The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 09 (of 12). Edmund Burke

sum in gross, in which no circumstance of time, place, occasion, or person, nor even the amount, is specified, tends to cover or protect any act of the same nature (as far as a general confession can protect such acts) which may be detected hereafter, and which in fact may not make part of the gross sum so confessed, and that it tends to perplex and defeat all inquiry into such practices.—That the said Warren Hastings, in stating to the Directors that he has resolved to reimburse himself in a mode the most suitable to the situation of their affairs, viz., by receiving money privately against law, has stated a presumption highly injurious to the integrity of the said Directors, viz., that they will not object to, or even inquire into, any extraordinary expenses incurred and charged by their Governors in India, provided such expenses are reimbursed by money privately and illegally received. That he has not explained what that situation of their affairs was or could be to which so dangerous and corrupt a principle was or might be applied.—That no evidence has been produced to prove that it was true, nor any ground of argument stated to show that it might be credible, that any native of India had voluntarily and gratuitously given money privately to the said Warren Hastings, that is, without some prospect of a benefit in return, or some dread of his resentment, if he refused. That it is not a thing to be believed, that any native would give large sums privately to a Governor, which he refused to give or lend publicly to government, unless it were to derive some adequate secret advantage from the favor, or to avoid some mischief from the enmity of such Governor.—That the late confessions made by the said Warren Hastings of money received against law are no proof that he did not originally intend to appropriate the same to his own use, such confessions having been made at a suspicious moment, when, and not before, he was apprised of the inquiries commenced in the House of Commons, and when a dread of the consequence of those inquiries might act upon his mind. That such confessions, from the obscure, intricate, and contradictory manner in which they are made, imply guilt in the said Warren Hastings, as far as they go; that they do not furnish any color of reason to conclude that he has confessed all the money which he may have corruptly received; but that, on the contrary, they warrant a just and reasonable presumption, that, in discovering some part of the bribes he had received, he hoped to lull suspicion, and thereby conceal and secure the rest.

      That the Court of Directors, when the former accounts of these transactions came before them, did show an evident disposition not to censure the said Warren Hastings, but to give the most favorable construction to his conduct; that, nevertheless, they found themselves obliged "to confess that the statement of those transactions appeared to them in many parts so unintelligible, that they felt themselves under the necessity of calling on the Governor-General for an explanation, agreeably to his promise voluntarily made to them." That their letter, containing this requisition, was received in Bengal in the month of August, 1784, and that the said Warren Hastings did not embark for England until the 2d of February, 1785, but made no reply to that letter before his departure, owing, as he has since said, to a variety of other more important occupations. That, under pretence of such occupations, he neglected to transmit to the Court of Directors a copy of a paper which, he says, contained the only account he ever kept of the transaction. That such a paper, or a copy of it, might have been transmitted without interrupting other important occupations, if any could be more important than that of giving a clear and satisfactory answer to the requisition of the Directors. That since his arrival in England he has written a letter to the chairman of that court, professedly in answer to their letter above mentioned, but in fact giving no explanation or satisfaction whatsoever on the points which they had declared to be unintelligible. That the terms of his letter are ambiguous and obscure, such as a guilty man might have recourse to in order to cover his guilt, but such as no innocent man, from whom nothing was required but to clear his innocence by giving plain answers to plain questions, could possibly have made use of. That in his letter of the 11th of July, 1785, he says, "that he has been kindly apprised that the information required as above was yet expected from him: that the submission which his respect would have enjoined him to pay to the command imposed on him was lost to his recollection, perhaps from the stronger impression which the first and distant perusal of it had left on his mind that it was rather intended as a reprehension for something which had given offence in his report of the original transaction than as expressive of any want of a further elucidation of it."2

      That the said Warren Hastings, in affecting to doubt whether the information expressly required of him by his employers was expected or not, has endeavored to justify a criminal delay and evasion in giving it. That, considering the importance of the subject, and the recent date of the command, it is not possible that it could be lost to his recollection; much less is it possible that he could have understood the specific demand of an answer to specific questions to be intended only as a reprehension for a former offence, viz., the offence of withholding from the Directors that very explanation which he ought to have given in the first instance. That the said Warren Hastings, in his answer to the said questions, cautiously avoids affirming or denying anything in clear, positive terms, and professes to recollect nothing with absolute certainty. That he has not, even now, informed the Directors of the name of any one person from whom any part of the money in question was received, nor what was the motive of any one person for giving the same. That he has, indeed, declared, that his motive for lending to the Company, or depositing in their treasury in his own name, money which he has in other places declared to be their property, was to avoid ostentation, and that lending the money was the least liable to reflection; yet, when he has stated these and other conjectural motives for his own conduct, he declares he will not affirm, though he is firmly persuaded, that those were his sentiments on the occasion. That of one thing only the said Warren Hastings declares he is certain, viz., "that it was his design originally to have concealed the receipt of all the sums, except the second, even from the knowledge of the Court of Directors, but that, when fortune threw a sum in his way of a magnitude which could not be concealed, and the peculiar delicacy of his situation at the time in which he received it made him more circumspect of appearances, he chose to apprise his employers of it." That the said Warren Hastings informs the Directors, that he had indorsed the bonds taken by him for money belonging to the Company, and lent by him to the Company, in order to guard against their becoming a claim on the Company, as part of his estate, in the event of his death; but he has not affirmed, nor does it anywhere appear, that he has surrendered the said bonds, as he ought to have done. That the said Warren Hastings, in affirming that he had not time to answer the questions put to him by the Directors, while he was in Bengal,—in not bringing with him to England the documents necessary to enable him to answer those questions, or in pretending that he has not brought them,—in referring the Directors back again to Bengal for those documents, and for any further information on a subject on which he has given them no information,—and particularly in referring them back to a person in Bengal for a paper which he says contained the only account he ever kept of the transaction, while he himself professes to doubt whether that paper be still in being, whether it be in the hands of that person, or whether that person can recollect anything distinctly concerning it,—has been guilty of gross evasions, and of palpable prevarication and deceit, as well as of contumacy and disobedience to the lawful orders of the Court of Directors, and thereby confirmed all the former evidence of his having constantly used the influence of his station for the most scandalous, illegal, and corrupt purposes.

      IX.—RESIGNATION OF THE OFFICE OF GOVERNOR-GENERAL

      That Warren Hastings having by his agent, Lauchlan Macleane, Esquire, on the 10th day of October, in the year 1776, "signified to the Court of Directors his desire to resign his office of Governor-General of Bengal, and requested their nomination of a successor to the vacancy which would be thereby occasioned in the Supreme Council," the Court of Directors did thereupon desire the said Lauchlan Macleane "to inform them of the authority under which he acted in a point of such very great importance"; and the said Lauchlan Macleane "signifying thereupon his readiness to give the court every possible satisfaction on that subject, but the powers with which he was intrusted by the papers in his custody being mixed with other matters of a nature extremely confidential, he would submit the same to the inspection of any three of the members of the court," the said Court of Directors empowered the Chairman, Deputy Chairman, and Richard Becher, Esquire, to inspect the authorities, powers, and directions

2

See his letter of the 11th of July, 1785, at the end of the Charges.