to which they belong. This is the substance, the principle, and the
spirit of the covenants, and will show your Lordships how radicated an
evil this of bribery and presents was judged to be.

When these covenants arrived in India, the servants refused at first to
execute them,--and suspended the execution of them, till they had
enriched themselves with presents. Eleven months elapsed, and it was not
till Lord Clive reached the place of his destination that the covenants
were executed: and they were not executed then without some degree of
force. Soon afterwards the treaty was made with the country powers by
which Sujah ul Dowlah was reëstablished in the province of Oude, and
paid a sum of 500,000_l._ to the Company for it. It was a public
payment, and there was not a suspicion that a single shilling of private
emolument attended it. But whether Mr. Hastings had the example of
others or not, their example could not justify his briberies. He was
sent there to put an end to all those examples. The Company did
expressly vest him with that power. They declared at that time, that the
whole of their service was totally corrupted by bribes and presents, and
by extravagance and luxury, which partly gave rise to them, and these,
in their turn, enabled them to pursue those excesses. They not only
reposed trust in the integrity of Mr. Hastings, but reposed trust in his
remarkable frugality and order in his affairs, which they considered as
things that distinguished his character. But in his defence we have him
quite in another character,--no longer the frugal, attentive servant,
bred to business, bred to book-keeping, as all the Company's servants
are; he now knows nothing of his own affairs, knows not whether he is
rich or poor, knows not what he has in the world. Nay, people are
brought forward to say that they know better than he does what his
affairs are. He is not like a careful man bred in a counting-house, and
by the Directors put into an office of the highest trust on account of