I wish your Lordships to attend to the next paragraph, which is meant by him to explain why he took bribes at all,—why he took bonds for some of them, as moneys of his own, and not moneys of the Company,—why he entered some upon the Company's accounts, and why of the others he renders no account at all. Light, however, will beam upon you as we proceed.
"Why these sums were taken by me,—why they were, except the second, quietly transferred to the Company's use,—why bonds were taken for the first, and not for the rest,—might, were this matter exposed to the view of the public, furnish a variety of conjectures, to which it would be of little use to reply. Were your Honorable Court to question me on these points, I would answer, that the sums were taken for the Company's benefit, at times when the Company very much needed them,—that 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 could at this distance of time verify, and that I did not think it worth my care to observe the same means with the rest. I trust, Honorable Sirs, to your breasts for a candid interpretation of my actions,—and assume the freedom to add, that I think myself, on such a subject, on such an occasion, entitled to it."
Lofty, my Lords! You see, that, after the Directors had expected an explanation for so long a time, he says, "Why these sums were taken by me, and, except the second, quietly transferred to the Company's use, I cannot tell; why bonds were taken for the first, and not for the rest, I cannot tell: if this matter were exposed to view, it would furnish a variety of conjectures." Here is an account which is to explain the most obscure, the most mysterious, the most evidently fraudulent transactions. When asked how he came to take these bonds, how he came to use these frauds, he tells you he really does not know,—that he might have this motive for it, that he might have another motive for it,—that he wished to conceal it from public curiosity,—but, which is the most extraordinary, he is not quite sure that he had any motive for it at all, which his memory can trace. The whole of this is a period of a year and a half; and here is a man who keeps his account upon principles of whim and vagary. One would imagine he was guessing at some motive of a stranger. Why he came to take bonds for money not due to him, and why he enters some and not others,—he knows nothing of these things: he begs them not to ask about it, because it will be of no use. "You foolish Court of Directors may conjecture and conjecture on. You are asking me why I took bonds to myself for money of yours, why I have cheated you, why I have falsified my account in such a manner. I will not tell you."
In the satisfaction which he had promised to give them he neither mentions the persons, the times, the occasions, or motives for any of his actions. He adds, "I did not think it worth my care to observe the same means with the rest." For some purposes, he thought it necessary to use the most complicated and artful concealments; for some, he could not tell what his motives were; and for others, that it was mere carelessness. Here is the exchequer of bribery!—have I falsified any part of my original stating of it?—an exchequer in which the man who ought to pay receives, the man who ought to give security takes it, the man who ought to keep an account says he has forgotten; an exchequer in which oblivion was the remembrancer; and, to sum up the whole, an exchequer into the accounts of which it was useless to inquire. This is the manner in which the account of near two hundred thousand pounds is given to the Court of Directors. You can learn nothing in this business that is any way distinct, except a premeditated design of a concealment of his transactions. That is avowed.
But there is a more serious thing behind. Who were the instruments of his concealment? No other, my Lords, than the Company's public accountant. That very accountant takes the money, knowing it to be the Company's, and that it was only pretended to be advanced by Mr. Hastings for the Company's use. He sees Mr. Hastings make out bonds to himself for it, and Mr. Hastings makes him enter him as creditor, when in fact he was debtor. Thus he debauches the Company's accountant, and makes him his confederate. These fraudulent and corrupt acts, covered by false representations, are proved to be false not by collation with anything else, but false by a collation with themselves. This, then, is the account, and his explanation of it; and in this insolent, saucy, careless, negligent manner, a public accountant like Mr. Hastings, a man bred up a book-keeper in the Company's service, who ought to be exact, physically exact, in his account, has not only been vicious in his own account, but made the public accounts vicious and of no value.
But there is in this account another curious circumstance with regard to the deposit of this sum of money, to which he referred in his first paragraph of his letter of the 29th of November, 1780. He states that this deposit was made and passed into the hands of Mr. Larkins on the 1st of June. It did so; but it is not entered in the Company's accounts till November following. Now in all that intermediate space where was it? what account was there of it? It was entirely a secret between Mr. Larkins and Mr. Hastings, without a possibility of any one discovering any particular relative to it. Here is an account of two hundred thousand pounds received, juggled between the accountant and him, without a trace of it appearing in the Company's books. Some of those committees, to whom, for their diligence at least, I must say the public have some obligation, and in return for which they ought to meet with some indulgence, examining into all these circumstances, and having heard that Mr. Hastings had deposited a sum of money in the hands of the Company's sub-treasurer in the month of June, sent for the Company's books. They looked over those books, but they did not find the least trace of any such sum of money, and not any account of it: nor could there be, because it was not paid to the Company's account till the November following. The accountant had received the money, but never entered it from June till November. Then, at last, have we an account of it. But was it even then entered regularly upon the Company's accounts? No such thing: it is a deposit carried to the Governor-General's credit.
[The entry of the several species in which this deposit was made was here read from the Company's General Journal of 1780 and 1781.]
My Lords, when this account appears at last, when this money does emerge in the public accounts, whose is it? Is it the Company's? No: Mr. Hastings's. And thus, if, notwithstanding this obscure account in November, the Directors had claimed and called for this affinity to an anecdote,—if they had called for this anecdote and examined the account,—if they had said, "We observe here entered two lac and upwards; come, Mr. Hastings, let us see where this money is,"—they would find that it is Mr. Hastings's money, not the Company's; they would find that it is carried to his credit. In this manner he hands over this sum, telling them, on the 22d of May, 1782, that not only the bonds were a fraud, but the deposit was a fraud, and that neither bonds nor deposit did in reality belong to him. Why did he enter it at all? Then, afterwards, why did he not enter it as the Company's? Why make a false entry, to enter it as his own? And how came he, two years after, when he does tell you that it was the Company's and not his own, to alter the public accounts? But why did he not tell them at that time, when he pretends to be opening his breast to the Directors, from whom he received it, or say anything to give light to the Company respecting it? who, supposing they had the power of dispensing with an act of Parliament, or licensing bribery at their pleasure, might have been thereby enabled to say, "Here you ought to have received it,—there it might be oppressive and of dreadful example."
I have only to state, that, in this letter, which was pretended to be written on the 22d of May, 1782, your Lordships will observe that he thinks it his absolute duty (and I wish to press this upon your Lordships, because it will be necessary in a comparison which I shall have hereafter to make) to lay open all their affairs to them, to give them a full and candid explanation of his conduct, which he afterwards confesses he is not able to do. The paragraph has been just read to you. It amounts to this: "I have taken many bribes,—have falsified your accounts,—have reversed the principle of them in my own favor; I now discover to you all these my frauds, and think myself entitled to your confidence upon this occasion." Now all the principles of diffidence, all the principles of distrust, nay, more, all the principles upon which a man may be convicted of premeditated fraud, and deserve the severest punishment, are to be found in this case, in which he says he holds himself to be entitled to their confidence and trust. If any of your Lordships had a steward who told you he had lent you your own money, and had taken bonds from you for it, and if he afterwards told you that that money was neither yours nor his, but extorted from your tenants by some scandalous means, I should be glad to know what your Lordships would think of such a steward, who should say, "I will take the freedom to add, that I think myself, on such a subject, on such an occasion, entitled to your confidence and trust." You will observe his cavalier mode of expression. Instead of his exhibiting the rigor and severity of an accountant and a book-keeper, you would think that he had been a reader of sentimental letters; there is such an air of a novel running through the whole, that it adds to the ridicule and nausea of it: it is an oxymel of squills; there is something to strike you with horror for the villany of it, something to strike you with contempt for the fraud of it, and something to strike you with utter disgust for the vile and bad taste with which all these base ingredients are assorted.
Your Lordships will see, when the account which is subjoined to this unaccountable letter comes before you, that, though the Company had desired to know the channels through which he got those sums, there is not (except by a reference that appears in another place to one of the articles) one single syllable of explanation given from one end to the other, there is not the least glimpse of light thrown upon these transactions. But we have since discovered from whom he got these bribes; and your Lordships will be struck with horror, when you hear it.