n account of bribes to the amount of 100,000_l._, and as it is
not even insinuated that this was the whole of the paper, but rather the
contrary indirectly implied, I shall leave it for your Lordships, in
your serious consideration, to judge what mines of bribery that paper
might contain. For why did not Mr. Larkins get the whole of that paper
read and translated? The moment any man stops in the midst of an
account, he is stopping in the midst of a fraud.

My Lords, I have one farther remark to make upon these accounts. The
cabooleats, or agreements for the payments of these bribes, amount, in
the three specified provinces, to 95,000_l._ Do you believe that these
provinces were thus particularly favored? Do you think that they were
chosen as a little demesne for Mr. Hastings? that they were the only
provinces honored with his protection, so far as to take bribes from
them? Do you perceive anything in their local situation that should
distinguish them from other provinces of Bengal? What is the reason why
Dinagepore, Patna, Nuddea, should have the post of honor assigned them?
What reason can be given for not taking bribes also from Burdwan, from
Bissunpore, in short, from all the sixty-eight collections which
comprise the revenues of Bengal, and for selecting only three? How came
he, I say, to be so wicked a servant, that, out of sixty-eight
divisions, he chose only three to supply the exigencies of the Company?
He did not do his duty in making this distinction, if he thought that
bribery was the best way of supplying the Company's treasury, and that
it formed the most useful and effectual resource for them,--which he has
declared over and over again. Was it right to lay the whole weight of
bribery, extortion, and oppression upon those three provinces, and
neglect the rest? No: you know, and must know, that he who extorts from
three provinces will extort from twenty, if there are twenty. You have a
standard, a measure of extortion, and that is all: _ex pede Herculem_:
guess from thence what was extorted from all Bengal. Do you believe he
could be so cruel to these provinces, so partial to the rest, as to
charge them with that load, with 95,000_l._, knowing the heavy
oppression they were sinking under, and leave all the rest untouched?
You will judge of what is concealed from us by what we have discovered
through various means that have occurred, in consequence both of the
guilty conscience of the person who confesses the