Dover said, that before he presented the petition he had felt exactly in the same manner; but that Mr. Hastings assured him, that £6,000 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. Hudson, to whom we had given a handsome reward, what sums he had received from Mr. Hastings, for his services upon this occasion; and the answer was 66 not one shilling! Not one shilling had Mr. Hudson received from Mr. Hastings. The clerks of the company informed us, that the court of directors had ordered, that every paper which Mr. Hastings wanted should be copied for him gratuitously; and that if any additional clerks were wanting for the effectual execution of his wishes, the expense would be defrayed by the directors. Hearing this account, I next inquired what expedition-money might have been given to the clerks, for we know something of this kind is usually done. In reply to this question, Mr. Hudson told me, that at various times they had received in little driblets to the amount of £95, or thereabouts. In this way the account stood when I made this inquiry, which was at least half a year after the petition had been presented to your lordships. Thus the whole story of the £6,000 was absolutely false. At that time there was not one word of truth in it, whatever be the amount of the sums which he has paid since. Your lordships will now judge, whether you have been abused by false allegations or not; allegations which could scarcely admit of being true, and which upon the best inquiry I found absolutely false and I appeal to the testimony of the noble lord, who is now living, for the truth of the account he re

ceived from the worthy and respectable peer, whose loss the nation has to bewail.

There are many other circumstances of fraud and falsehood attending this petition ;-(we must call things by their proper names, my lords,)- there are, I say, many circumstances of fraud and falsehood. We know it to have been impossible at the time of presenting this petition, that this man should have expended £30,000 in the preparation of materials for his defence, and your lordships' justice together with the credit of the House of Commons are concerned in the discovery of the truth. There, is indeed, an ambiguous word in the petition. He asserts, that he is engaged for the payment of that sum. We asked the clerks of the India House, whether he had given them any bond, note, security, or promise of payment; they assured us, that he had not: they will be ready to make the same assurance to your lordships, when you come to inquire into this matter, which before you give judgment we desire and claim that you will do. All is concealment and mystery on the side of the prisoner; all is open and direct with us. We are desirous that every thing which is concealed may be brought to light.

In contradiction then to this charge of oppression and of an attempt to ruin his fortune, your lordships will see, that at the time when he made this charge he had not been in fact, nor was for a long time after, one shilling out of pocket. But some other person had become security to his attorney for him.-What then are we to think of these men of business, of these friends of Mr. Hastings, who, when he is possessed of nothing, are contented to become responsible for £30,000? (Was it £30,000 out of the Bullock Contracts?) responsible I say for this sum, in order to maintain this suit previous to its actual commencement; and who consequently must be so engaged for every article of expense that has followed from that time to this.

Thus much we have thought it necessary to say upon this part of the recriminatory charge of delay. With respect to

the delay in general, we are at present under an account to our constituents upon that subject. To them we shall give it. We shall not give any further account of it to your lordships; the means belong to us as well as to you of removing these charges. Your lordships may inquire upon oath, as we have done in our committee, into all the circumstances of these. allegations; I hope your Lordships will do so, and will give the Commons an opportunity of attending and assisting at this most momentous and important inquiry.

The next recriminatory charge made upon us by the prisoner is, that merely to throw an odium upon him we have brought forward a great deal of irrelevant matter, (which could not be proved regularly in the course of examination at your bar ;) and particularly in the opening speech, which I had the honor of making on the subject.

Your lordships know very well, that we stated in our charge, that great abuses had prevailed in India: that the company had entered into covenants with their servants respecting those abuses: that an act of parliament was made to prevent their recurrence, and that Mr. Hastings still continued in their practice. Now, my lords, having stated this, nothing could be more regular, more proper, and more pertinent, than for us to justify both the covenants required by the company, and the act made to prevent abuses which existed in India. We therefore went through those abuses; we stated them, and were ready to prove every material word and article in them. Whether they were personally relevant or irrelevant to the prisoner, we cared nothing. We were to make out from the records of the House, (which records I can produce whenever I am called upon for them,) all these articles of abuse and grievance and we have stated these abuses as the grounds of the company's provisional covenants with its servants, and of the act of parliament. We have stated them under two heads, violence and corruption; for these crimes will be found, my lords, in almost every transaction with the native powers; and the prisoner is di

rectly or indirectly involved in every part of them. If it be still objected, that these crimes are irrelevant to the charge, we answer, that we did not introduce them as matter of charge. We say they were not irrelevant to the proof of the preamble of our charge, which preamble is perfectly relevant in all its parts. That the matters stated in it are perfectly true, we vouch the House of Commons; we vouch the very persons themselves, who were concerned in the transactions. When Arabic authors are quoted, and Oriental tales told about flashes of lightning and three seals, we quote the very parties themselves giving this account of their own conduct to a committee of the House of Commons.

Your lordships will remember, that a most reverend prelate, who cannot be named without every mark of respect and attention, conveyed a petition to your lordships, from a gentleman concerned in one of those narratives. Upon your lordships' table that petition still lies. For the production of this narrative we are not answerable to this House; your lordships could not make us answerable to him; but we are answerable to our own House, we are answerable to our own honor, we are answerable to all the Commons of Great Britain, for whatever we have asserted in their name. Accordingly, General Burgoyne, then a member of this committee of managers, and myself, went down into the House of Commons; we there restated the whole affair; we desired that an inquiry should be made into it, at the request of the parties concerned. But, my lords, they have never asked for inquiry from that day to this. Whenever he or they who are criminated, not by us, but in this volume of Reports that is in my hand, desire it, the House will give them all possible satisfaction upon the subject.

A similar complaint was made to the House of Commons by the prisoner, that matters irrelevant to the charge were brought up hither. Was it not open to him, and has he had no friends in the House of Commons, to call upon the House during the whole period of this proceeding, to examine into

the particulars adduced in justification of the preamble of the charge against him; in justification of the covenants of the company; in justification of the act of parliament? It was in his power to do it, it is in his power still; and if it be brought before that tribunal, to which I and my fellow managers are alone accountable, we will lay before that tribunal such matters as will sufficiently justify our mode of proceeding, and the resolution of the House of Commons. I will not, therefore, enter into the particulars, (because they cannot be entered into by your lordships,) any further than to say, that if we had ever been called upon to prove the allegations which we have made, not in the nature of a charge, but as bound in duty to this court, and in justice to ourselves, we should have been ready to enter into proof. We offered to do so, and we now repeat the offer.

There was another complaint in the prisoner's petition, which did not apply to the words of the preamble, but to an allegation in the charge, concerning abuses in the revenue, and the ill consequences which arose from them. I allude to those shocking transactions which nobody can mention without horror, in Rampore and Dinagepore, during the government of Mr. Hastings, and which we attempted to bring home to him. What did he do in this case? Did he endeavor to meet these charges fairly, as he might have done? No, my lords; what he said merely amounted to this;-examination into these charges would vindicate my reputation before the world; but "I, who am the guardian of my own honor, and my own interests," choose to avail myself of the rules and orders of this House, and I will not suffer you to enter upon that examination.

My lords, we admit you are the interpreters of your own. rules and orders. We likewise admit that our own honor may be affected by the character of the evidence which we produce to you. But, my lords, they who withhold their defence, who suffer themselves, as they say, to be cruelly criminated by unjust accusation, and yet will not permit the