About the time of the receipt of the former bribes, good fortune, as good things seldom come singly, is kind to him; and when he went up and had nearly ruined the Company’s affairs in Oude and Benares, he received a present of 100,000_l._ sterling, or thereabouts.  He received bills for it in September, 1781, and he gives the Company an account of it in January, 1782.  Remark in what manner the account of this money was given, and the purposes for which he intends to apply it.  He says, in this letter, “I received the offer of a considerable sum of money, both on the Nabob’s part and that of his ministers, as a present to myself, not to the Company:  I accepted it without hesitation, and gladly, being entirely destitute both of means and credit, whether for your service or the relief of my own necessities.”  My Lords, upon this you shall hear a comment, made by some abler persons than me.  This donation was not made in species, but in bills upon the house of Gopaul Doss, who was then a prisoner in the hands of Cheyt Sing.  After mentioning that he took this present for the Company, and for their exigencies, and partly for his own necessities, and in consequence of the distress of both, he desires the Company, in the moment of this their greatest distress, to award it to him, and therefore he ends, “If you should adjudge the deposit to me, I shall consider it as the most honorable approbation and reward of my labors:  and I wish to owe my fortune to your bounty.  I am now in the fiftieth year of my life:  I have passed thirty-one years in the service of the Company, and the greatest part of that time in employments of the highest trust.  My conscience allows me boldly to claim the merit of zeal and integrity; nor has fortune been unpropitious to their exertions.  To these qualities I bound my pretensions.  I shall not repine, if you shall deem otherwise of my services; nor ought your decision, however it may disappoint my hope of a retreat adequate to the consequence and elevation of the office which I now possess, to lessen my gratitude for having been so long permitted to hold it, since it has at least enabled me to lay up a provision with which I can be contented in a more humble station.”

And here your Lordships will be pleased incidentally to remark the circumstance of his condition of life and his fortune, to which he appeals, and upon account of which he desires this money.  Your Lordships will remember that in 1773 he said, (and this I stated to you from himself,) that, if he held his then office for a very few years, he should be enabled to lay by an ample provision for his retreat.  About nine years after that time, namely, in the month of January, 1782, he finds himself rather pinched with want, but, however, not in so bad a way but that the holding of his office had enabled him to lay up a provision with which he could be contented in a more humble station.  He wishes to have affluence; he wishes to have dignity; he wishes to have consequence