of
money paid into the Treasury by Mr. Hastings for this service, found,
that, notwithstanding his assertion of having deposited "two lacs of
rupees, or within a trifle of that sum, in the hands of the
sub-treasurer," no entry whatsoever of that or any other payment by the
Governor-General was made in the Treasury accounts at or about that
time.[16] This circumstance appeared very striking to your Committee, as
the non-appearance in the Company's books of the article in question
must be owing to one or other of these four causes:--That the assertion
of Mr. Hastings, of his having paid in near two lacs of rupees at that
time, was not true; or that the sub-treasurer may receive great sums in
deposit without entering them in the Company's Treasury accounts; or
that the Treasury books themselves are records not to be depended on;
or, lastly, that faithful copies of these books of accounts are not
transmitted to Europe. The defect of an entry corresponding with Mr.
Hastings's declaration in Council can be attributed only to one of these
four causes,--of which the want of foundation in his recorded assertion,
though very blamable, is the least alarming.

On the 29th of November following, Mr. Hastings communicated to the
Court of Directors some sort of notice of this transaction.[17] In his
letter of that date he varies in no small degree the aspect under which
the business appeared in his Minute of Consultation of the 26th of June.
In his letter he says to the Directors, "The subject is now become
obsolete; the fair hopes which I had built upon the prosecution of the
Mahratta war have been blasted by the dreadful calamities which have
befallen your Presidency of Fort St. George, and changed the object of
our pursuit from the _aggrandizement_ of your power to its
preservation." After thus confessing, or rather boasting, of his motives
to the Mahratta war, he proceeds: "My present reason for reverting to my
own conduct on the occasion which I have mentioned" (namely, his
offering a sum of money for the Company's service) "is to obviate _the
false conclusions or purposed misrepresentations_ which may be made of
it, either as an artifice of _ostentation_ or the effect of _corrupt
influence_, by assuring you that the money, _by whatever means it came
into my possession, was not my own_, that I had myself _no right_ to it,
nor would or could have received it but for the occasion which prompted
me to avail myself _of the accidental