Mr. Hastings, to palliate the blame of his conduct, declares that he has not received any interest on these bonds,—and that he has indorsed them as not belonging to himself, but to the Company.[36] As to the first part of this allegation, whether he received the interest or let it remain in arrear is a matter of indifference, as he entitled himself to it; and so far as the legal security he has taken goes, he may, whenever he pleases, dispose both of principal and interest. What he has indorsed on the bonds, or when he made the indorsement, or whether in fact he has made it at all, are matters known only to himself; for the bonds must be in his possession, and are nowhere by him stated to be given up or cancelled,—which is a thing very remarkable, when he confesses that he had no right to receive them.
These bonds make but a part of the account of private receipts of money by Mr. Hastings, formerly paid into the Treasury as his own property, and now allowed not to be so. This account brings into view other very remarkable matters of a similar nature and description.[37]
In the public records, a sum of not less than 23,871l. is set to his credit as a deposit for his private account, paid in by him into the Treasury in gold, and coined at the Company's mint.[38] This appears in the account furnished to the Directors, under the date of May, 1782, not to be lawfully his money, and he therefore transfers it to the Company's credit: it still remains as a deposit.[39]
That the House may be apprised of the nature of this article of deposit, it may not be improper to state that the Company receive into their treasury the cash of private persons, placed there as in a bank. On this no interest is paid, and the party depositing has a right to receive it upon demand. Under this head of account no public money is ever entered. Mr. Hastings, neither at making the deposit as his own, nor at the time of his disclosure of the real proprietor, (which he makes to be the Company,) has given any information of the persons from whom this money had been received. Mr. Scott was applied to by your Committee, but could not give any more satisfaction in this particular than in those relative to the bonds.
The title of the account of the 22d of May purports not only that those sums were paid into the Company's treasury by Mr. Hastings's order, but that they were applied to the Company's service. No service is specified, directly or by any reference, to which this great sum of money has been applied.
Two extraordinary articles follow this, in the May account, amounting to about 29,000l.[40] These articles are called Receipts for Durbar Charges. The general head of Durbar Charges, made by persons in office, when analyzed into the particulars, contains various expenses, including bounties and presents made by government, chiefly in the foreign department. But in the last account he confesses that this sum also is not his, but the Company's property; but as in all the rest, so in this, he carefully conceals the means by which he acquired the money, the time of his taking it, and the persons from whom it was taken. This is the more extraordinary, because, in looking over the journals and ledgers of the Treasury, the presents received and carried to the account of the Company (which were generally small and complimental) were precisely entered, with the name of the giver.
Your Committee, on turning to the account of Durbar charges in the ledger of that month, find the sum, as stated in the account of May 22d, to be indeed paid in; but there is no specific application whatsoever entered.
The account of the whole money thus clandestinely received, as stated on the 22d of May, 1782, (and for a great part of which Mr. Hastings to that time took credit for, and for the rest has accounted in an extraordinary manner as his own,) amounts in the whole to upwards of ninety-three thousand pounds sterling: a vast sum to be so obtained, and so loosely accounted for! If the money taken from the Rajah of Benares be added, (as it ought,) it will raise the sum to upwards of 116,000l.; if the 11,600l. bond in October be added, it will be upwards of 128,000l. received in a secret manner by Mr. Hastings in about one year and five months. To all these he adds another sum of one hundred thousand pounds, received as a present from the Subah of Oude. Total, upwards of 228,000l.
Your Committee find that this last is the only sum the giver of which Mr. Hastings has thought proper to declare. It is to be observed, that he did not receive this 100,000l. in money, but in bills on a great native money-dealer resident at Benares, and who has also an house at Calcutta: he is called Gopâl Dâs. The negotiation of these bills tended to make a discovery not so difficult as it would have been in other cases.