discovery of all his bribes, or if any other servant of the Company
should imitate his example without his heroic good intentions in doing
such villanous acts, how is the Company to recover the bribe-money? The
receivers need not divulge it till they think fit; and the moment an
informer comes, that informer is ruined. He comes, for instance, to the
Governor-General and Council, and charges, say, not Mr. Hastings, but
the head of the Board of Revenue, with receiving a bribe. "Receive a
bribe? So I did; but it was with an intention of applying it to the
Company's service. There I nick the informer: I am beforehand with him:
the bribe is sanctified by my inward jesuitical intention. I will make a
merit of it with the Company. I have received 40,000_l._ as a bribe;
there it is for you: I am acquitted; I am a meritorious servant: let the
informer go and seek his remedy as he can." Now, if an informer is once
instructed that a person who receives bribes can turn them into merit,
and take away his action from him, do you think that you ever will or
can discover any one bribe? But what is still worse, by this method
disclose but one bribe, and you secure all the rest that you possibly
can receive upon any occasion. For instance, strong report prevails that
a bribe of 40,000_l._ has been given, and the receiver expects that
information will be laid against him. He acknowledges that he has
received a bribe of 40,000_l._, but says that it was for the service of
the Company, and that it is carried to their account. And thus, by
stating that he has taken some money which he has accounted for, but
concealing from whom that money came, which is exactly Mr. Hastings's
case, if at last an information should be laid before the Company of a
specific bribe having been received of 40,000_l._, it is said by the
receiver, "Lord! this is the 40,000_l._ I told you of: it is broken into
fragments, paid by instalments; and you have taken it and put it into
your own coffers."
Again, suppose him to take it through the hand of an agent, such as
Gunga Govind Sing, and that this agent, who, as we have lately
discovered, out of a bribe of 40,000_l._, which Mr. Hastings was to have
received, kept back half of it, falls into their debt like him: I desire
to know what the Company can do in such a case. Gunga Govind Sing has
entered into no covenants with the Company. There is no trace of his
having this money, except what Mr. Hastings chooses to tell. If he is
called upon to refund it to the Company, he may say he never received
it, that he was never ordered to extort this money from the people; or
if he was under any covenant not to take money, he may set up this
defence: "I am forbidden to receive money; and I will not make a
declaration which will subject me to penalties": or he may say in India,
before the Supreme Court, "I have paid the bribe all to Mr. Hastings";
and then there must be a bill and suit there, a bill and suit here, and
by that means, having one party on one side the water and the other
party on the other, the Company may never come to a discovery of it. And
that in fact this is the way in which one of his great bribe-agents has
acted I shall prove to your Lordships by evidence.
Mr. Hastings had squeezed out of a miserable country a bribe of
40,000_l._, of which he was enabled to bring to the account of the
Company only 20,000_l._, and of which we should not even have known the
existence, if the inquiries pursued with great diligence by the House of
Commons had not extorted the discovery: and even now that we know the
fact, we can never get at the money; the Company can never receive it;
and before the House had squeezed out of him that some such money had
been received, he never once told the Court of Directors that his black
bribe-agent, whom he recommended to their service, had cheated both them
and him of 20,000_l._ out of the fund of the bribe-revenue. If it be
asked, Where is the record of this? Record there is none. In what office
is it entered? It is entered in no office; it is mentioned as privately
received for the Company's benefit: and you shall now further see what a
charming office of receipt and account this new exchequer of Mr.
Hastings's is.
For there is another and a more serious circumstance attending this
business. Every one knows, that, by the law of this, and, I believe, of
every country, any money which is taken illegally from any person, as
every bribe or sum of money extorted or paid without consideration is,
belongs to the person who paid it, and he may bring his action for it,
and recover it. Then see how the Company stands. The Company receives a
bribe of 40,000_l._ by Mr. Hastings; it is carried to its account; it
turns bribery into a revenue; it sanctifies it. In the mean time, the
man from whom this money is illegally taken sues Mr. Hastings. Must not
he recover of Mr. Hastings? Then, if so, must not Mr. Hastings recover
it again from the Company? The Company undoubtedly is answerable for it.
And here is a revenue which every man who has paid it may drag out of
the treasury again. Mr. Hastings's donations of his bribes to the
treasury are liable to be torn from it at pleasure by every man who
gives the money. First it may be torn from him who receives it; and then
he may recover it from the treasury, to which he has given it.
But admitting that the taking of bribes can be sanctified by their
becoming the property of the Company, it may still be asked, For what
end and purpose has the Company covenanted with Mr. Hastings that money
taken extorsively shall belong to the Company? Is it that satisfaction
and reparation may be awarded against the said Warren Hastings to the
said Company for their own benefit? No: it is for the benefit of the
injured persons; and it is to be carried to the Company's account, "but
in trust, nevertheless, and to the intent that the said Company may and
do render and pay over the moneys received or recovered by them to the
parties injured or defrauded, which the said Company accordingly hereby
agree and covenant to do." Now here is a revenue to be received by Mr.
Hastings for the Company's use, applied at his discretion to that use,
and which the Company has previously covenanted to restore to the
persons that are injured and damaged. This is a revenue which is to be
torn away by the action of any person,--a revenue which they must
return back to the person complaining, as they in justice ought to do:
for no nation ever avowed making a revenue out of bribery and
peculation. They are, then, to restore it back again. But how can they
restore it? Mr. Hastings has applied it: he has given it in presents to
princes,--laid it out in budgeros,--in pen, ink, and wax,--in salaries
to secretaries: he has laid it out just in any way he pleased: and the
India Company, who have covenanted to restore all this money to the
persons from whom it came, are deprived of all means of performing so
just a duty. Therefore I dismiss the idea that any man so acting could
have had a good intention in his mind: the supposition is too weak,
senseless, and absurd. It was only in a desperate cause that he made a
desperate attempt: for we shall prove that he never made a disclosure
without thinking that a discovery had been previously made or was likely
to be made, together with an exposure of all the circumstances of his
wicked and abominable concealment.
You will see the history of this new scheme of bribery, by which Mr.
Hastings contrived by avowing some bribes to cover others, attempted to
outface his delinquency, and, if possible, to reconcile a weak breach of
the laws with a sort of spirited observance of them, and to become
infamous for the good of his country.
The first appearance of this practice of bribery was in a letter of the
29th of November, 1780. The cause which led to the discovery was a
dispute between him and Mr. Francis at the board, in consequence of a
very handsome offer made by Mr. Hastings to the board relative to a
measure proposed by him, to which he found one objection to be the
money that it would cost. He made the most generous and handsome offer,
as it stands upon record, that perhaps any man ever made,--namely, that
he would defray the expense out of his own private cash, and that he had
deposited with the treasurer two lac of rupees. This was in June, 1780,
and Mr. Francis soon after returned to Europe. I need not inform your
Lordships, that Mr. Hastings had before this time been charged with
bribery and peculation by General Clavering, Colonel Monson, and Mr.
Francis. He suspected that Mr. Francis, then going to Europe, would
confirm this charge by the suspicious nature and circumstances of this
generous offer; and this suspicion was increased by the connection which
he supposed, and which we can prove he thought, Mr. Francis had with
Cheyt Sing. Apprehending, therefore, that he might discover and bring
the bribe to light some way or other, he resolved to anticipate any such
discovery by declaring, upon the 29th of November, that this money was
not his own. I will mention to your Lordships hereafter the
circumstances of this money. He says, "My present reason for adverting
to my conduct," (that is, his offer of two lac of rupees out of his own
private cash for the Company's service, upon the 26th of June, 1780,)
"on the occasion I have mentioned, is to obviate the false conclusions
or purposed misrepresentations which may be made of it, either as an
artifice of ostentation or as the effect of corrupt influence, by
assuring you that the money, by whatever means it came into your
possession, was not my own,--that I had myself no right to it, nor would
or could have received it, but for the occasion, which prompted me to
avail myself of the accidental means which were at that instant
afforded me of accepting and converting it to the property and use of
the Company: and with this brief apology I shall dismiss the subject."
My Lords, you see what an account Mr. Hastings has given of some obscure
transaction by which he contradicts the record. For, on the 26th of
June, he generously, nobly, full of enthusiasm for their service, offers
to the Company money of his own. On the 29th of November he tells the
Court of Directors that the money he offered on the former day was not
his own,--that his assertion was totally false,--that the money was not
his,--that he had no right to receive it,--and that he would not have
received it, but for the occasion, which prompted him to avail himself
of the accidental means which at that instant offered.
Such is the account sent by their Governor in India, acting as an
accountant, to the Company,--a company with whom everything is matter of
account. He tells them, indeed, that the sum he had offered was not his
own,--that he had no right to it,--and that he would not have taken it,
if he had not been greatly tempted by the occasion; but he never tells
them by what means he came at it, the person from whom he received it,
the occasion upon which he received it, (whether justifiable or not,) or
any one circumstance under heaven relative to it. This is a very
extraordinary account to give to the public of a sum which we find to be
somewhere above twenty thousand pounds, taken by Mr. Hastings in some
way or other. He set the Company blindly groping in the dark by the very
pretended light, the ignis-fatuus, which he held out to them: for at
that time all was in the dark, and in a cloud: and this is what Mr.
Hastings calls _information_ communicated to the Company on the subject
of these bribes.
You have heard of obscurity illustrated by a further
obscurity,--_obscurum per obscurius_. He continues to tell
them,--"Something of affinity to this anecdote may appear in the first
aspect of another transaction, which I shall proceed to relate, and of
which it is more immediately my duty to inform you." He then tells them
that he had contrived to give a sum of money to the Rajah of Berar, and
the account he gives of that proceeding is this. "We had neither money
to spare, nor, in the apparent state of that government in its relation
to ours, would it have been either prudent or consistent with our public
credit to have afforded it. It was, nevertheless, my decided opinion
that some aid should be given, not less as a necessary relief than as an
indication of confidence, and a return for the many instances of
substantial kindness which we had within the course of the two last
years experienced from the government of Berar. I had an assurance that
such a proposal would receive the acquiescence of the board; but I knew
that it would not pass without opposition, and it would have become
public, which might have defeated its purpose. Convinced of the
necessity of the expedient, and assured of the sincerity of the
government of Berar, from evidences of stronger proof to me than I could
make them appear to the other members of the board, I resolved to adopt
it and take the entire responsibility of it upon myself. In this mode a
less considerable sum would suffice. I accordingly caused three lac of
rupees to be delivered to the minister of the Rajah of Berar resident in
Calcutta. He has transmitted it to Cuttack. Two thirds of this sum I
have raised by my own credit, and shall charge it in my official
accounts; the other third I have supplied from the cash in my hands
belonging to the Honorable Company."
Your Lordships see in this business another mode which he has of
accounting with the Company, and informing them of his bribe. He begins
his account of this transaction by saying that it has something of
affinity to the last anecdote,--meaning the account of the first bribe.
An anecdote is made a head of an account; and this, I believe, is what
none of your Lordships ever have heard of before,--and I believe it is
yet to be learned in this commercial nation, a nation of accurate
commercial account. The account he gives of the first is an anecdote;
and what is his account of the second? A relation of an anecdote: not a
near relation, but something of affinity,--a remote relation, cousin
three or four times removed, of the half-blood, or something of that
kind, to this anecdote: and he never tells them any circumstance of it
whatever of any kind, but that it has some affinity to the former
anecdote. But, my Lords, the thing which comes to some degree of
clearness is this, that he did give money to the Rajah of Berar. And
your Lordships will be so good as to advert carefully to the proportions
in which he gave it. He did give him two lac of rupees of money raised
by his own credit, his own money; and the third he advanced out of the
Company's money in his hands. He might have taken the Company's money
undoubtedly, fairly, openly, and held it in his hands, for a hundred
purposes; and therefore he does not tell them that even that third was
money he had obtained by bribery and corruption. No: he says it is money
of the Company's, which he had in his hand. So that you must get
through a long train of construction before you ascertain that this sum
was what it turns out to be, a bribe, which he retained for the Company.
Your Lordships will please to observe, as I proceed, the nature of this
pretended generosity in Mr. Hastings. He is always generous in the same
way. As he offered the whole of his first bribe as his own money, and
afterward acknowledged that no part of it was his own, so he is now
generous again in this latter transaction,--in which, however, he shows
that he is neither generous nor just. He took the first money without
right, and he did not apply it to the very service for which it was
pretended to be taken. He then tells you of another anecdote, which, he
says, has an affinity to that anecdote, and here he is generous again.
In the first he appears to be generous and just, because he appears to
give his own money, which he had a right to dispose of; then he tells
you he is neither generous nor just, for he had taken money he had no
right to, and did not apply it to the service for which he pretended to
have received it. And now he is generous again, because he gives two lac
of his own money,--and just, because he gives one lac which belonged to
the Company; but there is not an idea suggested from whom he took it.
But to proceed, my Lords. In this letter he tells you he had given two
thirds his own money and one third the Company's money. So it stood upon
the 29th of November, 1780. On the 5th of January following we see the
business take a totally different turn; and then Mr. Hastings calls for
three Company's bonds, upon two different securities, antedated to the
1st and 2d of October, for the three lac, which he before told them was
two thirds his own money and one third the Company's. He now declares
the whole of it to be his own, and he thus applies by letter to the
board, of which he himself was a majority.
"Honorable Sir and Sirs,--Having had occasion to disburse the sum
of three lacs of sicca rupees on account of secret services, which
having been advanced from my own private cash, I request that the
same may be repaid to me in the following manner.
"A bond to be granted me upon the terms of the second loan, bearing
date from 1st October, for one lac of sicca rupees.
"A bond to be granted me upon the terms of the first loan, bearing
date from 1st October, for one lac of sicca rupees."
"A bond to be granted me upon the terms of the first loan, bearing
date from the 2d October, for one lac of sicca rupees."
Here are two accounts, one of which must be directly and flatly false:
for he could not have given two thirds his own, and have supplied the
other third from money of the Company's, and at the same time have
advanced the whole as his own. He here goes the full length of the
fraud: he declares that it is all his own,--so much his own that he does
not trust the Company with it, and actually takes their bonds as a
security for it, bearing an interest to be paid to him when he thinks
proper.
Thus it remained from the 5th of January, 1781, till 16th December,
1782, when this business takes another turn, and in a letter of his to
the Company these bonds become all their own. All the money advanced is
now, all of it, the Company's money. First he says two thirds were his
own; next, that the whole is his own; and the third account is, that the
whole is the Company's, and he will account to them for it.
Now he has accompanied this account with another very curious one. For
when you come to look into the particulars of it, you will find there
are three bonds declared to be the Company's bonds, and which refer to
the former transactions, namely, the money for which he had taken the
bonds; but when you come to look at the numbers of them, you will find
that one of the three bonds which he had taken as his own disappears,
and another bond, of another date, and for a much larger sum, is
substituted in its place, of which he had never mentioned anything
whatever. So that, taking his first account, that two thirds is his own
money, then that it is all his own, in the third that it is all the
Company's money, by a fourth account, given in a paper describing the
three bonds, you will find that there is one lac which he does not
account for, but substitutes in its place a bond before taken as his
own. He sinks and suppresses one bond, he gives two bonds to the
Company, and to supply the want of the third, which he suppresses, he
brings forward a bond for another sum, of another date, which he had
never mentioned before. Here, then, you have four different accounts: if
any one of them is true, every one of the other three is totally false.
Such a system of cogging, such a system of fraud, such a system of
prevarication, such a system of falsehood, never was, I believe, before
exhibited in the world.
In the first place, why did he take bonds at all from the Company for
the money that was their own? I must be cautious how I charge a legal
crime. I will not charge it to be forgery, to take a bond from the
Company for money which was their own. He was employed to make out bonds
for the Company, to raise money on their credit. He pretends he lent
them a sum of money, which was not his to lend: but he gives their own
money to them as his own, and takes a security for it. I will not say
that it is a forgery, but I am sure it is an offence as grievous,
because it is as much a cheat as a forgery, with this addition to it,
that the person so cheating is in a trust; he violates that trust, and
in so doing he defrauds and falsifies the whole system of the Company's
accounts.
I have only to show what his own explanation of all these actions was,
because it supersedes all observation of mine. Hear what prevaricating
guilt says for the falsehood and delusion which had been used to cover
it; and see how he plunges deeper and deeper upon every occasion. This
explanation arose out of another memorable bribe, which I must now beg
leave to state to your Lordships.
About the time of the receipt of the former bribes, good fortune, as
good things seldom come singly, is kind to him; and when he went up and
had nearly ruined the Company's affairs in Oude and Benares, he received
a present of 100,000_l._ sterling, or thereabouts. He received bills for
it in September, 1781, and he gives the Company an account of it in
January, 1782. Remark in what manner the account of this money was
given, and the purposes for which he intends to apply it. He says, in
this letter, "I received the offer of a considerable sum of money, both
on the Nabob's part and that of his ministers, as a present to myself,
not to the Company: I accepted it without hesitation, and gladly, being
entirely destitute both of means and credit, whether for your service or
the relief of my own necessities." My Lords, upon this you shall hear a
comment, made by some abler persons than me. This donation was not made
in species, but in bills upon the house of Gopaul Doss, who was then a
prisoner in the hands of Cheyt Sing. After mentioning that he took this
present for the Company, and for their exigencies, and partly for his
own necessities, and in consequence of the distress of both, he desires
the Company, in the moment of this their greatest distress, to award it
to him, and therefore he ends, "If you should adjudge the deposit to me,
I shall consider it as the most honorable approbation and reward of my
labors: and I wish to owe my fortune to your bounty. I am now in the
fiftieth year of my life: I have passed thirty-one years in the service
of the Company, and the greatest part of that time in employments of the
highest trust. My conscience allows me boldly to claim the merit of zeal
and integrity; nor has fortune been unpropitious to their exertions. To
these qualities I bound my pretensions. I shall not repine, if you shall
deem otherwise of my services; nor ought your decision, however it may
disappoint my hope of a retreat adequate to the consequence and
elevation of the office which I now possess, to lessen my gratitude for
having been so long permitted to hold it, since it has at least enabled
me to lay up a provision with which I can be contented in a more humble
station."
And here your Lordships will be pleased incidentally to remark the
circumstance of his condition of life and his fortune, to which he
appeals, and upon account of which he desires this money. Your
Lordships will remember that in 1773 he said, (and this I stated to you
from himself,) that, if he held his then office for a very few years, he
should be enabled to lay by an ample provision for his retreat. About
nine years after that time, namely, in the month of January, 1782, he
finds himself rather pinched with want, but, however, not in so bad a
way but that the holding of his office had enabled him to lay up a
provision with which he could be contented in a more humble station. He
wishes to have affluence; he wishes to have dignity; he wishes to have
consequence and rank: but he allows that he has competence. Your
Lordships will see afterwards how miserably his hopes were disappointed:
for the Court of Directors, receiving this letter from Mr. Hastings, did
declare, that they could not give it to him, because the act had ordered
that "no fees of office, perquisites, emoluments, or advantages
whatsoever, should be accepted, received, or taken by such
Governor-General and Council, or any of them, in any manner or on any
account or pretence whatsoever"; "and as the same act further directs,
'that no Governor-General, or any of the Council, shall directly take,
accept, or receive, of or from any person or persons, in any manner or
on any account whatsoever, any present, gift, donation, gratuity, or
reward, pecuniary or otherwise, or any promise or engagement for any
present, gift, donation, gratuity, or reward,' we cannot, were we so
inclined, decree the amount of this present to the Governor-General. And
it is further enacted, 'that any such present, gift, gratuity, donation,
or reward, accepted, taken, or received, shall be deemed and construed
to have been received to and for the sole use of the Company.'" And
therefore they resolved, most unjustly and most wickedly, to keep it to
themselves. The act made it in the first instance the property of the
Company, and they would not give it him. And one should think this, with
his own former construction of the act, would have made him cautious of
taking bribes. You have seen what weight it had with him to stop the
course of bribes which he was in such a career of taking in every place
and with both hands.