mittees in the House of Commons) to believe, that there was in the India house a bond of iniquity, somewhere or other, which was able to impose in the first instance upon the solicitor, the guilt of which being of another nature I shall state hereafter, that your lordships may be able to discover, through whose means, and whose fraud, Mr. Hastings obtained these opinions.

If, however, all the great lawyers had been unanimous upon that occasion, still it would have been necessary for Mr. Hastings to say, I cannot, according to my opinion, be brought to give an account in a court of justice, and I have got great lawyers to declare, that upon the case laid before them they cannot advise a prosecution; but now is the time for me to come forward, and being no longer in fear, that my defence may be turned against me, I will produce my defence for the satisfaction of my masters, and the vindication of my own character. But besides this doubtful opinion, for I believe your lordships will find it no better than a doubtful opinion, given by persons, for whom I have the highest honour, and given with a strong censure upon the state of the case, there were also some great lawyers, men of great authority in the kingdom, who gave a full and decided opinion, that a prosecution ought to be instituted against him; but the court of directors decided otherwise, they over-ruled those opinions, and acted upon the opinions in favour of Mr. Hastings. When, therefore, he knew, that the great men in the law were divided upon the propriety of a prosecution, but that the directors had decided in his favour, he was the more strongly bound to enter into a justification of his conduct.

But there was another great reason, which should have induced him to do this; one great lawyer, known to many of your lordships, Mr. Sayer, a very honest intelligent man, who had long served the company, and well knew their affairs, had given an opinion concerning Mr. Hastings's conduct in stopping these prosecutions. There was an abstract question put to Mr. Sayer, and other great lawyers, separated from many of the circumstances of this business, concerning a point, which incidentally arose; and this was, whether

Mr. Hastings, as governour-general, had a power so to dissolve the council, that, if he declared it dissolved, they could not sit, and do any legal and regular act. It was a great question with the lawyers at the time, and there was a difference of opinion on it. Mr. Sayer was one of those, who were inclined to be of opinion, that the governour-general had a power of dissolving the council, and that the council could not legally sit after such dissolution: but what was his remark upon Mr. Hastings's conduct? and you must suppose his remark of more weight, because, upon the abstract question, he had given his opinion in favour of Mr. Hastings's judgment. "The meeting of the council depends on the pleasure of the governour; and I think the duration of it must do so too. But it was as great a crime to dissolve the council upon base and sinister motives, as it would be to assume the power of dissolving, if he had it not. I believe, he is the first governour, that ever dissolved a council inquiring into his behaviour, when he was innocent. Before he could summon three councils, and dissolve them, he had time fully to consider what would be the result of such conduct, to convince every body, beyond a doubt, of his conscious guilt."

Mr. Sayer, then, among other learned people (and if he had not been the man, that I have described, yet from his intimate connexion with the company his opinion must be supposed to have great weight) having used expressions as strong as the persons, who have ever criminated Mr. Hastings most for the worst of his crimes, have ever used to qualify and describe them, and having ascribed his conduct to base and sinister motives, he was bound upon that occasion to justify that strong conduct allowed to be legal, and charged, at the same time, to be violent. Mr. Hastings was obliged then to produce something in his justification: he never did. Therefore, for all the reasons assigned by himself, drawn from the circumstances of prosecution and non-prosecution, and from opinions of lawyers and colleagues; the court of directors at the same time censuring his conduct, and strongly applauding the conduct of those, who were adverse to him, Mr. Hastings was, I say, from those accumu

lated circumstances, bound to get rid of the infamy of a conduct, which could be attributed to nothing but base and sinister motives, and which could have no effect but to convince men of his consciousness, that he was guilty. From all these circumstances I infer, that no man could have endured this load of infamy, and, to this time, have given no explanation of his conduct, unless for the reason, which this learned counsel gives, and which your lordships, and the world will give, namely, his conscious guilt.

After leaving upon your minds that presumption, not to operate without proof, but to operate along with the proof (though, I take it, there are some presumptions, that go the full length of proof) I shall not press it to the length, to which I think it would go, but use it only as auxiliary, assisting, and compurgatory of all the other evidences, that go along with it.

There is another circumstance, which must come before your lordships in this business. If you find, that Mr. Hastings has received the two lacks of rupees, then you will find, that he was guilty, without colour or pretext of any kind whatever, of acting in violation of his covenant, of acting in violation of the laws, and all the rules of honour and conscience. If you find, that he has taken the lack and an half, which he admits, but which he justifies under the pretence of an entertainment, I shall beg to say something to your lordships concerning that justification.

The justification set up is, that he went up from Calcutta to Moorshedabad, and paid a visit of three months, and that there an allowance was made to him of two hundred pounds a day in lieu of an entertainment. Now, my lords, I leave it to you to determine, if there was such a custom, whether or no his covenant justifies his conformity with it. I remember Lord Coke, talking of the Brehon law in Ireland, says, it is no law but a lewd custom. A governour is to conform himself to the laws of his own country, to the stipulations of those, that employ them, and not to the lewd customs of any other country: those customs are more honoured in the breach than in the observance. If Mr. Hastings was really feasted and entertained with the magnifi

cence of the country, if there was an entertainment of dancing girls brought out to amuse him in his leisure hours, if he was feasted with the hooka and every other luxury, there is something to be said for him, though I should not justify a governour-general wasting his days in that manner. But in fact here was no entertainment, that could amount to such a sum; and he has no where proved the existence of such a

custom.

But if such a custom did exist, which I contend is more honoured in the breach than in the observance, that custom is capable of being abused to the grossest extortion; and that it was so abused, will strike your lordships' minds in such a manner, that I hardly need detail the circumstances of it. What! 200l. to be given to a man for one day's entertainment? If there is an end of it there, it ruins nobody, and cannot be supposed, to a great degree, to corrupt any body; but, when that entertainment is renewed, day after day, for three months, it is no longer a compliment to the man, but a great pecuniary advantage; and, on the other hand, to the person giving it, a grievous, an intolerable burden. It then becomes a matter of the most serious and dreadful extortion, tending to hinder the people who give it, not only from giving entertainment, but from having bread to eat themselves. Therefore, if any such entertainment was customary, the custom was perverted by the abuse of its being continued for three months together. It was longer than Ahasuerus's feast. There is a feast of reason and a flow of soul; but Mr. Hastings's feast was a feast of avarice, and a flow of money: no wonder he was unwilling to rise from such a table; he continued to sit at that table for three months.

In his covenant he is forbidden expressly to take any allowance above 400l. and forbidden to take any allowance above 100l. without the knowledge, consent, and approbation of the council to which he belongs :-now, he takes 16,000l. not only without the consent of the council, but without their knowledge; without the knowledge of any other human being: it was kept hid in the darkest and most secret recesses of his own black agents and confidants, and

those of Munny Begum. Why is it a secret? Hospitality, generosity, virtues of that kind, are full of display; there is an ostentation, a pomp in them; they want to be shown to the world, not concealed. The concealment of acts of charity is what makes them acceptable in the eyes of Him, with regard to whom there can be no concealment but acts of corruption are kept secret, not to keep them secret from the eye of Him, whom the person, that observes the secrecy, does not fear, nor perhaps believe in; but to keep them secret from the eyes of mankind, whose opinions he does fear in the immediate effect of them, and in their future consequences. Therefore, he had but one reason to keep this so dark and profound a secret, till it was dragged into day in spite of him; he had no reason to keep it a secret, but his knowing it was a proceeding, that could not bear the light. Charity is the only virtue, that I ever heard of, that derives from its retirement any part of its lustre; the others require to be spread abroad in the face of day. Such candles should not be hid under a bushel, and, like the illuminations, which men light up when they mean to express great joy and great magnificence for a great event, their very splendour is a part of their excellence. We upon our feasts light up this whole capital city we in our feasts invite all the world to partake them. Mr. Hastings feasts in the dark; Mr. Hastings feasts alone; Mr. Hastings feasts like a wild beast; he growls in the corner over the dying and the dead, like the tigers of that country, who drag their prey into the jungles. Nobody knows of it, till he is brought into judgment for the flock he has destroyed. His is the entertainment of Tantalus; it is an entertainment from which the sun hid his light.

On

But was it an entertainment upon a visit? Was Mr. Hastings upon a visit? No; he was executing a commission for the company in a village in the neighbourhood of Moorshedabad, and by no means upon a visit to the nabob. the contrary, he was upon something, that might be more properly called a visitation: he came as a heavy calamity, like a famine or a pestilence on a country; he came there to do the severest act in the world, as he himself expresses, to take the bread-literally the bread, from about a thou