iew of the public, furnish a variety of conjectures, to which it would
be of little use to reply. Were your Honorable Court to question me on
these points, I would answer, that the sums were taken for the Company's
benefit, at times when the Company very much needed them,--that I either
chose to conceal the first receipts from public curiosity by receiving
bonds for the amount, or possibly acted without any studied design which
my memory could at this distance of time verify, and that I did not
think it worth my care to observe the same means with the rest. I trust,
Honorable Sirs, to your breasts for a candid interpretation of my
actions,--and assume the freedom to add, that I think myself, on such a
subject, on such _an occasion_, entitled to it."

Lofty, my Lords! You see, that, after the Directors had expected an
explanation for so long a time, he says, "Why these sums were taken by
me, and, except the second, quietly transferred to the Company's use, I
cannot tell; why bonds were taken for the first, and not for the rest, I
cannot tell: if this matter were exposed to view, it would furnish a
variety of conjectures." Here is an account which is to explain the most
obscure, the most mysterious, the most evidently fraudulent
transactions. When asked how he came to take these bonds, how he came
to use these frauds, he tells you he really does not know,--that he
might have this motive for it, that he might have another motive for
it,--that he wished to conceal it from public curiosity,--but, which is
the most extraordinary, he is not quite sure that he had any motive for
it at all, which his memory can trace. The whole of this is a period of
a year and a half; and here is a man who keeps his account upon
principles of whim and vagary. One would imagine he was guessing at some
motive of a stranger. Why he came to take bonds for money not due to
him, and why he enters some and not others,--he knows nothing of these
things: he begs them not to ask about it, because it will be of no use.
"You foolish Court of Directors may conjecture and conjecture on. You
are asking me why I took bonds to myself for money of yours, why I have
cheated you, why I have falsified my account in such a manner. I will
not tell you."

In the satisfaction which he had promised to give them he neither
mentions the persons, the times, the occasions, or motives for any of
his actions. He adds, "I did not think it worth my care to observe the
same mea