Markham's moonshee, and
some clerk of Durbege Sing's employed in Mr. Markham's private
counting-house, in estimating revenues of a country.
The disposable revenue was still further reduced by the jaghires which
Mr. Hastings granted, but to what amount does not appear. He mentions
the increase in the revenue by the confiscation of the estates of the
Baboos, who had been in rebellion. This he rates at six lacs. But we
have inspected the accounts, we have examined them with that sedulous
attention which belongs to that branch of the legislature that has the
care of the public revenues, and we have not found one trace of this
addition. Whether these confiscations were ever actually made remains
doubtful; but if they were made, the application or the receipt of the
money they yielded does not appear in any account whatever. I leave your
Lordships to judge of this.
But it may be said that Hastings might have been in an error. If he was
in an error, my Lords, his error continued an extraordinary length of
time. The error itself was also extraordinary in a man of business: it
was an error of account. If his confidential agent, Mr. Markham, had
originally contributed to lead him into the error, he soon perceived it.
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