The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke

did so; but if he had, I believe it would only have made the thing so many degrees worse.
Your Lordships will observe, that, in this conference, as stated by himself, these reasons
and apologies for it did not appear, nor did they appear in the letter, nor anywhere else, till
next year, when he came upon his trial. Then it was immediately recollected that Mr.
Holwell's designs were so wicked they certainly must be known to the Nabob, though he
never mentioned them in the conference of the morning or the evening of the 15th; yet such
was now the weight and prevalence of them upon the Major's mind, that he calls upon Mr.
Hastings to know whether the Nabob was not informed of these designs of Mr. Holwell
against him. Mr. Hastings's memory was not quite correct upon the occasion. He does not
recollect anything of the matter. He certainly seems not to think that he ever mentioned it to
the Nabob, or the Nabob to him; but he does recollect, he thinks, speaking something to
some of the Nabob's attendants upon it, and further this deponent sayeth not. On this state
of things, namely, the purity of intention, the necessities of the Company, the propriety of
keeping the Nabob in perfect good-humor and removing suspicions from his mind, which
suspicions he had never expressed, they came to the resolution I shall have the honor to
read to you: "That the representation, given in the said defence, of the state of the affairs of
the country at that time" (that is, about the month of April, 1760) "is true and just" (that is,
the bad state of the country, which we shall consider hereafter); "that, in such
circumstances, the Nabob's urgent account of his own distresses, the Colonel's desire of
making him easy," (for here is a recapitulation of the whole defence,) "as the first thing
necessary for the good of the service, and the suddenness of the thing proposed, might
deprive him for a moment of his recollection, and surprise him into a measure which, as to
the measure itself, he could not approve. That such only were the motives which did or
could influence Colonel Calliaud to assent to the proposal is fully evinced by the deposition

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