The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 10 (of 12)Burke, Edmund
History
The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 10 (of 12)
Burke, Edmund
Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1760-1820; Political science -- Early works to 1800
You find, then, Mr. Hastings first leaving this sum of money for a year
and three months in the hands of Gunga Govind Sing; you find, that, when
an exigence pressed him by the Mahrattas suddenly invading Bengal, and
he was obliged to refer to his bribe-fund, he finds that fund empty, and
that, in supplying money for this exigence, he takes a bond for two
thirds of his own money and one third of the Company's. For, as I stated
before, Mr. Larkins proves of one of these accounts, that he took, in
the month of January, for this bribe-money, which, according to the
principles he lays down, was the Company's money, three bonds as for
money advanced from his own cash. Now this sum of three lacs, instead of
being all his own, as it should appear to be in the month of January,
when he took the bonds, or two thirds his own and one third the
Company's, as he said in his letter of the 29th of November, turns out,
by Mr. Larkins's account, paragraph 9, which I wish to mark to your
Lordships, to be two thirds the Company's money and one third his own;
and yet it is all confounded under bonds, as if the money had been his
own. What can you say to this heroic sharper disguised under the name of
a patriot, when you find him to be nothing but a downright cheat, first
taking money under the Company's name, then taking their securities to
him for their own money, and afterwards entering a false account of
them, contradicting that by another account?--and God knows whether the
third be true or false. These are not things that I am to make out by
any conclusion of mine; here they are, made out by himself and Mr.
Larkins, and, comparing them with his letter of the 27th, you find a
gross fraud covered by a direct falsehood.
We have now done with Mr. Larkins's account of the bonds, and are come
to the other species of Mr. Hastings's frauds, (for there is a great
variety in them,) and first to Cheyt Sing's bribe. Mr. Larkins came to
the knowledge of the bond-money through Gunga Govind Sing and through
Cantoo Baboo. Of this bribe he was not in the secret originally, but was
afterwards made a confidant in it; it was carried to him; and the
account he gives of it I will state to your Lordships.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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