fact with respect to
these provinces, and of the vigor, perseverance and sagacity of those
who have forced from him that discovery. It is not, therefore, for me to
say that the 100,000_l._ and 95,000_l._ only were taken. Where the
circumstances entitle me to go on, I must not be stopped, but at the
boundary where human nature has fixed a barrier.

You have now before you the true reason why he did not choose that this
affair should come before a court of justice. Rather than this exposure
should be made, he to-day would call for the mountains to cover him: he
would prefer an inquiry into the business of the three seals, into
anything foreign to the subject I am now discussing, in order to keep
you from the discovery of that gross bribery, that shameful peculation,
that abandoned prostitution and corruption, which he has practised with
indemnity and impunity to this day, from one end of India to the other.

At the head of the only account we have of these transactions stands
Dinagepore; and it now only remains for me to make some observations
upon Mr. Hastings's proceedings in that province. Its name, then, and
that money was taken from it, is all that appears; but from whom, by
what hands, by what means, under what pretence it was taken, he has not
told you, he has not told his employers. I believe, however, I can tell
from whom it was taken, and I believe it will appear to your Lordships
that it must have been taken from the unhappy Rajah of Dinagepore; and I
shall in a very few words state the circumstances attending, and the
service performed for it: from these you will be able to form a just
opinion concerning this bribe.

Dinagepore, a large province, was possessed by an ancient family, the
last of which, about the year 1184 of their era, the Rajah Bija Naut,
had no legitimate issue. When he was at the point of death, he wished to
exclude from the succession to the zemindary his half-brother, Cantoo
Naut, with whom he had lived upon ill terms for many years, by adopting
a son. Such an adoption, when a person has a half-brother, as he had, in
my poor judgment is not countenanced by the Gentoo laws. But Gunga
Govind Sing, who was placed, by the office he held, at the head of the
registry, where the records were kept by which the rules of succession
according to the custom of the country are ascertained, became master of
these Gentoo laws; and through his means Mr. Hastings decreed in favor
of the adoption. We find