family reduced to want and wretchedness, the desolation of kingdoms, or the sacrilegious invasion of palaces, would certainly inspire. Although within this rank, but infinitely too fruitful wilderness of iniquities, within this dismal and unhallowed labyrinth, it was the most natural to cast an eye of indignation and concern over the wide and towering forests of enormities; all rising in the dusky magnificence of guilt; and to fix the dreadfully-excited attention upon the huge trunks of revenge, rapine, tyranny, and oppression; yet it became not less necessary to trace out the poisonous weeds, the baneful brushwood, and all the little, creeping, deadly plants which were, in quantity and extent, if possible, more noxious. The whole range of this far-spreading calamity was sown in the hot-bed of corruption; and had risen, by rapid and mature growth, into every species of illegal and atrocious violence. Upon this ground, most solemnly should he conjure the committee to look to the malignant source of every rooted evil, and not to continue satisfied with reprobating effects, whilst the great cause enjoyed the power of escaping from merited crimination, and the infliction of a just punishment. He now moved, "That the Committee, having considered the present article of charge, and examined evidence thereupon, is of opinion that there is ground for impeaching Warren Hastings, esq. of high Crimes and Misdemeanors upon the matter of the said article." reflection of the committee, whether any circumstantial proof, and the case would admit of nothing farther, could more clearly trace the guilt of Mr. Hastings, or establish the certainty of private practices of a corrupt nature between him and the Phousdar. The whole was a studied maze of theft, bribery, and corruption, unparalleled even in the most ignominious annals of East-India delinquency. With respect to the unfortunate Rajah, Nuncomar, he was first indicted for a conspiracy; but that failing, he was tried on an English penal statute, (which, although rendered by a stretch of power most dreadfully forcible in Bengal, did not reach even to Scotland!) he was convicted and hanged for a crime (forgery) which was not capital in his own country. Whatever were the circumstances of this judicial proceeding (which might be the subject of another inquiry), they could not fail of exciting apprehensions and terrors in the natives, which would put a stop to all farther informations against the governor. During this transaction, Mr. Hastings, in direct contradiction to the opinions of General Clavering, colonel Monson, and Mr. Francis, repeatedly asserted, that it was repugnant to the manners either of the Mussulmen or Hindoos to take an oath; yet on a later occasion he justified himself in all his proceedings at Benares, by the affidavits of persons of the religion which he mentioned, taken before the upright judge of the supreme court of Calcutta! It had been allowed, in the evidence given at the bar, that all India was in consternation at the event, and considered the death of Nuncomar as a punishment for having advanced charges against Mr. Hastings. Who, after such an event, would dare to step forward as his accuser? None would venture; and the governor might, in future, pillage the natives as he thought proper, without any fear of being disturbed by their invocations for justice. But, this justice, he hoped and trusted, would not be refused in a British Parliament: they owed it to their own dignity, to the support of the resolutions into which they had already entered, to the honour of the country, the prosperity of the government, and the rights of humanity! The present charge (he should beg leave to repeat) was not perhaps of that nature which came home most effectually to the feelings of men; it could not excite those sensations of commiseration or abhorrence which a ruined prince, a royal [VOL. XXVI.] Major Scott rose and said :-I am very sorry, Mr. St. John, that it should fall to my lot to rise immediately after the hon. gentleman who has just sat down. I am sensible of the disadvantages under which I labour at all times, but more particularly after the House has been for two hours entertained by the wit, humour, and ingenuity of the hon. gentleman: but though I cannot contribute to the entertainment of the House, this I will promise you, that I will confine myself to a plain unvarnished narrative of facts; nor will I attempt to deceive you by a misrepresentation of a single circumstance. I shall pursue the subject in the same order that it has been taken up by the hon. gentleman. The first present is that which was received from Cheyt Sing in June, 1780. The hon. gentleman has said, that, on the 22d of June, the very day after Mr. Hastings received this present, he came to the board with a hostile minute against Cheyt Sing. I affirm, Sir, that this assertion is [31] utterly unfounded, and I shall proceed to prove it incontrovertibly. When Sadunund, Cheyt Sing's Buxey, first applied to Mr. Hastings, it was to procure a remission of the five lacks which Cheyt Sing had paid as a subsidy from the commencement of the war. This request Mr. Has tings peremptorily refused to comply with, and afterwards the two lacks were given, not with the hope that it could purchase forbearance of a public demand, but to atone for a former resistance to that demand; and it was accompanied by a promise of implicit obedience, as long as the war lasted, to the demand for five lacks. On the 22d of June, 1780, Mr. Hastings proposed in council, the year being then near the close, that these five lacks should be demanded, and appropriated to a specific service. Mr. Francis and Mr. Wheler agreed to the demand. It was made some time after; one lack was paid, and the remainder faithfully promised; and here, Mr. St. John, it happens that I can, from my own knowledge, pursue the subject, with confidence that a gentleman now in London (Mr. Fowke), who was then resident at Benares, will confirm what I say, though I have never mentioned a syllable about it to him, nor have I seen him since his arrival, except for half a minute, by accidentally meeting him in Bond-street. I was appointed in May 1780 to command a battalion of Sepoys stationed in Chunar. I joined my corps in July, and had frequent conferences with Cheyt Sing at Ramnagur, who often The next sums received were from the mentioned to me his inability to pay men who farmed part of the province of these five lacks; and he never used ano-Bahar, Denagepore, and Nuddeah. Mr. ther argument against the demand. I Anderson's evidence proves, that these went, by Mr. Fowke's desire, with him to were bona fide received for the public serthe Rajah, on his disappointing him of the vice, and that no influence was at any money, after he (Mr. Fowke) had been time used by Mr. Hastings to prevent the ordered by the Board to receive and remit committee of revenue from realizing every it to lieutenant-colonel Camac. Mr. rupee that was due by agreement from Fowke used every argument in his power them to the Company. There was no to induce the Rajah to pay it, and repre- other mode by which a supply could at sented to him the fatal consequences that any time be raised for the public service, might be expected if he did not. The and to the public service every rupee was Rajah continued obstinate, declaring his faithfully applied. The next sum was the total inability; and it was after this breach present of ten lacks from the Nabob Vizier of his word that measures were taken and his ministers, paid by bills upon Gopaul against him; first, to fine him a lack of Doss. This present was received on the rupees, and then to march two battalions Company's account, and expended in their to Benares: but if Cheyt Sing had kept service as soon as received. The hon. his word with Mr. Hastings, he had been gentleman has played upon the word secure. Now, Mr. St. John, to the first deposit,' as if Mr. Hastings had put the present. Mr. Markham has proved that money up, because he told the Directors, Mr. Hastings took these two lacks from" if you shall adjudge this deposit to me:" Cheyt Sing for the Company's use; and but the fact is directly the reverse. How Mr. Markham brought a proof to the committee, (which it was thought informal to receive,) that Mr. Hastings took the earliest possible opportunity to make this transaction public in England. Mr. Markham told the committee, that he had with him a copy of part of a letter from Mr. Hastings to Mr. Sulivan, dated in August, and sent by a Danish ship, in which Mr. Hastings relates the circumstance, and authorizes Mr. Sulivan to make any public use of the information which he thinks proper. Mr. Sulivan was at that time deputy chairman, and when he received the letter, chairman of the Court of Directors. In November, Mr. Hastings made the communication to the Court of Directors. The hon. gentleman seems surprised that it was not done earlier; but surely he knows that November is the first month for the dispatch of the Company's ships; and that it is only on extraordinary occasions packets are sent earlier. It is true, Mr. Hastings did not mention to the Directors from whom he received it; an omission, which, I am confident, was intended to answer no private purposes; and the moment I knew the circumstance, I communicated it very generally in England, and gave it in evidence to the select committee. Mr. Hastings, perhaps, thought he did all that was necessary, by saying the money was not his own, and that he neither could nor would have received it but for their service. far the hon. gentleman will tax Mr. Has- | 29th Sept. 1780, the Directors say, the tings with presumption, in asking the circumstances appear extraordinary; that Company to give him 100,000l., I know there might be good reasons for concealnot. Mr. Hastings knew that the Com- ing the receipt from the knowledge of the pany had given lord Clive 600,000l., and Board, but not from them; and they withthat they had rewarded other servants. hold their final opinion till they hear farHis conduct had been approved: he had ther, but not a word as to the illegality of received their thanks; and perhaps it did the act. This paragraph underwent the not to him appear unreasonable to desire inspection of the Treasury, when lord from the Company a fortune adequate to North was at the head of it. his station, since it was owing to inattention, and not to extravagance, that he did not possess it. The hon. gentleman professes to doubt, whether this money was applied to the public service, in direct contradiction to positive evidence now upon the table of the House; for there is a paper, signed by Mr. Annis, the auditor at the India House, stating the precise periods when this money was received. The present was made in September 1781; in October above half a lack was received; in November two lacks and a half; in December near two lacks; in January 1782, above four lacks and a half; in February a small sum, and in March the payment was fully completed; and at the close of the account is this memorandum: "This is the amount stated in the Governor-general's letter, 22nd May 1782; and, with other sums received by him, was applied, in general, to defray the Durbar expenses, to make advances to the military, and on various other accounts." The particulars of all those other accounts are at the India House, and may be produced at any time. In fact, there is not the smallest reason to suppose, that Mr. Hastings ever had the most distant idea of appropriating to his own use a rupee that he received, from any evidence before the House; and I shall, before I sit down, state the impossibility of his having entertained such an idea, by arguments drawn from his general character and conduct. I now come to speak of the times that the Court of Directors were informed of these transactions, and of the steps which they took in consequence of them; from which I trust I shall be able to prove, that if Mr. Hastings mistook the law, (which I believe he did, because very grave and weighty authorities say so) he mistook it in common with the whole Court of Directors, his Majesty's present Ministers, the Board of Control, and every person who has been in a responsible office, since 1780 to this day, except the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Fox) opposite to me. In answer to the first communication of the The account of the present received for the Company from the Nabob Vizier in September 1781, communicated in Jan. 1782, arrived in England in July 1782: that letter was answered when an hon. baronet, sir Henry Fletcher, was chairman; and the answer is well worthy the attention of the House. It states, that the Directors could not, were they so inclined, give Mr. Hastings that money, because he was absolutely precluded by law from receiving presents; and they go on to state, that, by the same law, all presents received or taken shall be held and deemed to be taken to and for the sole use of the Company; they therefore approve of Mr. Has. tings having applied that money to the Company's service, and order him to abide by the act of parliament, in that case made and provided. This letter had the sanction of the Treasury, when the present minister was Chancellor of the Exchequer. Now, Mr. St. John, if there is sense or meaning in language, the sense of the paragraph is, that Mr. Hastings could not receive money for himself, but he might receive it for the Company. Before this letter arrived in Bengal, and before it was known that any parliamen tary inquiries had been commenced respecting Mr. Hastings, he, on the 22nd of May 1782, sent them an account of the complete receipt of the Nabob Vizier's present of ten lacks, and of the sums, to the receipt of which Mr. Markham, Mr. Anderson, Mr. Larkins, and Mr. Croftes, had previously been privy. The hon. gentleman has been wonderfully ingenious in his description of the various modes adopted by Mr. Larkins to send this letter to England; but, Sir, I do hope and trust, that when the House shall be disposed to listen to sober reason, they will permit me to rescue the character of that gentleman from the aspersions that have been thrown upon it. Mr. Larkins is universally esteemed by all who know him, both in England and in India, as a man of the most strict and rigid integrity; as a man, on whose honour and uprightness the slightest suspicion has never been cast. I could appeal to an hon. gentleman, who has ably and honourably filled the chair of the Directors, (Mr. Nat. Smith) to confirm all I have said of Mr. Larkins. He has faithfully discharged, for 14 years, an of fice of the greatest labour and of the first importance in Bengal, that of accountantgeneral; and I have never heard one man insinuate that he has acquired a rupee, except from the savings of his salary. The oath of a man of this description is not to be treated lightly; and I trust in the honour, the justice, and the good sense of this House, that a speech of wit and humour will not so far mislead them as to induce gentlemen to form ideas injurious to a respectable and absent man. The hon. gentleman affects to disbelieve the affidavit, because the letter might have been sent by the Resolution Indiaman, though all her dispatches were forwarded on the 9th of May, and this letter was written, on the 22nd. An unexpected accident detained the Resolution; but I put it to the hon. gentleman (Mr. Francis) to say, whether any man in Bengal would have sent a letter by the Resolution on the 28th of May, badly manned as she was, with the chance of losing her passage, and the certainty of making a circuitous and long one; when the Lively, a fast-sailing packet, was expected to sail in a short time; and though she was very unexpectedly detained, she was in fact the first and quickest conveyance after all. "But," says the hon. gentleman again," why not send the letter to Madras for the chance of a ship from thence?" Does he not know the difficulty and length of the voyage from Bengal to Madras in May and June? Does he not know that Suffrein's fleet was then in the bay? And does he not know that the communication by land was very precarious, owing to the Carnatic being over-run by Hyder's horse? These are all forcible reasons against sending the letter by any conveyance by sea from Bengal to Great Britain. But though a gentleman of genius can misrepresent and distort facts as he pleases, no conscientious man, I am sure, in or out of the House, will for a moment doubt the truth of Mr. Larkins's deposition. I come next to the reception in England of this letter of the 22nd of May 1782, announcing all the presents, and the following letter of the 16th of December. These arrived in May 1783, when the duke of Portland was minister, and sir Henry Fletcher chairman of the Court of Directors; but no sort of notice was taken either by the Directors or the Ministers, (to whom the letters were officially delivered,) of so flagrant a breach of a positive law. It is true, the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Fox) mentioned it in his speech, when he opened his India Bill; but rather, as suspecting that Mr. Hastings meant the money for himself, than stating it as a breach of the law, to receive it for the Company. Every gentleman knows the fate of that Bill, and of that administration. And now, Sir, I come to the share which his Majesty's present ministers had in this business. Mr. Hastings, in his letter of the 16th Dec. 1782, had said he was ready to answer upon honour, or upon oath, to any questions that the Directors should put to him, relative to these presents. On the 16th of March 1784, a few days previous to the dissolution of Parliament, the Directors wrote to Bengal, that they had received their Governor-general's letter of the 22nd of May, and the 16th Dec. 1782, and the accounts; (by-the-bye, they had been ten months received!) that they did not mean to express their doubt of the integrity of their Governor-general; on the contrary, after having received the sums, they approved of his bringing them to their account: yet, as he had voluntarily offered to answer any questions they might put to him, they desired to know why he concealed the receipt of these sums from his council, and the Court of Directors; and why he took bonds for some of the sums, and entered others as deposits. By law the paragraph was ap proved by the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Pitt); and was it not extraordinary, that not one minister, not one lawyer, not one Director, thought of saying to Mr. Hastings, "What are you about? You are acting against law; you have no more right to receive money under the act of the 13th of the King, for the Company, than for yourself; and, for God's sake, return what you have received, and take no more." No such thing, Mr. St. John; and if Mr. Hastings has mistaken the law, every power in this country mistook it too. This letter of the 16th of March 1784, arrived in Bengal the latter end of Aug.; Mr. Hastings was then in Oude. He returned to Calcutta the 5th of November, resigned his government in February, and arrived in England in June following, having omitted to answer this letter. He wrote to inform the Directors of his ar to give them every information in his power, on any points that had been omitted in the dispatches. To this letter Mr. Hastings received a very flattering reply. He was publicly received by the Court, who returned him their unanimous thanks, for the long, faithful, and able services he had rendered the Company. Not one question was then, or since, asked him, relative to those presents; and it was at my instigation, that he wrote the letter from Cheltenham, to the chairman of the East India Company. I was anxious upon this head, because, convinced as I am of the purity of Mr. Hastings's character, I should have been concerned indeed, that he should have neglected so material a letter. It was written the 11th of July 1785, and I have a right to assume in argument, that it was completely satisfactory to the Court of Directors, and the Board of Control, because Mr. Hastings referred them to Mr. Larkins, their accountant-general, if they wished to make any farther investigation; they made none. Had they had any suspicions, can I suppose so ill of the Directors, or the Board of Control, as to think that they would not have ordered a complete investigation in Bengal, by their governor-general and council? They neither did this, nor did they call upon Mr. Larkins: for the letter sent from Mr. Larkins is in reply to the requisition from Mr. Hastings, not from the Company. Surely, then, it will be a refinement upon injustice to blame Mr. Hastings, in 1787, for not having completely explained all those presents, when he had so far explained them to the satisfaction of the King's ministers and the Directors in 1785, that they never called for farther evidence, though complete evidence was in their power. rival; and he told them that he was ready, Mr. Hastings is not called upon to prove how he comes to have so large a fortune, but how it happens that he has not a larger; for the hon. gentleman professes his belief, that he has not more than 70 or 80,000l. I will just read to you his calculations. If Mr. Hastings were a careful man, properly attentive to his affairs, his fortune would be 420,000l. and fractions; if he were, as the world are in general, neither very economical, nor very profuse, he would have three hundred and odd thousand pounds. But were he as inattentive to his private fortune, and as inconsiderate as some gentlemen in my eye, he would now possess 262,000l. Now, Mr. St. John, I will take the amount of his whole fortune, and of every thing that could be converted into money, or that, by any construction, could be called his own, and I set him down at much less than half of the last sum. "But," says the hon. gentleman, "his fortune has been expended to procure a corrupt interest." Indeed! then the money has been miserably laid out. If, however, Mr. Hastings was desirous of employing his fortune for such detestable purposes, I am the person responsible; for, from the year 1781 to 1785, I had complete power over his whole fortune; for I had permission to draw upon him to any amount I thought proper. But neither did Mr. Hastings in giving me this power, nor did I in receiving it, ever suppose that one shilling was to be expended for the purposes of corruption; and in fact, Sir, I defy any man to say, that in any one act I consulted the private or personal interest of Mr. Hastings. He sent me to England on great public grounds; I acted here with pubic men; and though Mr. Hastings is persecuted and oppressed for the part we took in his absence, by one set of gentlemen, another set felt the advantage of our exertions, and benefit by it at the present moment. It will scarcely be called corruption, to have paid the editor of the Morning Herald, some years ago, the amount of his bill; yet this is the only kind of corruption that I have ever been guilty of; and it was for the benefit of others, more than for Mr. Hastings. It is true, Sir, that I have expended a considerable sum of money for Mr. Hastings, but it was openly and avowedly. I sent him constant intelligence, over land, of every important measure that could affect his government; and in so doing, 1 have the happiness to say, that I have performed very important I have now, Mr. St. John, brought the statement down to the present time. The hon. gentleman said, he once thought Mr. Hastings free from the vices of avarice and corruption; but he had changed his opinion. He has not assigned a single reason for that change of opinion; and I will beg leave to mention circumstances, which carry conviction to my mind, that Mr. Hastings never had an idea of converting a rupee of those, or any other presents, to his own emolument. I hold in my hand, Sir, an anonymous pamphlet, which I believe to be written by an hon. gentleman opposite, (Mr. Francis), and it is whimsical enough, that in this pamphlet, |