o not
condemn it with any remarkable asperity; after admitting that he might
be induced to a temporary secrecy _respecting the members of the board_,
from a fear of their resisting the proposed application, or any
application of this money to the Company's use, yet they write to the
Governor-General and Council as follows:--"It does not appear to us that
there could be any real necessity for delaying to communicate to _us_
immediate information of the _channel_ by which the money came into Mr.
Hastings's possession, with a complete illustration of the cause or
causes of so _extraordinary_ an event." And again: "The means proposed
of defraying the extra expenses are very _extraordinary_; and the money,
we conceive, must have come into his hands by an _unusual_ channel; and
when more complete information comes before us, we shall give our
sentiments fully on the transaction." And speaking of this and other
moneys under a similar description, they say, "We shall suspend our
judgment, without approving it in the least degree, or proceeding to
censure our Governor-General for this transaction." The expectations
entertained by the Directors of a more complete explanation were
natural, and their expression tender and temperate. But the more
complete information which they naturally expected they never have to
this day received.

Mr. Hastings wrote two more letters to the Secret Committee of the Court
of Directors, in which he mentions this transaction: the first dated (as
he asserts, and a Mr. Larkins swears) on the 22d of May, 1782;[19] the
last, which accompanied it, so late as the 16th of December in the same
year.[20] Though so long an interval lay between the transaction of the
26th of June, 1780, and the middle of December, 1782, (upwards of two
years,) no further satisfaction is given. He has written, since the
receipt of the above letter of the Court of Directors, (which demanded,
what they had a right to demand, a clear explanation of the particulars
of this sum of money which he had no right to receive,) without giving
them any further satisfaction. Instead of explanation or apology, he
assumes a tone of complaint and reproach, to the Directors: he lays
before them a kind of an account of presents received, to the amount of
upwards of 200,000_l._,--some at a considerable distance of time, and
which had not been hitherto communicated to the Company.

In the letter which accompanied that very extraordinary account, wh