and sinister motives, as it would be to assume the power of dissolving if he had it not. I believe he is the first Governor that ever dissolved a council inquiring into his behaviour when he was innocent. Before he could summon three councils and dissolve them, he had time fully to consider what would be the result of such conduct, to convince every body beyond a doubt of his conscious guilt. "7th January, 1776. C. SAYER." If any doubt could remain on this subject from the transactions on which I have just commented, they would, however, be entirely removed by a consideration which arises from the subsequent conduct of Mr. Hastings, and which applies as well to the present hour as to the first day on which these accusations were preferred. -The observation is, that to the moment in which I am now addressing you, Mr. Hastings has never yet denied the principal facts contained in the charges of Nundcomar, although they have ever since in many shapes, and before various tribunals, been made matter of inquiry, reproach, and even prosecution against him. In his representations to the Directors of these transactions at the period at which they happened, which are contained in his letters of the 25th March and 16th May, 1775, and are printed in Appendix I, to the 11th Report of the Select Committee, you will find, Sir, no denial of Nundcomar's specific allegations. This is rendered the more remarkable by observing, that to some of the more general and less definite charges Mr. Hastings does make some reply. With regard to the specific charge of corruption which has been read, the Committee shall judge for itself of the answer made to it by Mr. Hastings. In his letter to the Court of Directors, dated 25th March, 1775, he says on this subject: "Those" (meaning those proceedings of the Board, and of the majority) "relating to the allegations of Rajah Nundcomar, have been committed to the hands of your attorney, for the purpose of commencing a suit at law against me, in the name of the Company, for the recovery of the sums said to have been received by me from Munny Begum, in the year 1772. I reserve my defence for the same channel; not choosing to give my adversaries an advantage by anticipating it, nor to bespeak your premature judgment on a cause thus depending." Mr. Hastings accordingly ad hered so strictly to this prudential and delicate reserve, that he not only declined communicating the grounds and materials of his defence, but he had even self-restraint enough to abstain from a simple denial of the facts, although it is difficult to perceive in what manner the mere denial of an accusation, and a general plea of not guilty can prejudice a subsequent trial, or betray any dangerous information to an adversary, and although silence in such circumstances is commonly enough interpreted to be an acquiesence in the charge, and a tacit confession of consciousness and guilt. I would entreat the members of the Committee to peruse the whole of this letter, which, with its enclosures, is not a short one, and to watch carefully for any one positive denial of Nundcomar's charge. The Committee will find Mr. Hastings does enter on the most important of these charges, namely, that of a large bribe taken for the appointments of Munny Begum, and of Rajah Goordass to their great offices; and he refers to former proceedings for an account of his motives on those occasions, and to experience for their propriety. Can any one read these paragraphs without expecting at every line a clear and explicit assertion that he is innocent of the facts imputed to him? And is it possible to resist the conclusion suggested to the most unwilling mind by the perpetual disappointment in this natural expectation? In lieu of this plain proposition, the Committee will find that which seldom fails to be substituted when the former is wanting-I mean general professions of character and principles." Foiled" (says he) " in all their repeated attacks upon me, my adversaries have recourse to the charge of rapacity; a charge of all others the most foreign to my nature." How much force would have been added to this declaration of his own purity, if it had been followed by this short sentence! The charge is not only foreign to my nature, but false in point of fact, and I call on my accuser to prove it if he can. Instead of this method of answering a positive accusation of specific facts, Mr. Hastings subjoins an argument to prove the improbability of his guilt. The Committee may judge of the validity even of that argument by turning to that part of the letter. It consists of three instances in which he says he did his duty, notwithstanding the opportunities they afforded for peculation. Not to dispute the facts in these cases, which, however, were not under conisderation at the time, ceremony? To the charge of corruption, and admitting them to be exactly as stated coming in this authorative way, and reby himself in his own cause, I must fairly ferring to a number of particular and cirsay that the only certain conclusion, I can cumstantial facts, Mr. Hastings replies not draw from them is, the facility, which, one syllable; but he assures the Court of Mr. Hastings informs the Directors, at- Directors that he will show the misinfortended the grossest and most abandoned mation of the majority, as to the amount corruptions. For such are those, which of his fortune, by a declaration of his own he not only takes credit for not practising, on that subject; and that declaration is but his abstinence from which he considers not subjoined; but the misrepresentation, as an answer to other positive charges; even of that fact, is to wait for its rectifiand as sufficient compurgations, as it were, cation, not to any definite time, however of all other accusations. Nundcomar ac- remote, but till the Court of Directors cuses him of having taken a bribe from may think proper to express a desire of Munny Begum. This he does not deny; knowing it."" The amount of my fortune but he says that he did not take one from shall be faithfully declared to your honourthe great Mogul; concerning whom there able Court, whenever you may think proper was no mention at the time. It is as much to express a desire of knowing it: it will as if one indicted for robbing A. B. should afford you a strong proof how greatly the plead that he had been so honest as not to informations of the majority differ from rob C. D. although he had met him in the fact." Such, Sir, is the answer, and the dusk. The Committee will find the same whole answer made to the charges of reserve used in the subsequent letter of Nundcomar at the time. Let the ComMr. Hastings to the Court of Directors on mittee, next, turn to the answer put in by this subject, dated 16 May, 1775. This Mr. Hastings to these very charges, at letter professes to be an answer, para- the bar of this House, for they make part graph by paragraph, to a letter addressed of the articles of impeachment against by the majority to the Court of Directors, him; it will be found that no denial of and is written in columns, placing the these facts has even yet been hazardedparagraphs of the majority on one side, Sir, am I rash, then, in saying the facts and his own answers on the other. The were true? In asserting that Mr. Haslast paragraph, which he undertakes to tings did receive a large sum from the answer, is this: "Whatever might have Munny Begum, contrary to law, contrary been his motive," (meaning the motives to the clear letter, spirit, and understandof Nundcomar) his discoveries have ing of his covenants with the Company, I thrown a clear light upon the honourable shall neither be contradicted by a word Governor-general's conduct, and the that has ever fallen, as yet, from the pen means he has taken of making the very of Mr. Hastings, or of any of his advolarge fortune he is said to possess of up-cates, nor do I fear a contradiction, even wards of forty lacks of rupees, which he must have amassed in two years and a half." There is here conveyed, to their common masters the Court of Directors a pretty clear and intelligible charge against the Governor-general by three members of the Supreme Council, that he had amassed a large fortune, by the peculations described in Nundcomar's accusation-What part of this charge would any member of this Committee think the most material, and be the most impatient to deny? To what part of it is one's expectation of a reply naturally led by the precise and correct form, in which the respective accusations and answers are opposed to each other? Is it the sum, at which his fortune is estimated, or the charge of acquiring it by corruption, that makes the substance of the paragraph, for the refutation of which he prepares us with so much now, from any of that description, in whose presence I speak. Sir, I know, I am not now impeaching Mr. Hastings, nor is it of itself a desirable thing for me to implicate other causes with my own, and to unite and confederate more adversaries than I am of necessity engaged with. But it is a material and substantial point of my own cause to show clearly the relative situation of Mr. Has. tings and Nundcomar at that period; because a main point of my charge against sir Elijah Impey hinges on the influence and connexion of these circumstances with the subsequent trial and fate of Nundcomar. My proposition then, is this: That Nundcomar had brought a grave and specific accusation against Mr. Hastings in the Supreme Council, the members of which were competent to examine it, and had actually engaged in the inquiry. That | rence between his necessities and the opevery circumstance in the conduct and portune events, which followed, without behaviour of Mr. Hastings on the occa- ascribing the one to the other, without sion demonstrates his guilt, his dread of considering the one as cause and the investigation, and his determination to other as effect; nor do I believe the huavoid a trial. That a conviction of the man mind capable of so difficult an abcrimes imputed to him, involved, of ne- straction, as to separate the trial of Nundcessity, the ruin of his fortune, his situacomar for forgery, from his accusation tion, and his character. That no expe- against the Governor-general for corrupdient remained to extricate him from this tion. The internal evidence furnished by pressing and impending peril, but the the facts themselves is so powerful, and suppression in one way or other of Nund- to me I confess so irresistible, that it seems comar's evidence. That the suppression neither to require the confirmation of of that evidence had become impossible express testimony, nor capable of yielding by any other means than the removal of to the most express contradiction-It is the witness, than the destruction of Nund- my duty, however, to advert to that part comar. That Mr. Hastings and Nund- of the evidence received by the Commitcomar could no longer both exist in tee, which bears on this subject-The evisafety, and that the death of the accuser dence, which applies to this part of the was become the last refuge of the ac- case, was given by Mr. Farrer, a member cused. of this Committee, and, as I shall have occasion to submit to you some observations, which require an attentive consideration of this part of Mr. Farrer's testimony, the most satisfactory way of entering on the subject will be to read, from your minutes, the passage on which I am to comment; and I shall begin with the very first words of his examination. Mr. Farrer was asked, "When did you go to India?" "And Mr. Farrer having desired to state to the Committee what he knew on the matter of the said charge, "He was asked, Such, Sir, is the situation of the parties resulting from the narrative and the documents I have laid before you. With this key to the subsequent events, let us see what ensued-Nundcomar has accused Mr. Hastings-Mr. Hastings has not denied the charge, but has exerted every means in his power, legal or not, to prevent examination. The Council has proceeded in spite of his opposition, and the result of their inquiries has been a resolution of the Board to institute a suit against Mr. Hastings on the matter of these very charges, and to bring it to public investigation in a court of law-Mr. Hastings has not yet advanced a "Will you please to give the Commitstep in the open and usual mode of defence tee the information you possess relative to against an accusation-Thus stand the the matter of the first article of charge exparties. Observe, Sir, what follows-Inhibited against sir Elijah Impey. this very instant, in this crisis of affairs, "I arrived in Calcutta two or three the next thing we see is Nundcomar as- days previous to the arrival of the judges sailed at once by no less than three pro-appointed to carry into execution the secutions in the Supreme Court-One in the name of Mr. Hastings himself, as the avowed prosecutor, aiming at the credit and character of Nundcomar; another at the instance of his associate Mr. Barwell; and a third, striking directly at his life, at the instance of one whom Nundcomar had stated two months before as his inveterate enemy, and as having become, on that account, the late guest and companion of Mr. Hastings. Sir, I affirm that no man, not immediately connected with the guilty party, has ever yet been capable of viewing all the circumstances which preceded and accompanied this prosecution, of considering the relative situation of the parties, the peril and urgent condition of Mr. Hastings, and then the singular concur[VOL. XXVII.] appointment of a Supreme Court of Judi- -Some little mitted advocates as well as myself-I was applied to before I had been a month in Calcutta, by Mr. James Driver, who had before been an attorney in the Mayor's Court, and who had been admitted an attorney in the Supreme Court. Mr. Driver stated to me the matter in dispute between Mohun Pershaud, as the attorney of Gungabissen, one of the executors of Bollakee Doss Seat on the one part, and Rajah Nundcomar on the other.-He told me, that there then was before the Dewannee Adaulet a suit proceeding between those parties, and to the best of my recollection, that he himself was concerned in it; but it appeared from the information he had received from his client, that Nundcomar, though proceeded against in a civil suit in that Court, had committed a forgery-That he had advised his client to proceed criminally against him as for a forgery-by his client I mean Mohun Pershaud-and that Mohun Pershaud had acquiesced in that advice-That all the papers of the late Bollakee Doss Seat were then in deposit in the Mayor's Court That in order to enable him to prefer a bill of indictment as for a forgery, it was necessary that he should first of all possess himself of the original instrument charged to be forged-That he had accordingly, in March 1774, moved to have all these original papers, amongst which was the instrument in question, delivered to him, or to his client-but that the motion had been refused-and that the Mayor's Court had only offered him attested copies, to make such use of as he should think proper-That an attested copy would by no means answer his purpose, of preferring a Bill of indictment; and that, therefore, he had been prevented from proceeding further in that mode at that time-This information of Mr. Driver's is confirmed by part of the evidence taken in the printed trial, and at which I was present in the Supreme Court when it was taken from the records in the Mayor's Court. Mr. Farrer then read an extract from the printed trial of Nundcomar-page 86, as follows: "25th March, 1774. "Mr. Driver, attorney for Gungabissen, read a petition from him, stating, that by order of the Court, all the papers belonging to the estate of Bollakee Doss were deposited in the Court, among which were twenty-eight bonds, receipts, and vouchers; that he had commenced suits in the Dewannee Adaulet, and wanted the said bonds, receipts, and other vouchers, in order to stablish the same; and praying,, that they may be delivered to him, giving the usual receipt for the same. The Court deferred the consideration of the said petition till next courtday.-Ordered, That an officer of the said Dewannee Adaulet be permitted to attend at the Register's-office to inspect the books, papers, and vouchers aforesaid." Then Mr. Farrer said, "The officer of the Dewannee Adaulet was allowed to inspect them, but Mr. Driver was not allowed the papers themselves. "Thus the matter rested when Mr. Driver consulted me-He told me that the Mayor's Court had not been so entirely free from influence as could have been wished, when proceeding against men of a certain description, such as Nundcomar, but that now, that a more independent court was come out, he should advise his client to authorize him to instruct me to make the same motion before the Supreme Court of Judicature, to wit, for the original papers-that he had himself made before without effect in the Mayor's Court-accordingly I was instructed, and did move on the 25th of January, 1775." It is unnecessary to trouble the Committee with reading, verbatim, the motions of Mr. Farrer, and the orders of the Supreme Court on this subject, and all that it is material to know is, that, on the 25th January, 1775, Mr. Farrer, in compliance with Mr. Driver's instructions, made an application to the Supreme Court for the delivery of these papers, from the registry of the late Mayor's Court to Gungabissen; and that, after some time passed in proceedings on this application, Mr. Farrer did obtain from the Supreme Court, on the 24th March, 1775, a peremptory order for the delivery of the papers within one month from that day. It appears, accordingly, from the evidence of Mr. Sealy, at the trial, that the papers were delivered to Gungabissen about the 27th April. Mr. Farrer after reading these proceedings in the Supreme Court, continued his own testimony, and said, "I hold in my hand an attested copy by Mr. Tolfree, the under sheriff, of the warrant of commitment of Nundcomar, dated the 6th May, 1775-The papers were ordered to be delivered within one month after the 24th March, 1775." Mr. Farrer accordingly read the warrant, which was + dated, as he had said, on the 6th May, 1775. lation, given by Mr. Farrer, of the proceedings in the Supreme Court relative to The Committee is now in possession of the papers of Bollakee Doss, farther tends the whole of the evidence, applicable to to account for the commencement of the the point we were considering. There is prosecution against Nundcomar taking no doubt that this evidence, if perused place just at the critical period in which hastily, and accepted without considera- it occurred. For it would appear that the tion of many material circumstances which prosecutor could not sooner obtain posrelate to it, will appear to affect the pro- session of the materials which were necesposition of a connexion between the in- sary to render the prosecution effectual, dictment of Nundcomar, and his accusa- and that he commenced the proceeding as tion of Mr. Hastings, which is suggested soon as he was furnished with those mateby the transactions themselves, such as I rials; which, although it happened just in have faithfully related them from the only the midst of the struggle between Mr. materials of which any person, except Mr. Hastings and Nundcomar, cannot, howFarrer and Mr. Driver, seems to have ever, be necessarily ascribed to that cirbeen possessed. For the Committee must cumstance, since the course of the proobserve that this early intention of indict- ceedings themselves did naturally detering Nundcomar for forgery was never sug- mine the date of the prosecution, and gested to the world, till Mr. Farrer ac- brings its commencement precisely to the quainted this Committee with the commu-week, on which it happened. This I take nication between Mr. Driver and him on the subject. It was never suspected by me, and I will give the Committee, by-andbye, reasons which appear to me conclusive, for believing, that it never reached Mr. Hastings, nor sir Elijah Impey, nor any one of their numerous friends and defenders. This matter, on the contrary, so immediately affecting a capital point both in the trial of Nundcomar, and in the subsequent imputations on the characters of the Governor-general, and the Chief Justice, for their shares in that proceeding, was not only never adduced at the trial, when the very point, to which it applies, was in question, and the information was possessed by the attorney for the prosecution, whose cause it would have served, but has been locked up in the breast of that attorney, a profound secret to the hour of his death, and has been carried with him undivulged to the grave Let us see, however, in what manner it applies to this subject. The effect of the conversation, related by Mr. Farrer, undoubtedly, is, to show, that an intention to indict Nundcomar for the forgery existed, before the delivery of his charges against Mr. Hastings; those charges having been presented to the Council on the 11th March, 1775, whereas, according to the account of Mr. Driver, he had advised Mohun Pershaud to prosecute for the forgery by indictment, Mohun Pershaud had assented to his proposal, and some steps preparatory to that proceeding had been Laken as early as March 1774, a year before Nundcomar had preferred his accusation against Mr. Hastings. The re to be, as strongly as I am able to state it, the full import of any advantage, to be derived by sir Elijah Impey, from the evidence of Mr. Farrer on this point. I must entreat of the Committee an attentive consideration of a few remarks which I have to offer on this evidence, and I must begin by hoping that, in the observations which I think it my duty to make on this matter, the honourable member, Mr. Farrer, to whom the Committee is so much indebted for the important information he has communicated, cannot suspect me of calling in doubt, for a moment, the veracity of his evidence, nor even its correctness, beyond the uncertainty which must ever attend the recollection of conversations at a great distance of time, which have not been preserved by any written memorial taken at the period when they happened, nor recurred to even by the memory, probably for an interval of several years. The Committee will see that the whole rests in the case on the credit, not of Mr. Farrer, but of Mr. Driver. Mr. Farrer has related to us the substance of what Mr. Driver said to him in a conversation some time in the month of November, 1774. It is, therefore, the communication made by Mr. Driver to Mr. Farrer, and not that made by Mr. Farrer to this Committee, on which I have occasion to make some remarks. I cannot, however, refrain from pointing out to the Committee an example, afforded here by Mr. Farrer, of the extreme delicacy attending evidence which consists in a precise recollection of distant conversations. There is a nicety in this instance, |