only, of 20,000_l._,--he could not so have supported him, he
could not so have caressed him, he could not so have employed him, he
could not have done all this, unless he had paid to Mr. Hastings
privately that sum of money which never was brought into any even of
these miserable accounts, without some payment or other with which Mr.
Hastings was and ought to be satisfied, or unless Gunga Govind Sing had
some dishonorable secret to tell of him which he did not dare to provoke
him to give a just account of, or, lastly, unless the original agreement
was that half or a third of the bribe should go to Gunga Govind Sing.

Such is this patriotic scheme of bribery, this public-spirited
corruption which Mr. Hastings has invented upon this occasion, and by
which he thinks out of the vices of mankind to draw a better revenue
than out of any legal source whatever; and therefore he has resolved to
become the most corrupt of all Governors-General, in order to be the
most useful servant to the finances of the Company.

So much as to the first article of Dinagepore peshcush. All you have is,
that G.G.S is Gunga Govind Sing; that he has cheated the public of half
of it; that Mr. Hastings was angry with him, and yet went away from
Bengal, rewarding, praising, and caressing him. Are these things to pass
as matters of course? They cannot so pass with your Lordships' sagacity:
I will venture to say that no court, even of _pie-poudre_, could help
finding him guilty upon such a matter, if such a court had to inquire
into it.

The next article is _Patna_. Here, too, he was to receive 40,000_l._;
but from whom this deponent saith not. At this circumstance Mr. Larkins,
who is a famous deponent, never hints once. You may look through his
whole letter, which is a pretty long one, (and which I will save your
Lordships the trouble of hearing read at length now, because you will
have it before you when you come to the Patna business,) and you will
only find that somebody had engaged to pay him 40,000_l._, and that but
half of this sum was received. You want an explanation of this. You have
seen the kind of explanation given in the former case, a conjectural
explanation of G.G.S. But when you come to the present case, who the
person paying was, why the money was not paid, what the cause of failure
was, you are not told: you only learn that there was that sum deficient;
and Mr. Larkins, who is our last resort and final hope of elucidation in
this t