To take money for the forbearance of a just demand would have been corrupt only; but to urge unjust public demands,--to accept private pecuniary favors in the course of those demands,--and, on the pretence of delay or refusal, without mercy to persecute a benefactor,--to refuse to hear his remonstrances,--to arrest him in his capital, in his palace, in the face of all the people,--thus to give occasion to an insurrection, and, on pretext of that insurrection, to refuse all treaty or explanation,--to drive him from his government and his country,--to proscribe him in a general amnesty,--and to send him all over India a fugitive, to publish the shame of British government in all the nations to whom he successively fled for refuge,--these are proceedings to which, for the honor of human nature, it is hoped few parallels are to be found in history, and in which the illegality and corruption of the acts form the smallest part of the mischief. Such is the account of the first sum _confessed_ to be taken as a present by Mr. Hastings, since the year 1775; and such are its consequences. Mr. Hastings apologizes for this action by declaring "that he would not have received the money but for the _occasion_, which prompted him to avail himself of the accidental means which were at that instant afforded him of accepting and converting it to the use of the Company."[23] By this account, he considers the act as excusable only by the particular occasion, by the temptation of accidental means, and by the suggestion of the _instant_. How far this is the case appears by the very next paragraph of this letter in which the account is given and in which the apology is made. If these were his sentiments in June, 1780, they lasted but a very short time: his accidental means appear to be growing habitual. To point out in a clear manner the spirit of the second money transaction to which your Committee adverted, which is represented by Mr. Hastings as having some "affinity with the former _anecdote_,"[24] (for in this light kind of phrase he chooses to express himself to his masters,) your Committee think it necessary to state to the House, that the business, namely, this business, which was the second object of their inquiry, appears in three different papers and in three different lights: on comparing of these authorities, in every one of which Mr. Hastings is himself the voucher, if one of the three be true, the other two must necessarily be false. These three authorities, which your Committee has accurately compared, are, first, his minutes on the Consultations;[25] secondly, his letter to the Court of Directors on the 29th of November, 1780;[26] thirdly, his account, transmitted on the 16th of December, 1782.[27]