kingdom committed to their care, by means of
particular conventions, or by taxes, by rents, and by monopolies; and
when they had exhausted every contrivance of public imposition, then
they were to be at liberty to let loose upon the people all their
servants, from the highest rank to the lowest, to prey upon them at
pleasure, and to draw, by personal and official authority, by influence,
venality, and terror, whatever was left to them,--and that all this was
justified, provided the product was paid into the Company's exchequer.

This prohibition and permission of presents, with this declaration of
property in the Company, would leave no property to any man in India.
If, however, it should be thought that this clause in the act[45] should
be capable, by construction and retrospect, of so legalizing and thus
appropriating these presents, (which your Committee conceive
impossible,) it is absolutely necessary that it should be very fully
explained.

The provision in the act was made in favor of the natives. If such
construction prevails, the provision made as their screen from
oppression will become the means of increasing and aggravating it
without bounds and beyond remedy. If presents, which when they are given
were unlawful, can afterwards be legalized by an application of them to
the Company's service, no sufferer can even resort to a remedial process
at law for his own relief. The moment he attempts to sue, the money may
be paid into the Company's treasury; it is then lawfully taken, and the
party is non-suited.

The Company itself must suffer extremely in the whole order and
regularity of their public accounts, if the idea upon which Mr. Hastings
justifies the taking of these presents receives the smallest
countenance. On his principles, the same sum may become private property
or public, at the pleasure of the receiver; it is in his power, Mr.
Hastings says, to conceal it forever.[46] He certainly has it in his
power not only to keep it back and bring it forward at his own times,
but even to shift and reverse the relations in the accounts (as Mr.
Hastings has done) in what manner and proportion seems good to him, and
to make himself alternately debtor or creditor for the same sums.

Of this irregularity Mr. Hastings himself appears in some degree
sensible. He conceives it possible that his transactions of this nature
may to the Court of Directors seem unsatisfactory. He, however, puts it
hypothetically: "If to yo