whose office it did not properly belong, nor to the Begum, who had the
actual charge and responsibility of those disbursements."

He has given to this woman the charge of all the disbursements of the
Company; the officer whom you would imagine would be responsible was not
responsible, but to this prostitute and dancing-girl the whole of the
revenue was given; when he was ordered to transmit that account, he not
only did not produce that account, but had given no order that it
should be kept: so that no doubt can be left upon your Lordships' minds,
that the sixteen lac, which were reserved for the support of the dignity
of the government of that country, were employed for the purpose of Mr.
Hastings's having a constant bank, from which he should draw every
corrupt emolument he should think fit for himself and his associates.
Thus your Lordships see that he appointed an improper person to the
trust without any control, and that the very accounts which were to be
the guardians of his purity, and which were to remove suspicion from
him, he never so much as directed or ordered. If any one can doubt that
that transaction was in itself corrupt, I can only say that his mind
must be constituted in a manner totally different from that which
prevails in any of the higher or lower branches of judicature in any
country in the world. The suppression of an account is a proof of
corruption.

When Mr. Hastings committed these acts of violence against Mahomed Reza
Khan, when he proceeded to make arrangements in the Company's affairs of
the same kind with those in which corruption had been before exercised,
he was bound by a particular responsibility that there should be nothing
mysterious in his own conduct, and that at least all the accounts should
be well kept. He appointed a person nominally for that
situation,--namely, the Rajah Gourdas. Who was he? A person acting, he
says, under the influence of Rajah Nundcomar, whom he had declared was
not fit to be employed or trusted: all the offices were filled by him.
But had Rajah Gourdas, whose character is that of an excellent man,
against whom there could lie no reasonable objection on account of his
personal character, and whose want of talents was to be supplied by
those of Nundcomar, (and of _his_ parts Mr. Hastings spoke as highly as
possible,)--had he, I say, the management? No: but Munny Begum. Did she
keep any accounts? No.

Mr. Hastings was ordered, and a very disagreeable and ha