My Lords, you see what an account Mr. Hastings has given of some obscure transaction by which he contradicts the record. For, on the 26th of June, he generously, nobly, full of enthusiasm for their service, offers to the Company money of his own. On the 29th of November he tells the Court of Directors that the money he offered on the former day was not his own,--that his assertion was totally false,--that the money was not his,--that he had no right to receive it,--and that he would not have received it, but for the occasion, which prompted him to avail himself of the accidental means which at that instant offered. Such is the account sent by their Governor in India, acting as an accountant, to the Company,--a company with whom everything is matter of account. He tells them, indeed, that the sum he had offered was not his own,--that he had no right to it,--and that he would not have taken it, if he had not been greatly tempted by the occasion; but he never tells them by what means he came at it, the person from whom he received it, the occasion upon which he received it, (whether justifiable or not,) or any one circumstance under heaven relative to it. This is a very extraordinary account to give to the public of a sum which we find to be somewhere above twenty thousand pounds, taken by Mr. Hastings in some way or other. He set the Company blindly groping in the dark by the very pretended light, the ignis-fatuus, which he held out to them: for at that time all was in the dark, and in a cloud: and this is what Mr. Hastings calls _information_ communicated to the Company on the subject of these bribes.