om, there was the most abusive misemployment of
it. I find that in that year there was paid from the Company's cash
account to the Governor's travelling charges (and he had no other
journey at that end of the year) thirty thousand rupees, which is about
3,000_l._; and when we consider that he was in the receipt of near
30,000_l._, besides the nuzzers, which amount to several thousand a
year, and that he is allowed 3,000_l._ by the Company for his travelling
expenses, is it right to charge upon the miserable people whom he was
defrauding of their bread 16,000_l._ for his entertainment?

I find that there are also other great sums relative to the expenses of
the Committee of Circuit, which he was upon. How much of them is
applicable to him I know not. I say, that the allowance of three
thousand pounds was noble and liberal; for it is not above a day or
two's journey to Moorshedabad, and by his taking his road by Kishenagur
he could not be longer. He had a salary to live upon, and he must live
somewhere; and he was actually paid three thousand pounds for travelling
charges for three months, which was at the rate of twelve thousand
pounds a year: a large and abundant sum.

If you once admit that a man for an entertainment shall take sixteen
thousand pounds, there never will be any bribe, any corruption, that may
not be justified: the corrupt man has nothing to do but to make a visit,
and then that very moment he may receive any sum under the name of this
entertainment; that moment his covenants are annulled, his bonds and
obligations destroyed, the act of Parliament repealed, and it is no
longer bribery, it is no longer corruption, it is no longer peculation;
it is nothing but thanks for obliging inquiries, and a compliment
according to the mode of the country, by which he makes his fortune.

What hinders him from renewing that visit? If you support this
distinction, you will teach the Governor-General, instead of attending
his business at the capital, to make journeys through the country,
putting every great man of that country under the most ruinous
contributions; and as this custom is in no manner confined to the
Governor-General, but extends, as it must upon that principle, to every
servant of the Company in any station whatever, then, if each of them
were to receive an entertainment, I will venture to say that the
greatest ravage of an hostile army could not, indeed, destroy the
country more entirely than the Company