Francis's
objections
to the want of a fund for defraying the extra expenses of Colonel Camac's detachment.
Edmund Burke
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 20,0001. , -- 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.
Such is this patriotic scheme of bribery, this publicspirited corruption which Mr. Hastings has invented upon this occasion, and by which lie thinks out of
the vices of mankind to draw a better revenue than
? ? ? ? 422 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
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. 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 pie-poudre, could help finding him guilty
upon such a matter, if such a court had to inquire
into it.
The next article is Patna. Here, too, he was to
receive 40,0001. ; 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 40,0001. , 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
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. - FOURTH DAY. 423
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 40,0001. 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 20,0001.
to the Company, and another 20,0001. 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
idem velle et idem nolle, 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 20,0001. 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 these people,and that, when black men give money to a white
man, it is a bribe, -and that, when money is given
to a black man, he is only a sharer with the white man
? ? ? ? 424 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
in their infamous profits. We find, however, somebody, anonymous, with 20,0001. 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 20,0001. ,
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,- 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,
acribus initiis et soporosd fine, and the carelessness
with which he ends it, are things that characterize,
not weakness and stupidity, but fraud.
The next article we proceed to is Nuddea. 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, - that it is an account
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. - FOURTH DAY. 425
current, and not an account closed, -- 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, - 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.
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, -- always giving the first rank to
Gunga Govind Sing, primus inter pares, the second
? ? ? ? 426 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HAITINGS.
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 5,0001. ":
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.
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, Four per Cent
Remittance Loan: 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. Hastilngs,
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH. ARTICLE. -FOURTH DAY. 427
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 call 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 accountant 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
? ? ? ? 428 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
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.
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, --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
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. - FOURTH DAY. 429
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.
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 bribefund, 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
? ? ? ? 430 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
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? - 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.
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.
"The fourth sum stated in Mr. Hastings's account
was the produce of sundry payments made to me by
Sadainund, Cheyt Sing's buckshee, who either brought
or sent the gold mohurs to my house, from whence
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. -FOURTH DAY. 431 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 caine 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, butt 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 fulrther 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,
? ? ? ? 432 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
1 am confident that it will not be found to differ materially from the substance of this representation. "
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.
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
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. - FOURTH DAY. 433
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
bollds," 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 lie, " 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.
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
VOL. X. 28
? ? ? ? 434 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
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 23,0001. or thereabouts. Now do you want an instance of
prevarication and trickery in an account? If any
person should inquire whether 23,0001. 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 all 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,and whether any man could be daring enough to attempt to impose upon the credulity of the weakest
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. - FOURTH DAY. 435 of mankind, much more to impose upon such a court as this, such accounts as these are.
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, "all account of this balance
that remains ill your hands. " "I know," says he,
" of no balance. " " Why, is there not a cabooleat? "
"Whlere 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.
But in what court can a suit be instituted, and
against whom, for the recovery of this balance of
40,0001. out of 95,0001. ? I wish your Lordships to
examine strictly this account,-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
? ? ? ? 436 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
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.
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.
"From the Nabob" (meaning the Nabob
of Oude) "to the Governor-General,
six lac. 60,000
From Hussein Reza Khan and Hyder Beg
Khan to ditto, three lac. 30,000
And ditto to Mrs. Hastings, one lac. . 10,000. "
Here, I say, are the three lines that were read by a
Persian moonshee. Is he a man you can call to ac
count 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
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. -- FOURTH DAY. 437 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 Khan [and Hyder Beg Khan? ]; 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. VWhether, 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 sayvs, there was a sum of 10,0001. 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 GovernorsGeneral, 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
? ? ? ? 438 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
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, -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
all established rule, that no governor of a province
should take his wife along with him into his province, --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.
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 100,0001. ,
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. - FOURTH DAY. 439
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.
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 95,0001. 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, fiom 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?
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 20,0001. , -- 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.
Such is this patriotic scheme of bribery, this publicspirited corruption which Mr. Hastings has invented upon this occasion, and by which lie thinks out of
the vices of mankind to draw a better revenue than
? ? ? ? 422 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
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. 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 pie-poudre, could help finding him guilty
upon such a matter, if such a court had to inquire
into it.
The next article is Patna. Here, too, he was to
receive 40,0001. ; 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 40,0001. , 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
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. - FOURTH DAY. 423
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 40,0001. 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 20,0001.
to the Company, and another 20,0001. 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
idem velle et idem nolle, 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 20,0001. 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 these people,and that, when black men give money to a white
man, it is a bribe, -and that, when money is given
to a black man, he is only a sharer with the white man
? ? ? ? 424 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
in their infamous profits. We find, however, somebody, anonymous, with 20,0001. 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 20,0001. ,
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,- 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,
acribus initiis et soporosd fine, and the carelessness
with which he ends it, are things that characterize,
not weakness and stupidity, but fraud.
The next article we proceed to is Nuddea. 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, - that it is an account
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. - FOURTH DAY. 425
current, and not an account closed, -- 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, - 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.
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, -- always giving the first rank to
Gunga Govind Sing, primus inter pares, the second
? ? ? ? 426 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HAITINGS.
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 5,0001. ":
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.
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, Four per Cent
Remittance Loan: 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. Hastilngs,
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH. ARTICLE. -FOURTH DAY. 427
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 call 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 accountant 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
? ? ? ? 428 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
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.
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, --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
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. - FOURTH DAY. 429
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.
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 bribefund, 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
? ? ? ? 430 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
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? - 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.
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.
"The fourth sum stated in Mr. Hastings's account
was the produce of sundry payments made to me by
Sadainund, Cheyt Sing's buckshee, who either brought
or sent the gold mohurs to my house, from whence
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. -FOURTH DAY. 431 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 caine 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, butt 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 fulrther 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,
? ? ? ? 432 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
1 am confident that it will not be found to differ materially from the substance of this representation. "
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.
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
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. - FOURTH DAY. 433
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
bollds," 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 lie, " 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.
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
VOL. X. 28
? ? ? ? 434 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
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 23,0001. or thereabouts. Now do you want an instance of
prevarication and trickery in an account? If any
person should inquire whether 23,0001. 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 all 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,and whether any man could be daring enough to attempt to impose upon the credulity of the weakest
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. - FOURTH DAY. 435 of mankind, much more to impose upon such a court as this, such accounts as these are.
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, "all account of this balance
that remains ill your hands. " "I know," says he,
" of no balance. " " Why, is there not a cabooleat? "
"Whlere 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.
But in what court can a suit be instituted, and
against whom, for the recovery of this balance of
40,0001. out of 95,0001. ? I wish your Lordships to
examine strictly this account,-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
? ? ? ? 436 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
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.
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.
"From the Nabob" (meaning the Nabob
of Oude) "to the Governor-General,
six lac. 60,000
From Hussein Reza Khan and Hyder Beg
Khan to ditto, three lac. 30,000
And ditto to Mrs. Hastings, one lac. . 10,000. "
Here, I say, are the three lines that were read by a
Persian moonshee. Is he a man you can call to ac
count 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
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. -- FOURTH DAY. 437 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 Khan [and Hyder Beg Khan? ]; 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. VWhether, 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 sayvs, there was a sum of 10,0001. 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 GovernorsGeneral, 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
? ? ? ? 438 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
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, -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
all established rule, that no governor of a province
should take his wife along with him into his province, --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.
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 100,0001. ,
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. - FOURTH DAY. 439
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.
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 95,0001. 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, fiom 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?
