Mr. Hastings had no right, in order
to clear himself of peculation, to criminate the majority with faction.
No member of any body, outvoted on a question, has, or can have, a right
to direct any part of his public conduct by that principle. The members
of the Council had a common superior, to whom they might appeal in their
mutual charges of faction: they did so frequently; and the imputation of
faction has almost always been laid on Mr. Hastings himself.
But there were periods, very distinguished periods too, in the records
of the Company, in which the clandestine taking of money could not be
supported even by this pretence. Mr. Hastings has been charged with
various acts of peculation, perpetrated at a time he could not excuse
himself by the plea of any public purpose to be carried on, or of any
faction in council by which it was traversed. It may be necessary here
to recall to the recollection of the House, that, on the cry which
prevailed of the ill practices of the Company's servants in India,
(which general cry in a great measure produced the Regulating Act of
1773,) the Court of Directors, in their instructions of the 29th of
March, 1774, gave it as an injunction to the Council-General, that "they
_immediately_ cause the _strictest_ inquiry to be made into _all_
oppressions which may have been committed either against natives or
Europeans, and into _all_ abuses which may have prevailed in the
collection of the revenues or _any part of the civil government_ of the
Presidency; and that you communicate to us _all information_ which you
may be able to obtain relative thereto, or any embezzlement or
dissipation of the Company's money.
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