Hastings
is exceedingly dissatisfied with those
excuses, and this is the whole account of the transaction.
excuses, and this is the whole account of the transaction.
Edmund Burke
-FOURTH DAY.
411
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. "
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,) -
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? "
? ? ? ? 412 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
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.
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,) -he told him that he
had received a bribe from the Nabob of Oude, of
100,0001. 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 i. nto the
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. -FOURTH DAY. 413
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! "- 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 100,0001. 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 100,0001. , which, considering the enormous sums he has received, I dare say he does, -for
he totally forgot it, he knew nothing about it, - observe what sort of memory this registrar and accountant of such sums as 100,0001. 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 lie 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
100,0001. 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 gi ven
? ? ? ? 414 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS,
of it. Well, what is to be done in such circumstances? IHe 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 corps d'arme'e; 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 lie could give no account of
it. Mr. Hastings's moonsbee 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.
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
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. -FOURTH DAY. 415
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. "
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. Larkills has laid before
you. These, however, contain, Mr. Larkins says,
" the first complete" -- what? -- account, do you
imagine? - no, " the first complete memorandum. "
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, memorandums. But
he had not himself even a memoran. dum 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 200,0001. , but by
this account of Mr. Larkins, taken, as people read
them, from detached pieces of paper.
One would have expected that Mr. Larkins, being
warned that day, and cautioned by the strange memory of Mr. Hastilgs, and the dangerous situation,
therefore, in whiich 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 throtugl 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
? ? ? ? 416 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
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 all action. I have therefore always most carefully preserved every paper which I possessed regarding these transactions. "
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
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTU ARTICLE. -FOURTH DAY. 417 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.
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.
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
VOL. x. 27
? ? ? ? 418 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
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.
We shall now proceed a little further with Mr.
Larkins. Tile 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
95,0001. sterling, and of which it appears that there
was received by Mr. Croftes 55,0001. , and no more.
Now will your Lordships be so good as to let it rest
in your memory what sort of anll 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, 40,0001. out
of 95,0001. 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 valuable revenue of the Company, which
is to supply them in their exigencies, which is to come
from sources which otherwise never would have yielded
it, - 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, - falling short by
40,0001. out of 95,0001. Here is a system made for
fraud, and producillg all the effects of it.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. -- FOURTH DAY. 419
Upon the face of this account, the agreement was
to yield to Mr. Hastings, some way or other, to be
paid to Mr. Croftes, 95,0001. , and there was a deficiency of 40,0001. Would any man, even with no more sense than Mr. Hastings, who wants all the ifaculties 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 95,0001. which was not to produce more than 55,0001. ? 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. -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, --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.
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, -that is to say,
half of it was sunk, --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
? ? ? ? 420 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
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 10,0001. 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 10,0001. , but
he will not account for it; he says there is an arrear
of another 10,0001. ; and thus it appears that he was
enabled to take from somebody at Dinagepore, by a
cabooleat, 40,0001. , of which Mr. Hastings can get but
20,0001. : 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: amantium irce amoris integratio est. 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
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. - FOURTH DAY. 421
does he recommend him to be rewarded? By giving
him the estate of another person, - the way ill 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 fiully, 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 20,0001. , -- 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
? ? ?
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. "
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,) -
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? "
? ? ? ? 412 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
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.
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,) -he told him that he
had received a bribe from the Nabob of Oude, of
100,0001. 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 i. nto the
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. -FOURTH DAY. 413
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! "- 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 100,0001. 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 100,0001. , which, considering the enormous sums he has received, I dare say he does, -for
he totally forgot it, he knew nothing about it, - observe what sort of memory this registrar and accountant of such sums as 100,0001. 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 lie 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
100,0001. 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 gi ven
? ? ? ? 414 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS,
of it. Well, what is to be done in such circumstances? IHe 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 corps d'arme'e; 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 lie could give no account of
it. Mr. Hastings's moonsbee 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.
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
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. -FOURTH DAY. 415
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. "
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. Larkills has laid before
you. These, however, contain, Mr. Larkins says,
" the first complete" -- what? -- account, do you
imagine? - no, " the first complete memorandum. "
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, memorandums. But
he had not himself even a memoran. dum 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 200,0001. , but by
this account of Mr. Larkins, taken, as people read
them, from detached pieces of paper.
One would have expected that Mr. Larkins, being
warned that day, and cautioned by the strange memory of Mr. Hastilgs, and the dangerous situation,
therefore, in whiich 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 throtugl 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
? ? ? ? 416 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
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 all action. I have therefore always most carefully preserved every paper which I possessed regarding these transactions. "
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
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTU ARTICLE. -FOURTH DAY. 417 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.
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.
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
VOL. x. 27
? ? ? ? 418 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
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.
We shall now proceed a little further with Mr.
Larkins. Tile 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
95,0001. sterling, and of which it appears that there
was received by Mr. Croftes 55,0001. , and no more.
Now will your Lordships be so good as to let it rest
in your memory what sort of anll 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, 40,0001. out
of 95,0001. 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 valuable revenue of the Company, which
is to supply them in their exigencies, which is to come
from sources which otherwise never would have yielded
it, - 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, - falling short by
40,0001. out of 95,0001. Here is a system made for
fraud, and producillg all the effects of it.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. -- FOURTH DAY. 419
Upon the face of this account, the agreement was
to yield to Mr. Hastings, some way or other, to be
paid to Mr. Croftes, 95,0001. , and there was a deficiency of 40,0001. Would any man, even with no more sense than Mr. Hastings, who wants all the ifaculties 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 95,0001. which was not to produce more than 55,0001. ? 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. -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, --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.
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, -that is to say,
half of it was sunk, --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
? ? ? ? 420 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
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 10,0001. 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 10,0001. , but
he will not account for it; he says there is an arrear
of another 10,0001. ; and thus it appears that he was
enabled to take from somebody at Dinagepore, by a
cabooleat, 40,0001. , of which Mr. Hastings can get but
20,0001. : 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: amantium irce amoris integratio est. 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
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. - FOURTH DAY. 421
does he recommend him to be rewarded? By giving
him the estate of another person, - the way ill 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 fiully, 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 20,0001. , -- 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
? ? ?
