no satisfaction at all. What is curious in this proceeding is, that Mr.
Hastings, all the time he conceals, endeavors to get himself the credit
of a discovery. Your Lordships have seen what his discovery is; but Mr.
Hastings, among his other very extraordinary acquisitions, has found an
effectual method of concealment through discovery. I will venture to
say, that, whatever suspicions there might have been of Mr. Hastings's
bribes, there was more effectual concealment in regard to every
circumstance respecting them in that discovery than if he had kept a
total silence. Other means of discovery might have been found, but this,
standing in the way, prevented the employment of those means.

Things continued in this state till the time of the letter from
Cheltenham. The Cheltenham letter declared that Mr. Hastings knew
nothing of the matter,--that he had brought with him no accounts to
England upon the subject; and though it appears by this very letter that
he had with him at Cheltenham (if he wrote the letter at Cheltenham) a
great deal of his other correspondence, that he had his letter of the
22d of May with him, yet any account that could elucidate that letter he
declared that he had not; but he hinted that a Mr. Larkins, in India,
whom your Lordships will be better acquainted with, was perfectly
apprised of all that transaction. Your Lordships will observe that Mr.
Hastings has all his faculties, some way or other, in deposit: one
person can speak to his motives; another knows his fortune better than
himself; to others he commits the sentimental parts of his defence; to
Mr. Larkins he commits his memory. We shall see what a trustee of memory
Mr. Larkins is, and how far he answers the purpose which might be
expected, when appealed to by a man who has no memory himself, or who
has left it on the other side of the water, and who leaves it to another
to explain for him accounts which he ought to have kept himself, and
circumstances which ought to be deposited in his own memory.

This Cheltenham letter, I believe, originally became known, as far as I
can recollect, to the House of Commons, upon a motion of Mr. Hastings's
own agent: I do not like to be positive upon that point, but I think
that was the first appearance of it. It appeared likewise in public: for
it was thought so extraordinary and laborious a performance, by the
writer or his friends, (as indeed it is,) that it might serve to open a
new source of eloquence i