This letter is addressed to the Honorable the Court of Directors, dated Fort William, 22d May, 1782. He tells them he had promised to account for the ten lacs of rupees which he had received, and this promise, he says, he now performs, and that he takes that opportunity of accounting with them likewise for several other sums which he had received. His words are,--
"This promise I now perform, and, deeming it consistent with the spirit of it, I have added such other sums as have been occasionally converted to the Company's property through my means, in consequence of the like original destination. Of the second of these sums you have already been advised in a letter which I had the honor to address the Honorable Court of Directors, dated 29th November, 1780. Both this and the third article were paid immediately to the treasury, by my order to the sub-treasurer to receive them on the Company's account, but never passed through my hands. The three sums for which bonds were granted were in like manner paid to the Company's treasury, without passing through my hands, but their _application_ was not specified. The sum of 50,000 current rupees was received while I was on my journey to Benares, and applied as expressed in the account.
"As to the manner in which these sums have been expended, the reference which I have made of it in the accompanying account, to the several accounts in which they are credited, renders any other specification of it unnecessary,--_besides_ that these accounts either have or will have received a much stronger authentication than any that I could give to mine."
I wish your Lordships to attend to the next paragraph, which is meant by him to explain why he took bribes at all,--why he took bonds for some of them, as moneys of his own, and not moneys of the Company,--why he entered some upon the Company's accounts, and why of the others he renders no account at all. Light, however, will beam upon you as we proceed.
"Why these sums were taken by me,--why they were, except the second, quietly transferred to the Company's use,--why bonds were taken for the first, and not for the rest,--might, were this matter exposed to the view of the public, furnish a variety of conjectures, to which it would be of little use to reply. Were your Honorable Court to question me on these points, I would answer, that the sums were taken for the Company's benefit, at times when the Company very much needed them,--that I either chose to conceal the first receipts from public curiosity by receiving bonds for the amount, or possibly acted without any studied design which my memory could at this distance of time verify, and that I did not think it worth my care to observe the same means with the rest. I trust, Honorable Sirs, to your breasts for a candid interpretation of my actions,--and assume the freedom to add, that I think myself, on such a subject, on such _an occasion_, entitled to it."