ed by Mr.
Hastings for the Company's use, applied at his discretion to that use,
and which the Company has previously covenanted to restore to the
persons that are injured and damaged. This is a revenue which is to be
torn away by the action of any person,--a revenue which they must
return back to the person complaining, as they in justice ought to do:
for no nation ever avowed making a revenue out of bribery and
peculation. They are, then, to restore it back again. But how can they
restore it? Mr. Hastings has applied it: he has given it in presents to
princes,--laid it out in budgeros,--in pen, ink, and wax,--in salaries
to secretaries: he has laid it out just in any way he pleased: and the
India Company, who have covenanted to restore all this money to the
persons from whom it came, are deprived of all means of performing so
just a duty. Therefore I dismiss the idea that any man so acting could
have had a good intention in his mind: the supposition is too weak,
senseless, and absurd. It was only in a desperate cause that he made a
desperate attempt: for we shall prove that he never made a disclosure
without thinking that a discovery had been previously made or was likely
to be made, together with an exposure of all the circumstances of his
wicked and abominable concealment.

You will see the history of this new scheme of bribery, by which Mr.
Hastings contrived by avowing some bribes to cover others, attempted to
outface his delinquency, and, if possible, to reconcile a weak breach of
the laws with a sort of spirited observance of them, and to become
infamous for the good of his country.

The first appearance of this practice of bribery was in a letter of the
29th of November, 1780. The cause which led to the discovery was a
dispute between him and Mr. Francis at the board, in consequence of a
very handsome offer made by Mr. Hastings to the board relative to a
measure proposed by him, to which he found one objection to be the
money that it would cost. He made the most generous and handsome offer,
as it stands upon record, that perhaps any man ever made,--namely, that
he would defray the expense out of his own private cash, and that he had
deposited with the treasurer two lac of rupees. This was in June, 1780,
and Mr. Francis soon after returned to Europe. I need not inform your
Lordships, that Mr. Hastings had before this time been charged with
bribery and peculation by General Clavering, Colonel Monson, and Mr.
Fr