The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 09 (of 12)Burke, Edmund
History
The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 09 (of 12)
Burke, Edmund
Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1760-1820; Political science -- Early works to 1800
unsatisfactory, leads to a just and reasonable presumption that other
facts of the same nature have been concealed, since those which he has
confessed might have been forever, and that this partial confession was
either extorted from the said Warren Hastings by the dread of detection,
or made with a view of removing suspicion, and preventing any further
inquiry into his conduct.
That the said Warren Hastings, in a letter to the Court of Directors
dated 21st of February, 1784, has confessed his having _privately
received_ another sum of money, the amount of which he has not declared,
but which, from the application he says he has made of it, could not be
less than thirty-four thousand pounds sterling. That he has not informed
the Directors from whom he received this money, at what time, nor on
what account; but, on the contrary, has attempted to justify the receipt
of it, which was illegal, by the application of it, which was
unauthorized and unwarrantable, and which, if admitted as a reason for
receiving money _privately_, would constitute a precedent of the most
dangerous nature to the Company's service. That, in attempting to
justify the receipt and application of the said money, he has endeavored
to establish principles of conduct in a Governor which tend to subvert
all order and regularity in the conduct of public business, to
encourage and facilitate fraud and corruption in all offices of
pecuniary trust, and to defeat all inquiry into the misconduct of any
person in whom pecuniary trust is reposed.--That the said Warren
Hastings, in his letter above mentioned, has made a declaration to the
Court of Directors in the following terms: "Having had occasion to
disburse from my own cash many sums, which, though required to enable me
to execute the duties of my station, I have hitherto omitted to enter in
my public accounts, and my own fortune being unequal to so heavy a
charge, I have resolved to reimburse myself in a mode the most suitable
to the situation of your affairs, by charging the same in my Durbar
accounts of the present year, and crediting them by a sum _privately
received_, and appropriated to your service in the same manner with
other sums received on account of the Honorable Company, and already
carried to their account." That at the time of writing this letter the
said Warren Hastings had been in possession of the government of Fort
William about twelve years, with a clear salary, or avowed emoluments,
at no time less than twenty-five thousand pounds sterling a year,
exclusive of which all the principal expenses of his residence were paid
for by the Company. That, if the services mentioned by him were required
to enable him to execute the duties of his station, he ought not to have
omitted to enter them in his public accounts at the times when the
expenses were incurred. That, if it was true, as he affirms, that, when
he first engaged in these expenses, he had no intention to carry them to
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