Hastings must have pledged a tacit faith for some
degree of indulgence towards the donor: if it was a free gift,
gratitude, if it was a bargain, justice obliged him to do it. If, on the
other hand, Mr. Hastings originally destined (as he says he did) this
money, given to himself secretly and for his private emolument, to the
use of the Company, the Company's favor, to whom he acted as trustee,
ought to have been purchased by it. In honor and justice he bound and
pledged himself for that power which was to profit by the gift, and to
profit, too, in the success of an expedition which Mr. Hastings thought
so necessary to their aggrandizement. The unhappy man found his money
accepted, but no favor acquired on the part either of the Company or of
Mr. Hastings.
Your Committee have, in another Report, stated to the House that Mr.
Hastings attributed the extremity of distress which the detachments
under Colonel Camac had suffered, and the great desertions which ensued
on that expedition, to the want of punctuality of the Rajah in making
payment of one of the sums which had been extorted from him; and this
want of punctual payment was afterwards assigned as a principal reason
for the ruin of this prince.
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