the Company by this infamous measure, which he justified only upon the principle of economy.  The 30,000_l._ was given, the principle of economy vanished, a shocking arrangement was made, and Bengal saw a dancing-girl administering its justice, presiding over all its remaining power, wealth, and influence, exhibiting to the natives of the country their miserable state of degradation, and the miserable dishonor of the English Company in Mr. Hastings’s abandonment of all his own pretences.

But there is a still stronger presumption.  The Company ordered that this person, who was to have the management of the Nabob’s revenue, and who was to be his guardian, should keep a strict account, which account should be annually transmitted to the Presidency, and by the Presidency to Europe; and the purpose of it was, to keep a control upon the reduced expenses of the sixteen lac which were ordered in the manner I mentioned.  Your Lordships will naturally imagine that that control was kept safe.  No, here is the order of the Directors, and you will see how Mr. Hastings obeyed it.

“As the disbursement of the sums allotted to the Nabob for the maintenance of his household and family and the support of his dignity will pass through the hands of the minister who shall be selected by you, conformable to our preceding orders, we expect that you will require such minister to deliver annually to your board a regular and exact account of the application of the several sums paid by the Company to the Nabob.  This you will strictly examine; and we trust that you will not suffer any part of the Nabob’s stipend to be appropriated to the minister’s own use, or wasted among the unnecessary dependants of the court, but that the whole amount be applied to the purposes for which it was assigned by us.”

One would have imagined, that, after Mr. Hastings had made so suspicious an arrangement, (I will not call it by any worse name,) he would have removed all suspicion with regard to money,—­that he would have obeyed the Company by constituting the control which they had ordered to be placed over a man, even a fit man, and a man worthy of the trust committed to him.  But what is his answer, when three years after he is desired to produce this account?  His answer is,—­“I can save the board the trouble of this reference by acquainting them that no such accounts have ever been transmitted, nor, as I can affirm with most certain knowledge, any orders given for that purpose, either to Gourdas, to whose office it did not properly belong, nor to the Begum, who had the actual charge and responsibility of those disbursements.”