y one discovering
any particular relative to it. Here is an account of two hundred
thousand pounds received, juggled between the accountant and him,
without a trace of it appearing in the Company's books. Some of those
committees, to whom, for their diligence at least, I must say the public
have some obligation, and in return for which they ought to meet with
some indulgence, examining into all these circumstances, and having
heard that Mr. Hastings had deposited a sum of money in the hands of the
Company's sub-treasurer in the month of June, sent for the Company's
books. They looked over those books, but they did not find the least
trace of any such sum of money, and not any account of it: nor could
there be, because it was not paid to the Company's account till the
November following. The accountant had received the money, but never
entered it from June till November. Then, at last, have we an account of
it. But was it even then entered regularly upon the Company's accounts?
No such thing: it is a deposit carried to the Governor-General's credit.

[_The entry of the several species in which this deposit was made
was here read from the Company's General Journal of 1780 and 1781._]

My Lords, when this account appears at last, when this money does emerge
in the public accounts, whose is it? Is it the Company's? No: Mr.
Hastings's. And thus, if, notwithstanding this obscure account in
November, the Directors had claimed and called for this affinity to an
anecdote,--if they had called for this anecdote and examined the
account,--if they had said, "We observe here entered two lac and
upwards; come, Mr. Hastings, let us see where this money is,"--they
would find that it is Mr. Hastings's money, not the Company's; they
would find that it is carried to his credit. In this manner he hands
over this sum, telling them, on the 22d of May, 1782, that not only the
bonds were a fraud, but the deposit was a fraud, and that neither bonds
nor deposit did in reality belong to him. Why did he enter it at all?
Then, afterwards, why did he not enter it as the Company's? Why make a
false entry, to enter it as his own? And how came he, two years after,
when he does tell you that it was the Company's and not his own, to
alter the public accounts? But why did he not tell them at that time,
when he pretends to be opening his breast to the Directors, from whom he
received it, or say anything to give light to the Company respecting it?
w