e
trifled with, or supposed for a moment doubtful, it was in this
instance; and yet, upon the rigor of the act, Mr. Hastings refuses that
army the price of their blood, money won solely almost by their arms for
a prince who had acquired millions by their bravery, fidelity, and
sufferings. This was the case in which Mr. Hastings refused a public
donation to the army; and from that day to this they have never received
it.

If the receipt of this public donation could be thus forbidden, whence
has Mr. Hastings since learned that he may privately take money, and
take it not only from princes, and persons in power, and abounding in
wealth, but, as we shall prove, from persons in a comparative degree of
penury and distress? that he could take it from persons in office and
trust, whose power gave them the means of ruining the people for the
purpose of enabling themselves to pay it? Consider in what a situation
the Company must be, if the Governor-General can form such a secret
exchequer of direct bribes, given _eo nomine_ as bribes, and accepted as
such, by the parties concerned in the transaction, to be discovered only
by himself, and with only the inward reservation that I have spoken of.

In the first place, if Mr. Hastings should die without having made a
discovery of all his bribes, or if any other servant of the Company
should imitate his example without his heroic good intentions in doing
such villanous acts, how is the Company to recover the bribe-money? The
receivers need not divulge it till they think fit; and the moment an
informer comes, that informer is ruined. He comes, for instance, to the
Governor-General and Council, and charges, say, not Mr. Hastings, but
the head of the Board of Revenue, with receiving a bribe. "Receive a
bribe? So I did; but it was with an intention of applying it to the
Company's service. There I nick the informer: I am beforehand with him:
the bribe is sanctified by my inward jesuitical intention. I will make a
merit of it with the Company. I have received 40,000_l._ as a bribe;
there it is for you: I am acquitted; I am a meritorious servant: let the
informer go and seek his remedy as he can." Now, if an informer is once
instructed that a person who receives bribes can turn them into merit,
and take away his action from him, do you think that you ever will or
can discover any one bribe? But what is still worse, by this method
disclose but one bribe, and you secure all the rest that you p