Mr.
Hastings came away, between twenty and thirty thousand pounds debtor to
the Company. So that, in truth, you always find a deficiency of revenue
nearly equal, and in some instances I shall show double, to all the
bribes Mr. Hastings received: from whence it will be evident that he
never could nor did receive them under that absurd and strange idea of a
resource to government.

I must re-state to your Lordships, because I wish you never to forget,
that this Committee of Revenue was, in their own opinion, and from their
own certain knowledge and mere motion, if motion can be attributed
originally to instruments, mere tools; that they knew that they were
tools in the hands of Gunga Govind Sing. There were two persons
principal in it,--Mr. Shore, who was the acting President, and Mr.
Anderson, who was President in rank, and President in emolument, but
absent for a great part of the time upon a foreign embassy. It is the
recorded opinion of the former, (for I must beg leave to read again a
part of the paper which has already been read to your Lordships,) that
"the Committee, with the best intentions, best abilities, and steadiest
application, must, after all, be a tool in the hands of their dewan."

Now do you believe, in the first place, that men will long have
abilities, will long have good intentions, and will long, above all,
have steady application, when they know they are but tools in the hands
of another,--when they know they are tools for his own corrupt purposes?

In the next place, I must beg leave to state to you, that, on the
constitution of this Committee, Mr. Hastings made them all take a solemn
oath that they would never receive any present whatever. It was not
enough to trust to a general covenant; it was not enough to trust to the
penal act of 1773: he bound the Committee by a new oath, and forced them
to declare that they would not receive any bribes. As soon as he had so
secured them against receiving bribes, he was resolved to make them
inefficient,--a good way to secure them against bribes, by taking from
them the power of bribe-worthy service. This was a good counter-security
to their oath. But Mr. Hastings put a dewan there, against whom there
was no security; he let loose this dewan to frustrate their intentions,
their application, their abilities, and oath: that is, there was a
person at that board who was more than the board itself, who might riot
in peculation and plunder from one end of the c