either chose
to conceal the first receipts from public curiosity by receiving bonds
for the amount, or possibly acted without any studied design which my
memory at that distance of time could verify, and that I did not think
it worth my care to observe the same means with the rest. It will not be
expected that I should be able to give a more correct explanation of my
intentions after a lapse of three years, having declared at the time
that many particulars had escaped my remembrance; neither shall I
attempt to add more than the clearer affirmation of the facts implied
in that report of them, and such inferences as necessarily, or with a
strong probability, follow them."

My Lords, you see, as to any direct explanation, that he fairly gives it
up: he has used artifice and stratagem, which he knows will not do; and
at last attempts to cover the treachery of his conduct by the treachery
of his memory. Frequent applications were made to Mr. Hastings upon this
article from the Company,--gentle hints, _gemitus columbae_,--rather,
little amorous complaints that he was not more open and communicative;
but all these gentle insinuations were never able to draw from him any
further account till he came to England. When he came here, he left not
only his memory, but all his notes and references, behind in India. When
in India the Company could get no account of them, because he himself
was not in England; and when he was in England, they could get no
account, because his papers were in India. He then sends over to Mr.
Larkins to give that account of his affairs which he was not able to
give himself. Observe, here is a man taking money privately, corruptly,
and which was to be sanctified by the future application of it, taking
false securities to cover it, and who, when called upon to tell whom he
got the money from, for what ends, and on what occasion, neither will
tell in India nor can tell in England, but sends for such an account as
he has thought proper to furnish.

I am now to bring before you an account of what I think much the most
serious part of the effects of his system of bribery, corruption, and
peculation. My Lords, I am to state to you the astonishing and almost
incredible means he made use of to lay all the country under
contribution, to bring the whole into such dejection as should put his
bribes out of the way of discovery. Such another example of boldness and
contrivance I believe the world cannot furnish.

I h