“For these reasons,” he says, “I caused it to be transported immediately to the treasury.  There I well knew, Sir, it could not be received, without being passed to some credit; and this could only be done by entering it as a loan or as a deposit.  The first was the least liable to reflection, and therefore I had obviously recourse to it.  Why the second sum was entered as a deposit I am utterly ignorant.  Possibly it was done without any special direction from me; possibly because it was the simplest mode of entry, and therefore preferred, as the transaction itself did not require concealment, having been already avowed.”

My Lords, in fact, every word of this is either false or groundless:  it is completely fallacious in every part.  The first sum, he says, was entered as a loan, the second as a deposit.  Why was this done?  Because, when you enter moneys of this kind, you must enter them under some name, some head of account; “and I entered them,” he says, “under these, because otherwise there was no entering them at all.”  Is this true?  Will he stick to this?  I shall desire to know from his learned counsel, some time or other, whether that is a point he will take issue upon.  Your Lordships will see there were other bribes of his which he brought under a regular official head, namely, durbar charges; and there is no reason why he should not have brought these under the same head.  Therefore what he says, that there is no other way of entering them but as loans and deposits, is not true.  He next says, that in the second sum there was no reason for concealment, because it was avowed.  But that false deposit was as much concealment as the false loan, for he entered that money as his own; whereas, when he had a mind to carry any money to the Company’s account, he knew how to do it, for he had been accustomed to enter it under a general name, called durbar charges,—­a name which, in its extent at least, was very much his own invention, and which, as he gives no account of those charges, is as large and sufficient to cover any fraudulent expenditure in the account as, one would think, any person could wish.  You see him, then, first guessing one thing, then another,—­first giving this reason, then another; at last, however, he seems to be satisfied that he has hit upon the true reason of his conduct.

Now let us open the next paragraph, and see what it is.—­“Although I am firmly persuaded that these were my sentiments on the occasion, yet I will not affirm that they were.  Though I feel their impression as the remains of a series of thoughts retained on my memory, I am not certain that they may not have been produced by subsequent reflection on the principal fact, combining with it the probable motives of it.  Of this I am certain, that it was my design originally to have concealed the receipt of all the sums, except the second, even from the knowledge of the Court of Directors.  They had answered my purpose of public utility, and I had almost dismissed them from my remembrance.”