ft in my country, and have no friends by me, being even distressed in
my daily subsistence. I have some elephants, horses, and the houses
which I inhabit: if they can be of any service to my friends, they are
ready. Whenever you can discover any resources, seize upon them: I shall
not interfere to prevent you. In my present distress for my daily
expenses, I was in hopes that they would have excused some part of my
debt. Of what use is it for me to relate my situation, which is known to
the whole world? This much is sufficient."

The truth of all these representations is nowhere contested by Mr.
Hastings. It is, indeed, admitted in something stronger than words;
for, upon account of the Nabob's condition, and the no less distressed
condition of his dominions, he thought it fit to withdraw from him and
them a large body of the Company's troops, together with all the English
of a civil description, who were found no less burdensome than the
military. This was done on the declared inability of the country any
longer to support them,--a country not much inferior to England in
extent and fertility, and, till lately at least, its equal in population
and culture.

It was to a prince, in a state so far remote from freedom, authority,
and opulence, so penetrated with the treatment he had received, and the
behavior he had met with from Mr. Hastings, that Mr. Hastings has chosen
to attribute a disposition so very generous and munificent as, of his
own free grace and mere motion, to make him a present, at one donation,
of upwards of one hundred thousand pounds sterling. This vast private
donation was given at the moment of vast instant demands severely
exacted on account of the Company, and accumulated on immense debts to
the same body,--and all taken from a ruined prince and almost desolated
territory.

Mr. Hastings has had the firmness, with all possible ease and apparent
unconcern, to request permission from the Directors to legalize this
forbidden present for his own use. This he has had the courage to do at
a time when he had abundant reason to look for what he has since
received,--their censure for many material parts of his conduct towards
the people from whose wasted substance this pretended free gift was
drawn. He does not pretend that he has reason to expect the smallest
degree of partiality, in this or any other point, from the Court of
Directors. For, besides his complaint, first stated, of having never
possessed thei