“He [Mr. Hastings] respected the learned and wise men, and, in order for the propagation of learning, he built a college, and endowed it with a provision for the maintenance of the students, insomuch that thousands reaping the benefits thereof offer up their prayers for the prosperity of the King of England, and for the success of the Company.”

I must here remind your Lordships of another attestation of the same character, and to the same effect.  It comes from Mahomed Reza Khan, who, as your Lordships will remember, had been reduced by Mr. Hastings from a situation of the highest rank and authority, with an income of suitable magnitude, to one of comparative insignificance, with a small salary annexed.  This man is made to disgrace himself, and to abet the disgrace and injury done to his country, by bearing his testimony to the merits of this very college.

I hope your Lordships will never lose sight of this aggravating circumstance of the prisoner’s criminality,—­namely, that you never find any wicked, fraudulent, and criminal act, in which you do not find the persons who suffered by it, and must have been well acquainted with it, to be the very persons who are brought to attest in its favor.  O Heaven! but let shame for one moment veil its face, let indignation suppress its feelings, whilst I again call upon you to view all this as a mere swindling transaction, in which the prisoner was attempting to defraud the Company.

Mr. Hastings has declared, and you will find it upon the Company’s records, that this institution (which cost the Company not less than 40,000_l._ in one way or other) did not commence before October in the year 1780; and he brings it before the board in April, 1781,—­that is, about six months after its foundation.  Now look at his other account, in which he makes it to begin in the year 1779, and in which he has therefore overcharged the expenses of it a whole year.—­But Mr. Larkins, who kept this latter account for him, may have been inaccurate.—­Good Heavens! where are we?  Mr. Hastings, who was bred an accountant, who was bred in all sorts of trade and business, declares that he keeps no accounts.  Then comes Mr. Larkins, who keeps an account for him; but he keeps a false account.  Indeed, all the accounts from India, from one end to another, are nothing but a series of fraud, while Mr. Hastings was concerned in them.  Mr. Larkins, who keeps his private account just as his master kept the public accounts, has swindled from the Company a whole year’s expenses of this college.  I should not thus repeatedly dwell upon this transaction, but because I wish your Lordships to be cautious how you admit such accounts at all to be given in evidence, into the truth of which you cannot penetrate in any regular way.  Upon the face of the two accounts there is a gross fraud.  It is no matter which is true or false, as it is an account which you are in no situation to decide upon.  I lay down this as a fixed judicial rule, that no judge ought to receive an account (which, is as serious a part of a judicial proceeding as can be) the correctness of which he has no means of ascertaining, but must depend upon the sole word of the accountant.