
and the subsequent payments of his stipend were paid
as before. I might easily have availed myself of this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">{203}</a></span>
plea. I might have treated it as an act of the past
government, with which I had no cause to interfere,
and joined in asserting the impossibility of his defraying
the vast expense of his court and household without
it, which I could have proved by plausible arguments,
drawn from the actual amount of the nizamut
and bhela establishments; and both the Nabob and
Begum would have liberally purchased my forbearance.
Instead of pursuing this plan, I carried your
orders rigidly and literally into execution. I undertook
myself the laborious and reproachful task of
limiting his charges, from an excess of his former
stipend, to the sum of his reduced allowance."</p>

<p>He says in another place,&mdash;"The stoppage of the
king's tribute was an act of mine, and I have been
often reproached with it. It was certainly in my power
to have continued the payment of it, and to have
made my terms with the king for any part of it which
I might have chosen to reserve for my own use. He
would have thanked me for the remainder."</p>

<p>My Lords, I believe it is a singular thing, and what
your Lordships have been very little used to, to see a
man in the situation of Mr. Hastings, or in any situation
like it, so ready in knowing all the resources
by which sinister emolument may be made and concealed,
and which, under pretences of public good,
may be transferred into the pocket of him who uses
those pretences. He is resolved, if he is innocent, that
his innocence shall not proceed from ignorance. He
well knows the ways of falsifying the Company's accounts;
he well knows the necessities of the natives,
and he knows that by paying a part of their dues they
will be ready to give an acquittance of the whole.
These are parts of Mr. Hastings's knowledge of which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">{204}</a></span>
your Lordships will see he also well knows how to
avail himself.</p>

<p>But you would expect, when he reduced the allowance
to sixteen lac, and took credit to himself as if
he had done the thing which he professed, and had
argued from his rigor and cruelty his strict and literal
obedience to the Company, that he had in reality
done it. The very reverse: for it will be in proof,
that, after he had pretended to reduce the Company's
allowance, he continued it a twelvemonth from the
day in which he said he had entirely executed it, to
the amount of 90,000<i>l.</i>, and entered a false account
of the suppression in the Company's accounts; and
when he has taken a credit as under pretence of reducing
that allowance, he paid 90,000<i>l.</i> more than he
ought. Can you, then, have a doubt, after all these
false pretences, after all this fraud, fabrication, and
suppression which he made use of, that that 90,000<i>l.</i>,
of which he kept no account and transmitted no account,
was money given to himself for his own private
use and advantage?</p>

<p>This is all that I think necessary to state to your
Lordships upon this monstrous part of the arrangement;
and therefore, from his rigorous obedience in
cases of cruelty, and, where control was directed,
from his total disobedience, and from his choice of
persons, from his suppression of the accounts that
ought to have been produced, and falsifying the accounts
that were kept, there arises a strong inference
of corruption. When your Lordships see all this in
proof, your Lordships will justify me in saying that
there never was (taking every part of the arrangement)
such a direct, open violation of any trust.&mdash;I
shall say no more with regard to the appointment of
Munny Begum.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">{205}</a></span></p>

<p>My Lords, here ended the first scene, and here ends
that body of presumption arising from the transaction
and inherent in it. My Lords, the next scene
that I am to bring before you is the positive proof of
corruption in this transaction, in which I am sure
you already see that corruption must exist. The
charge was brought by a person in the highest trust
and confidence with Mr. Hastings, a person employed
in the management of the whole transaction, a person
to whom the management, subordinate to Munny Begum,
of all the pecuniary transactions, and all the arrangements
made upon that occasion, was intrusted.</p>

<p>On the 11th day of March, 1775, Nundcomar gives
to Mr. Francis, a member of the Council, a charge
against Mr. Hastings, consisting of two parts. The
first of these charges was a vast number of corrupt
dealings, with respect to which he was the informer,
not the witness, but to which he indicated the modes
of inquiry; and they are corrupt dealings, as Mr.
Hastings himself states them, amounting to millions
of rupees, and in transactions every one of which implies
in it the strongest degree of corruption. The
next part was of those to which he was not only an
informer, but a witness, in having been the person
who himself transmitted the money to Mr. Hastings
and the agents of Mr. Hastings; and accordingly,
upon this part, which is the only part we charge, his
evidence is clear and full, that he gave the money
to Mr. Hastings,&mdash;he and the Begum (for I put
them together). He states, that Mr. Hastings received
for the appointment of Munny Begum to the
rajahship two lacs of rupees, or about 22,000<i>l.</i>, and
that he received in another gross sum one lac and
a half of rupees: in all making three lac and a half,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">{206}</a></span>
or about 36,000<i>l.</i> This charge was signed by the
man, and accompanied with the account.</p>

<p>Mr. Hastings, on that day, made no reflection or
observation whatever upon this charge, except that
he attempted to excite some suspicion that Mr. Francis,
who had produced it, was concerned in the
charge, and was the principal mover in it. He asks
Mr. Francis that day this question:&mdash;</p>

<p>"The Governor-General observes, as Mr. Francis
has been pleased to inform the board that he was unacquainted
with the contents of the letter sent in to
the board by Nundcomar, that he thinks himself justified
in carrying his curiosity further than he should
have permitted himself without such a previous intimation,
and therefore begs leave to ask Mr. Francis
whether he was before this acquainted with Nundcomar's
intention of bringing such charges against him
before the board.</p>

<p>"<i>Mr. Francis.</i>&mdash;As a member of this Council, I
do not deem myself obliged to answer any question
of mere curiosity. I am willing, however, to inform
the Governor-General, that, though I was totally unacquainted
with the contents of the paper I have now
delivered in to the board till I heard it read, I did
apprehend in general that it contained some charge
against him. It was this apprehension that made
me so particularly cautious in the manner of receiving
the Rajah's letter. I was not acquainted with
Rajah Nundcomar's intention of bringing in such
charges as are mentioned in the letter.</p>

<p class="noindent">
<span style="margin-left: 12em;">"WARREN HASTINGS.<br /></span>
<span style="margin-left: 12.5em;">J. CLAVERING.<br /></span>
<span style="margin-left: 12.5em;">GEO. MONSON.<br /></span>
<span style="margin-left: 12.5em;">P. FRANCIS."<br /></span></p>
<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">{207}</a></span></p>

<p>Now what the duty of Mr. Hastings and the Council
was, upon receiving such information, I shall beg
leave to state to your Lordships from the Company's
orders; but, before I read them, I must observe,
that, in pursuance of an act of Parliament, which was
supposed to be made upon account of the neglect of
the Company, as well as the neglects of their servants,
and for which general neglects responsibility
was fixed upon the Company for the future, while
for the present their authority was suspended, and a
Parliamentary commission sent out to regulate their
affairs, the Company did, upon that occasion, send
out a general code and body of instructions to be
observed by their servants, in the 35th paragraph of
which it is said,&mdash;</p>

<p>"We direct that you immediately cause the strictest
inquiry to be made into all oppressions which may
have been committed either against the natives or
Europeans, and into all abuses that may have prevailed
in the collection of the revenues, or any part
of the civil government of the Presidency: and that
you communicate to us all information which you
may be able to learn relative thereto, or to any dissipation
or embezzlement of the Company's money."</p>

<p>Your Lordships see here that there is a direct duty
fixed upon them to forward, to promote, to set on foot,
without exception of any persons whatever, an inquiry
into all manner of corruption, peculation, and oppression.
Therefore this charge of Nundcomar's was a
case exactly within the Company's orders; such a
charge was not sought out, but was actually laid before
them; but if it had not been actually laid before
them, if they had any reason to suspect that such corruptions
existed, they were bound by this order to
make an active inquiry into them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">{208}</a></span></p>

<p>Upon that day (11th March, 1775) nothing further
passed; and, on the part of Mr. Hastings, that charge,
as far as we can find, might have stood upon the records
forever, without his making the smallest observation
upon it, or taking any one step to clear his
own character. But Nundcomar was not so inattentive
to his duties as an accuser as Mr. Hastings was
to his duties as an inquirer; for, without a moment's
delay, upon the first board-day, two days after, Nundcomar
came and delivered the following letter.</p>

<p>"I had the honor to lay before you, in a letter of
the 11th instant, an abstracted, but true account of
the Honorable Governor in the course of his administration.
What is there written I mean not the least
to alter: far from it. I have the strongest written
vouchers to produce in support of what I have advanced;
and I wish and entreat, for my honor's
sake, that you will suffer me to appear before you,
to establish the fact by an additional, incontestable
evidence."</p>

<p>My Lords, I will venture to say, if ever there was
an accuser that appeared well and with weight before
any court, it was this man. He does not shrink from
his charge; he offered to meet the person he charged
face to face, and to make good his charge by his own
evidence, and further evidence that he should produce.
Your Lordships have also seen the conduct
of Mr. Hastings on the first day; you have seen his
acquiescence under it; you have seen the suspicion he
endeavored to raise. Now, before I proceed to what
Mr. Hastings thought of it, I must remark upon this
accusation, that it is a specific accusation, coming
from a person knowing the very transaction, and
known to be concerned in it,&mdash;that it was an accusa<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">{209}</a></span>tion
in writing, that it was an accusation with a signature,
that it was an accusation with a person to make
it good, that it was made before a competent authority,
and made before an authority bound to inquire
into such accusation. When he comes to produce his
evidence, he tells you, first, the sums of money given,
the species in which they were given, the very bags
in which they were put, the exchange that was made
by reducing them to the standard money of the country;
he names all the persons through whose hands
the whole transaction went, eight in number, besides
himself, Munny Begum, and Gourdas, being eleven,
all referred to in this transaction. I do believe that
since the beginning of the world there never was an
accusation which was more deserving of inquiry, because
there never was an accusation which put a false
accuser in a worse situation, and that put an honest
defendant in a better; for there was every means of
collation, every means of comparison, every means of
cross-examining, every means of control. There was
every way of sifting evidence, in which evidence could
be sifted. Eleven witnesses to the transaction are
referred to; all the particulars of the payment, every
circumstance that could give the person accused the
advantage of showing the falsehood of the accusation,
were specified. General accusations may be treated
as calumnies; but particular accusations, like these,
afford the defendant, if innocent, every possible means
for making his defence: therefore the very making
no defence at all would prove, beyond all doubt, a
consciousness of guilt.</p>

<p>The next thing for your Lordships' consideration
is the conduct of Mr. Hastings upon this occasion.
You would imagine that he would have treated the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">{210}</a></span>
accusation with a cold and manly disdain; that he
would have challenged and defied inquiry, and desired
to see his accuser face to face. This is what
any man would do in such a situation. I can conceive
very well that a man composed, firm, and collected
in himself, conscious of not only integrity, but
known integrity, conscious of a whole life beyond the
reach of suspicion,&mdash;that a man placed in such a
situation might oppose general character to general
accusation, and stand collected in himself, poised on
his own base, and defying all the calumnies in the
world. But as it shows a great and is a proof of a
virtuous mind to despise calumny, it is the proof of
a guilty mind to despise a specific accusation, when
made before a competent authority, and with competent
means to prove it. As Mr. Hastings's conduct
was what no man living expected, I will venture to
say that no expression can do it justice but his own.
Upon reading the letter, and a motion being made
that Rajah Nundcomar be brought before the board
to prove the charge against the Governor-General,
the Governor-General enters the following minute.</p>

<p>"Before the question is put, I declare that I will
not suffer Nundcomar to appear before the board as
my accuser. I know what belongs to the dignity and
character of the first member of this administration.
I will not sit at this board in the character of a criminal,
nor do I acknowledge the members of this board
to be my judges. I am reduced on this occasion to
make the declaration, that I look upon General Clavering,
Colonel Monson, and Mr. Francis as my accusers.
I cannot prove this in the direct letter of the
law, but in my conscience I regard them as such, and
I will give my reasons for it. On their arrival at this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">{211}</a></span>
place, and on the first formation of the Council, they
thought proper to take immediate and decisive measures
in contradiction and for the repeal of those which
were formed by me in conjunction with the last administration.
I appealed to the Court of Directors
from their acts. Many subsequent letters have been
transmitted both by them and by me to the Court of
Directors: by me, in protestation against their conduct;
by them, in justification of it. Quitting this
ground, they since appear to me to have chosen other
modes of attack, apparently calculated to divert my
attention and to withdraw that of the public from the
subject of our first differences, which regarded only
the measures that were necessary for the good of the
service, to attacks directly and personally levelled at
me for matters which tend to draw a personal and
popular odium upon me: and fit instruments they
have found for their purpose,&mdash;Mr. Joseph Fowke,
Mahrajah Nundcomar, Roopnarain Chowdry, and the
Ranny of Burdwan.</p>

<p>"It appears incontestably upon the records that the
charges preferred by the Ranny against me proceeded
from the office of Mr. Fowke. All the papers transmitted
by her came in their original form written in
the English language,&mdash;some with Persian papers, of
which they were supposed to be translations, but all
strongly marked with the character and idiom of the
English language. I applied on Saturday last for Persian
originals of some of the papers sent by her, and
I was refused: I am justified in declaring my firm
belief that no such originals exist.</p>

<p>"With respect to Nundcomar's accusations, they
were delivered by the hands of Mr. Francis, who has
declared that he was called upon by Rajah Nund<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">{212}</a></span>comar,
as a duty belonging to his office as a councillor
of this state, to lay the packet which contained
them before the board,&mdash;that he conceived that he
could not, consistent with his duty, refuse such a letter
at the instance of a person of the Rajah's rank,
and did accordingly receive it, and laid it before the
board,&mdash;declaring at the same time that he was unacquainted
with the contents of it. I believe that
the Court of Directors, and those to whom those proceedings
shall be made known, will think differently
of this action of Mr. Francis: that Nundcomar was
guilty of great insolence and disrespect in the demand
which he made of Mr. Francis; and that it was not
a duty belonging to the office of a councillor of this
state to make himself the carrier of a letter, which
would have been much more properly committed to
the hands of a peon or hircarra, or delivered by the
writer of it to the secretary himself.</p>

<p>"Mr. Francis has acknowledged that he apprehended
in general that it contained some charge against
me. If the charge was false, it was a libel. It might
have been false for anything that Mr. Francis could
know to the contrary, since he was unacquainted
with the contents of it. In this instance, therefore,
he incurred the hazard of presenting a libel to the
board: this was not a duty belonging to his office
as a councillor of this state. I must further inform
the board that I have been long since acquainted
with Nundcomar's intentions of making this attack
upon me. Happily, Nundcomar, among whose talents
for intrigue that of secrecy is not the first, has been
ever too ready to make the first publication of his
own intentions. I was shown a paper containing
many accusations against me, which I was told was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">{213}</a></span>
carried by Nundcomar to Colonel Monson, and that
he himself was employed for some hours in private
with Colonel Monson, explaining the nature of those
charges.</p>

<p>"I mention only what I was told; but as the rest
of the report which was made to me corresponds
exactly with what has happened since, I hope I shall
stand acquitted to my superiors and to the world in
having given so much credit to it as to bring the circumstance
upon record. I cannot recollect the precise
time in which this is said to have happened, but
I believe it was either before or at the time of the
dispatch of the 'Bute' and 'Pacific.' The charge
has since undergone some alteration; but of the copy
of the paper which was delivered to me, containing the
original charge, I caused a translation to be made;
when, suspecting the renewal of the subject in this
day's consultation, I brought it with me, and I desire
it may be recorded, that, when our superiors, or the
world, if the world is to be made the judge of my
conduct, shall be possessed of these materials, they
may, by comparing the supposed original and amended
list of accusations preferred against me by Nundcomar,
judge how far I am justified in the credit
which I give to the reports above mentioned. I do
not mean to infer from what I have said that it makes
any alteration in the nature of the charges, whether
they were delivered immediately from my ostensible
accusers, or whether they came to the board through
the channel of patronage; but it is sufficient to authorize
the conviction which I feel in my own mind,
that those gentlemen are parties in the accusations of
which they assert the right of being the judges.</p>

<p>"From the first commencement of this administra<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">{214}</a></span>tion,
every means have been tried both to deprive me
of the legal authority with which I have been trusted,
and to proclaim the annihilation of it to the world;
but no instance has yet appeared of this in so extraordinary
a degree as in the question now before the
board. The chief of the administration, your superior,
Gentlemen, appointed by the legislature itself, shall I
sit at this board to be arraigned in the presence of a
wretch whom you all know to be one of the basest of
mankind? I believe I need not mention his name;
but it is Nundcomar. Shall I sit here to hear men
collected from the dregs of the people give evidence,
at his dictating, against my character and conduct?
I will not. You may, if you please, form yourselves
into a committee for the investigation of these matters
in any manner which you may think proper; but
I will repeat, that I will not meet Nundcomar at the
board, nor suffer Nundcomar to be examined at the
board; nor have you a right to it, nor can it answer
any other purpose than that of vilifying and insulting
me to insist upon it.</p>

<p>"I am sorry to have found it necessary to deliver
my sentiments on a subject of so important a nature
in an unpremeditated minute, drawn from me at the
board, which I should have wished to have had leisure
and retirement to have enabled me to express myself
with that degree of caution and exactness which the
subject requires. I have said nothing but what I
believe and am morally certain I shall stand justified
for in the eyes of my superiors and the eyes of the
world; but I reserve to myself the liberty of adding
my further sentiments in such a manner and form as
I shall hereafter judge necessary."</p>

<p>My Lords, you see here the picture of Nundcomar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">{215}</a></span>
drawn by Mr. Hastings himself; you see the hurry,
the passion, the precipitation, the confusion, into which
Mr. Hastings is thrown by the perplexity of detected
guilt; you see, my Lords, that, instead of defending
himself, he rails at his accuser in the most indecent
language, calling him a wretch whom they all knew
to be the basest of mankind,&mdash;that he rails at the
Council, by attributing their conduct to the worst of
motives,&mdash;that he rails at everybody, and declares
the accusation to be a libel: in short, you see plainly
that the man's head is turned. You see there is not
a word he says upon this occasion which has common
sense in it; you see one great leading principle in it,&mdash;that
he does not once attempt to deny the charge.
He attempts to vilify the witness, he attempts to vilify
those he supposes to be his accusers, he attempts
to vilify the Council; he lags upon the accusation, he
mixes it with other accusations, which had nothing
to do with it, and out of the whole he collects a resolution&mdash;to
do what? To meet his adversary and
defy him? No,&mdash;that he will not suffer him to
appear before him: he says, "I will not sit at this
board in the character of a criminal, nor do I acknowledge
the board to be my judges."</p>

<p>He was not called upon to acknowledge them to be
his judges. Both he and they were called upon to inquire
into all corruptions without exception. It was
his duty not merely [not?] to traverse and oppose
them while inquiring into acts of corruption, but he
was bound to take an active part in it,&mdash;that if they
had a mind to let such a thing sleep upon their records,
it was his duty to have brought forward the inquiry.
They were not his judges, they were not his
accusers; they were his fellow-laborers in the inquiry<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">{216}</a></span>
ordered by the Court of Directors, their masters, and
by which inquiry he might be purged of that corruption
with which he stood charged.</p>

<p>He says, "Nundcomar is a wretch whom you all
know to be the basest of mankind." I believe they
did not know the man to be a wretch, or the basest of
mankind; but if he was a wretch, and if he was the
basest of mankind, if he was guilty of all the crimes
with which we charge Mr. Hastings, (not one of which
was ever proved against him,)&mdash;if any of your Lordships
were to have the misfortune to be before this tribunal,
before any inquest of the House of Commons,
or any other inquest of this nation, would you not say
that it was the greatest possible advantage to you that
the man who accused you was a miscreant, the vilest
and basest of mankind, by the confession of all the
world? Do mankind really, then, think that to be accused
by men of honor, of weight, of character, upon
probable charges, is an advantage to them, and that
to be accused by the basest of mankind is a disadvantage?
No: give me, if ever I am to have accusers,
miscreants, as he calls him,&mdash;wretches, the basest and
vilest of mankind. "The board," says he, "are my
accusers." If they were, it was their duty; but they
were not his accusers, but were inquiring into matters
which it was equally his duty to inquire into.
He would not suffer Nundcomar to be produced; he
would not suffer Nundcomar to be examined; he
rather suffered such an accusation to stand against
his name and character than permit it to be inquired
into. Do I want any other presumption of his guilt,
upon such an occasion, than such conduct as this?</p>

<p>This man, whom he calls a wretch, the basest and
vilest of mankind, was undoubtedly, by himself, in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">{217}</a></span>
records of the Company, declared to be one of the
first men of that country, everything that a subject
could be, a person illustrious for his birth, sacred with
regard to his caste, opulent in fortune, eminent in
situation, who had filled the very first offices in that
country; and that he was, added to all this, a man
of most acknowledged talents, and of such a superiority
as made the whole people of Bengal appear to
be an inferior race of beings compared to him,&mdash;a
man whose outward appearance and demeanor used
to cause reverence and awe, and who at that time was
near seventy years of age, which, without any other
title, generally demands respect from mankind. And
yet this man he calls the basest of mankind, a name
which no man is entitled to call another till he has
proved something to justify him in so doing; and
notwithstanding his opulence, his high rank, station,
and birth, he despises him, and will not suffer him to
be heard as an accuser before him. I will venture to
say that Mr. Hastings, in so doing, whether elevated
by philosophy or inflated by pride, is not like the rest
of mankind. We do know, that, in all accusations,
a great part of their weight and authority comes from
the character, the situation, the name, the description,
the office, the dignity of the persons who bring them;
mankind are so made, we cannot resist this prejudice;
and it has weight, and ever will have <i>prim&acirc; facie</i>
weight, in all the tribunals in the world. If, therefore,
Rajah Nundcomar was a man who (it is not degrading
to your Lordships to say) was equal in rank,
according to the idea of his country, to any peer in
this House, as sacred as a bishop, of as much gravity
and authority as a judge, and who was prime-minister
in the country in which he lived, with what face can<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">{218}</a></span>
Mr. Hastings call this man a wretch, and say that he
will not suffer him to be brought before him? If, indeed,
joined with such circumstances, the accuser be
a person of bad morals, then, I admit, those bad morals
take away from their weight; but for a proof of that
you must have some other grounds than the charges
and the railing of the culprit against him.</p>

<p>I might say that his passion is a proof of his guilt;
and there is an action which is more odious than the
crimes he attempts to cover,&mdash;<i>for he has murdered
this man by the hands of Sir Elijah Impey</i>; and if his
counsel should be unwise enough to endeavor to detract
from the credit of this man by the pretended
punishment to which he was brought, we will open
that dreadful scene to your Lordships, and you will
see that it does not detract from his credit, but brings
an eternal stain and dishonor upon the justice of
Great Britain: I say nothing further of it. As he
stood there, as he gave that evidence that day, the
evidence was to be received; it stands good, and is
a record against Mr. Hastings,&mdash;with this addition,
that he would not suffer it to be examined. He
railed at his colleagues. He says, if the charge was
false, they were guilty of a libel. No: it might have
been the effect of conspiracy, it might be punished in
another way; but if it was false, it was no libel.
And all this is done to discountenance inquiry, to
bring odium upon his colleagues for doing their duty,
and to prevent that inquiry which could alone clear
his character.</p>

<p>Mr. Hastings had himself forgotten the character
which he had given of Nundcomar; but he says that
his colleagues were perfectly well acquainted with
him, and knew that he was a wretch, the basest of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">{219}</a></span>
mankind. But before I read to you the character
which Mr. Hastings gave of him, when he recommended
him to the Presidency, (to succeed Mahomed Reza
Kh&acirc;n,) I am to let your Lordships understand fully
the purpose for which Mr. Hastings gave it. Upon
that occasion, all the Council, whom he stated to lie
under suspicion of being bought by Mahomed Reza
Kh&acirc;n, all those persons with one voice cried out
against Nundcomar; and as Mr. Hastings was known
to be of the faction the most opposite to Nundcomar,
they charged him with direct inconsistency in raising
Nundcomar to that exalted trust,&mdash;a charge which
Mr. Hastings could not repel any other way than by
defending Nundcomar. The weight of their objections
chiefly lay to Nundcomar's political character;
his moral character was not discussed in that proceeding.
Mr. Hastings says,&mdash;</p>

<p>"The President does not take upon him to vindicate
the moral character of Nundcomar; his sentiments
of this man's former political conduct are not
unknown to the Court of Directors, who, he is persuaded,
will be more inclined to attribute his present
countenance of him to motives of zeal and fidelity to
the service, in repugnance perhaps to his own inclinations,
than to any predilection in his favor. He is
very well acquainted with most of the facts alluded
to in the minute of the majority, having been a principal
instrument in detecting them: nevertheless he
thinks it but justice to make a distinction between
the violation of a trust and an offence committed
against our government by a man who owed it no
allegiance, nor was indebted to it for protection, but,
on the contrary, was the minister and actual servant
of a master whose interest naturally suggested that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">{220}</a></span>
kind of policy which sought, by foreign aids, and the
diminution of the power of the Company, to raise his
own consequence, and to re&euml;stablish his authority.
He has never been charged with any instance of infidelity
to the Nabob Mir Jaffier, the constant tenor
of whose politics, from his first accession to the nizamut
till his death, corresponded in all points so exactly
with the artifices which were detected in his minister
that they may be as fairly ascribed to the one
as to the other: their immediate object was beyond
question the aggrandizement of the former, though
the latter had ultimately an equal interest in their
success. The opinion which the Nabob himself entertained
of the services and of the fidelity of Nundcomar
evidently appeared in the distinguished marks
which he continued to show him of his favor and confidence
to the latest hour of his life.</p>

<p>"His conduct in the succeeding administration appears
not only to have been dictated by the same
principles, but, if we may be allowed to speak favorably
of any measures which opposed the views of our
own government and aimed at the support of an adverse
interest, surely it was not only not culpable,
but even praiseworthy. He endeavored, as appears
by the abstracts before us, to give consequence to his
master, and to pave the way to his independence, by
obtaining a firman from the king for his appointment
to the subahship; and he opposed the promotion
of Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n, because he looked upon
it as a supersession of the rights and authority of the
Nabob. He is now an absolute dependant and subject
of the Company, on whose favor he must rest all
his hopes of future advancement."</p>

<p>The character here given of him is that of an excel<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">{221}</a></span>lent
patriot, a character which all your Lordships, in
the several situations which you enjoy or to which you
may be called, will envy,&mdash;the character of a servant
who stuck to his master against all foreign encroachments,
who stuck to him to the last hour of his life, and
had the dying testimony of his master to his services.</p>

<p>Could Sir John Clavering, could Colonel Monson,
could Mr. Francis know that this man, of whom Mr.
Hastings had given that exalted character upon the
records of the Company, was the basest and vilest of
mankind? No, they ought to have esteemed him the
contrary: they knew him to be a man of rank, they
knew him to be a man perhaps of the first capacity
in the world, and they knew that Mr. Hastings had
given this honorable testimony of him on the records
of the Company but a very little time before; and
there was no reason why they should think or know,
as he expresses it, that he was the basest and vilest of
mankind. From the account, therefore, of Mr. Hastings
himself, he was a person competent to accuse, a
witness fit to be heard; and that is all I contend for.
Mr. Hastings would not hear him, he would not suffer
the charge he had produced to be examined into.</p>

<p>It has been shown to your Lordships that Mr.
Hastings employed Nundcomar to inquire into the
conduct and to be the principal manager of a prosecution
against Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n. Will you suffer
this man to qualify and disqualify witnesses and
prosecutors agreeably to the purposes which his own
vengeance and corruption may dictate in one case,
and which the defence of those corruptions may dictate
in another? Was Nundcomar a person fit to be
employed in the greatest and most sacred trusts in
the country, and yet not fit to be a witness to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">{222}</a></span>
sums of money which he paid Mr. Hastings for those
trusts? Was Nundcomar a fit witness to be employed
and a fit person to be used in the prosecution of Mahomed
Reza Kh&acirc;n, and yet not fit to be employed
against Mr. Hastings, who himself had employed him
in the very prosecution of Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n?</p>

<p>If Nundcomar was an enemy to Mr. Hastings, he
was an enemy to Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n; and Mr.
Hastings employed him, avowedly and professedly on
the records of the Company, on account of the very
qualification of that enmity. Was he a wretch, the
basest of mankind, when opposed to Mr. Hastings?
Was he not as much a wretch, and as much the basest
of mankind, when Mr. Hastings employed him in
the prosecution of the first magistrate and Mahometan
of the first descent in Asia? Mr. Hastings
shall not qualify and disqualify men at his pleasure;
he must accept them such as they are; and it is a
presumption of his guilt accompanying the charge,
(which I never will separate from it,) that he would
not suffer the man to be produced who made the accusation.
And I therefore contend, that, as the accusation
was so made, so witnessed, so detailed, so specific,
so entered upon record, and so entered upon
record in consequence of the inquiries ordered by the
Company, his refusal and rejection of inquiry into it
is a presumption of his guilt.</p>

<p>He is full of his idea of dignity. It is right for
every man to preserve his dignity. There is a dignity
of station, which a man has in trust to preserve;
there is a dignity of personal character, which every
man by being made man is bound to preserve. But
you see Mr. Hastings's idea of dignity has no connection
with integrity; it has no connection with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">{223}</a></span>
honest fame; it has no connection with the reputation
which he is bound to preserve. What, my
Lords, did he owe nothing to the Company that had
appointed him? Did he owe nothing to the legislature,&mdash;did
he owe nothing to your Lordships, and
to the House of Commons, who had appointed him?
Did he owe nothing to himself? to the country that
bore him? Did he owe nothing to the world, as to
its opinion, to which every public man owes a reputation?
What an example was here held out to the
Company's servants!</p>

<p>Mr. Hastings says, "This may come into a court
of justice; it will come into a court of justice: I reserve
my defence on the occasion till it comes into a
court of justice, and here I make no opposition to it."
To this I answer, that the Company did not order
him so to reserve himself, but ordered him to be an
inquirer into those things. Is it a lesson to be taught
to the inferior servants of the Company, that, provided
they can escape out of a court of justice by the
back-doors and sally-ports of the law, by artifice of
pleading, by those strict and rigorous rules of evidence
which have been established for the protection
of innocence, but which by them might be turned to
the protection and support of guilt, that such an escape
is enough for them? that an Old Bailey acquittal
is enough to establish a fitness for trust? and if a
man shall go acquitted out of such a court, because
the judges are bound to acquit him against the conviction
of their own opinion, when every man in the
market-place knows that he is guilty, that he is fit
for a trust? Is it a lesson to be held out to the servants
of the Company, that, upon the first inquiry
which is made into corruption, and that in the high<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">{224}</a></span>est
trust, by the persons authorized to inquire into it,
he uses all the powers of that trust to quash it,&mdash;vilifying
his colleagues, vilifying his accuser, abusing
everybody, but never denying the charge? His associates
and colleagues, astonished at this conduct,
so wholly unlike everything that had ever appeared
of innocence, request him to consider a little better.
They declare they are not his accusers; they tell him
they are not his judges; that they, under the orders
of the Company, are making an inquiry which he
ought to make. He declares he will not make it.
Being thus driven to the wall, he says, "Why do you
not form yourselves into a committee? I won't suffer
these proceedings to go on as long as I am present."
Mr. Hastings plainly had in view, that, if the proceedings
had been before a committee, there would
have been a doubt of their authenticity, as not being
before a regular board; and he contended that there
could be no regular board without his own presence
in it: a poor, miserable scheme for eluding this inquiry;
partly by saying that it was carried on when he
was not present, and partly by denying the authority
of this board.</p>

<p>I will have nothing to do with the great question
that arose upon the Governor-General's resolution to
dissolve a board, whether the board have a right to
sit afterwards; it is enough that Mr. Hastings would
not suffer them, as a Council, to examine into what,
as a Council, they were bound to examine into. He
absolutely declared the Council dissolved, when they
did not accept his committee, for which they had
many good reasons, as I shall show in reply, if necessary,
and which he could have no one good reason
for proposing;&mdash;he then declares the Council dis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">{225}</a></span>solved.
The Council, who did not think Mr. Hastings
had a power to dissolve them while proceeding
in the discharge of their duty, went on as a Council.
They called in Nundcomar to support his charge: Mr.
Hastings withdrew. Nundcomar was asked what he
had to say further in support of his own evidence.
Upon which he produces a letter from Munny Begum,
the dancing-girl that I have spoken of, in which
she gives him directions and instructions relative to
his conduct in every part of those bribes; by which
it appears that the corrupt agreement for her office
was made with Mr. Hastings through Nundcomar,
before he had quitted Calcutta. It points out the
execution of it, and the manner in which every part
of the sum was paid: one lac by herself in Calcutta;
one lac, which she ordered Nundcomar to borrow,
and which he did borrow; and a lac and a half which
were given to him, Mr. Hastings, besides this purchase
money, under color of an entertainment. This
letter was produced, translated, examined, criticized,
proved to be sealed with the seal of the Begum, acknowledged
to have no marks but those of authenticity
upon it, and as such was entered upon the
Company's records, confirming and supporting the
evidence of Nundcomar, part by part, and circumstance
by circumstance. And I am to remark, that,
since this document, so delivered in, has never been
litigated or controverted in the truth of it, from that
day to this, by Mr. Hastings, so, if there was no
more testimony, here is enough, upon this business.
Your Lordships will remark that this charge consisted
of two parts: two lacs that were given explicitly
for the corrupt purchase of the office; and
one lac and a half given in reality for the same pur<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">{226}</a></span>pose,
but under the color of what is called an entertainment.</p>

<p>Now in the course of these proceedings it was
thought necessary that Mr. Hastings's banian, Cantoo
Baboo, (a name your Lordships will be well acquainted
with, and who was the minister in this and all the
other transactions of Mr. Hastings,) should be called
before the board to explain some circumstances in
the proceedings. Mr. Hastings ordered his banian,
a native, not to attend the sovereign board appointed
by Parliament for the government of that country,
and directed to inquire into transactions of this nature.
He thus taught the natives not only to disobey
the orders of the Court of Directors, enforced by an
act of Parliament, but he taught his own servant to
disobey, and ordered him not to appear before the
board. Quarrels, duels, and other mischiefs arose.
In short, Mr. Hastings raised every power of heaven
and of hell upon this subject: but in vain: the inquiry
went on.</p>

<p>Mr. Hastings does not meet Nundcomar: he was
afraid of him. But he was not negligent of his own
defence; for he flies to the Supreme Court of Justice.
He there prosecuted an inquiry against Nundcomar
for a conspiracy. Failing in that, he made other attempts,
and disabled Nundcomar from appearing before
the board by having him imprisoned, and thus
utterly crippled that part of the prosecution against
him. But as guilt is never able thoroughly to escape,
it did so happen, that the Council, finding monstrous
deficiencies in the Begum's affairs, finding the Nabob's
allowance totally squandered, that the most sacred
pensions were left unpaid, that nothing but disorder
and confusion reigned in all his affairs, that the Na<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">{227}</a></span>bob's
education was neglected, that he could scarcely
read or write, that there was scarcely any mark of a
man left in him except those which Nature had at
first imprinted,&mdash;I say, all these abuses being produced
in a body before them, they thought it necessary
to send up to inquire into them; and a considerable
deficiency or embezzlement appearing in the Munny
Begum's account of the young Nabob's stipend, she
voluntarily declared, by a writing under her seal, that
she had given 15,000<i>l.</i> to Mr. Hastings for an entertainment.</p>

<p>Mr. Hastings, finding that the charge must come
fully against him, contrived a plan which your Lordships
will see the effects of presently, and this was,
to confound this lac and an half, or 15,000<i>l.</i>, with the
two lacs given directly and specifically as a bribe,&mdash;intending
to avail himself of this finesse whenever
any payment was to be proved of the two lacs, which
he knew would be proved against him, and which he
never did deny; and accordingly your Lordships will
find some confusion in the proofs of the payment of
those sums. The receipt of two lacs is proved by
Nundcomar, proved with all the means of detection
which I have stated; the receipt of the lac and a half
is proved by Munny Begum's letter, the authenticity
of which was established, and never denied by Mr.
Hastings. In addition to these proofs, Rajah Gourdas,
who had the management of the Nabob's treasury,
verbally gave an account perfectly corresponding
with that of Nundcomar and the Munny Begum's
letter; and he afterwards gave in writing an attestation,
which in every point agrees correctly with the
others. So that there are three witnesses upon this
business. And he shall not disqualify Rajah Gour<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">{228}</a></span>das,
because, whatever character he thought fit to
give Nundcomar, he has given the best of characters
to Rajah Gourdas, who was employed by Mr. Hastings
in occupations of trust, and therefore any objections
to his competency cannot exist. Having got
thus far, the only thing that remained was to examine
the records of the public offices, and see whether
any trace of these transactions was to be found there.
These offices had been thrown into confusion in the
manner you will hear; but, upon strict inquiry, there
was a <i>shomaster</i>, or office paper, produced, from which
it appears that the officer of the treasury, having
brought to the Nabob an account of one lac and a
half which he said had been given to Mr. Hastings,
desired to know from him under what head of expense
it should be entered, and that he, the Nabob, desired
him to put it under the head of expenses for entertaining
Mr. Hastings. If there had been a head of
entertainment established as a regular affair, the officer
would never have gone to the Nabob and asked
under what name to enter it; but he found an irregular
affair, and he did not know what head to put it
under. And from the whole of the proceedings it appears
that three lacs and a half were paid: two lac
by way of bribe, one lac and a half under the color of
an entertainment. Mr. Hastings endeavors to invalidate
the first obliquely, not directly, for he never directly
denied it; and he partly admits the second, in
hopes that all the proof of payment of the first charge
should be merged and confounded in the second.
And therefore your Lordships will see from the beginning
of that business till it came into the hands of
Mr. Smith, his agent, then appearing in the name and
character of agent and solicitor to the Company, that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">{229}</a></span>
this was done to give some appearance and color to it
by a false representation, as your Lordships will see,
of every part of the transaction.</p>

<p>The proof, then, of the two lacs rests upon the evidence
of Nundcomar, the letter of Munny Begum,
and the evidence of Rajah Gourdas. The evidence
of the lac and a half, by way of entertainment, was at
first the same; and afterwards begins a series of proofs
to which Mr. Hastings has himself helped us. For, in
the first place, he produces this office paper in support
of his attempt to establish the confusion between
the payment of the two lacs and of the lac and a half.
He did not himself deny that he received a lac and a
half, because with respect to that lac and a half he had
founded some principle of justification. Accordingly
this office paper asserts and proves this lac and a half
to have been given, in addition to the other proofs.
Then Munny Begum herself is inquired of. There is
a commission appointed to go up to her residence;
and the fact is proved to the satisfaction of Mr. Goring,
the commissioner. The Begum had put a paper
of accounts, through her son, into his hands, which
shall be given at your Lordships' bar, in which she
expressly said that she gave Mr. Hastings a lac and a
half for entertainment. But Mr. Hastings objects to
Mr. Goring's evidence upon this occasion. He wanted
to supersede Mr. Goring in the inquiry; and he
accordingly appoints, with the consent of the Council,
two creatures of his own to go and assist in that
inquiry. The question which he directs these commissioners
to put to Munny Begum is this:&mdash;"Was
the sum of money charged by you to be given to Mr.
Hastings given under an idea of entertainment customary,
or upon what other ground, or for what other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">{230}</a></span>
reason?" He also desires the following questions
may be proposed to the Begum:&mdash;"Was any application
made to you for the account which you have
delivered of three lacs and a half of rupees said to
have been paid to the Governor and Mr. Middleton?
or did you deliver the account of your own free will,
and unsolicited?" My Lords, you see that with regard
to the whole three lacs and a half of rupees the
Begum had given an account which tended to confirm
the payment of them; but Mr. Hastings wanted to invalidate
that account by supposing she gave it under
restraint. The second question is,&mdash;"In what manner
was the application made to you, and by whom?"
But the principal question is this:&mdash;"On what account
was the one lac and a half given to the Governor-General
which you have laid to his account?
Was it in consequence of any requisition from him,
or of any previous agreement, or of any established
usage?" When a man asks concerning a sum of
money, charged to be given to him by another person,
on what account it was given, he does indirectly
admit that that money actually was paid, and wants
to derive a justification from the mode of the payment
of it; and accordingly that inference was drawn
from the question so sent up, and it served as an
instruction to Munny Begum; and her answer was,
that it was given to him, as an ancient usage and
custom, for an entertainment. So that the fact of
the gift of the money is ascertained by the question
put by Mr. Hastings to her, and her answer.
And thus at last comes his accomplice in this business,
and gives the fullest testimony to the lac and
a half.</p>

<p>I must beg leave, before I go further, to state the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">{231}</a></span>
circumstances of the several witnesses examined upon
this business. They were of two kinds: voluntary
witnesses, and accomplices forced by inquiry and examination
to discover their own guilt. Of the first
kind were Nundcomar and Rajah Gourdas: these
were the only two that can be said to be voluntary
in the business, and who gave their information without
much fear, though the last unwillingly, and with
a full sense of the danger of doing it. The other
was the evidence of his accomplice, Munny Begum,
wrung from her by the force of truth, in which she
confessed that she gave the lac and a half, and justifies
it upon the ground of its being a customary entertainment.
Besides this, there is the evidence of Chittendur,
who was one of Mr. Hastings's instruments,
and one of the Begum's servants. He, being prepared
to confound the two lacs with the one lac and
a half, says, upon his examination, that a lac and a
half was given; but upon examining into the particulars
of it, he proves that the sum he gave was two
lacs, and not a lac and a half: for he says that there
was a dispute about the other half lac; Nundcomar
demanded interest, which the Begum was unwilling
to allow, and consequently that half lac remained
unpaid. Now this half lac can be no part of the lac
and a half, which is admitted on all hands, and proved
by the whole body of concurrent testimony, to have
been given to Mr. Hastings in one lumping sum.
When Chittendur endeavors to confound it with the
lac and a half, he clearly establishes the fact that it
was a parcel of the two lacs, and thus bears evidence,
in attempting to prevaricate in favor of Mr. Hastings,
that one lac and a half was paid, which Mr. Hastings
is willing to allow; but when he enters into the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">{232}</a></span>
particulars of it, he proves by the subdivision of the
payment, and by the non-payment of part of it, that
it accords with the two lacs, and not with the lac and
a half.</p>

<p>There are other circumstances in these accounts
highly auxiliary to this evidence. The lac and a half
was not only attested by Rajah Gourdas, by the Begum,
by Chittendur, by the Begum again upon Mr.
Hastings's own question, indirectly admitted by Mr.
Hastings, proved by the orders for it to be written off
to expense, (such a body of proof as perhaps never
existed,) but there is one proof still remaining, namely,
a paper, which was produced before the Committee,
and which we shall produce to your Lordships.
It is an authentic paper, delivered in favor of Mr.
Hastings by Major Scott, who acted at that time as
Mr. Hastings's agent, to a committee of the House
of Commons, and authenticated to come from Munny
Begum herself. All this body of evidence we mean
to produce; and we shall prove, first, that he received
the two lacs,&mdash;and, secondly, that he received one lac
and a half under the name of entertainment. With
regard to the lac and a half, Mr. Hastings is so far
from controverting it, even indirectly, that he is
obliged to establish it by testimonies produced by himself,
in order to sink in that, if he can, the two lacs,
which he thinks he is not able to justify, but which he
fears will be proved against him. The lac and a half,
I do believe, he will not be advised to contest; but
whether he is or no, we shall load him with it, we
shall prove it beyond all doubt. But there are
other circumstances further auxiliary in this business,
which, from the very attempts to conceal it,
prove beyond doubt the fraudulent and wicked na<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">{233}</a></span>ture
of the transaction. In the account given by the
Begum, a lac, which is for Mr. Hastings's entertainment,
is entered in a suspicious neighborhood; for
there is there entered a lac of rupees paid for the
subahdarry sunnuds to the Mogul through the Rajah
Shitab Roy. Upon looking into the account, and comparing
it with another paper produced, the first thing
we find is, that this woman charges the sum paid to
be a sum due; and then she charges this one lac to
have been paid when the Mogul was in the hands of
the Mahrattas, when all communication with him was
stopped, and when Rajah Shitab Roy, who is supposed
to have paid it, was under confinement in the hands
of Mr. Hastings. Thus she endeavors to conceal the
lac of rupees paid to Mr. Hastings.</p>

<p>In order to make this transaction, which, though
not in itself intricate, is in some degree made so by
Mr. Hastings, clear to your Lordships, we pledge ourselves
to give to your Lordships, what must be a great
advantage to the culprit himself, a syllabus, the heads
of all this charge, and of the proofs themselves, with
their references, to show how far the proof goes to
the two lacs, and then to the one lac and a half singly.
This we shall put in writing, that you may not
depend upon the fugitive memory of a thing not so
well, perhaps, or powerfully expressed as it ought to
be, and in order to give every advantage to the defendant,
and to give every facility to your Lordships'
judgment: and this will, I believe, be thought a clear
and fair way of proceeding. Your Lordships will
then judge whether Mr. Hastings's conduct at the
time, his resisting an inquiry, preventing his servant
appearing as an evidence, discountenancing and discouraging
his colleagues, raising every obstruction to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">{234}</a></span>
the prosecution, dissolving the Council, preventing
evidence and destroying it as far as lay in his power
by collateral means, be not also such presumptive
proofs as give double force to all the positive
proof we produce against him.</p>

<p>The lac and a half, I know, he means to support
upon the custom of entertainment; and your Lordships
will judge whether or not a man who was ordered
and had covenanted never to take more than
400<i>l.</i> could take 16,000<i>l.</i> under color of an entertainment.
That which he intends to produce as a
justification we charge, and your Lordships and the
world will think, to be the heaviest aggravation of his
crime. And after explaining to your Lordships the
circumstances under which this justification is made,
and leaving a just impression of them upon your
minds, I shall beg your Lordships' indulgence to finish
this member of the business to-morrow.</p>

<p>It is stated and entered in the account, that an
entertainment was provided for Mr. Hastings at the
rate of 200<i>l.</i> a day. He stayed at Moorshedabad for
near three months; and thus you see that visits from
Mr. Hastings are pretty expensive things: it is at the
rate of 73,000<i>l.</i> a year for his entertainment. We
find that Mr. Middleton, an English gentleman who
was with him, received likewise (whether under the
same pretence I know not, and it does not signify)
another sum equal to it; and if these two gentlemen
had stayed in that country a year, their several allowances
would have been 146,000<i>l.</i> out of the Nabob's
allowance of 160,000<i>l.</i> a year: they would have eat
up nearly the whole of it. And do you wonder, my
Lords, that such guests and such hosts are difficult to
be divided? Do you wonder that such visits, when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">{235}</a></span>
so well paid for and well provided for, were naturally
long? There is hardly a prince in Europe who would
give to another prince of Europe from his royal hospitality
what was given upon this occasion to Mr.
Hastings.</p>

<p>Let us now see what was Mr. Hastings's business
during this long protracted visit. First, he tells you
that he came there to reduce all the state and dignity
of the Nabob. He tells you that he felt no compunction
in reducing that state; that the elephants, the
menagerie, the stables, all went without mercy, and
consequently all the persons concerned in them were
dismissed also. When he came to the abolition of the
pensions, he says,&mdash;"I proceeded with great pain,
from the reflection that I was the instrument in depriving
whole families, all at once, of their bread, and
reducing them to a state of penury: convinced of the
necessity of the measure, I endeavored to execute it
with great impartiality." Here he states the work
he was employed in, when he took this two hundred
pounds a day for his own pay. "It was necessary to
begin with reforming the useless servants of the court,
and retrenching the idle parade of elephants, menageries,
&amp;c., which loaded the civil list. This cost
little regret in performing; but the Resident, who
took upon himself the chief share in this business,
acknowledges that he suffered considerably in his
feelings, when he came to touch on the pension list.
Some hundreds of persons of the ancient nobility of
the country, excluded, under our government, from
almost all employments, civil or military, had, ever
since the revolution, depended on the bounty of the
Nabob; and near ten lacs were bestowed that way.
It is not that the distribution was always made with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">{236}</a></span>
judgment or impartial, and much room was left for a
reform; but when the question was to cut off entirely
the greatest part, it could not fail to be accompanied
with circumstances of real distress. The Resident
declares, that, even with some of the highest rank,
he could not avoid discovering, under all the pride
of Eastern manners, the manifest marks of penury
and want. There was, however, no room left for hesitation:
to confine the Nabob's expenses within the
limited sum, it was necessary that pensions should
be set aside."</p>

<p>Here, my Lords, is a man sent to execute one of the
most dreadful offices that was ever executed by man,&mdash;to
cut off, as he says himself, with a bleeding heart,
the only remaining allowance made for hundreds of
the decayed nobility and gentry of a great kingdom,
driven by our government from the offices upon which
they existed. In this moment of anxiety and affliction,
when he says he felt pain and was cut to the heart to
do it,&mdash;at this very moment, when he was turning
over fourteen hundred of the ancient nobility and
gentry of this country to downright want of bread,&mdash;just
at that moment, while he was doing this act, and
feeling this act in this manner, from the collected
morsels forced from the mouths of that indigent and
famished nobility he gorged his own ravenous maw
with an allowance of two hundred pounds a day for
his entertainment. As we see him in this business,
this man is unlike any other: he is also never corrupt
but he is cruel; he never dines without creating a
famine; he does not take from the loose superfluity
of standing greatness, but falls upon the indigent,
the oppressed, and ruined; he takes to himself double
what would maintain them. His is unlike the gen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">{237}</a></span>erous
rapacity of the noble eagle, who preys upon a
living, struggling, reluctant, equal victim; his is like
that of the ravenous vulture, who falls upon the decayed,
the sickly, the dying, and the dead, and only
anticipates Nature in the destruction of its object.
His cruelty is beyond his corruption: but there is
something in his hypocrisy which is more terrible
than his cruelty; for, at the very time when with
double and unsparing hands he executes a proscription,
and sweeps off the food of hundreds of the nobility
and gentry of a great country, his eyes overflow
with tears, and he turns the precious balm that
bleeds from wounded humanity, and is its best medicine,
into fatal, rancorous, mortal poison to the human
race.</p>

<p>You have seen, that, when he takes two hundred
pounds a day for his entertainment, he tells you that
in this very act he is starving fourteen hundred of the
ancient nobility and gentry. My Lords, you have the
blood of nobles,&mdash;if not, you have the blood of men
in your veins: you feel as nobles, you feel as men.
What would you say to a cruel Mogul exactor, by
whom after having been driven from your estates, driven
from the noble offices, civil and military, which
you hold, driven from your bishoprics, driven from
your places at court, driven from your offices as
judges, and, after having been reduced to a miserable
flock of pensioners, your very pensions were at
last wrested from your mouths, and who, though at
the very time when those pensions were wrested from
you he declares them to have been the only bread of a
miserable decayed nobility, takes himself two hundred
pounds a day for his entertainment, and continues
it till it amounts to sixteen thousand pounds? I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">{238}</a></span>
do think, that, of all the corruptions which he has not
owned, but has not denied, or of those which he does
in effect own, and of which he brings forward the
evidence himself, the taking and claiming under color
of an entertainment is ten times the most nefarious.</p>

<p>I shall this day only further trouble your Lordships
to observe that he has never directly denied this transaction.
I have tumbled over the records, I have
looked at every part, to see whether he denies it.
He did not deny it at the time, he did not deny it
to the Court of Directors: on the contrary, he did
in effect acknowledge it, when, without directly acknowledging
it, he promised them a full and liberal
explanation of the whole transaction. He never did
give that explanation. Parliament took up the business;
this matter was reported at the end of the
Eleventh Report; but though the House of Commons
had thus reported it, and made that public which before
was upon the Company's records, he took no notice
of it. Then another occasion arises: he comes
before the House of Commons; he knows he is about
to be prosecuted for those very corruptions; he well
knows these charges exist against him; he makes his
defence (if he will allow it to be his defence); but,
though thus driven, he did not there deny it, because
he knew, that, if he had denied it, it could be proved
against him. I desire your Lordships will look at
that paper which we have given in evidence, and see
if you find a word of denial of it: there is much discourse,
much folly, much insolence, but not one word
of denial. Then, at last, it came before this tribunal
against him. I desire to refer your Lordships to that
part of his defence to the article in which this bribe is
specifically charged: he does not deny it there; the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">{239}</a></span>
only thing which looks like a denial is one sweeping
clause inserted, (in order to put us upon the proof,)
that all the charges are to be conceived as denied;
but a specific denial to this specific charge in no stage
of the business, from beginning to end, has he once
made.</p>

<p>And therefore here I close that part of the charge
which relates to the business of Nundcomar. Your
Lordships will see such a body of presumptive proof
and positive proof as never was given yet of any
secret corrupt act of bribery; and there I leave it
with your Lordships' justice. I beg pardon for
having detained you so long; but your Lordships
will be so good as to observe that no business ever
was covered with more folds of iniquitous artifice
than this which is now brought before you.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">{240}</a></span></p>



<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><a name="SECOND_DAY_SATURDAY_APRIL_25_1789" id="SECOND_DAY_SATURDAY_APRIL_25_1789"></a></p>
<h2>SPEECH<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 50%;">ON</span><br />
<br />
THE SIXTH ARTICLE OF CHARGE.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 50%;">SECOND DAY: SATURDAY, APRIL 25, 1789.</span></h2>


<p>My Lords,&mdash;When I last had the honor of addressing
your Lordships, I endeavored to state
with as much perspicuity as the nature of an intricate
affair would admit, and as largely as in so intricate
an affair was consistent with the brevity which I
endeavored to preserve, the proofs which had been
adduced against Warren Hastings upon an inquiry
instituted by an order of the Court of Directors into
the corruption and peculation of persons in authority
in India. My Lords, I have endeavored to
show you by anterior presumptive proofs, drawn from
the nature and circumstances of the acts themselves
inferring guilt, that such actions and such conduct
could be referable only to one cause, namely, <i>corruption</i>;
I endeavored to show you afterwards, my Lords,
what the specific nature and extent of the corruption
was, as far as it could be fully proved; and lastly,
the great satisfactory presumption which attended
the inquiry with regard to Mr. Hastings,&mdash;namely,
that, contrary to law, contrary to his duty, contrary
to what is owed by innocence to itself, Mr. Hastings
resisted that inquiry, and employed all the power of
his office to prevent the exercise of it, either in himself
or in others. These presumptions and these proofs<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">{241}</a></span>
will be brought before your Lordships, distinctly and
in order, at the end of this opening.</p>

<p>The next point on which I thought it necessary to
proceed was relative to the presumptions which his
subsequent conduct gave with regard to his guilt:
because, my Lords, his uniform tenor of conduct, such
as must attend guilt, both in the act, at the time of
the inquiry, and subsequent to it, will form such a
body of satisfactory evidence as I believe the human
mind is not made to resist.</p>

<p>My Lords, there is another reason why I choose to
enter into the presumptions drawn from his conduct
and the fact, taking his conduct in two parts, if it
may be so expressed, <i>omission</i> and <i>commission</i>, in order
that your Lordships should more fully enter into
the consequences of this system of bribery. But before
I say anything upon that, I wish your Lordships
to be apprised, that the Commons, in bringing this
bribe of three lac and a half before your Lordships, do
not wish by any means to have it understood that this
is the whole of the bribe that was received by Mr.
Hastings in consequence of delivering up the whole
management of the government of the country to
that improper person whom he nominated for it. My
Lords, from the proofs that will be adduced before
you, there is great probability that he received very
nearly a hundred thousand pounds; there is positive
proof of his receiving fifty; and we have chosen
only to charge him with that of which there is
such an accumulated body of proof as to leave no
doubt upon the minds of your Lordships. All this I
say, because we are perfectly apprised of the sentiments
of the public upon this point: when they hear
of the enormity of Indian peculation, when they see<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">{242}</a></span>
the acts done, and compare them with the bribes received,
the acts seem so enormous and the bribes comparatively
so small, that they can hardly be got to
attribute them to that motive. What I mean to state
is this: that, from a collective view of the subject,
your Lordships will be able to judge that enormous
offences have been committed, and that the bribe
which we have given in proof is a specimen of the
nature and extent of those enormous bribes which extend
to much greater sums than we are able to prove
before you in the manner your Lordships would like
and expect.</p>

<p>I have already remarked to your Lordships, that,
after this charge was brought and recorded before
the Council in spite of the resistance made by Mr.
Hastings, in which he employed all the power and
authority of his station, and the whole body of his partisans
and associates in iniquity, dispersed through
every part of these provinces,&mdash;after he had taken
all these steps, finding himself pressed by the proof
and pressed by the presumption of his resistance to
the inquiry, he did think it necessary to make something
like a defence. Accordingly he has made what
he calls a justification, which did not consist in the
denial of that fact, or any explanation of it. The
mode he took for his defence was abuse of his colleagues,
abuse of the witnesses, and of every person
who in the execution of his duty was inquiring into
the fact, and charging them with things which, if
true, were by no means sufficient to support him,
either in defending the acts themselves, or in the
criminal means he used to prevent inquiry into them.
His design was to mislead their minds, and to carry
them from the accusation and the proof of it. With<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">{243}</a></span>
respect to the passion, violence, and intemperate heat
with which he charged them, they were proceeding in
an orderly, regular manner; and if on any occasion
they seem to break out into warmth, it was in consequence
of that resistance which he made to them, in
what your Lordships, I believe, will agree with them
in thinking was one of the most important parts of
their functions. If they had been intemperate in their
conduct, if they had been violent, passionate, prejudiced
against him, it afforded him only a better means
of making his defence; because, though in a rational
and judicious mind the intemperate conduct of the
accuser certainly proves nothing with regard to the
truth or falsehood of his accusation, yet we do know
that the minds of men are so constituted that an improper
mode of conducting a right thing does form
some degree of prejudice against it. Mr. Hastings,
therefore, unable to defend himself upon principle, has
resorted as much as he possibly could to prejudice.
And at the same time that there is not one word of
denial, or the least attempt at a refutation of the
charge, he has loaded the records with all manner of
minutes, proceedings, and letters relative to everything
but the fact itself. The great aim of his policy, both
then, before, and ever since, has been to divert the
mind of the auditory, or the persons to whom he addressed
himself, from the nature of his cause, to some
collateral circumstance relative to it,&mdash;a policy to
which he has always had recourse; but that trick,
the last resource of despairing guilt, I trust will now
completely fail him.</p>

<p>Mr. Hastings, however, began to be pretty sensible
that this way of proceeding had a very unpromising
and untoward look; for which reason he next declared<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">{244}</a></span>
that he reserved his defence for fear of a legal prosecution,
and that some time or other he would give a
large and liberal explanation to the Court of Directors,
to whom he was answerable for his conduct, of his
refusing to suffer the inquiry to proceed, of his omitting
to give them satisfaction at the time, of his omitting
to take any one natural step that an innocent
man would have taken upon such an occasion. Under
this promise he has remained from that time to the
time you see him at your bar, and he has neither
denied, exculpated, explained, or apologized for his
conduct in any one single instance.</p>

<p>While he accuses the intemperance of his adversaries,
he shows a degree of temperance in himself
which always attends guilt in despair: for struggling
guilt may be warm, but guilt that is desperate has
nothing to do but to submit to the consequences of it,
to bear the infamy annexed to its situation, and to try
to find some consolation in the effects of guilt with regard
to private fortune for the scandal it brings them
into in public reputation. After the business had
ended in India, the causes why he should have given
the explanation grew stronger and stronger: for not
only the charges exhibited against him were weighty,
but the manner in which he was called upon to inquire
into them was such as would undoubtedly tend to stir
the mind of a man of character, to rouse him to some
consideration of himself, and to a sense of the necessity
of his defence. He was goaded to make this
defence by the words I shall read to your Lordships
from Sir John Clavering.</p>

<p>"In the late proceedings of the Revenue Board it
will appear that there is no species of peculation from
which the Honorable Governor-General has thought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">{245}</a></span>
it reasonable to abstain." He further says, in answer
to Mr. Hastings, "The malicious view with which this
innuendo" (an innuendo of Mr. Hastings) "is thrown
out is only worthy of a man who, having disgraced
himself in the eyes of every man of honor both in
Asia and in Europe, and having no imputation to
lay to our charge, has dared to attempt in the dark
what malice itself could not find grounds to aim at
openly."</p>

<p>These are the charges which were made upon him,&mdash;not
loosely, in the heat of conversation, but deliberately,
in writing, entered upon record, and sent to his
employers, the Court of Directors, those whom the
law had set over him, and to whose judgment and
opinion he was responsible. Do your Lordships believe
that it was conscious innocence that made him
endure such reproaches, so recorded, from his own
colleague? Was it conscious innocence that made
him abandon his defence, renounce his explanation,
and bear all this calumny, (if it was calumny,) in such
a manner, without making any one attempt to refute
it? Your Lordships will see by this, and by other
minutes with which the books are filled, that Mr.
Hastings is charged quite to the brim with corruptions
of all sorts, and covered with every mode of possible
disgrace. For there is something so base and contemptible
in the crimes of peculation and bribery, that,
when they come to be urged home and strongly against
a man, as here they are urged, nothing but a consciousness
of guilt can possibly make a person so charged
support himself under them. Mr. Hastings considered
himself, as he has stated, to be under the necessity
of bearing them. What is that necessity? Guilt.
Could he say that Sir John Clavering (for I say noth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">{246}</a></span>ing
now of Colonel Monson and Mr. Francis, who were
joined with him) was a man weak and contemptible?
I believe there are those among your Lordships who
remember that Sir John Clavering was known before
he went abroad, and better known by his conduct
after, to be a man of the most distinguished honor
that ever served his Majesty; he served his Majesty
in a military situation for many years, and afterwards
in that high civil situation in India. It is known
that through every step and gradation of a high military
service, until he arrived at the highest of all,
there never was the least blot upon him, or doubt or
suspicion of his character; that his temper for the
most part, and his manners, were fully answerable to
his virtues, and a noble ornament to them; that he
was one of the best natured, best bred men, as well as
one of the highest principled men to be found in his
Majesty's service; that he had passed the middle
time of life, and come to an age which makes men
wise in general; so that he could be warmed by
nothing but that noble indignation at guilt which is
the last thing that ever was or will be extinguished
in a virtuous mind. He was a man whose voice was
not to be despised; but if his character had been
personally as contemptible as it was meritorious and
honorable in every respect, yet his situation as a
commissioner named by an act of Parliament for the
express purpose of reforming India gave him a weight
and consequence that could not suffer Mr. Hastings,
without a general and strong presumption of
his guilt, to acquiesce in such recorded minutes from
him. But if he had been a weak, if he had been an
intemperate man, (in reality he was as cool, steady,
temperate, judicious a man as ever was born,) the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">{247}</a></span>
Court of Directors, to whom Mr. Hastings was responsible
by every tie and every principle, and was
made responsible at last by a positive act of Parliament
obliging him to yield obedience to their commands
as the general rule of his duty,&mdash;the Court
of Directors, I say, perfectly approved of every part
of General Clavering's, Colonel Monson's, and Mr.
Francis's conduct; they approved of this inquiry
which Mr. Hastings rejected; and they have declared,
"that the powers and instructions vested in and
given to General Clavering and the other gentlemen
were such as fully authorized them in every inquiry
that seems to have been their object ...
Europeans."<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor" title=" Document wanting.">[2]</a></p>

<p>Now after the supreme authority, to which they
were to appeal in all their disputes, had passed this
judgment upon this very inquiry, the matter no longer
depended upon Mr. Hastings's opinion; nor could he
be longer justified in attributing that to evil motives
either of malice or passion in his colleagues. When
the judges who were finally to determine who was
malicious, who was passionate, who was or was not
justified either in setting on foot the inquiry or resisting
it, had passed that judgment, then Mr. Hastings
was called upon by all the feelings of a man, and by
his duty in Council, to give satisfaction to his masters,
the Directors, who approved of the zeal and diligence
shown in that very inquiry, the passion of
which he only reprobated, and upon which he grounded
his justification.</p>

<p>If anything but conscious guilt could have possibly
influenced him to such more than patience under this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">{248}</a></span>
accusation, let us see what was his conduct when
the scene was changed. General Clavering, fatigued
and broken down by the miseries of his situation,
soon afterwards lost a very able and affectionate colleague,
Colonel Monson, (whom Mr. Hastings states
to be one of the bitterest of his accusers,) a man one
of the most loved and honored of his time, a person
of your Lordships' noble blood, and a person who did
honor to it, and if he had been of the family of a
commoner, well deserved to be raised to your distinction.
When that man died,&mdash;died of a broken heart,
to say nothing else,&mdash;and General Clavering felt
himself in a manner without help, except what he
derived from the firmness, assiduity, and patience of
Mr. Francis, sinking like himself under the exertion
of his own virtues, he was resolved to resign his employment.
The Court of Directors were so alarmed
at this attempt of his to resign his employment, that
they wrote thus: "When you conceived the design of
quitting our service, we imagine you could not have
heard of the resignation of Mr. Hastings ...
your zeal and ability."<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor" title=" Document wanting.">[3]</a></p>

<p>My Lords, in this struggle, and before he could
resign finally, another kind of resignation, the resignation
of Nature, took place, and Sir John Clavering
died. The character that was given Sir John
Clavering at that time is a seal to the whole of his
proceedings, and the use that I shall make of it your
Lordships will see presently. "The abilities of General
Clavering, the comprehensive knowledge he had
attained of our affairs ...
to the East India Company."<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor" title=" Document wanting.">[4]</a></p>

<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">{249}</a></span></p><p>And never had it a greater loss. There is the concluding
funeral oration made by his masters, upon a
strict, though by no means partial, view of his conduct.
My Lords, here is the man who is the great
accuser of Mr. Hastings, as he says. What is he? a
slight man, a man of mean situation, a man of mean
talents, a man of mean character? No: of the highest
character. Was he a person whose conduct was
disapproved by their common superiors? No: it was
approved when living, and ratified when dead. This
was the man, a man equal to him in every respect,
upon the supposed evil motives of whom alone was
founded the sole justification of Mr. Hastings.</p>

<p>But be it, then, that Sir John Clavering, Colonel
Monson, and Mr. Francis were all of them the evil-minded
persons that he describes them to be, and
that from dislike to them, from a kind of manly
resentment, if you please, against such persons, an
hatred against malicious proceedings, and a defiance
of them, he did not think proper, as he states, to
make his defence during that period of time, and
while oppressed by that combination,&mdash;yet, when he
got rid of the two former persons, and when Mr.
Francis was nothing, when the whole majority was
in his hand, and he was in full power, there was a
large, open, full field for inquiry; and he was bound
to re-institute that inquiry, and to clear his character
before his judges and before his masters. Mr. Hastings
says, "No: they have threatened me with a prosecution,
and I reserve myself for a court of justice."</p>

<p>Mr. Hastings has now at length taken a ground, as
you will see from all his writings, which makes all
explanation of his conduct in this business absolutely
impossible. For, in the first place, he says, "As a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">{250}</a></span>
prosecution is meditated against me, I will say nothing
in explanation of my conduct, because I might
disclose my defence, and by that means do myself a
prejudice." On the other hand, when the prosecution
is dropped, as we all know it was dropped in this
case, then he has a direct contrary reason, but it
serves him just as well: "Why, as no prosecution
is intended, no defence need be made." So that,
whether a prosecution is intended or a prosecution
dropped, there is always cause why Mr. Hastings
should not give the Court of Directors the least satisfaction
concerning his conduct, notwithstanding, as
we shall prove, he has reiteratedly promised, and
promised it in the most ample and liberal manner.
But let us see if there be any presumption in his
favor to rebut the presumption which he knew was
irresistible, and which, by making no defence for his
conduct, and stopping the inquiry, must necessarily
lie upon him. He reserves his defence, but he promises
both defence and explanation.</p>

<p>Your Lordships will remark that there is nowhere
a clear and positive denial of the fact. Promising
a defence, I will admit, does not directly and <i>ex vi
termini</i> suppose that a man may not deny the fact,
because it is just compatible with the defence; but it
does by no means exclude the admission of the fact,
because the admission of the fact may be attended
with a justification: but when a man says that he
will explain his conduct with regard to a fact, then
he admits that fact, because there can be no explanation
of a fact which has no existence. Therefore Mr.
Hastings admits the fact by promising an explanation,
and he shows he has no explanation nor justification
to give by never having given it. Goaded,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">{251}</a></span>
provoked, and called upon for it, in the manner I
have mentioned, he chooses to have a feast of disgrace,
(if I may say so,) to have a riot of infamy,
served up to him day by day for a course of years, in
every species of reproach that could be given by his
colleagues, and by the Court of Directors, "from
whom," he says, "I received nothing but opprobrious
and disgraceful epithets," and he says "that his predecessors
possessed more of their confidence than he
had." Yet for years he lay down in that sty of disgrace,
fattening in it, feeding upon that offal of disgrace
and excrement, upon everything that could be
disgustful to the human mind, rather than deny the
fact and put himself upon a civil justification. Infamy
was never incurred for nothing. We know very
well what was said formerly:&mdash;</p>

<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i4">"Populus me sibilat; at mihi plaudo<br /></span>
<span class="i1">Ipse domi, simul ac nummos contemplor in arca."<br /></span>
</div></div>

<p class="noindent">And never did a man submit to infamy for anything
but its true reward, <i>money</i>. Money he received; the
infamy he received along with it: he was glad to
take his wife with all her goods; he took her with
her full portion, with every species of infamy that
belonged to her; and your Lordships cannot resist
the opinion that he would not have suffered himself
to be disgraced with the Court of Directors, disgraced
with his colleagues, disgraced with the world, disgraced
upon an eternal record, unless he was absolutely
guilty of the fact that was charged upon him.</p>

<p>He frequently expresses that he reserves himself
for a court of justice. Does he, my Lords? I am
sorry that Mr. Hastings should show that he always
mistakes his situation; he has totally mistaken it:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">{252}</a></span>
he was a servant, bound to give a satisfactory account
of his conduct to his masters, and, instead of that, he
considers himself and the Court of Directors as litigant
parties,&mdash;them as the accusers, and himself as
the culprit. What would your Lordships, in private
life, conceive of a steward who was accused of embezzling
the rents, robbing and oppressing the tenants,
and committing a thousand misdeeds in his stewardship,
and who, upon your wishing to make inquiry
into his conduct, and asking an explanation of it,
should answer, "I will give no reply: you may intend
to prosecute me and convict me as a cheat, and
therefore I will not give you any satisfaction": what
would you think of that steward? You could have
no doubt that such a steward was a person not fit to
be a steward, nor fit to live.</p>

<p>Mr. Hastings reserves himself for a court of justice:
that single circumstance, my Lords, proves that
he was guilty. It may appear very odd that his
guilt should be inferred from his desire of trial in
a court in which he could be acquitted or condemned.
But I shall prove to you from that circumstance
that Mr. Hastings, in desiring to be tried
in a court of justice, convicts himself of presumptive
guilt.</p>

<p>When Mr. Hastings went to Bengal in the year
1772, he had a direction exactly similar to this which
he has resisted in his own case: it was to inquire
into grievances and abuses. In consequence of this
direction, he proposes a plan for the regulation of the
Company's service, and one part of that plan was just
what you would expect from him,&mdash;that is, the power
of destroying every Company's servant without the
least possibility of his being heard in his own defence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">{253}</a></span>
or taking any one step to justify himself, and of dismissing
him at his own discretion: and the reason
he gives for it is this. "I shall forbear to comment
upon the above propositions: if just and proper, their
utility will be self-apparent. One clause only in the
last article may require some explanation, namely,
the power proposed for the Governor of recalling any
person from his station without assigning a reason
for it. In the charge of oppression," (now here you
will find the reason why Mr. Hastings wishes to appeal
to a court of justice, rather than to give satisfaction
to his employers,) "though supported by the
cries of the people and the most authentic representations,
it is yet impossible in most cases to obtain
legal proofs of it; and unless the discretionary power
which I have recommended be somewhere lodged,
the assurance of impunity from any formal inquiry
will baffle every order of the board, as, on the other
hand, the fear of the consequence will restrain every
man within the bounds of his duty, if he knows himself
liable to suffer by the effects of a single control."
You see Mr. Hastings himself is of opinion that the
cries of oppression, though extorted from a whole
people by the iron hand of severity,&mdash;that these
cries of a whole people, attended even with authentic
documents sufficient to satisfy the mind of any man,
may be totally insufficient to convict the oppressor in
a court; and yet to that court, whose competence he
denies, to that very court, he appeals, in that he puts
his trust, and upon that ground he refuses to perform
the just promise he had given of any explanation to
those who had employed him.</p>

<p>Now I put this to your Lordships: if a man is of
opinion that no public court can truly and properly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">{254}</a></span>
bring him to any account for his conduct, that the
forms observable in courts are totally adverse to it,
that there is a general incompetency with regard to
such a court, and yet shuns a tribunal capable and
competent, and applies to that which he thinks is incapable
and incompetent, does not that man plainly
show that he has rejected what he thinks will
prove his guilt, and that he has chosen what he
thinks will be utterly insufficient to prove it? And
if this be the case, as he asserts it to be, with an
under servant, think what must be the case of the
upper servant of all: for, if an inferior servant is not
to be brought to justice, what must be the situation
of a Governor-General? It is impossible not to see,
that, as he had conceived that a court of justice had
not sufficient means to bring his crimes to light and
detection, nor sufficient to bring him to proper and
adequate punishment, therefore he flew to a court of
justice, not as a place to decide upon him, but as a
sanctuary to secure his guilt. Most of your Lordships
have travelled abroad, and have seen in the
unreformed countries of Europe churches filled with
persons who take sanctuary in them. You do not
presume that a man is innocent because he is in a
sanctuary: you know, that, so far from demonstrating
his innocence, it demonstrates his guilt. And in
this case, Mr. Hastings flies not to a court for trial,
but as a sanctuary to secure him from it.</p>

<p>Let us just review the whole of his conduct; let
us hear how Mr. Hastings has proceeded with regard
to this whole affair. The court of justice dropped;
the prosecution in Bengal ended. With Sir Elijah
Impey as chief-justice, who, as your Lordships have
seen, had a most close and honorable connection<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">{255}</a></span>
with the Governor-General, (all the circumstances of
which I need not detail to you, as it must be fresh
in your Lordships' memory,) he had not much to
fear from the impartiality of the court. He might
be sure the forms of law would not be strained to do
him mischief; therefore there was no great terror in
it. But whatever terror there might be in it was
overblown, because his colleagues refused to carry
him into it, and therefore that opportunity of defence
is gone. In Europe he was afraid of making any defence,
but the prosecution here was also soon over;
and in the House of Commons he takes this ground
of justification for not giving any explanation, that
the Court of Directors had received perfect satisfaction
of his innocence; and he named persons of great
and eminent character in the profession, whose names
certainly cannot be mentioned without highly imposing
upon the prejudices and weighing down almost
the reason of mankind. He quotes their opinions in
his favor, and argues that the exculpation which they
give, or are supposed to give him, should excuse him
from any further explanation.</p>

<p>My Lords, I believe I need not say to great men of
the profession, many of the first ornaments of which
I see before me, that they are very little influenced
in the seat of judgment by the opinions which they
have given in the chamber, and they are perfectly in
the right: because while in the chamber they hear
but one part of the cause; it is generally brought
before them in a very partial manner, and they have
not the lights which they possess when they sit deliberately
down upon the tribunal to examine into it;
and for this reason they discharge their minds from
every prejudice that may have arisen from a foregone<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">{256}</a></span>
partial opinion, and come uninfluenced by it as to
a new cause. This, we know, is the glory of the
great lawyers who have presided and do preside in
the tribunals of this country; but we know, at the
same time, that those opinions (which they in their
own mind reject, unless supported afterwards by
clear and authentic testimony) do weigh upon the
rest of mankind at least: for it is impossible to separate
the opinion of a great and learned man from
some consideration of the person who has delivered
that opinion.</p>

<p>Mr. Hastings, being conscious of this, and not fearing
the tribunal abroad for the reason that I gave
you, namely, his belief that it was not very adverse
to him, and also knowing that the prosecution there
was dropped, had but one thing left for his consideration,
which was, how he should conflict with the tribunal
at home: and as the prosecution must originate
from the Court of Directors, and be authorized
by some great law opinions, the great point with him
was, some way or other, by his party, I will not say
by what means or circumstances, but by some party
means, to secure a strong interest in the executive
part of the India House. My Lords, was that interest
used properly and fairly? I will not say that
friendship and partiality imply injustice; they certainly
do not; but they do not imply justice. The
Court of Directors took up this affair with great
warmth; they committed it to their solicitor, and the
solicitor would naturally (as most solicitors do) draw
up a case a little favorably for the persons that employed
him; and if there was any leaning, which
upon my word I do not approve in the management
of any cause whatever, yet, if there was a leaning, it
must be a leaning for the client.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">{257}</a></span></p>

<p>Now the counsel did not give a decided opinion
against the prosecution, but upon the face of the case
they expressed great doubts upon it; for, with such
a strange, disorderly, imperfect, and confused case as
was laid before them, they could not advise a prosecution;
and in my opinion they went no further.
And, indeed, upon that case that went before them,
I, who am authorized by the Commons to prosecute,
do admit that a great doubt might lie upon the most
deciding mind, whether, under the circumstances
there stated, a prosecution could be or ought to be
pursued. I do not say which way my mind would
have turned, upon that very imperfect state of the
case; but I still allow so much to their very great
ability, great minds, and sound judgment, that I
am not sure, if it was <i>res integra</i>, I would not have
rather hesitated myself (who am now here an accuser)
what judgment to give.</p>

<p>It does happen that there are very singular circumstances
in this business, to which your Lordships
will advert; and you will consider what weight they
ought to have upon your Lordships' minds. The
person who is now the solicitor of the Company is a
very respectable man in the profession,&mdash;Mr. Smith;
he was at that time also the Company's solicitor, and
he has since appeared in this cause as Mr. Hastings's
solicitor. Now there is something particular in a
man's being the solicitor to a party who was prosecuting
another, and continuing afterwards in his
office, and becoming the solicitor to the party prosecuted.
It would be nearly as strange as if our solicitor
were to be the solicitor of Mr. Hastings in this
prosecution and trial before your Lordships. It is
true, that we cannot make out, nor do we attempt to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">{258}</a></span>
prove, that Mr. Smith was at that time actually Mr.
Hastings's solicitor: all that we shall attempt to
make out is, that the case he produced was just such
a case as a solicitor anxious for the preservation of
his client, and not anxious for the prosecution, would
have made out.</p>

<p>My Lords, I have next to remark, that the opinion
which the counsel gave in this case, namely, a very
doubtful opinion, accompanied with strong censure of
the manner in which the case was stated, was drawn
from them by a case in which I charge that there
were <i>misrepresentation</i>, <i>suppression</i>, and <i>falsification</i>.</p>

<p>Now, my Lords, in making this charge I am in a
very awkward and unpleasant situation; but it is a
situation in which, with all the disagreeable circumstances
attending it, I must proceed. I am, in this
business, obliged to name many men: I do not name
them wantonly, but from the absolute necessity, as
your Lordships will see, of the case. I do not mean
to reflect upon this gentleman: I believe, at the time
when he made this case, and especially the article
which I state as a <i>falsification</i>, he must have trusted
to some of the servants of the Company, who were
but young in their service at that time. There was
a very great error committed; but by whom, or how,
your Lordships in the course of this inquiry will find.
What I charge first is, that the case was improperly
stated; secondly, that it was partially stated; and
that afterwards a further report was made upon reference
to the same officer in the committee. Now,
my Lords, of the three charges which I have made,
the two former, namely, the misrepresentation and
suppression, were applicable to the case; but all the
three, misrepresentation, suppression, and falsification,
were applicable to the report.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">{259}</a></span></p>

<p>This I say in vindication of the opinions given,
and for the satisfaction of the public, who may be
imposed upon by them. I wish the word to be understood.
When I say <i>imposed</i>, I always mean by it
the weight and authority carried: a meaning which
this word, perhaps, has not got yet thoroughly in the
English language; but in a neighboring language <i>imposing</i>
means, that it weighs upon men's minds with
a sovereign authority. To say that the opinions of
learned men, though even thus obtained, may not
have weight with this court, or with any court, is
a kind of compliment I cannot pay to them at the
expense of that common nature in which I and all
human beings are involved.</p>

<p>He states in the case the covenants and the salary
of Mr. Hastings, and his emoluments, very fairly.
I do not object to any part of that. He then proceeds
to state very partially the business upon which
the Committee of Circuit went, and without opening
whose conduct we cannot fully bring before you this
charge of bribery. He then states, "that, an inquiry
having been made by the present Supreme Council
of Bengal respecting the conduct of the members of
the last administration, several charges have been
made, stating moneys very improperly received by
Mr. Hastings during the time of the late administration:
amongst these is one of his having received
150,000 rupees of Munny Begum, the guardian of
the Nabob, who is an infant."</p>

<p>In this statement of the case everything is put
out of its true place. Mr. Hastings was not charged
with receiving a lac and a half of rupees from
Munny Begum, the guardian of the Nabob,&mdash;for she
was not then his guardian; but he was charged with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">{260}</a></span>
receiving a lac and a half of rupees for removing
the Nabob's own mother, who was his natural guardian,
and substituting this step-mother, who was a
prostitute, in her place; whereas here it supposes he
found her a guardian, and that she had made him a
present, which alters the whole nature of the case.
The case, in the recital of the charge, sets out with
what every one of your Lordships knows now not to
be the truth of the fact, nor the thing that in itself
implies the criminality: he ought to have stated that
in the beginning of the business. The suppressions
in the recital are amazing. He states an inquiry
having been made by the Supreme Council of Bengal
respecting the conduct of the members of the
last administration. That inquiry was made in consequence
of the charge, and not the charge brought
forward, as they would have it believed, in consequence
of the inquiry. There is no mention that
that inquiry had been expressly ordered by the Court
of Directors; but it is stated as though it was a
voluntary inquiry. Now there is always something
doubtful in voluntary inquiries with regard to the
people concerned. He then supposes, upon this inquiry,
that to be the charge which is not the charge
at all. The crime, as I have stated, consisted of
two distinct parts, but both inferring the same corruption:
the first, two lac of rupees taken expressly
for the nomination of this woman to this place; and
the other, one lac and a half of rupees, in effect for
the same purpose, but under the name and color of
an entertainment. The drawer of the case, finding
that in the one case, namely, the two lac of rupees,
the evidence was more weak, but that no justification
could be set up,&mdash;finding in the other, the lac<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">{261}</a></span>
and a half of rupees, the proof strong and not to be
resisted, but that some justification was to be found
for it, lays aside the charge of the two lac totally;
and the evidence belonging to it, which was considered
as rather weak, is applied to the other charge
of a lac and a half, the proof of which upon its own
evidence was irresistible.</p>

<p>My speech I hope your Lordships consider as only
pointing out to your attention these particulars.
Your Lordships will see it exemplified throughout
the whole, that, when there is evidence (for some
evidence is brought) that does belong to the lac and
a half, it is entirely passed by, the most material circumstances
are weakened, the whole strength and
force of them taken away. Every one knows how
true it is of evidence, <i>juncta juvant</i>: but here everything
is broken and smashed to pieces, and nothing
but disorder appears through the whole. For your
Lordships will observe that the proof that belongs
to one thing is put as belonging to another, and the
proof of the other brought in a weak and imperfect
manner in the rear of the first, and with every kind
of observation to rebut and weaken it; and when
this evidence is produced, which appears inapplicable
almost in all the parts, in many doubtful, confused,
and perplexed, and in some even contradictory,
(which it will be when the evidence to one thing
is brought to apply and bear upon another,) good
hopes were entertained in consequence that that
would happen which in part did happen, namely,
that the counsel, distracted and confused, and finding
no satisfaction in the case, could not advise a
prosecution.</p>

<p>But what is still more material and weighty, many<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">{262}</a></span>
particulars are suppressed in this case, and still more
in the report; and turning from the case to the proceedings
of the persons who are supposed to have the
management of the inquiry, they bring forward, as
an appendix to this case, Mr. Hastings's own invectives
and charge against these persons, at the very
same time that they suppress and do not bring forward,
either in the charge or upon the report, what
the other party have said in their own justification.
The consequence of this management was, that a
body of evidence which would have made this case
the clearest in the world, and which I hope we shall
make to appear so to your Lordships, was rendered
for the most part inapplicable, and the whole puzzled
and confused: I say, for the most part, for some
parts did apply, but miserably applied, to the case.
From their own state of the case they would have it
inferred that the fault was not in their way of representing
it, but in the infirmity, confusion, and disorder
of the proofs themselves; but this, I trust we
shall satisfy you, is by no means the case. I rest,
however, upon the proof of partiality in this business,
of the imposition upon the counsel, whether
designed or not, and of the bias given by adding an
appendix with Mr. Hastings's own remarks upon the
case, without giving the reasons of the other parties
for their conduct. Now, if there was nothing else
than the fallacious recital, and afterwards the suppression,
I believe any rational and sober man would
see perfect, good, and sufficient ground for laying
aside any authority that can be derived from the
opinions of persons, though of the first character
(and I am sure no man living does more homage to
their learning, impartiality, and understanding than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">{263}</a></span>
I do): first, because the statement of the case has
thrown the whole into confusion; and secondly, as to
the matter added as an appendix, which gives the
representation of the delinquent and omits the representation
of his prosecutors, it is observed very
properly and very wisely by one of the great men
before whom this evidence was laid, that "the evidence,
as it is here stated, is still more defective, if
the appendix is adopted by the Directors and meant
to make a part of the case; for that throws discredit
upon all the information so collected." Certainly it
does; for, if the delinquent party, who is to be prosecuted,
be heard with his own representation of the
case, and that of his prosecutors be suppressed, he
is master both of the lawyers and of the mind of
mankind.</p>

<p>My Lords, I have here attempted to point out the
extreme inconsistencies and defects of this proceeding;
and I wish your Lordships to consider, with respect
to these proceedings of the India House in
their prosecutions, that it is in the power of some
of their officers to make statements in the manner
that I have described, then to obtain the names of
great lawyers, and under their sanction to carry the
accused through the world as acquitted.</p>

<p>These are the material circumstances which will
be submitted to your Lordships' sober consideration
in the course of this inquiry. I have now stated
them on these two accounts: first, to rebut the reason
which Mr. Hastings has assigned for not giving
any satisfaction to the Court of Directors, namely,
because they did not want it, having dropped a prosecution
upon great authorities and opinions; and
next, to show your Lordships how a business begun<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">{264}</a></span>
in bribery is to be supported only by fraud, deceit,
and collusion, and how the receiving of bribes by a
Governor-General of Bengal tends to taint the whole
service from beginning to end, both at home and
abroad.</p>

<p>But though upon the partial case that was presented
to them these great lawyers did not advise
a prosecution, and though even upon a full representation
of a case a lawyer might think that a man
ought not to be prosecuted, yet he may consider him
to be the vilest man upon earth. We know men
are acquitted in the great tribunals in which several
Lords of this country have presided, and who
perhaps ought not to have been brought there and
prosecuted before them, and yet about whose delinquency
there could be no doubt. But though we
have here sufficient reason to justify the great lawyers
whose names and authorities are produced, yet
Mr. Hastings has extended that authority beyond the
length of their opinions. For, being no longer under
the terror of the law, which, he said, restrained
him from making his defence, he was then bound to
give that satisfaction to his masters and the world
which every man in honor is bound to do, when a
grave accusation is brought against him. But this
business of the law I wish to sleep from this moment,
till the time when it shall come before you;
though I suspect, and have had reason (sitting in
committees in the House of Commons) to believe,
that there was in the India House a bond of iniquity,
somewhere or other, which was able to impose
in the first instance upon the solicitor, the guilt of
which, being of another nature, I shall state hereafter,
that your Lordships may be able to discover through<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">{265}</a></span>
whose means and whose fraud Mr. Hastings obtained
these opinions.</p>

<p>If, however, all the great lawyers had been unanimous
upon that occasion, still it would have been
necessary for Mr. Hastings to say, "I cannot, according
to my opinion, be brought to give an account in
a court of justice, and I have got great lawyers to
declare, that, upon the case laid before them, they
cannot advise a prosecution; but now is the time
for me to come forward, and, being no longer in
fear that my defence may be turned against me, I
will produce my defence for the satisfaction of my
masters and the vindication of my own character."
But besides this doubtful opinion (for I believe your
Lordships will find it no better than a doubtful opinion)
given by persons for whom I have the highest
honor, and given with a strong censure upon the
state of the case, there were also some great lawyers,
men of great authority in the kingdom, who gave a
full and decided opinion that a prosecution ought to
be instituted against him; but the Court of Directors
decided otherwise, they overruled those opinions,
and acted upon the opinions in favor of Mr. Hastings.
When, therefore, he knew that the great men
in the law were divided upon the propriety of a prosecution,
but that the Directors had decided in his
favor, he was the more strongly bound to enter into
a justification of his conduct.</p>

<p>But there was another great reason which should
have induced him to do this. One great lawyer,
known to many of your Lordships, Mr. Sayer, a very
honest, intelligent man, who had long served the Company
and well knew their affairs, had given an opinion
concerning Mr. Hastings's conduct in stopping<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">{266}</a></span>
these prosecutions. There was an abstract question
put to Mr. Sayer, and other great lawyers, separated
from many of the circumstances of this business, concerning
a point which incidentally arose; and this
was, whether Mr. Hastings, as Governor-General, had
a power so to dissolve the Council, that, if he declared
it dissolved, they could not sit and do any legal and
regular act. It was a great question with the lawyers
at the time, and there was a difference of opinion on
it. Mr. Sayer was one of those who were inclined to
be of opinion that the Governor-General had a power
of dissolving the Council, and that the Council could
not legally sit after such dissolution. But what was
his remark upon Mr. Hastings's conduct?&mdash;and you
must suppose his remark of more weight, because,
upon the abstract question, he had given his opinion
in favor of Mr. Hastings's judgment. "The meeting
of the Council depends on the pleasure of the Governor;
and I think the duration of it must do so,
too. But it was as great a crime to dissolve the
Council upon base and sinister motives as it would
be to assume the power of dissolving, if he had it not.
I believe he is the first Governor that ever dissolved
a Council inquiring into his behavior, when he was
innocent. Before he could summon three Councils
and dissolve them, he had time fully to consider what
would be the result of such conduct, <i>to convince everybody,
beyond a doubt, of his conscious guilt</i>."</p>

<p>Mr. Sayer, then, among other learned people, (and
if he had not been the man that I have described, yet,
from his intimate connection with the Company, his
opinion must be supposed to have great weight,) having
used expressions as strong as the persons who
have ever criminated Mr. Hastings most for the worst<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">{267}</a></span>
of his crimes have ever used to qualify and describe
them, and having ascribed his conduct to base and
sinister motives, he was bound upon that occasion to
justify that strong conduct, allowed to be legal, and
charged at the same time to be violent. Mr. Hastings
was obliged then to produce something in his justification.
He never did. Therefore, for all the reasons
assigned by himself, drawn from the circumstances of
prosecution and non-prosecution, and from opinions
of lawyers and colleagues, the Court of Directors at
the same time censuring his conduct, and strongly applauding
the conduct of those who were adverse to
him, Mr. Hastings was, I say, from those accumulated
circumstances, bound to get rid of the infamy of
a conduct which could be attributed to nothing but
base and sinister motives, and which could have no
effect but to convince men of his consciousness that
he was guilty. From all these circumstances I infer
that no man could have endured this load of infamy,
and to this time have given no explanation of his conduct,
unless for the reason which this learned counsel
gives, and which your Lordships and the world will
give, namely, his conscious guilt.</p>

<p>After leaving upon your minds that presumption,
not to operate without proof, but to operate along
with the proof, (though, I take it, there are some presumptions
that go the full length of proof,) I shall
not press it to the length to which I think it would go,
but use it only as auxiliary, assisting, and compurgatory
of all the other evidences that go along with it.</p>

<p>There is another circumstance which must come
before your Lordships in this business. If you find
that Mr. Hastings has received the two lac of rupees,
then you will find that he was guilty, without color or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">{268}</a></span>
pretext of any kind whatever, of acting in violation of
his covenant, of acting in violation of the laws, and
all the rules of honor and conscience. If you find
that he has taken the lac and a half, which he admits,
but which he justifies under the pretence of an entertainment,
I shall beg to say something to your Lordships
concerning that justification.</p>

<p>The justification set up is, that he went up from
Calcutta to Moorshedabad, and paid a visit of three
months, and that there an allowance was made to him
of two hundred pounds a day in lieu of an entertainment.
Now, my Lords, I leave it to you to determine,
if there was such a custom, whether or no his covenant
justifies his conformity with it. I remember
Lord Coke, talking of the Brehon law in Ireland, says
it is no law, but a lewd custom. A governor is to
conform himself to the laws of his own country, to
the stipulations of those that employ him, and not to
the lewd customs of any other country: those customs
are more honored in the breach than in the observance.
If Mr. Hastings was really feasted and entertained
with the magnificence of the country, if there
was an entertainment of dancing-girls brought out to
amuse him in his leisure hours, if he was feasted with
the hookah and every other luxury, there is something
to be said for him, though I should not justify
a Governor-General wasting his days in that manner.
But in fact here was no entertainment that could
amount to such a sum; and he has nowhere proved
the existence of such a custom.</p>

<p>But if such a custom did exist, which I contend is
more honored in the breach than in the observance,
that custom is capable of being abused to the grossest
extortion; and that it was so abused will strike your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">{269}</a></span>
Lordships' minds in such a manner that I hardly need
detail the circumstances of it. What! two hundred
pounds to be given to a man for one day's entertainment?
If there is an end of it there, it ruins nobody,
and cannot be supposed, to a great degree, to corrupt
anybody; but when that entertainment is renewed
day after day for three months, it is no longer a compliment
to the man, but a great pecuniary advantage,
and, on the other hand, to the person giving it, a
grievous, an intolerable burden. It then becomes a
matter of the most serious and dreadful extortion,
tending to hinder the people who give it not only
from giving entertainment, but from having bread to
eat themselves. Therefore, if any such entertainment
was customary, the custom was perverted by the
abuse of its being continued for three months together.
It was longer than Ahasuerus's feast. There is
a feast of reason and a flow of soul; but Mr. Hastings's
feast was a feast of avarice and a flow of money.
No wonder he was unwilling to rise from such a table:
he continued to sit at that table for three months.</p>

<p>In his covenant he is forbidden expressly to take
any allowance above 400<i>l.</i>, and forbidden to take
any allowance above 100<i>l.</i>, without the knowledge,
consent, and approbation of the Council to which he
belongs. Now he takes 16,000<i>l.</i>, not only without
the consent of the Council, but without their knowledge,&mdash;without
the knowledge of any other human
being: it is kept hid in the darkest and most secret
recesses of his own black agents and confidants, and
those of Munny Begum. Why is it a secret? Hospitality,
generosity, virtues of that kind, are full of
display; there is an ostentation, a pomp, in them;
they want to be shown to the world, not concealed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">{270}</a></span>
The concealment of acts of charity is what makes
them acceptable in the eyes of Him with regard to
whom there can be no concealment; but acts of corruption
are kept secret, not to keep them secret from
the eye of Him, whom the person that observes the
secrecy does not fear, nor perhaps believe in, but to
keep them secret from the eyes of mankind, whose
opinions he does fear, in the immediate effect of
them, and in their future consequences. Therefore
he had but one reason to keep this so dark and profound
a secret, till it was dragged into day in spite
of him; he had no reason to keep it a secret, but his
knowing it was a proceeding that could not bear the
light. Charity is the only virtue that I ever heard
of that derives from its retirement any part of its
lustre; the others require to be spread abroad in the
face of day. Such candles should not be hid under
a bushel, and, like the illuminations which men light
up when they mean to express great joy and great
magnificence for a great event, their very splendor is
a part of their excellence. We upon our feasts light
up this whole capital city; we in our feasts invite all
the world to partake them. Mr. Hastings feasts in
the dark; Mr. Hastings feasts alone; Mr. Hastings
feasts like a wild beast; he growls in the corner over
the dying and the dead, like the tigers of that country,
who drag their prey into the jungles. Nobody
knows of it, till he is brought into judgment for the
flock he has destroyed. His is the entertainment of
Tantalus; it is an entertainment from which the sun
hid his light.</p>

<p>But was it an entertainment upon a visit? Was
Mr. Hastings upon a visit? No: he was executing
a commission for the Company in a village in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">{271}</a></span>
neighborhood of Moorshedabad, and by no means upon
a visit to the Nabob. On the contrary, he was upon
something that might be more properly called a
<i>visitation</i>. He came as a heavy calamity, like a famine
or a pestilence on a country; he came there to
do the severest act in the world,&mdash;as he himself expresses,
to take the bread, literally the bread, from
above a thousand of the nobles of the country, and to
reduce them to a situation which no man can hear
of without shuddering. When you consider, that,
while he was thus entertained himself, he was famishing
fourteen hundred of the nobility and gentry
of the country, you will not conceive it to be any
extenuation of his crimes, that he was there, not upon
a visit, but upon a duty, the harshest that could
be executed, both to the persons who executed and
the people who suffered from it.</p>

<p>It is mentioned and supposed in the observations
upon this case, though no circumstances relative to
the persons or the nature of the visit are stated, that
this expense was something which he might have
charged to the Company and did not. It is first supposed
by the learned counsel who made the observation,
that it was a public, allowed, and acknowledged
thing; then, that he had not charged the
Company anything for it. I have looked into that
business. In the first place, I see no such custom;
and if there was such a custom, there was the most
abusive misemployment of it. I find that in that
year there was paid from the Company's cash account
to the Governor's travelling charges (and he
had no other journey at that end of the year)
thirty thousand rupees, which is about 3,000<i>l.</i>; and
when we consider that he was in the receipt of near<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">{272}</a></span>
30,000<i>l.</i>, besides the nuzzers, which amount to several
thousand a year, and that he is allowed 3,000<i>l.</i>
by the Company for his travelling expenses, is it
right to charge upon the miserable people whom he
was defrauding of their bread 16,000<i>l.</i> for his entertainment?</p>

<p>I find that there are also other great sums relative
to the expenses of the Committee of Circuit, which
he was upon. How much of them is applicable to
him I know not. I say, that the allowance of three
thousand pounds was noble and liberal; for it is not
above a day or two's journey to Moorshedabad, and
by his taking his road by Kishenagur he could not
be longer. He had a salary to live upon, and he
must live somewhere; and he was actually paid three
thousand pounds for travelling charges for three
months, which was at the rate of twelve thousand
pounds a year: a large and abundant sum.</p>

<p>If you once admit that a man for an entertainment
shall take sixteen thousand pounds, there never will
be any bribe, any corruption, that may not be justified:
the corrupt man has nothing to do but to make a
visit, and then that very moment he may receive any
sum under the name of this entertainment; that moment
his covenants are annulled, his bonds and obligations
destroyed, the act of Parliament repealed,
and it is no longer bribery, it is no longer corruption,
it is no longer peculation; it is nothing but thanks
for obliging inquiries, and a compliment according to
the mode of the country, by which he makes his fortune.</p>

<p>What hinders him from renewing that visit? If
you support this distinction, you will teach the Governor-General,
instead of attending his business at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">{273}</a></span>
the capital, to make journeys through the country,
putting every great man of that country under the
most ruinous contributions; and as this custom is in
no manner confined to the Governor-General, but
extends, as it must upon that principle, to every
servant of the Company in any station whatever,
then, if each of them were to receive an entertainment,
I will venture to say that the greatest ravage
of an hostile army could not, indeed, destroy the
country more entirely than the Company's servants
by such visits.</p>

<p>Your Lordships will see that there are grounds for
suspicion, not supported with the same evidence, but
with evidence of great probability, that there was another
entertainment given at the expense of another
lac of rupees; and there is also great probability that
Mr. Hastings received two lac of rupees, and Mr.
Middleton another lac. The whole of the Nabob's
revenues would have been exhausted by these two
men, if they had stayed there a whole year: and they
stayed three months. Nothing will be secured from
the Company's servants, so long as they can find,
under this name, or under pretence of any corrupt
custom of the country, a vicious excuse for this corrupt
practice. The excuse is worse than the thing
itself. I leave it, then, with your judgment to decide
whether you will or not, if this justification comes
before you, establish a principle which would put all
Bengal in a worse situation than an hostile army could
do, and ruin all the Company's servants by sending
them from their duty to go round robbing the whole
country under the name of entertainments.</p>

<p>My Lords, I have now done with this first part,&mdash;namely,
the presumption arising from his refusal to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">{274}</a></span>
make any defence, on pretence that the charge brought
against him might be referred to a court of justice,
and from the non-performance of his promise to give
satisfaction to his employers,&mdash;and when that pretence
was removed, still refusing to give that satisfaction,
though suffering as he did under a load of infamy
and obloquy, and though urged to give it by persons
of the greatest character. I have stated this to your
Lordships as the strongest presumption of guilt, and
that this presumption is strengthened by the very
excuse which he fabricated for a part of his bribes,
when he knew that the proof of them was irresistible,
and that this excuse is a high aggravation of his
guilt,&mdash;that this excuse is not supported by law,
that it is not supported by reason, that it does not
stand with his covenant, but carries with it a manifest
proof of corruption, and that it cannot be justified
by any principle, custom, or usage whatever. My
Lords, I say I have done with the presumption arising
from his conduct as it regarded the fact specifically
charged against him, and with respect to the relation
he stood in to the Court of Directors, and from the
attempt he made to justify that conduct. I believe
your Lordships will think both one and the other
strong presumptions of his criminality, and of his
knowledge that the act he was doing was criminal.</p>

<p>I have another fact to lay before your Lordships,
which affords a further presumption of his guilt, and
which will show the mischievous consequences of it;
and I trust your Lordships will not blame me for
going a little into it. Your Lordships know we
charge that the appointment of such a woman as
Munny Begum to the guardianship of the Nabob, to
the superintendency of the civil justice of the coun<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">{275}</a></span>try,
and to the representation of the whole government,
was made for no other purpose than that
through this corrupt woman sixteen thousand pounds
a year, the whole tattered remains of the Nabob's
grandeur, might be a prey to Mr. Hastings: it could
be for no other. Now your Lordships would imagine,
that, after this, knowing he was already grievously suspected,
he would have abstained from giving any further
ground for suspicion by a repetition of the same
acts through the same person; as no other reason
could be furnished for such acts, done directly contrary
to the order of his superiors, but that he was
actuated by the influence of bribery. Your Lordships
would imagine, that, when this Munny Begum
was removed upon a charge of corruption, Mr. Hastings
would have left her quiet in tranquil obscurity,
and that he would no longer have attempted to elevate
her into a situation which furnished against
himself so much disgrace and obloquy to himself,
and concerning which he stood charged with a direct
and positive act of bribery. Your Lordships well
know, that, upon the deposition of that great magistrate,
Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n, this woman was appointed
to supply his place. The Governor-General and
Council (the majority of them being then Sir John
Clavering, Colonel Monson, and Mr. Francis) had
made a provisional arrangement for the time, until
they should be authorized to fill up the place in a
proper manner. Soon after, there came from Europe
a letter expressing the satisfaction which the Court
of Directors had received in the acquittal of Mahomed
Reza Kh&acirc;n, expressing a regard for his character, an
high opinion of his abilities, and a great disposition
to make him some recompense for his extreme suffer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">{276}</a></span>ings;
and accordingly they ordered that he should be
again employed. Having no exact ideas of the state
of employments in that country, they made a mistake
in the specific employment for which they
named him; for, being a Mahometan, and the head
of the Mahometans in that country, he was named to
an office which must be held by a Gentoo. But the
majority I have just named, who never endeavored
by any base and delusive means to fly from their
duty, or not to execute it at all, because they were
desired to execute it in a way in which they could
not execute it, followed the spirit of the order; and
finding that Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n, before his imprisonment
and trial, had been in possession of another
employment, they followed the spirit of the instructions
of the Directors and replaced him in that employment:
by which means there was an end put
to the government of Munny Begum, the country
reverted to its natural state, and men of the first
rank in the country were placed in the first situations
in it. The seat of judicature was filled with wisdom,
gravity, and learning, and Munny Begum sunk into
that situation into which a woman who had been
engaged in the practices that she had been engaged
in naturally would sink at her time of life. Mr.
Hastings resisted this appointment. He trifled with
the Company's orders on account of the letter of
them, and endeavored to disobey the spirit of them.
However, the majority overbore him; they put Mahomed
Reza Kh&acirc;n into his former situation; and as
a proof and seal to the honor and virtue of their
character, there was not a breath of suspicion that
they had any corrupt motive for this conduct. They
were odious to many of the India House here; they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">{277}</a></span>
were odious to that corrupt influence which had
begun and was going on to ruin India; but in the
face of all this odium, they gave the appointment to
Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n, because the act contained in
itself its own justification. Mr. Hastings made a violent
protest against it, and resisted it to the best
of his power, always in favor of Munny Begum, as
your Lordships will see. Mr. Hastings sent this protest
to the Directors; but the Directors, as soon as
the case came before them, acknowledged their error,
and praised the majority of the Council, Sir John
Clavering, Colonel Monson, and Mr. Francis, for the
wise and honorable part they had taken upon the occasion,
by obeying the spirit and not the letter,&mdash;commended
the act they had done,&mdash;confirmed Mahomed
Reza Kh&acirc;n in his place,&mdash;and to prevent
that great man from being any longer the sport of
fortune, any longer the play of avarice between corrupt
governors and dancing-girls, they gave him the
pledged faith of the Company that he should remain
in that office as long as his conduct deserved their
protection: it was a good and an honorable tenure.
My Lords, soon afterwards there happened two
lamentable deaths,&mdash;first of Colonel Monson, afterwards
of General Clavering. Thus Mr. Hastings
was set loose: there was an inspection and a watch
upon his conduct, and no more. He was then just
in the same situation in which he had stood in 1772.
What does he do? Even just what he did in 1772.
He deposes Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n, notwithstanding
the Company's orders, notwithstanding their pledged
faith; he turns him out, and makes a distribution of
two lacs and a half of rupees, the salary of that great
magistrate, in the manner I will now show your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">{278}</a></span>
Lordships. He made an arrangement consisting of
three main parts: the first was with regard to the
women, the next with regard to the magistracy, the
last with regard to the officers of state of the household.</p>

<p>The first person that occurred to Mr. Hastings was
Munny Begum; and he gave her, not out of that part
of the Nabob's allowance which was to support the
seraglio, but out of the allowance of this very magistrate,
just as if such a thing had been done here out
of the salary of a Lord Chancellor or a Lord Chief-Justice,&mdash;out
of these two lacs and a half of rupees,
that is, about twenty-four or twenty-five thousand
pounds a year, he ordered an allowance to be made
to Munny Begum of 72,000 rupees per annum, or
7,200<i>l.</i> a year; for the Nabob's own mother, whom
he thrust, as usual, into a subordinate situation, he
made an allowance of 3,000<i>l.</i>; to the Sudder ul Huk
Kh&acirc;n, which is, translated into English, the Lord
Chief-Justice, he allowed the same sum that he did
to the dancing-girl, (which was very liberal in him,
and I am rather astonished to find it,) namely,
7,200<i>l.</i> a year. And who do you think was the next
public officer he appointed? It was the Rajah Gourdas,
the son of Nundcomar, and whose testimony he
has attempted both before and since this occasion to
weaken. To him, however, he gave an employment
of 6,000<i>l.</i> a year, as if to make through the son some
compensation to the manes of the father. And in
this manner he distributes, with a wild and liberal
profusion, between magistrates and dancing-girls, the
whole spoil of Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n, notwithstanding
the Company's direct and positive assurance given
to him. Everything was done, at the same time, to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">{279}</a></span>
put, as it was before, into the hands of this dancing-girl
the miserable Nabob's whole family; and that
the fund for corruption might be large enough, he
did not take the money for this dancing-girl out of
the Nabob's separate revenue, of which he and the
dancing-girl had the private disposal between them.</p>

<p>Now upon what pretence did he do all this? The
Nabob had represented to Mr. Hastings that he was
now of age,&mdash;that he was an independent, sovereign
prince,&mdash;that, being independent and sovereign in
his situation, and being of full age, he had a right to
manage his own concerns himself; and therefore he
desired to be admitted to that management. And,
indeed, my Lords, ostensibly, and supposing him to
have been this independent prince, and that the
Company had no authority or had never exercised
any authority over him through Mr. Hastings, there
might be a good deal said in favor of this request.
But what was the real state of the case? The Nabob
was a puppet in the hands of Mr. Hastings and Munny
Begum; and you will find, upon producing the
correspondence, that he confesses that she was the
ultimate object and end of this request.</p>

<p>I think this correspondence, wherein a son is made
to petition, in his own name, for the elevation of a
dancing-girl, his step-mother, above himself and everybody
else, will appear to your Lordships such a curiosity
as, I believe, is not to be found in the state correspondence
of the whole world. The Nabob begins
thus:&mdash;"The excellency of that policy by which her
Highness the Begum" (meaning Munny Begum)
"(may her shadow be far extended!) formerly, during
the time of her administration, transacted the
affairs of the nizamut in the very best and most ad<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">{280}</a></span>vantageous
manner, was, by means of the delusions of
enemies disguised under the appearance of friends,
hidden from me. Having lately seriously reflected
on my own affairs, I am convinced that it was the
effect of maternal affection, was highly proper, and
for my interest,&mdash;and that, except the said Begum is
again invested with the administration, the regulation
and prosperity of this family, which is in fact her
own, cannot be effected. For this cause, from the
time of her suspension until now, I have passed my
time, and do so still, in great trouble and uneasiness.
As all affairs, and particularly the happiness and
prosperity of this family, depend on your pleasure, I
now trouble you, in hopes that you, likewise concurring
in this point, will be so kind as to write in fit
and proper terms to her Highness the Begum, that
she will always, as formerly, employ her authority in
the administration of the nizamut and the affairs of
this family."</p>

<p>This letter, my Lords, was received upon the 23d
of August; and your Lordships may observe two
things in it: first, that, some way or other, this Nabob
had been (as the fact was) made to express his
desire of being released from his subjection to the
Munny Begum, but that now he has got new lights,
all the mists are gone, and he now finds that Munny
Begum is not only the fittest person to govern
him, but the whole country. This young man, whose
incapacity is stated, and never denied, by Mr. Hastings,
and by Lord Cornwallis, and by all the rest
of the world who know him, begins to be charmed
with the excellency of the policy of Munny Begum.
Such is his violent impatience, such the impossibility
of his existing an hour but under the govern<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">{281}</a></span>ment
of Munny Begum, that he writes again on the
25th of August, (he had really the impatience of a
lover,) and within five days afterwards writes again,&mdash;so
impatient, so anxious and jealous is this young
man to be put under the government of an old dancing-woman.
He is afraid lest Mr. Hastings should
imagine that some sinister influence had prevailed
upon him in so natural and proper a request. He
says, "Knowing it for my interest and advantage
that the administration of the affairs of the nizamut
should be restored to her Highness the Munny Begum,
I have already troubled you with my request,
that, regarding my situation with an eye of favor,
you will approve of this measure. I am credibly
informed that some one of my enemies, from selfish
views, has, for the purpose of oversetting this measure,
written you that the said Begum procured from
me by artifice the letter I wrote you on this subject.
This causes me the greatest astonishment. Please to
consider, that artifice and delusion are confined to
cheats and impostors, and can never proceed from
a person of such exalted rank, who is the head and
patron of all the family of the deceased Nabob, my
father,&mdash;and that to be deluded, being a proof of
weakness and folly, can have no relation to me, except
the inventor of this report considers me as void
of understanding, and has represented me to the gentlemen
as a blockhead and an idiot. God knows how
harshly such expressions appear to me; but, as the
truth or falsehood has not yet been fully ascertained,
I have therefore suspended my demand of satisfaction.
Should it be true, be so kind as to inform me
of it, that the person may be made to answer for it."</p>

<p>My Lords, here is a very proper demand. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">{282}</a></span>
Nabob is astonished at the suspicion, that such a
woman as Munny Begum, whose trade in youth had
been delusion, should be capable of deluding anybody.
Astonishing it certainly was, that a woman who had
been a deluder in youth should be suspected to be
the same in old age, and that he, a young man,
should be subject to her artifices. "They must suspect
me to be a great blockhead," he says, "if a man
of my rank is to be deluded." There he forgot
that it is the unhappy privilege of great men to be
cheated, to be deluded, much more than other persons;
but he thought it so impossible in the case
of Munny Begum, that he says, "Produce me the
traitor that could suppose it possible for me to be deluded,
when I call for this woman as the governor of
the country. I demand satisfaction." I rather wonder
that Mr. Hastings did not inform him who it was
that had reported so gross and improbable a tale,
and deliver him up to the fury of the Nabob.</p>

<p>Mr. Hastings is absolutely besieged by him; for
he receives another letter upon the 3d of September.
Here are four letters following one another quick as
post expresses with horns sounding before them. "Oh,
I die, I perish, I sink, if Munny Begum is not put
into the government of the country!&mdash;I therefore
desire to have her put into the government of the
country, and that you will not keep me longer in this
painful suspense, but will be kindly pleased to write
immediately to the Munny Begum, that she take on
herself the administration of the affairs of the nizamut,
which is, in fact, her own family, without the
interference of any other person whatever: by this
you will give me complete satisfaction." Here is a
correspondence more like an amorous than a state<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">{283}</a></span>
correspondence. What is this man so eager about,
what in such a rage about, that he cannot endure
the smallest delay of the post with common patience?
Why, lest this old woman (who is not his mother, and
with whom he had no other tie of blood) should not
be made mistress of himself and the whole country!
However, in a very few months afterwards he himself
is appointed by Mr. Hastings to the government; and
you may easily judge by the preceding letters who
was to govern. It would be an affront to your Lordships'
judgment to attempt to prove who was to govern,
after he had desired to put the whole government
of affairs into the hands of Munny Begum.</p>

<p>Now, Munny Begum having obtained this salary,
and being invested with this authority, and made in
effect the total and entire governor of the country,
as I have proved by the Nabob's letters, let us see
the consequences of it; and then I desire to know
whether your Lordships can believe that in all this
haste, which, in fact, is Mr. Hastings's haste and impatience,
(for we shall prove that the Nabob never did or
could take a step but by his immediate orders and
directions,)&mdash;whether your Lordships can believe that
Mr. Hastings would incur all the odium attending
such transactions, unless he had some corrupt consideration.</p>

<p>My Lords, very soon after these appointments were
made, consisting of Munny Begum at the head of the
affairs, the Lord Chief-Justice under her, and under
her direction, and Rajah Gourdas as steward of the
household, the first thing we hear is, just what your
Lordships expect to hear upon such a case, that this
unfortunate chief-justice, who was a man undoubtedly
of but a poor, low disposition, but, I believe, a per<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">{284}</a></span>fectly
honest, perfectly well-intentioned man, found it
absolutely impossible for him to execute his office under
the direction of Munny Begum; and accordingly,
in the month of September following, he sends a
complaint to Mr. Hastings, "that certain bad men
had gained an ascendency over the Nabob's temper, by
whose instigation he acts." After complaining of the
slights he receives from the Nabob, he adds, "Thus
they cause the Nabob to treat me, sometimes with indignity,
at others with kindness, just as they think
proper to advise him: their view is, that, by compelling
me to displeasure at such unworthy treatment,
they may force me either to relinquish my station, or
to join with them, and act by their advice, and appoint
creatures of their recommendation to the different
offices, from which they might draw profit to themselves."
This is followed by another letter, in which
he shows who those corrupt men were that had gained
the ascendency over the Nabob's temper,&mdash;namely,
the eunuchs of Munny Begum: one of them her
direct instrument in bribery with Mr. Hastings.
What you would expect from such a state of things
accordingly happened. Everything in the course of
justice was confounded; all official responsibility destroyed;
and nothing but a scene of forgery, peculation,
and knavery of every kind and description prevailed
through the country, and totally disturbed all
order and justice in it. He says, "The Begum's ministers,
before my arrival, with the advice of their
counsellors, caused the Nabob to sign a receipt, in
consequence of which they received at two different
times near fifty thousand rupees, in the name of the
officers of the Adawlut, Foujdarry, &amp;c., from the
Company's circar; and having drawn up an account<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">{285}</a></span>-current
in the manner they wished, they got the Nabob
to sign it, and then sent it to me." In the same
letter he asserts "that these people have the Nabob
entirely in their power."</p>

<p>My Lords, you see here Mr. Hastings enabling the
corrupt eunuchs of this wicked old woman to draw
upon the Company's treasury at their pleasure, under
forged papers of the Nabob, for just such moneys as
they please, under the name and pretence of giving
it to the officers of justice, but which they distribute
among themselves as they think fit. This complaint
was soon followed by another, and they furnish, first,
the strongest presumptive proof of the corrupt motives
of Mr. Hastings; and, secondly, they show the horrible
mischievous effects of his conduct upon the country.</p>

<p>In consequence of the first complaint, Mr. Hastings
directs this independent Nabob not to concern himself
any longer with the Foujdarry. The Nabob, who
had before declared that the superintendence of all
the offices belonged to him, and was to be executed
by himself, or under his orders, instantly obeys
Mr. Hastings, and declares he will not interfere in
the business of the courts any more. Your Lordships
will observe further that the complaint is not against
the Nabob, but against the creatures and the menial
servants of Munny Begum: and yet it is the Nabob
he forbids to interfere in this business; of the others
he takes no notice; and this is a strong proof of the
corrupt dealings of Mr. Hastings with this woman.
When the whole country was fallen into confusion
under the administration of this woman, and under
her corrupt ministers, men base-born and employed
in the basest offices, (the men of the household train
of the women of rank in that country are of that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">{286}</a></span>
description,) he writes to the Nabob again, and himself
confesses the mischiefs that had arisen from his
corrupt arrangements.</p>

<p>"At your Excellency's request, I sent Sudder ul
Huk Kh&acirc;n to take on him the administration of the
affairs of the Adawlut and Foujdarry, and hoped by
that means not only to have given satisfaction to
your Excellency, but that through his abilities and
experience these affairs would have been conducted
in such manner as to have secured the peace of the
country and the happiness of the people; and it is
with the greatest concern I learn that this measure is
so far from being attended with the expected advantages,
that the affairs both of the Foujdarry and Adawlut
are in the greatest confusion imaginable, and daily
robberies and murders are perpetrated throughout
the country. This is evidently owing to the want of
a proper authority in the person appointed to superintend
them. I therefore addressed your Excellency
on the importance and delicacy of the affairs in question,
and of the necessity of lodging full power in
the hands of the person chosen to administer them.
In reply to which your Excellency expressed sentiments
coincident with mine. Notwithstanding which,
your dependants and people, actuated by selfish and
avaricious views, have by their interference so impeded
the business as to throw the whole country into a
state of confusion, from which nothing can retrieve it
but an unlimited power lodged in the hands of the
superintendent. I therefore request that your Excellency
will give the strictest injunctions to all your
dependants not to interfere in any manner with any
matter relative to the affairs of the Adawlut and
Foujdarry, and that you will yourself relinquish all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">{287}</a></span>
interference therein, and leave them entirely to the
management of Sudder ul Huk Kh&acirc;n. This is absolutely
necessary to restore the country to a state of
tranquillity."</p>

<p>My Lords, what evidence do we produce to your
Lordships of the consequences of Mr. Hastings's corrupt
measures? His own. He here gives you the
state into which the country was thrown by the criminal
interference of the wicked woman whom he had
established in power, totally superseding the regular
judicial authority of the country, and throwing everything
into confusion. As usual, there is such irregularity
in his conduct, and his crimes are so multiplied,
that all the contrivances of ingenuity are unable to
cover them. Now and then he comes and betrays himself;
and here he confesses you his own weakness, and
the effects of his own corruption: he had appointed
Munny Begum to this office of power, he dare not
say a word to her upon her abuse of it, but he lays
the whole upon the Nabob. When the Chief-Justice
complains that these crimes were the consequence of
Munny Begum's interference, and were committed
by her creatures, why did he not say to the Nabob,
"The Begum must not interfere; the Begum's eunuchs
must not interfere"? He dared not: because
that woman had concealed all the bribes but one from
public notice to gratify him; she and Yatibar Ali
Kh&acirc;n, her minister, who had the principal share in
this destruction of justice and perversion of all the
principal functions of government, had it in their
power to discover the whole. Mr. Hastings was
obliged, in consequence of that concealment, to support
her and to support him. Every evil principle
was at work. He bought a mercenary silence to pay<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">{288}</a></span>
the same back to them. It was a wicked silence, the
concealment of their common guilt. There was at
once a corrupt gratitude operating mutually by a corrupt
influence on both, and a corrupt fear influencing
the mind of Mr. Hastings, which did not permit him
to put an end to this scene of disorder and confusion,
bought at the expense of twenty-four thousand pounds
a year to the Company. You will hereafter see what
use he makes of the evidence of Yatibar Ali Kh&acirc;n,
and of this woman, for concealing their guilt.</p>

<p>Your Lordships will observe that the virtuous majority,
whose reign was but short, and two of whom
died of grief and vexation under the impediments
which they met with from the corruptions and oppositions
of Mr. Hastings, (their indirect murderer,&mdash;for
it is well known to the world that their hearts
were thus broken,) put their conduct out of all suspicion.
For they ordered an exact account to be
kept by Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n,&mdash;though, certainly,
if any person in the country could be trusted, he,
upon his character, might; but they did not trust
him, because they knew the Company did not suffer
them to trust any man: they ordered an exact account
to be kept by him of the Nabob's expenses,
which finally must be the Company's expenses; they
ordered the account to be sent down yearly, to be
controlled, if necessary, whilst the means of control
existed.&mdash;What was Mr. Hastings's conduct? He
did not give the persons whom he appointed any
order to produce any account, though their character
and circumstances were such as made an account
ten thousand times more necessary from them than
from those from whom it had been in former times
by the Company strictly exacted. So that his not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">{289}</a></span>
ordering any account to be given of the money that
was to be expended leaves no doubt that the appointment
of Munny Begum was in pursuance of his old
system of bribery, and that he maintained her in office,
to the subversion of public justice, for the purpose
of robbing, and of continuing in the practice of
robbing, the country.</p>

<p>But though this continued longer than was for the
good of the country, yet it did not continue absolutely
and relatively long; because the Court of Directors,
as soon as they heard of this iniquitous appointment,
which glared upon them in all the light of its infamy,
immediately wrote the strongest, the most decided,
and the most peremptory censure upon him, attributing
his acts, every one of them, to the same causes to
which I attribute them. As a proof that the Court
of Directors saw the thing in the very light in which
I represent it to your Lordships, and indeed in which
every one must see it, you will find that they reprobate
all his idle excuses,&mdash;that they reprobate all the
actors in the scene,&mdash;that they consider everything
to have been done, not by the Nabob, but by himself,&mdash;that
the object of the appointment of Munny Begum
was <i>money</i>, and that the consequence of that appointment
was the robbery of the Nabob's treasury.
"We by no means approve your late proceedings,
on the application of the Nabob Mobarek ul Dowlah
for the removal of the Naib Subahdar. The requisition
of Mobarek ul Dowlah was improper and
unfriendly; because he must have known that the
late appointment of Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n to the office
of Naib Subahdar had been marked with the
Company's special approbation, and that the Court
of Directors had assured him of their favor so long<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">{290}</a></span>
as a firm attachment to the Company's interest and a
proper discharge of the duties of his station should
render him worthy of their protection. We therefore
repeat our declaration, that to require the dismission
of a prime-minister thus circumstanced, without
producing the smallest proof of his infidelity to
the Company, or venturing to charge him with one
instance of maladministration in the discharge of his
public duty, was improper and inconsistent with the
friendship subsisting between the Nabob of Bengal
and the Company." And further on they say,&mdash;"The
Nabob having intimated that he had repeatedly
stated the trouble and uneasiness which he had suffered
from the naibship of the nizamut being vested
in Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n, we observe one of the members
of your board desired the Nabob's repeated letters
on the subject might be read, but this reasonable
request was overruled, on a plea of saving the board's
time, which we can by no means admit as a sufficient
objection. The Nabob's letters of the 25th and 30th
August, of the 3d September and 17th November,
leave us no doubt of the true design of this extraordinary
business being to bring forward Munny Begum,
and again to invest her with improper power and influence,
notwithstanding our former declaration, that
so great a part of the Nabob's allowance had been
embezzled or misapplied under her superintendence."</p>

<p>At present I do not think it necessary, because it
would be doing more than enough, it would be slaying
the slain, to show your Lordships what Mr. Hastings's
motives were in acting against the sense of the
East India Company, appointed by an act of Parliament
to control him,&mdash;that he did it for a corrupt
purpose, that all his pretences were false and fraudu<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">{291}</a></span>lent,
and that he had his own corrupt views in the
whole of the proceeding. But in the statement which
I have given of this matter, I beg your Lordships
to observe the instruments with which Mr. Hastings
acts. The great men of that country, and particularly
the Subahdar himself, the Nabob, are and is in so
equivocal a situation, that it afforded him two bolting-holes,
by which he is enabled to resist the authority
of the Company, and exercise an arbitrary authority
of his own: for, though the Nabob has the titles of
high sovereignty, he is the lowest of all dependants;
he appears to be the master of the country,&mdash;he is a
pensioner of the Company's government.</p>

<p>When Mr. Hastings wants him to obey and answer
his corrupt purposes, he finds him in the character of
a pensioner: when he wants his authority to support
him in opposition to the authority of the Company,
immediately he invests him with high sovereign powers,
and he dare not execute the orders of the Company
for fear of doing some act that will make him
odious in the eyes of God and man. We see how he
appointed all officers for him, and forbade his interference
in all affairs. When the Company see the impropriety
and the guilt of these acts, and order him
to rescind them, and appoint again Mahomed Reza
Kh&acirc;n, he declares he will not, that he cannot do
it in justice, but that he will consent to send him the
order of the Company, but without backing it with
any order of the board: which, supposing even there
had been no private communication, was, in other
words, commanding him to disobey it. So this poor
man, who a short time before was at the feet of Mr.
Hastings, whom Mr. Hastings declared to be a pageant,
and swore in a court of justice that he was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">{292}</a></span>
but a pageant, and followed that affidavit with long
declarations in Council that he was a pageant in sovereignty,
and ought in policy ever to be held out as
such,&mdash;this man he sets up in opposition to the
Company, and refuses to appoint Mahomed Reza
Kh&acirc;n to the office which was guarantied to him by
the express faith of the Company, pledged to his support.
Will any man tell me that this resistance,
under such base, though plausible pretences, could
spring from any other cause than a resolution of persisting
systematically in his course of corruption and
bribery through Munny Begum?</p>

<p>But there is another circumstance that puts this in
a stronger light. He opposes the Nabob's mock authority
to the authority of the Company, and leaves
Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n unemployed, because, as he
says, he cannot in justice execute orders from the
Company (though they are his undoubted masters)
contrary to the rights of the Nabob. You see what
the rights of the Nabob were: the rights of the Nabob
were, to be governed by Munny Begum and her
scandalous ministers. But, however, we now see
him exalted to be an independent sovereign; he defies
the Company at the head of their armies and
their treasury; that name that makes all India shake
was defied by one of its pensioners. My Lords, human
greatness is an unstable thing. This man, so
suddenly exalted, was as soon depressed; and the
manner of his depression is as curious as that of his
exaltation by Mr. Hastings, and will tend to show
you the man most clearly.</p>

<p>Mr. Francis, whose conduct all along was directed
by no other principles than those which were in conformity
with the plan adopted by himself and his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">{293}</a></span>
virtuous colleagues, namely, an entire obedience to
the laws of his country, and who constantly had
opposed Mr. Hastings, upon principles of honor, and
principles of obedience to the authority of the Company
under which he acted, had never contended for
any one thing, in any way, or in any instance, but
obedience to them, and had constantly asserted that
Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n ought to be put into employment.
Mr. Hastings as constantly opposed him; and
the reason he gave for it was, that it was against
the direct rights of the Nabob, and that they were
rights so sacred that they could not be infringed
even by the sovereign authority of the Company ordering
him to do it. He had so great an aversion
to the least subtraction of the Nabob's right, that,
though expressly commanded by the Court of Directors,
he would not suffer Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n to be
invested with his office under the Company's authority.
The Nabob was too sovereign, too supreme, for
him to do it. But such is the fate of human grandeur,
that a whimsical event reduced the Nabob to his
state of pageant again, and made him the mere subject
of&mdash;you will see whom. Mr. Hastings found he
was so embarrassed by his disobedience to the spirit
of the orders of the Company, and by the various
wild projects he had formed, as to make it necessary
for him, even though he had a majority in the Council,
to gain over at any price Mr. Francis. Mr.
Francis, frightened by the same miserable situation
of affairs, (for this happened at a most dangerous period,&mdash;the
height of the Mahratta war,) was willing
likewise to give up his opposition to Mr. Hastings, to
suspend the execution of many rightful things, and to
concede them to the public necessity. Accordingly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">{294}</a></span>
he agreed to terms with Mr. Hastings. But what
was the price of that concession? Any base purpose,
any desertion of public duty? No: all that he desired
of Mr. Hastings was, that he should obey the
orders of the Company; and among other acts of
the obedience required was this, that Mahomed Reza
Kh&acirc;n should be put into his office.</p>

<p>You have heard how Mr. Hastings opposed the
order of the Company, and on what account he opposed
it. On the 1st of September he sent an order
to the Nabob, now become his subject, to give up
this office to Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n: an act which he
had before represented as a dethroning of the Nabob.
The order went on the 1st of September, and on the
3d this great and mighty prince, whom all earth
could not move from the assertion of his rights, gives
them all up, and Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n is invested
with them. So there all his pretences were gone.
It is plain that what had been done before was for
Munny Begum, and that what he now gave up was
from necessity: and it shows that the Nabob was the
meanest of his servants; for in truth he ate his daily
bread out of the hands of Mr. Hastings, through
Munny Begum.</p>

<p>Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n was now invested again with
his office; but such was the treachery of Mr. Hastings,
that, though he wrote to the Nabob that this
was done in consequence of the orders of the Company,
he did clandestinely, according to his usual
mode, assure the Nabob that Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n
should not hold the place longer than till he heard
from England. He then wrote him another letter,
that he should hold it no longer than while he submitted
to his present necessity, (thus giving up to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">{295}</a></span>
his colleague what he refused to the Company,) and
engaged, privately, that he would dismiss Mahomed
Reza Kh&acirc;n again. And accordingly, the moment he
thought Mr. Francis was not in a condition to give
him trouble any longer, that moment he again turned
out Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n from that general superintendence
of affairs which the Company gave him,
and deposed him as a minister, leaving him only a
very confined authority as a magistrate.</p>

<p>All these changes, no less than four great revolutions,
if I may so call them, were made by Mr. Hastings
for his own corrupt purposes. This is the manner
in which Mr. Hastings has played with the most
sacred objects that man ever had a dealing with:
with the government, with the justice, with the order,
with the dignity, with the nobility of a great country:
he played with them to satisfy his own wicked and
corrupt purposes through the basest instrument.</p>

<p>Now, my Lords, I have done with these presumptions
of corruption with Munny Begum, and have
shown that it is not a slight crime, but that it is
attended with a breach of public faith, with a breach
of his orders, with a breach of the whole English government,
and the destruction of the native government,
of the police, the order, the safety, the security,
and the justice of the country,&mdash;and that all these
are much concerned in this cause. Therefore the
Commons stand before the face of the world, and say,
We have brought a cause, a great cause, a cause
worthy the Commons of England to prosecute, and
worthy the Lords to judge and determine upon.</p>

<p>I have now nothing further to state than what the
consequences are of Mr. Hastings taking bribes,&mdash;that
Mr. Hastings's taking of bribes is not only his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">{296}</a></span>
own corruption, but the incurable corruption of the
whole service. I will show, first, that he was named
in 1773 to put an end to that corruption. I will
show that he did not,&mdash;that he knowingly and willingly
connived at it,&mdash;and that that connivance was
the principal cause of all the disorders that have hitherto
prevailed in that country. I will show you that
he positively refused to obey the Company's order
to inquire into and to correct the corruptions that
prevailed in that country; next, that he established
an avowed system of connivance, in order to gain
over everything that was corrupt in the country;
and that, lastly, to secure it, he gave up all the
prosecutions, and enervated and took away the sole
arm left to the Company for the assertion of authority
and the preservation of good morals and purity in
their service.</p>

<p>My Lords, here is a letter, in the year 1773, in
which the Court of Directors had, upon his own
representation, approved some part of his conduct.
He is charmed with their approbation; he promises
the greatest things; but I believe your Lordships
will see, from the manner in which he proceeds at
that very instant, that a more deliberate system, for
not only being corrupt himself, but supporting corruption
in others, never was exhibited in any public
paper.</p>

<p>"While I indulge the pleasure which I receive
from the past successes of my endeavors, I own I
cannot refrain from looking back with a mixture of
anxiety on the omissions by which I am sensible I
may since have hazarded the diminution of your esteem.
All my letters addressed to your Honorable
Court, and to the Secret Committee, repeat the stron<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">{297}</a></span>gest
promises of prosecuting the inquiries into the conduct
of your servants which you had been pleased to
commit particularly to my charge. You will readily
perceive that I must have been sincere in those declarations;
since it would have argued great indiscretion
to have made them, had I foreseen my inability
to perform them. I find myself now under the disagreeable
necessity of avowing that inability; at the
same time I will boldly take upon me to affirm,
that, on whomsoever you might have delegated that
charge, and by whatever powers it might have been
accompanied, it would have been sufficient to occupy
the entire attention of those who were intrusted with
it, and, even with all the aids of leisure and authority,
would have proved ineffectual. I dare appeal to the
public records, to the testimony of those who have
opportunities of knowing me, and even to the detail
which the public voice can report of the past acts of
this government, that my time has been neither idly
nor uselessly employed: yet such are the cares and
embarrassments of this various state, that, although
much may be done, much more, even in matters of
moment, must necessarily remain neglected. To select
from the miscellaneous heap which each day's exigencies
present to our choice those points on which
the general welfare of your affairs most essentially
depends, to provide expedients for future advantages
and guard against probable evils, are all that your administration
can faithfully promise to perform for your
service with their united labors most diligently exerted.
They cannot look back without sacrificing the
objects of their immediate duty, which are those of
your interests, to endless researches, which can produce
no real good, and may expose your affairs to all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">{298}</a></span>
the ruinous consequences of personal malevolence,
both here and at home."</p>

<p>My Lords, this is the first man, I believe, that ever
took credit for his sincerity from his breach of his
promises. "I could not," he says, "have made these
promises, if I had not thought that I could perform
them. Now I find I cannot perform them, and you
have in that non-performance and in that profession
a security for my sincerity when I promised them."
Upon this principle, any man who makes a promise
has nothing to do afterwards, but to say that he finds
himself (without assigning any particular cause for
it) unable to perform it,&mdash;not only to justify himself
for his non-performance, but to justify himself
and claim credit for sincerity in his original profession.
The charge was given him specially, and he
promised obedience, over and over, upon the spot,
and in the country, in which he was no novice, for
he had been bred in it: it was his native country in
one sense, it was the place of his renewed nativity
and regeneration. Yet this very man, as if he was a
novice in it, now says, "I promised you what I now
find I cannot perform." Nay, what is worse, he
declares no man could perform it, if he gave up his
whole time to it. And lastly, he says, that the inquiry
into these corruptions, even if you succeeded
in it, would do more harm than good. Now was
there ever an instance of a man so basely deserting
a duty, and giving so base a reason for it? His duty
was to put an end to corruption in every channel of
government. It cannot be done. Why? Because
it would expose our affairs to malignity and enmity,
and end, perhaps, to our disadvantage. Not only
will he connive himself, but he advises the Company<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">{299}</a></span>
to do it. For fear of what? For fear that their
service was so abandoned and corrupt, that the display
of the evil would tend more to their disreputation
than all their attempts to reform it would tend
to their service.</p>

<p>Mr. Hastings should naturally have imagined that
the law was a resource in this desperate case of bribery.
He tells you, that in "that charge of oppression,
though they were supported by the cries of the
people and the most authentic representations, it is
yet impossible in most cases to obtain legal proofs."
Here is a system of total despair upon the business,
which I hope and believe is not a desperate one,
and has not proved a desperate one, whenever a
rational attempt has been made to pursue it. Here
you find him corrupt, and you find, in consequence
of that corruption, that he screens the whole body of
corruption in India, and states an absolute despair of
any possibility, by any art or address, of putting an
end to it. Nay, he tells you, that, if corruption did
not exist, if it was not connived at, that the India
Company could not exist. Whether that be a truth
or not I cannot tell; but this I know, that it is the
most horrible picture that ever was made of any
country. It might be said that these were excuses
for omissions,&mdash;sins of omission he calls them. I
will show that they were systematic, that Mr. Hastings
did uniformly profess that he would connive at
abuses, and contend that abuses ought to be connived
at. When the whole mystery of the iniquity,
in which he himself was deeply concerned, came to
light,&mdash;when it appeared that all the Company's orders
were contravened,&mdash;that contracts were given
directly contrary to their orders, and upon principles<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">{300}</a></span>
subversive of their government, leading to all manner
of oppression and ruin to the country,&mdash;what was
Mr. Hastings's answer? "I must here remark, that
the majority ... I had not the power of
establishing it."<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor" title=" Document wanting.">[5]</a> Then he goes on and states other
cases of corruption, at every one of which he winks.
Here he states another reason for his connivance.
"Suppose again," (for he puts another supposition,
and these suppositions are not hypotheses laid down
for argument, but real facts then existing before
the Council examining into grievances,)&mdash;"suppose
again, that any person had benefited himself ...
unprofitable discussion."<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor" title=" Document wanting.">[6]</a></p>

<p>Here is a direct avowal of his refusing to examine
into the conduct of persons in the Council, even in
the highest departments of government, and the best
paid, for fear he should dissatisfy them, and should
lose their votes, by discovering those peculations and
corruptions, though he perfectly knew them. Was
there ever, since the world began, any man who
would dare to avow such sentiments, until driven
to the wall? If he could show that he himself abhorred
bribes, and kept at a distance from them, then
he might say, "I connive at the bribes of others";
but when he acknowledges that he takes bribes, how
can you doubt that he buys a corrupt confederacy,
and puts an end to any hope through him of reformation
of the abuses at Bengal? But your Lordships
will see that he not only connived at abuse, but patronized
it and supported it for his own political purposes;
since he here confesses, that, if inquiry into it
created him ill-humor, and produced him an opposi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">{301}</a></span>tion
in Council, he sacrificed it to the power of the
Company, and the constitution of their government.
Did he so? The Company ordered him to prosecute
those people, and their constitution required that
they should be prosecuted. "No," says Mr. Hastings,
"the conniving at it procures a majority of
votes." The very thing that he bought was not
worth half the price he paid for it. He was sent
to reform corruptions, and, in order that he might
reform corruptions, he winked at, countenanced, and
patronized them, to get a majority of votes; and
what was, in fact, a sacrifice to his own interest,
ambition, and corruption, he calls a sacrifice to the
Company. He puts, then, this alternative: "Either
give everything into my hand, suffer me to go on,
and have no control, or else I wink at every species
of corruption." It is a remarkable and stupendous
thing, that, when all the world was alarmed at the
disorders of the Company, when that alarm occasioned
his being sent out, and when, in consequence
of that alarm, Parliament suspended the constitution
of the Company, and appointed another government,
Mr. Hastings should tell that Company that Parliament
had done wrong, and that the person put at
the head of that government was to wink at those
abuses. Nay, what is more, not only does Mr. Hastings
declare, upon general principles, that it was
impossible to pursue all the delinquencies of India,
and that, if possible to pursue them, mischief would
happen from it, but your Lordships will observe that
Mr. Hastings, in this business, during the whole period
of the administration of that body which was
sent out to inquire into and reform the corruptions
of India, did not call one person to an account; nor,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">{302}</a></span>
except Mr. Hastings, this day, has any one been
called to an account, or punished for delinquency.
Whether he will be punished or no, time will show.
I have no doubt of your Lordships' justice, and of the
goodness of our cause.</p>

<p>The table of the House of Commons groaned under
complaints of the evils growing in India under this
systematic connivance of Mr. Hastings. The Directors
had set on foot prosecutions, to be conducted
God knows how; but, such as they were, they were
their only remedy; and they began to consider at last
that these prosecutions had taken a long oblivious
nap of many years; and at last, knowing that they
were likely, in the year 1782, to be called to a strict
account about their own conduct, the Court of Directors
began to rouse themselves, and they write thus:
"Having in several of our letters to you very attentively
perused all the proceedings referred to in these
paragraphs, relative to the various forgeries on the
Company's treasuries, we lament exceedingly that
the parties should have been so long in confinement
without being brought to trial."</p>

<p>Here, my Lords, after justice had been asleep
awhile, it revived. They directed two things: first,
that those suits should be pursued; but whether
pursued or not, that an account of the state of them
should be given, that they might give orders concerning
them.</p>

<p>Your Lordships see the orders of the Company. Did
they not want to pursue and to revive those dormant
prosecutions? They want to have a state of them,
that they may know how to direct the future conduct
of them with more effect and vigor than they had yet
been pursued with. You will naturally imagine that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">{303}</a></span>
Mr. Hastings did not obey their orders, or obeyed
them languidly. No, he took another part. He says,
"Having attentively read and weighed the arguments
... for withdrawing them."<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor" title=" Document wanting.">[7]</a></p>

<p>Thus he begins with the general principle of connivance;
he directly avows he does it for a political
purpose; and when the Company directs he shall proceed
in the suits, instead of deferring to their judgment,
he takes the judgment on himself, and says
theirs is untenable; he directly discharges the prosecutions
of the Company, supersedes the authority of
his masters, and gives a general release to all the persons
who were still suffering by the feeble footsteps
of justice in that country. He gave them an act of
indemnity, and that was the last of his acts.</p>

<p>Now, when I show the consequence of his bribery,
the presumptions that arise from his own bribes, his
attention to secure others from the punishment of
theirs, and, when ordered to carry on a suit, his discharging
it,&mdash;when we see all this, can we avoid judging
and forming our opinions upon two grand points:
first, that no man would proceed in that universal patronage
of guilt, unless he was guilty himself; next,
that, by a universal connivance for fourteen years, he
is himself the cause and mainspring of all the evils,
calamities, extortion, and bribery, that have prevailed
and ravaged that country for so long a time? There
is, indeed, no doubt either of his guilt, or of the consequences
of it, by which he has extinguished the last
expiring hope and glimpse that remained of procuring
a remedy for India of the evils that exist in it.</p>

<p>I would mention, that, as a sort of postscript, when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">{304}</a></span>
he could no longer put the government into the hands
of that infamous woman, Munny Begum, he sent an
amorous, sentimental letter to the Company, describing
her miserable situation, and advising the Company
to give her a pension of seventy-two thousand
rupees a year, to maintain her. He describes her
situation in such a moving way as must melt every
heart. He supposes her to be reduced to want by
the cruel orders of the Company, who retain from her
money which they were never obliged to give her.
This representation, which he makes with as much
fairness as he represents himself to be in a state of
the most miserable poverty and distress, he alone
made to the Company, because his colleagues would
not countenance him in it; and we find, upon looking
over Lord Cornwallis's last examination into the
whole state of this unhappy family, that this woman
was able to lend to Mobarek ul Dowlah twenty
thousand pounds. Mr. Hastings, however, could not
avoid making this representation; because he knew,
that, if he quitted the country without securing that
woman, by giving her a hope that she could procure
by his credit here that money which by his authority
he had before procured for her, she might then make
a discovery of all the corruption that had been carried
on between them; and therefore he squanders away
the treasures of the Company, in order to secure himself
from any such detection, and to procure for himself
<i>razinamas</i> and all those fine things. He knew
that Munny Begum, that the whole seraglio, that all
the country, whom he had put under the dominion of
Sir John D'Oyly, that all those people might have
made a discovery of all his corrupt proceedings; he
therefore gets the Nabob to appoint Sir John D'Oyly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">{305}</a></span>
his agent here, with a view of stopping his mouth,
and by the hope of another 160,000<i>l.</i> a year to prevent
his giving an account of the dilapidation and
robbery that was made of the 160,000<i>l.</i> which had
been left him.</p>

<hr style="width: 45%;" />

<p>I have now finished what I proposed to say relative
to his great fund of bribery, in the first instance
of it,&mdash;namely, the administration of justice in the
country. There is another system of bribery which I
shall state before my friends produce the evidence.
He put up all the great offices of the country to sale;
he makes use of the trust he had of the revenues in
order to destroy the whole system of those revenues,
and to bind them and make them subservient to his
system of bribery: and this will make it necessary
for your Lordships to couple the consideration of the
charge of the revenues, in some instances, with that
of bribery.</p>

<p>The next day your Lordships meet (when I hope
I shall not detain you so long) I mean to open the
second stage of his bribery, the period of discovery:
for the first stage was the period of concealment.
When he found his bribes could no longer be concealed,
he next took upon him to discover them himself,
and to take merit from them.</p>

<p>When I shall have opened the second scene of his
peculation, and his new principles of it, when you
see him either treading in old corruptions, and excelling
the examples he imitated, or exhibiting new ones
of his own, in which of the two his conduct is the
most iniquitous, and attended with most evil to the
Company, I must leave your Lordships to judge.</p>

<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>

<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Document wanting.</p></div>

<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Document wanting.</p></div>

<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Document wanting.</p></div>

<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Document wanting.</p></div>

<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> Document wanting.</p></div>

<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> Document wanting.</p></div>
</div>

<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">{306}</a></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><a name="THIRD_DAY_TUESDAY_MAY_5_1789" id="THIRD_DAY_TUESDAY_MAY_5_1789"></a></p>
<h2>SPEECH<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 50%;">ON</span><br />
<br />
THE SIXTH ARTICLE OF CHARGE.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 50%;">THIRD DAY: TUESDAY, MAY 5, 1789.</span></h2>


<p>My Lords,&mdash;Agreeably to your Lordships'
proclamation, which I have just heard, and
the duty enjoined me by the House of Commons, I
come forward to make good their charge of high
crimes and misdemeanors against Warren Hastings,
Esquire, late Governor-General of Bengal, and now
a prisoner at your bar.</p>

<p>My Lords, since I had last the honor of standing
in this place before your Lordships, an event has happened
upon which it is difficult to speak and impossible
to be silent. My Lords, I have been disavowed
by those who sent me here to represent them. My
Lords, I have been disavowed in a material part
of that engagement which I had pledged myself to
this House to perform. My Lords, that disavowal
has been followed by a censure. And yet, my Lords,
so censured and so disavowed, and by such an authority,
I am sent here again, to this the place of
my offence, under the same commission, by the same
authority, to make good the same charge, against the
same delinquent.</p>

<p>My Lords, the situation is new and awful: the
situation is such as, I believe, and I am sure, has
nothing like it on the records of Parliament, nor,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">{307}</a></span>
probably, in the history of mankind. My Lords, it is
not only new and singular, but, I believe, to many persons,
who do not look into the true interior nature of
affairs, it may appear that it would be to me as mortifying
as it is unprecedented. But, my Lords, I have
in this situation, and upon the consideration of all the
circumstances, something more to feed my mind with
than mere consolation; because, my Lords, I look upon
the whole of these circumstances, considered together,
as the strongest, the most decisive, and the
least equivocal proof which the Commons of Great
Britain can give of their sincerity and their zeal in
this prosecution. My Lords, is it from a mistaken
tenderness or a blind partiality to me, that, thus censured,
they have sent me to this place? No, my
Lords, it is because they feel, and recognize in their
own breasts, that active principle of justice, that zeal
for the relief of the people of India, that zeal for the
honor of Great Britain, which characterizes me and
my excellent associates, that, in spite of any defects,
in consequence of that zeal which they applaud, and
while they censure its mistakes, and, because they
censure its mistakes, do but more applaud, they have
sent me to this place, instructed, but not dismayed,
to pursue this prosecution against Warren Hastings,
Esquire. Your Lordships will therefore be pleased
to consider this, as I consider it, not as a thing honorable
to me, in the first place, but as honorable to
the Commons of Great Britain, in whose honor the
national glory is deeply concerned; and I shall suffer
myself with pleasure to be sacrificed, perhaps, in what
is dearer to me than my life, my reputation, rather
than let it be supposed that the Commons should for
one moment have faltered in their duty. I, my Lords,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">{308}</a></span>
on the one hand, feeling myself supported and encouraged,
feeling protection and countenance from
this admonition and warning which has been given to
me, will show myself, on the other hand, not unworthy
so great and distinguished a mark of the favor of
the Commons,&mdash;a mark of favor not the consequence
of flattery, but of opinion. I shall feel animated and
encouraged by so noble a reward as I shall always consider
the confidence of the Commons to be: the only
reward, but a rich reward, which I have received for
the toils and labors of a long life.</p>

<p>The Commons, then, thus vindicated, and myself
thus encouraged, I shall proceed to make good the
charge in which the honor of the Commons, that is,
the national honor, is so deeply concerned. For,
my Lords, if any circumstance of weakness, if any
feebleness of nerve, if any yielding to weak and popular
opinions and delusions were to shake us, consider
what the situation of this country would be. This
prosecution, if weakly conceived, ill digested, or
intemperately pursued, ought never to have been
brought to your Lordships' bar: but being brought
to your Lordships' bar, the nation is committed to it,
and the least appearance of uncertainty in our minds
would disgrace us forever. <i>Esto perpetua</i>, has been
said. To the glory of this nation, much more be it
said, <i>Esto perpetua</i>; and I will say, that, as we have
raised and exhibited a theatre of justice which has
excited the admiration of all Europe, there would be
a sort of lustre in our infamy, and a splendor in the
disgrace that we should bring upon ourselves, if we
should, just at that moment, turn that theatre of
our glory into a spectacle of dishonor beyond what
has ever happened to any country of the world.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">{309}</a></span></p>

<p>The Commons of Great Britain, whilst willing to
keep a strong and firm hand over all those who represent
them in any business, do at the same time encourage
them in the prosecution of it, by allowing
them a just discretion and latitude wherever their
own orders have not marked a distinction. I shall
therefore go on with the more cheerful confidence,
not only for the reasons that I have stated, but for
another and material reason. I know and am satisfied,
that, in the nobleness of your judgment, you
will always make a distinction between the person
that gives the order and the organ that is to execute
it. The House of Commons know no such thing as
indiscretion, imprudence, or impropriety: it is otherwise
with their instruments. Your Lordships very
well know, that, if you hear anything that shall appear
to you to be regular, apt to bring forward the
charge, just, prudent, cogent, you are to give it
to the Commons of Great Britain in Parliament assembled;
if you should hear from me (and it must
be from me alone, and not from any other member
of the Committee) anything that is unworthy of that
situation, that comes feeble, weak, indigested, or ill-prepared,
you are to attribute that to the instrument.
Your Lordships' judgment would do this without my
saying it. But whilst I claim it on the part of the
Commons for their dignity, I claim for myself the
necessary indulgence that must be given to all weakness.
Your Lordships, then, will impute it where
you would have imputed it without my desire. It
is a distinction you would naturally have made, and
the rather because what is alleged by us at the bar
is not the ground upon which you are to give judgment.
If not only I, but the whole body of mana<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">{310}</a></span>gers,
had made use of any such expressions as I
made use of,&mdash;even if the Commons of Great Britain
in Parliament assembled, if the collective body
of Parliament, if the voice of Europe, had used
them,&mdash;if we had spoken with the tongues of men
and angels, you, in the seat of judicature, are not to
regard what we say, but what we prove; you are to
consider whether the charge is well substantiated,
and proof brought out by legal inference and argument.
You know, and I am sure the habits of judging
which your Lordships have acquired by sitting
in judgment must better inform you than any other
men, that the duties of life, in order to be well performed,
must be methodized, separated, arranged, and
harmonized in such a manner that they shall not
clash with one another, but each have a department
assigned and separated to itself. My Lords, in that
manner it is that we, the prosecutors, have nothing
to do with the principles which are to guide the judgment,
that we have nothing to do with the defence
of the prisoner. Your Lordships well know, that,
when we come before you, you hear a party; that,
when the accused come before you, you hear a party:
that it is for you to doubt, and wait till you come
to the close, before you decide; that it is for us, the
prosecutors, to have decided before we came here.
To act as prosecutors, we ought to have no doubt
or hesitation, nothing trembling or quivering in our
minds upon the occasion. We ought to be fully
convinced of guilt, before we come to you. It is,
then, our business to bring forward the proofs,&mdash;to
enforce them with all the clearness, illustration,
example, that we can bring forward,&mdash;that we are
to show the circumstances that can aggravate the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">{311}</a></span>
guilt,&mdash;that we are to go further, show the mischievous
consequences and tendency of those crimes
to society,&mdash;and that we are, if able so to do, to
arouse and awaken in the minds of all that hear us
those generous and noble sympathies which Providence
has planted in the breasts of all men, to be the true
guardians of the common rights of humanity. Your
Lordships know that this is the duty of the prosecutors,
and that therefore we are not to consider the
defence of the party, which is wisely and properly
left to himself; but we are to press the accusation
with all the energy of which it is capable, and to
come with minds perfectly convinced before an august
and awful tribunal which at once tries the accuser
and the accused.</p>

<p>Having stated thus much with respect to the Commons,
I am to read to your Lordships the resolution
which the Commons have come to upon this great
occasion, and upon which I shall take the liberty to
say a very few words.</p>

<p>My Lords, the Commons have resolved last night,
and I did not see the resolution till this morning,
"that no direction or authority was given by this
House to the committee appointed to manage the
impeachment against Warren Hastings, Esquire, to
make any charge or allegation against the said Warren
Hastings respecting the condemnation or execution
of Nundcomar; and that the words spoken by
the Right Honorable Edmund Burke, one of the said
managers, <i>videlicet</i>, that he (meaning Mr. Hastings)
murdered that man (meaning Nundcomar) by the
hands of Sir Elijah Impey, ought not to have been
spoken."</p>

<p>My Lords, this is the resolution of the House of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">{312}</a></span>
Commons. Your Lordships well know and remember
my having used such or similar words, and the end
and purpose for which I used them. I owe a few
words of explanation to the Commons of Great Britain,
who attend in a committee of the whole House to
be the observers and spectators of my conduct. I owe
it to your Lordships, I owe it to this great auditory,
I owe it to the present times and to posterity, to make
some apology for a proceeding which has drawn upon
me the disavowal of the House which I represent.
Your Lordships will remember that this charge
which I have opened to your Lordships is primarily a
charge founded upon the evidence of the Rajah Nundcomar;
and consequently I thought myself obliged,
I thought it a part of my duty, to support the credit
of that person, who is the principal evidence to support
the direct charge that is brought before your
Lordships. I knew that Mr. Hastings, in his anticipated
defence before the House of Commons, had
attempted to shake the credit of that witness. I
therefore thought myself justified in informing your
Lordships, and in warning him, that, if he did attempt
to shake the credit of an important witness against
him by an allegation of his having been condemned
and executed for a forgery, I would endeavor to support
his credit by attacking that very prosecution
which brought on that condemnation and that execution;
and that I did consider it, and would lay
grounds before your Lordships to prove it, to be a
murder committed, instead of a justification set up,
or that ought to be set up.</p>

<p>Now, my Lords, I am ordered by the Commons no
longer to persist in that declaration; and I, who know
nothing in this place, and ought to know nothing in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">{313}</a></span>
this place, but obedience to the Commons, do mean,
when Mr. Hastings makes that objection (if he shall
be advised to make it) against the credit of Rajah
Nundcomar, not thus to support that credit; and
therefore that objection to the credit of the witness
must go unrefuted by me. My Lords, I must admit,
perhaps against my private judgment, (but that
is of no consideration for your Lordships, when opposed
to the judgment of the House of Commons,)
or, at least, not contest, that a first minister of state,
in a great kingdom, who had the benefit of the administration,
and of the entire and absolute command of
a revenue of fifteen hundred thousand pounds a year,
had been guilty of a paltry forgery in Calcutta; that
this man, who had been guilty of this paltry forgery,
had waited for his sentence and his punishment, till a
body of English judges, armed with an English statute,
came to Calcutta; and that this happened at the
very happy nick and moment when he was accusing
Mr. Hastings of the bribery with which we now in
the name of the Commons charge him; that it was
owing to an entirely fortuitous concurrence of circumstances,
in which Mr. Hastings had no share, or that
it was owing to something beyond this, something that
is rather pious than fortuitous, namely, that, as Mr.
Hastings tells you himself, "all persuasions of men
were impressed with a superstitious belief that a fortunate
influence directed all my actions to their destined
ends." I, not being at that time infected with
the superstition, and considering what I thought Mr.
Hastings's guilt to be, and what I must prove it to be
as well as I can, did not believe that Providence did
watch over Mr. Hastings, so as in the nick of time,
like a god in a machine, to come down to save him in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">{314}</a></span>
the moment of his imminent peril and distress: I did
not think so, but I must not say so.</p>

<p>But now, to show that it was not weakly, loosely,
or idly, that I took up this business, or that I anticipated
a defence which it was not probable for Mr.
Hastings to make, (and I wish to speak to your
Lordships in the first instance, but to the Commons
in the next,) I will read part of Mr. Hastings's defence
before the House of Commons: it is in evidence
before your Lordships. He says,&mdash;"My accuser"
(meaning myself, then acting as a private
member of Parliament) "charges me with 'the receipt
of large sums of money, corruptly taken before
the promulgation of the Regulating Act of 1773,
contrary to my covenants with the Company, and
with the receipt of very large sums taken since, in
defiance of that law, and contrary to my declared
sense of its provisions.' And he ushers in this
charge in the following pompous diction: 'That
in March, 1775, the late Rajah Nundcomar, a native
Hindoo of the highest caste in his religion, and of
the highest rank in society, by the offices which he
had held under the country government, did lay
before the Council an account of various sums of
money,' &amp;c. It would naturally strike every person
ignorant of the character of Nundcomar, that an accusation
made by a person of the highest caste in
his religion and of the highest rank by his offices
demanded particular notice, and acquired a considerable
degree of credit, from a prevalent association
of ideas that a nice sense of honor is connected with
an elevated rank of life: but when this honorable
House is informed that my accuser knew (though he
suppressed the facts) that this person, of high rank<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">{315}</a></span>
and high caste, had forfeited every pretension to
honor, veracity, and credit,&mdash;that there are facts
recorded on the very Proceedings which my accuser
partially quotes, proving this man to have been
guilty of a most flagrant forgery of letters from
Munny Begum and the Nabob Yeteram ul Dowlah,
(independent of the forgery for which he suffered
death,) of the most deliberate treachery to the state,
for which he was confined, by the orders of the
Court of Directors, to the limits of the town of
Calcutta, in order to prevent his dangerous intrigues,
and of having violated every principle of
common honesty in private life,&mdash;I say, when this
honorable House is acquainted it is from mutilated
and garbled assertions, founded on the testimony of
such an evidence, without the whole matter being
fairly stated, I do hope and trust it will be sufficient
for them to reject <i>now</i> these vague and unsupported
charges, in like manner as they were <i>before</i> rejected
by the Court of Directors and his Majesty's ministers,
when they were first made by General Clavering,
Colonel Monson, and Mr. Francis.&mdash;I must here
interrupt the course of my defence to explain on
what grounds I employed or had any connection
with a man of so flagitious a character as Nundcomar."</p>

<p>My Lords, I hope this was a good and reasonable
ground for me to anticipate the defence which Mr.
Hastings would make in this House,&mdash;namely, on
the known, recognized, infamous character of Nundcomar,
with regard to certain proceedings there
charged at large, with regard to one forgery for
which he suffered and two other forgeries with
which Mr. Hastings charged him. I, who found that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">{316}</a></span>
the Commons of Great Britain had received that very
identical charge of Nundcomar, and given it to me
in trust to make it good, did naturally, I hope excusably,
(for that is the only ground upon which I
stand,) endeavor to support that credit upon which
the House acted. I hope I did so; and I hope that
the goodness of that intention may excuse me, if I
went a little too far on that occasion. I would have
endeavored to support that credit, which it was
much Mr. Hastings's interest to shake, and which he
had before attempted to shake.</p>

<p>Your Lordships will have the goodness to suppose
me now making my apology, and by no manner of
means intending to persist either in this, or in anything
which the House of Commons shall desire me
not to declare in their name. But the House of
Commons has not denied me the liberty to make
you this just apology: God forbid they should! for
they would be guilty of great injustice, if they did.
The House of Commons, whom I represent, will
likewise excuse me, their representative, whilst I
have been endeavoring to support their characters
in the face of the world, and to make an apology,
and only an humble apology, for my conduct, for
having considered that act in the light that I represented
it,&mdash;and which I did merely from my private
opinion, without any formal instruction from
the House. For there is no doubt that the House is
perfectly right, inasmuch as the House did neither
formally instruct me nor at all forbid my making
use of such an argument; and therefore I have
given your Lordships the reason why it was fit to
make use of such argument,&mdash;if it was right to
make use of it. I am in the memory of your Lord<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">{317}</a></span>ships
that I did conceive it to be relevant, and it
was by the poverty of the language I was led to
express my private feelings under the name of a
<i>murder</i>. For, if the language had furnished me,
under the impression of those feelings, with a word
sufficient to convey the complicated atrocity of that
act, as I felt it in my mind, I would not have made
use of the word <i>murder</i>. It was on account of the
language furnishing me with no other I was obliged
to use that word. Your Lordships do not imagine,
I hope, that I used that word in any other than a
moral and popular sense, or that I used it in the
legal and technical sense of the word <i>murder</i>. Your
Lordships know that I could not bring before this
bar any commoner of Great Britain on a charge for
murder. I am not so ignorant of the laws and
constitution of my country. I expressed an act
which I conceived to be of an atrocious and evil
nature, and partaking of some of the moral evil
consequences of that crime. What led me into that
error? Nine years' meditation upon that subject.</p>

<p>My Lords, the prisoner at the bar in the year 1780
sent a petition to the House of Commons complaining
of that very chief-justice, Sir Elijah Impey. The
House of Commons, who then had some trust in me,
as they have some trust still, did order me, along with
persons more wise and judicious than myself, several
of whom stand near me, to make an inquiry into the
state of the justice of that country. The consequence
of that inquiry was, that we began to conceive a very
bad opinion both of the complainant and defendant in
that business,&mdash;that we found the English justice to
be, as we thought it, and reported it to the House, a
grievance, instead of a redress, to the people of India.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">{318}</a></span>
I could bring before your Lordships, if I did not spare
your patience, whole volumes of reports, whole bodies
of evidence, which, in the progress we have made in
the course of eight or nine years, brought to my mind
such a conviction as will never be torn from my heart
but with my life; and I should have no heart that
was fit to lodge any honest sentiment, if I departed
from my opinion upon that occasion. But when I
declare my own firm opinion upon it,&mdash;when I declare
the reasons that led me to it,&mdash;when I mention
the long meditation that preceded my founding a
judgment upon it, the strict inquiry, the many hours
and days spent in consideration, collation, and comparison,&mdash;I
trust that infirmity which could be actuated
by no malice to one party or the other may
be excused; I trust that I shall meet with this indulgence,
when your Lordships consider, that, as far as
you know me, as far as my public services for many
years account for me, I am a man of a slow, laborious,
inquisitive temper, that I do seldom leave a pursuit
without leaving marks, perhaps of my weakness, but
leaving marks of that labor, and that, in consequence
of that labor, I made that affirmation, and thought the
nature of the cause obliged me to support and substantiate
it. It is true that those who sent me here
have sagacity to decide upon the subject in a week;
they can in one week discover the errors of my labors
for nine years.</p>

<p>Now that I have made this apology to you, I assure
you, you shall never hear me, either in my own name
here, much less in the name of the Commons, urge
one thing to you in support of the credit of Nundcomar
grounded upon that judgment, until the House
shall instruct and order me otherwise; because I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">{319}</a></span>
know, that, when I can discover their sentiments, I
ought to know nothing here but what is in strict and
literal obedience to them.</p>

<p>My Lords, another thing might make me, perhaps,
a little willing to be admitted to the proof of what I
advanced, and that is, the very answer of Mr. Hastings
to this charge, which the House of Commons, however,
have adopted, and therefore in some degree purified.
"To the malicious part of this charge, which
is the condemnation of Nundcomar for a forgery, I do
declare, in the most solemn and unreserved manner,
that I had no concern, either directly or indirectly, in
the apprehending, prosecuting, or executing of Nundcomar.
He suffered for a crime of forgery which he
had committed in a private trust that was delegated
to him, and for which he had been prosecuted in the
dewanny courts of the country before the institution
of the Supreme Court of Judicature. To adduce this
circumstance, therefore, as a confirmation of what was
before suspicious from his general depravity of character,
is just as reasonable as to assert that the accusations
of Empson and Dudley were confirmed because
they suffered death for their atrocious acts."</p>

<p>My Lords, this was Mr. Hastings's defence before
the House of Commons, and it is now in evidence
before your Lordships. In this defence, he supposes
the charge which was made originally before the Commons,
and which the Commons voted, (though afterwards,
for the convenience of shortening it, the affair
was brought before your Lordships in the way in which
it is,)&mdash;he supposes, I say, the whole to proceed from
a malicious intention; and I hope your Lordships will
not think, and I hope the Commons, reconsidering this
matter, will not think, that, when such an imputation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">{320}</a></span>
of malice was made for the purpose of repelling this
corroborating argument which was used in the House
of Commons to prove his guilt, I was wrong in attempting
to support the House of Commons against his imputation
of malice.</p>

<p>I must observe where I am limited and where I am
not. I am limited, strictly, fully, (and your Lordships
and my country, who hear me, will judge how faithfully
I shall adhere to that limitation,) not to support
the credit of Nundcomar by any allegation against
Mr. Hastings respecting his condemnation or execution;
but I am not at all limited from endeavoring to
support his credit against Mr. Hastings's charges of
other forgeries, and from showing you, what I hope
to show you clearly in a few words, that Nundcomar
cannot be presumed guilty of forgery with more probability
than Mr. Hastings is guilty of bringing forward
a light and dangerous (for I use no other words than
a light and dangerous) charge of forgery, when it
serves his purpose. Mr. Hastings charges Nundcomar
with two other forgeries. "These two forgeries,"
he says, "are facts recorded in the very Proceedings
which my accuser partially quotes, proving this man
to have been guilty of a most flagrant forgery of a
letter from Munny Begum, and of a letter from the
Nabob Yeteram ul Dowlah"; and therefore he infers
malice in those who impute anything improper to
him, knowing that the proof stood so. Here he asserts
that there are records before the House of Commons,
and on the Company's Proceedings and Consultations,
proving Nundcomar to have been guilty of these two
forgeries. Turn over the next page of his printed
defence, and you find a very extraordinary thing.
You would have imagined that this forgery of a letter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">{321}</a></span>
from Munny Begum, which, he says, is recognized
and proved on the Journals, was a forgery charged by
Munny Begum herself, or by somebody on her part,
or some person concerned in this business. There is
no other charge of it whatever, but the charge of
Warren Hastings himself. He wants you to discredit
a man for forgery upon no evidence under heaven but
that of his own, who thinks proper, without any sort
of authority, without any sort of reference, without
any sort of collateral evidence, to charge a man with
that very direct forgery. "You are," he says, "well
informed of the reasons which first induced me to give
any share of my confidence to Nundcomar, with whose
character I was acquainted by an experience of many
years. The means which he himself took to acquire
it were peculiar to himself. He sent a messenger to
me at Madras, on the first news of my appointment
to this Presidency, with pretended letters from Munny
Begum and the Nabob Yeteram ul Dowlah, the brother
of the Nabob Jaffier Ali Kh&acirc;n, filled with bitter
invectives against Mahomed Reza Kh&acirc;n, and of as
warm recommendations, as I recollect, of Nundcomar.
I have been since informed by the Begum that the
letter which bore her seal was a complete forgery,
and that she was totally unacquainted with the use
which had been made of her name till I informed her
of it. Juggut Chund, Nundcomar's son-in-law, was
sent to her expressly to entreat her not to divulge it.
Mr. Middleton, whom she consulted on the occasion,
can attest the truth of this story."</p>

<p>Mr. Middleton is dead, my Lords. This is not the
Mr. Middleton whom your Lordships have heard and
know well in this House, but a brother of that Mr.
Middleton, who is since dead. Your Lordships find,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">{322}</a></span>
when we refer to the records of the Company for the
proof of this forgery, that there is no other than the
unsupported assertion of Mr. Hastings himself that
he was guilty of it. Now that was bad enough; but
then hear the rest. Mr. Hastings has charged this
unhappy man, whom we must not defend, with another
forgery; he has charged him with a forgery of
a letter from Yeteram ul Dowlah to Mr. Hastings.
Now you would imagine that he would have given
his own authority at least for that assertion, which he
says was proved. He goes on and says, "I have not
yet had the curiosity to inquire of the Nabob Yeteram
ul Dowlah whether his letter was of the same stamp;
but I cannot doubt it."</p>

<p>Now here he begins, in this very defence which is
before your Lordships, to charge a forgery upon the
credit of Munny Begum, without supporting it even
by his own testimony,&mdash;and another forgery in the
name of Yeteram ul Dowlah, which he said he had
not even the curiosity to inquire into, and yet desires
you, at the same time, to believe it to be proved.
Good God! in what condition do men of the first
character and situation in that country stand, when
we have here delivered to us, as a record of the Company,
Mr. Hastings's own assertions, saying that these
forgeries were proved, though you have for the first
nothing but his own unsupported assertion, and for
the second his declaration only that he had not the
curiosity to inquire into it! I am not forbidden by
the Commons to state how and on what slight grounds
Warren Hastings charges the natives of the country
with forgery; neither am I forbidden to bring forward
the accusation which Mr. Hastings made against
Nundcomar for a conspiracy, nor the event of it, nor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">{323}</a></span>
any circumstance relative to it. I shall therefore proceed
in the best manner I can. There was a period,
among the revolutions of philosophy, when there
was an opinion, that, if a man lost one limb or organ,
the strength of that which was lost retired into
what was left. My Lords, if we are straitened in
this, then our vigor will be redoubled in the rest,
and we shall use it with double force. If the top and
point of the sword is broken off, we shall take the
hilt in our hand, and fight with whatever remains
of the weapon against bribery, corruption, and peculation;
and we shall use double diligence under any
restraint which the wisdom of the Commons may lay
upon us, or your Lordships' wisdom may oblige us to
submit to.</p>

<p>Having gone through this business, and shown in
what manner I am restrained, where I am not to repel
Mr. Hastings's defence, and where I am left at
large to do it, I shall submit to the strict injunction
with the utmost possible humility, and enjoy the liberty
which is left to me with vigor, with propriety, and
with discretion, I trust.</p>

<hr style="width: 45%;" />

<p>My Lords, when the circumstance happened which
has given occasion to the long parenthesis by which
my discourse has been interrupted, I remember I was
beginning to open to your Lordships the second period
of Mr. Hastings's scheme and system of bribery.
My Lords, his bribery is so extensive, and has had
such a variety in it, that it must be distinguished not
only with regard to its kind, but must be likewise distinguished
according to the periods of bribery and the
epochas of peculation committed by him. In the first
of those periods we shall prove to your Lordships, I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">{324}</a></span>
believe, without the aids that we hoped for, (your Lordships
allowing, as I trust you will do, a good deal for
our situation,)&mdash;we shall be able, I say, to prove that
Mr. Hastings took, as a bribe for appointing Munny
Begum, three lac and an half of rupees; we shall prove
the taking at the same time the Rajeshaye bribes.
Mr. Hastings at that time followed bribery in a natural
manner: he took a bribe; he took it as large as he
could; he concealed it as well as he could; and he got
out of it by artifice or boldness, by use of trick or use
of power, just as he was enabled: he acted like a wild,
natural man, void of instruction, discipline, and art.</p>

<p>The second period opened another system of bribery.
About this time he began to think (from what communication
your Lordships may guess) of other means
by which, when he could no longer conceal any bribe
that he had received, he not only might exempt himself
from the charge and the punishment of guilt, but
might convert it into a kind of merit, and, instead of
a breaker of laws, a violator of his trust, a receiver of
scandalous bribes, a peculator of the first magnitude,
might make himself to be considered as a great, distinguishing,
eminent financier, a collector of revenue
in new and extraordinary ways, and that we should
thus at once praise his diligence, industry, and ingenuity.
The scheme he set on foot was this: he pretended
that the Company could not exist upon principles
of strict justice, (for so he expresses it,) and
that their affairs, in many cases, could not be so well
accommodated by a regular revenue as by privately
taking money, which was to be applied to their service
by the person who took it, at his discretion. This
was the principle he laid down. It would hardly be
believed, I imagine, unless strong proof appeared, that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">{325}</a></span>
any man could be so daring as to hold up such a resource
to a regular government, which had three million
of known, avowed, a great part of it territorial,
revenue. But it is necessary, it seems, to piece out
the lion's skin with a fox's tail,&mdash;to tack on a little
piece of bribery and a little piece of peculation, in
order to help out the resources of a great and flourishing
state; that they should have in the knavery of
their servants, in the breach of their laws, and in the
entire defiance of their covenants, a real resource applicable
to their necessities, of which they were not
to judge, but the persons who were to take the bribes;
and that the bribes thus taken were, by a mental
reservation, a private intention in the mind of the
taker, unknown to the giver, to be some time or other,
in some way or other, applied to the public service.
The taking such bribes was to become a justifiable
act, in consequence of that reservation in the mind
of the person who took them; and he was not to be
called to account for them in any other way than as
he thought fit.</p>

<p>My Lords, an act of Parliament passed in the year
1773, the whole drift of which, I may say, was to prevent
bribery, peculation, and extortion in the Company's
servants; and the act was penned, I think, with
as much strictness and rigor as ever act was penned.
The 24th clause of Chap. 63, 13 Geo. III., has the
following enactment: "And be it further enacted
by the authority aforesaid, that, from and after the
first day of August, 1774, no person holding or exercising
any civil or military office under the crown, or
the said United Company, in the East Indies, shall accept,
receive, or take, directly or indirectly, by himself,
or any other person or persons on his behalf, or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">{326}</a></span>
for his use or benefit, of and from any of the Indian
princes or powers, or their ministers or agents, or
any of the natives of Asia, any present, gift, donation,
gratuity, or reward, pecuniary or otherwise, upon any
account, or on any pretence whatsoever, or any promise
or engagement for any present, gift, donation, gratuity,
or reward: and if any person, holding or exercising
any such civil or military office, shall be guilty
of any such offence, and shall be thereof legally convicted,"
&amp;c., &amp;c. It then imposes the penalties: and
your Lordships see that human wisdom cannot pen
an act more strongly directed against taking bribes
upon any pretence whatever.</p>

<p>This act of Parliament was in affirmance of the covenant
entered into by the servants of the Company,
and of the explicit orders of the Company, which forbid
any person whatever in trust, "directly or indirectly,
to accept, take, or receive, or agree to accept, take,
or receive, any gift, reward, gratuity, allowance, donation,
or compensation, in money, effects, jewels, <i>or
otherwise howsoever</i>, from any of the Indian princes,
sovereigns, subahs, or nabobs, or any of their ministers,
servants, or agents, exceeding the value of four thousand
rupees, &amp;c., &amp;c. And that he, the said Warren
Hastings, shall and will convey, assign, and make over
to the said United Company, for their sole and proper
use and benefit, all and every such gifts, rewards, gratuities,
allowances, donations, or compensations whatsoever,
which, contrary to the true intent and meaning
of these presents, shall come into the hands, possession,
or power of the said Warren Hastings, or any other
person or persons in trust for him or for his use."</p>

<p>The nature of the covenant, the act of Parliament,
and the Company's orders are clear. First,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">{327}</a></span>
they have not forbidden their Governor-General, nor
any of their Governors, to take and accept from the
princes of the country, openly and publicly, for their
use, any territories, lands, sums of money, or other
donations, which may be offered in consequence of
treaty or otherwise. It was necessary to distinguish
this from every other species of acceptance, because
many occasions occurred in which fines were paid
to the Company in consequence of treaties; and it
was necessary to authorize the receipt of the same
in the Company's treasury, as an open and known
proceeding. It was never dreamed that this should
justify the taking of bribes, privately and clandestinely,
by the Governor, or any other servant of the
Company, for the purpose of its future application
to the Company's use. It is declared that all such
bribes and money received should be the property of
the Company. And why? As a means of recovering
them out of the corrupt hands that had taken
them. And therefore this was not a license for
bribery, but a prohibitory and penal clause, providing
the means of coercion, and making the prohibition
stronger. Now Mr. Hastings has found out that this
very coercive clause, which was made in order to enable
his superiors to get at him and punish him for
bribery, is a license for him to receive bribes. He
is not only a practitioner of bribery, but a professor,
a doctor upon the subject. His opinion is, that he
might take presents or bribes to himself; he considers
the penal clause which the Company attached to
their prohibition, and by which all such bribes are
constructively declared to be theirs, in order to recover
them out of his hands, as a license to receive
bribes, to extort money; and he goes with the very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">{328}</a></span>
prohibition in his hand, the very means by which he
was to be restrained, to exercise an unlimited bribery,
peculation, and extortion over the unhappy natives
of the country.</p>

<p>The moment he finds that the Company has got a
scent of any one of his bribes, he comes forward and
says, "To be sure, I took it as a bribe; I admit the
party gave me it as a bribe: I concealed it for a time,
because I thought it was for the interest of the
Company to conceal it; but I had a secret intention,
in my own mind, of applying it to their service: you
shall have it; but you shall have it as I please, and
when I please; and this bribe becomes sanctified the
moment I think fit to apply it to your service." Now
can it be supposed that the India Company, or that
the act of Parliament, meant, by declaring that the
property taken by a corrupt servant, contrary to the
true intent of his covenant, was theirs, to give a license
to take such property,&mdash;and that one mode
of obtaining a revenue was by the breach of the very
covenants which were meant to prevent extortion,
peculation, and corruption? What sort of body is
the India Company, which, coming to the verge of
bankruptcy by the robbery of half the world, is afterwards
to subsist upon the alms of peculation and bribery,
to have its strength recruited by the violation
of the covenants imposed upon its own servants? It
is an odd sort of body to be so fed and so supported.
This new constitution of revenue that he has made is
indeed a very singular contrivance. It is a revenue
to be collected by any officer of the Company, (for
they are all alike forbidden, and all alike permitted,)&mdash;to
be collected by any person, from any person, at
any time, in any proportion, by any means, and in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">{329}</a></span>
any way he pleases; and to be accounted for, or not
to be accounted for, at the pleasure of the collector,
and, if applied to their use, to be applied at his discretion,
and not at the discretion of his employers.
I will venture to say that such a system of revenue
never was before thought of. The next part is an
exchequer, which he has formed, corresponding with
it. You will find the board of exchequer made up
of officers ostensibly in the Company's service, of
their public accountant and public treasurer, whom
Mr. Hastings uses as an accountant and treasurer of
bribes, accountable, not to the Company, but to himself,
acting in no public manner, and never acting
but upon his requisition, concealing all his frauds
and artifices to prevent detection and discovery. In
short, it is an exchequer in which, if I may be permitted
to repeat the words I made use of on a
former occasion, extortion is the assessor, in which
fraud is the treasurer, confusion the accountant, oblivion
the remembrancer. That these are not mere
words, I will exemplify as I go through the detail: I
will show you that every one of the things I have
stated are truths, in fact, and that these men are
bound by the condition of their recognized fidelity to
Mr. Hastings to keep back his secrets, to change the
accounts, to alter the items, to make him debtor or
creditor at pleasure, and by that means to throw the
whole system of the Company's accounts into confusion.</p>

<p>I have shown the impossibility of the Company's
having intended to authorize such a revenue, much
less such a constitution of it as Mr. Hastings has
drawn from the very prohibitions of bribery, and such
an exchequer as he has formed upon the principles I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">{330}</a></span>
have stated. You will not dishonor the legislature
or the Company, be it what it may, by thinking that
either of them could give any sanction to it. Indeed,
you will not think that such a device could ever enter
into the head of any rational man. You are, then,
to judge whether it is not a device to cover guilt, to
prevent detection by destroying the means of it; and
at the same time your Lordships will judge whether
the evidence we bring you to prove that revenue is a
mere pretext be not stronger than the strange, absurd
reasons which he has produced for forming this new
plan of an exchequer of bribery.</p>

<p>My Lords, I am now going to read to you a letter
in which Mr. Hastings declares his opinion upon the
operation of the act, which he now has found the
means, as he thinks, of evading. My Lords, I will
tell you, to save you a good deal of reading, that
there was certain prize-money given by Sujah ul
Dowlah to a body of the Company's troops serving in
the field,&mdash;that this prize-money was to be distributed
among them; but upon application being made
to Mr. Hastings for his opinion and sanction in the
distribution, Mr. Hastings at first seemed inclined to
give way to it, but afterwards, upon reading and considering
the act of Parliament, before he allowed the
soldiery to receive this public donation, he thus describes
his opinion of the operation of the act.</p>


<h3><i>Extract of a Letter from Mr. Hastings to Colonel
Champion, 31 August, 1774.</i></h3>

<p>"Upon a reference to the new act of Parliament,
I was much disappointed and sorry to find that our
intentions were entirely defeated by a clause in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">{331}</a></span>
act, (to be in force after the 1st of August, 1774,)
which divests us of the power to grant, and expressly
prohibits the army to receive, the Nabob's intended
donation. Agreeable to the positive sense of this
clause, notwithstanding it is expressed individually,
there is not a doubt but the army is included with all
other persons in the prohibition from receiving presents
or donations; a confirmation of which is, that in
the clause of exceptions, wherein 'counsellors-at-law,
physicians, surgeons, and chaplains are permitted to
receive the fees annexed to their profession,' no mention
whatever is made of any latitude given to the
army, or any circumstances wherein it would be allowable
for them to receive presents.... This
unlucky discovery of an exclusion by act of Parliament,
which admits of no abatement or evasion wherever
its authority extends, renders a revisal of our
proceedings necessary, and leaves no option to our
decision. It is not like the ordinances of the Court
of Directors, where a favorable construction may be
put, and some room is left for the interposition of the
authority vested in ourselves,&mdash;but positive and decisive,
admitting neither of refinement nor misconstruction.
I should be happy, if in this instance a
method could be devised of setting the act aside,
which I should most willingly embrace; but, in my
opinion, an opposition would be to incur the penalty."</p>

<hr style="width: 45%;" />

<p>Your Lordships see, Mr. Hastings considered this
act to be a most unlucky discovery: indeed, as long
as it remained in force, it would have been unlucky
for him, because it would have destroyed one of the
principal sources of his illegal profits. Why does he
consider it unlucky? Because it admits of no reser<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">{332}</a></span>vation,
no exception, no refinement whatever, but is
clear, positive, decisive. Now in what case was it
that Mr. Hastings made this determination? In the
case of a donation publicly offered to an army serving
in the field by a prince then independent of the Company.
If ever there was a circumstance in which
any refinement, any favorable construction of the act
could be used, it was in favor of a body of men serving
in the field, fighting for their country, spilling
their blood for it, suffering all the inconveniences of
that climate. It was undoubtedly voluntarily offered
to them by the party, in the height of victory, and
enriched by the plunder of whole provinces. I believe
your Lordships will agree with me, that, if any
relaxation, any evasion, of an act of Parliament
could be allowed, if the intention of the legislature
could for a moment be trifled with, or supposed for
a moment doubtful, it was in this instance; and yet,
upon the rigor of the act, Mr. Hastings refuses that
army the price of their blood, money won solely almost
by their arms for a prince who had acquired
millions by their bravery, fidelity, and sufferings.
This was the case in which Mr. Hastings refused a
public donation to the army; and from that day to
this they have never received it.</p>

<p>If the receipt of this public donation could be thus
forbidden, whence has Mr. Hastings since learned
that he may privately take money, and take it not
only from princes, and persons in power, and abounding
in wealth, but, as we shall prove, from persons
in a comparative degree of penury and distress? that
he could take it from persons in office and trust,
whose power gave them the means of ruining the
people for the purpose of enabling themselves to pay<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">{333}</a></span>
it? Consider in what a situation the Company must
be, if the Governor-General can form such a secret
exchequer of direct bribes, given <i>eo nomine</i> as bribes,
and accepted as such, by the parties concerned in the
transaction, to be discovered only by himself, and
with only the inward reservation that I have spoken
of.</p>

<p>In the first place, if Mr. Hastings should die without
having made a discovery of all his bribes, or
if any other servant of the Company should imitate
his example without his heroic good intentions in
doing such villanous acts, how is the Company to recover
the bribe-money? The receivers need not divulge
it till they think fit; and the moment an informer
comes, that informer is ruined. He comes,
for instance, to the Governor-General and Council,
and charges, say, not Mr. Hastings, but the head of
the Board of Revenue, with receiving a bribe. "Receive
a bribe? So I did; but it was with an intention
of applying it to the Company's service. There
I nick the informer: I am beforehand with him: the
bribe is sanctified by my inward jesuitical intention.
I will make a merit of it with the Company. I have
received 40,000<i>l.</i> as a bribe; there it is for you: I
am acquitted; I am a meritorious servant: let the
informer go and seek his remedy as he can." Now,
if an informer is once instructed that a person who
receives bribes can turn them into merit, and take
away his action from him, do you think that you
ever will or can discover any one bribe? But what
is still worse, by this method disclose but one bribe,
and you secure all the rest that you possibly can receive
upon any occasion. For instance, strong report
prevails that a bribe of 40,000<i>l.</i> has been given,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">{334}</a></span>
and the receiver expects that information will be laid
against him. He acknowledges that he has received
a bribe of 40,000<i>l.</i>, but says that it was for the service
of the Company, and that it is carried to their
account. And thus, by stating that he has taken
some money which he has accounted for, but concealing
from whom that money came, which is exactly
Mr. Hastings's case, if at last an information should
be laid before the Company of a specific bribe having
been received of 40,000<i>l.</i>, it is said by the receiver,
"Lord! this is the 40,000<i>l.</i> I told you of: it is
broken into fragments, paid by instalments; and you
have taken it and put it into your own coffers."</p>

<p>Again, suppose him to take it through the hand
of an agent, such as Gunga Govind Sing, and that
this agent, who, as we have lately discovered, out of
a bribe of 40,000<i>l.</i>, which Mr. Hastings was to have
received, kept back half of it, falls into their debt
like him: I desire to know what the Company can
do in such a case. Gunga Govind Sing has entered
into no covenants with the Company. There is no
trace of his having this money, except what Mr.
Hastings chooses to tell. If he is called upon to
refund it to the Company, he may say he never received
it, that he was never ordered to extort this
money from the people; or if he was under any
covenant not to take money, he may set up this defence:
"I am forbidden to receive money; and I
will not make a declaration which will subject me
to penalties": or he may say in India, before the
Supreme Court, "I have paid the bribe all to Mr.
Hastings"; and then there must be a bill and suit
there, a bill and suit here, and by that means, having
one party on one side the water and the other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">{335}</a></span>
party on the other, the Company may never come
to a discovery of it. And that in fact this is the
way in which one of his great bribe-agents has acted
I shall prove to your Lordships by evidence.</p>

<p>Mr. Hastings had squeezed out of a miserable
country a bribe of 40,000<i>l.</i>, of which he was enabled
to bring to the account of the Company only 20,000<i>l.</i>,
and of which we should not even have known the
existence, if the inquiries pursued with great diligence
by the House of Commons had not extorted
the discovery: and even now that we know the fact,
we can never get at the money; the Company can
never receive it; and before the House had squeezed
out of him that some such money had been received,
he never once told the Court of Directors that his
black bribe-agent, whom he recommended to their
service, had cheated both them and him of 20,000<i>l.</i>
out of the fund of the bribe-revenue. If it be asked,
Where is the record of this? Record there is none.
In what office is it entered? It is entered in no
office; it is mentioned as privately received for the
Company's benefit: and you shall now further see
what a charming office of receipt and account this
new exchequer of Mr. Hastings's is.</p>

<p>For there is another and a more serious circumstance
attending this business. Every one knows,
that, by the law of this, and, I believe, of every country,
any money which is taken illegally from any
person, as every bribe or sum of money extorted
or paid without consideration is, belongs to the person
who paid it, and he may bring his action for it,
and recover it. Then see how the Company stands.
The Company receives a bribe of 40,000<i>l.</i> by Mr.
Hastings; it is carried to its account; it turns brib<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">{336}</a></span>ery
into a revenue; it sanctifies it. In the mean
time, the man from whom this money is illegally
taken sues Mr. Hastings. Must not he recover of
Mr. Hastings? Then, if so, must not Mr. Hastings
recover it again from the Company? The Company
undoubtedly is answerable for it. And here is a
revenue which every man who has paid it may drag
out of the treasury again. Mr. Hastings's donations
of his bribes to the treasury are liable to be torn
from it at pleasure by every man who gives the
money. First it may be torn from him who receives
it; and then he may recover it from the treasury, to
which he has given it.</p>

<p>But admitting that the taking of bribes can be
sanctified by their becoming the property of the
Company, it may still be asked, For what end and
purpose has the Company covenanted with Mr. Hastings
that money taken extorsively shall belong to
the Company? Is it that satisfaction and reparation
may be awarded against the said Warren Hastings
to the said Company for their own benefit? No:
it is for the benefit of the injured persons; and it
is to be carried to the Company's account, "but in
trust, nevertheless, and to the intent that the said
Company may and do render and pay over the moneys
received or recovered by them to the parties
injured or defrauded, which the said Company accordingly
hereby agree and covenant to do." Now
here is a revenue to be received by Mr. Hastings for
the Company's use, applied at his discretion to that
use, and which the Company has previously covenanted
to restore to the persons that are injured
and damaged. This is a revenue which is to be torn
away by the action of any person,&mdash;a revenue which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">{337}</a></span>
they must return back to the person complaining,
as they in justice ought to do: for no nation ever
avowed making a revenue out of bribery and peculation.
They are, then, to restore it back again.
But how can they restore it? Mr. Hastings has
applied it: he has given it in presents to princes,&mdash;laid
it out in budgeros,&mdash;in pen, ink, and wax,&mdash;in
salaries to secretaries: he has laid it out just in
any way he pleased: and the India Company, who
have covenanted to restore all this money to the persons
from whom it came, are deprived of all means of
performing so just a duty. Therefore I dismiss the
idea that any man so acting could have had a good
intention in his mind: the supposition is too weak,
senseless, and absurd. It was only in a desperate
cause that he made a desperate attempt: for we shall
prove that he never made a disclosure without thinking
that a discovery had been previously made or
was likely to be made, together with an exposure
of all the circumstances of his wicked and abominable
concealment.</p>

<p>You will see the history of this new scheme of
bribery, by which Mr. Hastings contrived by avowing
some bribes to cover others, attempted to outface
his delinquency, and, if possible, to reconcile a weak
breach of the laws with a sort of spirited observance
of them, and to become infamous for the good of his
country.</p>

<p>The first appearance of this practice of bribery
was in a letter of the 29th of November, 1780. The
cause which led to the discovery was a dispute between
him and Mr. Francis at the board, in consequence
of a very handsome offer made by Mr. Hastings
to the board relative to a measure proposed by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">{338}</a></span>
him, to which he found one objection to be the money
that it would cost. He made the most generous and
handsome offer, as it stands upon record, that perhaps
any man ever made,&mdash;namely, that he would defray
the expense out of his own private cash, and that he
had deposited with the treasurer two lac of rupees.
This was in June, 1780, and Mr. Francis soon after
returned to Europe. I need not inform your Lordships,
that Mr. Hastings had before this time been
charged with bribery and peculation by General Clavering,
Colonel Monson, and Mr. Francis. He suspected
that Mr. Francis, then going to Europe, would
confirm this charge by the suspicious nature and circumstances
of this generous offer; and this suspicion
was increased by the connection which he supposed,
and which we can prove he thought, Mr. Francis had
with Cheyt Sing. Apprehending, therefore, that he
might discover and bring the bribe to light some way
or other, he resolved to anticipate any such discovery
by declaring, upon the 29th of November, that this
money was not his own. I will mention to your Lordships
hereafter the circumstances of this money. He
says, "My present reason for adverting to my conduct,"
(that is, his offer of two lac of rupees out of
his own private cash for the Company's service, upon
the 26th of June, 1780,) "on the occasion I have mentioned,
is to obviate the false conclusions or purposed
misrepresentations which may be made of it, either as
an artifice of ostentation or as the effect of corrupt
influence, by assuring you that the money, by whatever
means it came into your possession, was not my
own,&mdash;that I had myself no right to it, nor would
or could have received it, but for the occasion, which
prompted me to avail myself of the accidental means<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">{339}</a></span>
which were at that instant afforded me of accepting
and converting it to the property and use of the Company:
and with this brief apology I shall dismiss the
subject."</p>

<p>My Lords, you see what an account Mr. Hastings
has given of some obscure transaction by which he
contradicts the record. For, on the 26th of June, he
generously, nobly, full of enthusiasm for their service,
offers to the Company money of his own. On the
29th of November he tells the Court of Directors that
the money he offered on the former day was not his
own,&mdash;that his assertion was totally false,&mdash;that the
money was not his,&mdash;that he had no right to receive
it,&mdash;and that he would not have received it, but for
the occasion, which prompted him to avail himself of
the accidental means which at that instant offered.</p>

<p>Such is the account sent by their Governor in India,
acting as an accountant, to the Company,&mdash;a
company with whom everything is matter of account.
He tells them, indeed, that the sum he had offered
was not his own,&mdash;that he had no right to it,&mdash;and
that he would not have taken it, if he had not been
greatly tempted by the occasion; but he never tells
them by what means he came at it, the person from
whom he received it, the occasion upon which he
received it, (whether justifiable or not,) or any one
circumstance under heaven relative to it. This is
a very extraordinary account to give to the public of
a sum which we find to be somewhere above twenty
thousand pounds, taken by Mr. Hastings in some way
or other. He set the Company blindly groping in
the dark by the very pretended light, the ignis-fatuus,
which he held out to them: for at that time all was
in the dark, and in a cloud: and this is what Mr.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">{340}</a></span>
Hastings calls <i>information</i> communicated to the Company
on the subject of these bribes.</p>

<p>You have heard of obscurity illustrated by a further
obscurity,&mdash;<i>obscurum per obscurius</i>. He continues
to tell them,&mdash;"Something of affinity to this
anecdote may appear in the first aspect of another
transaction, which I shall proceed to relate, and of
which it is more immediately my duty to inform
you." He then tells them that he had contrived to
give a sum of money to the Rajah of Berar, and the
account he gives of that proceeding is this. "We
had neither money to spare, nor, in the apparent state
of that government in its relation to ours, would it
have been either prudent or consistent with our public
credit to have afforded it. It was, nevertheless,
my decided opinion that some aid should be given,
not less as a necessary relief than as an indication of
confidence, and a return for the many instances of
substantial kindness which we had within the course
of the two last years experienced from the government
of Berar. I had an assurance that such a proposal
would receive the acquiescence of the board;
but I knew that it would not pass without opposition,
and it would have become public, which might have
defeated its purpose. Convinced of the necessity of
the expedient, and assured of the sincerity of the government
of Berar, from evidences of stronger proof to
me than I could make them appear to the other members
of the board, I resolved to adopt it and take the
entire responsibility of it upon myself. In this mode
a less considerable sum would suffice. I accordingly
caused three lac of rupees to be delivered to the
minister of the Rajah of Berar resident in Calcutta.
He has transmitted it to Cuttack. Two thirds of this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">{341}</a></span>
sum I have raised by my own credit, and shall charge
it in my official accounts; the other third I have
supplied from the cash in my hands belonging to the
Honorable Company."</p>

<p>Your Lordships see in this business another mode
which he has of accounting with the Company, and
informing them of his bribe. He begins his account
of this transaction by saying that it has something of
affinity to the last anecdote,&mdash;meaning the account
of the first bribe. An anecdote is made a head of
an account; and this, I believe, is what none of your
Lordships ever have heard of before,&mdash;and I believe
it is yet to be learned in this commercial nation, a nation
of accurate commercial account. The account
he gives of the first is an anecdote; and what is his
account of the second? A relation of an anecdote:
not a near relation, but something of affinity,&mdash;a remote
relation, cousin three or four times removed, of
the half-blood, or something of that kind, to this anecdote:
and he never tells them any circumstance of
it whatever of any kind, but that it has some affinity
to the former anecdote. But, my Lords, the thing
which comes to some degree of clearness is this, that
he did give money to the Rajah of Berar. And your
Lordships will be so good as to advert carefully to the
proportions in which he gave it. He did give him
two lac of rupees of money raised by his own credit,
his own money; and the third he advanced out of
the Company's money in his hands. He might have
taken the Company's money undoubtedly, fairly,
openly, and held it in his hands, for a hundred purposes;
and therefore he does not tell them that even
that third was money he had obtained by bribery and
corruption. No: he says it is money of the Com<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">{342}</a></span>pany's,
which he had in his hand. So that you must
get through a long train of construction before you
ascertain that this sum was what it turns out to be,
a bribe, which he retained for the Company. Your
Lordships will please to observe, as I proceed, the nature
of this pretended generosity in Mr. Hastings.
He is always generous in the same way. As he offered
the whole of his first bribe as his own money,
and afterward acknowledged that no part of it was
his own, so he is now generous again in this latter
transaction,&mdash;in which, however, he shows that he is
neither generous nor just. He took the first money
without right, and he did not apply it to the very
service for which it was pretended to be taken. He
then tells you of another anecdote, which, he says,
has an affinity to that anecdote, and here he is generous
again. In the first he appears to be generous
and just, because he appears to give his own money,
which he had a right to dispose of; then he tells you
he is neither generous nor just, for he had taken money
he had no right to, and did not apply it to the service
for which he pretended to have received it. And
now he is generous again, because he gives two lac
of his own money,&mdash;and just, because he gives one
lac which belonged to the Company; but there is not
an idea suggested from whom he took it.</p>

<p>But to proceed, my Lords. In this letter he tells
you he had given two thirds his own money and one
third the Company's money. So it stood upon the
29th of November, 1780. On the 5th of January following
we see the business take a totally different
turn; and then Mr. Hastings calls for three Company's
bonds, upon two different securities, antedated
to the 1st and 2d of October, for the three lac, which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">{343}</a></span>
he before told them was two thirds his own money
and one third the Company's. He now declares the
whole of it to be his own, and he thus applies by letter
to the board, of which he himself was a majority.</p>

<div class="blockquot"><p>"Honorable Sir and Sirs,&mdash;Having had occasion to
disburse the sum of three lacs of sicca rupees on account
of secret services, which having been advanced
from my own private cash, I request that the same
may be repaid to me in the following manner.</p>

<p>"A bond to be granted me upon the terms of the
second loan, bearing date from 1st October, for one
lac of sicca rupees.</p>

<p>"A bond to be granted me upon the terms of the
first loan, bearing date from 1st October, for one lac
of sicca rupees."</p>

<p>"A bond to be granted me upon the terms of the
first loan, bearing date from the 2d October, for one
lac of sicca rupees."</p></div>

<p>Here are two accounts, one of which must be directly
and flatly false: for he could not have given
two thirds his own, and have supplied the other third
from money of the Company's, and at the same time
have advanced the whole as his own. He here goes
the full length of the fraud: he declares that it is all
his own,&mdash;so much his own that he does not trust
the Company with it, and actually takes their bonds
as a security for it, bearing an interest to be paid to
him when he thinks proper.</p>

<p>Thus it remained from the 5th of January, 1781,
till 16th December, 1782, when this business takes
another turn, and in a letter of his to the Company
these bonds become all their own. All the money ad<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">{344}</a></span>vanced
is now, all of it, the Company's money. First
he says two thirds were his own; next, that the whole
is his own; and the third account is, that the whole
is the Company's, and he will account to them for it.</p>

<p>Now he has accompanied this account with another
very curious one. For when you come to look into
the particulars of it, you will find there are three
bonds declared to be the Company's bonds, and which
refer to the former transactions, namely, the money
for which he had taken the bonds; but when you
come to look at the numbers of them, you will find
that one of the three bonds which he had taken as
his own disappears, and another bond, of another date,
and for a much larger sum, is substituted in its place,
of which he had never mentioned anything whatever.
So that, taking his first account, that two thirds is his
own money, then that it is all his own, in the third
that it is all the Company's money, by a fourth account,
given in a paper describing the three bonds,
you will find that there is one lac which he does not
account for, but substitutes in its place a bond before
taken as his own. He sinks and suppresses one bond,
he gives two bonds to the Company, and to supply
the want of the third, which he suppresses, he brings
forward a bond for another sum, of another date,
which he had never mentioned before. Here, then,
you have four different accounts: if any one of them
is true, every one of the other three is totally false.
Such a system of cogging, such a system of fraud, such
a system of prevarication, such a system of falsehood,
never was, I believe, before exhibited in the world.</p>

<p>In the first place, why did he take bonds at all from
the Company for the money that was their own? I
must be cautious how I charge a legal crime. I will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">{345}</a></span>
not charge it to be forgery, to take a bond from the
Company for money which was their own. He was
employed to make out bonds for the Company, to
raise money on their credit. He pretends he lent
them a sum of money, which was not his to lend:
but he gives their own money to them as his own,
and takes a security for it. I will not say that it is
a forgery, but I am sure it is an offence as grievous,
because it is as much a cheat as a forgery, with this
addition to it, that the person so cheating is in a
trust; he violates that trust, and in so doing he defrauds
and falsifies the whole system of the Company's
accounts.</p>

<p>I have only to show what his own explanation of
all these actions was, because it supersedes all observation
of mine. Hear what prevaricating guilt says
for the falsehood and delusion which had been used to
cover it; and see how he plunges deeper and deeper
upon every occasion. This explanation arose out
of another memorable bribe, which I must now beg
leave to state to your Lordships.</p>

<p>About the time of the receipt of the former bribes,
good fortune, as good things seldom come singly, is
kind to him; and when he went up and had nearly
ruined the Company's affairs in Oude and Benares,
he received a present of 100,000<i>l.</i> sterling, or thereabouts.
He received bills for it in September, 1781,
and he gives the Company an account of it in January,
1782. Remark in what manner the account of
this money was given, and the purposes for which
he intends to apply it. He says, in this letter, "I received
the offer of a considerable sum of money, both
on the Nabob's part and that of his ministers, as a
present to myself, not to the Company: I accepted it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">{346}</a></span>
without hesitation, and gladly, being entirely destitute
both of means and credit, whether for your service or
the relief of my own necessities." My Lords, upon
this you shall hear a comment, made by some abler
persons than me. This donation was not made in
species, but in bills upon the house of Gopaul Doss,
who was then a prisoner in the hands of Cheyt Sing.
After mentioning that he took this present for the
Company, and for their exigencies, and partly for his
own necessities, and in consequence of the distress of
both, he desires the Company, in the moment of this
their greatest distress, to award it to him, and therefore
he ends, "If you should adjudge the deposit to
me, I shall consider it as the most honorable approbation
and reward of my labors: and I wish to owe
my fortune to your bounty. I am now in the fiftieth
year of my life: I have passed thirty-one years in the
service of the Company, and the greatest part of that
time in employments of the highest trust. My conscience
allows me boldly to claim the merit of zeal
and integrity; nor has fortune been unpropitious to
their exertions. To these qualities I bound my pretensions.
I shall not repine, if you shall deem otherwise
of my services; nor ought your decision, however
it may disappoint my hope of a retreat adequate
to the consequence and elevation of the office which I
now possess, to lessen my gratitude for having been
so long permitted to hold it, since it has at least enabled
me to lay up a provision with which I can be
contented in a more humble station."</p>

<p>And here your Lordships will be pleased incidentally
to remark the circumstance of his condition of
life and his fortune, to which he appeals, and upon account
of which he desires this money. Your Lord<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">{347}</a></span>ships
will remember that in 1773 he said, (and this I
stated to you from himself,) that, if he held his then
office for a very few years, he should be enabled to
lay by an ample provision for his retreat. About
nine years after that time, namely, in the month
of January, 1782, he finds himself rather pinched
with want, but, however, not in so bad a way but
that the holding of his office had enabled him to lay
up a provision with which he could be contented in a
more humble station. He wishes to have affluence;
he wishes to have dignity; he wishes to have consequence
and rank: but he allows that he has competence.
Your Lordships will see afterwards how miserably
his hopes were disappointed: for the Court of
Directors, receiving this letter from Mr. Hastings,
did declare, that they could not give it to him, because
the act had ordered that "no fees of office,
perquisites, emoluments, or advantages whatsoever,
should be accepted, received, or taken by such Governor-General
and Council, or any of them, in any
manner or on any account or pretence whatsoever";
"and as the same act further directs, 'that no Governor-General,
or any of the Council, shall directly
take, accept, or receive, of or from any person or
persons, in any manner or on any account whatsoever,
any present, gift, donation, gratuity, or reward,
pecuniary or otherwise, or any promise or engagement
for any present, gift, donation, gratuity, or reward,'
we cannot, were we so inclined, decree the
amount of this present to the Governor-General.
And it is further enacted, 'that any such present,
gift, gratuity, donation, or reward, accepted, taken,
or received, shall be deemed and construed to have
been received to and for the sole use of the Com<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">{348}</a></span>pany.'"
And therefore they resolved, most unjustly
and most wickedly, to keep it to themselves. The
act made it in the first instance the property of the
Company, and they would not give it him. And one
should think this, with his own former construction
of the act, would have made him cautious of taking
bribes. You have seen what weight it had with him
to stop the course of bribes which he was in such a
career of taking in every place and with both hands.</p>

<p>Your Lordships have now before you this hundred
thousand pounds, disclosed in a letter from Patna,
dated the 20th January, 1782. You find mystery
and concealment in every one of Mr. Hastings's discoveries.
For (which is a curious part of it) this letter
was not sent to the Court of Directors in their
packet regularly, but transmitted by Major Fairfax,
one of his agents, to Major Scott, another of his
agents, to be delivered to the Company. Why was
this done? Your Lordships will judge, from that circuitous
mode of transmission, whether he did not
thereby intend to leave some discretion in his agent
to divulge it or not. We are told he did not; but
your Lordships will believe that or not, according to
the nature of the fact. If he had been anxious to
make this discovery to the Directors, the regular way
would have been to send his letter to the Directors
immediately in the packet: but he sent it in a box to
an agent; and that agent, upon due discretion, conveyed
it to the Court of Directors. Here, however,
he tells you nothing about the persons from whom
he received this money, any more than he had done
respecting the two former sums.</p>

<p>On the 2d of May following the date of this Patna
letter he came down to Calcutta with a mind, as he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">{349}</a></span>
himself describes it, greatly agitated. All his hope
of plundering Benares had totally failed. The produce
of the robbing of the Begums, in the manner
your Lordships have heard, was all dissipated to pay
the arrears of the armies: there was no fund left.
He felt himself agitated and full of dread, knowing
that he had been threatened with having his place
taken from him several times, and that he might be
called home to render an account. He had heard
that inquiries had begun in a menacing form in Parliament;
and though at that time Bengal was not
struck at, there was a charge of bribery and peculation
brought against the Governor of Madras. With
this dread, with a mind full of anxiety and perturbation,
he writes a letter, as he pretends, on the 22d of
May, 1782. Your Lordships will remark, that, when
he came down to Calcutta from his expedition up
the country, he did not till the 22d of May give any
account whatever of these transactions,&mdash;and that
this letter, or pretended letter, of the 22d of May was
not sent till the 16th of December following. We
shall clearly prove that he had abundant means of
sending it, and by various ways, before the 16th of
December, 1782, when he inclosed in another letter
that of the 22d of May. This is the letter of discovery;
this is the letter by which his breast was to be
laid open to his employers, and all the obscurity of
his transactions to be elucidated. Here are indeed
new discoveries, but they are like many new-discovered
lands, exceedingly inhospitable, very thinly inhabited,
and producing nothing to gratify the curiosity
of the human mind.</p>

<p>This letter is addressed to the Honorable the
Court of Directors, dated Fort William, 22d May,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">{350}</a></span>
1782. He tells them he had promised to account
for the ten lacs of rupees which he had received, and
this promise, he says, he now performs, and that he
takes that opportunity of accounting with them likewise
for several other sums which he had received.
His words are,&mdash;</p>

<p>"This promise I now perform, and, deeming it
consistent with the spirit of it, I have added such
other sums as have been occasionally converted to
the Company's property through my means, in consequence
of the like original destination. Of the second
of these sums you have already been advised
in a letter which I had the honor to address the
Honorable Court of Directors, dated 29th November,
1780. Both this and the third article were paid immediately
to the treasury, by my order to the sub-treasurer
to receive them on the Company's account,
but never passed through my hands. The three
sums for which bonds were granted were in like
manner paid to the Company's treasury, without
passing through my hands, but their <i>application</i> was
not specified. The sum of 50,000 current rupees
was received while I was on my journey to Benares,
and applied as expressed in the account.</p>

<p>"As to the manner in which these sums have been
expended, the reference which I have made of it in
the accompanying account, to the several accounts in
which they are credited, renders any other specification
of it unnecessary,&mdash;<i>besides</i> that these accounts
either have or will have received a much stronger authentication
than any that I could give to mine."</p>

<p>I wish your Lordships to attend to the next paragraph,
which is meant by him to explain why he took
bribes at all,&mdash;why he took bonds for some of them,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">{351}</a></span>
as moneys of his own, and not moneys of the
Company,&mdash;why he entered some upon the Company's accounts,
and why of the others he renders no account at
all. Light, however, will beam upon you as we proceed.</p>

<p>"Why these sums were taken by me,&mdash;why they
were, except the second, quietly transferred to the
Company's use,&mdash;why bonds were taken for the first,
and not for the rest,&mdash;might, were this matter exposed
to the view of the public, furnish a variety of
conjectures, to which it would be of little use to reply.
Were your Honorable Court to question me on these
points, I would answer, that the sums were taken for
the Company's benefit, at times when the Company
very much needed them,&mdash;that I either chose to conceal
the first receipts from public curiosity by receiving
bonds for the amount, or possibly acted without
any studied design which my memory could at this
distance of time verify, and that I did not think it
worth my care to observe the same means with the
rest. I trust, Honorable Sirs, to your breasts for a
candid interpretation of my actions,&mdash;and assume
the freedom to add, that I think myself, on such a
subject, on such <i>an occasion</i>, entitled to it."</p>

<p>Lofty, my Lords! You see, that, after the Directors
had expected an explanation for so long a time,
he says, "Why these sums were taken by me, and,
except the second, quietly transferred to the Company's
use, I cannot tell; why bonds were taken for
the first, and not for the rest, I cannot tell: if this
matter were exposed to view, it would furnish a variety
of conjectures." Here is an account which is
to explain the most obscure, the most mysterious,
the most evidently fraudulent transactions. When
asked how he came to take these bonds, how he came<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">{352}</a></span>
to use these frauds, he tells you he really does not
know,&mdash;that he might have this motive for it, that he
might have another motive for it,&mdash;that he wished
to conceal it from public curiosity,&mdash;but, which is the
most extraordinary, he is not quite sure that he
had any motive for it at all, which his memory can
trace. The whole of this is a period of a year and a
half; and here is a man who keeps his account upon
principles of whim and vagary. One would imagine
he was guessing at some motive of a stranger. Why
he came to take bonds for money not due to him, and
why he enters some and not others,&mdash;he knows nothing
of these things: he begs them not to ask about it,
because it will be of no use. "You foolish Court of
Directors may conjecture and conjecture on. You
are asking me why I took bonds to myself for money
of yours, why I have cheated you, why I have falsified
my account in such a manner. I will not tell
you."</p>

<p>In the satisfaction which he had promised to give
them he neither mentions the persons, the times, the
occasions, or motives for any of his actions. He adds,
"I did not think it worth my care to observe the
same means with the rest." For some purposes, he
thought it necessary to use the most complicated and
artful concealments; for some, he could not tell what
his motives were; and for others, that it was mere
carelessness. Here is the exchequer of bribery!&mdash;have
I falsified any part of my original stating of it?&mdash;an
exchequer in which the man who ought to pay
receives, the man who ought to give security takes
it, the man who ought to keep an account says he
has forgotten; an exchequer in which oblivion was
the remembrancer; and, to sum up the whole, an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">{353}</a></span>
exchequer into the accounts of which it was useless
to inquire. This is the manner in which the account
of near two hundred thousand pounds is given to the
Court of Directors. You can learn nothing in this
business that is any way distinct, except a premeditated
design of a concealment of his transactions.
That is avowed.</p>

<p>But there is a more serious thing behind. Who
were the instruments of his concealment? No other,
my Lords, than the Company's public accountant.
That very accountant takes the money, knowing
it to be the Company's, and that it was only
pretended to be advanced by Mr. Hastings for the
Company's use. He sees Mr. Hastings make out
bonds to himself for it, and Mr. Hastings makes him
enter him as creditor, when in fact he was debtor.
Thus he debauches the Company's accountant, and
makes him his confederate. These fraudulent and
corrupt acts, covered by false representations, are
proved to be false not by collation with anything
else, but false by a collation with themselves. This,
then, is the account, and his explanation of it; and
in this insolent, saucy, careless, negligent manner,
a public accountant like Mr. Hastings, a man bred
up a book-keeper in the Company's service, who
ought to be exact, physically exact, in his account,
has not only been vicious in his own account, but
made the public accounts vicious and of no value.</p>

<p>But there is in this account another curious circumstance
with regard to the deposit of this sum of
money, to which he referred in his first paragraph
of his letter of the 29th of November, 1780. He
states that this deposit was made and passed into the
hands of Mr. Larkins on the 1st of June. It did so;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">{354}</a></span>
but it is not entered in the Company's accounts till
November following. Now in all that intermediate
space where was it? what account was there
of it? It was entirely a secret between Mr. Larkins
and Mr. Hastings, without a possibility of any one
discovering any particular relative to it. Here is
an account of two hundred thousand pounds received,
juggled between the accountant and him, without a
trace of it appearing in the Company's books. Some
of those committees, to whom, for their diligence at
least, I must say the public have some obligation, and
in return for which they ought to meet with some
indulgence, examining into all these circumstances,
and having heard that Mr. Hastings had deposited a
sum of money in the hands of the Company's sub-treasurer
in the month of June, sent for the Company's
books. They looked over those books, but they
did not find the least trace of any such sum of money,
and not any account of it: nor could there be,
because it was not paid to the Company's account
till the November following. The accountant had received
the money, but never entered it from June
till November. Then, at last, have we an account
of it. But was it even then entered regularly upon
the Company's accounts? No such thing: it is a
deposit carried to the Governor-General's credit.</p>

<div class="blockquote"><p>[<i>The entry of the several species in which this deposit
was made was here read from the Company's General
Journal of 1780 and 1781.</i>]</p></div>

<p>My Lords, when this account appears at last,
when this money does emerge in the public accounts,
whose is it? Is it the Company's? No: Mr. Hast<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">{355}</a></span>ings's.
And thus, if, notwithstanding this obscure account
in November, the Directors had claimed and
called for this affinity to an anecdote,&mdash;if they had
called for this anecdote and examined the account,&mdash;if
they had said, "We observe here entered two lac
and upwards; come, Mr. Hastings, let us see where
this money is,"&mdash;they would find that it is Mr.
Hastings's money, not the Company's; they would
find that it is carried to his credit. In this manner
he hands over this sum, telling them, on the 22d
of May, 1782, that not only the bonds were a fraud,
but the deposit was a fraud, and that neither bonds
nor deposit did in reality belong to him. Why did
he enter it at all? Then, afterwards, why did he
not enter it as the Company's? Why make a false
entry, to enter it as his own? And how came he,
two years after, when he does tell you that it was
the Company's and not his own, to alter the public
accounts? But why did he not tell them at that
time, when he pretends to be opening his breast to
the Directors, from whom he received it, or say
anything to give light to the Company respecting
it? who, supposing they had the power of dispensing
with an act of Parliament, or licensing bribery at
their pleasure, might have been thereby enabled to
say, "Here you ought to have received it,&mdash;there
it might be oppressive and of dreadful example."</p>

<p>I have only to state, that, in this letter, which was
pretended to be written on the 22d of May, 1782,
your Lordships will observe that he thinks it his
absolute duty (and I wish to press this upon your
Lordships, because it will be necessary in a comparison
which I shall have hereafter to make) to lay
open all their affairs to them, to give them a full<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">{356}</a></span>
and candid explanation of his conduct, which he afterwards
confesses he is not able to do. The paragraph
has been just read to you. It amounts to
this: "I have taken many bribes,&mdash;have falsified
your accounts,&mdash;have reversed the principle of them
in my own favor; I now discover to you all these my
frauds, and think myself entitled to your confidence
upon this occasion." Now all the principles of diffidence,
all the principles of distrust, nay, more, all
the principles upon which a man may be convicted
of premeditated fraud, and deserve the severest punishment,
are to be found in this case, in which he
says he holds himself to be entitled to their confidence
and trust. If any of your Lordships had a
steward who told you he had lent you your own
money, and had taken bonds from you for it, and if
he afterwards told you that that money was neither
yours nor his, but extorted from your tenants
by some scandalous means, I should be glad to know
what your Lordships would think of such a steward,
who should say, "I will take the freedom to add, that
I think myself, on such a subject, on such an occasion,
entitled to your confidence and trust." You
will observe his cavalier mode of expression. Instead
of his exhibiting the rigor and severity of an
accountant and a book-keeper, you would think that
he had been a reader of sentimental letters; there
is such an air of a novel running through the whole,
that it adds to the ridicule and nausea of it: it is an
oxymel of squills; there is something to strike you
with horror for the villany of it, something to strike
you with contempt for the fraud of it, and something
to strike you with utter disgust for the vile and bad
taste with which all these base ingredients are assorted.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">{357}</a></span></p>

<p>Your Lordships will see, when the account which
is subjoined to this unaccountable letter comes before
you, that, though the Company had desired to know
the channels through which he got those sums, there
is not (except by a reference that appears in another
place to one of the articles) one single syllable of
explanation given from one end to the other, there is
not the least glimpse of light thrown upon these transactions.
But we have since discovered from whom
he got these bribes; and your Lordships will be struck
with horror, when you hear it.</p>

<p>I have already remarked to you, that, though this
letter is dated upon the 22d of May, it was not dispatched
for Europe till December following; and he
gets Mr. Larkins, who was his agent and instrument
in falsifying the Company's accounts, to swear that
this letter was written upon the 22d of May, and that
he had no opportunity to send it, but by the "Lively"
in December. On the 16th of that month he writes
to the Directors, and tells them that he is quite
shocked to find he had no earlier opportunity of making
this discovery, which he thought himself bound to
make; though this discovery, respecting some articles
of it, had now been delayed nearly two years, and
though it since appears that there were many opportunities,
and particularly by the "Resolution," of
sending it. He was much distressed, and found himself
in an awkward situation, from an apprehension
that the Parliamentary inquiry, which he knew was
at this time in progress, might have forced from him
this notable discovery. He says, "I do not fear the
consequences of any Parliamentary process." Indeed,
he needed not to fear any Parliamentary inquiry, if it
produced no further discovery than that which your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">{358}</a></span>
Lordships have in the letter of the 22d of May, and in
the accounts subjoined to it. He says, that "the delay
is of no public consequence; but it has produced a
situation which, with respect to myself, I regard as
unfortunate, because it exposes me to the meanest
imputation, from the occasion which the late Parliamentary
inquiries have since furnished."</p>

<p>Now here is a very curious letter, that I wish to
have read for some other reasons, which will afterwards
appear, but principally at present for the purpose
of showing you that he held it to be his duty
and thought it to the last degree dishonorable not to
give the Company an account of those secret bribes:
he thought it would reflect upon him, and ruin his
character forever, if this account did not come voluntarily
from him, but was extorted by terror of Parliamentary
inquiry. In this letter of the 16th December,
1782, he thus writes.</p>

<p>"The delay is of no public consequence, but it has
produced a situation which, with respect to myself,
I regard as unfortunate; because it exposes me to
the meanest imputation, from the occasion which the
late Parliamentary inquiries have since furnished, but
which were unknown when my letter was written,
and written in the necessary consequence of a promise
made to that effect in a former letter to your Honorable
Committee, dated 20th January last. However, to
preclude the possibility of such reflections from affecting
me, I have desired Mr. Larkins, who was privy to
the whole transaction, to affix to the letter his affidavit
of the date in which it was written. I own I feel
most sensibly the mortification of being reduced to
the necessity of using such precautions to guard my
reputation from dishonor. If I had at any time pos<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">{359}</a></span>sessed
that degree of confidence from my immediate
employers which they never withheld from the meanest
of my predecessors, I should have disdained to use
these attentions. How I have drawn on me a different
treatment I know not; it is sufficient that I have
not merited it. And in the course of a service of
thirty-two years, and ten of these employed in maintaining
the powers and discharging the duties of the
first office of the British government in India, that
honorable court ought to know whether I possess the
integrity and honor which are the first requisites of
such a station. If I wanted these, they have afforded
me but too powerful incentives to suppress the information
which I now convey to them through you, and
to appropriate to my own use the sums which I have
already passed to their credit, by the unworthy and,
pardon me, if I add, dangerous, reflections which they
have passed upon me for the first communication of
this kind: and your own experience will suggest to
you, that there are persons who would profit by such
a warning.</p>

<p>"Upon the whole of these transactions, which to
you, who are accustomed to view business in an official
and regular light, may appear unprecedented, if not
improper, I have but a few short remarks to suggest
to your consideration.</p>

<p>"If I appear in any unfavorable light by these transactions,
I resign the common and legal security of
those who commit crimes or errors. I am ready to
answer every particular question that may be put
against myself, upon honor or upon oath.</p>

<p>"The sources from which these reliefs to the public
service have come would never have yielded them
to the Company publicly; and the exigencies of your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">{360}</a></span>
service (exigencies created by the exposition of your
affairs, and faction in your councils) required those
supplies.</p>

<p>"I could have concealed them, had I had a wrong
motive, from yours and the public eye forever; and I
know that the difficulties to which a spirit of injustice
may subject me for my candor and avowal are greater
than any possible inconvenience that could have attended
the concealment, except the dissatisfaction of my
own mind. These difficulties are but a few of those
which I have suffered in your service. The applause
of my own breast is my surest reward, and was the
support of my mind in meeting them. Your applause,
and that of my country, are my next wish in life."</p>

<p>Your Lordships will observe at the end of this
letter, that this man declares his first applause to be
from his own breast, and that he next wishes to have
the applause of his employers. But reversing this,
and taking their applause first, let us see on what
does he ground his hope of their applause? Was it
on his former conduct? No: for he says that conduct
had repeatedly met with their disapprobation.
Was it upon the confidence which he knew they had
in him? No: for he says they gave more of their
confidence to the meanest of his predecessors. Observe,
my Lords, the style of insolence he constantly
uses with regard to all mankind. Lord Clive was
his predecessor, Governor Cartier was his predecessor,
Governor Verelst was his predecessor: every man of
them as good as himself: and yet he says the Directors
had given "more of their confidence to the <i>meanest</i>
of his predecessors." But what was to entitle
him to their applause? A clear and full explanation
of the bribes he had taken. Bribes was to be the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">{361}</a></span>
foundation of their confidence in him, and the clear
explanation of them was to entitle him to their applause!
Strange grounds to build confidence upon!&mdash;the
rotten ground of corruption, accompanied with
the infamy of its avowal! Strange ground to expect
applause!&mdash;a discovery which was no discovery at
all! Your Lordships have heard this discovery,
which I have not taken upon me to state, but have
read his own letter on the occasion. Has there, at
this moment, any light broken in upon you concerning
this matter?</p>

<p>But what does he say to the Directors? He says,
"Upon the whole of these transactions, which to you,
who are accustomed to view business in an official
and regular light, may appear unprecedented, if not
improper, I have but a few short remarks to suggest
to your consideration." He looks upon them and
treats them as a set of low mechanical men, a set of
low-born book-keepers, as base souls, who in an account
call for explanation and precision. If there is
no precision in accounts, there is nothing of worth
in them. You see he himself is an eccentric accountant,
a Pindaric book-keeper, an arithmetician in the
clouds. "I know," he says, "what the Directors
desire: but they are mean people; they are not of
elevated sentiments; they are modest; they avoid
ostentation in taking of bribes: I therefore am playing
cups and balls with them, letting them see a little
glimpse of the bribes, then carrying them fairly
away." Upon this he founds the applause of his own
breast.</p>

<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i4">Populus me sibilat; at mihi plaudo<br /></span>
<span class="i1">Ipse domi, simul ac nummos contemplor in arca.<br /></span>
</div></div>

<p class="noindent">That private <i>ipse plaudo</i> he may have in this busi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">{362}</a></span>ness,
which is a business of money; but the applause
of no other human creature will he have for giving
such an account as he admits this to be,&mdash;irregular,
uncertain, problematical, and of which no one can
make either head or tail. He despises us also, who
are representatives of the people, and have amongst
us all the regular officers of finance, for expecting
anything like a regular account from him. He is
hurt at it; he considers it as a cruel treatment of
him; he says, "Have I deserved this treatment?"
Observe, my Lords, he had met with no treatment,
if treatment it may be called, from us, of the kind of
which he complains. The Court of Directors had,
however, in a way shameful, abject, low, and pusillanimous,
begged of him, as if they were his dependants,
and not his masters, to give them some light into the
account; they desire a receiver of money to tell from
whom he received it, and how he applied it. He answers,
They may be hanged for a parcel of mean,
contemptible book-keepers, and that he will give them
no account at all. He says, "If you sue me"&mdash;There
is the point: he always takes security in a court
of law. He considers his being called upon by these
people, to whom he ought as a faithful servant to give
an account, and to do which he was bound by an act
of Parliament specially intrusting him with the administration
of the revenues, as a gross affront. He
adds, that he is ready to resign his defence, and to
answer upon honor or upon oath. Answering upon
honor is a strange way they have got in India, as your
Lordships may see in the course of this inquiry. But
he forgets, that, being the Company's servant, the
Company may bring a bill in Chancery against him,
and force him upon oath to give an account. He has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">{363}</a></span>
not, however, given them light enough or afforded
them sufficient ground for a fishing bill in Chancery.
Yet he says, "If you call upon me in a Chancery way,
or by Common Law, I really will abdicate all forms,
and give you some account." In consequence of this
the Company did demand from him an account, regularly,
and as fully and formally as if they had demanded
it in a court of justice. He positively refused
to give them any account whatever; and they have
never, to this very day in which we speak, had any
account that is at all clear or satisfactory. Your
Lordships will see, as I go through this scene of
fraud, falsification, iniquity, and prevarication, that,
in defiance of his promise, which promise they quote
upon him over and over again, he has never given
them any account of this matter.</p>

<p>He goes on to say (and the threat is indeed alarming)
that by calling him to account they may provoke
him&mdash;to what? "To appropriate," he says, "to
my own use the sums which I have already passed to
your credit, by the unworthy and, pardon me, if I
add, dangerous, reflections which you have passed
upon me for the first communication of this kind."
They passed no reflections: they said they would
neither praise nor blame him, but pressed him for
an account of a matter which they could not understand:
and I believe your Lordships understand it no
more than they, for it is not in the compass of human
understanding to conceive or comprehend it. Instead
of an account of it, he dares to threaten them: "I
may be tempted, if you should provoke me, not to be
an honest man,&mdash;to falsify your account a second
time, and to reclaim those sums which I have passed
to your credit,&mdash;to alter the account again, by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">{364}</a></span>
assistance of Mr. Larkins." What a dreadful declaration
is this of his dominion over the public accounts,
and of his power of altering them! a declaration,
that, having first falsified those accounts in order to
deceive them, and afterwards having told them of
this falsification in order to gain credit with them, if
they provoke him, he shall take back the money he
had carried to their account, and make them his
debtors for it! He fairly avows the dominion he has
over the Company's accounts; and therefore, when he
shall hereafter plead the accounts, we shall be able
to rebut that evidence, and say, "The Company's
accounts are corrupted by you, through your agent,
Mr. Larkins; and we give no credit to them, because
you not only told the Company you could do so, but
we can prove that you have actually done it." What
a strange medley of evasion, pretended discovery, real
concealment, fraud, and prevarication appears in every
part of this letter!</p>

<p>But admitting this letter to have been written upon
the 22d of May, and kept back to the 16th of
December, you would imagine that during all that
interval of time he would have prepared himself to
give some light, some illustration of these dark and
mysterious transactions, which carried fraud upon
the very face of them. Did he do so? Not at all.
Upon the 16th of December, instead of giving them
some such clear accounts as might have been expected,
he falls into a violent passion for their expecting
them; he tells them it would be dangerous; and he
tells them they knew who had profited by these
transactions: thus, in order to strike terror into
their breasts, hinting at some frauds which they had
practised or protected. What weight this may have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">{365}</a></span>
had with them I know not; but your Lordships will
expect in vain, that Mr. Hastings, after giving four
accounts, if any one of which is true, the other three
must necessarily be false,&mdash;after having thrown the
Company's accounts into confusion, and being unable
to tell, as he says himself, why he did so,&mdash;will
at last give some satisfaction to the Directors, who
continued, in a humble, meek way, giving him hints
that he ought to do it.&mdash;You have heard nothing yet
but the consequences of their refusing to give him the
present of a hundred thousand pounds, which he had
taken from the Nabob. They did right to refuse it to
him; they did wrong to take it to themselves.</p>

<p>We now find Mr. Hastings on the river Ganges,
in September, 1784,&mdash;that Ganges whose purifying
water expiates so many sins of the Gentoos, and
which, one would think, would have washed Mr.
Hastings's hands a little clean of bribery, and would
have rolled down its golden sands like another Pactolus.
Here we find him discovering another of his
bribes. This was a bribe taken upon totally a different
principle, according to his own avowal: it is a
bribe not pretended to be received for the use of the
Company,&mdash;a bribe taken absolutely entirely for himself.
He tells them that he had taken between thirty
and forty thousand pounds. This bribe, which, like
the former, he had taken without right, he tells them
that he intends to apply to his own purposes, and he
insists upon their sanction for so doing. He says,
he had in vain, upon a former occasion, appealed to
their honor, liberality, and generosity,&mdash;that he now
appeals to their justice; and insists upon their decreeing
this bribe&mdash;which he had taken without telling
them from whom, where, or on what account&mdash;to
his own use.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">{366}</a></span></p>

<p>Your Lordships remember, that in the letter which
he wrote from Patna, on the 20th of January, 1782,
he there states that he was in tolerable good circumstances,
and that this had arisen from his having
continued long in their service. Now, he has continued
two years longer in their service, and he is
reduced to beggary! "This," he says, "is a single
example of a life spent in the accumulation of crores
for your benefit, and doomed in its close to suffer the
extremity of private want, and to sink in obscurity."</p>

<p>So far back as in 1773 he thought that he could
save an exceeding good fortune out of his place. In
1782 he says, with gratitude, that he has made a
decent private competency; but in two years after
he sunk to the extremity of private want. And how
does he seek to relieve that want? By taking a
bribe: bribes are no longer taken by him for the
Company's service, but for his own. He takes the
bribe with an express intention of keeping it for his
own use, and he calls upon the Company for their
sanction. If the money was taken without right,
no claim of his could justify its being appropriated
to himself: nor could the Company so appropriate
it; for no man has a right to be generous out of
another's goods. When he calls upon their justice
and generosity, they might answer, "If you have a
just demand upon our treasury, state it, and we will
pay it; if it is a demand upon our generosity, state
your merits, and we will consider them." "But I
have paid myself by a bribe; I have taken another
man's money; and I call upon your justice&mdash;to do
what? to restore it to its owner? no&mdash;to allow
me to keep it myself." Think, my Lords, in what
a situation the Company stands! "I have done a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">{367}</a></span>
great deal for you; this is the jackal's portion; you
have been the lion; I have been endeavoring to prog
for you; I am your bribe-pander, your factor of
corruption, exposing myself to every kind of scorn
and ignominy, to insults even from you. I have
been preying and plundering for you; I have gone
through every stage of licentiousness and lewdness,
wading through every species of dirt and corruption,
for your advantage. I am now sinking into the
extremity of private want; do give me this&mdash;what?
money? no, this bribe; rob me the man who gave me
this bribe; vote me&mdash;what? money of your own?
that would be generous: money you owe me? that
would be just: no, money which I have extorted
from another man; and I call upon your justice to
give it me." This is his idea of justice. He says,
"I am compelled to depart from that liberal plan
which I originally adopted, and to claim from your
justice (for you have forbid me to appeal to your
generosity) the discharge of a debt which I can with
the most scrupulous integrity aver to be justly due,
and which I cannot sustain." Now, if any of the
Company's servants may say, "I have been extravagant,
profuse,&mdash;it was all meant for your good,&mdash;let
me prey upon the country at my pleasure,&mdash;license
my bribes, frauds, and peculations, and then
you do me justice,"&mdash;what country are we in, where
these ideas are ideas of generosity and justice?</p>

<p>It might naturally be expected that in this letter
he would have given some account of the person from
whom he had taken this bribe. But here, as in the
other cases, he had a most effectual oblivion; the
Ganges, like Lethe, causes a drowsiness, as you saw
in Mr. Middleton; they recollect nothing, they know<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">{368}</a></span>
nothing. He has not stated, from that day to this,
from whom he took that money. But we have made
the discovery. And such is the use of Parliamentary
inquiries, such, too, both to the present age and posterity,
will be their use, that, if we pursue them with
the vigor which the great trust justly imposed upon
us demands, and if your Lordships do firmly administer
justice upon this man's frauds, you will at once
put an end to those frauds and prevarications forever.
Your Lordships will see, that, in this inquiry,
it is the diligence of the House of Commons, which
he has the audacity to call <i>malice</i>, that has discovered
and brought to light the frauds which we shall be
able to prove against him.</p>

<p>I will now read to your Lordships an extract from
that stuff, called a defence, which he has either written
himself or somebody else has written for him, and
which he owns or disclaims, just as he pleases, when,
under the slow tortures of a Parliamentary impeachment,
he discovered at length from whom he got this
last bribe.</p>

<p>"The last part of the charge states, that, in my
letter to the Court of Directors of the 21st February,
1784, I have confessed to have received another
sum of money, the amount of which is not declared,
but which, from the application of it, could not be
less than thirty-four thousand pounds sterling, &amp;c.
In the year 1783, when I was actually in want of a
sum of money for my private expenses, owing to the
Company not having at that time sufficient cash in
their treasury to pay my salary, I borrowed three lacs
of rupees of Rajah Nobkissin, an inhabitant of Calcutta,
whom I desired to call upon me with a bond
properly filled up. He did so; but at the time I was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">{369}</a></span>
going to execute it he entreated I would rather accept
the money than execute the bond. I neither
accepted the offer nor refused it; and my determination
upon it remained suspended between the alternative
of keeping the money, as a loan to be repaid,
and of taking it, and applying it, as I had done
other sums, to the Company's use. And there the
matter rested till I undertook my journey to Lucknow,
when I determined to accept the money for the
Company's use; and these were my motives. Having
made disbursements from my own cash for services,
which, though required to enable me to execute
the duties of my station, I had hitherto omitted to enter
into my public accounts, I resolved to reimburse
myself in a mode most suitable to the situation of the
Company's affairs, by charging these disbursements
in my durbar accounts of the present year, and crediting
them by a sum privately received, which was
this of Nobkissin's. If my claim on the Company
were not founded in justice, and <i>bon&acirc; fide</i> due, my
acceptance of three lacs of rupees from Nobkissin
by no means precludes them from recovering that
sum from me. No member of this Honorable House
suspects me, I hope, of the meanness and guilt of
presenting false accounts."</p>

<p>We do not <i>suspect</i> him of presenting false accounts:
we can prove, we are now radically proving,
that he presents false accounts. We suspect no
man who does not give ground for suspicion; we accuse
no man who has not given ground for accusation;
and we do not attempt to bring before a court
of justice any charges which we shall not be able decisively
to prove. This will put an end to all idle
prattle of malice, of groundless suspicions of guilt,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">{370}</a></span>
and of ill-founded charges. We come here to bring
the matter to the test, and here it shall be brought to
the test, between the Commons of Great Britain and
this East India delinquent. In his letter of the 21st
of February, 1784, he says he has never benefited
himself by contingent accounts; and as an excuse
for taking this bribe from Nobkissin, which he did
not discover at the time, but many years afterwards,
at the bar of the House of Commons, he declares that
he wanted to apply it to the contingent account for
his expenses, that is, for what he pretended to have
laid out for the Company, during a great number of
years. He proceeds:&mdash;</p>

<p>"If it should be objected, that the allowance of
these demands would furnish a precedent for others
of the like kind, I have to remark, that in their whole
amount they are but the aggregate of a contingent
account of twelve years; and if it were to become the
practice of those who have passed their prime of life
in your service, and filled, as I have filled it, the first
office of your dominion, to glean from their past accounts
all the articles of expense which their inaccuracy
or indifference hath overlooked, your interests
would suffer infinitely less by the precedent than by
a single example of a life spent in the accumulation
of crores for your benefit and doomed in its close to
suffer the extremity of private want and to sink in
obscurity."</p>

<p>Here is the man that has told us at the bar of the
House of Commons that he never made up any contingent
accounts; and yet, as a set-off against this
bribe, which he received for himself, and never intended
to apply to the current use of the Company,
he feigns and invents a claim upon them, namely,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">{371}</a></span>
that he had, without any authority of the Company,
squandered away in stationery and budgeros, and
other idle services, a sum amounting to 34,000<i>l.</i>
But was it for the Company's service? Is this language
to be listened to? "Everything I thought fit
to expend I have expended for the Company's service.
I intended, indeed, at that time, to have been
generous. I intended out of my own pocket to have
paid for a translation of the code of Gentoo laws. I
was then in the prime of my life, flowing in money,
and had great expectations: I am now old; I cannot
afford to be generous: I will look back into all my
former accounts, pen, ink, wax, everything that I
generously or prodigally spent as my own humor
might suggest; and though, at the same time, I
know you have given me a noble allowance, I now
make a charge upon you for this sum of money, and
intend to take a bribe in discharge of it." Now suppose
Lord Cornwallis, who sits in the seat, and I hope
will long, and honorably and worthily, fill the seat,
which that gentleman possessed,&mdash;suppose Lord
Cornwallis, after never having complained of the
insufficiency of his salary, and after having but two
years ago said he had saved a sufficient competency
out of it, should now tell you that 30,00<i>l.</i> a year
was not enough for him, and that he was sinking into
want and distress, and should justify upon that alleged
want taking a bribe, and then make out a bill
of contingent expenses to cover it, would your Lordships
bear this?</p>

<p>Mr. Hastings has told you that he wanted to borrow
money for his own use, and that he applied to
Rajah Nobkissin, who generously pressed it upon
him as a gift. Rajah Nobkissin is a banian: you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">{372}</a></span>
will be astonished to hear of generosity in a banian;
there never was a banian and generosity united together:
but Nobkissin loses his banian qualities at
once, the moment the light of Mr. Hastings's face
beams upon him. "Here," says Mr. Hastings, "I
have prepared bonds for you." "Astonishing! how
can you think of the meanness of bonds? You call
upon me to lend you 34,000<i>l.</i>, and propose bonds?
No, you shall have it: you are the Governor-General,
who have a large and ample salary; but I know
you are a generous man, and I emulate your generosity:
I give you all this money." Nobkissin was
quite shocked at Mr. Hastings's offering him a bond.
My Lords, a Gentoo banian is a person a little lower,
a little more penurious, a little more exacting, a little
more cunning, a little more money-making, than
a Jew. There is not a Jew in the meanest corner of
Duke's Place in London that is so crafty, so much a
usurer, so skilful how to turn money to profit, and so
resolved not to give any money but for profit, as a
Gentoo broker of the class I have mentioned. But this
man, however, at once grows generous, and will not
suffer a bond to be given to him; and Mr. Hastings,
accordingly, is thrown into very great distress. You
see sentiment always prevailing in Mr. Hastings.
The sentimental dialogue which must have passed
between him and a Gentoo broker would have
charmed every one that has a taste for pathos and
sentiment. Mr. Hastings was pressed to receive the
money as a gift. He really does not know what to
do: whether to insist upon giving a bond or not,&mdash;whether
he shall take the money for his own use, or
whether he shall take it for the Company's use. But
it may be said of man as it is said of woman: the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">{373}</a></span>
woman who deliberates is lost: the man that deliberates
about receiving bribes is gone. The moment he
deliberates, that moment his reason, the fortress, is
lost, the walls shake, down it comes,&mdash;and at the
same moment enters Nobkissin into the citadel of his
honor and integrity, with colors flying, with drums
beating, and Mr. Hastings's garrison goes out, very
handsomely indeed, with the honors of war, all for the
benefit of the Company. Mr. Hastings consents to
take the money from Nobkissin; Nobkissin gives the
money, and is perfectly satisfied.</p>

<p>Mr. Hastings took the money with a view to apply it
to the Company's service. How? To pay his own
contingent bills. "Everything that I do," says he,
"and all the money I squander, is all for the Company's
benefit. As to particulars of accounts, never look
into them; they are given you upon honor. Let me
take this bribe: it costs you nothing to be just or
generous. I take the bribe: you sanctify it." But
in every transaction of Mr. Hastings, where we have
got a name, there we have got a crime. Nobkissin
gave him the money, and did not take his bond, I
believe, for it; but Nobkissin, we find, immediately
afterwards enters upon the stewardship or management
of one of the most considerable districts in Bengal.
We know very well, and shall prove to your
Lordships, in what manner such men rack such districts,
and exact from the inhabitants the money to
repay themselves for the bribes which had been taken
from them. These bribes are taken under a pretence
of the Company's service, but sooner or later they fall
upon the Company's treasury. And we shall prove
that Nobkissin, within a year from the time when he
gave this bribe, had fallen into arrears to the Compa<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">{374}</a></span>ny,
as their steward, to the amount of a sum the very
interest of which, according to the rate of interest in
that country, amounted to more than this bribe, taken,
as was pretended, for the Company's service. Such
are the consequences of a banian's generosity, and of
Mr. Hastings's gratitude, so far as the interest of the
country is concerned; and this is a good way to pay
Mr. Hastings's contingent accounts. But this is not
all: a most detestable villain is sent up into the country
to take the management of it, and the fortunes of
all the great families in it are given entirely into his
power. This is the way by which the Company are to
keep their own servants from falling into "the extremity
of private want." And the Company itself,
in this pretended saving to their treasury by the taking
of bribes, lose more than the amount of the bribes
received. Wherever a bribe is given on one hand,
there is a balance accruing on the other. No man,
who had any share in the management of the Company's
revenues, ever gave a bribe, who did not either
extort the full amount of it from the country, or else
fall in balance to the Company to that amount, and
frequently both. In short, Mr. Hastings never was
guilty of corruption, that blood and rapine did not
follow; he never took a bribe, pretended to be for
their benefit, but the Company's treasury was proportionably
exhausted by it.</p>

<p>And now was this scandalous and ruinous traffic
in bribes brought to light by the Court of Directors?
No: we got it in the House of Commons. These
bribes appear to have been taken at various times and
upon various occasions; and it was not till his return
from Patna, in February, 1782, that the first communication
of any of them was made to the Court of Di<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">{375}</a></span>rectors.
Upon the receipt of this letter, the Court of
Directors wrote back to him, requiring some further
explanation upon the subject. No explanation was
given, but a communication of other bribes was made
in his letter, said to be written in May of the same year,
but not dispatched to Europe till the December following.
This produced another requisition from the
Directors for explanation. And here your Lordships
are to observe that this correspondence is never in the
way of letters written and answers given; but he and
the Directors are perpetually playing at hide-and-seek
with each other, and writing to each other at random:
Mr. Hastings making a communication one day, the
Directors requiring an explanation the next; Mr.
Hastings giving an account of another bribe on the
third day, without giving any explanation of the former.
Still, however, the Directors are pursuing their
chase. But it was not till they learned that the committees
of the House of Commons (for committees of
the House of Commons had then some weight) were
frowning upon them for this collusion with Mr. Hastings,
that at last some honest men in the Direction
were permitted to have some ascendency, and that a
proper letter was prepared, which I shall show your
Lordships, demanding from Mr. Hastings an exact
account of all the bribes that he had received, and
painting to him, in colors as strong at least as those
I use, his bribery, his frauds, and peculations,&mdash;and
what does them great honor for that moment, they
particularly direct that the money which was taken
from the Nabob of Oude should be carried to his account.
These paragraphs were prepared by the Committee
of Correspondence, and, as I understand, approved
by the Court of Directors, but never were sent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">{376}</a></span>
out to India. However, something was sent, but
miserably weak and lame of its kind; and Mr. Hastings
never answered it, or gave them any explanation
whatever. He now, being prepared for his departure
from Calcutta, and having finished all his other business,
went up to Oude upon a chase in which just now
we cannot follow him. He returned in great disgust
to Calcutta, and soon after set sail for England, without
ever giving the Directors one word of the explanation
which he had so often promised, and they had
repeatedly asked.</p>

<p>We have now got Mr. Hastings in England, where
you will suppose some satisfactory account of all
these matters would be obtained from him. One
would suppose, that, on his arrival in London, he
would have been a little quickened by a menace, as
he expresses it, which had been thrown out against
him in the House of Commons, that an inquiry would
be made into his conduct; and the Directors, apprehensive
of the same thing, thought it good gently
to insinuate to him by a letter, written by whom and
how we do not know, that he ought to give some explanation
of these accounts. This produced a letter
which I believe in the business of the whole world
cannot be paralleled: not even himself could be his
parallel in this. Never did inventive folly, working
upon conscious guilt, and throwing each other totally
in confusion, ever produce such a false, fraudulent,
prevaricating letter as this, which is now to be given
to you.</p>

<p>You have seen him at Patna, at Calcutta, in the
country, on the Ganges: now you see him at the
waters at Cheltenham; and you will find his letter
from that place to comprehend the substance of all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">{377}</a></span>
his former letters, and to be a digest of all the falsity,
fraud, and nonsense contained in the whole of them.
Here it is, and your Lordships will suffer it to be read.
I must beg your patience; I must acknowledge that
it has been the most difficult of all things to explain,
but much more difficult to make pleasant and
not wearisome, falsity and fraud pursued through all
its artifices; and therefore, as it has been the most
painful work to us to unravel fraud and prevarication,
so there is nothing that more calls for the attention,
the patience, the vigilance, and the scrutiny
of an exact court of justice. But as you have already
had almost the whole of the man, do not think
it too much to hear the rest in this letter from Cheltenham.
It is dated, Cheltenham, 11th of July,
1785, addressed to William Devaynes, Esquire;<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor" title=" See this letter in the Appendix to the Eighth and Sixteenth
Charges, Vol. IX. pp. 319-325, in the present edition.">[8]</a> and
it begins thus:&mdash;</p>

<p>"Sir,&mdash;The Honorable Court of Directors, in their
general letter to Bengal by the 'Surprise,' dated the
16th of March, 1784, were pleased to express their
desire that I should inform them of the periods when
each sum of the presents mentioned in my address
of the 22d May, 1782, was received,&mdash;what were
my motives for withholding the several receipts from
the knowledge of the Council, or of the Court of
Directors,&mdash;and what were my reasons for taking
bonds for part of these sums, and for paying other
sums into the treasury as deposits, on my own account."</p>

<p>I wish your Lordships to pause a moment. Here
is a letter written in July, 1785. You see that from
the 29th of December [November?], 1780, till that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">{378}</a></span>
time, during which interval, though convinced in his
own conscience and though he had declared his own
opinion of the necessity of giving a full explanation
of these money transactions, he had been imposing
upon the Directors false and prevaricating accounts
of them, they were never able to obtain a full disclosure
from him.</p>

<p>He goes on:&mdash;"I have been kindly apprised that
the information required as above is yet expected
from me. I hope that the circumstances of my past
situation, when considered, will plead my excuse for
having thus long withheld it. The fact is, that I
was not at the Presidency when the 'Surprise' arrived;
and when I returned to it, my time and attention
were so entirely engrossed, to the day of my
final departure from it, by a variety of other more
important occupations, of which, Sir, I may safely
appeal to your testimony, grounded on the large portion
contributed by myself of the volumes which
compose our Consultations of that period,"&mdash;</p>

<p>These Consultations, my Lords, to which he appeals,
form matter of one of the charges that the
Commons have brought against Mr. Hastings,&mdash;namely,
a fraudulent attempt to ruin certain persons
employed in subordinate situations under him, for
the purpose, by intruding himself into their place,
of secretly carrying on his own transactions. These
volumes of Consultations were written to justify that
act.</p>

<p>He next says,&mdash;"The submission which my respect
would have enjoined me to pay to the command
imposed on me was lost to my recollection, perhaps
from the stronger impression which the first and
distant perusal of it had left on my mind, that it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">{379}</a></span>
was rather intended as a reprehension for something
which had given offence in my report of the original
transaction than an expression of any want of a further
elucidation of it."</p>

<p>Permit me to make a few remarks upon this extraordinary
passage. A letter is written to him, containing
a repetition of the request which had been
made a thousand times before, and with which he
had as often promised to comply. And here he says,
"It was lost to my recollection." Observe his memory:
he can forget the command, but he has an
obscure recollection that he thought it a reprehension
rather than a demand! Now a reprehension
is a stronger mode of demand. When I say to a
servant, "Why have you not given me the account
which I have so often asked for?" is he to answer,
"The reason I have not given it is because I thought
you were railing at and abusing me"?</p>

<p>He goes on:&mdash;"I will now endeavor to reply to the
different questions which have been stated to me, in
as explicit a manner as I am able. To such information
as I can give the Honorable Court is fully
entitled; and where that shall prove defective, I will
point out the only means by which it may be rendered
more complete."</p>

<p>In order that your Lordships may thoroughly enter
into the spirit of this letter, I must request that
you will observe how handsomely and kindly these
tools of Directors have expressed themselves to him,
and that even their baseness and subserviency to him
were not able to draw from him anything that could
be satisfactory to his enemies: for as to these his
friends, he cares but little about satisfying them,
though they call upon him in consequence of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">{380}</a></span>
own promise; and this he calls a reprehension. They
thus express themselves:&mdash;"Although it is not our
intention to express any doubt of the integrity of the
Governor-General,&mdash;on the contrary, after having
received the presents, we cannot avoid expressing
our approbation of his conduct in bringing them to
the credit of the Company,&mdash;yet we must confess
the statement of those transactions appears to us in
many points so unintelligible, that we feel ourselves
under the necessity of calling on the Governor-General
for an explanation, agreeable to his promise voluntarily
made to us. We therefore desire to be informed
of the different periods when each sum was
received, and what were the Governor-General's motives
for withholding the several receipts from the
knowledge of the Council and of the Court of Directors,
and what were his reasons for taking bonds for
part of these sums and paying other sums into the
treasury as deposits upon his own account." Such
is their demand, and this is what his memory furnishes
as nothing but a reprehension.</p>

<p>He then proceeds:&mdash;"First, I believe I can affirm
with certainty that the several sums mentioned in the
account transmitted with my letter above mentioned
were received at or within a very few days of the
dates which are affixed to them in the account. But
as this contains only the gross sums, and each of
these was received in different payments, though at
no great distance of time, I cannot therefore assign
a great degree of accuracy to the account."&mdash;Your
Lordships see, that, after all, he declares he cannot
make his account accurate. He further adds, "Perhaps
the Honorable Court will judge this sufficient"&mdash;that
is, this explanation, namely, that he can give<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">{381}</a></span>
none&mdash;"for any purpose to which their inquiry was
directed; but if it should not be so, I will beg leave
to refer, for a more minute information, and for the
means of making any investigation which they may
think it proper to direct, respecting the particulars
of this transaction, to Mr. Larkins, your accountant-general,
who was privy to every process of it, and
possesses, as I believe, the original paper, which contained
the only account that I ever kept of it."</p>

<p>Here is a man who of his bribe accounts cannot
give an account in the country where they are carried
on. When you call upon him in Bengal, he
cannot give the account, because he is in Bengal;
when he comes to England, he cannot give the account
here, because his accounts are left in Bengal.
Again, he keeps no accounts himself, but his accounts
are in Bengal, in the hands of somebody
else: to him he refers, and we shall see what that
reference produced.</p>

<p>"In this, each receipt was, as I recollect, specifically
inserted, with the name of the person by whom
it was made; and I shall write to him to desire that
he will furnish you with the paper itself, if it is still
in being and in his hands, or with whatever he can
distinctly recollect concerning it."&mdash;Here are accounts
kept for the Company, and yet he does not
know whether they are in existence anywhere.</p>

<p>"For my motives for withholding the several receipts
from the knowledge of the Council or of the
Court of Directors, and for taking bonds for part of
these sums, and paying others into the treasury as
deposits on my own account, I have generally accounted
in my letter to the Honorable the Court
of Directors of the 22d of May, 1782,&mdash;namely, that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">{382}</a></span>
I either chose to conceal the first receipts from public
curiosity by receiving bonds for the amount, or
possibly acted without any studied design which my
memory at that distance of time could verify, and
that I did not think it worth my care to observe
the same means with the rest. It will not be expected
that I should be able to give a more correct
explanation of my intentions after a lapse of three
years, having declared at the time that many particulars
had escaped my remembrance; neither shall
I attempt to add more than the clearer affirmation
of the facts implied in that report of them, and such
inferences as necessarily or with a strong probability
follow them."</p>

<p>You have heard of that Oriental figure called, in
the banian language, a <i>painche</i>, in English, a <i>screw</i>.
It is a puzzled and studied involution of a period,
framed in order to prevent the discovery of truth and
the detection of fraud; and surely it cannot be better
exemplified than in this sentence: "Neither shall
I attempt to add more than the clearer affirmation
of the facts implied in that report of them, and such
inferences as necessarily or with a strong probability
follow them." Observe, that he says, not <i>facts stated</i>,
but <i>facts implied in the report</i>. And of what was
this to be a report? Of things which the Directors
declared they did not understand. And then the inferences
which are to follow these implied facts are
to follow them&mdash;But how? <i>With a strong probability</i>.
If you have a mind to study this Oriental
figure of rhetoric, the <i>painche</i>, here it is for you in
its most complete perfection. No rhetorician ever
gave an example of any figure of oratory that can
match this.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">{383}</a></span></p>

<p>But let us endeavor to unravel the whole passage.
First he states, that, in May, 1782, he had
forgotten his motives for falsifying the Company's
accounts; but he affirms the facts contained in the
report, and afterwards, very rationally, draws such
inferences as necessarily or with a strong probability
follow them. And if I understand it at all, which
God knows I no more pretend to do than Don Quixote
did those sentences of lovers in romance-writers
of which he said it made him run mad to attempt
to discover the meaning, the inference is, "Why do
you call upon me for accounts now, three years after
the time when I could not give you them? I
cannot give them you. And as to the papers relating
to them, I do not know whether they exist; and
if they do, perhaps you may learn something from
them, perhaps you may not: I will write to Mr. Larkins
for those papers, if you please." Now, comparing
this with his other accounts, you will see what a
monstrous scheme he has laid of fraud and concealment
to cover his peculation. He tells them,&mdash;"I
have said that the three first sums of the account were
paid into the Company's treasury without passing
through my hands. The second of these was forced
into notice by its destination and application to the
expense of a detachment which was formed and employed
against Mahdajee Sindia, under the command
of Lieutenant-Colonel Camac, as I particularly apprised
the Court of Directors in my letter of the
29th December [November?], 1780." He does not
yet tell the Directors from whom he received it: we
have found it out by other collateral means.&mdash;"The
other two were certainly not intended, when I received
them, to be made public, though intended for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">{384}</a></span>
public service, and actually applied to it. The exigencies
of government were at that time my own,
and every pressure upon it rested with its full weight
upon my mind. Wherever I could find allowable
means of relieving those wants, I eagerly seized
them."&mdash;Allowable means of receiving bribes! for
such I shall prove them to be in the particular instances.&mdash;"But
neither could it occur to me as necessary
to state on our Proceedings every little aid
that I could thus procure; nor do I know how I could
have stated it without appearing to court favor by
an ostentation which I disdained, nor without the
chance of exciting the jealousy of my colleagues by
the constructive assertion of a separate and unparticipated
merit, derived from the influence of my station,
to which they might have had an equal claim."</p>

<p>Now we see, that, after hammering his brains for
many years, he does find out his motive, which he
could not verify at the time,&mdash;namely, that, if he let
his colleagues know that he was receiving bribes, and
gaining the glory of receiving them, they might take
it into their heads likewise to have their share in the
same glory, as they were joined in the same commission,
enjoyed the same powers, and were subject to
the same restrictions. It was, indeed, scandalous
in Mr. Hastings, not behaving like a good, fair colleague
in office, not to let them know that he was
going on in this career of receiving bribes, and to deprive
them of their share in the glory of it: but they
were grovelling creatures, who thought that keeping
clean hands was some virtue.&mdash;"Well, but you have
applied some of these bribes to your own benefit:
why did you give no account of those bribes?" "I
did not," he says, "because it might have excited the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">{385}</a></span>
envy of my colleagues." To be sure, if he was receiving
bribes for his own benefit, and they not receiving
such bribes, and if they had a liking to that
kind of traffic, it is a good ground of envy, that a
matter which ought to be in common among them
should be confined to Mr. Hastings, and he therefore
did well to conceal it; and on the other hand, if we
suppose him to have taken them, as he pretends, for
the Company's use, in order not to excite a jealousy
in his colleagues for being left out of this meritorious
service, to which they had an equal claim, he did
well to take bonds for what ought to be brought to
the Company's account. These are reasons applicable
to his colleagues, who sat with him at the same
board,&mdash;Mr. Macpherson, Mr. Stables, Mr. Wheler,
General Clavering, Colonel Monson, and Mr. Francis:
he was afraid of exciting their envy or their jealousy.</p>

<p>You will next see another reason, and an extraordinary
one it is, which he gives for concealing these
bribes from his inferiors. But I must first tell your
Lordships, what, till the proof is brought before you,
you will take on credit,&mdash;indeed, it is on his credit,&mdash;that,
when he formed the Committee of Revenue,
he bound them by a solemn oath, "not, under any
name or pretence whatever, to take from any zemindar,
farmer, person concerned in the revenue, or any
other, any gift, gratuity, allowance, or reward whatever,
or anything beyond their salary"; and this is
the oath to which he alludes. Now his reason for
concealing his bribes from his inferiors, this Committee,
under these false and fraudulent bonds, he
states thus:&mdash;"I should have deemed it particularly
dishonorable to receive for my own use money tendered
by men of a certain class, from whom I had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">{386}</a></span>
interdicted the receipt of presents to my inferiors,
and bound them by oath not to receive them: I was
therefore more than ordinarily cautious to avoid the
suspicion of it, which would scarcely have failed to
light upon me, had I suffered the money to be
brought to my own house, or that of any person
known to be in trust for me."</p>

<p>My Lords, here he comes before you, avowing that
he knew the practice of taking money from these people
was a thing dishonorable in itself. "I should
have deemed it particularly dishonorable to receive
for my own use money tendered by men of a certain
class, from whom I had interdicted the receipt of
presents to my inferiors, and bound them by oath not
to receive them." He held it particularly dishonorable
to receive them; he had bound others by an oath
not to receive them: but he received them himself;
and why does he conceal it? "Why, because," says
he, "if the suspicion came upon me, the dishonor
would fall upon my pate." Why did he, by an oath,
bind his inferiors not to take these bribes? "Why,
because it was base and dishonorable so to do; and
because it would be mischievous and ruinous to the
Company's affairs to suffer them to take bribes."
Why, then, did he take them himself? It was ten
times more ruinous, that he, who was at the head of
the Company's government, and had bound up others
so strictly, should practise the same himself; and
"therefore," says he, "I was more than ordinarily
cautious." What! to avoid it? "No; to carry it
on in so clandestine and private a manner as might
secure me from the suspicion of that which I know
to be detestable, and bound others up from practising."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">{387}</a></span></p>

<p>We shall prove that the kind of men from whom
he interdicted his Committee to receive bribes were
the identical men from whom he received them himself.
If it was good for him, it was good for them
to be permitted these means of extorting; and if it
ought at all to be practised, they ought to be admitted
to extort for the good of the Company. Rajah
Nobkissin was one of the men from whom he interdicted
them to receive bribes, and from whom he received
a bribe for his own use. But he says he concealed
it from them, because he thought great mischief
might happen even from their suspicion of it,
and lest they should thereby be inclined themselves
to practise it, and to break their oaths.</p>

<p>You take it, then, for granted that he really concealed
it from them? No such thing. His principal
confidant in receiving these bribes was Mr. Croftes,
who was a principal person in this Board of Revenue,
and whom he had made to swear not to take bribes:
he is the confidant, and the very receiver, as we shall
prove to your Lordships. What will your Lordships
think of his affirming and averring a direct falsehood,
that he did it to conceal it from these men,
when one of them was his principal confidant and
agent in the transaction? What will you think of
his being more than ordinarily cautious to avoid the
suspicion of it? He ought to have avoided the
crime, and the suspicion would take care of itself.</p>

<p>"For these reasons," he says, "I caused it to be
transported immediately to the treasury. There I
well knew, Sir, it could not be received, without
being passed to some credit; and this could only be
done by entering it as a loan or as a deposit. The
first was the least liable to reflection, and therefore<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">{388}</a></span>
I had obviously recourse to it. Why the second
sum was entered as a deposit I am utterly ignorant.
Possibly it was done without any special direction
from me; possibly because it was the simplest mode
of entry, and therefore preferred, as the transaction
itself did not require concealment, having been already
avowed."</p>

<p>My Lords, in fact, every word of this is either false
or groundless: it is completely fallacious in every
part. The first sum, he says, was entered as a loan,
the second as a deposit. Why was this done? Because,
when you enter moneys of this kind, you must
enter them under some name, some head of account;
"and I entered them," he says, "under these, because
otherwise there was no entering them at all."
Is this true? Will he stick to this? I shall desire to
know from his learned counsel, some time or other,
whether that is a point he will take issue upon. Your
Lordships will see there were other bribes of his which
he brought under a regular official head, namely,
<i>durbar charges</i>; and there is no reason why he should
not have brought these under the same head. Therefore
what he says, that there is no other way of entering
them but as loans and deposits, is not true.
He next says, that in the second sum there was no
reason for concealment, because it was avowed.
But that false deposit was as much concealment as
the false loan, for he entered that money as his
own; whereas, when he had a mind to carry any
money to the Company's account, he knew how to
do it, for he had been accustomed to enter it under
a general name, called durbar charges,&mdash;a name
which, in its extent at least, was very much his
own invention, and which, as he gives no account<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">{389}</a></span>
of those charges, is as large and sufficient to cover
any fraudulent expenditure in the account as, one
would think, any person could wish. You see him,
then, first guessing one thing, then another,&mdash;first
giving this reason, then another; at last, however,
he seems to be satisfied that he has hit upon the
true reason of his conduct.</p>

<p>Now let us open the next paragraph, and see what
it is.&mdash;"Although I am firmly persuaded that these
were my sentiments on the occasion, yet I will not affirm
that they were. Though I feel their impression
as the remains of a series of thoughts retained on
my memory, I am not certain that they may not
have been produced by subsequent reflection on the
principal fact, combining with it the probable motives
of it. Of this I am certain, that it was my
design originally to have concealed the receipt of all
the sums, except the second, even from the knowledge
of the Court of Directors. They had answered
my purpose of public utility, and I had almost dismissed
them from my remembrance."</p>

<p>My Lords, you will observe in this most astonishing
account which he gives here, that several of these
sums he meant to conceal forever, even from the
knowledge of the Directors. Look back to his letter
of 22d May, 1782, and his letter of the 16th of
December, and in them he tells you that he might
have concealed them, but that he was resolved not to
conceal them; that he thought it highly dishonorable
so to do; that his conscience would have been
wounded, if he had done it; and that he was afraid
it would be thought that this discovery was brought
from him in consequence of the Parliamentary inquiries.
Here he says of a discovery which he values<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">{390}</a></span>
himself upon making voluntarily, that he is afraid it
should be attributed to arise from motives of fear.
Now, at last, he tells you, from Cheltenham, at a time
when he had just cause to dread the strict account to
which he is called this day, first, that he cannot tell
whether any one motive which he assigns, either in
this letter or in the former, were his real motive or
not; that he does not know whether he has not invented
them since, in consequence of a train of meditation
upon what he might have done or might
have said; and, lastly, he says, contrary to all his
former declarations, "that he had never meant nor
could give the Directors the least notice of them at
all, as they had answered his purpose, and he had dismissed
them from his remembrance." "I intended,"
he says, "always to keep them secret, though I
have declared to you solemnly, over and over again,
that I did not. I do not care how you discovered
them; I have forgotten them; I have dismissed them
from my remembrance." Is this the way in which
money is to be received and accounted for?</p>

<p>He then proceeds thus:&mdash;"But when fortune threw
a sum of money in my way of a magnitude which
could not be concealed, and the peculiar delicacy of
my situation at the time I received it made me more
circumspect of appearances, I chose to apprise my
employers of it, which I did hastily and generally:
hastily, perhaps, to prevent the vigilance and activity
of secret calumny; and generally, because I knew
not the exact amount of which I was in the receipt,
but not in the full possession. I promised to acquaint
them with the result as soon as I should be
in possession of it; and, in the performance of my
promise, I thought it consistent with it to add to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">{391}</a></span>
the amount all the former appropriations of the same
kind: my good genius then suggesting to me, with
a spirit of caution which might have spared me the
trouble of this apology, had I universally attended
to it, that, if I had suppressed them, and they were
afterwards known, I might be asked what were my
motives for withholding a part of these receipts from
the knowledge of the Court of Directors and informing
them of the rest, it being my wish to clear up
every doubt."</p>

<p>I am almost ashamed to remark upon the tergiversations
and prevarications perpetually ringing the
changes in this declaration. He would not have discovered
this hundred thousand pounds, if he could
have concealed it: he would have discovered it, lest
malicious persons should be telling tales of it. He
has a system of concealment: he never discovers
anything, but when he thinks it can be forced from
him. He says, indeed, "I could conceal these things
forever, but my conscience would not give me leave":
but it is guilt, and not honesty of conscience, that
always prompts him. At one time it is the malice
of people and the fear of misrepresentation which induced
him to make the disclosure; and he values
himself on the precaution which this fear had suggested
to him. At another time it is the magnitude
of the sum which produced this effect: nothing but
the impossibility of concealing it could possibly have
made him discover it. This hundred thousand pounds
he declares he would have concealed, if he could; and
yet he values himself upon the discovery of it. Oh,
my Lords, I am afraid that sums of much greater magnitude
have not been discovered at all! Your Lordships
now see some of the artifices of this letter. You<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">{392}</a></span>
see the variety of styles he adopts, and how he turns
himself into every shape and every form. But, after
all, do you find any clear discovery? do you find any
satisfactory answer to the Directors' letter? does he
once tell you from whom he received the money? does
he tell you for what he received it, what the circumstances
of the persons giving it were, or any explanation
whatever of his mode of accounting for it?
No: and here, at last, after so many years' litigation,
he is called to account for his prevaricating, false accounts
in Calcutta, and cannot give them to you.</p>

<p>His explanation of his conduct relative to the bonds
now only remains for your Lordships' consideration.
Before he left Calcutta, in July, 1784 [1781?], he
says, when he was going upon a service which he
thought a service of danger, he indorsed the false
bonds which he had taken from the Company, declaring
them to be none of his. You will observe
that these bonds had been in his hands from the 9th
or 15th of January (I am not quite sure of the exact
date) to the day when he went upon this service, some
time in the month of July, 1784 [1781?]. This service
he had formerly declared he did not apprehend
to be a service of danger; but he found it to be so
after: it was in anticipation of that danger that he
made this attestation and certificate upon the bonds.
But who ever saw them? Mr. Larkins saw them, says
he: "I gave them Mr. Larkins." We will show you
hereafter that Mr. Larkins deserves no credit in this
business,&mdash;that honor binds him not to discover the
secrets of Mr. Hastings. But why did he not deliver
them up entirely, when he was going upon that
service? for all pretence of concealment in the business
was now at an end, as we shall prove. Why<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">{393}</a></span>
did he not cancel these bonds? Why keep them at
all? Why not enter truly the state of the account
in the Company's records? "But I indorsed them,"
he says. "Did you deliver them so indorsed into
the treasury?" "No, I delivered them indorsed into
the hands of my bribe-broker and agent." "But
why not destroy them, or give them up to the Company,
and say you were paid, which would have been
the only truth in this transaction? Why did you
not indorse them before? Why not, during the long
period of so many years, cancel them?" No, he
kept them to the very day when he was going from
Calcutta, and had made a declaration that they were
not his. Never before, upon any account, had they
appeared; and though the Committee of the House
of Commons, in the Eleventh Report, had remarked
upon all these scandalous proceedings and prevarications,
yet he was not stimulated, even then, to give
up these bonds. He held them in his hands till the
time when he was preparing for his departure from
Calcutta, in spite of the Directors, in spite of the
Parliament, in spite of the cries of his own conscience,
in a matter which was now grown public,
and would knock doubly upon his reputation and
conduct. He then declares they are not for his own
use, but for the Company's service. But were they
then cancelled? I do not find a trace of their being
cancelled. In this letter of the 17th of January,
1785, he says with regard to these bonds, "The following
sums were paid into the treasury, and bonds
granted for the same in the name of the Governor-General,
in whose possession the bonds remain, with
a declaration upon each, indorsed and signed by him,
that he has no claim on the Company for the amount<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">{394}</a></span>
either of principal or interest, no part of the latter
having been received."</p>

<p>To the account of the 22d of May, of the indorsement,
is added the declaration upon oath. But why
any man need to declare upon oath that the money
which he has fraudulently taken and concealed from
another person is not his is the most extraordinary
thing in the world. If he had a mind to have it
placed to his credit as his own, then an oath would
be necessary; but in this case any one would believe
him upon his word. He comes, however, and says,
"This is indorsed upon oath." Oath! before what
magistrate? In whose possession were the bonds?
Were they given up? There is no trace of that upon
the record, and it stands for him to prove that they
were ever given up, and in any hands but Mr. Larkins's
and his own. So here are the bonds, begun in
obscurity and ending in obscurity, ashes to ashes, dust
to dust, corruption to corruption, and fraud to fraud.
This is all we see of these bonds, till Mr. Larkins, to
whom he writes some letter concerning them which
does not appear, is called to read a funeral sermon
over them.</p>

<hr style="width: 45%;" />

<p>My Lords, I am come now near the period of this
class of Mr. Hastings's bribes. I am a little exhausted.
There are many circumstances that might
make me wish not to delay this business by taking
up another day at your Lordships' bar, in order to
go through this long, intricate scene of corruption.
But my strength now fails me. I hope within a very
short time, to-morrow or the next court-day, to finish
it, and to go directly into evidence, as I long much to
do, to substantiate the charge; but it was necessary<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">{395}</a></span>
that the evidence should be explained. You have
heard as much of the drama as I could go through:
bear with my weakness a little: Mr. Larkins's letter
will be the epilogue to it. I have already incurred
the censure of the prisoner; I mean to increase it, by
bringing home to him the proof of his crimes, and to
display them in all their force and turpitude. It is
my duty to do it; I feel it an obligation nearest to
my heart.</p>

<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>

<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> See this letter in the Appendix to the Eighth and Sixteenth
Charges, Vol. IX. pp. 319-325, in the present edition.</p></div>
</div>
<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">{396}</a></span></p>

<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><a name="FOURTH_DAY_THURSDAY_MAY_7_1789" id="FOURTH_DAY_THURSDAY_MAY_7_1789"></a></p>
<h2>SPEECH<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 50%;">ON</span><br />
<br />
THE SIXTH ARTICLE OF CHARGE.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 50%;">FOURTH DAY: THURSDAY, MAY 7, 1789.</span></h2>


<p>My Lords,&mdash;When I had the honor last to
address you from this place, I endeavored to
press this position upon your minds, and to fortify it
by the example of the proceedings of Mr. Hastings,&mdash;that
obscurity and inaccuracies in a matter of
account constituted a just presumption of fraud. I
showed, from his own letters, that his accounts were
confused and inaccurate. I am ready, my Lords, to
admit that there are situations in which a minister
in high office may use concealment: it may be his duty
to use concealment from the enemies of his masters;
it may be prudent to use concealment from his
inferiors in the service. It will always be suspicious
to use concealment from his colleagues and co&ouml;rdinates
in office; but when, in a money transaction,
any man uses concealment with regard to them to
whom the money belongs, he is guilty of a fraud.
My Lords, I have shown you that Mr. Hastings kept
no account, by his own confession, of the moneys that
he had privately taken, as he pretends, for the Company's
service, and we have but too much reason to
presume for his own. We have shown you, my
Lords, that he has not only no accounts, but no
memory; we have shown that he does not even un<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">{397}</a></span>derstand
his own motives; that, when called upon to
recollect them, he begs to guess at them; and that as
his memory is to be supplied by his guess, so he has
no confidence in his guesses. He at first finds, after
a lapse of about a year and a half, or somewhat less,
that he cannot recollect what his motives were to
certain actions which upon the very face of them appeared
fraudulent. He is called to an account some
years after, to explain what they were, and he makes
a just reflection upon it,&mdash;namely, that, as his memory
did not enable him to find out his own motive at
the former time, it is not to be expected that it would
be clearer a year after. Your Lordships will, however,
recollect, that in the Cheltenham letter, which
is made of no perishable stuff, he begins again to
guess; but after he has guessed and guessed again,
and after he has gone through all the motives he can
possibly assign for the action, he tells you he does
not know whether those were his real motives, or
whether he has not invented them since.</p>

<p>In that situation the accounts of the Company were
left with regard to very great sums which passed
through Mr. Hastings's hands, and for which he, instead
of giving his masters credit, took credit to himself,
and, being their debtor, as he confesses himself
to be at that time, took a security for that debt as if
he had been their creditor. This required explanation.
Explanation he was called upon for, over and
over again; explanation he did not give, and declared
he could not give. He was called upon for
it when in India: he had not leisure to attend to it
there. He was called upon for it when in Europe:
he then says he must send for it to India. With much
prevarication, and much insolence too, he confesses<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">{398}</a></span>
himself guilty of falsifying the Company's accounts
by making himself their creditor when he was their
debtor, and giving false accounts of this false transaction.
The Court of Directors was slow to believe
him guilty; Parliament expressed a strong suspicion
of his guilt, and wished for further information. Mr.
Hastings about this time began to imagine his conscience
to be a faithful and true monitor,&mdash;which it
were well he had attended to upon many occasions, as
it would have saved him his appearance here,&mdash;and
it told him that he was in great danger from the Parliamentary
inquiries that were going on. It was now
to be expected that he would have been in haste to
fulfil the promise which he had made in the Patna
letter of the 20th of January, 1782; and accordingly
we find that about this time his first agent, Major
Fairfax, was sent over to Europe, which agent entered
himself at the India House, and appeared before
the Committee of the House of Commons, as an
agent expressly sent over to explain whatever might
appear doubtful in his conduct. Major Fairfax, notwithstanding
the character in which Mr. Hastings
employed him, appeared to be but a letter-carrier:
he had nothing to say: he gave them no information
in the India House at all: to the Committee (I can
speak with the clearness of a witness) he gave no
satisfaction whatever. However, this agent vanished
in a moment, in order to make way for another, more
substantial, more efficient agent,&mdash;an agent perfectly
known in this country,&mdash;an agent known by the name
given to him by Mr. Hastings, who, like the princes
of the East, gives titles: he calls him an incomparable
agent; and by that name he is very well known
to your Lordships and the world. This agent, Major<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">{399}</a></span>
Scott, who I believe was here prior to the time of
Major Fairfax's arrival in the character of an agent,
and for the very same purposes, was called before the
Committee, and examined, point by point, article by
article, upon all that obscure enumeration of bribes
which the Court of Directors declare they did not
understand; but he declared that he could speak
nothing with regard to any of these transactions, and
that he had got no instructions to explain any part
of them. There was but one circumstance which in
the course of his examination we drew from him,&mdash;namely,
that one of these articles, entered in the account
of the 22d of May as a deposit, had been received
from Mr. Hastings as a bribe from Cheyt Sing.
He produced an extract of a letter relative to it, which
your Lordships in the course of this trial may see, and
which will lead us into a further and more minute
inquiry on that head; but when that committee made
their report in 1783, not one single article had been
explained to Parliament, not one explained to the
Company, except this bribe of Cheyt Sing, which Mr.
Hastings had never thought proper to communicate
to the East India Company, either by himself, nor,
as far as we could find out, by his agent; nor was
it at last otherwise discovered than as it was drawn
out from him by a long examination in the Committee
of the House of Commons. And thus, notwithstanding
the letters he had written and the agents he employed,
he seemed absolutely and firmly resolved to
give his employers no satisfaction at all. What is
curious in this proceeding is, that Mr. Hastings, all
the time he conceals, endeavors to get himself the
credit of a discovery. Your Lordships have seen
what his discovery is; but Mr. Hastings, among his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">{400}</a></span>
other very extraordinary acquisitions, has found an
effectual method of concealment through discovery.
I will venture to say, that, whatever suspicions there
might have been of Mr. Hastings's bribes, there was
more effectual concealment in regard to every circumstance
respecting them in that discovery than if he
had kept a total silence. Other means of discovery
might have been found, but this, standing in the way,
prevented the employment of those means.</p>

<p>Things continued in this state till the time of the
letter from Cheltenham. The Cheltenham letter declared
that Mr. Hastings knew nothing of the matter,&mdash;that
he had brought with him no accounts to
England upon the subject; and though it appears by
this very letter that he had with him at Cheltenham
(if he wrote the letter at Cheltenham) a great deal
of his other correspondence, that he had his letter of
the 22d of May with him, yet any account that could
elucidate that letter he declared that he had not; but
he hinted that a Mr. Larkins, in India, whom your
Lordships will be better acquainted with, was perfectly
apprised of all that transaction. Your Lordships will
observe that Mr. Hastings has all his faculties, some
way or other, in deposit: one person can speak to his
motives; another knows his fortune better than himself;
to others he commits the sentimental parts of
his defence; to Mr. Larkins he commits his memory.
We shall see what a trustee of memory Mr. Larkins is,
and how far he answers the purpose which might be
expected, when appealed to by a man who has no memory
himself, or who has left it on the other side of the
water, and who leaves it to another to explain for him
accounts which he ought to have kept himself, and
circumstances which ought to be deposited in his own
memory.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">{401}</a></span></p>

<p>This Cheltenham letter, I believe, originally became
known, as far as I can recollect, to the House
of Commons, upon a motion of Mr. Hastings's own
agent: I do not like to be positive upon that point,
but I think that was the first appearance of it. It
appeared likewise in public: for it was thought so
extraordinary and laborious a performance, by the
writer or his friends, (as indeed it is,) that it might
serve to open a new source of eloquence in the kingdom,
and consequently was printed, I believe, at the
desire of the parties themselves. But however it became
known, it raised an extreme curiosity in the public
to hear, when Mr. Hastings could say nothing, after
so many years, of his own concerns and his own
affairs, what satisfaction Mr. Larkins at last would
give concerning them. This letter was directed to
Mr. Devaynes, Chairman of the Court of Directors.
It does not appear that the Court of Directors wrote
anything to India in consequence of it, or that they directed
this satisfactory account of the business should
be given them; but some private communications
passed between Mr. Hastings, or his agents, and Mr.
Larkins. There was a general expectation upon this
occasion, I believe, in the House of Commons and in
the nation at large, to know what would become of
the portentous inquiry. Mr. Hastings has always contrived
to have half the globe between question and
answer: when he was in India, the question went to
him, and then he adjourned his answer till he came
to England; and when he came to England, it was
necessary his answer should arrive from India; so
that there is no manner of doubt that all time was
given for digesting, comparing, collating, and making
up a perfect memory upon the occasion.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">{402}</a></span></p>

<p>But, my Lords, Mr. Larkins, who has in custody
Mr. Hastings's memory, no small part of his conscience,
and all his accounts, did, at last, in compliance
with Mr. Hastings's desire, think proper to send
an account. Then, at last, we may expect light.
Where are we to look for accounts, but from an
accountant-general? Where are they to be met with,
unless from him? And accordingly, in that night of
perplexity into which Mr. Hastings's correspondence
had plunged them, men looked up to the dawning of
the day which was to follow that star, the little Lucifer,
which with his lamp was to dispel the shades
of night, and give us some sort of light into this
dark, mysterious transaction. At last the little lamp
appeared, and was laid on the table of this House of
Commons, on the motion of Mr. Hastings's friends: for
we did not know of its arrival. It arrives, with all
the intelligence, all the memory, accuracy, and clearness
which Mr. Larkins can furnish for Mr. Hastings
upon a business that before was nothing but mystery
and confusion. The account is called,&mdash;</p>

<p><i>"Copy of the particulars of the dates on which the
component parts of sundry sums included in the account
of sums received on the account of the Honorable
Company by the Governor-General, or paid to
their Treasury by his order, and applied to their service,
were received for Mr. Hastings, and paid to the
Sub-Treasurer."</i></p>

<p>The letter from Mr. Larkins consisted of two parts:
first, what was so much wanted, an account; next,
what was wanted most of all to such an account as
he sent, a comment and explanation. The account
consisted of two members: one gave an account of several
detached bribes that Mr. Hastings had received<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">{403}</a></span>
within the course of about a year and a half; and the
other, of a great bribe which he had received in one
gross sum of one hundred thousand pounds from the
Nabob of Oude. It appeared to us, upon looking into
these accounts, that there was some geography, a little
bad chronology, but nothing else in the first: neither
the persons who took the money, nor the persons
from whom it was taken, nor the ends for which it
was given, nor any other circumstances are mentioned.</p>

<p>The first thing we saw was <i>Dinagepore</i>. I believe
you know this piece of geography,&mdash;that it is one of
the provinces of the kingdom of Bengal. We then
have a long series of months, with a number of sums
added to them; and in the end it is said, that on
the 18th and 19th of Asin, (meaning part of September
and part of October,) were paid to Mr. Croftes
two lac of rupees; and then remains one lac, which
was taken from a sum of three lac six thousand nine
hundred and seventy-three rupees. After we had
waited for Mr. Hastings's own account, after it had
been pursued through a series of correspondence in
vain, after his agents had come to England to explain
it, this is the explanation that your Lordships have got
of this first article, Dinagepore. Not the person paid
to, not the person paying, are mentioned, nor any
other circumstance, except the signature, <i>G.G.S.</i>:
this might serve for <i>George Gilbert Sanders</i>, or any
other name you please; and seeing <i>Croftes</i> above
it, you might imagine it was an Englishman. And
this, which I call a geographical and a chronological
account, is the only account we have. Mr. Larkins,
upon the mere face of the account, sadly disappoints
us; and I will venture to say that in matters of ac<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">{404}</a></span>count
Bengal book-keeping is as remote from good
book-keeping as the Bengal <i>painches</i> are remote from
all the rules of good composition. We have, however,
got some light: namely, that one G.G.S. has
paid some money to Mr. Croftes for some purpose,
but from whom we know not, nor where; that there
is a place called Dinagepore; and that Mr. Hastings
received some money from somebody in Dinagepore.</p>

<p>The next article is <i>Patna</i>. Your Lordships are
not so ill acquainted with the geography of India as
not to know that there is such a place as Patna, nor
so ill acquainted with the chronology of it as not to
know that there are three months called Baisakh,
Asin, Chait. Here was paid to Mr. Croftes two lac
of rupees, and there was left a balance of about
two more. But though you learn with regard to the
province of Dinagepore that there is a balance to be
discharged by G.G.S., yet with regard to Patna
we have not even a G.G.S.: we have no sort of
light whatever to know through whose hands the
money passed, nor any glimpse of light whatever respecting
it.</p>

<p>You may expect to be made amends in the other
province, called <i>Nuddea</i>, where Mr. Hastings had
received a considerable sum of money. There is
the very same darkness: not a word from whom
received, by whom received, or any other circumstance,
but that it was paid into the hands of Mr.
Hastings's <i>white banian</i>, as he was commonly called
in that country, into the hands of Mr. Croftes, who
is his white agent in receiving bribes: for he was
very far from having but one.</p>

<p>After all this inquiry, after so many severe animadversions
from the House of Commons, after all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">{405}</a></span>
those reiterated letters from the Directors, after an
application to Mr. Hastings himself, when you are
hunting to get at some explanation of the proceedings
mentioned in the letter of the month of May,
1782, you receive here by Mr. Larkins's letter, which
is dated the 5th of August, 1786, this account,
which, to be sure, gives an amazing light into this
business: it is a letter for which it was worth sending
to Bengal, worth waiting for with all that anxious
expectation with which men wait for great
events. Upon the face of the account there is not
one single word which can tend to illustrate the
matter: he sums up the whole, and makes out that
there was received five lac and fifty thousand rupees,
that is to say, 55,000<i>l.</i>, out of the sum of nine lac
and fifty thousand engaged to be paid: namely,&mdash;</p>

<div class='ctr'>
<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
<tr><td align='left'>From Dinagepore</td><td align='right'>4,00,000</td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>From Nuddea</td><td align='right'>1,50,000</td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>And from Patna</td><td align='right'>4,00,000</td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='right' class="bt bb">9,50,000</td></tr>
<tr><td align='right'>Or</td><td align='right' class="bb">&pound;95,000</td></tr>
</table></div>


<p>Now you have got full light! <i>Cabooleat</i> signifies a
contract, or an agreement; and this agreement was,
to pay Mr. Hastings, as one should think, certain sums
of money,&mdash;it does not say from whom, but only that
such a sum of money was paid, and that there remains
such a balance. When you come and compare the
money received by Mr. Croftes with these cabooleats,
you find that the cabooleats amount to 95,000<i>l.</i>, and
that the receipt has been about 55,000<i>l.</i>, and that upon
the face of this account there is 40,000<i>l.</i> somewhere<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">{406}</a></span>
or other unaccounted for. There never was such a
mode of account-keeping, except in the new system of
this bribe exchequer.</p>

<p>Your Lordships will now see, from this luminous,
satisfactory, and clear account, which could come from
no other than a great accountant and a great financier,
establishing some new system of finance, and recommending
it to the world as superior to those old-fashioned
foolish establishments, the Exchequer and Bank
of England, what lights are received from Mr. Hastings.</p>

<p>However, it does so happen that from these obscure
hints we have been able to institute examinations
which have discovered such a mass of fraud, guilt,
corruption, and oppression as probably never before
existed since the beginning of the world; and in that
darkness we hope and trust the diligence and zeal of
the House of Commons will find light sufficient to
make a full discovery of his base crimes. We hope
and trust, that, after all his concealments, and though
he appear resolved to die in the last dike of prevarication,
all his artifices will not be able to secure him
from the siege which the diligence of the House of
Commons has laid to his corruptions.</p>

<p>Your Lordships will remark, in a paragraph, which,
though it stands last, is the first in principle, in Mr. Larkins's
letter, that, having before given his comment, he
perorates, as is natural upon such an occasion. This
peroration, as is usual in perorations, is in favor of the
parties speaking it, and <i>ad conciliandum auditorem</i>.
"Conscious," he says, "that the concern which I have
had in these transactions needs neither an apology nor
an excuse,"&mdash;that is rather extraordinary, too!&mdash;"and
that I have in no action of my life sacrificed the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">{407}</a></span>
duty and fidelity which I owed to my honorable employers
either to the regard which I felt for another
or to the advancement of my own fortune, I shall conclude
this address, firmly relying upon the candor of
those before whom it may be submitted for its being
deemed a satisfactory as well as a circumstantial compliance
with the requisition in conformity to which the
information it affords has been furnished,"&mdash;meaning,
as your Lordships will see in the whole course of the
letter, that he had written it in compliance with the
requisition and in conformity to the information he
had been furnished with by Mr. Hastings,&mdash;"without
which it would have been as base as dishonorable for
me spontaneously to have afforded it: for, though the
duty which every man owes to himself should render
him incapable of making an assertion not strictly true,
no man actuated either by virtuous or honorable sentiments
could mistakenly apprehend, that, unless he
betrayed the confidence reposed in him by another, he
might be deemed deficient in fidelity to his employers."</p>

<p>My Lords, here is, in my opinion, a discovery very
well worthy your Lordships' attention; here is the
accountant-general of the Company, who declares, and
fixes it as a point of honor, that he would not have
made a discovery so important to them, if Mr. Hastings
himself had not authorized him to make it: a
point to which he considers himself bound by his honor
to adhere. Let us see what becomes of us, when
the principle of honor is so debauched and perverted.
A principle of honor, as long as it is connected with
virtue, adds no small efficacy to its operation, and no
small brilliancy and lustre to its appearance: but honor,
the moment that it becomes unconnected with the
duties of official function, with the relations of life,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">{408}</a></span>
and the eternal and immutable rules of morality, and
appears in its substance alien to them, changes its nature,
and, instead of justifying a breach of duty, aggravates
all its mischiefs to an almost infinite degree;
by the apparent lustre of the surface, it hides from
you the baseness and deformity of the ground. Here
is Mr. Hastings's agent, Mr. Larkins, the Company's
general accountant, prefers his attachment to Mr.
Hastings to his duty to the Company. Instead of the
account which he ought to give to them in consequence
of the trust reposed in him, he thinks himself bound
by honor to Mr. Hastings, if Mr. Hastings had not
called for that explanation, not to have given it: so
that, whatever obscurity is in this explanation, it is because
Mr. Hastings did not authorize or require him
to give a clearer. Here is a principle of treacherous
fidelity, of perfidious honor, of the faith of conspirators
against their masters, the faith of robbers against the
public, held up against the duty of an officer in a
public situation. You see how they are bound to one
another, and how they give their fidelity to keep the
secrets of one another, to prevent the Directors having
a true knowledge of their affairs; and I am sure, if
you do not destroy this honor of conspirators and this
faith of robbers, that there will be no other honor and
no other fidelity among the servants in India. Mr.
Larkins, your Lordships see, adheres to the principle
of secrecy.</p>

<p>You will next remark that Mr. Hastings had as
many bribe-factors as bribes. There was confidence
to be reposed in each of them, and not one of these
men appears to be in the confidence of another.
You will find in this letter the policy, the frame,
and constitution of this new exchequer. Mr. Croftes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">{409}</a></span>
seems to have known things which Mr. Larkins did
not; Mr. Larkins knew things which Gunga Govind
Sing did not; Gunga Govind Sing knew things which
none of the rest of the confederates knew. Cantoo
Baboo, who appears in this letter as a principal actor,
was in a secret which Mr. Larkins did not know; it
appears likewise, that there was a Persian moonshee
in a secret of which Cantoo Baboo was ignorant; and
it appears that Mr. Palmer was in the secret of a transaction
not intrusted to any of the rest. Such is the
labyrinth of this practical <i>painche</i>, or screw, that, if,
for instance, you were endeavoring to trace backwards
some transaction through Major Palmer, you would
be stopped there, and must go back again; for it had
begun with Cantoo Baboo. If in another you were
to penetrate into the dark recess of the black breast
of Cantoo Baboo, you could not go further; for it began
with Gunga Govind Sing. If you pierce the breast
of Gunga Govind Sing, you are again stopped; a Persian
moonshee was the confidential agent. If you get
beyond this, you find Mr. Larkins knew something
which the others did not; and at last you find Mr.
Hastings did not put entire confidence in any of them.
You will see, by this letter, that he kept his accounts
in all colors, black, white, and mezzotinto; that he
kept them in all languages,&mdash;in Persian, in Bengalee,
and in a language which, I believe, is neither Persian
nor Bengalee, nor any other known in the world, but
a language in which Mr. Hastings found it proper to
keep his accounts and to transact his business. The
persons carrying on the accounts are Mr. Larkins, an
Englishman, Cantoo Baboo, a Gentoo, and a Persian
moonshee, probably a Mahometan. So all languages,
all religions, all descriptions of men are to keep the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">{410}</a></span>
account of these bribes, and to make out this valuable
account which Mr. Larkins gave you!</p>

<p>Let us now see how far the memory, observation,
and knowledge of the persons referred to can supply
the want of them in Mr. Hastings. These accounts
come at last, though late, from Mr. Larkins, who, I
will venture to say, let the banians boast what they
will, has skill perhaps equal to the best of them: he
begins by explaining to you something concerning the
present of the ten lac. I wish your Lordships always
to take Mr. Hastings's word, where it can be had,&mdash;or
Mr. Larkins's, who was the representative of and
memory-keeper to Mr. Hastings; and then I may
perhaps take the liberty of making some observations
upon it.</p>


<h3><i>Extract of a Letter from William Larkins, Accountant-General
of Bengal, to the Chairman of the East India
Company, dated 5th August, 1786.</i></h3>

<p>"Mr. Hastings returned from Benares to Calcutta
on the 5th February, 1782. At that time I was wholly
ignorant of the letter which on the 20th January he
wrote from Patna to the Secret Committee of the Honorable
the Court of Directors. The rough draught of
this letter, in the handwriting of Major Palmer, is
now in my possession. Soon after his arrival at the
Presidency, he requested me to form the account of
his receipts and disbursements, which you will find
journalized in the 280th, &amp;c., and 307th pages of
the Honorable Company's general books of the year
1781-2. My official situation as accountant-general
had previously convinced me that Mr. Hastings could
not have made the issues which were acknowledged<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">{411}</a></span>
as received from him by some of the paymasters of
the army, unless he had obtained some such supply as
that which he afterwards, viz., on the 22d May, 1782,
made known to me, when I immediately suggested to
him the necessity of his transmitting that account
which accompanied his letter of that date, till when
the promise contained in his letter of 20th January
had entirely escaped his recollection."</p>

<p>The first thing I would remark on this (and I believe
your Lordships have rather gone before me in
the remark) is, that Mr. Hastings came down to Calcutta
on the 5th of February; that then, or a few
days after, he calls to him his confidential and faithful
friend, (not his official secretary, for he trusted none
of his regular secretaries with these transactions,)&mdash;he
calls him to help him to make out his accounts
during his absence. You would imagine that at that
time he trusted this man with his account. No such
thing: he goes on with the accountant-general, accounting
with him for money expended, without ever
explaining to that accountant-general how that money
came into his hands. Here, then, we have the
accountant making out the account, and the person
accounting. The accountant does not in any manner
make an objection, and say, "Here you are giving
me an account by which it appears that you have
expended money, but you have not told me where
you received it: how shall I make out a fair account
of debtor and creditor between you and the Company?"
He does no such thing. There lies a suspicion
in his breast that Mr. Hastings must have
taken some money in some irregular way, or he could
not have made those payments. Mr. Larkins begins
to suspect him. "Where did you lose this bodkin?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">{412}</a></span>
said one lady to another, upon a certain occasion.
"Pray, Madam, where did you find it?" Mr. Hastings,
at the very moment of his life when confidence
was required, even when making up his accounts
with his accountant, never told him one word of the
matter. You see he had no confidence in Mr. Larkins.
This makes out one of the propositions I want
to impress upon your Lordships' minds, that no one
man did he let into every part of his transactions: a
material circumstance, which will help to lead your
Lordships' judgment in forming your opinion upon
many parts of this cause.</p>

<p>You see that Mr. Larkins suspected him. Probably
in consequence of those suspicions, or from some
other cause, he at last told him, upon the 22d of May,
1782, (but why at that time, rather than at any other
time, does not appear; and this we shall find very
difficult to be accounted for,)&mdash;he told him that he
had received a bribe from the Nabob of Oude, of
100,000<i>l.</i> He informs him of this on the 22d of May,
which, when the accounts were making up, he conceals
from him. And he communicates to him the
rough draught of his letter to the Court of Directors,
informing them that this business was not transacted
by any known secretary of the Company, nor with
the intervention of any interpreter of the Company,
nor passed through any official channel whatever, but
through a gentleman much in his confidence, his military
secretary; and, as if receiving bribes, and receiving
letters concerning them, and carrying on correspondence
relative to them, was a part of military
duty, the rough draught of this letter was in the
hands of this military secretary. Upon the communication
of the letter, it rushes all at once into the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">{413}</a></span>
mind of Mr.Larkins, who knows Mr. Hastings's recollection,
who knows what does and what does not escape
it, and who had a memory ready to explode at
Mr. Hastings's desire, "Good God!" says he, "you
have promised the Directors an account of this business!"&mdash;a
promise which Mr. Larkins assures the
Directors, upon his word, had entirely escaped Mr.
Hastings's recollection. Mr. Hastings, it seems, had
totally forgotten the promise relative to the paltry sum
of 100,000<i>l.</i> which he had made to the Court of Directors
in the January before; he never once thought
of it, no, not even when he was making up his accounts
of that very identical sum, till the 22d of
May. So that these persons answer for one another's
bad memory: and you will see they have good reason.
Mr. Hastings's want of recollection appears in things
of some moment. However lightly he may regard
the sum of 100,000<i>l.</i>, which, considering the enormous
sums he has received, I dare say he does,&mdash;for
he totally forgot it, he knew nothing about it,&mdash;observe
what sort of memory this registrar and accountant
of such sums as 100,000<i>l.</i> has. In what confusion
of millions must it be, that such sums can be lost
to Mr. Hastings's recollection! However, at last it
was brought to his recollection, and he thought that
it was necessary to give some account of it. And
who is the accountant whom he produces? His own
memory is no accountant. He had dismissed the matter
(as he happily expresses it in the Cheltenham
letter) from his memory. Major Palmer is not the accountant.
One is astonished that a man who had had
100,000<i>l.</i> in his hands, and laid it out, as he pretends,
in the public service, has not a scrap of paper to show
for it. No ordinary or extraordinary account is given<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">{414}</a></span>
of it. Well, what is to be done in such circumstances?
He sends for a person whose name you have
heard and will often hear of, the faithful Cantoo Baboo.
This man comes to Mr. Larkins, and he reads
to him (be so good as to remark the words) from a
Bengal paper the account of the detached bribes.
Your Lordships will observe that I have stated the
receipt of a number of detached bribes, and a bribe
in one great body: one, the great <i>corps d'arm&eacute;e</i>; the
other, flying scouting bodies, which were only to be
collected together by a skilful man who knew how
to manage them, and regulate the motions of those
wild and disorderly troops. When No. 2 was to be
explained, Cantoo Baboo failed him; he was not
worth a farthing as to any transaction that happened
when Mr. Hastings was in the Upper Provinces, where
though he was his faithful and constant attendant
through the whole, yet he could give no account of
it. Mr. Hastings's moonshee then reads three lines
from a paper to Mr. Larkins. Now it is no way even
insinuated that both the Bengal and Persian papers
did not contain the account of other immense sums;
and, indeed, from the circumstance of only three lines
being read from the Persian paper, your Lordships
will be able, in your own minds, to form some judgment
upon this business.</p>

<p>I shall now proceed with his letter of explanation.
"The particulars," he goes on to say, "of the paper
No. 1 were read to me from a Bengal paper by Mr.
Hastings's banian, Cantoo Baboo; and if I am not mistaken,
the three first lines of that No. 2 were read
over to me from a Persian paper by his moonshee.
The translation of these particulars, made by me, was,
as I verily believe, the first complete memorandum<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">{415}</a></span>
that he ever possessed of them in the English language;
and I am confident, that, if I had not suggested
to him the necessity of his taking this precaution,
he would at this moment have been unable to have
afforded any such information concerning them."</p>

<p>Now, my Lords, if he had not got, on the intimation
of Mr. Larkins, some scraps of paper, your
Lordships might have at this day wanted that valuable
information which Mr. Larkins has laid before
you. These, however, contain, Mr. Larkins says,
"the first complete"&mdash;what?&mdash;account, do you
imagine?&mdash;no, "the first complete <i>memorandum</i>."
You would imagine that he would himself, for his
own use, have notched down, somewhere or other,
in short-hand, in Persian characters, short without
vowels, or in some other way, <i>memorandums</i>. But
he had not himself even a memorandum of this
business; and consequently, when he was at Cheltenham,
and even here at your bar, he could never
have had any account of a sum of 200,000<i>l.</i>, but by
this account of Mr. Larkins, taken, as people read
them, from detached pieces of paper.</p>

<p>One would have expected that Mr. Larkins, being
warned that day, and cautioned by the strange memory
of Mr. Hastings, and the dangerous situation,
therefore, in which he himself stood, would at least
have been very guarded and cautious. Hear what he
next says upon this subject. "As neither of the
other sums passed through his hands, these" (meaning
the scraps) "contained no such specification, and
consequently could not enable him to afford the information
with which he has requested me to furnish
you; and it is more than probable, that, if the affidavit
which I took on the 16th December, 1782, had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">{416}</a></span>
not exposed my character to the suspicion of my
being capable of committing one of the basest trespasses
upon the confidence of mankind, I should, at
this distance of time, have been equally unable to
have complied with this request: but after I became
acquainted with the insinuation suggested in the
Eleventh Report of the Select Committee of the
House of Commons, I thought it but too probable,
that, unless I was possessed of the original memorandum
which I had made of these transactions, I
might not at some distant period be able to prove
that I had not descended to commit so base an action.
I have therefore always most carefully preserved
every paper which I possessed regarding these
transactions."</p>

<p>You see that Mr. Hastings had no memorandums
of his accounts; you see, that, after Mr. Larkins had
made his memorandums of them, he had no design
of guarding or keeping them; and you will commend
those wicked and malicious committees who
by their reports have told an accountant-general and
first public officer of revenue, that, in order to guard
his character from their suspicions, it was necessary
that he should keep some paper or other of an
account. We have heard of the base, wicked, and
mercenary license that has been used by these gentlemen
of India towards the House of Commons:
a license to libel and traduce the diligence of the
House of Commons, the purity of their motives, and
the fidelity of their actions, by which the very means
of informing the people are attempted to be used for
the purpose of leaving them in darkness and delusion.
But, my Lords, when the accountant-general
declares, that, if the House of Commons had not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">{417}</a></span>
expressed, as they ought to express, much diffidence
and distrust respecting these transactions, and even
suspected him of perjury, this very day that man
would not have produced a scrap of those papers to
you, but might have turned them to the basest and
most infamous of uses. If, I say, we have saved
these valuable fragments by suspecting his integrity,
your Lordships will see suspicion is of some use:
and I hope the world will learn that punishment will
be of use, too, in preventing such transactions.</p>

<p>Your Lordships have seen that no two persons
knew anything of these transactions; you see that
even memorandums of transactions of very great
moment, some of which had passed in the year 1779,
were not even so much as put in the shape of complete
memoranda until May, 1782; you see that Mr.
Hastings never kept them: and there is no reason to
imagine that a black banian and a Persian moonshee
would have been careful of what Mr. Hastings himself,
who did not seem to stimulate his accountants
to a vast deal of exactness and a vast deal of fidelity,
was negligent. You see that Mr. Larkins, our last,
our only hope, if he had not been suspected by the
House of Commons, probably would never have kept
these papers; and that you could not have had this
valuable cargo, such as it is, if it had not been for
the circumstance Mr. Larkins thinks proper to mention.</p>

<p>From the specimen which we have given of Mr.
Hastings's mode of accounts, of its vouchers, checks,
and counter-checks, your Lordships will have observed
that the mode itself is past describing, and
that the checks and counter-checks, instead of being
put upon one another to prevent abuse, are put upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">{418}</a></span>
each other to prevent discovery and to fortify abuse.
When you hear that one man has an account of receipt,
another of expenditure, another of control, you
say that office is well constituted: but here is an
office constituted by different persons without the
smallest connection with each other; for the only purpose
which they have ever answered is the purpose
of base concealment.</p>

<p>We shall now proceed a little further with Mr.
Larkins. The first of the papers from which he took
the memoranda was a paper of Cantoo Baboo. It
contained detached payments, amounting in the
whole, with the cabooleat, or agreement, to about
95,000<i>l.</i> sterling, and of which it appears that there
was received by Mr. Croftes 55,000<i>l.</i>, and no more.</p>

<p>Now will your Lordships be so good as to let it rest
in your memory what sort of an exchequer this is,
even with regard to its receipts? As your Lordships
have seen the economy and constitution of this office,
so now see the receipt. It appears that in the month
of May, 1782, out of the sums beginning to be received
in the month of Shawal, that is in July,
1779, there was, during that interval, 40,000<i>l.</i> out
of 95,000<i>l.</i> sunk somewhere, in some of the turnings
over upon the gridiron, through some of those agents
and panders of corruption which Mr. Hastings uses.
Here is the <i>valuable</i> revenue of the Company, <i>which
is to supply them in their exigencies, which is to come
from sources which otherwise never would have yielded
it</i>,&mdash;which, though small in proportion to the other
revenue, yet is a diamond, something that by its value
makes amends for its want of bulk,&mdash;falling short by
40,000<i>l.</i> out of 95,000<i>l.</i> Here is a system made for
fraud, and producing all the effects of it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">{419}</a></span></p>

<p>Upon the face of this account, the agreement was
to yield to Mr. Hastings, some way or other, to be
paid to Mr. Croftes, 95,000<i>l.</i>, and there was a deficiency
of 40,000<i>l.</i> Would any man, even with no
more sense than Mr. Hastings, who wants all the faculties
of the human mind, who has neither memory
nor judgment, any man who was that poor half-idiot
creature that Mr. Hastings pretends to be, engage in a
dealing that was to extort from some one or other an
agreement to pay 95,000<i>l.</i> which was not to produce
more than 55,000<i>l.</i>? What, then, is become of it?
Is it in the hands of Mr. Hastings's wicked bribe-brokers,
or in his own hands? Is it in arrear? Do you
know anything about it? Whom are you to apply
to for information? Why, to G.G.S.&mdash;G.G.S. I
find to be, what indeed I suspected him to be, a person
that I have mentioned frequently to your Lordships,
and that you will often hear of, commonly
called Gunga Govind Sing,&mdash;in a short word, the
wickedest of the whole race of banians: the consolidated
wickedness of the whole body is to be found in
this man.</p>

<p>Of the deficiency which appears in this agreement
with somebody or other on the part of Mr. Hastings
through Gunga Govind Sing you will expect to hear
some explanation. Of the first sum, which is said to
have been paid through Gunga Govind Sing, amounting
on the cabooleat to four lac, and of which no more
than two lac was actually received,&mdash;that is to say,
half of it was sunk,&mdash;we have this memorandum
only: "Although Mr. Hastings was extremely dissatisfied
with the excuses Gunga Govind Sing assigned
for not paying Mr. Croftes the sum stated by the
paper No. 1 to be in his charge, he never could ob<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">{420}</a></span>tain
from him any further payments on this account."
Mr. Hastings is exceedingly dissatisfied with those
excuses, and this is the whole account of the transaction.
This is the only thing said of Gunga Govind
Sing in the account: he neither states how he came
to be employed, or for what he was employed. It
appears, however, from the transaction, as far as we
can make our way through this darkness, that he had
actually received 10,000<i>l.</i> of the money, which he did
not account for, and that he pretended that there
was an arrear of the rest. So here Mr. Hastings's
bribe-agent admits that he had received 10,000<i>l.</i>, but
he will not account for it; he says there is an arrear
of another 10,000<i>l.</i>; and thus it appears that he was
enabled to take from somebody at Dinagepore, by a
cabooleat, 40,000<i>l.</i>, of which Mr. Hastings can get but
20,000<i>l.</i>: there is cent per cent loss upon it. Mr.
Hastings was so exceedingly dissatisfied with this
conduct of Gunga Govind Sing, that you would imagine
a breach would have immediately ensued between
them. I shall not anticipate what some of my
honorable friends will bring before your Lordships;
but I tell you, that, so far from quarrelling with Gunga
Govind Sing, or being really angry with him, it is
only a little pettish love quarrel with Gunga Govind
Sing: <i>amantium ir&aelig; amoris integratio est</i>. For Gunga
Govind Sing, without having paid him one shilling
of this money, attended him to the Ganges; and one
of the last acts of Mr. Hastings's government was to
represent this man, who was unfaithful even to fraud,
who did not keep the common faith of thieves and
robbers, this very man he recommends to the Company
as a person who ought to be rewarded, as one
of their best and most faithful servants. And how<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">{421}</a></span>
does he recommend him to be rewarded? By giving
him the estate of another person,&mdash;the way in which
Mr. Hastings desires to be always rewarded himself:
for, in calling upon the Company's justice to give
him some money for expenses with which he never
charged them, he desires them to assign him the
money upon some person of the country. So here
Mr. Hastings recommends Gunga Govind Sing not
only to trust, confidence, and employment, which he
does very fully, but to a reward taken out of the substance
of other people. This is what Mr. Hastings
has done with Gunga Govind Sing; and if such are
the effects of his anger, what must be the effect of
his pleasure and satisfaction? Now I say that Mr.
Hastings, who, in fact, saw this man amongst the
very last with whom he had any communication in
India, could not have so recommended him after this
known fraud, in one business only, of 20,000<i>l.</i>,&mdash;he
could not so have supported him, he could not so
have caressed him, he could not so have employed
him, he could not have done all this, unless he had
paid to Mr. Hastings privately that sum of money
which never was brought into any even of these miserable
accounts, without some payment or other with
which Mr. Hastings was and ought to be satisfied, or
unless Gunga Govind Sing had some dishonorable secret
to tell of him which he did not dare to provoke
him to give a just account of, or, lastly, unless the
original agreement was that half or a third of the
bribe should go to Gunga Govind Sing.</p>

<p>Such is this patriotic scheme of bribery, this public-spirited
corruption which Mr. Hastings has invented
upon this occasion, and by which he thinks out of
the vices of mankind to draw a better revenue than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">{422}</a></span>
out of any legal source whatever; and therefore he
has resolved to become the most corrupt of all Governors-General,
in order to be the most useful servant
to the finances of the Company.</p>

<p>So much as to the first article of Dinagepore
peshcush. All you have is, that G.G.S is Gunga
Govind Sing; that he has cheated the public of half
of it; that Mr. Hastings was angry with him, and
yet went away from Bengal, rewarding, praising, and
caressing him. Are these things to pass as matters
of course? They cannot so pass with your Lordships'
sagacity: I will venture to say that no court,
even of <i>pie-poudre</i>, could help finding him guilty
upon such a matter, if such a court had to inquire
into it.</p>

<p>The next article is <i>Patna</i>. Here, too, he was to
receive 40,000<i>l.</i>; but from whom this deponent saith
not. At this circumstance Mr. Larkins, who is a
famous deponent, never hints once. You may look
through his whole letter, which is a pretty long one,
(and which I will save your Lordships the trouble of
hearing read at length now, because you will have it
before you when you come to the Patna business,)
and you will only find that somebody had engaged to
pay him 40,000<i>l.</i>, and that but half of this sum was
received. You want an explanation of this. You
have seen the kind of explanation given in the former
case, a conjectural explanation of G.G.S. But
when you come to the present case, who the person
paying was, why the money was not paid, what the
cause of failure was, you are not told: you only
learn that there was that sum deficient; and Mr.
Larkins, who is our last resort and final hope of
elucidation in this transaction, throws not the small<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">{423}</a></span>est
glimpse of light upon it. We of the House of
Commons have been reduced to form the best legitimate
conjectures we could upon this business, and
those conjectures have led us to further evidence,
which will enable us to fix one of the most scandalous
and most mischievous bribes, in all the circumstances
of it, upon Mr. Hastings, that was ever
known. If he extorted 40,000<i>l.</i> under pretence of
the Company's service, here is again another failure
of half the money. Oh, my Lords, you will find that
even the remaining part was purchased with the loss
of one of the best revenues in India, and with the
grievous distress of a country that deserved well your
protection, instead of being robbed to give 20,000<i>l.</i>
to the Company, and another 20,000<i>l.</i> to some robber
or other, black or white. When I say, given to some
other robber, black or white, I do not suppose that
either generosity, friendship, or even communion,
can exist in that country between white men and
black: no, their colors are not more adverse than
their characters and tempers. There is not that
<i>idem velle et idem nolle</i>, there are none of those
habits of life, nothing, that can bind men together
even in the most ordinary society: the mutual means
of such an union do not exist between them. It is a
money-dealing, and a money-dealing only, which can
exist between them; and when you hear that a black
man is favored, and that 20,000<i>l.</i> is pretended to be
left in his hands, do not believe it: indeed, you cannot
believe it; for we will bring evidence to show
that there is no friendship between those people,&mdash;and
that, when black men give money to a white
man, it is a bribe,&mdash;and that, when money is given
to a black man, he is only a sharer with the white man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">{424}</a></span>
in their infamous profits. We find, however, somebody,
anonymous, with 20,000<i>l.</i> left in his hands; and
when we come to discover who the man is, and the final
balance which appears against him in his account
with the Company, we find that for this 20,000<i>l.</i>,
which was received for the Company, they paid such
a compound interest as was never before paid for
money advanced: the most violently griping usurer,
in dealing with the most extravagant heir, never
made such a bargain as Mr. Hastings has made for
the Company by this bribe. Therefore it could be
nothing but fraud that could have got him to have
undertaken such a revenue. This evidently shows
the whole to be a pretence to cover fraud, and not
a weak attempt to raise a revenue,&mdash;and that Mr.
Hastings was not that idiot he represents himself to
be, a man forgetting all his offices, all his duties, all
his own affairs, and all the public affairs. He does
not, however, forget how to make a bargain to get
money; but when the money is to be recovered for
the Company, (as he says,) he forgets to recover it:
so that the accuracy with which he begins a bribe,
<i>acribus initiis et soporos&acirc; fine</i>, and the carelessness
with which he ends it, are things that characterize,
not weakness and stupidity, but fraud.</p>

<p>The next article we proceed to is <i>Nuddea</i>. Here
we have more light; but does Mr. Larkins anywhere
tell you anything about Nuddea? No it appears
as if the account had been paid up, and that the cabooleat
and the payments answer and tally with each
other; yet, when we come to produce the evidence
upon these parts, you will see most abundant reason
to be assured that there is much more concealed
than is given in this account,&mdash;that it is an account<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">{425}</a></span>
current, and not an account closed,&mdash;and that the
agreement was for some other and greater sum than
appears. It might be expected that the Company
would inquire of Mr. Hastings, and ask, "From whom
did he get it? Who has received it? Who is to answer
for it?" But he knew that they were not likely
to make any inquiry at all,&mdash;they are not that kind
of people. You would imagine that a mercantile body
would have some of the mercantile excellencies, and
even you would allow them perhaps some of the mercantile
faults. But they have, like Mr. Hastings, forgotten
totally the mercantile character; and, accordingly,
neither accuracy nor fidelity of account do
they ever require of Mr. Hastings. They have too
much confidence in him; and he, accordingly, acts
like a man in whom such confidence, without reason,
is reposed.</p>

<p>Your Lordships may perhaps suppose that the payment
of this money was an act of friendship and generosity
in the people of the country. No: we have
found out, and shall prove, from whom he got it;
at least we shall produce such a conjecture upon it
as your Lordships will think us bound to do, when
we have such an account before us. Here on the
face of the account there is no deficiency; but when
we look into it, we find skulking in a corner a person
called Nundulol, from whom there is received
58,000 rupees. You will find that he, who appears
to have paid up this money, and which Mr. Hastings
spent as he pleased in his journey to Benares, and
who consequently must have had some trust reposed
in him, was the wickedest of men, next to those I
have mentioned,&mdash;always giving the first rank to
Gunga Govind Sing, <i>primus inter pares</i>, the second<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">{426}</a></span>
to Debi Sing, the third to Cantoo Baboo: this man
is fit to be one next on a par with them. Mr. Larkins,
when he comes to explain this article, says, "I
believe it is for a part of the Dinagepore peshcush,
which would reduce the balance to about 5,000<i>l.</i>":
but he does not pretend to know what it is given
for; he gives several guesses at it; "but," he says,
"as I do not know, I shall not pretend to give more
than my conjecture upon it." He is in the right;
because we shall prove Nundulol never did have any
thing to do with the Dinagepore peshcush. These
are very extraordinary proceedings. It is my business
simply to state them to your Lordships now;
we will give them in afterwards in evidence, and I
will leave that evidence to be confirmed and fortified
by further observations.</p>

<p>One of the objects of Mr. Larkins's letter is to
illustrate the bonds. He says, "The two first stated
sums" (namely, Dinagepore and Patna, in the paper
marked No. 1, I suppose, for he seems to explain
it to be such) "are sums for a part of which Mr.
Hastings took two bonds: viz., No. 1539, dated 1st
October, 1780, and No. 1540, dated 2d October, 1780,
each for the sum of current rupees 1,16,000, or sicca
rupees one lac. The remainder of that amount
was carried to the credit of the head, <i>Four per Cent
Remittance Loan:</i> Mr. Hastings having taken a bond
for it, (No. 89,) which has been since completely
liquidated, conformable to the law." But before I
proceed with the bonds, I will beg leave to recall
to your Lordships' recollection that Mr. Larkins
states in his letter that these sums were received
in November. How does this agree with another
state of the transaction given by Mr. Hastings,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">{427}</a></span>
namely, that the time of his taking the bonds was
the 1st and 2d of October? Mr. Larkins, therefore,
who has thought proper to say that the money was
received in the month of November, has here given
as extraordinary an instance either of fraudulent accuracy
or shameful official inaccuracy as was ever
perhaps discovered. The first sums are asserted to
be paid to Mr. Croftes on the 18th and 19th of Asin,
1187. The month of Asin corresponds with the
month of September and part of October, and not
with November; and it is the more extraordinary
that Mr. Larkins should mistake this, because he is
in an office which requires monthly payments, and
consequently great monthly exactness, and a continual
transfer from one month to another: we cannot
suppose any accountant in England can be more
accurately acquainted with the succession of months
than Mr. Larkins must have been with the comparative
state of Bengal and English months. How are
we to account for this gross inaccuracy? If you
have a poet, if you have a politician, if you have a
moralist inaccurate, you know that these are cases
which, from the narrow bounds of our weak faculties,
do not perhaps admit of accuracy. But what
is an inaccurate <i>accountant</i> good for? "Silly man,
that dost not know thy own silly trade!" was once
well said: but the trade here is not silly. You do
not even praise an accountant for being accurate, because
you have thousands of them; but you justly
blame a public accountant who is guilty of a gross
inaccuracy. But what end could his being inaccurate
answer? Why not name October as well as
November? I know no reason for it; but here is
certainly a gross mistake: and from the nature of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">{428}</a></span>
the thing, it is hardly possible to suppose it to be
a mere mistake. But take it that it is a mistake,
and to have nothing of fraud, but mere carelessness;
this, in a man valued by Mr. Hastings for being very
punctilious and accurate, is extraordinary.</p>

<p>But to return to the bonds. We find a bond taken
in the month of Shawal, 1186, or 1779, but the receipt
is said to be in Asin, 1780: that is to say,
there was a year and about three months between
the collection and the receipt; and during all that
period of time an enormous sum of money had lain
in the hands of Gunga Govind Sing, to be employed
when Mr. Hastings should think fit. He employed
it, he says, for the Mahratta expedition. Now he
began that letter on the 29th of November by telling
you that the bribe would not have been taken from
Cheyt Sing, if it had not been at the instigation of an
exigency which it seems required a supply of money,
to be procured lawfully or unlawfully. But in fact
there was no exigency for it before the Berar army
came upon the borders of the country,&mdash;that army
which he invited by his careless conduct towards the
Rajah of Berar, and whose hostility he was obliged to
buy off by a sum of money; and yet this bribe was
taken from Cheyt Sing long before he had this occasion
for it. The fund lay in Gunga Govind Sing's hands;
and he afterwards applied to that purpose a part of
this fund, which he must have taken without any
view whatever to the Company's interest. This pretence
of the exigency of the Company's affairs is the
more extraordinary, because the first receipt of these
moneys was some time in the year 1779 (I have not
got the exact date of the agreement); and it was
but a year before that the Company was so far from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">{429}</a></span>
being in distress, that he declared he should have, at
very nearly the period when this bribe became payable,
a very large sum (I do not recollect the precise
amount) in their treasury. I cannot certainly tell
when the cabooleat, or agreement, was made; yet I
shall lay open something very extraordinary upon
that subject, and will lead you, step by step, to the
bloody scenes of Debi Sing. Whilst, therefore, Mr.
Hastings was carrying on these transactions, he was
carrying them on without any reference to the pretended
object to which he afterwards applied them.
It was an old, premeditated plan; and the money to
be received could not have been designed for an exigency,
because it was to be paid by monthly instalments.
The case is the same with respect to the
other cabooleats: it could not have been any momentary
exigence which he had to provide for by
these sums of money; they were paid regularly, period
by period, as a constant, uniform income, to Mr.
Hastings.</p>

<p>You find, then, Mr. Hastings first leaving this sum
of money for a year and three months in the hands
of Gunga Govind Sing; you find, that, when an exigence
pressed him by the Mahrattas suddenly invading
Bengal, and he was obliged to refer to his bribe-fund,
he finds that fund empty, and that, in supplying
money for this exigence, he takes a bond for two
thirds of his own money and one third of the Company's.
For, as I stated before, Mr. Larkins proves
of one of these accounts, that he took, in the month
of January, for this bribe-money, which, according to
the principles he lays down, was the Company's money,
three bonds as for money advanced from his own
cash. Now this sum of three lacs, instead of being<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">{430}</a></span>
all his own, as it should appear to be in the month of
January, when he took the bonds, or two thirds his
own and one third the Company's, as he said in his
letter of the 29th of November, turns out, by Mr. Larkins's
account, paragraph 9, which I wish to mark to
your Lordships, to be two thirds the Company's money
and one third his own; and yet it is all confounded
under bonds, as if the money had been his own.
What can you say to this heroic sharper disguised
under the name of a patriot, when you find him to be
nothing but a downright cheat, first taking money
under the Company's name, then taking their securities
to him for their own money, and afterwards entering
a false account of them, contradicting that by
another account?&mdash;and God knows whether the third
be true or false. These are not things that I am to
make out by any conclusion of mine; here they are,
made out by himself and Mr. Larkins, and, comparing
them with his letter of the 27th, you find a gross
fraud covered by a direct falsehood.</p>

<p>We have now done with Mr. Larkins's account of
the bonds, and are come to the other species of Mr.
Hastings's frauds, (for there is a great variety in
them,) and first to Cheyt Sing's bribe. Mr. Larkins
came to the knowledge of the bond-money through
Gunga Govind Sing and through Cantoo Baboo. Of
this bribe he was not in the secret originally, but was
afterwards made a confidant in it; it was carried to
him; and the account he gives of it I will state to
your Lordships.</p>

<p>"The fourth sum stated in Mr. Hastings's account
was the produce of sundry payments made to me by
Sadamund, Cheyt Sing's buckshee, who either brought
or sent the gold mohurs to my house, from whence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">{431}</a></span>
they were taken by me to Mr. Croftes, either on the
same night or early in the morning after: they were
made at different times, and I well remember that the
same people never came twice. On the 21st June,
1780, Mr. Hastings sent for me, and desired that I
would take charge of a present that had been offered
to him by Cheyt Sing's buckshee, under the plea of
atoning for the opposition which he had made towards
the payment of the extra subsidy for defraying part
of the expenses of the war, but really in the hope
of its inducing Mr. Hastings to give up that claim;
with which view the present had first been offered.
Mr. Hastings declared, that, although he would not
take this for his own use, he would apply it to that of
the Company, in removing Mr. Francis's objections to
the want of a fund for defraying the extra expenses
of Colonel Camac's detachment. On my return to
the office, I wrote down the substance of what Mr.
Hastings had said to me, and requested Mr. James
Miller, my deputy, to seal it up with his own seal,
and write upon it, that he had then done so at my
request. He was no further informed of my motive
for this than merely that it contained the substance
of a conversation which had passed between me and
another gentleman, which, in case that conversation
should hereafter become the subject of inquiry, I
wished to be able to adduce the memorandum then
made of it, in corroboration of my own testimony;
and although that paper has remained unopened to
this hour, and notwithstanding that I kept no memorandum
whatever of the substance thereof, yet, as I
have wrote this representation under the most scrupulous
adherence to what I conceived to be truth,
should it ever become necessary to refer to this paper,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">{432}</a></span>
I am confident that it will not be found to differ materially
from the substance of this representation."</p>

<p>I forgot to mention, that, besides these two bonds,
which Mr. Hastings declared to be the Company's,
and one bond his own, that he slipped into the place
of the bond of his own a much better, namely, a bond
of November, which he never mentioned to the Company
till the 22d of May; and this bond for current
rupees 1,74,000, or sicca rupees 1,50,000, was taken
for the payment stated in the paper No. 1 to have
been made to Mr. Croftes on the 11th Aghan, 1187,
which corresponds to the 23d of November, 1780.
This is the Nuddea money, and this is all that you
know of it; you know that this money, for which
he had taken this other bond from the Company, was
not his own neither, but bribes taken from the other
provinces.</p>

<p>I am ashamed to be troublesome to your Lordships
in this dry affair, but the detection of fraud requires
a good deal of patience and assiduity, and we cannot
wander into anything that can relieve the mind: if it
was in my power to do it, I would do it. I wish,
however, to call your Lordships' attention to this last
bribe before I quit these bonds. Such is the confusion,
so complicated, so intricate are these bribe accounts,
that there is always something left behind,
glean never so much from the paragraphs of Mr.
Hastings and Mr. Larkins. "I could not bring them
to account," says Mr. Larkins. "They were received
before the 1st and 2d of October." Why does not the
running treasury account give an account of them?
The Committee of the House of Commons examined
whether the running treasury account had any such
account of sums deposited. No such thing. They<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">{433}</a></span>
are said by Mr. Hastings to be deposited in June:
they were not deposited in October, nor any account
of them given till the January following. "These
bonds," says he, "I could not enter as regular money,
to be entered on the Company's account, or in
any public way, until I had had an order of the Governor-General
and Council." But why had not you
an order of the Governor-General and Council? We
are not calling on you, Mr. Larkins, for an account
of your conduct: we are calling upon Mr. Hastings
for an account of his conduct, and which he refers to
you to explain. Why did not Mr. Hastings order you
to carry them to the public account? "Because,"
says he, "there was no other way." Every one who
knows anything of a treasury or public banking-place
knows, that if any person brings money as belonging
to the public, that the public accountant is bound, no
doubt, to receive it and enter it as such. "But,"
says he, "I could not do it until the account could
be settled, as between debtor and creditor: I did not
do it till I could put on one side durbar charges, secret
service, to such an amount, and balance that
again with bonds to Mr. Hastings." That is, he
could not make an entry regularly in the Company's
books until Mr. Hastings had enabled him to commit
one of the grossest frauds and violations of a public
trust that ever was committed, by ordering that money
of the Company's to be considered as his own, and
a bond to be taken as a security for it from the Company,
as if it was his own.</p>

<p>But to proceed with this deposit. What is the
substance of Mr. Larkins's explanation of it? The
substance of this explanation is, that here was a bribe
received by Mr. Hastings from Cheyt Sing, guarded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">{434}</a></span>
with such scrupulous secrecy, that it was not carried
to the house of Mr. Croftes, who was to receive it
finally, but to the house of Mr. Larkins, as a less suspected
place; and that it was conveyed in various
sums, no two people ever returning twice with the various
payments which made up that sum of 23,000<i>l.</i>
or thereabouts. Now do you want an instance of
prevarication and trickery in an account? If any
person should inquire whether 23,000<i>l.</i> had been paid
by Cheyt Sing to Mr. Hastings, there was not any
one man living, or any person concerned in the
transaction, except Mr.Larkins, who received it, that
could give an account of how much he received, or
who brought it. As no two people are ever his
confidants in the same transaction in Mr. Hastings's
accounts, so here no two people are permitted to have
any share whatever in bringing the several fragments
that make up this sum. This bribe, you might
imagine, would have been entered by Mr. Larkins
to some public account, at least to the fraudulent
account of Mr. Hastings. No such thing. It was
never entered till the November following. It was
not entered till Mr. Francis had left Calcutta. All
these corrupt transactions were carried on privately
by Mr. Hastings alone, without any signification to
his colleagues of his carrying on this patriotic traffic,
as he called it. Your Lordships will also consider
both the person who employs such a fraudulent
accountant, and his ideas of his duty in his office.
These are matters for your Lordships' grave determination;
but I appeal to you, upon the face of these
accounts, whether you ever saw anything so gross,&mdash;and
whether any man could be daring enough to
attempt to impose upon the credulity of the weakest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">{435}</a></span>
of mankind, much more to impose upon such a court
as this, such accounts as these are.</p>

<p>If the Company had a mind to inquire what is
become of all the debts due to them, and where is
the cabooleat, he refers them to Gunga Govind Sing.
"Give us," say they, "an account of this balance
that remains in your hands." "I know," says he,
"of no balance." "Why, is there not a cabooleat?"
"Where is it? What are the date and circumstances
of it? There is no such cabooleat existing." This
is the case even where you have the name of the person
through whose hands the money passed. But
suppose the inquiry went to the payments of the
Patna cabooleat. "Here," they say, "we find half
the money due: out of forty thousand pounds there
is only twenty thousand received: give us some
account of it." Who is to give an account of it?
Here there is no mention made of the name of
the person who had the cabooleat: whom can they
call upon? Mr. Hastings does not remember; Mr.
Larkins does not tell; they can learn nothing about
it. If the Directors had a disposition, and were
honest enough to the Proprietors and the nation to
inquire into it, there is not a hint given, by either
of those persons, who received the Nuddea, who
received the Patna, who received the Dinagepore
peshcush.</p>

<p>But in what court can a suit be instituted, and
against whom, for the recovery of this balance of
40,000<i>l.</i> out of 95,000<i>l.</i>? I wish your Lordships to
examine strictly this account,&mdash;to examine strictly
every part, both of the account itself, and Mr. Larkins's
explanation: compare them together, and divine,
if you can, what remedy the Company could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">{436}</a></span>
have for their loss. Can your Lordships believe that
this can be any other than a systematical, deliberate
fraud, grossly conducted? I will not allow
Mr. Hastings to be the man he represents himself
to be: he was supposed to be a man of parts; I
will only suppose him to be a man of mere common
sense. Are these the accounts we should expect
from such a man? And yet he and Mr. Larkins
are to be magnified to heaven for great financiers;
and this is to be called book-keeping! This is the
Bengal account saved so miraculously on the 22d of
May.</p>

<p>Next comes the Persian account. You have heard
of a present to which it refers. It has been already
stated, but it must be a good deal farther explained.
Mr. Larkins states that this account was taken from
a paper, of which three lines, and only three lines,
were read to him by a Persian moonshee; and it is
not pretended that this was the whole of it. The
three lines read are as follows.</p>

<div class='ctr'>
<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
<tr><td align='left'>"From the Nabob" (meaning the Nabob of Oude) "to the Governor-General,
six lac</td><td align='right'>&pound;60,000</td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>From Hussein Reza Kh&acirc;n and Hyder Beg Kh&acirc;n to ditto, three lac</td><td align='right'>30,000</td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'>And ditto to Mrs. Hastings, one lac</td><td align='right'>10,000.</td><td align='left'>"</td></tr>
</table></div>

<p>Here, I say, are the three lines that were read by a
Persian moonshee. Is he a man you can call to account
for these particulars? No: he is an anonymous
moonshee; his name is not so much as mentioned
by Mr. Larkins, nor hinted at by Mr. Hastings;
and you find these sums, which Mr. Hastings<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">{437}</a></span>
mentions as a sum in gross given to himself, are not
so. They were given by three persons: one, six lacs,
was given by the Nabob to the Governor; another,
of three lacs more, by Hussein Reza Kh&acirc;n [and Hyder
Beg Kh&acirc;n?]; and a third, one lac, by both of them
clubbing, as a present to Mrs. Hastings. This is the
first discovery that appears of Mrs. Hastings having
been concerned in receiving presents for the Governor-General
and others, in addition to Gunga Govind
Sing, Cantoo Baboo, and Mr. Croftes. Now, if this
money was not received for the Company, is it proper
and right to take it from Mrs. Hastings? Is there
honor and justice in taking from a lady a gratuitous
present made to her? Yet Mr. Hastings says he has
applied it all to the Company's service. He has done
ill, in suffering it to be received at all, if she has
not justly and properly received it. Whether, in fact,
she ever received this money at all, she not being
upon the spot, as I can find, at the time, (though, to
be sure, a present might be sent her,) I neither affirm
nor deny, farther than that, as Mr. Larkins says,
there was a sum of 10,000<i>l.</i> from these ministers to
Mrs. Hastings. Whether she ever received any other
money than this, I also neither affirm nor deny.
But in whatever manner Mrs. Hastings received this
or any other money, I must say, in this grave place
in which I stand, that, if the wives of Governors-General,
the wives of Presidents of Council, the wives
of the principal officers of the India Company, through
all the various departments, can receive presents,
there is an end of the covenants, there is an end of
the act of Parliament, there is an end to every power
of restraint. Let a man be but married, and if his
wife may take presents, that moment the acts of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">{438}</a></span>
Parliament, the covenants, and all the rest expire.
There is something, too, in the manners of the East
that makes this a much more dangerous practice.
The people of the East, it is well known, have their
zenanah, the apartment for their wives, as a sanctuary
which nobody can enter,&mdash;a kind of holy of holies,
a consecrated place, safe from the rage of war, safe
from the fury of tyranny. The rapacity of man has
here its bounds: here you shall come, and no farther.
But if English ladies can go into these zenanahs and
there receive presents, the natives of Hindostan cannot
be said to have anything left of their own. Every
one knows that in the wisest and best time of the
Commonwealth of Rome, towards the latter end of it,
(I do not mean the best time for morals, but the
best for its knowledge how to correct evil government,
and to choose the proper means for it,) it was
an established rule, that no governor of a province
should take his wife along with him into his province,&mdash;wives
not being subject to the laws in the
same manner as their husbands; and though I do
not impute to any one any criminality here, I should
think myself guilty of a scandalous dereliction of my
duty, if I did not mention the fact to your Lordships.
But I press it no further: here are the
accounts, delivered in by Mr. Larkins at Mr. Hastings's
own requisition.</p>

<p>The three lines which were read out of a Persian
paper are followed by a long account of the several
species in which this present was received, and
converted by exchange into one common standard.
Now, as these three lines of paper, which are said
to have been read out of a Persian paper, contain
an account of bribes to the amount of 100,000<i>l.</i>,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">{439}</a></span>
and as it is not even insinuated that this was the
whole of the paper, but rather the contrary indirectly
implied, I shall leave it for your Lordships, in
your serious consideration, to judge what mines of
bribery that paper might contain. For why did not
Mr. Larkins get the whole of that paper read and
translated? The moment any man stops in the
midst of an account, he is stopping in the midst of
a fraud.</p>

<p>My Lords, I have one farther remark to make upon
these accounts. The cabooleats, or agreements for
the payments of these bribes, amount, in the three
specified provinces, to 95,000<i>l.</i> Do you believe that
these provinces were thus particularly favored? Do
you think that they were chosen as a little demesne
for Mr. Hastings? that they were the only provinces
honored with his protection, so far as to take bribes
from them? Do you perceive anything in their
local situation that should distinguish them from other
provinces of Bengal? What is the reason why
Dinagepore, Patna, Nuddea, should have the post of
honor assigned them? What reason can be given for
not taking bribes also from Burdwan, from Bissunpore,
in short, from all the sixty-eight collections
which comprise the revenues of Bengal, and for selecting
only three? How came he, I say, to be so
wicked a servant, that, out of sixty-eight divisions,
he chose only three to supply the exigencies of the
Company? He did not do his duty in making this
distinction, if he thought that bribery was the best
way of supplying the Company's treasury, and that
it formed the most useful and effectual resource for
them,&mdash;which he has declared over and over again.
Was it right to lay the whole weight of bribery, ex<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">{440}</a></span>tortion,
and oppression upon those three provinces,
and neglect the rest? No: you know, and must
know, that he who extorts from three provinces will
extort from twenty, if there are twenty. You have
a standard, a measure of extortion, and that is all: <i>ex
pede Herculem</i>: guess from thence what was extorted
from all Bengal. Do you believe he could be so cruel
to these provinces, so partial to the rest, as to charge
them with that load, with 95,000<i>l.</i>, knowing the
heavy oppression they were sinking under, and leave
all the rest untouched? You will judge of what
is concealed from us by what we have discovered
through various means that have occurred, in consequence
both of the guilty conscience of the person
who confesses the fact with respect to these provinces,
and of the vigor, perseverance and sagacity
of those who have forced from him that discovery.
It is not, therefore, for me to say that the 100,000<i>l.</i>
and 95,000<i>l.</i> only were taken. Where the circumstances
entitle me to go on, I must not be stopped,
but at the boundary where human nature has fixed
a barrier.</p>

<p>You have now before you the true reason why he
did not choose that this affair should come before a
court of justice. Rather than this exposure should
be made, he to-day would call for the mountains to
cover him: he would prefer an inquiry into the business
of the three seals, into anything foreign to the
subject I am now discussing, in order to keep you
from the discovery of that gross bribery, that shameful
peculation, that abandoned prostitution and corruption,
which he has practised with indemnity and
impunity to this day, from one end of India to the
other.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">{441}</a></span></p>

<p>At the head of the only account we have of these
transactions stands Dinagepore; and it now only remains
for me to make some observations upon Mr.
Hastings's proceedings in that province. Its name,
then, and that money was taken from it, is all that
appears; but from whom, by what hands, by what
means, under what pretence it was taken, he has not
told you, he has not told his employers. I believe,
however, I can tell from whom it was taken, and I
believe it will appear to your Lordships that it must
have been taken from the unhappy Rajah of Dinagepore;
and I shall in a very few words state the circumstances
attending, and the service performed for
it: from these you will be able to form a just opinion
concerning this bribe.</p>

<p>Dinagepore, a large province, was possessed by
an ancient family, the last of which, about the year
1184 of their era, the Rajah Bija Naut, had no legitimate
issue. When he was at the point of death, he
wished to exclude from the succession to the zemindary
his half-brother, Cantoo Naut, with whom he
had lived upon ill terms for many years, by adopting
a son. Such an adoption, when a person has a half-brother,
as he had, in my poor judgment is not countenanced
by the Gentoo laws. But Gunga Govind
Sing, who was placed, by the office he held, at the
head of the registry, where the records were kept
by which the rules of succession according to the
custom of the country are ascertained, became master
of these Gentoo laws; and through his means
Mr. Hastings decreed in favor of the adoption. We
find that immediately after this decree Gunga Govind
Sing received a cabooleat on Dinagepore for the
sum of 40,000<i>l.</i>, of which it appears that he has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">{442}</a></span>
actually exacted 30,000<i>l.</i>, though he has paid to Mr.
Hastings only 20,000<i>l.</i> We find, before the young
Rajah had been in possession a year, his natural
guardians and relations, on one pretence or another,
all turned out of their offices. The peshcush, or
fixed annual rent, payable to the Company for his
zemindary, fell into arrear, as might naturally be
expected, from the Rajah's inability to pay both his
rent and this exorbitant bribe, extorted from a ruined
family. Instantly, under pretext of this arrearage,
Gunga Govind Sing, and the fictitious Committee
which Mr. Hastings had made for his wicked
purposes, composed of Mr. Anderson, Mr. Shore, and
Mr. Croftes, who were but the tools, as they tell us
themselves, of Gunga Govind Sing, gave that monster
of iniquity, Debi Sing, the government of this
family. They put this noble infant, this miserable
Rajah, together with the management of the provinces
of Dinagepore and Rungpore, into his wicked
and abominable hands, where the ravages he committed
excited what was called a rebellion, that
forced him to fly from the country, and into which I
do not wonder he should be desirous that a political
and not a juridical inquiry should be made. The savage
barbarities which were there perpetrated I have
already, in the execution of my duty, brought before
this House and my country; and it will be seen,
when we come to the proof, whether what I have
asserted was the effect either of a deluded judgment
or disordered imagination, and whether the facts I
state cannot be substantiated by authentic reports,
and were none of my invention, and, lastly, whether
the means that were taken to discredit them do not
infinitely aggravate the guilt of the offenders. Mr.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">{443}</a></span>
Hastings wanted to fly from judicial inquiry; he
wanted to put Debi Sing anywhere but in a court
of justice. A court of justice, where a direct assertion
is brought forward, and a direct proof applied
to it, is an element in which he cannot live for a
moment. He would seek refuge anywhere, even in
the very sanctuary of his accusers, rather than abide
a trial with him in a court of justice. But the House
of Commons was too just not to send him to this
tribunal, whose justice they cannot doubt, whose
penetration he cannot elude, and whose decision will
justify those managers whose characters he attempted
to defame.</p>

<p>But this is not all. We find, that, after the cruel
sale of this infant, who was properly and directly
under the guardianship of the Company, (for the
Company acts as steward and dewan of the province,
which office has the guardianship of minors,) after
he had been robbed of 40,000<i>l.</i> by the hands of
Gunga Govind Sing, and afterwards, under pretence
of his being in debt to the Company, delivered into
the hands of that monster, Debi Sing, Mr. Hastings,
by way of anticipation of these charges, and in answer
to them, has thought proper to produce the
certificate from this unfortunate boy which I will
now again read to you.</p>

<div class="blockquote"><p>"I, Radanaut, Zemindar of Purgunnah Havelly
Punjera, commonly called Dinagepore:&mdash;As it has
been learnt by me, the mutsuddies, and the respectable
officers of my zemindary, that the ministers
of England are displeased with the late Governor,
Warren Hastings, Esquire, upon the suspicion that
he oppressed us, took money from us by deceit and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">{444}</a></span>
force, and ruined the country; therefore we, upon
the strength of our religion, which we think it incumbent
on and necessary for us to abide by, following
the rules laid down in giving evidence, declare
the particulars of the acts and deeds of Warren Hastings,
Esquire, full of circumspection and caution,
civility and justice, superior to the caution of the
most learned, and, by representing what is fact, wipe
away the doubts that have possessed the minds of
the ministers of England: that Mr. Hastings is possessed
of fidelity and confidence, and yielding protection
to us; that he is clear of the contamination of
mistrust and wrong, and his mind is free of covetousness
or avarice. During the time of his administration,
no one saw other conduct than that of protection
to the husbandmen, and justice; no inhabitant
ever experienced afflictions, no one ever felt oppression
from him. Our reputations have always been
guarded from attacks by his prudence, and our families
have always been protected by his justice. He
never omitted the smallest instance of kindness towards
us, but healed the wounds of despair with the
salve of consolation, by means of his benevolent and
kind behavior, never permitting one of us to sink
in the pit of despondence. He supported every one
by his goodness, overset the designs of evil-minded
men by his authority, tied the hands of oppression
with the strong bandage of justice, and by these means
expanded the pleasing appearance of happiness and
joy over us. He re&euml;stablished justice and impartiality.
We were, during his government, in the enjoyment
of perfect happiness and ease, and many of
us are thankful and satisfied. As Mr. Hastings was
well acquainted with our manners and customs, he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">{445}</a></span>
was always desirous, in every respect, of doing
whatever would preserve our religious rites, and
guard them against every kind of accident and injury,
and at all times protected us. Whatever we
have experienced from him, and whatever happened
from him, we have written without deceit or exaggeration."</p></div>

<p>My Lords, this Radanaut, zemindar of the purgunnah,
who, as your Lordships hear, bears evidence upon
oath to all the great and good qualities of the Governor,
and particularly to his absolute freedom from covetousness,&mdash;this
person, to whom Mr. Hastings appeals,
was, as the Committee state, a boy between five and
six years old at the time when he was given into the
hands of Debi Sing, and when Mr. Hastings left Bengal,
which was in 1786 [1785?], was between eleven
and twelve years old. This is the sort of testimony
that Mr. Hastings produces, to prove that he was clear
from all sort of extortion, oppression, and covetousness,
in this very zemindary of Dinagepore. This boy, who
is so observant, who is so penetrating, who is so accurate
in his knowledge of the whole government of Mr.
Hastings, was, I say, when he left his government, at
the utmost, but eleven years and a half old. Now to
what an extremity is this unhappy man at your bar
driven, when, oppressed by this accumulative load of
corruption charged upon him, and seeing his bribery,
his prevarication, his fraudulent bonds brought before
you, he gives the testimony of this child, who for the
greatest part of his time lived three hundred miles
from the seat of Mr. Hastings's government! Consider
the miserable situation of this poor, unfortunate
boy, made to swear, with all the solemnities of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_446" id="Page_446">{446}</a></span>
religion, that Mr. Hastings was never guilty in his
province of any act of rapacity! Such are the testimonies,
which are there called <i>razinamas</i>, in favor
of Mr. Hastings, with which all India is said to
sound. Do we attempt to conceal them from your
Lordships? No, we bring them forth, to show you
the wickedness of the man, who, after he has robbed
innocence, after he has divided the spoil between Gunga
Govind Sing and himself, gets the party robbed to
perjure himself for his sake,&mdash;if such a creature is
capable of being guilty of perjury. We have another
razinama sent from Nuddea, by a person nearly
under the same circumstances with Radanaut, namely,
Maha Rajah Dirauje Seo Chund Behadre, only
made to differ in some expressions from the former,
that it might not appear to originate from the same
hand. These miserable razinamas he delivers to
you as the collected voice of the country, to show
how ill-founded the impressions are which committees
of the House of Commons (for to them they allude,
I suppose) have taken concerning this man, during
their inquiries into the management of the affairs of
the Company in India.</p>

<p>Before I quit this subject, I have only to give you
the opinion of Sir Elijah Impey, a name consecrated
to respect forever, (your Lordships know him in this
House as well as I do,) respecting these petitions and
certificates of good behavior.</p>

<div class="blockquote">
<p>"From the reasons and sentiments that they contain,"
&amp;c.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor" title=" This document cannot be found">[9]</a></p></div>


<p>The moment an Englishman appears, as this gentleman
does, in the province of Dinagepore, to collect<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_447" id="Page_447">{447}</a></span>
certificates for Mr. Hastings, it is a command for them,
the people, to say what he pleases.</p>

<p>And here, my Lords, I would wish to say something
of the miserable situation of the people of that country;
but it is not in my commission, and I must be
silent, and shall only request your Lordships to observe
how this crime of bribery grows in its magnitude.
First, the bribe is taken, through Gunga Govind Sing,
from this infant, for his succession to the zemindary.
Next follows the removal from their offices, and consequent
ruin, of all his nearest natural relations.
Then the delivery of the province to Debi Sing, upon
the pretence of the arrears due to the Company, with
all the subsequent horrors committed under the management
of that atrocious villain. And lastly, the
gross subornation of perjury, in making this wretched
minor, under twelve years of age, bear testimony
upon oath to the good qualities of Mr. Hastings
and of his government,&mdash;this minor, I say, who
lived three hundred miles from the seat of his government,
and who, if he knew anything at all of his
own affairs, must have known that Mr. Hastings was
the cause of all his sufferings.</p>

<hr style="width: 45%;" />

<p>My Lords, I have now gone through the whole of
what I have in charge. I have laid before you the
covenants by which the Company have thought fit to
guard against the avarice and rapacity of their Governors.
I have shown that they positively forbid the
taking of all sorts of bribes and presents; and I have
stated the means adopted by them for preventing the
evasion of their orders, by directing, in all money
transactions, the publicity of them. I have farther
shown, that, in order to remove every temptation to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_448" id="Page_448">{448}</a></span>
a breach of their orders, the next step was the framing
a legal fiction, by which presents and money, under
whatever pretence taken, were made the legal
property of the Company, in order to enable them to
recover them out of any rapacious hands that might
violate the new act of Parliament. I have also
stated this act of Parliament. I have stated Mr.
Hastings's sense of it. I have stated the violation
of it by his taking bribes from all quarters. I have
stated the fraudulent bonds by which he claimed
a security for money as his own which belonged to
the Company. I have stated the series of frauds,
prevarications, concealments, and all that mystery
of iniquity, which I waded through with pain to
myself, I am sure, and with infinite pain, I fear, to
your Lordships. I have shown your Lordships that
his evasions of the clear words of his covenant and
the clear words of an act of Parliament were such
as did not arise from an erroneous judgment, but
from a corrupt intention; and I believe you will
find that his attempt to evade the law aggravates infinitely
his guilt in breaking it. In all this I have
only <i>opened</i> to you the package of this business; I
have opened it to ventilate it, and give air to it; I
have opened it, that a quarantine might be performed,&mdash;that
the sweet air of heaven, which is
polluted by the poison it contains, might be let
loose upon it, and that it may be aired and ventilated
before your Lordships touch it. Those who
follow me will endeavor to explain to your Lordships
what Mr. Hastings has endeavored to involve in mystery,
by bringing proof after proof that every bribe
that was here concealed was taken with corrupt purposes
and followed with the most pernicious <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_449" id="Page_449">{449}</a></span>consequences.
These are things which will be brought
to you in proof. I have only regarded the system
of bribery; I have endeavored to show that it is a
system of mystery and concealment, and consequently
a system of fraud.</p>

<p>You now see some of the means by which fortunes
have been made by certain persons in India;
you see the confederacies they have formed with one
another for their mutual concealment and mutual
support; you will see how they reply to their own
deceitful inquiries by fraudulent answers; you will
see that Cheltenham calls upon Calcutta, as one
deep calls upon another, and that the call which
is made for explanation is answered in mystery; in
short, you will see the very constitution of their
minds here developed.</p>

<p>And now, my Lords, in what a situation are we
all placed! This prosecution of the Commons, I
wish to have it understood, and I am sure I shall
not be disclaimed in it, is a prosecution not only
for the punishing a delinquent, a prosecution not
merely for preventing this and that offence, but it
is a great censorial prosecution, for the purpose of
preserving the manners, characters, and virtues that
characterize the people of England. The situation
in which we stand is dreadful. These people pour
in upon us every day. They not only bring with
them the wealth which they have acquired, but they
bring with them into our country the vices by which
it was acquired. Formerly the people of England
were censured, and perhaps properly, with being a
sullen, unsocial, cold, unpleasant race of men, and as
inconstant as the climate in which they are born.
These are the vices which the enemies of the king<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_450" id="Page_450">{450}</a></span>dom
charged them with: and people are seldom
charged with vices of which they do not in some
measure partake. But nobody refused them the
character of being an open-hearted, candid, liberal,
plain, sincere people,&mdash;qualities which would cancel
a thousand faults, if they had them. But if, by conniving
at these frauds, you once teach the people
of England a concealing, narrow, suspicious, guarded
conduct,&mdash;if you teach them qualities directly
the contrary to those by which they have hitherto
been distinguished,&mdash;if you make them a nation
of concealers, a nation of dissemblers, a nation of
liars, a nation of forgers,&mdash;my Lords, if you, in
one word, turn them into a people of <i>banians</i>, the
character of England, that character which, more
than our arms, and more than our commerce, has
made us a great nation, the character of England
will be gone and lost.</p>

<p>Our liberty is as much in danger as our honor
and our national character. We, who here appear
representing the Commons of England, are not wild
enough not to tremble both for ourselves and for our
constituents at the effect of riches. <i>Opum metuenda
potestas.</i> We dread the operation of money. Do
we not know that there are many men who wait, and
who indeed hardly wait, the event of this prosecution,
to let loose all the corrupt wealth of India, acquired
by the oppression of that country, for the corruption
of all the liberties of this, and to fill the Parliament
with men who are now the object of its indignation?
To-day the Commons of Great Britain prosecute the
delinquents of India: to-morrow the delinquents of
India may be the Commons of Great Britain. We
know, I say, and feel the force of money; and we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_451" id="Page_451">{451}</a></span>
now call upon your Lordships for justice in this cause
of money. We call upon you for the preservation of
our manners, of our virtues. We call upon you
for our national character. We call upon you for
our liberties; and hope that the freedom of the Commons
will be preserved by the justice of the Lords.</p>


<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>

<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> This document cannot be found</p></div>
</div>

<hr style="width: 65%;" />

<h3>END OF VOL. X.</h3>
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