er he thought fit to give Nundcomar, he has given the
best of characters to Rajah Gourdas, who was employed by Mr. Hastings in
occupations of trust, and therefore any objections to his competency
cannot exist. Having got thus far, the only thing that remained was to
examine the records of the public offices, and see whether any trace of
these transactions was to be found there. These offices had been thrown
into confusion in the manner you will hear; but, upon strict inquiry,
there was a _shomaster_, or office paper, produced, from which it
appears that the officer of the treasury, having brought to the Nabob an
account of one lac and a half which he said had been given to Mr.
Hastings, desired to know from him under what head of expense it should
be entered, and that he, the Nabob, desired him to put it under the head
of expenses for entertaining Mr. Hastings. If there had been a head of
entertainment established as a regular affair, the officer would never
have gone to the Nabob and asked under what name to enter it; but he
found an irregular affair, and he did not know what head to put it
under. And from the whole of the proceedings it appears that three lacs
and a half were paid: two lac by way of bribe, one lac and a half under
the color of an entertainment. Mr. Hastings endeavors to invalidate the
first obliquely, not directly, for he never directly denied it; and he
partly admits the second, in hopes that all the proof of payment of the
first charge should be merged and confounded in the second. And
therefore your Lordships will see from the beginning of that business
till it came into the hands of Mr. Smith, his agent, then appearing in
the name and character of agent and solicitor to the Company, that this
was done to give some appearance and color to it by a false
representation, as your Lordships will see, of every part of the
transaction.

The proof, then, of the two lacs rests upon the evidence of Nundcomar,
the letter of Munny Begum, and the evidence of Rajah Gourdas. The
evidence of the lac and a half, by way of entertainment, was at first
the same; and afterwards begins a series of proofs to which Mr. Hastings
has himself helped us. For, in the first place, he produces this office
paper in support of his attempt to establish the confusion between the
payment of the two lacs and of the lac and a half. He did not himself
deny that he received a lac and a half, because with respect to that lac
and a half he