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and may expose your affairs to all the ruinous consequences of personal malevolence, both here and at home. This he gives you as son why he will not prosecute the inquiry into abuses abroad-because he is afraid that you should punish him at home for doing his duty abroad that it will expose him to malevolence at home; and therefore to avoid being subject to malevolence at home, he would not do his duty abroad.

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He follows this with something that is perfectly extraordinary; he desires, instead of doing his duty, (which he declares it is impossible to do,) that he may be invested with an arbitrary power. I refer your Lordships to pages 2827, 2828 and 2829 of the printed Minutes, where you will find the system of his government to be formed upon a resolution not to use any one legal means of punishing corruption, or for the prevention of corruption; all that he desires, is to have an absolute arbitrary power over the servants of the Company. There you will see, that arbitrary power for corrupt purposes over the servants of the Company, is the foundation of every part of his whole conduct, Remark what he says here; and then judge whether these inferences are to be eluded by any chicane.

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"In the charge of oppression, although sups ported by the cries of the people and the "most authentick representations, it is yet im"possible, in most cases, to obtain legal proofs

of it; and unless the discretionary power "which I have recommended, be somewhere

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lodged, the assurance of impunity from any "formal inquiry will baffle every order of the "Board; as, on the other hand, the fear of the consequences will restrain every man within "the bounds of his duty, if he knows himself "liable to suffer by the effects of a single "controul."

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My Lords, you see two things most material for you to consider in the judgment of this great cause, which is the cause of nations. The first thing for you to consider, is the declaration of the culprit at your Bar, that a person may be pursued by the cries of a whole people; that documents, the most authentick and satisfactory, but deficient in technical form, may be produced against him; in short, that he may be guilty of the most enormous crimes, and yet that legal proofs may be wanting. This shows you how seriously you ought to consider, before you reject any proof upon the idea that it is not technical legal proof. To this assertion of Mr. Hastings I oppose, however, the opinion of a

gentleman

gentleman who sits near his side, Mr. Sumner, which is much more probable.

Mr. Hastings says, that the power of the Council is not effectual against the inferior servants, that is too weak to coerce them. With much more truth Mr. Sumner has said in his Minute, you might easily coerce the inferior servants; but that the dread of falling upon persons in high stations discourages and puts an end to complaint-I quote the recorded authority of the gentleman near him, as being of great weight, in the affairs of the Company, to prove, what is infinitely more probable, the falsehood of Mr. Hastings's assertion, that an inferior servant cannot be coerced; and that they must riot, with impunity, in the spoils of the people."

But we will go to a much more serious part of the business; after desiring arbitrary power in this letter, he desires a perpetuation of it. And here he has given you a description of a bad governour, to which I must call your attention, as your Lordships will find it, in every part of his proceeding, to be exactly applicable to himself and to his own government.

"The first command of a state so extensive "as that of Bengal, is not without opportunities " of private emoluments; and although the "allowance

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