378
IMPEACHMENT
OF WARREN HA STINGS.
Edmund Burke
to restore it to its owner?
no -- to allow
me to keep it myself. " Think, my Lords, in what
a situation the Company stands! "I have done a
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ART1CLE. - THIRD DAY. 367 great deal for you; this is the jackal's portion; you have been the lion; I have been endeavoring to prog for you; I am your bribe-pander, your factor of corruption, exposing myself to every kind of scorn and ignominy, to insults even from you. I have
been preying and plundering for you; I have gone through every stage of licentiousness and lewdness, wading through every species of dirt and corruption, for your advantage. I am now sinking into the extremity of private want; do give nme this - what? money? no, this bribe; rob me the man who gave me this bribe; vote me --what? money of your own?
that would be generous: money you owe me? that would be just: no, money which I have extorted from another man; and I call upon your justice to give it me. " This is his idea of justice. He says,
"I am compelled to depart from that liberal plan
which I originally adopted, and to claim from your
justice (for you have forbid me to appeal to your
generosity) the discharge of a debt which I can with
the most scrupulous integrity aver to be justly due,
and which I cannot sustain. " Now, if any of the
Company's servants may say, "I have been extravagant, profuse, - it was all meant for your good,let me prey upon the country at my pleasure,license my bribes, frauds, and peculations, and then you do me justice, - what country are we in, where
these ideas are ideas of generosity and justice?
It might naturally be expected that in this letter
he would have given some account of the person from whom he had taken this bribe. But here, as in the other cases, he had a most effectual oblivion; the Ganges, like Lethe, causes a drowsiness, as you saw in Mr. Middleton; they recollect nothing, they know
? ? ? ? 368 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
nothing. He has not stated, from that day to this,
from whom he took that money. But we have made
the discovery. And such is the use of Parliamentary
inquiries, such, too, both to the present age and posterity, will be their use, that, if we pursue them with the vigor which the great trust justly imposed upon
us demands, and if your Lordships do firmly administer justice upon this man's frauds, you will at once put an end to those frauds and prevarications forever. Your Lordships will see, that, in this inquiry,
it is the diligence of the House of Commons, which
he has the audacity to call malice, that has discovered
and brought to light the frauds which we shall be
able to prove against him.
I will now read to your Lordships an extract from
that stuff, called a defence, which he has either written himself or somebody else has written for him, and which he owns or disclaims, just as he pleases, when,
under the slow tortures of a Parliamentary impeachment, he discovered at length from whom he got this last bribe.
"The last part of the charge states, that, in my
letter to the Court of Directors of the 21st February, 1784, 1 have confessed to have received another sum of money, the amount of which is not declared,
but which, from the application of it, could not be
less than thirty-four thousand pounds sterling, &c.
In the year 1783, when I was actually in want of a
sum of money for my private expenses, owing to tile
Company not having at that time sufficient cash ill
their treasury to pay my salary, I borrowed three lacs
of rupees of Rajah Nobkissin, an inhabitant of Calcutta, whom I desired to call upon me with a bond properly filled up. He did so; but at the time I was
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. --THIRD DAY. 369
going to execute it he entreated I would rather accept the money than execute the bond. I neither
accepted the offer nor refused it; and my determination upon it remained suspended between the alternative of keeping the money, as a loan to be repaid, and of taking it, and applying it, as I had done other sums, to the Company's use. And there the
matter rested till I undertook my journey to Lucknow, when I determined to accept the money for the
Company's use; and these were my motives. Having made disbursements from my own cash for services, which, though required to enable me to execute
the duties of my station, I had hitherto omitted to enter into my public accounts, I resolved to reimburse
myself in a mode most suitable to the situation of the
Company's affairs, by charging these disbursements
in my durbar accounts of the present year, and crediting them by a sum privately received, which was
this of Nobkissin's. If my claim on the Company
were not founded in justice, and bonad fide due, my
acceptance of three lacs of rupees from Nobkissin
by no means precludes them from recovering that
sum from me. No member of this Honorable House
suspects me, I hope, of the meanness and guilt of
presenting false accounts. "
We do not suspect him of presenting false accounts: we can prove, we are now radically proving, that he presents false accounts. We suspect no
mall who does not give ground for suspicion; we accuse no man who has not given ground for accusation; and we do not attempt to bring before a court
of justice any charges which we shall not be able decisively to prove. This will put an end to all idle
prattle of malice, of groundless suspicions of guilt,
VOL. x. 24
? ? ? ? 370 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
and of ill-founded charges. We come here to bring
the matter to the test, and here it shall be brought to
the test, between the Commons of Great Britain and
this East India delinquent. In his letter of the 21st
of February, 1784, he says he has never benefited
himself by contingent accounts; and as an excuse
for taking this bribe from Nobkissin, which he did
not discover at the time, but many years afterwards,
at the bar of the House of Commons, he declares that
he wanted to apply it to the contingent account for
his expenses, that is, for what he pretended to have
laid out for the Company, during a great number of
years. He proceeds:"If it should be objected, that the allowance of
these demands would furnish a precedent for others
of the like kind, I have to remark, that in their whole
amount they are but the aggregate of a contingent
account of twelve years; and if it were to become the
practice of those who have passed their prime of life
in your service, and filled, as I have filled it, the first
office of your dominion, to glean from their past accounts all the articles of expense which their inaccuracy or indifference hath overlooked, your interests would suffer infinitely less by the precedent than by
a single example of a life spent in the accumulation
of crores for your benefit and doomed in its close to
suffer the extremity of private want and to sink in
obscurity. "
Here is the man that has told us at the bar of the
House of Commons that he never made up any contingent accounts; and yet, as a set-off against this
bribe, which he received for himself, and never intended to apply to the current use of the Company,
he feigns and invents a claim upon them, namely,
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. -THIRD DAY. 371
that he had, without any authority of the Company,
squandered away in stationery and budgeros, and
other idle services, a sum amounting to 34,0001.
But was it for the Company's service? Is this language to be listened to? "Everything I thought fit
to expend I have expended for the Company's service. I intended, indeed, at that time, to have been generous. I intended out of my own pocket to have
paid for a translation of the code of Gentoo laws. I
was then in the prime of my life, flowing in money,
and had great expectations: I am now old; I cannot
afford to be generous: I will look back into all my
former accounts, pen, ink, wax, everything that I
generously or prodigally spent as my own humor
might suggest; and though, at the same time, I
know you have given me a noble allowance, I now
make a charge upon you for this sum of money, and
intend to take a bribe in discharge of it. " Now suppose Lord Cornwallis, who sits in the seat, and I hope will long, and honorably and worthily, fill the seat,
which that gentleman possessed, - suppose Lord
Cornwallis, after never having complained of the
insufficiency of his salary, and after having but two
years ago said he had saved a sufficient competency
out of it, should now tell you that 30,0001. a year
was not enough for him, and that he was sinking into want and distress, and should justify upon that alleged want taking a bribe, and then make out a bill of contingent expenses to cover it, would your Lordships bear this?
Mr. Hastings has told you that he wanted to borrow money for his own use, and that he applied to Rajah Nobkissin, who generously pressed it upon
him as a gift. Rajah Nobkissin is a banian: you
? ? ? ? 372 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
will be astonished to hear of generosity in a banian;
there never was a banian and generosity united together: but Nobkissin loses his banian qualities at once, the moment the light of Mr. Hastings's face
beams upon him. "Here," says Mr. Hastings,' I
have prepared bonds for you. " "Astonishing! how
can you think of the meanness of bonds? You call
upon me to lend you 34,0001. , and propose bonds?
No, you shall have it: you are the Governor-General, who have a large and ample salary; but I know you are a generous man, and I emulate your generosity: I give you all this money. " Nobkissin was quite shocked at Mr. Hastings's offering him a bond.
My Lords, a Gentoo banian is a person a little lower,
a little more penurious, a little more exacting, a little more cunning, a little more money-making, than a Jew. There is not a Jew in the meanest corner of
Duke's Place in London that is so crafty, so much a
usurer, so skilful how to turn money to profit, and so
resolved not to give any money but for profit, as a
Gentoo broker of the class I have mentioned. But this
man, however, at once grows generous, and will not
suffer a bond to be given to him; and Mr. Hastings,
accordingly, is thrown into very great distress. You
see sentiment always prevailing in Mr. Hastings.
The sentimental dialogue which must have passed
between him and a Gentoo broker would have
charmed every one that has a taste for pathos and
sentiment. Mr. Hastings was pressed to receive the
money as a gift. He really does not know what to
do: whether to insist upon giving a bond or not,whether he shall take the money for his own use, or whether he shall take it for the Company's use. But
it may be said of man as it is said of woman: the
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. -THIRD DAY. 373
woman who deliberates is lost: the man that deliberates about receiving bribes is gone. The moment he
deliberates, that moment his reason, the fortress, is
lost, the walls shake, down it comes, - and at the
same moment enters Nobkissiu into the citadel of his
honor and integrity, with colors flying, with drums
beating, and Mr. Hastings's garrison goes out, very
handsomely indeed, with the honors of war, all for the
benefit of the Company. Mr. Hastings consents to
take the money from Nobkissin; Nobkissin gives the
money, and is perfectly satisfied.
Mr. Hastings took the money with a view to apply it
to the Company's service. How? To pay his own
contingent bills. " Everything that I do," says he,
" and all the money I squander, is all for the Company's benefit. As to particulars of accounts, never look
into them; they are given you upon honor. Let me
take this bribe: it costs you nothing to be just or
generous. I take the bribe: you sanctify it. " But
in every transaction of Mr. Hastings, where we have
got a name, there we have got a crime. Nobkissin
gave him the money, and did not take his bond, I
believe, for it; but Nobkissin, we find, immediately
afterwards enters upon the stewardship or management of one of the most considerable districts in Bengal. We know very well, and shall prove to your Lordships, in what manner such men rack such districts, and exact from the inhabitants the money to
repay themselves for the bribes which had been taken
from them. These bribes are taken under a pretence
of the Company's service, but sooner or later they fall
upon the Company's treasury. And we shall prove
that Nobkissin, within a year from the time when he
gave this bribe, had fallen into arrears to the Compa
? ? ? ? 374 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
ny, as their steward, to the amount of a sum the very
interest of which, according to the rate of interest in
that country, amounted to more than this bribe, taken,
as was pretended, for the Company's service. Such
are the consequences of a banian's generosity, and of
Mr. Hastings's gratitude, so far as the interest of the
country is concerned; and this is a good way to pay
Mr. Hastings's contingent accounts. But this is not
all: a most detestable villain is sent up into the country to take the management of it, and the fortunes of all the great families ill it are given entirely into his
power. This is the way by which the Company are to
keep their own servants from falling into " the extremity of private want. " And the Company itself,
in this pretended saving to their treasury by the taking of bribes, lose more than the amount of the bribes received. Wherever a bribe is given on one hand,
there is a balance accruing on the other. No man,
who had any share in the management of the Company's revenues, ever gave a bribe, who did not either extort the full amount of it from the country, or else
fall in balance to the Company to that amount, and
frequently both. In short, Mr. Hastings never was
guilty of corruption, that blood and rapine did not
follow; he never took a bribe, pretended to be for
their benefit, but the Company's treasury was proportionably exhausted by it.
And now was this scandalous and ruinous traffic
in bribes brought to light by the Court of Directors?
No: we got it in the House of Commons. These
bribes appear to have been taken at various times and
upon various occasions; and it was not till his return
from Patna, in February, 1782, that the first communication of any of them was made to the Court of Di
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. - THIRD DAY. 375
rectors. Upon the receipt of this letter, the Court of
Directors wrote back to him, requiring some further
explanation upon the subject. No explanation was
given, but a communication of other bribes was made
in his letter, said to be written in May of the same year,
but not dispatched to Europe till the December following. This produced another requisition from the Directors for explanation. And here your Lordships
are to observe that this correspondence is never in the
way of letters written and answers given; but he and
the Directors are perpetually playing at hide-and-seek
with each other, and writing to each other at random:
Mr. Hastings making a communication one day, the
Directors requiring an explanation the next; Mr.
Hastings giving an account of another bribe on the
third day, without giving any explanation of the former. Still, however, the Directors are pursuing their chase. But it was not till they learned that the committees of the House of Commons (for committees of the House of Commons had then some weight) were
frowning upon them for this collusion with Mr. Hastings, that at last some honest men in the Direction were permitted to have some ascendency, and that a
proper letter was prepared, which I shall show your
Lordships, demanding from Mr. Hastings alln exact
account of all the bribes that he had received, and
painting to him, in colors as strong at least as those
I use, his bribery, his frauds, and peculations, -and
what doeo them great honor for that moment, they
particularly direct that the money which was taken
from the Nabob of Oude should be carried to his account. These paragraphs were prepared by the Committee of Correspondence, and, as I understand, ap, proved by the Court of Directors, but never were sent
? ? ? ? 376 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
out to India. However, something was sent, but
miserably weak and lame of its kind; and Mr. Hastings never answered. it, or gave them any explanation
whatever. He now, being prepared for his departure
from Calcutta, and having finished all his other business, went up to Oude upon a chase in which just now
we cannot follow him. He returned in great disgust
to Calcutta, and soon after set sail for England, without ever giving the Directors one word of the explanation which he had so often promised, and they had repeatedly asked.
We have now got Mr. Hastings in England, where
you will suppose some satisfactory account of all
these matters would be obtained from him. One
would suppose, that, on his arrival in London, he
would have been a little quickened by a menace, as
he expresses it, which had been thrown out against
him in the House of Commons, that an inquiry would
be made into his conduct; and the Directors, apprehensive of the same thing, thought it good gently
to insinuate to him by a letter, written by whom and
how we do not know, that he ought to give some explanation of these accounts. This produced a letter
which I believe in the business of the whole world
cannot be paralleled: not even himself could be his
parallel in this. Never did inventive folly, working
upon conscious guilt, and throwing each other totally
in confusion, ever produce such a false, fraudulent,
prevaricating letter as this, which is now to be given
to you.
You have seen him at Patna, at Calcutta, in the
country, on the Ganges: now you see him at the
waters at Cheltenham; and you will find his letter
from that place to comprehend the substance of all
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. - THIRD DAY. 377
his former letters, and to be a digest of all the falsity,
fraud, and nonsense contained in the whole of them.
Here it is, and your Lordslips will suffer it to be read.
I must beg your patience; I must acknowledge that
it has been the most difficult of all things to explain, but much more difficult to make pleasant and
not wearisome, falsity and fraud pursued through all
its artifices; and therefore, as it has been the most
painful work to us to unravel fraud and prevarication, so there is nothing that more calls for the attention, the patience, the vigilance, and the scrutiny of an exact court of justice. But as you have already had almost the whole of the man, do not think
it too much to hear the rest in this letter from Cheltenham. It is dated, Cheltenham, 11th of July,
1785, addressed to William Devaynes, Esquire; and
it begins thus:" Sir,- The Honorable Court of Directors, in their
general letter to Bengal by the' Surprise,' dated the
16th of March, 1784, were pleased to express their
desire that I should inform tliem of the periods when
each sum of the presents mentioned in my address
of the 22d May, 1782, was received, - what were
my motives for withholding the several receipts from
the knowledge of the Council, or of the Court of
Directors, -- and what were my reasons for taking
bonds for part of these sums, and for paying other
sums into the treasury as deposits, on my own acCOUlnt. "
I wish your Lordships to pause a moment. Here
is a letter written in July, 1785. You see that from
the 29th of December [November? ], 1780, till that
* See this letter in the Appendix to the Eighth and Sixteenth
Charges, Vol. IX. pp. 319 - 325, in the present edition.
? ? ? ?
378 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HA STINGS.
time, during which interval, though convinced in his
own conscience and though lie had declared his own
opinion of the necessity of giving a full explanation
of these money transactions, lie had been imposing
upon the Directors false and prevaricating accounts
of them, they were never able to obtain a full disclosure from him.
He goes oil:-" I have been kindly apprised that
the information required as above is yet expected
from me. I hope that the circumstances of my past
situation, when considered, will plead my excuse for
having thus long withheld it. The fact is, that I
was not at the Presidency when the'Surprise' arrived; and when I returned to it, my time and attepltion were so entirely engrossed, to the day of my final departure from it, by a variety of other more
important occupations, of which, Sir, I may safely
appeal to your testimony, grounded on the large portion contributed by myself of the volumes which
compose our Consultations of that period,"These Consultations,' my Lords, to which he appeals, form matter of one of the charges that the Commons have brought against Mr. Hastings, --
namely, a fraudulent attempt to ruin certain persons
employed in subordinate situations under him, for
the purpose, by intruding himself into their place,
of secretly carrying on his own transactions. These
volumes of Consultations were written to justify that
act.
He next says,-" The submission which my respect
would have enjoined me to pay to the command
imposed on me was lost to my recollection, perhaps
from the stronger impression which the first and
distant perusal of it had left on my mind, that it
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARUICLE. - THIRD DAN. 379
was rather intended as a reprehension for something
which had given offence in my report of the original
transaction than an expression of any want of a further elucidation of it. "
Permit me to make a few remarks upon this extraordinary passage. A letter is written to him, containing a repetition of the request which had been made a thousand times before, and with which he
had as often promised to comply. And here he says,
" It was lost to my recollection. " Observe his memory: he can forget the command, but he has an
obscure recollection that he thought it a reprehension rather than a demand! Now a reprehension
is a stronger mode of demand. When I say to a
servant, "W Thy have you not given me the account
which I have so often asked for? " is he to answer,
" The reason I have not given it is because I thought
you were railing at and abusing me"?
He goes on: - I will now endeavor to reply to the
different questions which have been stated to me, in
as explicit a manner as I am able. To such information as I can give the Honorable Court is fully
entitled; and where that shall prove defective, I will
point out the only means by which it may be rendered more complete. "
In order that your Lordships may thoroughly enter into the spirit of this letter, I must request that
you will observe how handsomely and kindly these
tools of Directors have expressed themselves to him,
and that even their baseness and subserviency to him
were not able to draw from him anything that could
be satisfactory to his enemies: for as to these his
friends, he cares but little about satisfying them,
though they call upon him in consequence of his
? ? ? ? 380 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
own promise; and this he calls a reprehension. Trhey
thus express themselves:-" Although it is not our
intention to express any doubt of the integrity of the
Governor-General, - on the contrary, after having
received the presents, we cannot avoid expressing
our approbation of his conduct in bringing them to
the. credit of the Company, - yet we must confess
the statement of those transactions appears to us in
many points so unintelligible, that we feel ourselves
under the necessity of calling on the Governor-General for an explanation, agreeable to his promise voluntarily made to us. We therefore desire to be informed of the different periods when each sum was received, and what were the Governor-General's motives for withholding the several receipts from the
knowledge of the Council and of the Court of Directors, and what were his reasons for taking bonds for
part of these sums and paying other sums into the
treasury as deposits upon his own account. " Such
is their demand, and this is what his memory furnishes as nothing but a reprehension.
He then proceeds: -" First, I believe I can affirm
with certainty that the several sums mentioned in the
account transmitted with my letter above mentioned
were received at or within a very few days of the
dates which are affixed to them in the account. But
as this contains only the gross sums, and each of
these was received in different payments, though at
no great distance of time, I cannot therefore assign
a great degree of accuracy to the account. "-Your
Lordships see, that, after all, lhe declares he cannot
make his account accurate. He further adds, "Perhaps the Honorable Court will judge this sufficient"
- that is, this explanation, niamely, that he can give
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. -THIRD DAY. 381
none -" for any purpose to which their inquiry was
directed; but if it should not be so, I will beg leave
to refer, for a more minute information, and for the
means of making any investigation which they may
think it proper to direct, respecting the particulars
of this transaction, to Mr. Larkins, your accountantgeneral, who was privy to every process of it, and possesses, as I believe, the original paper, which contained the only account that I ever kept of it. " Here is a man who of his bribe accounts cannot
give an account in the country where they are car
ried on. When you call upon him in Bengal, he
cannot give the account, because he is in Bengal;
when he comes to England, he cannot give the account here, because his accounts are left in Bengal. Again, he keeps no accounts himself, but his accounts are in Bengal, in the hands of somebody
else: to him he refers, and we shall see what that
reference produced.
"In this, each receipt was, as I recollect, specifically inserted, with the name of the person by whom it was made; and I shall write to him to desire that
he will furnish you with the paper itself, if it is still
in being and in his hands, or with whatever he can
distinctly recollect concerning it. " --Here are accounts kept for the Company, and yet he does not know whether they are in existence anywhere.
" For my motives for withholding the several receipts from the knowledge of the Council or of the Court of Directors, and for taking bonds for part of
these sums, and paying others into the treasury as
deposits on my own account, I have generally accounted in my letter to the Honorable the Court
of Directors of the 22d of May, 1782, - namely, that
? ? ? ? 382 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
I either chose to conceal the first receipts from public curiosity by receiving bonds for the amount, or possibly acted without any studied design which my
memory at that distance of time could verify, and
that I did not think it worth my care to observe
the same means with the rest. It will not be expected that I should be able to give a more correct explanation of my intentions after a lapse of three
years, having declared at the time that many particulars had escaped my remembrance; neither shall
I attempt to add more than the clearer affirmation
of the facts implied in that report of them, and such
inferences as necessarily or with a strong probability
follow them. "
You have heard of that Oriental figure called, in
the banian language, a painche, in English, a screw.
It is a puzzled and studied involution of a period,
framed in order to prevent the discovery of truth and
the detection of fraud; and surely it cannot be better exemplified than in this sentence: c" Neither shall I attempt to add more than the clearer affirmation
of the facts implied in that report of them, and such
inferences as necessarily or with a strong probability
follow them. " Observe, that he says, not facts stated,
but facts implied in the report. And of what was
this to be a report? Of things which the Directors
declared they did not understand. And then the inferences which are to follow these implied facts are to follow them e But how? With a strong probability. If you have a mind to study this Oriental
figure of rhetoric, the painche, here it is for you in
its most complete perfection. No rhetorician ever
gave an example of any figure of oratory that can
match this.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. - THIRD DAY. 383
But let us endeavor to unravel the whole passage. First he states, that, in May, 1782, he had
forgotten his motives for falsifying the Company's
accounts; but he affirms the facts contained in the
report, and afterwards, very rationally, draws such
inferences as necessarily or with a strong probability
follow them. And if I understand it at all, which
God knows I no more pretend to do than Don Quix
ote did those sentences of lovers in romance-writers
of which he said it made him run mad to attempt
to discover the meaning, the inference is, " Why do
you call upon me for accounts now, three years after the time when I could not give you them? I
cannot give them you. And as to the papers relating to them, I do not know whether they exist; and
if they do, perhaps you may learn something from
them, perhaps you may not: I will write to Mr. Larkins for those papers, if you please. " Now, comparing this with his other accounts, you will see what a monstrous scheme he has laid of fraud and concealment to cover his peculation. He tells them, -- " I
have said that the three first sums of the account were
paid into the Company's treasury without passing
through my hands. The second of these was forced
into notice by its destination and application to the
expense of a detachment which was formed and employed against Mahdajee Sindia, under the command
of Lieutenant-Colonel Camac, as I particularly apprised the Court of Directors in my letter of the
29th December [November? ], 1780. " He does not
yet tell the Directors from whom he received it: we
have found it out by other collateral means. - " The
other two were certainly not intended, when I received them, to be made public, though intended for
? ? ? ? 384 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
public service, and actually applied to it. The exigencies of government were at that time my own,
and every pressure upon it rested with its full weight
upon my mind. Wherever I could find allowable
means of relieving those wants, I eagerly seized
them. " -Allowable means of receiving bribes! for
such I shall prove them to be in the particular instances. -" But neither could it occur to me as necessary to state on our Proceedings every little aid that I could thus procure; nor do I know how I could
have stated it without appearing to court favor by
an ostentation which I disdained, nor without the
chance of exciting the jealousy of my colleagues by
the constructive assertion of a separate and unparticipated merit, derived from the influence of my station,
to which they might have had an equal claim. "
Now we see, that, after hammering his brains for
many years, he does find out his motive, which he
could not verify at the time, - namely, that, if he let
his colleagues know that he was receiving bribes, and
gaining the glory of receiving them, they might take
it into their heads likewise to have their share in the
same glory, as they were joined in the same commission, enjoyed the same powers, and were subject to
the same restrictions. It was, indeed, scandalous
in Mr. Hastings, not behaving like a good, fair colleague in office, not to let them know that he was
going on in this career of receiving bribes, and to deprive them of their share in the glory of it: but they
were grovelling creatures, who thought that keeping
clean hands was some virtue. -" Well, but you have
applied some of these bribes to your own benefit:
why did you give no account of those bribes? "" I
did not," he says, " because it might have excited the
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. -THIRD DAY. 385
envy of my colleagues. " To be sure, if he was receiving bribes for his own benefit, and they not receiving such bribes, and if they had a liking to that kind of traffic, it is a good ground of envy, that a
matter which ought to be in common among them
should be confined to Mr. Hastings, and he therefore
did well to conceal it; and on the other hand, if we
suppose him to have taken them, as he pretends, for
the Company's use, in order not to excite a jealousy
in his colleagues for being left out of this meritorious service, to which they had an equal claim, he did
well to take bonds for what ought to be brought to
the Company's account. These are reasons applicable to his colleagues, who sat with him at the same
board, -Mr. Macpherson, Mr. Stables, Mr. Wheler,
General Clavering, Colonel Monson, and Mr. Francis:
he was afraid of exciting their envy or their jealousy.
You will next see another reason, and an extraordinary one it is, which he gives for concealing these
bribes from his inferiors. But I must first tell your
Lordships, what, till the proof is brought before you,
you will take on credit, - indeed, it is on his credit,
-- that, when he formed the Committee of Revenue,
he bound them by a solemn oath, " not, under any
name or pretence whatever, to take from any zemindar, farmer, person concerned in the revenue, or any
other, any gift, gratuity, allowance, or reward whatever, or anything beyond their salary "; and this is
the oath to which he alludes. Now his reason for
concealing his bribes from his inferiors, this Committee, under these false and fraudulent bonds, he
states thus: -- " I should have deemed it particularly
dishonorable to receive for my own use money ten --
dered by men of a certain class, from whom I had
VOL. X. 25
? ? ? ? 386 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
interdicted the receipt of presents to my inferiors,
and bound them by oath not to receive them: I was
therefore more than ordinarily cautious to avoid the
suspicion of it, which would scarcely have failed to
light upon me, had I suffered the money to be
brought to my own house, or that of any person
known to be in trust for me. "
My Lords, here he comes before you, avowing that
he knew the practice of taking money from these people was a thing dishonorable in itself. "I should have deemed it particularly dishonorable to receive
for my own use money tendered by men of a certain
class, from whom I had interdicted the receipt of
presents to my inferiors, and bound them by oath not
to receive them. " He held it particularly dishonorable to receive them; he had bound others by an oath not to receive them: but he received them himself;
and why does he conceal it? "Why, because," says
he, "if the suspicion came upon me, the dishonor
would fall upon my pate. " Why did he, by an oath,
bind his inferiors not to take these bribes? " Why,
because it was base and dishonorable so to do; and
because it would be mischievous and ruinous to the
Company's affairs to suffer them to take bribes. "
Why, then, did he take them himself? It was ten
times more ruinous, that he, who was at the head of
the Company's government, and had bound up others so strictly, should practise the same himself; and "therefore," says he, "I was more than ordinarily
cautious. " What! to avoid it? "No: to carry it
on in so clandestine and private a manner as might
secure me from the suspicion of that which I know
to be detestable, and bound others up from practising. "
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. - THIRD DAY. 387
We shall prove that the kind of men from whom
he interdicted his Committee to receive bribes were
the identical men from whom he received them himself. If it was good for him, it was good for them to be permitted these means of extorting; and if it
ought at all to be practised, they ought to be admitted to extort for the good of the Company. Rajah
Nobkissin was one of the men from whom he interdicted them to receive bribes, and from whom lie received a bribe for his own use. But he says he concealed it from them, because he thought great mischief might happen even from their suspicion of it, and lest they should thereby be inclined themselves
to practise it, and to break their oaths.
You take it, then, for granted that he really concealed it from them? No such thing. His principal
confidant in receiving these bribes was Mr. Croftes,
who was a principal person in this Board of Revenue,
and whom he had made to swear not to take bribes:
he is the confidant, and the very receiver, as we shall
prove to your Lordships. What will your Lordships
think of his affirming and averring a direct falsehood, that he did it to conceal it from these men,
when one of them was his principal confidant an;d
agent in the transaction? What will you think of
his being more than ordinarily cautious to avoid the
suspicion of it? He ought to have avoided the
crime, and the suspicion would take care of itself.
"For these reasons," he says, " I caused it to be
transported immediately to the treasury. There I
well knew, Sir, it could not be received, without
being passed to some credit; and this could only be
done by entering it as a loan or as a deposit. The
first was the least liable to reflection, and therefore
? ? ? ? 388 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
I had obviously recourse to it. Why the second
sum was entered as a deposit I am utterly ignorant.
Possibly it was done without any special direction
from me; possibly because it was the simplest mode
of entry, and therefore preferred, as the transaction
itself did not require concealment, having been already avowed. "
My Lords, in fact, every word of this is either false
or groundless: it is completely fallacious in every
part. The first sum, he says, was entered as a loan,
the second as a deposit. Why was this done? Because, when you enter moneys of this kind, you must
enter them under some name, some head of account;
"and I entered them," he says, " under these, because otherwise there was no entering them at all. "
Is this true? Will he stick to this? I shall desire to
know from his learned counsel, some time or other,
whether that is a point he will take issue upon. Your
Lordships will see there were other bribes of his which
he brought under a regular official head, namely,
durbar charges; and there is no reason why he should
not have brought these under the same head. Therefore what he says, that there is no other way of entering them but as loans and deposits, is not true. He next says, that in the second sum there was no
reason for concealment, because it was avowed.
But that false deposit was as much concealment as
the false loan, for he entered that money as his
own; whereas, when he had a mind to carry any
money to the Company's account, he knew how to
do it, for he had been accustomed to enter it under a general name, called durbar charges, - a name
which, in its extent at least, was very much his
own invention, and which, as he gives no account
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. -THIRD DAY. 389
of those charges, is as large and sufficient to cover
any fraudulent expenditure in the account as, one
would think, any person could wish. You see him,
then, first guessing one thing, then another, -- first
giving this reason, then another; at last, however,
he seems to be satisfied that he has hit upon the
true reason of his conduct.
Now let us open the next paragraph, and see what
it is. -" Although I am firmly persuaded that these
were my sentiments on the occasion, yet I will not affirm that they were. Though I feel their impression as the remains of a series of thoughts retained on
my memory, I am not certain that they may not
have been produced by subsequent reflection on the
principal fact, combining with it the probable motives of it. Of this I am certain, that it was my
design originally to have concealed the receipt of all
the sums, except the second, even from the knowledge of the Court of Directors. They had answered my purpose of public utility, and I had almost dismissed them from my remembrance. "
My Lords, you will observe in this most astonishing account which he gives here, that several of these sums he meant to conceal forever, even from the
knowledge of the Directors. Look back to his letter of 22d May, 1782, and his letter of the 16th of December, and in them he tells you that he might
have concealed them, but that he was resolved not to
conceal them; that he thought it highly dishonorable so to do; that his conscience would have been wounded, if he had done it; and that he was afraid
it would be thought that this discovery was brought
from him in consequence of the Parliamentary inquiries. Here he says of a discovery which he values
? ? ? ? 390 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
himself upon making voluntarily, that he is afraid it
should be attributed to arise from motives of fear.
Now, at last, he tells you, from Cheltenham, at a time
when he had just cause to dread the strict account to
which he is called this day, first, that he cannot tell
whether any one motive which he assigns, either in
this letter or in the former, were his real motive or
not; that he does not know whether he has not invented them since, in consequence of a train of meditation upon what he might have done or might
have said; and, lastly, he says, contrary to all his
former declarations, " that he had never meant nor
could give the Directors the least notice of them at
all, as they had answered his purpose, and he had dismissed them from his remembrance. " " I intended," he says, " always to keep them secret, though I have declared to you solemnly, over and over again,
that I did not. I do not care how you discovered
them; I have forgotten them; I have dismissed them
from my remembrance. " Is this the way in which
money is to be received and accounted for?
He then proceeds thus: -" But when fortune threw
a sum of money in my way of a magnitude which
could not be concealed, and the peculiar delicacy of
my situation at the time I received it made me more
circumspect of appearances, I chose to apprise my
employers of it, which I did hastily and generally:
hastily, perhaps, to prevent the vigilance and activity
of secret calumny; and generally, because I knew
not the exact amount of which I was in the receipt,
but not in the full possession. I promised to acquaint them with the result as soon as I should be
in possession of it; and, in the performance of my
promise, I thought it consistent with it to add to
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. - THIRD DAY.
me to keep it myself. " Think, my Lords, in what
a situation the Company stands! "I have done a
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ART1CLE. - THIRD DAY. 367 great deal for you; this is the jackal's portion; you have been the lion; I have been endeavoring to prog for you; I am your bribe-pander, your factor of corruption, exposing myself to every kind of scorn and ignominy, to insults even from you. I have
been preying and plundering for you; I have gone through every stage of licentiousness and lewdness, wading through every species of dirt and corruption, for your advantage. I am now sinking into the extremity of private want; do give nme this - what? money? no, this bribe; rob me the man who gave me this bribe; vote me --what? money of your own?
that would be generous: money you owe me? that would be just: no, money which I have extorted from another man; and I call upon your justice to give it me. " This is his idea of justice. He says,
"I am compelled to depart from that liberal plan
which I originally adopted, and to claim from your
justice (for you have forbid me to appeal to your
generosity) the discharge of a debt which I can with
the most scrupulous integrity aver to be justly due,
and which I cannot sustain. " Now, if any of the
Company's servants may say, "I have been extravagant, profuse, - it was all meant for your good,let me prey upon the country at my pleasure,license my bribes, frauds, and peculations, and then you do me justice, - what country are we in, where
these ideas are ideas of generosity and justice?
It might naturally be expected that in this letter
he would have given some account of the person from whom he had taken this bribe. But here, as in the other cases, he had a most effectual oblivion; the Ganges, like Lethe, causes a drowsiness, as you saw in Mr. Middleton; they recollect nothing, they know
? ? ? ? 368 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
nothing. He has not stated, from that day to this,
from whom he took that money. But we have made
the discovery. And such is the use of Parliamentary
inquiries, such, too, both to the present age and posterity, will be their use, that, if we pursue them with the vigor which the great trust justly imposed upon
us demands, and if your Lordships do firmly administer justice upon this man's frauds, you will at once put an end to those frauds and prevarications forever. Your Lordships will see, that, in this inquiry,
it is the diligence of the House of Commons, which
he has the audacity to call malice, that has discovered
and brought to light the frauds which we shall be
able to prove against him.
I will now read to your Lordships an extract from
that stuff, called a defence, which he has either written himself or somebody else has written for him, and which he owns or disclaims, just as he pleases, when,
under the slow tortures of a Parliamentary impeachment, he discovered at length from whom he got this last bribe.
"The last part of the charge states, that, in my
letter to the Court of Directors of the 21st February, 1784, 1 have confessed to have received another sum of money, the amount of which is not declared,
but which, from the application of it, could not be
less than thirty-four thousand pounds sterling, &c.
In the year 1783, when I was actually in want of a
sum of money for my private expenses, owing to tile
Company not having at that time sufficient cash ill
their treasury to pay my salary, I borrowed three lacs
of rupees of Rajah Nobkissin, an inhabitant of Calcutta, whom I desired to call upon me with a bond properly filled up. He did so; but at the time I was
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. --THIRD DAY. 369
going to execute it he entreated I would rather accept the money than execute the bond. I neither
accepted the offer nor refused it; and my determination upon it remained suspended between the alternative of keeping the money, as a loan to be repaid, and of taking it, and applying it, as I had done other sums, to the Company's use. And there the
matter rested till I undertook my journey to Lucknow, when I determined to accept the money for the
Company's use; and these were my motives. Having made disbursements from my own cash for services, which, though required to enable me to execute
the duties of my station, I had hitherto omitted to enter into my public accounts, I resolved to reimburse
myself in a mode most suitable to the situation of the
Company's affairs, by charging these disbursements
in my durbar accounts of the present year, and crediting them by a sum privately received, which was
this of Nobkissin's. If my claim on the Company
were not founded in justice, and bonad fide due, my
acceptance of three lacs of rupees from Nobkissin
by no means precludes them from recovering that
sum from me. No member of this Honorable House
suspects me, I hope, of the meanness and guilt of
presenting false accounts. "
We do not suspect him of presenting false accounts: we can prove, we are now radically proving, that he presents false accounts. We suspect no
mall who does not give ground for suspicion; we accuse no man who has not given ground for accusation; and we do not attempt to bring before a court
of justice any charges which we shall not be able decisively to prove. This will put an end to all idle
prattle of malice, of groundless suspicions of guilt,
VOL. x. 24
? ? ? ? 370 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
and of ill-founded charges. We come here to bring
the matter to the test, and here it shall be brought to
the test, between the Commons of Great Britain and
this East India delinquent. In his letter of the 21st
of February, 1784, he says he has never benefited
himself by contingent accounts; and as an excuse
for taking this bribe from Nobkissin, which he did
not discover at the time, but many years afterwards,
at the bar of the House of Commons, he declares that
he wanted to apply it to the contingent account for
his expenses, that is, for what he pretended to have
laid out for the Company, during a great number of
years. He proceeds:"If it should be objected, that the allowance of
these demands would furnish a precedent for others
of the like kind, I have to remark, that in their whole
amount they are but the aggregate of a contingent
account of twelve years; and if it were to become the
practice of those who have passed their prime of life
in your service, and filled, as I have filled it, the first
office of your dominion, to glean from their past accounts all the articles of expense which their inaccuracy or indifference hath overlooked, your interests would suffer infinitely less by the precedent than by
a single example of a life spent in the accumulation
of crores for your benefit and doomed in its close to
suffer the extremity of private want and to sink in
obscurity. "
Here is the man that has told us at the bar of the
House of Commons that he never made up any contingent accounts; and yet, as a set-off against this
bribe, which he received for himself, and never intended to apply to the current use of the Company,
he feigns and invents a claim upon them, namely,
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. -THIRD DAY. 371
that he had, without any authority of the Company,
squandered away in stationery and budgeros, and
other idle services, a sum amounting to 34,0001.
But was it for the Company's service? Is this language to be listened to? "Everything I thought fit
to expend I have expended for the Company's service. I intended, indeed, at that time, to have been generous. I intended out of my own pocket to have
paid for a translation of the code of Gentoo laws. I
was then in the prime of my life, flowing in money,
and had great expectations: I am now old; I cannot
afford to be generous: I will look back into all my
former accounts, pen, ink, wax, everything that I
generously or prodigally spent as my own humor
might suggest; and though, at the same time, I
know you have given me a noble allowance, I now
make a charge upon you for this sum of money, and
intend to take a bribe in discharge of it. " Now suppose Lord Cornwallis, who sits in the seat, and I hope will long, and honorably and worthily, fill the seat,
which that gentleman possessed, - suppose Lord
Cornwallis, after never having complained of the
insufficiency of his salary, and after having but two
years ago said he had saved a sufficient competency
out of it, should now tell you that 30,0001. a year
was not enough for him, and that he was sinking into want and distress, and should justify upon that alleged want taking a bribe, and then make out a bill of contingent expenses to cover it, would your Lordships bear this?
Mr. Hastings has told you that he wanted to borrow money for his own use, and that he applied to Rajah Nobkissin, who generously pressed it upon
him as a gift. Rajah Nobkissin is a banian: you
? ? ? ? 372 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
will be astonished to hear of generosity in a banian;
there never was a banian and generosity united together: but Nobkissin loses his banian qualities at once, the moment the light of Mr. Hastings's face
beams upon him. "Here," says Mr. Hastings,' I
have prepared bonds for you. " "Astonishing! how
can you think of the meanness of bonds? You call
upon me to lend you 34,0001. , and propose bonds?
No, you shall have it: you are the Governor-General, who have a large and ample salary; but I know you are a generous man, and I emulate your generosity: I give you all this money. " Nobkissin was quite shocked at Mr. Hastings's offering him a bond.
My Lords, a Gentoo banian is a person a little lower,
a little more penurious, a little more exacting, a little more cunning, a little more money-making, than a Jew. There is not a Jew in the meanest corner of
Duke's Place in London that is so crafty, so much a
usurer, so skilful how to turn money to profit, and so
resolved not to give any money but for profit, as a
Gentoo broker of the class I have mentioned. But this
man, however, at once grows generous, and will not
suffer a bond to be given to him; and Mr. Hastings,
accordingly, is thrown into very great distress. You
see sentiment always prevailing in Mr. Hastings.
The sentimental dialogue which must have passed
between him and a Gentoo broker would have
charmed every one that has a taste for pathos and
sentiment. Mr. Hastings was pressed to receive the
money as a gift. He really does not know what to
do: whether to insist upon giving a bond or not,whether he shall take the money for his own use, or whether he shall take it for the Company's use. But
it may be said of man as it is said of woman: the
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. -THIRD DAY. 373
woman who deliberates is lost: the man that deliberates about receiving bribes is gone. The moment he
deliberates, that moment his reason, the fortress, is
lost, the walls shake, down it comes, - and at the
same moment enters Nobkissiu into the citadel of his
honor and integrity, with colors flying, with drums
beating, and Mr. Hastings's garrison goes out, very
handsomely indeed, with the honors of war, all for the
benefit of the Company. Mr. Hastings consents to
take the money from Nobkissin; Nobkissin gives the
money, and is perfectly satisfied.
Mr. Hastings took the money with a view to apply it
to the Company's service. How? To pay his own
contingent bills. " Everything that I do," says he,
" and all the money I squander, is all for the Company's benefit. As to particulars of accounts, never look
into them; they are given you upon honor. Let me
take this bribe: it costs you nothing to be just or
generous. I take the bribe: you sanctify it. " But
in every transaction of Mr. Hastings, where we have
got a name, there we have got a crime. Nobkissin
gave him the money, and did not take his bond, I
believe, for it; but Nobkissin, we find, immediately
afterwards enters upon the stewardship or management of one of the most considerable districts in Bengal. We know very well, and shall prove to your Lordships, in what manner such men rack such districts, and exact from the inhabitants the money to
repay themselves for the bribes which had been taken
from them. These bribes are taken under a pretence
of the Company's service, but sooner or later they fall
upon the Company's treasury. And we shall prove
that Nobkissin, within a year from the time when he
gave this bribe, had fallen into arrears to the Compa
? ? ? ? 374 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
ny, as their steward, to the amount of a sum the very
interest of which, according to the rate of interest in
that country, amounted to more than this bribe, taken,
as was pretended, for the Company's service. Such
are the consequences of a banian's generosity, and of
Mr. Hastings's gratitude, so far as the interest of the
country is concerned; and this is a good way to pay
Mr. Hastings's contingent accounts. But this is not
all: a most detestable villain is sent up into the country to take the management of it, and the fortunes of all the great families ill it are given entirely into his
power. This is the way by which the Company are to
keep their own servants from falling into " the extremity of private want. " And the Company itself,
in this pretended saving to their treasury by the taking of bribes, lose more than the amount of the bribes received. Wherever a bribe is given on one hand,
there is a balance accruing on the other. No man,
who had any share in the management of the Company's revenues, ever gave a bribe, who did not either extort the full amount of it from the country, or else
fall in balance to the Company to that amount, and
frequently both. In short, Mr. Hastings never was
guilty of corruption, that blood and rapine did not
follow; he never took a bribe, pretended to be for
their benefit, but the Company's treasury was proportionably exhausted by it.
And now was this scandalous and ruinous traffic
in bribes brought to light by the Court of Directors?
No: we got it in the House of Commons. These
bribes appear to have been taken at various times and
upon various occasions; and it was not till his return
from Patna, in February, 1782, that the first communication of any of them was made to the Court of Di
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. - THIRD DAY. 375
rectors. Upon the receipt of this letter, the Court of
Directors wrote back to him, requiring some further
explanation upon the subject. No explanation was
given, but a communication of other bribes was made
in his letter, said to be written in May of the same year,
but not dispatched to Europe till the December following. This produced another requisition from the Directors for explanation. And here your Lordships
are to observe that this correspondence is never in the
way of letters written and answers given; but he and
the Directors are perpetually playing at hide-and-seek
with each other, and writing to each other at random:
Mr. Hastings making a communication one day, the
Directors requiring an explanation the next; Mr.
Hastings giving an account of another bribe on the
third day, without giving any explanation of the former. Still, however, the Directors are pursuing their chase. But it was not till they learned that the committees of the House of Commons (for committees of the House of Commons had then some weight) were
frowning upon them for this collusion with Mr. Hastings, that at last some honest men in the Direction were permitted to have some ascendency, and that a
proper letter was prepared, which I shall show your
Lordships, demanding from Mr. Hastings alln exact
account of all the bribes that he had received, and
painting to him, in colors as strong at least as those
I use, his bribery, his frauds, and peculations, -and
what doeo them great honor for that moment, they
particularly direct that the money which was taken
from the Nabob of Oude should be carried to his account. These paragraphs were prepared by the Committee of Correspondence, and, as I understand, ap, proved by the Court of Directors, but never were sent
? ? ? ? 376 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
out to India. However, something was sent, but
miserably weak and lame of its kind; and Mr. Hastings never answered. it, or gave them any explanation
whatever. He now, being prepared for his departure
from Calcutta, and having finished all his other business, went up to Oude upon a chase in which just now
we cannot follow him. He returned in great disgust
to Calcutta, and soon after set sail for England, without ever giving the Directors one word of the explanation which he had so often promised, and they had repeatedly asked.
We have now got Mr. Hastings in England, where
you will suppose some satisfactory account of all
these matters would be obtained from him. One
would suppose, that, on his arrival in London, he
would have been a little quickened by a menace, as
he expresses it, which had been thrown out against
him in the House of Commons, that an inquiry would
be made into his conduct; and the Directors, apprehensive of the same thing, thought it good gently
to insinuate to him by a letter, written by whom and
how we do not know, that he ought to give some explanation of these accounts. This produced a letter
which I believe in the business of the whole world
cannot be paralleled: not even himself could be his
parallel in this. Never did inventive folly, working
upon conscious guilt, and throwing each other totally
in confusion, ever produce such a false, fraudulent,
prevaricating letter as this, which is now to be given
to you.
You have seen him at Patna, at Calcutta, in the
country, on the Ganges: now you see him at the
waters at Cheltenham; and you will find his letter
from that place to comprehend the substance of all
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. - THIRD DAY. 377
his former letters, and to be a digest of all the falsity,
fraud, and nonsense contained in the whole of them.
Here it is, and your Lordslips will suffer it to be read.
I must beg your patience; I must acknowledge that
it has been the most difficult of all things to explain, but much more difficult to make pleasant and
not wearisome, falsity and fraud pursued through all
its artifices; and therefore, as it has been the most
painful work to us to unravel fraud and prevarication, so there is nothing that more calls for the attention, the patience, the vigilance, and the scrutiny of an exact court of justice. But as you have already had almost the whole of the man, do not think
it too much to hear the rest in this letter from Cheltenham. It is dated, Cheltenham, 11th of July,
1785, addressed to William Devaynes, Esquire; and
it begins thus:" Sir,- The Honorable Court of Directors, in their
general letter to Bengal by the' Surprise,' dated the
16th of March, 1784, were pleased to express their
desire that I should inform tliem of the periods when
each sum of the presents mentioned in my address
of the 22d May, 1782, was received, - what were
my motives for withholding the several receipts from
the knowledge of the Council, or of the Court of
Directors, -- and what were my reasons for taking
bonds for part of these sums, and for paying other
sums into the treasury as deposits, on my own acCOUlnt. "
I wish your Lordships to pause a moment. Here
is a letter written in July, 1785. You see that from
the 29th of December [November? ], 1780, till that
* See this letter in the Appendix to the Eighth and Sixteenth
Charges, Vol. IX. pp. 319 - 325, in the present edition.
? ? ? ?
378 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HA STINGS.
time, during which interval, though convinced in his
own conscience and though lie had declared his own
opinion of the necessity of giving a full explanation
of these money transactions, lie had been imposing
upon the Directors false and prevaricating accounts
of them, they were never able to obtain a full disclosure from him.
He goes oil:-" I have been kindly apprised that
the information required as above is yet expected
from me. I hope that the circumstances of my past
situation, when considered, will plead my excuse for
having thus long withheld it. The fact is, that I
was not at the Presidency when the'Surprise' arrived; and when I returned to it, my time and attepltion were so entirely engrossed, to the day of my final departure from it, by a variety of other more
important occupations, of which, Sir, I may safely
appeal to your testimony, grounded on the large portion contributed by myself of the volumes which
compose our Consultations of that period,"These Consultations,' my Lords, to which he appeals, form matter of one of the charges that the Commons have brought against Mr. Hastings, --
namely, a fraudulent attempt to ruin certain persons
employed in subordinate situations under him, for
the purpose, by intruding himself into their place,
of secretly carrying on his own transactions. These
volumes of Consultations were written to justify that
act.
He next says,-" The submission which my respect
would have enjoined me to pay to the command
imposed on me was lost to my recollection, perhaps
from the stronger impression which the first and
distant perusal of it had left on my mind, that it
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARUICLE. - THIRD DAN. 379
was rather intended as a reprehension for something
which had given offence in my report of the original
transaction than an expression of any want of a further elucidation of it. "
Permit me to make a few remarks upon this extraordinary passage. A letter is written to him, containing a repetition of the request which had been made a thousand times before, and with which he
had as often promised to comply. And here he says,
" It was lost to my recollection. " Observe his memory: he can forget the command, but he has an
obscure recollection that he thought it a reprehension rather than a demand! Now a reprehension
is a stronger mode of demand. When I say to a
servant, "W Thy have you not given me the account
which I have so often asked for? " is he to answer,
" The reason I have not given it is because I thought
you were railing at and abusing me"?
He goes on: - I will now endeavor to reply to the
different questions which have been stated to me, in
as explicit a manner as I am able. To such information as I can give the Honorable Court is fully
entitled; and where that shall prove defective, I will
point out the only means by which it may be rendered more complete. "
In order that your Lordships may thoroughly enter into the spirit of this letter, I must request that
you will observe how handsomely and kindly these
tools of Directors have expressed themselves to him,
and that even their baseness and subserviency to him
were not able to draw from him anything that could
be satisfactory to his enemies: for as to these his
friends, he cares but little about satisfying them,
though they call upon him in consequence of his
? ? ? ? 380 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
own promise; and this he calls a reprehension. Trhey
thus express themselves:-" Although it is not our
intention to express any doubt of the integrity of the
Governor-General, - on the contrary, after having
received the presents, we cannot avoid expressing
our approbation of his conduct in bringing them to
the. credit of the Company, - yet we must confess
the statement of those transactions appears to us in
many points so unintelligible, that we feel ourselves
under the necessity of calling on the Governor-General for an explanation, agreeable to his promise voluntarily made to us. We therefore desire to be informed of the different periods when each sum was received, and what were the Governor-General's motives for withholding the several receipts from the
knowledge of the Council and of the Court of Directors, and what were his reasons for taking bonds for
part of these sums and paying other sums into the
treasury as deposits upon his own account. " Such
is their demand, and this is what his memory furnishes as nothing but a reprehension.
He then proceeds: -" First, I believe I can affirm
with certainty that the several sums mentioned in the
account transmitted with my letter above mentioned
were received at or within a very few days of the
dates which are affixed to them in the account. But
as this contains only the gross sums, and each of
these was received in different payments, though at
no great distance of time, I cannot therefore assign
a great degree of accuracy to the account. "-Your
Lordships see, that, after all, lhe declares he cannot
make his account accurate. He further adds, "Perhaps the Honorable Court will judge this sufficient"
- that is, this explanation, niamely, that he can give
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. -THIRD DAY. 381
none -" for any purpose to which their inquiry was
directed; but if it should not be so, I will beg leave
to refer, for a more minute information, and for the
means of making any investigation which they may
think it proper to direct, respecting the particulars
of this transaction, to Mr. Larkins, your accountantgeneral, who was privy to every process of it, and possesses, as I believe, the original paper, which contained the only account that I ever kept of it. " Here is a man who of his bribe accounts cannot
give an account in the country where they are car
ried on. When you call upon him in Bengal, he
cannot give the account, because he is in Bengal;
when he comes to England, he cannot give the account here, because his accounts are left in Bengal. Again, he keeps no accounts himself, but his accounts are in Bengal, in the hands of somebody
else: to him he refers, and we shall see what that
reference produced.
"In this, each receipt was, as I recollect, specifically inserted, with the name of the person by whom it was made; and I shall write to him to desire that
he will furnish you with the paper itself, if it is still
in being and in his hands, or with whatever he can
distinctly recollect concerning it. " --Here are accounts kept for the Company, and yet he does not know whether they are in existence anywhere.
" For my motives for withholding the several receipts from the knowledge of the Council or of the Court of Directors, and for taking bonds for part of
these sums, and paying others into the treasury as
deposits on my own account, I have generally accounted in my letter to the Honorable the Court
of Directors of the 22d of May, 1782, - namely, that
? ? ? ? 382 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
I either chose to conceal the first receipts from public curiosity by receiving bonds for the amount, or possibly acted without any studied design which my
memory at that distance of time could verify, and
that I did not think it worth my care to observe
the same means with the rest. It will not be expected that I should be able to give a more correct explanation of my intentions after a lapse of three
years, having declared at the time that many particulars had escaped my remembrance; neither shall
I attempt to add more than the clearer affirmation
of the facts implied in that report of them, and such
inferences as necessarily or with a strong probability
follow them. "
You have heard of that Oriental figure called, in
the banian language, a painche, in English, a screw.
It is a puzzled and studied involution of a period,
framed in order to prevent the discovery of truth and
the detection of fraud; and surely it cannot be better exemplified than in this sentence: c" Neither shall I attempt to add more than the clearer affirmation
of the facts implied in that report of them, and such
inferences as necessarily or with a strong probability
follow them. " Observe, that he says, not facts stated,
but facts implied in the report. And of what was
this to be a report? Of things which the Directors
declared they did not understand. And then the inferences which are to follow these implied facts are to follow them e But how? With a strong probability. If you have a mind to study this Oriental
figure of rhetoric, the painche, here it is for you in
its most complete perfection. No rhetorician ever
gave an example of any figure of oratory that can
match this.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. - THIRD DAY. 383
But let us endeavor to unravel the whole passage. First he states, that, in May, 1782, he had
forgotten his motives for falsifying the Company's
accounts; but he affirms the facts contained in the
report, and afterwards, very rationally, draws such
inferences as necessarily or with a strong probability
follow them. And if I understand it at all, which
God knows I no more pretend to do than Don Quix
ote did those sentences of lovers in romance-writers
of which he said it made him run mad to attempt
to discover the meaning, the inference is, " Why do
you call upon me for accounts now, three years after the time when I could not give you them? I
cannot give them you. And as to the papers relating to them, I do not know whether they exist; and
if they do, perhaps you may learn something from
them, perhaps you may not: I will write to Mr. Larkins for those papers, if you please. " Now, comparing this with his other accounts, you will see what a monstrous scheme he has laid of fraud and concealment to cover his peculation. He tells them, -- " I
have said that the three first sums of the account were
paid into the Company's treasury without passing
through my hands. The second of these was forced
into notice by its destination and application to the
expense of a detachment which was formed and employed against Mahdajee Sindia, under the command
of Lieutenant-Colonel Camac, as I particularly apprised the Court of Directors in my letter of the
29th December [November? ], 1780. " He does not
yet tell the Directors from whom he received it: we
have found it out by other collateral means. - " The
other two were certainly not intended, when I received them, to be made public, though intended for
? ? ? ? 384 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
public service, and actually applied to it. The exigencies of government were at that time my own,
and every pressure upon it rested with its full weight
upon my mind. Wherever I could find allowable
means of relieving those wants, I eagerly seized
them. " -Allowable means of receiving bribes! for
such I shall prove them to be in the particular instances. -" But neither could it occur to me as necessary to state on our Proceedings every little aid that I could thus procure; nor do I know how I could
have stated it without appearing to court favor by
an ostentation which I disdained, nor without the
chance of exciting the jealousy of my colleagues by
the constructive assertion of a separate and unparticipated merit, derived from the influence of my station,
to which they might have had an equal claim. "
Now we see, that, after hammering his brains for
many years, he does find out his motive, which he
could not verify at the time, - namely, that, if he let
his colleagues know that he was receiving bribes, and
gaining the glory of receiving them, they might take
it into their heads likewise to have their share in the
same glory, as they were joined in the same commission, enjoyed the same powers, and were subject to
the same restrictions. It was, indeed, scandalous
in Mr. Hastings, not behaving like a good, fair colleague in office, not to let them know that he was
going on in this career of receiving bribes, and to deprive them of their share in the glory of it: but they
were grovelling creatures, who thought that keeping
clean hands was some virtue. -" Well, but you have
applied some of these bribes to your own benefit:
why did you give no account of those bribes? "" I
did not," he says, " because it might have excited the
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. -THIRD DAY. 385
envy of my colleagues. " To be sure, if he was receiving bribes for his own benefit, and they not receiving such bribes, and if they had a liking to that kind of traffic, it is a good ground of envy, that a
matter which ought to be in common among them
should be confined to Mr. Hastings, and he therefore
did well to conceal it; and on the other hand, if we
suppose him to have taken them, as he pretends, for
the Company's use, in order not to excite a jealousy
in his colleagues for being left out of this meritorious service, to which they had an equal claim, he did
well to take bonds for what ought to be brought to
the Company's account. These are reasons applicable to his colleagues, who sat with him at the same
board, -Mr. Macpherson, Mr. Stables, Mr. Wheler,
General Clavering, Colonel Monson, and Mr. Francis:
he was afraid of exciting their envy or their jealousy.
You will next see another reason, and an extraordinary one it is, which he gives for concealing these
bribes from his inferiors. But I must first tell your
Lordships, what, till the proof is brought before you,
you will take on credit, - indeed, it is on his credit,
-- that, when he formed the Committee of Revenue,
he bound them by a solemn oath, " not, under any
name or pretence whatever, to take from any zemindar, farmer, person concerned in the revenue, or any
other, any gift, gratuity, allowance, or reward whatever, or anything beyond their salary "; and this is
the oath to which he alludes. Now his reason for
concealing his bribes from his inferiors, this Committee, under these false and fraudulent bonds, he
states thus: -- " I should have deemed it particularly
dishonorable to receive for my own use money ten --
dered by men of a certain class, from whom I had
VOL. X. 25
? ? ? ? 386 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
interdicted the receipt of presents to my inferiors,
and bound them by oath not to receive them: I was
therefore more than ordinarily cautious to avoid the
suspicion of it, which would scarcely have failed to
light upon me, had I suffered the money to be
brought to my own house, or that of any person
known to be in trust for me. "
My Lords, here he comes before you, avowing that
he knew the practice of taking money from these people was a thing dishonorable in itself. "I should have deemed it particularly dishonorable to receive
for my own use money tendered by men of a certain
class, from whom I had interdicted the receipt of
presents to my inferiors, and bound them by oath not
to receive them. " He held it particularly dishonorable to receive them; he had bound others by an oath not to receive them: but he received them himself;
and why does he conceal it? "Why, because," says
he, "if the suspicion came upon me, the dishonor
would fall upon my pate. " Why did he, by an oath,
bind his inferiors not to take these bribes? " Why,
because it was base and dishonorable so to do; and
because it would be mischievous and ruinous to the
Company's affairs to suffer them to take bribes. "
Why, then, did he take them himself? It was ten
times more ruinous, that he, who was at the head of
the Company's government, and had bound up others so strictly, should practise the same himself; and "therefore," says he, "I was more than ordinarily
cautious. " What! to avoid it? "No: to carry it
on in so clandestine and private a manner as might
secure me from the suspicion of that which I know
to be detestable, and bound others up from practising. "
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. - THIRD DAY. 387
We shall prove that the kind of men from whom
he interdicted his Committee to receive bribes were
the identical men from whom he received them himself. If it was good for him, it was good for them to be permitted these means of extorting; and if it
ought at all to be practised, they ought to be admitted to extort for the good of the Company. Rajah
Nobkissin was one of the men from whom he interdicted them to receive bribes, and from whom lie received a bribe for his own use. But he says he concealed it from them, because he thought great mischief might happen even from their suspicion of it, and lest they should thereby be inclined themselves
to practise it, and to break their oaths.
You take it, then, for granted that he really concealed it from them? No such thing. His principal
confidant in receiving these bribes was Mr. Croftes,
who was a principal person in this Board of Revenue,
and whom he had made to swear not to take bribes:
he is the confidant, and the very receiver, as we shall
prove to your Lordships. What will your Lordships
think of his affirming and averring a direct falsehood, that he did it to conceal it from these men,
when one of them was his principal confidant an;d
agent in the transaction? What will you think of
his being more than ordinarily cautious to avoid the
suspicion of it? He ought to have avoided the
crime, and the suspicion would take care of itself.
"For these reasons," he says, " I caused it to be
transported immediately to the treasury. There I
well knew, Sir, it could not be received, without
being passed to some credit; and this could only be
done by entering it as a loan or as a deposit. The
first was the least liable to reflection, and therefore
? ? ? ? 388 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
I had obviously recourse to it. Why the second
sum was entered as a deposit I am utterly ignorant.
Possibly it was done without any special direction
from me; possibly because it was the simplest mode
of entry, and therefore preferred, as the transaction
itself did not require concealment, having been already avowed. "
My Lords, in fact, every word of this is either false
or groundless: it is completely fallacious in every
part. The first sum, he says, was entered as a loan,
the second as a deposit. Why was this done? Because, when you enter moneys of this kind, you must
enter them under some name, some head of account;
"and I entered them," he says, " under these, because otherwise there was no entering them at all. "
Is this true? Will he stick to this? I shall desire to
know from his learned counsel, some time or other,
whether that is a point he will take issue upon. Your
Lordships will see there were other bribes of his which
he brought under a regular official head, namely,
durbar charges; and there is no reason why he should
not have brought these under the same head. Therefore what he says, that there is no other way of entering them but as loans and deposits, is not true. He next says, that in the second sum there was no
reason for concealment, because it was avowed.
But that false deposit was as much concealment as
the false loan, for he entered that money as his
own; whereas, when he had a mind to carry any
money to the Company's account, he knew how to
do it, for he had been accustomed to enter it under a general name, called durbar charges, - a name
which, in its extent at least, was very much his
own invention, and which, as he gives no account
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. -THIRD DAY. 389
of those charges, is as large and sufficient to cover
any fraudulent expenditure in the account as, one
would think, any person could wish. You see him,
then, first guessing one thing, then another, -- first
giving this reason, then another; at last, however,
he seems to be satisfied that he has hit upon the
true reason of his conduct.
Now let us open the next paragraph, and see what
it is. -" Although I am firmly persuaded that these
were my sentiments on the occasion, yet I will not affirm that they were. Though I feel their impression as the remains of a series of thoughts retained on
my memory, I am not certain that they may not
have been produced by subsequent reflection on the
principal fact, combining with it the probable motives of it. Of this I am certain, that it was my
design originally to have concealed the receipt of all
the sums, except the second, even from the knowledge of the Court of Directors. They had answered my purpose of public utility, and I had almost dismissed them from my remembrance. "
My Lords, you will observe in this most astonishing account which he gives here, that several of these sums he meant to conceal forever, even from the
knowledge of the Directors. Look back to his letter of 22d May, 1782, and his letter of the 16th of December, and in them he tells you that he might
have concealed them, but that he was resolved not to
conceal them; that he thought it highly dishonorable so to do; that his conscience would have been wounded, if he had done it; and that he was afraid
it would be thought that this discovery was brought
from him in consequence of the Parliamentary inquiries. Here he says of a discovery which he values
? ? ? ? 390 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
himself upon making voluntarily, that he is afraid it
should be attributed to arise from motives of fear.
Now, at last, he tells you, from Cheltenham, at a time
when he had just cause to dread the strict account to
which he is called this day, first, that he cannot tell
whether any one motive which he assigns, either in
this letter or in the former, were his real motive or
not; that he does not know whether he has not invented them since, in consequence of a train of meditation upon what he might have done or might
have said; and, lastly, he says, contrary to all his
former declarations, " that he had never meant nor
could give the Directors the least notice of them at
all, as they had answered his purpose, and he had dismissed them from his remembrance. " " I intended," he says, " always to keep them secret, though I have declared to you solemnly, over and over again,
that I did not. I do not care how you discovered
them; I have forgotten them; I have dismissed them
from my remembrance. " Is this the way in which
money is to be received and accounted for?
He then proceeds thus: -" But when fortune threw
a sum of money in my way of a magnitude which
could not be concealed, and the peculiar delicacy of
my situation at the time I received it made me more
circumspect of appearances, I chose to apprise my
employers of it, which I did hastily and generally:
hastily, perhaps, to prevent the vigilance and activity
of secret calumny; and generally, because I knew
not the exact amount of which I was in the receipt,
but not in the full possession. I promised to acquaint them with the result as soon as I should be
in possession of it; and, in the performance of my
promise, I thought it consistent with it to add to
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. - THIRD DAY.
