MOTED. (1783.)

YOUR Committee, in the course of their inquiry into the obedience yielded by the company'servants to the orders of the court of directors, (the authority of which orders had been strengthened by the regulating act of 1773,) could not overlook one of the most essential objects of that act, and of those orders, namely, the taking of gifts and presents. These pretended free gifts from the natives to the company's servants in power had never been authorized by law; they are contrary to the covenants formally entered into by the president and council; they are strictly forbidden by the act of parliament; and forbidden upon grounds of the most substantial policy.

Before the regulating act of 1773, the allowances made by the company to the presidents of Bengal, were abundantly sufficient to guarantee them against any thing like a necessity for giving in to that pernicious practice. The act of parliament which appointed a governour-general in the place of a president, and it was extremely particular in enforcing the prohibition of those presents, so it was equally careful in making an ample provision for supporting the dignity of the office, in order to remove all excuses for a corrupt increase of its emoluments.

Although evidence on record, as well as verbal testimony, has appeared before your committee, of presents to a large amount having been received by Mr. Hastings and others, before the year 1775, they were not able to find distinct traces of that practice in him, or any one else, for a few years.

The inquiry set on foot in Bengal, by order of the court of directors, in 1775, with regard to all corrupt practices, and the vigour with which they were for some time pursued, might have given a temporary check to the receipt of presents, or might have produced a more effectual concealment of them; and afterwards the caamities which befell almost all who were con

cerned in the first discoveries, did probably prevent any further complaint upon the subject; but towards the close of the last session, your committee have received much of new and alarming information concerning that abuse.

The first traces appeared, though faintly and obscurely, in a letter to the court of directors from the governour-general, Mr. Hastings, written on the 29th of November, 1780.* It has been stated in a former report of your committee, that on the 26th of June, 1780, Mr. Hastings, being very earnest in the prosecution of a particular operation in the Mahratta war, in order to remove objections to that measure, which were made on account of the expense of the contingencies, offered to exonerate the company from that "charge." Continuing his minute of council, he says: "That sum (a sum of about 23,000l.) I have already deposited, within a small amount, in the hands of the sub-treasurers, and I beg that the board will permit it to be accepted for that service." Here he offers in his own person; he deposits, or pretends that he deposits, in his own person; and, with the zeal of a man eager to pledge his private fortune in support of his measures, he prays that his offer may be accepted. Not the least hint that he was delivering back to the company money of their own, which he had secreted from them. Indeed, no man ever made it a request, much less earnestly entreated, "begged to be permitted," to pay any persons, public or private, money that was their own.

It appeared to your committee, that the money offered for that service, which was to forward the operations of a detachment under Colonel Camac, in an expedition against one of the Mahratta chiefs, was not accepted. And your committee having directed search

Appendix, B. No. 1. Vide supplement to the 2d report, page 7.

to be made for any sums of money paid into the treasury by Mr. Hastings for this service, found, that notwithstanding his assertion of having deposited "two lacks of rupees, or within a trifle of that sum, in the hands of the sub-treasurer," no entry whatsoever of that or any other payment by the governour-general, was made in the treasury accounts, at or about that time.* This circumstance appeared very striking to your committee, as the non-appearance in the company's books of the article in question must be owing to one or other of these four causes: that the assertion of Mr. Hastings, of his having paid in near two lacks of rupees at that time, was not true; or that the sub-treasurer may receive great sums in deposit without entering them in the company's treasury accounts; or that the treasury books themselves are records not to be depended on; or, lastly, that faithful copies of these books of accounts are not transmitted to Europe. The defect of an entry, corresponding with Mr. Hastings's declaration in council, can be attributed only to one of these four causes; of which the want of foundation in his recorded assertion, though very blameable, is the least alarming.

On the 29th of November following, Mr. Hastings communicated to the court of directors some sort of notice of this transaction.† In his letter of that date he varies, in no small degree, the aspect, under which the business appeared in his minute of consultation of the 26th of June. In his letter he says to the directors," the subject is now become obsolete; the fair hopes, which I had built upon the prosecution of the Mahratta war have been blasted by the dreadful calamities which have befallen your presidency of fort St. George; and changed the object of our pursuit, from the aggrandizement of your power to its preservation." After thus confessing, or rather boasting of his motives to the Mahratta war, he proceeds: "My present reason for reverting to my own conduct on the occasion which I have mentioned" (namely, his offering a sum of money for the company's service)" is to obviate the false conclusions, or purposed misrepresentations, which may be made of it, either as an artifice of ostentation, or the effect of corrupt influence, by assuring you that the money, by whatever means it came into my possession, was not my own; that I had myself no right to it, nor would or could have received it but for the

* Appendix, B. No. 2. Vide appendix, B. No. 1.

occasion, which prompted me to avail myself of the accidental means, which were at that instant afforded me, of accepting and converting it to the property and use of the company; and with this brief apology I shall dismiss the subject."

The apology is brief indeed, considering the nature of the transaction; and, what is more material than its length or its shortness, it is in all points unsatisfactory. The matter becomes, if possible, more obscure by his explanation. Here was money received by Mr. Hastings, which, according to his own judgment, he had no right to receive; it was money, which "(but for the occasion which prompted him) he could not have accepted;" it was money which came into his, and from his into the company's hands, by ways and means undescribed, and from persons unnamed; yet, though apprehensive of false conclusions, and purposed misrepresentations, he gives his employers no insight whatsoever into a matter, which of all others, stood in the greatest need of a full and clear elucidation.

Although he chooses to omit this essential point, he expresses the most anxious solicitude to clear himself of the charges that might be made against him, of the artifices of ostentation, and of corrupt influence. To discover, if possible, the ground for apprehending such imputations, your committee adverted to the circumstances in which he stood at the time they found that this letter was despatched about the time that Mr. Francis took his passage for England; his fear of misrepresentation may therefore allude to something which passed in conversation between him and that gentleman at the time the offer was made.

It was not easy, on the mere face of his offer, to give an ill turn to it. The act, as it stands on the minute, is not only disinterested, but generous, and public spirited. If Mr. Hastings apprehended misrepresentation from Mr. Francis, or from any other person, your committee conceive that he did not employ proper means for defeating the ill designs of his adversaries. On the contrary, the course he has taken, in his letter to the court of directors, is calculated to excite doubts and suspicions in minds the most favourably disposed to him. Some degree of ostentation is not extremely blameable, at a time when a man advances largely from his private fortune towards the public service. It is human infirmity at the worst, and only detracts something from the lustre of an action in itself

meritorious. The kind of ostentation which is criminal, and criminal only because it is fraudulent, is where a person makes a show of giving, when in reality he does not give. This imposition is criminal more or less according to the circumstances. But if the money, received to furnish such a pretended gift, is taken from any third person, without right to take it, a new guilt, and a guilt of a much worse quality and description, is incurred. The governour-general, in order to keep clear of ostentation, on the 29th of November, 1780, declares that the sum of money which he offered on the 26th of the preceding June, as his own, was not his own, and that he had no right to it. Clearing himself of vanity, he convicts himself of deceit, and of injustice. The other object of this brief apology was to clear himself of corrupt influ

ence.

Of all ostentation he stands completely acquitted in the month of November, how ever he might have been faulty in that respect in the month of June: but, with regard to the other part of the apprehended charge, namely, corrupt influence, he gives no satisfactory solution-a great sum of money, "not his own" -money, to which "he had no right"-money, which came into his possession, "by whatever means:"-if this be not money obtained by corrupt influence, or by something worse, that is, by violence or terrour, it will be difficult to fix upon circumstances which can furnish a presumption of unjustifiable use of power and influence in the acquisition of profit. The last part of the apology-that he had converted this money (" which he had no right to receive") to the company's use (so far as your committee can discover) does no where appear. He speaks, in the minute of the 26th of June, as having then actually deposited it for the company's service. In the letter of November, he says, that he converted it to the company's property: but there is no trace, in the company's books, of its being ever brought to their credit in the expenditure for any specific service, even if any such entry and expenditure could justify him in taking money, which he had, by his own confession, "no right to receive."

The directors appear to have been deceived by this representation; and in their letter of January, 1782, consider the money as actually paid into their treasury.* Even under their errour concerning the application of the money, they appear rather alarmed than satisfied with the brief apology of the governour

*Appendix, B. No. 7.

general. They consider the whole proceeding as extraordinary and mysterious. They, however, do not condemn it with any remarkable asperity; after admitting that he might be induced to a temporary secrecy, respecting the members of the board, from a fear of their resisting the proposed application, or any application of this money to the company's use; yet they write to the governour-general and council as follows:-"It does not appear to us, that there could be any real necessity for delaying to commmunicate to us immediate information of the channel by which the money came into Mr. Hastings's possession, with a complete illustration of the cause or causes of so extraordinary an event.” And again: "the means proposed of defraying the extra expenses are very extraordinary; and the money, we conceive, must have come into his hands by an unusual channel; and when more complete information comes before us, we shall give our sentiments fully on the transaction." And, speaking of this and other moneys under a similar description, they say, "we shall suspend our judgment, without approving it in the least degree, or proceeding to censure our governour-general for this transaction." The expectations entertained by the directors of a more complete explanation, were natural, and their expression tender and temperate. But the more complete information, which they naturally expected, they never have to this day received.

Mr. Hastings wrote two more letters to the secret committee of the court of directors, in which he mentions this transaction.* The first, dated (as he asserts, and a Mr. Larkins swears) on the 22d of May, 1782; the last, which accompanied it, so late as the 16th of December, in the same year. Though so long an interval lay between the transaction of the 26th of June, 1780, and the middle of December, 1782,† (upwards of two years), no further satisfaction is given. He has written, since the receipt of the above letter of the court of directors (which demanded, what they had a right to demand, a clear explanation of the particulars of this sum of money, which he had no right to receive) without giving them any further satisfaction. Instead of explanation or apology, he assumes a tone of complaint and reproach to the directors.-He lays before them a kind of an account of presents received to the amount of upwards of 200,0001. some at a considerable distance of

*Appendix, B. No. 3, and No. 5. † Appendix, B. No. 6.

time, and which had not been hitherto communicated to the company.

In the letter which accompanied that very extraordinary account, which then for the first time appeared, he discovers no small solicitude to clear himself from the imputation of having these discoveries drawn from him by the terrours of the parliamentary inquiries then on foot. To remove all suspicion of such a motive for making these discoveries, Mr. Larkins swears, in an affidavit made before Mr. Justice Hyde, bearing even date with the letter which accompanies the account, that is, of the 16th of December, 1782, that this letter had been written by him on the 22d of May, several months before it was despatched. It appears that Mr. Larkins,* who makes this voluntary affidavit, is neither secretary to the board, nor Mr. Hastings' private secretary, but an officer of the treasury of Bengal.

Mr. Hastings was conscious that a question would inevitably arise, how he came to delay the sending intelligence of so very interesting a nature, from May to December? He therefore thinks it necessary to account for so suspicious a circumstance. He tells the directors" that the despatch of the Lively having been protracted from time to time, the accompanying address, which was originally designed and prepared for that despatch, and no other since occurring, has, of course, been thus long delayed."

The governour-general's letter is dated the 22d May, and the Resolution was the last ship of the season despatched for Europe. The public letters to the directors are dated the 9th May; but it appears, by the letter of the commander of the ship, that he did not receive his despatches from Mr. Loyd, then at Kedjeree, until the 26th May; and also, that the pilot was not discharged from the ship until the 11th of June. Some of these presents (now for the first time acknowledged) had been received eighteen months preceding the date of his letter; none less than four months; so that, in fact, he might have sent this account by all the ships of that season; but the governour-general choose to write this letter thirteen days after the determination in council for the despatch of the last ship.

It does not appear that he has given any communication whatsoever to his colleagues in office of those extraordinary transactions. Nothing appears on the records of the council of the receipt of the presents; nor is the trans

Vide Larkin's Affidavit, appendix, B. No. 5.

mission of this account mentioned in the general letter to the court of directors, but in a letter from himself to their secret committee, consisting generally of two persons, but at most of three. It is to be observed that the governour-general states, "that the despatch of the Lively had been protracted from time to time; that this delay was of no public consequence; but that it produced a situation, which, with respect to himself, he regarded as unfortunate, because it exposed him to the meanest imputations, from the occasion which the late parliamentary inquiries have since furnished; but which were unknown when his letter was written." If the governour-general thought his silence exposed him to the meanest imputations, he had the means in his own power of avoiding those imputations; he might have sent this letter, dated the 22d May, by the Resolution. For we find, that in a letter from Captain Poynting, of the 26th May, he states it not possible for him to proceed to sea with the smallest degree of safety without a supply of anchors and cables; and most earnestly requests they may be supplied from Calcutta; and on the 28th May, we find a minute from the secretary of the council, Mr. Auriol, requesting an order of council to the master-attendant to furnish a sloop to carry down those cables; which order was accordingly issued on the 30th May. There requires no other proof to show that the governour-general had the means of sending this letter seven days after he wrote it, instead of delaying it for near seven months; and because no conveyance had offered. Your committee must also remark, that the conveyance by land to Madras was certain; and, whilst such important operations were carrying on both by sea and land upon the coast, that despatches would be sent to the admiralty, or to company, was highly probable.

the

If the letter of the 22d May had been found in the list of the packets sent by the Resolution, the governour-general would have established, in a satisfactory manner, and far beyond the effect of any affidavit, that the letter had been written at the time of the date. It appears that the Resolution, being on her voyage to England, met with so severe a gale of wind as to be obliged to put back to Bengal, and to unload her cargo. This event makes no difference in the state of the transaction. Whatever the cause of these new discoveries might have been, at the time of sending them, the fact of the parliamentary inquiry was publicly known.

In the letter of the above date Mr. Hastings

laments the mortification of being reduced to take precautions "to guard his reputation from dishonour."-" If I had (says he) at any time possessed that degree of confidence from my immediate employers, which they have never withheld from the meanest of my predecessours, I should have disdained to use these attentions."

Who the meanest of Mr. Hastings's predecessours were, does not appear to your committee: nor are they able to discern the ground of propriety or decency for his assuming to himself a right to call any of them mean persons. But if such mean persons have possessed that degree of confidence from his immediate employers, which for so many years he had not possessed" at any time," inferences must have been drawn from thence very unfavourable to one or the other of the parties, or perhaps to both. The attentions, which he practises and disdains, can in this case be of no service to himself, his employers, or the public; the only attention at all effectual towards extenuating, or in some degree atoning for, the guilt of having taken money from individuals illegally, was, to be full and fair in his confession of all the particulars of his offence. This might not obtain that confidence, which at no time he has enjoyed; but still the company and the nation might derive essential benefit from it; the directors might be able to afford redress to the sufferers; and by his laying open the concealed channels of abuse, means might be furnished for the better discovery, and possibly for the prevention, or at least for the restraint, of a practice of the most dangerous nature; a practice, of which the mere prohibition, without the means of detection, must ever prove, as hitherto it had proved, altogether frivolous.

Your committee, considering that so long a time had elapsed without any of that information which the directors expected, and perceiving that this receipt of sums of money, under colour of gift, seemed a growing evil, ordered the attendance of Mr. Hastings's agent, Major Scott. They had found, on former occasions, that this gentleman was furnished with much more early and more complete intelligence of the company's affairs in India than was thought proper for the court of directors; they, therefore, examined him concerning every particular sum of money, the receipt of which Mr. Hastings had confessed in his account. It was to their surprise that Mr. Scott professed himself perfectly uninstructed upon almost every part of the subject, though the express object of his mission to England

was to clear up such matters as might be objected to Mr. Hastings; and for that purpose he had early qualified himself by the production to your committee of his powers of agency. The ignorance in which Mr. Hastings had left his agent, was the more striking, because he must have been morally certain, that, if his conduct in these points should have escaped animadversion from the court of directors, it must become an object of parliamentary inquiry; for, in his letter of the 15th December, 1782, to the court of directors, he expressly mentions his fears, that those parliamentary inquiries might be thought to have extorted from him the confessions which he had made.

Your committee, however, entering on a more strict examination concerning the two lacks of rupees, which Mr. Hastings declares he had no right to take, but had taken, from some person then unknown, Major Scott recollected that Mr. Hastings had, in a letter of the 7th December, 1782, (in which he refers to some former letter) acquainted him with the name of the person, from whom he had received those two lacks of rupees, mentioned in the minute of June, 1780. turned out to be the rajah of Benares, the unfortunate Cheyt Sing.

It

In the single instance in which Mr. Scott seemed to possess intelligence in this matter, he is preferred to the court of directors. Under their censure as Mr. Hastings was, and as he felt himself to be, for not informing them of the channel in which he received that money, he perseveres obstinately and contemptuously to conceal it from them; though he thought fit to entrust his agent with the

secret.

Mr.

Your committee were extremely struck with this intelligence. They were totally unacquainted with it, when they presented to the house the supplement to their second report on the affairs of Cheyt Sing. A gift received by Mr. Hastings from the rajah of Benares gave rise, in their minds, to serious reflections on the condition of the princes of India subjected to the British authority. Hastings was, at the very time of receiving this gift, in the course of making, on the rajah of Benares, a series of demands, unfounded and unjustifiable, and constantly growing, in proportion as they were submitted to. To these demands the rajah of Benares, besides his objections in point of right, constantly set up a plea of poverty. Presents from persons who hold up poverty as a shield against extortion can scarcely, in any case, be considered