The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke

demanded and received by him, and, for aught that yet appears, have never been given up or
cancelled. That for another considerable part of the above-mentioned sum he has taken
credit to himself, as for a deposit of his own property, and therefore demandable by him out
of the Company's treasury at his discretion. That all sums so lent or deposited are not
alienated from the person who lends or deposits the same; consequently, that the declaration
made by the said Warren Hastings, that he had converted the whole of these sums to the
Company's property, was not true. Nor would such a transfer, if it had really been made,
have justified the said Warren Hastings in originally receiving the money, which, being in
the first instance contrary to law, could not be rendered legal by any subsequent disposition
or application thereof; much less would it have justified the said Warren Hastings in
delaying to make a discovery of these transactions to the Court of Directors until he had
heard of the inquiries then begun and proceeding in Parliament, in finally making a
discovery, such as it is, in terms the most intricate, obscure, and contradictory. That, instead
of that full and clear explanation of his conduct which the Court of Directors demanded,
and which the said Warren Hastings was bound to give them, he has contented himself with
telling the said Directors, that, "if this matter was to be exposed to the view of the public,
his reasons for acting as he had done might furnish a variety of conjectures to which it
would be of little use to reply; that he either chose to conceal the first receipts from public
curiosity by receiving bonds for the amount, or possibly acted without any studied design
which his memory could at that distance of time verify; and that he could have concealed
them from their eye and that of the public forever." That the discovery, as far as it goes,
establishes the guilt of the said Warren Hastings in taking money against law, but does not
warrant a conclusion that he has discovered all that he may have taken; that, on the
contrary, such discovery, not being made in proper time, and when made being imperfect,

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