1782. You find
mystery and concealment in every one of Mr. Hastings's discoveries. For
(which is a curious part of it) this letter was not sent to the Court of
Directors in their packet regularly, but transmitted by Major Fairfax,
one of his agents, to Major Scott, another of his agents, to be
delivered to the Company. Why was this done? Your Lordships will judge,
from that circuitous mode of transmission, whether he did not thereby
intend to leave some discretion in his agent to divulge it or not. We
are told he did not; but your Lordships will believe that or not,
according to the nature of the fact. If he had been anxious to make this
discovery to the Directors, the regular way would have been to send his
letter to the Directors immediately in the packet: but he sent it in a
box to an agent; and that agent, upon due discretion, conveyed it to the
Court of Directors. Here, however, he tells you nothing about the
persons from whom he received this money, any more than he had done
respecting the two former sums.

On the 2d of May following the date of this Patna letter he came down to
Calcutta with a mind, as he himself describes it, greatly agitated. All
his hope of plundering Benares had totally failed. The produce of the
robbing of the Begums, in the manner your Lordships have heard, was all
dissipated to pay the arrears of the armies: there was no fund left. He
felt himself agitated and full of dread, knowing that he had been
threatened with having his place taken from him several times, and that
he might be called home to render an account. He had heard that
inquiries had begun in a menacing form in Parliament; and though at that
time Bengal was not struck at, there was a charge of bribery and
peculation brought against the Governor of Madras. With this dread, with
a mind full of anxiety and perturbation, he writes a letter, as he
pretends, on the 22d of May, 1782. Your Lordships will remark, that,
when he came down to Calcutta from his expedition up the country, he did
not till the 22d of May give any account whatever of these
transactions,--and that this letter, or pretended letter, of the 22d of
May was not sent till the 16th of December following. We shall clearly
prove that he had abundant means of sending it, and by various ways,
before the 16th of December, 1782, when he inclosed in another letter
that of the 22d of May. This is the letter of discovery; this is the
letter by which his breast was to be laid o