Such is this patriotic scheme of bribery, this public-spirited corruption which Mr. Hastings has invented upon this occasion, and by which he thinks out of the vices of mankind to draw a better revenue than out of any legal source whatever; and therefore he has resolved to become the most corrupt of all Governors-General, in order to be the most useful servant to the finances of the Company.

So much as to the first article of Dinagepore peshcush.  All you have is, that G.G.S is Gunga Govind Sing; that he has cheated the public of half of it; that Mr. Hastings was angry with him, and yet went away from Bengal, rewarding, praising, and caressing him.  Are these things to pass as matters of course?  They cannot so pass with your Lordships’ sagacity:  I will venture to say that no court, even of pie-poudre, could help finding him guilty upon such a matter, if such a court had to inquire into it.

The next article is Patna.  Here, too, he was to receive 40,000_l._; but from whom this deponent saith not.  At this circumstance Mr. Larkins, who is a famous deponent, never hints once.  You may look through his whole letter, which is a pretty long one, (and which I will save your Lordships the trouble of hearing read at length now, because you will have it before you when you come to the Patna business,) and you will only find that somebody had engaged to pay him 40,000_l._, and that but half of this sum was received.  You want an explanation of this.  You have seen the kind of explanation given in the former case, a conjectural explanation of G.G.S.  But when you come to the present case, who the person paying was, why the money was not paid, what the cause of failure was, you are not told:  you only learn that there was that sum deficient; and Mr. Larkins, who is our last resort and final hope of elucidation in this transaction, throws not the smallest glimpse of light upon it.  We of the House of Commons have been reduced to form the best legitimate conjectures we could upon this business, and those conjectures have led us to further evidence, which will enable us to fix one of the most scandalous and most mischievous bribes, in all the circumstances of it, upon Mr. Hastings, that was ever known.  If he extorted 40,000_l._ under pretence of the Company’s service, here is again another failure of half the money.  Oh, my Lords, you will find that even the remaining part was purchased with the loss of one of the best revenues in India, and with the grievous distress of a country that deserved well your protection, instead of being robbed to give 20,000_l._ to the Company, and another 20,000_l._ to some robber or other, black or white.  When I say, given to some other robber, black or white, I do not suppose that either generosity, friendship, or even communion, can exist in that country between white men and black:  no, their colors are not more adverse than their characters and tempers.  There is not that idem velle et idem nolle,