submitted for its being deemed a satisfactory as
well as a circumstantial compliance with the requisition in conformity
to which the information it affords has been furnished,"--meaning, as
your Lordships will see in the whole course of the letter, that he had
written it in compliance with the requisition and in conformity to the
information he had been furnished with by Mr. Hastings,--"without which
it would have been as base as dishonorable for me spontaneously to have
afforded it: for, though the duty which every man owes to himself should
render him incapable of making an assertion not strictly true, no man
actuated either by virtuous or honorable sentiments could mistakenly
apprehend, that, unless he betrayed the confidence reposed in him by
another, he might be deemed deficient in fidelity to his employers."

My Lords, here is, in my opinion, a discovery very well worthy your
Lordships' attention; here is the accountant-general of the Company, who
declares, and fixes it as a point of honor, that he would not have made
a discovery so important to them, if Mr. Hastings himself had not
authorized him to make it: a point to which he considers himself bound
by his honor to adhere. Let us see what becomes of us, when the
principle of honor is so debauched and perverted. A principle of honor,
as long as it is connected with virtue, adds no small efficacy to its
operation, and no small brilliancy and lustre to its appearance: but
honor, the moment that it becomes unconnected with the duties of
official function, with the relations of life, and the eternal and
immutable rules of morality, and appears in its substance alien to them,
changes its nature, and, instead of justifying a breach of duty,
aggravates all its mischiefs to an almost infinite degree; by the
apparent lustre of the surface, it hides from you the baseness and
deformity of the ground. Here is Mr. Hastings's agent, Mr. Larkins, the
Company's general accountant, prefers his attachment to Mr. Hastings to
his duty to the Company. Instead of the account which he ought to give
to them in consequence of the trust reposed in him, he thinks himself
bound by honor to Mr. Hastings, if Mr. Hastings had not called for that
explanation, not to have given it: so that, whatever obscurity is in
this explanation, it is because Mr. Hastings did not authorize or
require him to give a clearer. Here is a principle of treacherous
fidelity, of perfidious honor, of the faith of cons