It is mentioned and supposed in the observations upon this case, though no circumstances relative to the persons or the nature of the visit are stated, that this expense was something which he might have charged to the Company and did not.  It is first supposed by the learned counsel who made the observation, that it was a public, allowed, and acknowledged thing; then, that he had not charged the Company anything for it.  I have looked into that business.  In the first place, I see no such custom; and if there was such a custom, there was the most abusive misemployment of it.  I find that in that year there was paid from the Company’s cash account to the Governor’s travelling charges (and he had no other journey at that end of the year) thirty thousand rupees, which is about 3,000_l._; and when we consider that he was in the receipt of near 30,000_l._, besides the nuzzers, which amount to several thousand a year, and that he is allowed 3,000_l._ by the Company for his travelling expenses, is it right to charge upon the miserable people whom he was defrauding of their bread 16,000_l._ for his entertainment?

I find that there are also other great sums relative to the expenses of the Committee of Circuit, which he was upon.  How much of them is applicable to him I know not.  I say, that the allowance of three thousand pounds was noble and liberal; for it is not above a day or two’s journey to Moorshedabad, and by his taking his road by Kishenagur he could not be longer.  He had a salary to live upon, and he must live somewhere; and he was actually paid three thousand pounds for travelling charges for three months, which was at the rate of twelve thousand pounds a year:  a large and abundant sum.

If you once admit that a man for an entertainment shall take sixteen thousand pounds, there never will be any bribe, any corruption, that may not be justified:  the corrupt man has nothing to do but to make a visit, and then that very moment he may receive any sum under the name of this entertainment; that moment his covenants are annulled, his bonds and obligations destroyed, the act of Parliament repealed, and it is no longer bribery, it is no longer corruption, it is no longer peculation; it is nothing but thanks for obliging inquiries, and a compliment according to the mode of the country, by which he makes his fortune.

What hinders him from renewing that visit?  If you support this distinction, you will teach the Governor-General, instead of attending his business at the capital, to make journeys through the country, putting every great man of that country under the most ruinous contributions; and as this custom is in no manner confined to the Governor-General, but extends, as it must upon that principle, to every servant of the Company in any station whatever, then, if each of them were to receive an entertainment, I will venture to say that the greatest ravage of an hostile army could not, indeed, destroy the country more entirely than the Company’s servants by such visits.