hen [there?]
entered to Mr. Hastings, and he is credited for principal and interest
on them, in the exact terms of the order. So far the official
accounts,--which, because of their perfect harmony, are considered as
clear and consistent evidence to one body of fact.

The second sort of document relative to these bonds (though the first in
order of time) is Mr. Hastings's letter of the 29th of November,
1780.[31] It is written between the time of the expenditure of the money
for the Company's use and the taking of the bonds. Here, for the first
time, a very material difference appears; and the difference is the more
striking, because Mr. Hastings claimed the _whole_ money as his own, and
took bonds for it as such, _after_ this representation. The letter to
the Company discovers that part of the money (the whole of which he had
declared on record to be his own, and for which he had taken bonds) was
not his, but the property of his masters, from whom he had taken the
security. It is no less remarkable that the letter which represents the
money as belonging to the Company was written about six weeks before the
Minute of Council in which he claims that money as his own. It is this
letter on which your Committee is to remark.

Mr. Hastings, after giving his reasons for the application of the three
lacs of rupees, and for his having for some time concealed the fact,
says, "Two thirds of that sum I have raised _by my own credit_, and
shall charge it in my official account; _the other third_ I have
supplied from the cash in my hands belonging to the Honorable
Company."[32]

The House will observe, that in November he tells the Directors that he
shall charge only _two thirds_ in his official accounts; in the
following January he charges the _whole_.[33] For the other third,
although he admitted that to belong to the Company, we have seen that he
takes a bond to _himself_.

It is material that he tells the Company in his letter that these two
lacs of rupees were _raised on his credit_. His letter to the Council
says that they were advanced from his _private cash_. What he raises on
his credit may, on a fair construction, be considered as his own: but in
this, too, he fails; for it is certain he has never transferred these
bonds to any creditor; nor has he stated any sum he has paid, or for
which he stands indebted, on that account, to any specific person.
Indeed, it was out of his power; for the first two thirds of the money,