please to observe, as I proceed, the nature of this pretended generosity in Mr. Hastings.  He is always generous in the same way.  As he offered the whole of his first bribe as his own money, and afterward acknowledged that no part of it was his own, so he is now generous again in this latter transaction,—­in which, however, he shows that he is neither generous nor just.  He took the first money without right, and he did not apply it to the very service for which it was pretended to be taken.  He then tells you of another anecdote, which, he says, has an affinity to that anecdote, and here he is generous again.  In the first he appears to be generous and just, because he appears to give his own money, which he had a right to dispose of; then he tells you he is neither generous nor just, for he had taken money he had no right to, and did not apply it to the service for which he pretended to have received it.  And now he is generous again, because he gives two lac of his own money,—­and just, because he gives one lac which belonged to the Company; but there is not an idea suggested from whom he took it.

But to proceed, my Lords.  In this letter he tells you he had given two thirds his own money and one third the Company’s money.  So it stood upon the 29th of November, 1780.  On the 5th of January following we see the business take a totally different turn; and then Mr. Hastings calls for three Company’s bonds, upon two different securities, antedated to the 1st and 2d of October, for the three lac, which he before told them was two thirds his own money and one third the Company’s.  He now declares the whole of it to be his own, and he thus applies by letter to the board, of which he himself was a majority.

“Honorable Sir and Sirs,—­Having had occasion to disburse the sum of three lacs of sicca rupees on account of secret services, which having been advanced from my own private cash, I request that the same may be repaid to me in the following manner.

     “A bond to be granted me upon the terms of the second loan, bearing
     date from 1st October, for one lac of sicca rupees.

     “A bond to be granted me upon the terms of the first loan, bearing
     date from 1st October, for one lac of sicca rupees.”

     “A bond to be granted me upon the terms of the first loan, bearing
     date from the 2d October, for one lac of sicca rupees.”

Here are two accounts, one of which must be directly and flatly false:  for he could not have given two thirds his own, and have supplied the other third from money of the Company’s, and at the same time have advanced the whole as his own.  He here goes the full length of the fraud:  he declares that it is all his own,—­so much his own that he does not trust the Company with it, and actually takes their bonds as a security for it, bearing an interest to be paid to him when he thinks proper.

Thus it remained from the 5th of January, 1781, till 16th December, 1782, when this business takes another turn, and in a letter of his to the Company these bonds become all their own.  All the money advanced is now, all of it, the Company’s money.  First he says two thirds were his own; next, that the whole is his own; and the third account is, that the whole is the Company’s, and he will account to them for it.