"
The apology is brief indeed, considering the nature of the transaction;
and what is more material than its length or its shortness, it is in all
points unsatisfactory. The matter becomes, if possible, more obscure by
his explanation. Here was money received by Mr. Hastings, which,
according to his own judgment, he had no right to receive; it was money
which, "but for the occasion that prompted him, he could not have
accepted"; it was money which came into his, and from his into the
Company's hands, by ways and means undescribed, and from persons
unnamed: yet, though apprehensive of false conclusions and purposed
misrepresentations, he gives his employers no insight whatsoever into a
matter which of all others stood in the greatest need of a full and
clear elucidation.
Although he chooses to omit this essential point, he expresses the most
anxious solicitude to clear himself of the charges that might be made
against him, of the artifices of ostentation, and of corrupt influence.
To discover, if possible, the ground for apprehending such imputations,
your Committee adverted to the circumstances in which he stood at the
time: they found that this letter was dispatched about the time that
Mr.
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