But, in what court can a suit be instituted, and against whom, for the recovery of this balance of £40,000 out of £95,000? I wish your lordships to examine strictly this account, to examine strictly every part, both of the account itself, and Mr. Larkins's explanation: compare them together, and divine, if you can, what remedy the company could have for their loss. Can your lordships believe, that this can be any other than a systematical, deliberate fraud, grossly conducted? I will not allow Mr. Hastings to be the man, he represents himself to be; he was supposed to be a man of parts I will only suppose him to be a man of mere common sense. Are these the accounts we should expect from such a man? And yet he and Mr. Larkins are to be magnified to heaven for great financiers; and this is to be called bookkeeping. This is the Bengal account saved so miraculously on the 22d of May.

Next comes the Persian account. You have heard of a present, to which it refers. It has been already stated, but it must be a good deal farther explained. Mr. Larkins states, that this account was taken from a paper, of which three lines, and only three lines, were read to him by a Persian moonshee; and it is not pretended, that this was the whole of it. The three lines read are as follows.-" From the nabob (meaning the nabob of Oude) to the governorgeneral, six lacks, £60,000. From Hussein Reza Khân and Hyder Beg Khân to ditto, three lacks, £30,000; and ditto to Mrs. Hastings, one lack, £10,000."

Here, I say, are the three lines, that were read by a Persian moonshee. Is he a man, you can call to account for these particulars? No; he is an anonymous moonshee: his name is not so much as mentioned by Mr. Larkins, nor hinted at by Mr. Hastings; and you find these sums, which Mr. Hastings mentions, as a sum in gross given to himself, are not so. They were given by three persons; one six lacks was given by the nabob to the governor: another of three lacks more by Hussein Reza Khân; and a third, one

lack, by both of them clubbing, as a present to Mrs. Hastings. This is the first discovery, that appears, of Mrs. Hastings having been concerned in receiving presents for the governor-general and others, in addition to Gunga Govin Sing, Cantoo Baboo, and Mr. Croftes. Now, if this money was not received for the company, is it proper and right to take it from Mrs. Hastings? Is there honor and justice in taking from a lady a gratuitous present made to her? Yet Mr. Hastings says, he has applied it all to the company's service. He has done ill, in suffering it to be received at all, if she has not justly and properly received it. Whether in fact she ever received this money at all, she not being upon the spot, as I can find, at the time, (though to be sure, a present might be sent her,) I neither affirm nor deny, farther than that, as Mr. Larkins says, there was a sum of £10,000 from these ministers to Mrs. Hastings. Whether she ever received any other money than this, I also neither affirm nor deny. But, in whatever manner Mrs. Hastings received this, or any other money, I must say, in this grave place in which I stand, that if the wives of governorsgeneral, the wives of presidents of council, the wives of the principal officers of the India Company, through all the various departments, can receive presents, there is an end of the covenants, there is an end of the act of parliament, there is an end to every power of restraint. Let a man be but married, and if his wife may take presents, that moment the acts of parliament, the covenants, and all the rest expire! There is something too in the manners of the East, that makes this a much more dangerous practice. The people of the East, it is well known, have their zenana, the apartment for their wives, as a sanctuary, which nobody can enter a kind of holy of holies-a consecrated place, safe from the rage of war, safe from the fury of tyranny. The rapacity of man has here its bounds: here you shall come and no farther. But, if English ladies can go into these zenanas, and there receive presents, the natives of Hindostan cannot be said to

have any thing left of their own. Every one knows, that in the wisest and best time of the commonwealth of Rome, towards the latter end of it, (I do not mean the best time for morals, but the best for its knowledge how to correct evil government, and to choose the proper means for it,) it was an established rule, that no governor of a province should take his wife along with him into his province, wives not being subject to the laws in the same manner as their husbands and though I do not impute to any one any criminality here; I should think myself guilty of a scandalous dereliction of my duty, if I did not mention the fact to your lordships. But I press it no further: here are the accounts, delivered in by Mr. Larkins at Mr. Hastings's own requisition.

The three lines, which were read out of a Persian paper, are followed by a long account of the several species, in which this present was received, and converted by exchange, into one common standard. Now, as these three lines of paper, which are said to have been read out of a Persian paper, contain an account of bribes to the amount of £100,000; and as it is not even insinuated that this was the whole of the paper, but rather the contrary indirectly implied, I shall leave it for your lordships, in your serious consideration to judge what mines of bribery that paper might contain. For why did not Mr. Larkins get the whole of that paper read and translated? The moment any man stops in the midst of an account, he is stopping in the midst of a fraud.

My lords, I have one further remark to make upon these accounts. The cabooleats, or agreements for the payments of these bribes, amount, in the three specified provinces, to £95,000. Do you believe, that these provinces were thus particularly favored? Do you think, that they were chosen as a little demesne for Mr. Hastings? That they were the only provinces honored with his protection, so far as to take bribes from them? Do you perceive any thing in their local situation, that should distinguish them from other provinces

of Bengal? What is the reason why Dinagepore, Patna, Nuddea, should have the post of honor assigned them? What reason can be given for not taking bribes also from Burdwan, from Bishanpore, in short, from all the sixty-eight collections, which comprise the revenues of Bengal, and for selecting only three? How came he, I say, to be so wicked a servant, that, out of sixty-eight divisions, he chose only three to supply the exigencies of the company? He did not do his duty in making this distinction, if he thought, that bribery was the best way of supplying the company's treasury; and that it formed the most useful and effectual resource for them; which he has declared over and over again. Was it right to lay the whole weight of bribery, extortion and oppression, upon those three provinces, and neglect the rest? No; you know and must know, that he, who extorts from three provinces, will extort from twenty, if there are twenty. You have a standard, a measure of extortion, and that is all; ex pede Herculem: guess from thence what was extorted from all Bengal. Do you believe he could be so cruel to these provinces, so partial to the rest, as to charge them with that load, with £95,000, knowing the heavy oppression they were sinking under, and leave all the rest untouched? You will judge of what is concealed from us by what we have discovered through various means, that have occurred in consequence, both of the guilty conscience of the person, who confesses the fact with respect to these provinces, and of the vigor, perseverance, and sagacity of those, who have forced from him that discovery. It is not therefore for me to say, that the £100,000 and £95,000 only were taken. Where the circumstances entitle me to go on, I must not be stopped, but at the boundary where human nature has fixed a barrier.

You have now before you the true reason why he did not choose that this affair should come before a court of justice. Rather than this exposure should be made, he to-day would call for the mountains to cover him: he would prefer an in

quiry into the business of the three seals; into any thing foreign to the subject, I am now discussing, in order to keep you from the discovery of that gross bribery, that shameful peculation, that abandoned prostitution and corruption, which he has practised with indemnity and impunity to this day, from one end of India to the other.

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

Dinagepore, a large province, was possessed by an ancient family, the last of which, about the year 1184 of their æra, the rajah Bijanaut had no legitimate issue. When he was at the point of death, he wished to exclude from the succession to the zemindary his half brother, Cantoo Naut, with whom he had lived upon ill terms for many years, by adopting a son. Such an adoption, when a person has a half brother, as he had, in my poor judgment, is not countenanced by the Gentoo laws. But Gunga Govin Sing, who was placed by the office he held, at the head of the registry, where the records were kept, by which the rules of succession according to the custom of the country are ascertained, became master of these Gentoo laws; and through his means Mr. Hastings decreed in favor of the adoption. We find, that immediately after this decree, Gunga Govin Sing received a cabooleat on Dinagepore for the sum of £40,000, of which it appears that he has actually exacted £30,000,