Your Committee have shown to the House, by
a comparison of facts and dates, that this charge is wholly without
foundation. But if the cause of Colonel Camac's failure had been true as
to the sum which was the object of the public demand, the failure could
not be attributed to the Rajah, when he had on the _instant_ privately
furnished at least 23,000_l._ to Mr. Hastings,--that is, furnished the
identical money which he tells us (but carefully concealing the name of
the giver) he had from the beginning destined, as he afterwards publicly
offered, for this very expedition of Colonel Camac's. The complication
of fraud and cruelty in the transaction admits of few parallels. Mr.
Hastings at the Council Board of Bengal displays himself as a zealous
servant of the Company, bountifully giving from his own fortune, and in
his letter to the Directors (as he says himself) as going out of the
ordinary roads for their advantage;[22] and all this on the credit of
supplies derived from the gift of a man whom he treats with the utmost
severity, and whom he accuses, in this particular, of disaffection to
the Company's cause and interests.
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