interest, as they had themselves consented to do, with the fourth of the
capital, he has added the whole growth of four years' usury of twelve
per cent to the first overgrown principal; and has again grafted on this
meliorated stock a perpetual annuity of six per cent, to take place from
the year 1781. Let no man hereafter talk of the decaying energies of
Nature. All the acts and monuments in the records of peculation, the
consolidated corruption of ages, the patterns of exemplary plunder in
the heroic times of Roman iniquity, never equalled the gigantic
corruption of this single act. Never did Nero, in all the insolent
prodigality of despotism, deal out to his prætorian guards a donation
fit to be named with the largess showered down by the bounty of our
Chancellor of the Exchequer on the faithful band of his Indian sepoys.

The right honorable gentleman[24] lets you freely and voluntarily into
the whole transaction. So perfectly has his conduct confounded his
understanding, that he fairly tells you that through the course of the
whole business he has never conferred with any but the agents of the
pretended creditors. After this, do you want more to establish a secret
understanding with the parties,--to fix, beyond a doubt, their collusion
and participation in a common fraud?

If this were not enough, he has furnished you with other presumptions
that are not to be shaken. It is one of the known indications of guilt
to stagger and prevaricate in a story, and to vary in the motives that
are assigned to conduct. Try these ministers by this rule. In their
official dispatch, they tell the Presidency of Madras that they have
established the debt for two reasons: first, because the Nabob (the
party indebted) does not dispute it; secondly, because it is mischievous
to keep it longer afloat, and that the payment of the European creditors
will promote circulation in the country. These two motives (for the