Here, I say, are the three lines that were read by a Persian moonshee. Is he a man you can call to account for these particulars? No: he is an anonymous moonshee; his name is not so much as mentioned by Mr. Larkins, nor hinted at by Mr. Hastings; and you find these sums, which Mr. Hastings mentions as a sum in gross given to himself, are not so. They were given by three persons: one, six lacs, was given by the Nabob to the Governor; another, of three lacs more, by Hussein Reza Khan [and Hyder Beg Khan?]; and a third, one lac, by both of them clubbing, as a present to Mrs. Hastings. This is the first discovery that appears of Mrs. Hastings having been concerned in receiving presents for the Governor-General and others, in addition to Gunga Govind Sing, Cantoo Baboo, and Mr. Croftes. Now, if this money was not received for the Company, is it proper and right to take it from Mrs. Hastings? Is there honor and justice in taking from a lady a gratuitous present made to her? Yet Mr. Hastings says he has applied it all to the Company's service. He has done ill, in suffering it to be received at all, if she has not justly and properly received it. Whether, in fact, she ever received this money at all, she not being upon the spot, as I can find, at the time, (though, to be sure, a present might be sent her,) I neither affirm nor deny, farther than that, as Mr. Larkins says, there was a sum of 10,000_l._ from these ministers to Mrs. Hastings. Whether she ever received any other money than this, I also neither affirm nor deny. But in whatever manner Mrs. Hastings received this or any other money, I must say, in this grave place in which I stand, that, if the wives of Governors-General, the wives of Presidents of Council, the wives of the principal officers of the India Company, through all the various departments, can receive presents, there is an end of the covenants, there is an end of the act of Parliament, there is an end to every power of restraint. Let a man be but married, and if his wife may take presents, that moment the acts of Parliament, the covenants, and all the rest expire. There is something, too, in the manners of the East that makes this a much more dangerous practice. The people of the East, it is well known, have their zenanah, the apartment for their wives, as a sanctuary which nobody can enter,--a kind of holy of holies, a consecrated place, safe from the rage of war, safe from the fury of tyranny. The rapacity of man has here its bounds: here you shall come, and no farther. But if English ladies can go into these zenanahs and there receive presents, the natives of Hindostan cannot be said to have anything left of their own. Every one knows that in the wisest and best time of the Commonwealth of Rome, towards the latter end of it, (I do not mean the best time for morals, but the best for its knowledge how to correct evil government, and to choose the proper means for it,) it was