The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 09 (of 12) by Edmund Burke
page 38 of 440 (08%)
page 38 of 440 (08%)
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_certain_, viz., "that it was his design originally to have _concealed_
the receipt of all the sums, except the second, even from the knowledge of the Court of Directors, but that, when fortune threw a sum in his way of a magnitude _which could not be concealed_, and the peculiar delicacy of his situation at the time in which he received it made him more circumspect of appearances, he _chose_ to apprise his employers of it." That the said Warren Hastings informs the Directors, that he had indorsed the bonds taken by him for money belonging to the Company, and lent by him to the Company, _in order to guard against their becoming a claim on the Company, as part of his estate, in the event of his death_; but he has not affirmed, nor does it anywhere appear, that he has surrendered the said bonds, as he ought to have done. That the said Warren Hastings, in affirming that he had not time to answer the questions put to him by the Directors, while he was in Bengal,--in not bringing with him to England the documents necessary to enable him to answer those questions, or in pretending that he has not brought them,--in referring the Directors back again to Bengal for those documents, and for any further information on a subject on which he has given them no information,--and particularly in referring them back to a person in Bengal for a paper which he says contained the _only_ account he ever kept of the transaction, while he himself professes to doubt whether that paper _be still in being_, whether _it be in the hands_ of that person, or whether that person _can recollect anything distinctly concerning it_,--has been guilty of gross evasions, and of palpable prevarication and deceit, as well as of contumacy and disobedience to the lawful orders of the Court of Directors, and thereby confirmed all the former evidence of his having constantly used the influence of his station for the most scandalous, illegal, and corrupt purposes. |
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