I must here state to your Lordships, that it was the duty of the
Resident to transact the money concerns of the Company, as well as its
political negotiations. You will now see how Mr. Hastings divided that
duty, after he became apprehensive that the Court of Directors might be
inclined to assert their own authority, and to assert it in a proper
manner, which they so rarely did. When, therefore, his passion had
cooled, when his resentment of those violent indignities which had been
offered to him, namely, the indignity of being put in mind that he had
any superior under heaven, (for I know of no other,) he adopts the
expedient of dividing the Residency into two offices; he makes a fair
compromise between himself and the Directors; he appoints Mr. Middleton
to the management of the money concerns, and Mr. Bristow to that of the
political affairs. Your Lordships see that Mr. Bristow, upon whom he had
fixed the disqualification for political affairs, was the very person
appointed to that department; and to Mr. Middleton, the man of his
confidence, he gives the management of the money transactions. He
discovers plainly where his heart was: for where your treasure is, there
will your heart be also. This private agent, this stifler of
correspondence, a man whose costive retention discovers no secret
committed to him, and whose slippery memory is subject to a diarrhoea
which permits everything he did know to escape,--this very man he places
in a situation where his talents could only be useful for concealment,
and where concealment could only be used to cover fraud; while Mr.
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