My Lord Suffolk told me, that, in a conversation with the late Lord
Dover, who brought the prisoner's petition into your House, he could not
refrain from expressing his astonishment at that part of the petition
which related to the expense Mr. Hastings had been at; and particularly
as a complaint had been made in the House of the enormous expense of the
prosecution, which at that time had only amounted to fourteen thousand
pounds, although the expense of the prosecutor is generally greater than
that of the defendant, and public proceedings more expensive than
private ones. Lord Dover said, that, before he presented the petition,
he had felt exactly in the same manner; but that Mr. Hastings assured
him that six thousand pounds had been paid to copying clerks in the
India House, and that from this circumstance he might judge of the other
expenses. Lord Dover was satisfied with this assurance, and presented
the petition, which otherwise he should have declined to do, on account
of the apparent enormity of the allegation it contained. At the time
when Lord Suffolk informed me of these particulars, (with a good deal of
surprise and astonishment,) I had not leisure to go down to the India
House in order to make inquiries concerning them, but I afterwards asked
the Secretary, Mr.
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