First let me say a word to the authority.  This debt was contracted, not by the authority of the Company, not by its representatives, (as the right honorable gentleman has the unparalleled confidence to assert,) but in the ever-memorable period of 1777, by the usurped power of those who rebelliously, in conjunction with the Nabob of Arcot, had overturned the lawful government of Madras.  For that rebellion this House unanimously directed a public prosecution.  The delinquents, after they had subverted government, in order to make to themselves a party to support them in their power, are universally known to have dealt jobs about to the right and to the left, and to any who were willing to receive them.  This usurpation, which the right honorable gentleman well knows was brought about by and for the great mass of these pretended debts, is the authority which is set up by him to represent the Company,—­to represent that Company which, from the first moment of their hearing of this corrupt and fraudulent transaction to this hour, have uniformly disowned and disavowed it.

So much for the authority.  As to the facts, partly true, and partly colorable, as they stand recorded, they are in substance these.  The Nabob of Arcot, as soon as he had thrown off the superiority of this country by means of these creditors, kept up a great army which he never paid.  Of course his soldiers were generally in a state of mutiny.[16] The usurping Council say that they labored hard with their master, the Nabob, to persuade him to reduce these mutinous and useless troops.  He consented; but, as usual, pleaded inability to pay them their arrears.  Here was a difficulty.  The Nabob had no money; the Company had no money; every public supply was empty.  But there was one resource which no season has ever yet dried up in that climate.  The soucars were at hand:  that is, private English money-jobbers offered their assistance.  Messieurs Taylor, Majendie, and Call proposed to advance the small sum of 160,000_l._ to pay off the Nabob’s black cavalry, provided the Company’s authority was given for their loan.  This was the great point of policy always aimed at, and pursued through a hundred devices by the servants at Madras.  The Presidency, who themselves had no authority for the functions they presumed to exercise, very readily gave the sanction of the Company to those servants who knew that the Company, whose sanction was demanded, had positively prohibited all such transactions.

However, so far as the reality of the dealing goes, all is hitherto fair and plausible; and here the right honorable gentleman concludes, with commendable prudence, his account of the business.  But here it is I shall beg leave to commence my supplement:  for the gentleman’s discreet modesty has led him to cut the thread of the story somewhat abruptly.  One of the most essential parties is quite forgotten.  Why should the episode of the poor Nabob be omitted?  When that prince chooses it, nobody can tell his story better.  Excuse me, if I apply again to my book, and give it you from the first hand:  from the Nabob himself.