prevarications perpetually ringing the changes in this declaration. He
would not have discovered this hundred thousand pounds, if he could have
concealed it: he would have discovered it, lest malicious persons should
be telling tales of it. He has a system of concealment: he never
discovers anything, but when he thinks it can be forced from him. He
says, indeed, "I could conceal these things forever, but my conscience
would not give me leave": but it is guilt, and not honesty of
conscience, that always prompts him. At one time it is the malice of
people and the fear of misrepresentation which induced him to make the
disclosure; and he values himself on the precaution which this fear had
suggested to him. At another time it is the magnitude of the sum which
produced this effect: nothing but the impossibility of concealing it
could possibly have made him discover it. This hundred thousand pounds
he declares he would have concealed, if he could; and yet he values
himself upon the discovery of it. Oh, my Lords, I am afraid that sums of
much greater magnitude have not been discovered at all! Your Lordships
now see some of the artifices of this letter. You see the variety of
styles he adopts, and how he turns himself into every shape and every
form. But, after all, do you find any clear discovery? do you find any
satisfactory answer to the Directors' letter? does he once tell you from
whom he received the money? does he tell you for what he received it,
what the circumstances of the persons giving it were, or any explanation
whatever of his mode of accounting for it? No: and here, at last, after
so many years' litigation, he is called to account for his
prevaricating, false accounts in Calcutta, and cannot give them to you.
His explanation of his conduct relative to the bonds now only remains
for your Lordships' consideration. Before he left Calcutta, in July,
1784 [1781?], he says, when he was going upon a service which he thought
a service of danger, he indorsed the false bonds which he had taken from
the Company, declaring them to be none of his. You will observe that
these bonds had been in his hands from the 9th or 15th of January (I am
not quite sure of the exact date) to the day when he went upon this
service, some time in the month of July, 1784 [1781?]. This service he
had formerly declared he did not apprehend to be a service of danger;
but he found it to be so after: it was in anticipation of that danger
that he made this attestation and certificate upon the bonds. But who
ever saw them? Mr. Larkins saw them, says he: "I gave them Mr. Larkins."
We will show you hereafter that Mr. Larkins deserves no credit in this
business,--that honor binds him not to discover the secrets of Mr.
Hastings. But why did he not deliver them up entirely, when he was going
upon that service? for all pretence of concealment in the business was
now at an end, as we shall prove. Why did he not cancel these bonds?
Why keep them at all? Why not enter truly the state of the account in
the Company's records? "But I indorsed them," he says. "Did you deliver
them so indorsed into the treasury?" "No, I delivered them indorsed into
the hands of my bribe-broker and agent." "But why not destroy them, or
give them up to the Company, and say you were paid, which would have
been the only truth in this transaction? Why did you not indorse them
before? Why not, during the long period of so many years, cancel them?"
No, he kept them to the very day when he was going from Calcutta, and
had made a declaration that they were not his. Never before, upon any
account, had they appeared; and though the Committee of the House of
Commons, in the Eleventh Report, had remarked upon all these scandalous
proceedings and prevarications, yet he was not stimulated, even then, to
give up these bonds. He held them in his hands till the time when he was
preparing for his departure from Calcutta, in spite of the Directors, in
spite of the Parliament, in spite of the cries of his own conscience, in
a matter which was now grown public, and would knock doubly upon his
reputation and conduct. He then declares they are not for his own use,
but for the Company's service. But were they then cancelled? I do not
find a trace of their being cancelled. In this letter of the 17th of
January, 1785, he says with regard to these bonds, "The following sums
were paid into the treasury, and bonds granted for the same in the name
of the Governor-General, in whose possession the bonds remain, with a
declaration upon each, indorsed and signed by him, that he has no claim
on the Company for the amount either of principal or interest, no part
of the latter having been received."
To the account of the 22d of May, of the indorsement, is added the
declaration upon oath. But why any man need to declare upon oath that
the money which he has fraudulently taken and concealed from another
person is not his is the most extraordinary thing in the world. If he
had a mind to have it placed to his credit as his own, then an oath
would be necessary; but in this case any one would believe him upon his
word. He comes, however, and says, "This is indorsed upon oath." Oath!
before what magistrate? In whose possession were the bonds? Were they
given up? There is no trace of that upon the record, and it stands for
him to prove that they were ever given up, and in any hands but Mr.
Larkins's and his own. So here are the bonds, begun in obscurity and
ending in obscurity, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, corruption to
corruption, and fraud to fraud. This is all we see of these bonds, till
Mr. Larkins, to whom he writes some letter concerning them which does
not appear, is called to read a funeral sermon over them.
* * * * *
My Lords, I am come now near the period of this class of Mr. Hastings's
bribes. I am a little exhausted. There are many circumstances that might
make me wish not to delay this business by taking up another day at your
Lordships' bar, in order to go through this long, intricate scene of
corruption. But my strength now fails me. I hope within a very short
time, to-morrow or the next court-day, to finish it, and to go directly
into evidence, as I long much to do, to substantiate the charge; but it
was necessary that the evidence should be explained. You have heard as
much of the drama as I could go through: bear with my weakness a little:
Mr. Larkins's letter will be the epilogue to it. I have already incurred
the censure of the prisoner; I mean to increase it, by bringing home to
him the proof of his crimes, and to display them in all their force and
turpitude. It is my duty to do it; I feel it an obligation nearest to my
heart.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] See this letter in the Appendix to the Eighth and Sixteenth Charges,
Vol. IX. pp. 319-325, in the present edition.
SPEECH
ON
THE SIXTH ARTICLE OF CHARGE.
FOURTH DAY: THURSDAY, MAY 7, 1789.
My Lords,--When I had the honor last to address you from this place, I
endeavored to press this position upon your minds, and to fortify it by
the example of the proceedings of Mr. Hastings,--that obscurity and
inaccuracies in a matter of account constituted a just presumption of
fraud. I showed, from his own letters, that his accounts were confused
and inaccurate. I am ready, my Lords, to admit that there are situations
in which a minister in high office may use concealment: it may be his
duty to use concealment from the enemies of his masters; it may be
prudent to use concealment from his inferiors in the service. It will
always be suspicious to use concealment from his colleagues and
coördinates in office; but when, in a money transaction, any man uses
concealment with regard to them to whom the money belongs, he is guilty
of a fraud. My Lords, I have shown you that Mr. Hastings kept no
account, by his own confession, of the moneys that he had privately
taken, as he pretends, for the Company's service, and we have but too
much reason to presume for his own. We have shown you, my Lords, that he
has not only no accounts, but no memory; we have shown that he does not
even understand his own motives; that, when called upon to recollect
them, he begs to guess at them; and that as his memory is to be supplied
by his guess, so he has no confidence in his guesses. He at first finds,
after a lapse of about a year and a half, or somewhat less, that he
cannot recollect what his motives were to certain actions which upon the
very face of them appeared fraudulent. He is called to an account some
years after, to explain what they were, and he makes a just reflection
upon it,--namely, that, as his memory did not enable him to find out his
own motive at the former time, it is not to be expected that it would be
clearer a year after. Your Lordships will, however, recollect, that in
the Cheltenham letter, which is made of no perishable stuff, he begins
again to guess; but after he has guessed and guessed again, and after he
has gone through all the motives he can possibly assign for the action,
he tells you he does not know whether those were his real motives, or
whether he has not invented them since.
In that situation the accounts of the Company were left with regard to
very great sums which passed through Mr. Hastings's hands, and for which
he, instead of giving his masters credit, took credit to himself, and,
being their debtor, as he confesses himself to be at that time, took a
security for that debt as if he had been their creditor. This required
explanation. Explanation he was called upon for, over and over again;
explanation he did not give, and declared he could not give. He was
called upon for it when in India: he had not leisure to attend to it
there. He was called upon for it when in Europe: he then says he must
send for it to India. With much prevarication, and much insolence too,
he confesses himself guilty of falsifying the Company's accounts by
making himself their creditor when he was their debtor, and giving false
accounts of this false transaction. The Court of Directors was slow to
believe him guilty; Parliament expressed a strong suspicion of his
guilt, and wished for further information. Mr. Hastings about this time
began to imagine his conscience to be a faithful and true
monitor,--which it were well he had attended to upon many occasions, as
it would have saved him his appearance here,--and it told him that he
was in great danger from the Parliamentary inquiries that were going on.
It was now to be expected that he would have been in haste to fulfil the
promise which he had made in the Patna letter of the 20th of January,
1782; and accordingly we find that about this time his first agent,
Major Fairfax, was sent over to Europe, which agent entered himself at
the India House, and appeared before the Committee of the House of
Commons, as an agent expressly sent over to explain whatever might
appear doubtful in his conduct. Major Fairfax, notwithstanding the
character in which Mr. Hastings employed him, appeared to be but a
letter-carrier: he had nothing to say: he gave them no information in
the India House at all: to the Committee (I can speak with the clearness
of a witness) he gave no satisfaction whatever. However, this agent
vanished in a moment, in order to make way for another, more
substantial, more efficient agent,--an agent perfectly known in this
country,--an agent known by the name given to him by Mr. Hastings, who,
like the princes of the East, gives titles: he calls him an incomparable
agent; and by that name he is very well known to your Lordships and the
world. This agent, Major Scott, who I believe was here prior to the
time of Major Fairfax's arrival in the character of an agent, and for
the very same purposes, was called before the Committee, and examined,
point by point, article by article, upon all that obscure enumeration of
bribes which the Court of Directors declare they did not understand; but
he declared that he could speak nothing with regard to any of these
transactions, and that he had got no instructions to explain any part of
them. There was but one circumstance which in the course of his
examination we drew from him,--namely, that one of these articles,
entered in the account of the 22d of May as a deposit, had been received
from Mr. Hastings as a bribe from Cheyt Sing. He produced an extract of
a letter relative to it, which your Lordships in the course of this
trial may see, and which will lead us into a further and more minute
inquiry on that head; but when that committee made their report in 1783,
not one single article had been explained to Parliament, not one
explained to the Company, except this bribe of Cheyt Sing, which Mr.
Hastings had never thought proper to communicate to the East India
Company, either by himself, nor, as far as we could find out, by his
agent; nor was it at last otherwise discovered than as it was drawn out
from him by a long examination in the Committee of the House of Commons.
And thus, notwithstanding the letters he had written and the agents he
employed, he seemed absolutely and firmly resolved to give his employers
no satisfaction at all. What is curious in this proceeding is, that Mr.
Hastings, all the time he conceals, endeavors to get himself the credit
of a discovery. Your Lordships have seen what his discovery is; but Mr.
Hastings, among his other very extraordinary acquisitions, has found an
effectual method of concealment through discovery. I will venture to
say, that, whatever suspicions there might have been of Mr. Hastings's
bribes, there was more effectual concealment in regard to every
circumstance respecting them in that discovery than if he had kept a
total silence. Other means of discovery might have been found, but this,
standing in the way, prevented the employment of those means.
Things continued in this state till the time of the letter from
Cheltenham. The Cheltenham letter declared that Mr. Hastings knew
nothing of the matter,--that he had brought with him no accounts to
England upon the subject; and though it appears by this very letter that
he had with him at Cheltenham (if he wrote the letter at Cheltenham) a
great deal of his other correspondence, that he had his letter of the
22d of May with him, yet any account that could elucidate that letter he
declared that he had not; but he hinted that a Mr. Larkins, in India,
whom your Lordships will be better acquainted with, was perfectly
apprised of all that transaction. Your Lordships will observe that Mr.
Hastings has all his faculties, some way or other, in deposit: one
person can speak to his motives; another knows his fortune better than
himself; to others he commits the sentimental parts of his defence; to
Mr. Larkins he commits his memory. We shall see what a trustee of memory
Mr. Larkins is, and how far he answers the purpose which might be
expected, when appealed to by a man who has no memory himself, or who
has left it on the other side of the water, and who leaves it to another
to explain for him accounts which he ought to have kept himself, and
circumstances which ought to be deposited in his own memory.
This Cheltenham letter, I believe, originally became known, as far as I
can recollect, to the House of Commons, upon a motion of Mr. Hastings's
own agent: I do not like to be positive upon that point, but I think
that was the first appearance of it. It appeared likewise in public: for
it was thought so extraordinary and laborious a performance, by the
writer or his friends, (as indeed it is,) that it might serve to open a
new source of eloquence in the kingdom, and consequently was printed, I
believe, at the desire of the parties themselves. But however it became
known, it raised an extreme curiosity in the public to hear, when Mr.
Hastings could say nothing, after so many years, of his own concerns and
his own affairs, what satisfaction Mr. Larkins at last would give
concerning them. This letter was directed to Mr. Devaynes, Chairman of
the Court of Directors. It does not appear that the Court of Directors
wrote anything to India in consequence of it, or that they directed this
satisfactory account of the business should be given them; but some
private communications passed between Mr. Hastings, or his agents, and
Mr. Larkins. There was a general expectation upon this occasion, I
believe, in the House of Commons and in the nation at large, to know
what would become of the portentous inquiry. Mr. Hastings has always
contrived to have half the globe between question and answer: when he
was in India, the question went to him, and then he adjourned his answer
till he came to England; and when he came to England, it was necessary
his answer should arrive from India; so that there is no manner of doubt
that all time was given for digesting, comparing, collating, and making
up a perfect memory upon the occasion.
But, my Lords, Mr. Larkins, who has in custody Mr. Hastings's memory, no
small part of his conscience, and all his accounts, did, at last, in
compliance with Mr. Hastings's desire, think proper to send an account.
Then, at last, we may expect light. Where are we to look for accounts,
but from an accountant-general? Where are they to be met with, unless
from him? And accordingly, in that night of perplexity into which Mr.
Hastings's correspondence had plunged them, men looked up to the dawning
of the day which was to follow that star, the little Lucifer, which with
his lamp was to dispel the shades of night, and give us some sort of
light into this dark, mysterious transaction. At last the little lamp
appeared, and was laid on the table of this House of Commons, on the
motion of Mr. Hastings's friends: for we did not know of its arrival. It
arrives, with all the intelligence, all the memory, accuracy, and
clearness which Mr. Larkins can furnish for Mr. Hastings upon a business
that before was nothing but mystery and confusion. The account is
called,--
_"Copy of the particulars of the dates on which the component parts of
sundry sums included in the account of sums received on the account of
the Honorable Company by the Governor-General, or paid to their Treasury
by his order, and applied to their service, were received for Mr.
Hastings, and paid to the Sub-Treasurer."_
The letter from Mr. Larkins consisted of two parts: first, what was so
much wanted, an account; next, what was wanted most of all to such an
account as he sent, a comment and explanation. The account consisted of
two members: one gave an account of several detached bribes that Mr.
Hastings had received within the course of about a year and a half; and
the other, of a great bribe which he had received in one gross sum of
one hundred thousand pounds from the Nabob of Oude. It appeared to us,
upon looking into these accounts, that there was some geography, a
little bad chronology, but nothing else in the first: neither the
persons who took the money, nor the persons from whom it was taken, nor
the ends for which it was given, nor any other circumstances are
mentioned.
The first thing we saw was _Dinagepore_. I believe you know this piece
of geography,--that it is one of the provinces of the kingdom of Bengal.
We then have a long series of months, with a number of sums added to
them; and in the end it is said, that on the 18th and 19th of Asin,
(meaning part of September and part of October,) were paid to Mr.
Croftes two lac of rupees; and then remains one lac, which was taken
from a sum of three lac six thousand nine hundred and seventy-three
rupees. After we had waited for Mr. Hastings's own account, after it had
been pursued through a series of correspondence in vain, after his
agents had come to England to explain it, this is the explanation that
your Lordships have got of this first article, Dinagepore. Not the
person paid to, not the person paying, are mentioned, nor any other
circumstance, except the signature, _G.G.S._: this might serve for
_George Gilbert Sanders_, or any other name you please; and seeing
_Croftes_ above it, you might imagine it was an Englishman. And this,
which I call a geographical and a chronological account, is the only
account we have. Mr. Larkins, upon the mere face of the account, sadly
disappoints us; and I will venture to say that in matters of account
Bengal book-keeping is as remote from good book-keeping as the Bengal
_painches_ are remote from all the rules of good composition. We have,
however, got some light: namely, that one G.G.S. has paid some money to
Mr. Croftes for some purpose, but from whom we know not, nor where; that
there is a place called Dinagepore; and that Mr. Hastings received some
money from somebody in Dinagepore.
The next article is _Patna_. Your Lordships are not so ill acquainted
with the geography of India as not to know that there is such a place as
Patna, nor so ill acquainted with the chronology of it as not to know
that there are three months called Baisakh, Asin, Chait. Here was paid
to Mr. Croftes two lac of rupees, and there was left a balance of about
two more. But though you learn with regard to the province of Dinagepore
that there is a balance to be discharged by G.G.S., yet with regard to
Patna we have not even a G.G.S.: we have no sort of light whatever to
know through whose hands the money passed, nor any glimpse of light
whatever respecting it.
You may expect to be made amends in the other province, called _Nuddea_,
where Mr. Hastings had received a considerable sum of money. There is
the very same darkness: not a word from whom received, by whom received,
or any other circumstance, but that it was paid into the hands of Mr.
Hastings's _white banian_, as he was commonly called in that country,
into the hands of Mr. Croftes, who is his white agent in receiving
bribes: for he was very far from having but one.
After all this inquiry, after so many severe animadversions from the
House of Commons, after all those reiterated letters from the
Directors, after an application to Mr. Hastings himself, when you are
hunting to get at some explanation of the proceedings mentioned in the
letter of the month of May, 1782, you receive here by Mr. Larkins's
letter, which is dated the 5th of August, 1786, this account, which, to
be sure, gives an amazing light into this business: it is a letter for
which it was worth sending to Bengal, worth waiting for with all that
anxious expectation with which men wait for great events. Upon the face
of the account there is not one single word which can tend to illustrate
the matter: he sums up the whole, and makes out that there was received
five lac and fifty thousand rupees, that is to say, 55,000_l._, out of
the sum of nine lac and fifty thousand engaged to be paid: namely,--
From Dinagepore 4,00,000
From Nuddea 1,50,000
And from Patna 4,00,000
--------
9,50,000
--------
Or £95,000
Now you have got full light! _Cabooleat_ signifies a contract, or an
agreement; and this agreement was, to pay Mr. Hastings, as one should
think, certain sums of money,--it does not say from whom, but only that
such a sum of money was paid, and that there remains such a balance.
When you come and compare the money received by Mr. Croftes with these
cabooleats, you find that the cabooleats amount to 95,000_l._, and that
the receipt has been about 55,000_l._, and that upon the face of this
account there is 40,000_l._ somewhere or other unaccounted for. There
never was such a mode of account-keeping, except in the new system of
this bribe exchequer.
Your Lordships will now see, from this luminous, satisfactory, and clear
account, which could come from no other than a great accountant and a
great financier, establishing some new system of finance, and
recommending it to the world as superior to those old-fashioned foolish
establishments, the Exchequer and Bank of England, what lights are
received from Mr. Hastings.
However, it does so happen that from these obscure hints we have been
able to institute examinations which have discovered such a mass of
fraud, guilt, corruption, and oppression as probably never before
existed since the beginning of the world; and in that darkness we hope
and trust the diligence and zeal of the House of Commons will find light
sufficient to make a full discovery of his base crimes. We hope and
trust, that, after all his concealments, and though he appear resolved
to die in the last dike of prevarication, all his artifices will not be
able to secure him from the siege which the diligence of the House of
Commons has laid to his corruptions.