“That they shall not, directly or indirectly, accept, take, or receive, or agree to accept, take, or receive, any gift, reward, gratuity, allowance, donation, or compensation, in money, effects, jewels, or otherwise howsoever, from any of the Indian princes, sovereigns, subahs, or nabobs, or any of their ministers, servants, or agents, exceeding the value of four thousand rupees, for any service or services performed or to be performed by them in India, or upon any other account or pretence whatsoever.”

By this covenant, my Lords, Mr. Hastings is forbidden to accept, upon any pretence and under any name whatsoever, any sum above four thousand rupees,—­that is to say, any sum above four hundred pounds.  Now the sum that was here received is eighteen thousand pounds sterling, by way of a present, under the name of an allowance for an entertainment, which is the precise thing which his covenant was made to prevent.  The covenant suffered him to receive four hundred pounds:  if he received more than that money, he became a criminal, he had broken his covenant, and forfeited the obligation he had made with his masters.  Think with yourselves, my Lords, what you will do, if you acquit the prisoner of this charge.  You will avow the validity, you will sanction the principle of his defence:  for, as the fact is avowed, there is an end of that.

Good God! my Lords, where are we?  If they conceal their gifts and presents, they are safe by their concealment; if they avow them, they are still safer.  They plead the customs of the country, or rather, the customs which we have introduced into the country,—­customs which have been declared to have their foundation in a system of the most abominable corruption, the most flagitious extortion, the most dreadful oppression,—­those very customs which their covenant is made to abolish.  Think where your Lordships are.  You have before you a covenant declaring that he should take under no name whatever (I do not know how words could be selected in the English language more expressive) any sum more than four hundred pounds.  He says, “I have taken eighteen thousand pounds.”  He makes his counsel declare, and he desires your Lordships to confirm their declaration, that he is not only justifiable in so doing, but that he ought to do so,—­that he ought to break his covenant, and act in direct contradiction to it.  He does not even pretend to say that this money was intended, either inwardly or outwardly, avowedly or covertly, for the Company’s service.  He put absolutely into his own pocket eighteen thousand pounds, besides his salary.

Consider, my Lords, the consequences of this species of iniquity.  If any servant of the Company, high in station, chooses to make a visit from Calcutta to Moorshedabad, which Moorshedabad was then the residence of our principal revenue government,—­if he should choose to take an airing for his health, if he has a fancy to make a little voyage for pleasure as far as Moorshedabad, in one of those handsome barges or budgeros of which you have heard so much in his charge against Nundcomar, he can put twenty thousand pounds into his pocket any day he pleases, in defiance of all our acts of Parliament, covenants, and regulations.