If any person should inquire whether 23,000_l._ had been paid by Cheyt Sing to Mr. Hastings, there was not any one man living, or any person concerned in the transaction, except Mr. Larkins, who received it, that could give an account of how much he received, or who brought it.  As no two people are ever his confidants in the same transaction in Mr. Hastings’s accounts, so here no two people are permitted to have any share whatever in bringing the several fragments that make up this sum.  This bribe, you might imagine, would have been entered by Mr. Larkins to some public account, at least to the fraudulent account of Mr. Hastings.  No such thing.  It was never entered till the November following.  It was not entered till Mr. Francis had left Calcutta.  All these corrupt transactions were carried on privately by Mr. Hastings alone, without any signification to his colleagues of his carrying on this patriotic traffic, as he called it.  Your Lordships will also consider both the person who employs such a fraudulent accountant, and his ideas of his duty in his office.  These are matters for your Lordships’ grave determination; but I appeal to you, upon the face of these accounts, whether you ever saw anything so gross,—­and whether any man could be daring enough to attempt to impose upon the credulity of the weakest of mankind, much more to impose upon such a court as this, such accounts as these are.

If the Company had a mind to inquire what is become of all the debts due to them, and where is the cabooleat, he refers them to Gunga Govind Sing.  “Give us,” say they, “an account of this balance that remains in your hands.”  “I know,” says he, “of no balance.”  “Why, is there not a cabooleat?” “Where is it?  What are the date and circumstances of it?  There is no such cabooleat existing.”  This is the case even where you have the name of the person through whose hands the money passed.  But suppose the inquiry went to the payments of the Patna cabooleat.  “Here,” they say, “we find half the money due:  out of forty thousand pounds there is only twenty thousand received:  give us some account of it.”  Who is to give an account of it?  Here there is no mention made of the name of the person who had the cabooleat:  whom can they call upon?  Mr. Hastings does not remember; Mr. Larkins does not tell; they can learn nothing about it.  If the Directors had a disposition, and were honest enough to the Proprietors and the nation to inquire into it, there is not a hint given, by either of those persons, who received the Nuddea, who received the Patna, who received the Dinagepore peshcush.