ps, I believe, without the aids that we hoped for,
(your Lordships allowing, as I trust you will do, a good deal for our
situation,)--we shall be able, I say, to prove that Mr. Hastings took,
as a bribe for appointing Munny Begum, three lac and an half of rupees;
we shall prove the taking at the same time the Rajeshaye bribes. Mr.
Hastings at that time followed bribery in a natural manner: he took a
bribe; he took it as large as he could; he concealed it as well as he
could; and he got out of it by artifice or boldness, by use of trick or
use of power, just as he was enabled: he acted like a wild, natural man,
void of instruction, discipline, and art.

The second period opened another system of bribery. About this time he
began to think (from what communication your Lordships may guess) of
other means by which, when he could no longer conceal any bribe that he
had received, he not only might exempt himself from the charge and the
punishment of guilt, but might convert it into a kind of merit, and,
instead of a breaker of laws, a violator of his trust, a receiver of
scandalous bribes, a peculator of the first magnitude, might make
himself to be considered as a great, distinguishing, eminent financier,
a collector of revenue in new and extraordinary ways, and that we should
thus at once praise his diligence, industry, and ingenuity. The scheme
he set on foot was this: he pretended that the Company could not exist
upon principles of strict justice, (for so he expresses it,) and that
their affairs, in many cases, could not be so well accommodated by a
regular revenue as by privately taking money, which was to be applied to
their service by the person who took it, at his discretion. This was the
principle he laid down. It would hardly be believed, I imagine, unless
strong proof appeared, that any man could be so daring as to hold up
such a resource to a regular government, which had three million of
known, avowed, a great part of it territorial, revenue. But it is
necessary, it seems, to piece out the lion's skin with a fox's tail,--to
tack on a little piece of bribery and a little piece of peculation, in
order to help out the resources of a great and flourishing state; that
they should have in the knavery of their servants, in the breach of
their laws, and in the entire defiance of their covenants, a real
resource applicable to their necessities, of which they were not to
judge, but the persons who were to take the bribes; a