o remark the
circumstance of his condition of life and his fortune, to which he
appeals, and upon account of which he desires this money. Your
Lordships will remember that in 1773 he said, (and this I stated to you
from himself,) that, if he held his then office for a very few years, he
should be enabled to lay by an ample provision for his retreat. About
nine years after that time, namely, in the month of January, 1782, he
finds himself rather pinched with want, but, however, not in so bad a
way but that the holding of his office had enabled him to lay up a
provision with which he could be contented in a more humble station. He
wishes to have affluence; he wishes to have dignity; he wishes to have
consequence and rank: but he allows that he has competence. Your
Lordships will see afterwards how miserably his hopes were disappointed:
for the Court of Directors, receiving this letter from Mr. Hastings, did
declare, that they could not give it to him, because the act had ordered
that "no fees of office, perquisites, emoluments, or advantages
whatsoever, should be accepted, received, or taken by such
Governor-General and Council, or any of them, in any manner or on any
account or pretence whatsoever"; "and as the same act further directs,
'that no Governor-General, or any of the Council, shall directly take,
accept, or receive, of or from any person or persons, in any manner or
on any account whatsoever, any present, gift, donation, gratuity, or
reward, pecuniary or otherwise, or any promise or engagement for any
present, gift, donation, gratuity, or reward,' we cannot, were we so
inclined, decree the amount of this present to the Governor-General. And
it is further enacted, 'that any such present, gift, gratuity, donation,
or reward, accepted, taken, or received, shall be deemed and construed
to have been received to and for the sole use of the Company.'" And
therefore they resolved, most unjustly and most wickedly, to keep it to
themselves. The act made it in the first instance the property of the
Company, and they would not give it him. And one should think this, with
his own former construction of the act, would have made him cautious of
taking bribes. You have seen what weight it had with him to stop the
course of bribes which he was in such a career of taking in every place
and with both hands.

Your Lordships have now before you this hundred thousand pounds,
disclosed in a letter from Patna, dated the 20th January,