" The expectations
entertained by the Directors of a more complete explanation were
natural, and their expression tender and temperate. But the more
complete information which they naturally expected they never have to
this day received.
Mr. Hastings wrote two more letters to the Secret Committee of the Court
of Directors, in which he mentions this transaction: the first dated (as
he asserts, and a Mr. Larkins swears) on the 22d of May, 1782;[19] the
last, which accompanied it, so late as the 16th of December in the same
year.[20] Though so long an interval lay between the transaction of the
26th of June, 1780, and the middle of December, 1782, (upwards of two
years,) no further satisfaction is given. He has written, since the
receipt of the above letter of the Court of Directors, (which demanded,
what they had a right to demand, a clear explanation of the particulars
of this sum of money which he had no right to receive,) without giving
them any further satisfaction. Instead of explanation or apology, he
assumes a tone of complaint and reproach, to the Directors: he lays
before them a kind of an account of presents received, to the amount of
upwards of 200,000_l.
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