I readily admit this debt to stand the fairest of the whole; for, whatever may be my suspicions concerning a part of it, I can convict it of nothing worse than the most enormous usury.  But I can convict, upon the spot, the right honorable gentleman of the most daring misrepresentation in every one fact, without any exception, that he has alleged in defence of this loan, and of his own conduct with regard to it.  I will show you that this debt was never contracted with the knowledge of the Company; that it had not their approbation; that they received the first intelligence of it with the utmost possible surprise, indignation, and alarm.

So for from being previously apprised of the transaction from its origin, it was two years before the Court of Directors obtained any official intelligence of it.  “The dealings of the servants with the Nabob were concealed from the first, until they were found out” (says Mr. Sayer, the Company’s counsel) “by the report of the country.”  The Presidency, however, at last thought proper to send an official account.  On this the Directors tell them, “To your great reproach, it has been concealed from us.  We cannot but suspect this debt to have had its weight in your proposed aggrandizement of Mahomed Ali [the Nabob of Arcot]; but whether it has or has not, certain it is you are guilty of an high breach of duty in concealing it from us.”

These expressions, concerning the ground of the transaction, its effect, and its clandestine nature, are in the letters bearing date March 17, 1769.  After receiving a more full account, on the 23d March, 1770, they state, that “Messrs. John Pybus, John Call, and James Bourchier, as trustees for themselves and others of the Nabob’s private creditors, had proved a deed of assignment upon the Nabob and his son of FIFTEEN districts of the Nabob’s country, the revenues of which yielded, in time of peace, eight lacs of pagodas [320,000_l._ sterling] annually; and likewise an assignment of the yearly tribute paid the Nabob from the Rajah of Tanjore, amounting to four lacs of rupees [40,000_l._].”  The territorial revenue at that time possessed by these gentlemen, without the knowledge or consent of their masters, amounted to three hundred and sixty thousand pounds sterling annually.  They were making rapid strides to the entire possession of the country, when the Directors, whom the right honorable gentleman states as having authorized these proceedings, were kept in such profound ignorance of this royal acquisition of territorial revenue by their servants, that in the same letter they say, “This assignment was obtained by three of the members of your board in January, 1767; yet we do not find the least trace of it upon your Consultations until August, 1768, nor do any of your letters to us afford any information relative to such transactions till the 1st of November, 1768.  By your last letters of the 8th of May, 1769, you bring the whole proceedings to light in one view.”