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than may be displayed by the dash of a pen; you will, at least, expect to see a clear and distinct account of what was gained by it.

In the year 1775, at a period when Mr. Hastings was under an eclipse, when honour and virtue, in the character of General Clavering, Colonel Monson, and Mr. Francis sat for a short period at the Council Board; during that time, Mr. Hastings's conduct upon this occasion was called into question. They called for an account of the revenues of the country; what was received, and what had been paid; and in the account returned, they found the amount of the tribute due to the Mogul, 250,000l. entered as paid up to October 1774. Thus far all appeared fair upon the face of it; they took it for granted, as your Lordships would take it for granted, at the first view, that the tribute in reality had been paid up to the time stated. balanced; you find a debtor; you find a creditor; The books were every item posted in as regular a manner as possible. Whilst they were examining this account, a Mr. Croftes, of whom your Lordships háve heard very often, as accountant general, comes forward and declares, that there was a little errour in the account. And what was the error? That he had entered the Mogul's tribute for one year more than it had actually been paid. Here we have the small errour of a payment to the Mogul

8

Mogul of 250,0007. This appeared strange.→ Why, says Mr. Croftes, I never discovered it; nor was it ever intimated to me that it had been stopped from October 1778, till the other day, when I was informed, that I ought not to have made an entry of the last payments. These were his expressions. You will find the whole relation in the Bengal Appendix (printed by the orders of the Court of Directors.) When Mr. Croftes was asked a very natural question, Who first told you of your mistake? Who acquainted you with Mr. Hastings's orders, that the payment should be expunged from the account? What is his answer? It is an answer worthy of Mr. Middleton, an answer worthy of Mr. Larkings, or of any of the other white banyans of Mr. Hastings: O! I have forgotten. Here you have an accountant general kept in ignorance, or who pretends to be ignorant of so large a payment as 250,000l.; who enters it falsely in his account; and when asked, who apprized him of his mistake, says, that he has really forgotten.

Oh, my Lords, what resources there are in oblivion, what resources there are in bad money; no genius ever has done so much for mankind as this mental defect has done for Mr. Hastings's accountants. It was said by one of the ancient philosophers, to a man who proposed to teach people memory-"I wish you could teach me CC 4 " oblivion ;

"oblivion; I wish you could teach me to for"get." These people have certainly not been taught the art of memory, but they appear perfect masters of the art of forgetting. My Lords, this is not all; and I must request your Lordships' attention to the whole of the account, as it appears in the account of the arrears due to the king, annexed to your Minutes. Here is a kind of labyrinth, where fraud runs into fraud. On the credit side you find stated there, eight lacks paid to the Vizier, and to be taken from the Mogul's tribute, for the support of an army, of which he himself had stipulated to bear the whole expences. These eight lacks are thus fraudulently accounted for upon the face of the thing; and with respect to eighteen lacks, the remainder of the tribute, there is no account given of it at all. This sum, Mr. Hastings must, therefore, have pocketed for his own use, or that of his gang of peculators; and whilst he was pretending to save you eight lacks by one fraud, he committed another fraud of eighteen lacks for himself; and this is the method by which one act of peculation begets another in the economy of fraud.

Thus much of these affairs I think myself bound to state to your Lordships upon this occasion; for although, not one word has been produced by the counsel to support the alle

gations

gations of the Prisoner at your bar; yet, knowing that your Lordships, high as you are, are still but men; knowing also, that bold assertions and confident declarations are apt to make some impression upon all men's minds, we oppose his allegations. But how do we oppose them ?—Not by things of the like nature. We oppose them, by shewing you, that the House of Commons, after diligent investigation, has condemned them, and by stating the grounds upon which the House founded its condemnation. We send you to the records of the Company, if you want to pursue this matter further, to enlighten your own minds upon the subject. Do not think, my Lords, that we are not aware how ridiculous it is for either party, the accuser or the accused, to make here any assertions without producing vouchers for them: we know it; but we are prepared and ready to take upon us the proof; and we should be ashamed to assert any thing, that we are not able directly to substantiate, by an immediate reference to uncontradicted evidence.

With regard to the merits pleaded by the Prisoner, we could efface that plea with a single stroke, by saying, there is no evidence before your Lordships, of any such merits. But we have done more: We have shewn you, that the

things

things which he has set up as merits, are atrocious crimes, and that there is not one of them which does not, in the very nature and circumstances of it, carry evidence of base corruption, as well as of flagrant injustice, and notorious breach of publick faith.

The next thing that he takes credit for, is precisely an act of this description. The Mogul had, by solemn stipulation with the Company, a royal domain insured to him, consisting of two provinces, Corah and Allahabad. Of both these provinces Mr. Hastings deprived the Mogul upon weak pretences, if proved, in point of fact, but which were never proved, in any sense, against him. I allude particularly to his alleged alliance with the Mahrattas, a people, by the way, with whom we were not then at war, and with whom he had as good a right, as Nudjeive Khan, to enter into alliance at that time. takes these domains, almost the last wrecks of empire left to the descendant of Tamerlane, from the man, I say, to whose voluntary grants we owe it that we have put a foot in Bengal. Surely we ought, at least, to have kept our faith in leaving this last retreat to that unfortunate prince. The House of Commons was of that opinion, and consequently they resolved," that the transfer "of Corah and Illahabad to the Vizier was con66 trary

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