there are none of those habits of life, nothing, that can bind men together even in the most ordinary society:  the mutual means of such an union do not exist between them.  It is a money-dealing, and a money-dealing only, which can exist between them; and when you hear that a black man is favored, and that 20,000_l._ is pretended to be left in his hands, do not believe it:  indeed, you cannot believe it; for we will bring evidence to show that there is no friendship between those people,—­and that, when black men give money to a white man, it is a bribe,—­and that, when money is given to a black man, he is only a sharer with the white man in their infamous profits.  We find, however, somebody, anonymous, with 20,000_l._ left in his hands; and when we come to discover who the man is, and the final balance which appears against him in his account with the Company, we find that for this 20,000_l._, which was received for the Company, they paid such a compound interest as was never before paid for money advanced:  the most violently griping usurer, in dealing with the most extravagant heir, never made such a bargain as Mr. Hastings has made for the Company by this bribe.  Therefore it could be nothing but fraud that could have got him to have undertaken such a revenue.  This evidently shows the whole to be a pretence to cover fraud, and not a weak attempt to raise a revenue,—­and that Mr. Hastings was not that idiot he represents himself to be, a man forgetting all his offices, all his duties, all his own affairs, and all the public affairs.  He does not, however, forget how to make a bargain to get money; but when the money is to be recovered for the Company, (as he says,) he forgets to recover it:  so that the accuracy with which he begins a bribe, acribus initiis et soporosa fine, and the carelessness with which he ends it, are things that characterize, not weakness and stupidity, but fraud.

The next article we proceed to is Nuddea.  Here we have more light; but does Mr. Larkins anywhere tell you anything about Nuddea?  No it appears as if the account had been paid up, and that the cabooleat and the payments answer and tally with each other; yet, when we come to produce the evidence upon these parts, you will see most abundant reason to be assured that there is much more concealed than is given in this account,—­that it is an account current, and not an account closed,—­and that the agreement was for some other and greater sum than appears.  It might be expected that the Company would inquire of Mr. Hastings, and ask, “From whom did he get it?  Who has received it?  Who is to answer for it?” But he knew that they were not likely to make any inquiry at all,—­they are not that kind of people.  You would imagine that a mercantile body would have some of the mercantile excellencies, and even you would allow them perhaps some of the mercantile faults.  But they have, like Mr. Hastings, forgotten totally the mercantile character; and, accordingly, neither accuracy nor fidelity of account do they ever require of Mr. Hastings.  They have too much confidence in him; and he, accordingly, acts like a man in whom such confidence, without reason, is reposed.