t was not
till Lord Clive reached the place of his destination that the covenants
were executed: and they were not executed then without some degree of
force. Soon afterwards the treaty was made with the country powers by
which Sujah ul Dowlah was reestablished in the province of Oude, and
paid a sum of 500,000_l._ to the Company for it. It was a public
payment, and there was not a suspicion that a single shilling of private
emolument attended it. But whether Mr. Hastings had the example of
others or not, their example could not justify his briberies. He was
sent there to put an end to all those examples. The Company did
expressly vest him with that power. They declared at that time, that the
whole of their service was totally corrupted by bribes and presents, and
by extravagance and luxury, which partly gave rise to them, and these,
in their turn, enabled them to pursue those excesses. They not only
reposed trust in the integrity of Mr. Hastings, but reposed trust in his
remarkable frugality and order in his affairs, which they considered as
things that distinguished his character. But in his defence we have him
quite in another character,--no longer the frugal, attentive servant,
bred to business, bred to book-keeping, as all the Company's servants
are; he now knows nothing of his own affairs, knows not whether he is
rich or poor, knows not what he has in the world. Nay, people are
brought forward to say that they know better than he does what his
affairs are. He is not like a careful man bred in a counting-house, and
by the Directors put into an office of the highest trust on account of
the regularity of his affairs; he is like one buried in the
contemplation of the stars, and knows nothing of the things in this
world. It was, then, on account of an idea of his great integrity that
the Company put him into this situation. Since that he has thought
proper to justify himself, not by clearing himself of receiving bribes,
but by saying that no bad consequences resulted from it, and that, if
any such evil consequences did arise from it, they arose rather from his
inattention to money than from his desire of acquiring it.

I have stated to your Lordships the nature of the covenants which the
East India Company sent out. Afterwards, when they found their servants
had refused to execute these covenants, they not only very severely
reprehended even a moment's delay in their execution, and threatened the
exacting the most stri