Again, suppose him to take it through the hand of an agent, such as Gunga Govind Sing, and that this agent, who, as we have lately discovered, out of a bribe of 40,000_l._, which Mr. Hastings was to have received, kept back half of it, falls into their debt like him: I desire to know what the Company can do in such a case. Gunga Govind Sing has entered into no covenants with the Company. There is no trace of his having this money, except what Mr. Hastings chooses to tell. If he is called upon to refund it to the Company, he may say he never received it, that he was never ordered to extort this money from the people; or if he was under any covenant not to take money, he may set up this defence: "I am forbidden to receive money; and I will not make a declaration which will subject me to penalties": or he may say in India, before the Supreme Court, "I have paid the bribe all to Mr. Hastings"; and then there must be a bill and suit there, a bill and suit here, and by that means, having one party on one side the water and the other party on the other, the Company may never come to a discovery of it. And that in fact this is the way in which one of his great bribe-agents has acted I shall prove to your Lordships by evidence. Mr. Hastings had squeezed out of a miserable country a bribe of 40,000_l._, of which he was enabled to bring to the account of the Company only 20,000_l._, and of which we should not even have known the existence, if the inquiries pursued with great diligence by the House of Commons had not extorted the discovery: and even now that we know the fact, we can never get at the money; the Company can never receive it; and before the House had squeezed out of him that some such money had been received, he never once told the Court of Directors that his black bribe-agent, whom he recommended to their service, had cheated both them and him of 20,000_l._ out of the fund of the bribe-revenue. If it be asked, Where is the record of this? Record there is none. In what office is it entered? It is entered in no office; it is mentioned as privately received for the Company's benefit: and you shall now further see what a charming office of receipt and account this new exchequer of Mr. Hastings's is.