at them; and that as his memory is to be supplied
by his guess, so he has no confidence in his guesses. He at first finds,
after a lapse of about a year and a half, or somewhat less, that he
cannot recollect what his motives were to certain actions which upon the
very face of them appeared fraudulent. He is called to an account some
years after, to explain what they were, and he makes a just reflection
upon it,--namely, that, as his memory did not enable him to find out his
own motive at the former time, it is not to be expected that it would be
clearer a year after. Your Lordships will, however, recollect, that in
the Cheltenham letter, which is made of no perishable stuff, he begins
again to guess; but after he has guessed and guessed again, and after he
has gone through all the motives he can possibly assign for the action,
he tells you he does not know whether those were his real motives, or
whether he has not invented them since.

In that situation the accounts of the Company were left with regard to
very great sums which passed through Mr. Hastings's hands, and for which
he, instead of giving his masters credit, took credit to himself, and,
being their debtor, as he confesses himself to be at that time, took a
security for that debt as if he had been their creditor. This required
explanation. Explanation he was called upon for, over and over again;
explanation he did not give, and declared he could not give. He was
called upon for it when in India: he had not leisure to attend to it
there. He was called upon for it when in Europe: he then says he must
send for it to India. With much prevarication, and much insolence too,
he confesses himself guilty of falsifying the Company's accounts by
making himself their creditor when he was their debtor, and giving false
accounts of this false transaction. The Court of Directors was slow to
believe him guilty; Parliament expressed a strong suspicion of his
guilt, and wished for further information. Mr. Hastings about this time
began to imagine his conscience to be a faithful and true
monitor,--which it were well he had attended to upon many occasions, as
it would have saved him his appearance here,--and it told him that he
was in great danger from the Parliamentary inquiries that were going on.
It was now to be expected that he would have been in haste to fulfil the
promise which he had made in the Patna letter of the 20th of January,
1782; and accordingly we find that about