Wheler [his only remaining colleague];
and I believe, but I do not positively recollect, you said he concurred
in them." But no trace of any such communication or concurrence did, at
the time referred to, or at any time ever after, appear on the
Consultations, as it ought to have done; and the said Hastings is
criminal for having omitted to enter and record the proceeding. That the
said Wheler did also declare, but a considerable time after the date of
the conversations aforesaid, that, "on the eve of the Governor-General's
departure, the said Hastings had told him that the Rajah's offences (not
stating what offences, he having paid up all the demands, ordinary and
extraordinary) _were declared_ to require early punishment; and as _his
wealth was great, and the Company's exigencies pressing_, it was thought
a measure of policy and of justice to exact from him a large pecuniary
mulct for their relief. The sum to which the Governor declared his
resolution to extend the fine was forty _or_ fifty lacs; his ability to
pay it was stated as a fact that could not admit of a doubt; and the two
alternatives on which the Governor declared himself to have resolved
were, to the best of my recollection, either a removal from his
zemindary entirely, or, by taking immediate possession of all his
forts, to obtain out of the treasure deposited in them the above sum for
the Company.
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