eing entirely
destroyed. In that state of confusion, in a very few months after the
date of the memorial I have just read to you, things were found, when
the Nabob's troops, famished to feed English soucars, instead of
defending the country, joined the invaders, and deserted in entire
bodies to Hyder Ali.[18]

The manner in which this transaction was carried on shows that good
examples are not easily forgot, especially by those who are bred in a
great school. One of those splendid examples give me leave to mention,
at a somewhat more early period; because one fraud furnishes light to
the discovery of another, and so on, until the whole secret of
mysterious iniquity bursts upon you in a blaze of detection. The paper I
shall read you is not on record. If you please, you may take it on my
word. It is a letter written from one of undoubted information in Madras
to Sir John Clavering, describing the practice that prevailed there,
whilst the Company's allies were under sale, during the time of Governor
Winch's administration.

"One mode," says Clavering's correspondent, "of amassing money at the
Nabob's cost is curious. He is generally in arrears to the Company. Here
the Governor, being cash-keeper, is generally on good terms with the
banker, who manages matters thus. The Governor presses the Nabob for the
balance due from him; the Nabob flies to his banker for relief; the
banker engages to pay the money, and grants his notes accordingly, which
he puts in the cash-book as ready money; the Nabob pays him an interest
for it at two and three per cent _per mensem_, till the tunkaws he
grants on the particular districts for it are paid. Matters in the mean
time are so managed that there is no call for this money for the
Company's service till the tunkaws become due. By this means not a cash
is advanced by the banker, though he receives a heavy interest from the
Nabob, which is divided as lawful spoil."

Here, Mr. Speaker, you have the whole art and mystery, the true
free-mason secret, of the profession of _soucaring_; by which a few
innocent, inexperienced young Englishmen, such as Mr. Paul Benfield, for
instance, without property upon which any one would lend to themselves a
single shilling, are enabled at once to take provinces in mortgage, to
make princes their debtors, and to become creditors for millions.

But it seems the right honorable gentleman's favorite soucar cavalry
have proved the payment before the Mayor's Court