In all likelihood, extraordinary
expedients were necessary; but the causes which induced this necessity
ought to be more fully inquired into; for the last step in a series of
conduct may be justifiable upon principles that suppose great blame in
those which preceded it.
After your Committee had made the foregoing observations upon the plan
of Mr. Hastings and his colleagues, transmitted to the Court of
Directors, an extract of the Madras Consultations was a few days ago
laid before us. This extract contains a letter from the Governor-General
and Council of Bengal to the Presidency of Fort St. George, which
affords a very striking, though to your Committee by no means an
unexpected, picture of the instability of their opinions and conduct. On
the 8th of April the servants had regularly formed and digested the
above-mentioned plan, which was to form the basis for the investment of
their own fortunes, and to furnish the sole means of the commercial
existence of their masters. Before the 10th of the following May, which
is the date of their letter to Madras, they inform Lord Macartney that
they had fundamentally altered the whole scheme.
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