Let us now see how far the memory, observation, and knowledge of the persons referred to can supply the want of them in Mr. Hastings. These accounts come at last, though late, from Mr. Larkins, who, I will venture to say, let the banians boast what they will, has skill perhaps equal to the best of them: he begins by explaining to you something concerning the present of the ten lac. I wish your Lordships always to take Mr. Hastings's word, where it can be had,—or Mr. Larkins's, who was the representative of and memory-keeper to Mr. Hastings; and then I may perhaps take the liberty of making some observations upon it.
Extract of a Letter from William Larkins, Accountant-General of Bengal, to the Chairman of the East India Company, dated 5th August, 1786.
"Mr. Hastings returned from Benares to Calcutta on the 5th February, 1782. At that time I was wholly ignorant of the letter which on the 20th January he wrote from Patna to the Secret Committee of the Honorable the Court of Directors. The rough draught of this letter, in the handwriting of Major Palmer, is now in my possession. Soon after his arrival at the Presidency, he requested me to form the account of his receipts and disbursements, which you will find journalized in the 280th, &c., and 307th pages of the Honorable Company's general books of the year 1781-2. My official situation as accountant-general had previously convinced me that Mr. Hastings could not have made the issues which were acknowledged as received from him by some of the paymasters of the army, unless he had obtained some such supply as that which he afterwards, viz., on the 22d May, 1782, made known to me, when I immediately suggested to him the necessity of his transmitting that account which accompanied his letter of that date, till when the promise contained in his letter of 20th January had entirely escaped his recollection."
The first thing I would remark on this (and I believe your Lordships have rather gone before me in the remark) is, that Mr. Hastings came down to Calcutta on the 5th of February; that then, or a few days after, he calls to him his confidential and faithful friend, (not his official secretary, for he trusted none of his regular secretaries with these transactions,)—he calls him to help him to make out his accounts during his absence. You would imagine that at that time he trusted this man with his account. No such thing: he goes on with the accountant-general, accounting with him for money expended, without ever explaining to that accountant-general how that money came into his hands. Here, then, we have the accountant making out the account, and the person accounting. The accountant does not in any manner make an objection, and say, "Here you are giving me an account by which it appears that you have expended money, but you have not told me where you received it: how shall I make out a fair account of debtor and creditor between you and the Company?" He does no such thing. There lies a suspicion in his breast that Mr. Hastings must have taken some money in some irregular way, or he could not have made those payments. Mr. Larkins begins to suspect him. "Where did you lose this bodkin?" said one lady to another, upon a certain occasion. "Pray, Madam, where did you find it?" Mr. Hastings, at the very moment of his life when confidence was required, even when making up his accounts with his accountant, never told him one word of the matter. You see he had no confidence in Mr. Larkins. This makes out one of the propositions I want to impress upon your Lordships' minds, that no one man did he let into every part of his transactions: a material circumstance, which will help to lead your Lordships' judgment in forming your opinion upon many parts of this cause.
You see that Mr. Larkins suspected him. Probably in consequence of those suspicions, or from some other cause, he at last told him, upon the 22d of May, 1782, (but why at that time, rather than at any other time, does not appear; and this we shall find very difficult to be accounted for,)—he told him that he had received a bribe from the Nabob of Oude, of 100,000l. He informs him of this on the 22d of May, which, when the accounts were making up, he conceals from him. And he communicates to him the rough draught of his letter to the Court of Directors, informing them that this business was not transacted by any known secretary of the Company, nor with the intervention of any interpreter of the Company, nor passed through any official channel whatever, but through a gentleman much in his confidence, his military secretary; and, as if receiving bribes, and receiving letters concerning them, and carrying on correspondence relative to them, was a part of military duty, the rough draught of this letter was in the hands of this military secretary. Upon the communication of the letter, it rushes all at once into the mind of Mr.Larkins, who knows Mr. Hastings's recollection, who knows what does and what does not escape it, and who had a memory ready to explode at Mr. Hastings's desire, "Good God!" says he, "you have promised the Directors an account of this business!"—a promise which Mr. Larkins assures the Directors, upon his word, had entirely escaped Mr. Hastings's recollection. Mr. Hastings, it seems, had totally forgotten the promise relative to the paltry sum of 100,000l. which he had made to the Court of Directors in the January before; he never once thought of it, no, not even when he was making up his accounts of that very identical sum, till the 22d of May. So that these persons answer for one another's bad memory: and you will see they have good reason. Mr. Hastings's want of recollection appears in things of some moment. However lightly he may regard the sum of 100,000l., which, considering the enormous sums he has received, I dare say he does,—for he totally forgot it, he knew nothing about it,—observe what sort of memory this registrar and accountant of such sums as 100,000l. has. In what confusion of millions must it be, that such sums can be lost to Mr. Hastings's recollection! However, at last it was brought to his recollection, and he thought that it was necessary to give some account of it. And who is the accountant whom he produces? His own memory is no accountant. He had dismissed the matter (as he happily expresses it in the Cheltenham letter) from his memory. Major Palmer is not the accountant. One is astonished that a man who had had 100,000l. in his hands, and laid it out, as he pretends, in the public service, has not a scrap of paper to show for it. No ordinary or extraordinary account is given of it. Well, what is to be done in such circumstances? He sends for a person whose name you have heard and will often hear of, the faithful Cantoo Baboo. This man comes to Mr. Larkins, and he reads to him (be so good as to remark the words) from a Bengal paper the account of the detached bribes. Your Lordships will observe that I have stated the receipt of a number of detached bribes, and a bribe in one great body: one, the great corps d'armée; the other, flying scouting bodies, which were only to be collected together by a skilful man who knew how to manage them, and regulate the motions of those wild and disorderly troops. When No. 2 was to be explained, Cantoo Baboo failed him; he was not worth a farthing as to any transaction that happened when Mr. Hastings was in the Upper Provinces, where though he was his faithful and constant attendant through the whole, yet he could give no account of it. Mr. Hastings's moonshee then reads three lines from a paper to Mr. Larkins. Now it is no way even insinuated that both the Bengal and Persian papers did not contain the account of other immense sums; and, indeed, from the circumstance of only three lines being read from the Persian paper, your Lordships will be able, in your own minds, to form some judgment upon this business.
I shall now proceed with his letter of explanation. "The particulars," he goes on to say, "of the paper No. 1 were read to me from a Bengal paper by Mr. Hastings's banian, Cantoo Baboo; and if I am not mistaken, the three first lines of that No. 2 were read over to me from a Persian paper by his moonshee. The translation of these particulars, made by me, was, as I verily believe, the first complete memorandum that he ever possessed of them in the English language; and I am confident, that, if I had not suggested to him the necessity of his taking this precaution, he would at this moment have been unable to have afforded any such information concerning them."
Now, my Lords, if he had not got, on the intimation of Mr. Larkins, some scraps of paper, your Lordships might have at this day wanted that valuable information which Mr. Larkins has laid before you. These, however, contain, Mr. Larkins says, "the first complete"—what?—account, do you imagine?—no, "the first complete memorandum." You would imagine that he would himself, for his own use, have notched down, somewhere or other, in short-hand, in Persian characters, short without vowels, or in some other way, memorandums. But he had not himself even a memorandum of this business; and consequently, when he was at Cheltenham, and even here at your bar, he could never have had any account of a sum of 200,000l., but by this account of Mr. Larkins, taken, as people read them, from detached pieces of paper.
One would have expected that Mr. Larkins, being warned that day, and cautioned by the strange memory of Mr. Hastings, and the dangerous situation, therefore, in which he himself stood, would at least have been very guarded and cautious. Hear what he next says upon this subject. "As neither of the other sums passed through his hands, these" (meaning the scraps) "contained no such specification, and consequently could not enable him to afford the information with which he has requested me to furnish you; and it is more than probable, that, if the affidavit which I took on the 16th December, 1782, had not exposed my character to the suspicion of my being capable of committing one of the basest trespasses upon the confidence of mankind, I should, at this distance of time, have been equally unable to have complied with this request: but after I became acquainted with the insinuation suggested in the Eleventh Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons, I thought it but too probable, that, unless I was possessed of the original memorandum which I had made of these transactions, I might not at some distant period be able to prove that I had not descended to commit so base an action. I have therefore always most carefully preserved every paper which I possessed regarding these transactions."
You see that Mr. Hastings had no memorandums of his accounts; you see, that, after Mr. Larkins had made his memorandums of them, he had no design of guarding or keeping them; and you will commend those wicked and malicious committees who by their reports have told an accountant-general and first public officer of revenue, that, in order to guard his character from their suspicions, it was necessary that he should keep some paper or other of an account. We have heard of the base, wicked, and mercenary license that has been used by these gentlemen of India towards the House of Commons: a license to libel and traduce the diligence of the House of Commons, the purity of their motives, and the fidelity of their actions, by which the very means of informing the people are attempted to be used for the purpose of leaving them in darkness and delusion. But, my Lords, when the accountant-general declares, that, if the House of Commons had not expressed, as they ought to express, much diffidence and distrust respecting these transactions, and even suspected him of perjury, this very day that man would not have produced a scrap of those papers to you, but might have turned them to the basest and most infamous of uses. If, I say, we have saved these valuable fragments by suspecting his integrity, your Lordships will see suspicion is of some use: and I hope the world will learn that punishment will be of use, too, in preventing such transactions.
Your Lordships have seen that no two persons knew anything of these transactions; you see that even memorandums of transactions of very great moment, some of which had passed in the year 1779, were not even so much as put in the shape of complete memoranda until May, 1782; you see that Mr. Hastings never kept them: and there is no reason to imagine that a black banian and a Persian moonshee would have been careful of what Mr. Hastings himself, who did not seem to stimulate his accountants to a vast deal of exactness and a vast deal of fidelity, was negligent. You see that Mr. Larkins, our last, our only hope, if he had not been suspected by the House of Commons, probably would never have kept these papers; and that you could not have had this valuable cargo, such as it is, if it had not been for the circumstance Mr. Larkins thinks proper to mention.