issue between us. In taking a view of the laws, by which you are to judge, I shall beg leave to state to you upon what principles of law the House of Commons has criminated him, and upon what principles of law, or pretended law, he justifies himself; for these are the matters at issue between us: the matters of fact, as I have just said, being determined, either by confession on his part, or by proof on ours.

My Lords, we acknowledge that Mr. Hastings was invested with discretionary power, but we assert, that he was bound to use that power according to the established rules of political morality, humanity, and equity. In all questions relating to foreign powers, he was bound to act under the law of nature and under the law of nations, as it is recognised by the wisest authorities in publick jurisprudence. In his relation to this country, he was bound to act according to the laws and statutes of Great Britain, either in their letter or in their spirit, and we affirm, that in his relation to the people of India, he was bound to act according to the largest and most liberal construction of their laws, rights, usages, institutions, and good customs; and we furthermore assert, that he was under an express obligation to yield implicit obedience to the Court of Directors. It is upon these rules and principles the Commons contend, that Mr. Hastings ought

to

to have regulated his government; and not only Mr. Hastings, but all other governours. It is upon these rules that he is responsible, and upon these rules, and these rules only, your Lordships are to judge.

My Lords, long before the Committee had resolved upon this impeachment, we had come, as I have told your Lordships, to forty-five resolutions, every one criminatory of this man, every one of them bottomed upon the principles which I have stated. We never will, nor can we abandon them; and we therefore do not supplicate your Lordships upon this head, but claim and demand of right, that you will judge him. upon those principles, and upon no other. If once they are evaded, you can have no rule for your judgment but your caprices and partialities.

Having thus stated the principles upon which the Commons hold him and all governours responsible, and upon which we have grounded our impeachment, and which must be the grounds of your judgment, (and your Lordships will not suffer any other ground to be mentioned to you,) we will now tell you what are the grounds of his defence.

He first asserts, that he was possessed of an arbitrary and despotick power, restrained by no laws but his own will. He next says, that "the " rights

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"rights of the people he governed in India are "nothing, and that the rights of the govern"ment are every thing." The people, he asserts, have no liberty, no laws, no inheritance, no fixed property, no descendable estate, no subordinations in society, no sense of honour, or of shame; and that they are only affected by punishment so far as punishment is a corporal infliction; being totally insensible of any dif ference between the punishment of man and beast. These are the principles of his Indian government, which Mr. Hastings has avowed in their full extent. Whenever precedents are required, he cites and follows the example of avowed tyrants, of Ali Verdi Khan, Cossim Ali Khan, and Sujah Dowlah. With an avowal of these principles he was pleased first to entertain the House of Commons, the active asserters and conservators of the rights, liberties, and laws of his country; and then to insist upon them more largely and in a fuller detail before this awful tribunal, the passive judicial conservator of the same great interests. He has brought out these blasphemous doctrines in this great Temple of Justice, consecrated to Law and Equity for a long series of ages. He has brought them forth in Westminster Hall, in presence of all the Judges of the land, who are to execute the law, and of the House of Lords, who are bound as its guardians

not

not to suffer the words " arbitrary power," to be mentioned before them. For I am not again to tell your Lordships, that arbitrary power is treason in the law; that to mention it with law, is to commit a contradiction in terms. They cannot exist in concert; they cannot hold together for a moment.

Let us now hear what the prisoner says, "The "sovereignty, which they [the Soubahdars, or "Viceroys of the Mogul Empire] assumed, it fell "to my lot, very unexpectedly, to exert; and "whether or not such power, or powers of that "nature, were delegated to me by any provisions "of any Act of Parliament I confess myself too "little of a lawyer to pronounce. I only know, "that the acceptance of the sovereignty of Be

nares, &c. is not acknowledged or admitted

by any Act of Parliament; and yet, by the "particular interference of the majority of the "Council, the Company is clearly and indis

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putably seized of that sovereignty. If, there

fore, the sovereignty of Benares, as ceded to "us by the Vizier, have any rights whatever an"nexed to it, (and be not a mere empty word "without meaning) those rights must be such as "are held, countenanced, and established by the "law, custom, and usage of the Mogul Empire, "and not by the provisions of any British Act "of Parliament hitherto enacted. Those rights, " and

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"and none other, I have been the involuntary "instrument of enforcing. And if any future. "Act of Parliament shall positively, or by im

plication, tend to annihilate those very rights, "or their exertion, as I have exerted them, I "much fear, that the boasted sovereignty of "Benares, which was held up as an acquisition "almost obtruded on the Company against my "consent and opinion, (for I acknowledge, "that even then I foresaw many difficulties "and inconveniences in its future exercise ;) "I fear, I say, that this sovereignty will be "found a burden instead of a benefit, a heavy clog rather than a precious gem to its

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present possessors; I mean, unless the whole "of our territory in that quarter shall be "rounded and made an uniform compact body

by one grand and systematick arrangement; "such an arrangement as shall do away all "the mischiefs, doubts, and inconveniences,

(both to the governours and the governed)

arising from the variety of tenures, rights, " and claims in all cases of landed property "and feudal jurisdiction in India, from the "informality, invalidity, and instability of all

engagements in so divided and unsettled a "state of society; and from the unavoidable anarchy and confusion of different laws, religions, and prejudices, moral, civil, and poli