which he formerly stated as raised upon his credit, he now confesses to
have been from the beginning the Company's property, and therefore could
not have been raised on his private credit, or borrowed from any person
whatsoever.

To these two accounts, thus essentially varying, he has added a
third,[34] varying at least as essentially from both. In his last or
third account, which is a statement of all the sums he has received in
an extraordinary manner, and confessed to be the Company's property, he
reverses the items of his first account, and, instead of allowing the
Company but one third and claiming two thirds for himself, he enters two
of the bonds, each for a lac of rupees, as belonging to the Company: of
the third bond, which appears so distinctly in the Consultations and in
the Treasury accounts, not one word is said; ten thousand pounds is
absorbed, sinks, and disappears at once, and no explanation whatsoever
concerning it is given; Mr. Hastings seems not yet to have decided to
whose account it ought to be placed. In this manner his debt to the
Company, or the Company's to him, is just what he thinks fit. In a
single article he has varied three times. In one account he states the
whole to be his own; in another he claims two thirds; in the last he
gives up the claim of the two thirds, and says nothing to the remaining
portion.

To make amends, however, for the suppression of this third bond, given
with the two others in January, 1781, and antedated to the beginning of
October, Mr. Hastings, in the above-mentioned general account subjoined
to his letter of the 22d May, 1782, has brought to the Company's credit
a new bond.[35]

This bond is for 17,000_l._ It was taken from the Company (and so it
appears on their Treasury accounts) on the 23d of November, 1780. He
took no notice of this, when, in January following, he called upon his
own Council for the three others. What is more extraordinary, he was
equally silent with regard to it, when, only six days after its date, he
wrote concerning the subject of the three other bonds to the Court of
Directors; yet now it comes out, that that bond also was taken by Mr.
Hastings from the Company for money which he declares he had received on
the Company's account, and that he entered himself as creditor when he
ought to have made himself debtor.

Your Committee examined Major Scott concerning this money, which Mr.
Hastings must have obtained in some clandestine and irr