at once into the mind of Mr. Larkins, who knows Mr. Hastings’s recollection, who knows what does and what does not escape it, and who had a memory ready to explode at Mr. Hastings’s desire, “Good God!” says he, “you have promised the Directors an account of this business!”—­a promise which Mr. Larkins assures the Directors, upon his word, had entirely escaped Mr. Hastings’s recollection.  Mr. Hastings, it seems, had totally forgotten the promise relative to the paltry sum of 100,000_l._ which he had made to the Court of Directors in the January before; he never once thought of it, no, not even when he was making up his accounts of that very identical sum, till the 22d of May.  So that these persons answer for one another’s bad memory:  and you will see they have good reason.  Mr. Hastings’s want of recollection appears in things of some moment.  However lightly he may regard the sum of 100,000_l._, which, considering the enormous sums he has received, I dare say he does,—­for he totally forgot it, he knew nothing about it,—­observe what sort of memory this registrar and accountant of such sums as 100,000_l._ has.  In what confusion of millions must it be, that such sums can be lost to Mr. Hastings’s recollection!  However, at last it was brought to his recollection, and he thought that it was necessary to give some account of it.  And who is the accountant whom he produces?  His own memory is no accountant.  He had dismissed the matter (as he happily expresses it in the Cheltenham letter) from his memory.  Major Palmer is not the accountant.  One is astonished that a man who had had 100,000_l._ in his hands, and laid it out, as he pretends, in the public service, has not a scrap of paper to show for it.  No ordinary or extraordinary account is given of it.  Well, what is to be done in such circumstances?  He sends for a person whose name you have heard and will often hear of, the faithful Cantoo Baboo.  This man comes to Mr. Larkins, and he reads to him (be so good as to remark the words) from a Bengal paper the account of the detached bribes.  Your Lordships will observe that I have stated the receipt of a number of detached bribes, and a bribe in one great body:  one, the great corps d’armee; the other, flying scouting bodies, which were only to be collected together by a skilful man who knew how to manage them, and regulate the motions of those wild and disorderly troops.  When No. 2 was to be explained, Cantoo Baboo failed him; he was not worth a farthing as to any transaction that happened when Mr. Hastings was in the Upper Provinces, where though he was his faithful and constant attendant through the whole, yet he could give no account of it.  Mr. Hastings’s moonshee then reads three lines from a paper to Mr. Larkins.  Now it is no way even insinuated that both the Bengal and Persian papers did not contain the account of other immense sums; and, indeed, from the circumstance of only three lines being read from the Persian paper, your Lordships will be able, in your own minds, to form some judgment upon this business.