I have already remarked to you, that, though this letter is dated upon the 22d of May, it was not dispatched for Europe till December following; and he gets Mr. Larkins, who was his agent and instrument in falsifying the Company's accounts, to swear that this letter was written upon the 22d of May, and that he had no opportunity to send it, but by the "Lively" in December. On the 16th of that month he writes to the Directors, and tells them that he is quite shocked to find he had no earlier opportunity of making this discovery, which he thought himself bound to make; though this discovery, respecting some articles of it, had now been delayed nearly two years, and though it since appears that there were many opportunities, and particularly by the "Resolution," of sending it. He was much distressed, and found himself in an awkward situation, from an apprehension that the Parliamentary inquiry, which he knew was at this time in progress, might have forced from him this notable discovery. He says, "I do not fear the consequences of any Parliamentary process." Indeed, he needed not to fear any Parliamentary inquiry, if it produced no further discovery than that which your Lordships have in the letter of the 22d of May, and in the accounts subjoined to it. He says, that "the delay is of no public consequence; but it has produced a situation which, with respect to myself, I regard as unfortunate, because it exposes me to the meanest imputation, from the occasion which the late Parliamentary inquiries have since furnished."
Now here is a very curious letter, that I wish to have read for some other reasons, which will afterwards appear, but principally at present for the purpose of showing you that he held it to be his duty and thought it to the last degree dishonorable not to give the Company an account of those secret bribes: he thought it would reflect upon him, and ruin his character forever, if this account did not come voluntarily from him, but was extorted by terror of Parliamentary inquiry. In this letter of the 16th December, 1782, he thus writes.
"The delay is of no public consequence, but it has produced a situation which, with respect to myself, I regard as unfortunate; because it exposes me to the meanest imputation, from the occasion which the late Parliamentary inquiries have since furnished, but which were unknown when my letter was written, and written in the necessary consequence of a promise made to that effect in a former letter to your Honorable Committee, dated 20th January last. However, to preclude the possibility of such reflections from affecting me, I have desired Mr. Larkins, who was privy to the whole transaction, to affix to the letter his affidavit of the date in which it was written. I own I feel most sensibly the mortification of being reduced to the necessity of using such precautions to guard my reputation from dishonor. If I had at any time possessed that degree of confidence from my immediate employers which they never withheld from the meanest of my predecessors, I should have disdained to use these attentions. How I have drawn on me a different treatment I know not; it is sufficient that I have not merited it. And in the course of a service of thirty-two years, and ten of these employed in maintaining the powers and discharging the duties of the first office of the British government in India, that honorable court ought to know whether I possess the integrity and honor which are the first requisites of such a station. If I wanted these, they have afforded me but too powerful incentives to suppress the information which I now convey to them through you, and to appropriate to my own use the sums which I have already passed to their credit, by the unworthy and, pardon me, if I add, dangerous, reflections which they have passed upon me for the first communication of this kind: and your own experience will suggest to you, that there are persons who would profit by such a warning.
"Upon the whole of these transactions, which to you, who are accustomed to view business in an official and regular light, may appear unprecedented, if not improper, I have but a few short remarks to suggest to your consideration.
"If I appear in any unfavorable light by these transactions, I resign the common and legal security of those who commit crimes or errors. I am ready to answer every particular question that may be put against myself, upon honor or upon oath.
"The sources from which these reliefs to the public service have come would never have yielded them to the Company publicly; and the exigencies of your service (exigencies created by the exposition of your affairs, and faction in your councils) required those supplies.
"I could have concealed them, had I had a wrong motive, from yours and the public eye forever; and I know that the difficulties to which a spirit of injustice may subject me for my candor and avowal are greater than any possible inconvenience that could have attended the concealment, except the dissatisfaction of my own mind. These difficulties are but a few of those which I have suffered in your service. The applause of my own breast is my surest reward, and was the support of my mind in meeting them. Your applause, and that of my country, are my next wish in life."
Your Lordships will observe at the end of this letter, that this man declares his first applause to be from his own breast, and that he next wishes to have the applause of his employers. But reversing this, and taking their applause first, let us see on what does he ground his hope of their applause? Was it on his former conduct? No: for he says that conduct had repeatedly met with their disapprobation. Was it upon the confidence which he knew they had in him? No: for he says they gave more of their confidence to the meanest of his predecessors. Observe, my Lords, the style of insolence he constantly uses with regard to all mankind. Lord Clive was his predecessor, Governor Cartier was his predecessor, Governor Verelst was his predecessor: every man of them as good as himself: and yet he says the Directors had given "more of their confidence to the meanest of his predecessors." But what was to entitle him to their applause? A clear and full explanation of the bribes he had taken. Bribes was to be the foundation of their confidence in him, and the clear explanation of them was to entitle him to their applause! Strange grounds to build confidence upon!—the rotten ground of corruption, accompanied with the infamy of its avowal! Strange ground to expect applause!—a discovery which was no discovery at all! Your Lordships have heard this discovery, which I have not taken upon me to state, but have read his own letter on the occasion. Has there, at this moment, any light broken in upon you concerning this matter?
But what does he say to the Directors? He says, "Upon the whole of these transactions, which to you, who are accustomed to view business in an official and regular light, may appear unprecedented, if not improper, I have but a few short remarks to suggest to your consideration." He looks upon them and treats them as a set of low mechanical men, a set of low-born book-keepers, as base souls, who in an account call for explanation and precision. If there is no precision in accounts, there is nothing of worth in them. You see he himself is an eccentric accountant, a Pindaric book-keeper, an arithmetician in the clouds. "I know," he says, "what the Directors desire: but they are mean people; they are not of elevated sentiments; they are modest; they avoid ostentation in taking of bribes: I therefore am playing cups and balls with them, letting them see a little glimpse of the bribes, then carrying them fairly away." Upon this he founds the applause of his own breast.
Populus me sibilat; at mihi plaudo
Ipse domi, simul ac nummos contemplor in arca.