nd,
at the time, (though, to be sure, a present might be sent her,) I
neither affirm nor deny, farther than that, as Mr. Larkins says, there
was a sum of 10,000_l._ from these ministers to Mrs. Hastings. Whether
she ever received any other money than this, I also neither affirm nor
deny. But in whatever manner Mrs. Hastings received this or any other
money, I must say, in this grave place in which I stand, that, if the
wives of Governors-General, the wives of Presidents of Council, the
wives of the principal officers of the India Company, through all the
various departments, can receive presents, there is an end of the
covenants, there is an end of the act of Parliament, there is an end to
every power of restraint. Let a man be but married, and if his wife may
take presents, that moment the acts of Parliament, the covenants, and
all the rest expire. There is something, too, in the manners of the East
that makes this a much more dangerous practice. The people of the East,
it is well known, have their zenanah, the apartment for their wives, as
a sanctuary which nobody can enter,--a kind of holy of holies, a
consecrated place, safe from the rage of war, safe from the fury of
tyranny. The rapacity of man has here its bounds: here you shall come,
and no farther. But if English ladies can go into these zenanahs and
there receive presents, the natives of Hindostan cannot be said to have
anything left of their own. Every one knows that in the wisest and best
time of the Commonwealth of Rome, towards the latter end of it, (I do
not mean the best time for morals, but the best for its knowledge how to
correct evil government, and to choose the proper means for it,) it was
an established rule, that no governor of a province should take his wife
along with him into his province,--wives not being subject to the laws
in the same manner as their husbands; and though I do not impute to any
one any criminality here, I should think myself guilty of a scandalous
dereliction of my duty, if I did not mention the fact to your Lordships.
But I press it no further: here are the accounts, delivered in by Mr.
Larkins at Mr. Hastings's own requisition.

The three lines which were read out of a Persian paper are followed by a
long account of the several species in which this present was received,
and converted by exchange into one common standard. Now, as these three
lines of paper, which are said to have been read out of a Persian paper,
contain a