This prohibition and permission of presents, with this declaration of property in the Company, would leave no property to any man in India. If, however, it should be thought that this clause in the act[45] should be capable, by construction and retrospect, of so legalizing and thus appropriating these presents, (which your Committee conceive impossible,) it is absolutely necessary that it should be very fully explained. The provision in the act was made in favor of the natives. If such construction prevails, the provision made as their screen from oppression will become the means of increasing and aggravating it without bounds and beyond remedy. If presents, which when they are given were unlawful, can afterwards be legalized by an application of them to the Company's service, no sufferer can even resort to a remedial process at law for his own relief. The moment he attempts to sue, the money may be paid into the Company's treasury; it is then lawfully taken, and the party is non-suited. The Company itself must suffer extremely in the whole order and regularity of their public accounts, if the idea upon which Mr. Hastings justifies the taking of these presents receives the smallest countenance. On his principles, the same sum may become private property or public, at the pleasure of the receiver; it is in his power, Mr. Hastings says, to conceal it forever.[46] He certainly has it in his power not only to keep it back and bring it forward at his own times, but even to shift and reverse the relations in the accounts (as Mr. Hastings has done) in what manner and proportion seems good to him, and to make himself alternately debtor or creditor for the same sums.