The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 08 (of 12)

2d. In what manner was the application made to you, and by whom?

3d. On what account was the sum of one and half lacs given to the Governor-General, which you have laid to his account? Was it in consequence of any requisition from him, or of any previous agreement, or of any established usage?

The Governor-General objected strongly to Mr. Goring's being present when the questions were put to the Begum; but it was insisted on by the majority, and it was resolved accordingly, that he ought to be present. The reasons on both sides will best appear by the copy of the debate, inserted in the Appendix.

The Begum's answer to the preceding questions, addressed to the Governor-General and Council, where it touched the substance, was as follows.

"The case is this. Mr. Goring, on his arrival here, seized all the papers, and secured them under his seal; and all the mutsuddies [clerks or accountants] attended him, and explained to him all the particulars of them. Mr. Goring inquired of me concerning the arrears due to the sepoys, &c., observing, that the nizamut and bhela money [Nabob's allowance] was received from the Company; from whence, then, could the balance arise? I made answer, that the sum was not adequate to the expenses. Mr. Goring then asked, What are those expenses which exceed the sum received from the Company? I replied, All the particulars will be found in the papers. The affair of the three lacs of rupees, on account of entertainment for the Governor and Mr. Middleton, has been, I am told, related to you by Rajah Gourdas; besides which there are many other expenses, which will appear from the papers. As the custom of entertainment is of long standing, and accordingly every Governor of Calcutta who came to Moorshedabad received a daily sum of two thousand rupees for entertainment, which, was in fact instead of provisions; and the lac and an half of rupees laid to Mr. Middleton's charge was a present on account of an agreement entered into by the Bhow Begum. I therefore affixed my seal to the account, and forwarded it to Mr. Goring by means of the Nabob."

In this answer, the accounts given to Mr. Goring she asserts to be genuine. They are explained, in all the particulars, by all the secretaries and clerks in office. They are secured under Mr. Goring's seal. To them she refers for everything; to them she refers for the three lacs of rupees given to Mr. Hastings and Mr. Middleton. It is impossible to combine together a clearer body of proof, composed of record of office and verbal testimony mutually supporting and illustrating each other.

The House will observe that the receipt of the money is indirectly admitted by one of the Governor's own questions to Munny Begum.

If the money was not received, it would have been absurd to ask on what account it was given. Both the question and the answer relate to some established usage, the appeal to which might possibly be used to justify the acceptance of the money, if it was accepted, but would be superfluous, and no way applicable to the charge, if the money was never given.

On this point your Committee will only add, that, in all the controversy between Mr. Hastings and the majority of the Council, he nowhere denies the receipt of this money. In his letter to the Court of Directors of the 31st of July, 1775, he says that the Begum was compelled by the ill treatment of one of her servants, which he calls a species of torture, to deliver the paper to Mr. Goring; but he nowhere affirms that the contents of the paper were false.

On this conduct the majority remark, "We confess it appears very extraordinary that Mr. Hastings should employ so much time and labor to show that the discoveries against him have been obtained by improper means, but that he should take no step whatsoever to invalidate the truth of them. He does not deny the receipt of the money: the Begum's answers to the questions put to her at his own desire make it impossible that he should deny it. It seems, he has formed some plan of defence against this and similar charges, which he thinks will avail him in a court of justice, and which it would be imprudent in him to anticipate at this time. If he has not received the money, we see no reason for such a guarded and cautious method of proceeding. An innocent man would take a shorter and easier course. He would voluntarily exculpate himself by his oath."

Your Committee entertain doubts whether the refusal to exculpate by oath can be used as a circumstance to infer any presumption of guilt. But where the charge is direct, specific, circumstantial, supported by papers and verbal testimony, made before his lawful superiors, to whom he was accountable, by persons competent to charge, if innocent, he was obliged at least to oppose to it a clear and formal denial of the fact, and to make a demand for inquiry. But if he does not deny the fact, and eludes inquiry, just presumptions will be raised against him.

Your Committee, willing to go to the bottom of a mode of corruption deep and dangerous in the act and the example, being informed that Mr. Goring was in London, resolved to examine him upon the subject. Mr. Goring not only agreed with all the foregoing particulars, but even produced to your Committee what he declared to be the original Persian papers in his hands, delivered from behind the curtain through the Nabob himself, who, having privilege, as a son-in-law, to enter the women's apartment, received them from Munny Begum as authentic,—the woman all the while lamenting the loss of her power with many tears and much vociferation. She appears to have been induced to make discovery of the above practices in order to clear herself of the notorious embezzlement of the Nabob's effects.

Your Committee examining Mr. Scott and Mr. Baber on this subject, they also produced a Persian paper, which Mr. Baber said he had received from the hands of a servant of Munny Begum,—and along with it a paper purporting to be a translation into English of the Persian original. In the paper given as the translation, Munny Begum is made to allege many matters of hardship and cruelty against Mr. Goring, and an attempt to compel her to make out a false account, but does not at all deny the giving the money: very far from it. She is made to assert, indeed, "that Mr. Goring desired her to put down three lacs of rupees, as divided between Mr. Hastings and Mr. Middleton. I begged to be excused, observing to him that this money had neither been tendered or accepted with any criminal or improper view." After some lively expressions in the European manner, she says, "that it had been customary to furnish a table for the Governor and his attendants, during their stay at court. With respect to the sum mentioned to Mr. Middleton, it was a free gift from my own privy purse. Purburam replied, he understood this money to be paid to these gentlemen as a gratuity for secret services; and as such he should assuredly represent it." Here the payments to Mr. Hastings are fully admitted, and excused as agreeable to usage, and for keeping a table. The present to Mr. Middleton is justified as a free gift. The paper produced by Mr. Scott is not referred to by your Committee as of any weight, but to show that it does not prove what it is produced to prove.

Your Committee, on reading the paper delivered in by Mr. Scott as a translation, perceive it to be written in a style which they conceived was little to be expected in a faithful translation from a Persian original, being full of quaint terms and idiomatic phrases, which strongly bespeak English habits in the way of thinking, and of English peculiarities and affectations in the expression. Struck with these strong internal marks of a suspicious piece, they turned to the Persian manuscript produced by Mr. Scott and Mr. Baber, and comparing it with Mr. Goring's papers, they found the latter carefully sealed upon every leaf, as they believe is the practice universal in all authentic pieces. They found on the former no seal or signature whatsoever, either at the top or bottom of the scroll. This circumstance of a want of signature not only takes away all authority from the piece as evidence, but strongly confirmed the suspicions entertained by your Committee, on reading the translation, of unwarrantable practices in the whole conduct of this business, even if the translation should be found substantially to agree with the original, such an original as it is. The Persian roll is in the custody of the clerk of your Committee for further examination.

Mr. Baber and Mr. Scott, being examined on these material defects in the authentication of a paper produced by them as authentic, could give no sort of account how it happened to be without a signature; nor did Mr. Baber explain how he came to accept and use it in that condition.

On the whole, your Committee conceive that all the parts of the transaction, as they appear in the Company's records, are consistent, and mutually throw light on each other.

The Court of Directors order the President and Council to appoint a minister to transact the political affairs of the government, and to select for that purpose some person well qualified for the affairs of government, and to be the minister of government. Mr. Hastings selects for the minister so described and so qualified a woman locked up in a seraglio. He is ordered to appoint a guardian to the Nabob's minority. Mr. Hastings passes by his natural parent, and appoints another woman. These acts would of themselves have been liable to suspicion. But a great deficiency or embezzlement soon appears in this woman's account. To exculpate herself, she voluntarily declares that she gave a considerable sum to Mr. Hastings, who never once denies the receipt. The account given by the principal living witness of the transaction in his evidence is perfectly coherent, and consistent with the recorded part. The original accounts, alleged to be delivered by the lady in question, were produced by him, properly sealed and authenticated. Nothing is opposed to all this but a paper without signature, and therefore of no authority, attended with a translation of a very extraordinary appearance; and this paper, in apologizing for it, confirms the facts beyond a doubt.

Finally, your Committee examined the principal living witness of the transaction, and find his evidence consistent with the record. Your Committee received the original accounts, alleged to be delivered by the lady in question, properly sealed and authenticated, and find opposed to them nothing but a paper without signature, and therefore of no authority, attended with a translation of a very extraordinary appearance.

In Europe the Directors ordered opinions to be taken on a prosecution: they received one doubtful, and three positively for it.

They write, in their letter of 5th February, 1777, paragraphs 32 and 33:—

"Although it is rather our wish to prevent evils in future than to enter into a severe retrospection of the past, and, where facts are doubtful, or attended with alleviating circumstances, to proceed with lenity, rather than to prosecute with rigor,—yet some of the cases are so flagrantly corrupt, and others attended with circumstances so oppressive to the inhabitants, that it would be unjust to suffer the delinquents to go unpunished. The principal facts[56 - Relative to salt farms, charges of the Ranny of Burdwan, and the charges of Nundcomar and Munny Begum.] have been communicated to our solicitor, whose report, confirmed by our standing counsel, we send you by the present conveyance,—authorizing you, at the same time, to take such steps as shall appear proper to be pursued.

"If we find it necessary, we shall return you the original covenants of such of our servants as remain in India, and have been anyways concerned in the undue receipt of money, in order to enable you to recover the same for the use of the Company by a suit or suits at law, to be instituted in the Supreme Court of Judicature in Bengal."

Your Committee do not find that the covenants have been sent, or that any prosecution has been begun.

A vast scene of further peculation and corruption, as well in this business as in several other instances, appears in the evidence of the Rajah Nundcomar. That evidence, and all the proceedings relating to it, are entered in the Appendix. It was the last evidence of the kind. The informant was hanged. An attempt was made by Mr. Hastings to indict him for a conspiracy; this failing of effect, another prosecutor appeared for an offence not connected with these charges. Nundcomar, the object of that charge, was executed, at the very crisis of the inquiry, for an offence of another nature, not capital by the laws of the country. As long as it appeared safe, several charges were made (which are inserted at large in the Appendix); and Mr. Hastings and Mr. Barwell seemed apprehensive of many more. General Clavering, Colonel Monson, and Mr. Francis declared, in a minute entered on the Consultations of the 5th May, 1775, that, "in the late proceedings of the Revenue Board, it will appear that there is no species of peculation from which the Honorable Governor-General has thought proper to abstain." A charge of offences of so heinous a nature, so very extensive, so very deliberate, made on record by persons of great weight, appointed by act of Parliament his associates in the highest trust,—a charge made at his own board, to his own face, and transmitted to their common superiors, to whom they were jointly and severally accountable, this was not a thing to be passed over by Mr. Hastings; still less ought it to have perished in other hands. It ought to have been brought to an immediate and strict discussion. General Clavering, Colonel Monson, and Mr. Francis ought to have been punished for a groundless accusation, if such it had been. If the accusation were founded, Mr. Hastings was very unfit for the high office of Governor-General, or for any office.

After this comprehensive account by his colleagues of the Governor-General's conduct, these gentlemen proceeded to the particulars, and they produced the case of a corrupt bargain of Mr. Hastings concerning the disposition of office. This transaction is here stated by your Committee in a very concise manner, being on this occasion merely intended to point out to the House the absolute necessity which, in their opinion, exists for another sort of inquiry into the corruptions of men in power in India than hitherto has been pursued. The proceedings may be found at large in the Appendix.

A complaint was made that Mr. Hastings had sold the office of Phousdar of Hoogly to a person called Khân Jehan Khân on a corrupt agreement,—which was, that from his emoluments of seventy-two thousand rupees a year he was to pay to the Governor-General thirty-six thousand rupees annually, and to his banian, Cantoo Baboo, four thousand more. The complainant offers to pay to the Company the forty thousand rupees which were corruptly paid to these gentlemen, and to content himself with the allowance of thirty-two thousand. Mr. Hastings was, if on any occasion of his life, strongly called upon to bring this matter to the most distinct issue; and Mr. Barwell, who supported his administration, and as such ought to have been tender for his honor, was bound to help him to get to the bottom of it, if his enemies should be ungenerous enough to countenance such an accusation, without permitting it to be detected and exposed. But the course they held was directly contrary. They began by an objection to receive the complaint, in which they obstinately persevered as far as their power went. Mr. Barwell was of opinion that the Company's instructions to inquire into peculation were intended for the public interests,—that it could not forward the public interests to enter into these inquiries,—and that "he never would be a channel of aspersing any character, while it cannot conduce to the good of government." Here was a new mode of reasoning found out by Mr. Barwell, which might subject all inquiry into peculation to the discretion of the very persons charged with it. By that reasoning all orders of his superiors were at his mercy; and he actually undertook to set aside those commands which by an express act of Parliament he was bound to obey, on his opinion of what would or would not conduce to the good of government. On his principles, he either totally annihilates the authority of the act of Parliament, or he entertains so extravagant a supposition as that the Court of Directors possessed a more absolute authority, when their orders were not intended for the public good, than when they were.

General Clavering was of a different opinion. He thought "he should be wanting to the legislature, and to the Court of Directors, if he was not to receive the complaints of the inhabitants, when properly authenticated, and to prefer them to the board for investigation, as the only means by which these grievances can be redressed, and the Company informed of the conduct of their servants."

To these sentiments Colonel Monson and Mr. Francis adhered. Mr. Hastings thought it more safe, on principles similar to those assumed by Mr. Barwell, to refuse to hear the charge; but he reserved his remarks on this transaction, because they will be equally applicable to many others which in the course of this business are likely to be brought before the board. There appeared, therefore, to him a probability that the charge about the corrupt bargain was no more than the commencement of a whole class of such accusations; since he was of opinion (and what is very extraordinary, previous to any examination) that the same remarks would be applicable to several of those which were to follow. He must suppose this class of charges very uniform, as well as very extensive.

The majority, however, pressed their point; and notwithstanding his opposition to all inquiry, as he was supported only by Mr. Barwell, the question for it was carried. He was then desired to name a day for the appearance of the accuser, and the institution of the inquiry. Though baffled in his attempt to stop the inquiry in the first stage, Mr. Hastings made a second stand. He seems here to have recollected something inherent in his own office, that put the matter more in his power than at first he had imagined; for he speaks in a positive and commanding tone: "I will not," says his minute, "name a day for Mir Zin ul ab Dien to appear before the board; nor will I suffer him to appear before the board."

The question for the inquiry had been carried; it was declared fit to inquire; but there was, according to him, a power which might prevent the appearance of witnesses. On the general policy of obstructing such inquiries, Mr. Francis, on a motion to that effect, made a sound remark, which cannot fail of giving rise to very serious thoughts: "That, supposing it agreed among ourselves that the board shall not hear any charges or complaints against a member of it, a case or cases may hereafter happen, in which, by a reciprocal complaisance to each other, our respective misconduct may be effectually screened from inquiry; and the Company, whose interest is concerned, or the parties who may have reason to complain of any one member individually, may be left without remedy."

Mr. Barwell was not of the opinion of that gentleman, nor of the maker of the motion, General Clavering, nor of Mr. Monson, who supported it. He entertains sentiments with regard to the orders of the Directors in this particular perfectly correspondent with those which he had given against the original inquiry. He says, "Though it may in some little degree save the Governor-General from personal insult, where there is no judicial power lodged, that of inquisition can never answer any good purpose." This is doctrine of a most extraordinary nature and tendency, and, as your Committee conceive, contrary to every sound principle to be observed in the constitution of judicatures and inquisitions. The power of inquisition ought rather to be wholly separated from the judicial, the former being a previous step to the latter, which requires other rules and methods, and ought not, if possible, to be lodged in the same hands. The rest of his minute (contained in the Appendix) is filled with a censure on the native inhabitants, with reflections on the ill consequences which would arise from an attention to their complaints, and with an assertion of the authority of the Supreme Court, as superseding the necessity and propriety of such inquiries in Council. With regard to his principles relative to the natives and their complaints, if they are admitted, they are of a tendency to cut off the very principle of redress. The existence of the Supreme Court, as a means of relief to the natives under all oppressions, is held out to qualify a refusal to hear in the Council. On the same pretence, Mr. Hastings holds up the authority of the same tribunal. But this and other proceedings show abundantly of what efficacy that court has been for the relief of the unhappy people of Bengal. A person in delegated authority refuses a satisfaction to his superiors, throwing himself on a court of justice, and supposes that nothing but what judicially appears against him is a fit subject of inquiry. But even in this Mr. Hastings fails in his application of his principle; for the majority of the Council were undoubtedly competent to order a prosecution against him in the Supreme Court, which they had no ground for without a previous inquiry. But their inquiry had other objects. No private accuser might choose to appear. The party who was the subject of the peculation might be (as here is stated) the accomplice in it. No popular action or popular suit was provided by the charter under whose authority the court was instituted. In any event, a suit might fail in the court for the punishment of an actor in an abuse for want of the strictest legal proof, which might yet furnish matter for the correction of the abuse, and even reasons strong enough not only to justify, but to require, the Directors instantly to address for the removal of a Governor-General.—The opposition of Mr. Hastings and Mr. Barwell proved as ineffectual in this stage as the former; and a day was named by the majority for the attendance of the party.

The day following this deliberation, on the assembling of the Council, the Governor-General, Mr. Hastings, said, "he would not sit to be confronted by such accusers, nor to suffer a judicial inquiry into his conduct at the board of which he is the president." As on the former occasions, he declares the board dissolved. As on the former occasions, the majority did not admit his claim to this power; they proceeded in his absence to examine the accuser and witnesses. Their proceedings are in Appendix K.

It is remarkable, that, during this transaction, Khân Jehan Khân, the party with whom the corrupt agreement was made, declined an attendance under excuses which the majority thought pretences for delay, though they used no compulsory methods towards his appearance. At length, however, he did appear, and then a step was taken by Mr. Hastings of a very extraordinary nature, after the steps which he had taken before, and the declarations with which those steps had been accompanied. Mr. Hastings, who had absolutely refused to be present in the foregoing part of the proceeding, appeared with Khân Jehan Khân. And now the affair took another turn; other obstructions were raised. General Clavering said that the informations hitherto taken had proceeded upon oath. Khân Jehan Khân had previously declared to General Clavering his readiness to be so examined; but when called upon by the board, he changed his mind, and alleged a delicacy, relative to his rank, with regard to the oath. In this scruple he was strongly supported by Mr. Hastings. He and Mr. Barwell went further: they contended that the Council had no right to administer an oath. They must have been very clear in that opinion, when they resisted the examination on oath of the very person who, if he could safely swear to Mr. Hastings's innocence, owed it as a debt to his patron not to refuse it; and of the payment of this debt it was extraordinary in the patron not only to enforce, but to support, the absolute refusal.

Although the majority did not acquiesce in this doctrine, they appeared to have doubts of the prudence of enforcing it by violent means; but, construing his refusal into a disposition to screen the peculations of the Governor-General, they treated him as guilty of a contempt of their board, dismissed him from the service, and recommended another (not the accuser) to his office.

The reasons on both sides appear in the Appendix. Mr. Hastings accuses them bitterly of injustice to himself in considering the refusal of this person to swear as a charge proved. How far they did so, and under what qualifications, will appear by reference to the papers in the Appendix. But Mr. Hastings "thanks God that they are not his judges." His great hold, and not without reason, is the Supreme Court; and he "blesses the wisdom of Parliament, that constituted a court of judicature at so seasonable a time, to check the despotism of the new Council." It was thought in England that the court had other objects than the protection of the Governor-General against the examinations of those sent out with instructions to inquire into the peculations of men in power.

Though Mr. Hastings did at that time, and avowedly did, everything to prevent any inquiry that was instituted merely for the information of the Court of Directors, yet he did not feel himself thoroughly satisfied with his own proceedings. It was evident that to them his and Mr. Barwell's reasonings would not appear very respectful or satisfactory; he therefore promises to give them full satisfaction at some future time. In his letter of the 14th of September, 1775, he reiterates a former declaration, and assures them of his resolution to this purpose in the strongest terms. "I now again recur to the declaration which I have before made, that it is my fixed determination to carry literally into execution, and most fully and liberally explain every circumstance of my conduct on the points upon which I have been injuriously arraigned,—and to afford you the clearest conviction of my own integrity, and of the propriety of my motives for my declining a present defence of it."

These motives, as far as they can be discovered, were the violence of his adversaries, the interested character and views of the accuser, and the danger of a prosecution in the Supreme Court, which made it prudent to reserve his defence. These arguments are applicable to any charge. Notwithstanding these reasons, it is plain by the above letter that he thought himself bound at some time or other to give satisfaction to his masters: till he should do this, in his own opinion, he remained in an unpleasant situation. But he bore his misfortune, it seems, patiently, with a confidence in their justice for his future relief. He says, "Whatever evil may fill the long interval which may precede it." That interval he has taken care to make long enough; for near eight years are now elapsed, and he has not yet taken the smallest step towards giving to the Court of Directors any explanation whatever, much less that full and liberal explanation which he had so repeatedly and solemnly promised.

It is to be observed, that, though Mr. Hastings talks in these letters much of his integrity, and of the purity of his motives, and of full explanations, he nowhere denies the fact of this corrupt traffic of office. Though he had adjourned his defence, with so much pain to himself, to so very long a day, he was not so inattentive to the ease of Khân Jehan Khân as he has shown himself to his own. He had been accused of corruptly reserving to himself a part of the emoluments of this man's office; it was a delicate business to handle, whilst his defence stood adjourned; yet, in a very short time after a majority came into his hands, he turned out the person appointed by General Clavering, &c., and replaced the very man with whom he stood accused of the corrupt bargain; what was worse, he had been charged with originally turning out another, to make room for this man. The whole is put in strong terms by the then majority of the Council, where, after charging him with every species of peculation, they add, "We believe the proofs of his appropriating four parts in seven of the salary with which the Company is charged for the Phousdar of Hoogly are such as, whether sufficient or not to convict him in a court of justice, will not leave the shadow of a doubt concerning his guilt in the mind of any unprejudiced person. The salary is seventy-two thousand rupees a year; the Governor takes thirty-six thousand, and allows Cantoo Baboo four thousand more for the trouble he submits to in conducting the negotiation with the Phousdar. This also is the common subject of conversation and derision through the whole settlement. It is our firm opinion and belief, that the late Phousdar of Hoogly, a relation of Mahomed Reza Khân, was turned out of this office merely because his terms were not so favorable as those which the Honorable Governor-General has obtained from the present Phousdar. The Honorable Governor-General is pleased to assert, with a confidential spirit peculiar to himself, that his measures hitherto stand unimpeached, except by us. We know not how this assertion is to be made good, unless the most daring and flagrant prostitution in every branch be deemed an honor to his administration."

The whole style and tenor of these accusations, as well as the nature of them, rendered Mr. Hastings's first postponing, and afterwards totally declining, all denial, or even defence or explanation, very extraordinary. No Governor ought to hear in silence such charges; and no Court of Directors ought to have slept upon them.

The Court of Directors were not wholly inattentive to this business. They condemned his act as it deserved, and they went into the business of his legal right to dissolve the Council. Their opinions seemed against it, and they gave precise orders against the use of any such power in future. On consulting Mr. Sayer, the Company's counsel, he was of a different opinion with regard to the legal right; but he thought, very properly, that the use of a right, and the manner and purposes for which it was used, ought not to have been separated. What he thought on this occasion appears in his opinion transmitted by the Court of Directors to Mr. Hastings and the Council-General. "But it was as great a crime to dissolve the Council upon base and sinister motives as it would be to assume the power of dissolving, if he had it not. I believe he is the first governor that ever dissolved a council inquiring into his behavior, when he was innocent. Before he could summon three councils and dissolve them, he had time fully to consider what would be the result of such conduct, to convince everybody, beyond a doubt, of his conscious guilt."

It was a matter but of small consolation to Mr. Hastings, during the painful interval he describes, to find that the Company's learned counsel admitted that he had legal powers of which he made an use that raised an universal presumption of his guilt.

Other counsel did not think so favorably of the powers themselves. But this matter was of less consequence, because a great difference of opinion may arise concerning the extent of official powers, even among men professionally educated, (as in this case such a difference did arise,) and well-intentioned men may take either part. But the use that was made of it, in systematical contradiction to the Company's orders, has been stated in the Ninth Report, as well as in many of the others made by two of your committees.

APPENDIX

B. No. 1.[57 - As the Appendixes originally printed with the foregoing Reports, and which consist chiefly of official documents, would have swelled this volume to an enormous size, it has been thought proper to omit them, with the exception of the first nine numbers of the Appendix B. to the Eleventh Report, the insertion of which has been judged necessary for the elucidation of the subject-matter of that Report.]

Copy of a Letter from the Governor-General to the Court of Directors.

To the Honorable the Court of Directors of the Honorable United East India Company.

FORT WILLIAM, 29th November, 1780.

HONORABLE SIRS,—

You will be informed by our Consultations of the 26th of June of a very unusual tender which was made by me to the board on that day, for the purpose of indemnifying the Company for the extraordinary expense which might be incurred by supplying the detachment under the command of Major Camac in the invasion of the Mahratta dominions, which lay beyond the district of Gohud, and drawing the attention of Mahdajee Sindia, to whom that country immediately appertained, from General Goddard, while his was employed in the reduction of Bassein, and in securing the conquests made by your arms in Guzerat. I was desirous to remove the only objection which has been or could be ostensibly made to the measure, which I had very much at heart, as may be easily conceived from the means which I took to effect it. For the reasons at large which induced me to propose that diversion, it will be sufficient to refer to my minute recommending it, and to the letters received from General Goddard near the same period of time. The subject is now become obsolete, and all the fair hopes which I had built upon the prosecution of the Mahratta war, of its termination in a speedy, honorable, and advantageous peace, have been blasted by the dreadful calamities which have befallen your arms in the dependencies of your Presidency of Fort St. George, and changed the object of our pursuit from the aggrandizement of your power to its preservation. My present reason for reverting to my own conduct on the occasion which I have mentioned is to obviate the false conclusions or purposed misrepresentations which may be made of it, either as an artifice of ostentation or as the effect of corrupt influence, by assuring you that the money, by whatever means it came into your possession, was not my own,—that I had myself no right to it, nor would or could have received it, but for the occasion which prompted me to avail myself of the accidental means which were at that instant afforded me of accepting and converting it to the property and use of the Company; and with this brief apology I shall dismiss the subject.

Something of affinity to this anecdote may appear in the first aspect of another transaction, which I shall proceed to relate, and of which it is more immediately my duty to inform you.