y. In this
letter of the 16th December, 1782, he thus writes.

"The delay is of no public consequence, but it has produced a situation
which, with respect to myself, I regard as unfortunate; because it
exposes me to the meanest imputation, from the occasion which the late
Parliamentary inquiries have since furnished, but which were unknown
when my letter was written, and written in the necessary consequence of
a promise made to that effect in a former letter to your Honorable
Committee, dated 20th January last. However, to preclude the possibility
of such reflections from affecting me, I have desired Mr. Larkins, who
was privy to the whole transaction, to affix to the letter his affidavit
of the date in which it was written. I own I feel most sensibly the
mortification of being reduced to the necessity of using such
precautions to guard my reputation from dishonor. If I had at any time
possessed that degree of confidence from my immediate employers which
they never withheld from the meanest of my predecessors, I should have
disdained to use these attentions. How I have drawn on me a different
treatment I know not; it is sufficient that I have not merited it. And
in the course of a service of thirty-two years, and ten of these
employed in maintaining the powers and discharging the duties of the
first office of the British government in India, that honorable court
ought to know whether I possess the integrity and honor which are the
first requisites of such a station. If I wanted these, they have
afforded me but too powerful incentives to suppress the information
which I now convey to them through you, and to appropriate to my own use
the sums which I have already passed to their credit, by the unworthy
and, pardon me, if I add, dangerous, reflections which they have passed
upon me for the first communication of this kind: and your own
experience will suggest to you, that there are persons who would profit
by such a warning.

"Upon the whole of these transactions, which to you, who are accustomed
to view business in an official and regular light, may appear
unprecedented, if not improper, I have but a few short remarks to
suggest to your consideration.

"If I appear in any unfavorable light by these transactions, I resign
the common and legal security of those who commit crimes or errors. I am
ready to answer every particular question that may be put against
myself, upon honor or upon oath.

"The sources from which t