ought to have been left to the parties who best knew and understood each others proceedings. It was not neceffary that the authority of government fhould interpose in favour of claims, whofe very foundation was a defiance of that authority, and whofe object and end was its entire sub-verfion. It may be said that this letter was written by the nabob of Arcot in a moody humour, under the influence of fome chagrin. Certainly it was; but it is in fuch humours that truth comes out. And when he tells you from his own knowledge, what every one must prefume, from the extreme probability of the thing, whether he told it or not, one fuch testimony is worth a thousand that contradict that probability, when the parties have a better understanding with each other, and when they have a point to carry, that may unite them in a common deceit. If this body of private claims of debt, real or devised, were a question, as it is falfely pretended, between the nabob of Arcot as debtor, and Paul Benfield and his affociates as creditors, I am fure I should give myself but little trouble about it. If the hoards of oppreffion were the fund for fatisfying the claims of bribery and peculation, who would wish to interfere between fuch litigants? If the demands were confined to what might be drawn from the treasures which the company's records uniformly affert that the nabob is in poffeffion of; or if he had mines of gold or filver, or diamonds (as we know that he has none) these gentlemen might break open his hoards, or dig in his mines, without any difturbance from me. But the gentlemen on the other fide of the house know as well as I do, and they dare not contradict me, that the nabob of Arcot and his creditors are not adverfaries, but collufive parties, and that the whole tranfaction is under a falfe colour and false names. The litiga tion is not, nor ever has been, between their rapacity and his hoarded riches. No; it is between him and them combining and confederating on one fide, and the public revenues, and the miserable inhabitants of a ruined country, on the other. These are the real plaintiffs and the real defendants in the fuit. Refusing a fhilling from his hoards for the fatisfaction of any demand, the nabob of Arcot is always ready, nay, he earnestly, and with eagerness and paffion, contends for delivering up to these pretended creditors his territory and his fubjects. It is therefore not from treasuries and mines, but from the food of your unpaid armies, from the blood withheld from the veins, and whipt out of the backs of the most miserable of men, that we are to pamper extortion, ufury, and peculation, under the false names of debtors and creditors of state. The great patron of these creditors (to whofe honour they ought to erect ftatues) the right honourable gentleman*, in stating the merits which recommended them to his favour, has ranked them under three grand divifions. The first, the creditors of 1767; then the creditors of the cavalry loan; and lastly, the creditors of the loan in 1777. Let us examine them, one by one, as they pass in review before us. The first of these loans, that of 1767, he infists, has an indifputable claim upon the public juftice. The creditors, he affirms, lent their money publicly; they advanced it with the exprefs knowledge and approbation of the company; and it was contracted at the moderate interest of ten per cent. In this loan the demand is, according to him, not only just, but meritorious in a very high degree; and one would be inclined to believe he thought fo, because he has put it last in the provision he has made for these claims. VOL. II. * Mr. Dundas. I readily I readily admit this debt to stand the fairest of the whole; for whatever may be my fufpicions concerning a part of it, I can convict it of nothing worse than the most enormous ufury. But I can convict upon the spot the right honourable gentleman, of the most daring misrepresentation in every one fact, without any exception, that he has alledged in defence of this loan, and of his own conduct with regard to it. I will fhew you that this debt was never contracted with the knowledge of the company; that it had not their approbation; that they received the firft intelligence of it with the utmoft poffible furprize, indignation, and alarm. So far from being previously apprized of the transaction from its origin, that it was two years before the court of directors obtained any official intelligence of it. "The "dealings of the fervants with the nabob were concealed "from the first, until they were found out," (fays Mr. Sayer, the company's council)" by the report of the coun"try." The prefidency, however, at laft thought proper to fend an official account. On this the directors tell them, "to your great reproach it has been concealed from us. "We cannot but fufpect this debt to have had its weight "in your propofed aggrandizement of Mahomed Ali [the na"bob of Arcot]; but whether it has or has not, certain it ❝is, you are guilty of an high breach of duty in concealing ❝ it from us." Thefe expreffions, concerning the ground of the transaction, its effect, and its clandeftine nature, are in the letters, bearing date March 17, 1769. After receiving a more full account on the 23d March, 1770, they state, that "Meffrs. "John Pybus, John Call, and James Bourchier, as trustees "for themselves and others of the nabob's private creditors, "had proved a deed of affignment upon the nabob and his "fon "fon of FIFTEEN diftricts of the nabob's country, the "revenues of which yielded, in time of peace, eight lacks "of pagodas [L. 320,000, fterling] annually; and likewife an affignment of the yearly tribute paid the nabob from "the rajah of Tanjore, amounting to four lacks of rupees “[£. 40,000].” The territorial revenue, at that time poffeffed by these gentlemen, without the knowledge or confent of their masters, amounted to three hundred and fixty thousand pounds fterling annually. They were making rapid ftrides to the entire poffeffion of the country, when the directors, whom the right honourable gentleman ftates as having authorised these proceedings, were kept in such profound ignorance of this royal acquifition of territorial revenue by their fervants, that in the fame letter they say, "this affignment was obtained by three of the members of 66 your board, in January 1767, yet we do not find the least "trace of it upon your confultations, until August 1768, nor "do any of your letters to us afford any information relative "to fuch tranfactions, till the 1ft of November 1768. By "your last letters of the 8th of May 1769, you bring the "whole proceedings to light in one view.” As to the previous knowledge of the company, and its fanction to the debts, you fee that this affertion of that knowledge is utterly unfounded. But did the directors approve of it, and ratify the tranfaction when it was known? The very reverse. On the fame 3d of March, the directors declare, " upon an impartial examination of the whole conduct "of our late governor and council of Fort George (Madras) "and on the fulleft confideration, that the faid governor ❝and council have, in notorious violation of the trust repofed ❝in them, manifeftly preferred the intereft of private indi"viduals to that of the company, in permitting the affignment "of the revenues of certain valuable districts, to a very large ❝ amount, 3 M 2 66 "amount, from the nabob to individuals"-and then highly aggravating their crimes, they add "we order and direct "that you do examine, in the most impartial manner, all "the above-mentioned tranfactions; and that you punish by "fufpenfion, degradation, difmiffion, or otherwise, as to 66 you shall seem meet, all and every such servant or fer"vants of the company, who may by you be found guilty "of any of the above offences." "We had (fay the direc❝tors) the mortification to find that the fervants of the "company, who had been raised, fupported, and owed their "present opulence to the advantages gained in such service, "have in this inftance most unfaithfully betrayed their truft, "abandoned the company's intereft, and prostituted its in"fluence to accomplish the purposes of individuals, whilft "the intereft of the company is almost wholly neglected, and payment to us rendered extremely precarious." Here then is the rock of approbation of the court of directors, on which the right honourable gentleman fays this debt was founded. Any member, Mr. Speaker, who fhould come into the house, on my reading this fentence of condemnation of the court of directors against their unfaithful fervants, might well imagine that he had heard an harsh, fevere, unqualified invective against the present ministerial board of control. So exactly do the proceedings of the patrons of this abuse tally with those of the actors in it, that the expreffions used in the condemnation of the one, may ferve for the reprobation of the other, without the change of a word. To read you all the expreffions of wrath and indignation fulminated in this dispatch against the meritorious creditors of the right honourable gentleman, who according to him have been fo fully approved by the company, would be to read the whole. The |