are not in the secret. The correspondence of those private agents he holds in his own hands, communicates as he thinks proper, but most commonly withholds. There remains nothing for the directors but the shell and husk of a dry, formal, official correspondence, which neither means any thing, nor was intended to mean any thing.

These are some of the methods, by which he has defeated the purposes of the excellent institution of a recorded administration. But there are cases to be brought before this court, in which he has laid the axe at once to the root; which was, by delegating out of his own hands a great department of the powers of the company, which he was himself bound to execute, to a board, which was not bound to record their deliberations with the same strictness as he himself was bound. He appointed of his own usurped authority a board for the administration of the revenue, the members of which were expressly dispensed from recording their dissents, until they chose it; and in that office, as in a great gulf, a most important part of the company's transactions has been buried.

Notwithstanding his unwearied pains in the work of spoliation, some precious fragments are left, which we ought infinitely to value; by which we may learn, and lament, the loss of what he has destroyed. If it were not for those inestimable fragments and wrecks of the recorded government, which have been saved from the destruction, which Mr. Hastings intended for them all, the most shameful enormities, that have ever disgraced a government, or harassed a people, would only be known in this country by secret whispers, and unauthenticated anecdotes: the disgracers of government, the vexers and afflicters of mankind, instead of being brought before an awful publick tribunal, might have been honoured with the highest distinctions and rewards their country has to bestow; and sordid bribery, base peculation, iron-handed extortion, fierce, unrelenting tyranny, might themselves have been invested with those sacred robes of justice, before which this day they have cause to tremble.

Mr. Hastings, sensible of what he suffers from this regis

ter of acts and opinions, has endeavoured to discredit and ruin what remains of it. He refuses, in his defence to the House of Commons, in letters to the court of directors, in various writings and declarations, he refuses to be tried by his own recorded declarations; he refuses to be bound by his own opinions, delivered under his own hand. He knows, that he and the record cannot exist together. He knows, that what remains of the written constitution, which he has not destroyed, is enough to destroy him. He claims a privilege of systematick inconstancy; a privilege of prevarication; a privilege of contradiction; a privilege of not only changing his conduct, but the principles of his conduct, whenever it suits his occasions. But I hope your lordships will show the destroyers of that wise constitution, and the destroyers of those records, which are to be the securities against malversation in office, the discoverers and avengers of it, that whoever destroys the discoverer establishes the iniquity; that, therefore, your lordships will bind him to his own declarations, given on record under his own hand; that you will say to this unfaithful servant of the company, what was said to another unfaithful person, upon a far less occasion, by a far greater authority, "out of thy own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant."

Having gone through what I have been instructed might be necessary to state to your lordships concerning the company's constitution, I mean the real inside, and not the shell, of its constitution; having stated the abuses, that existed in it; having stated how Mr. Hastings endeavoured to perpetuate and to increase and to profit of the abuse, and how he has systematically endeavoured to destroy, and has in some instances in fact destroyed, many things truly excellent in that constitution; if I have not wasted your time in explanation of matters, that you are already well acquainted with, I shall next beg leave to state to you the abuse in some particulars of the other part of the publick authority, which the company acquired over the natives of India in virtue of the royal charter of the present Mogul emperour, in the year 1766.

My lords, that you may the better judge of the abuse Mr.

Hastings has made of the powers vested in him, it will be expedient to consider a little, who the people are, to whose prejudice he has abused these powers. I shall explain this point with as much brevity as is consistent with the distinctness, with which I mean to bring the whole before your lordships; and I beg to observe to you, that this previous discourse, rather explanatory than accusatorial (if I may use the expression), is meant rather to elucidate the nature of the matter to come before you in regular charges, than as proof of the charges themselves.

I know, that a good deal of latitude is allowed to advocates, when opening a cause in a private court, to indulge themselves in their narratives leading to the charges they intend to bring. They are not always called to the strictest account for such prefatory matter, because the court, when it comes to judge, sifts and distinguishes it from the points to be strictly proved, and on whose merits the cause relies.

But I wish your lordships to know, that, with the high opinion I have of your gravity (and it is impossible for a man to conceive a higher), and sensible of the weight of those I represent at this place, namely, the Commons of Great Britain, I should be sorry, that any one substantial fact, even in this explanatory opening, or even the colour of the fact, should be alleged, which, when called upon, I should not be ready to make good to you by proof: I mean, by proof adapted to its nature; publick opinion by evidence of publick opinion; by record that, to which record is applicable; by oral testimony things, to which oral testimony alone can be produced; and last of all, that, which is matter of historick proof, by historick evidence. This I hope to do with the usual allowance to errours and mistakes, which is the claim of human infirmity.

Two

Then, my lords, two distinct people inhabit India. sorts of people inhabit the same country, as totally distinct from each other in characters, lives, opinions, prejudices, and manners, as the inhabitants of countries most remote from each other. For both of these descriptions Mr. Hastings was bound to provide equally, agreeable to the terms of the charter, which the company received from the lawful

governing power of that country;-a charter received at its own solicitation ;--a charter, not forced upon us by a superiour power, but given at the immediate solicitation of the principal servants belonging to the company;—a charter solemnly accepted by the company; and by them, I am very sorry to say, little regarded; or, at least, little regarded by their principal servants.

tûs. ty.

My lords, the first description of people, who are subjected virtually to the British empire through those mediums, which I have described to you, are the original inhabitants of Hindostan, who have in all time, and beyond all the eras, which we use, (I mean always the two grand eras excepted), been the aboriginal inhabitants and proprietors of that country; with manners, religion, customs, and usages appropriated to themselves, and little resembling those of the rest of mankind. This description of men is commonly called GenThe system and principle of that government is localiTheir laws, their manners, their religion, are all local. Their legislator, whoever he was (for who he was is a matter lost in the mists of a most obscure antiquity), had it as a great leading principle of his policy to connect the people with their soil. Accordingly, by one of those anomalies, which a larger acquaintance with our species daily discovers, and which perhaps an attentive reflection might explain in the nature of man, this aboriginal people of India, who are the softest in their manners of any of our race, approaching almost to feminine tenderness, who are formed constitutionally benevolent, and, in many particulars, made to fill a larger circle of benevolence than our morals take in, who extend their good-will to the whole animal creation ;these people are, of all nations, the most unalliable to any other part of mankind. They cannot-the highest orders of them, at least, cannot come into contact with any other. That bond, which is one of the chief instruments of society, and which, supporting the individual, connects the species, can have no existence with them-I mean the convivial bond. That race can be held to no other by that great link of life. No Hindû can mix at meals even with those, on whom he depends for the meat he eats. This circumstance

renders it difficult for us to enter with due sympathy into their concerns, or for them to enter into ours, even when we meet on the same ground. But there are other circumstances, which render our intercourse, in our mutual relaThe tion, very full of difficulty. The sea is between us. mass of that element, which, by appearing to disconnect, It is a great unites mankind, is to them a forbidden road. gulf fixed between you and them-not so much that elementary gulf, but that gulf, which manners, opinions and laws have radicated in the very nature of the people. None of their high casts, without great danger to his situation, religion, rank and estimation, can ever pass the sea; and this forbids, for ever, all direct communication between that That material and affecting circumstance, country and this. my lords, makes it ten times more necessary, since they all cannot come to us, to keep a strict eye upon persons, who go to them. It imposes upon us a stricter duty to guard, with a firm and powerful vigilance, those, whose principles of conscience weaken their principles of self-defence. If we undertake to govern the inhabitants of such a country, we must govern them upon their own principles We must not think to force and maxims, and not upon ours.

them into the narrow circle of our ideas; we must extend ours to take in their system of opinions and rites, and the necessities, which result from both; all change on their part is absolutely impracticable. We have more versatility of character and manners, and it is we, who must conform. We know what the empire of opinion is in human nature. I had almost said, that the law of opinion was human nature itself. It is, however, the strongest principle in the composition of the frame of the human mind; and more of the happiness and unhappiness of mankind resides in that inward principle, than in all external circumstances put together. But if such is the empire of opinion even amongst us, it has a pure, unrestrained, complete, and despotick The variety of balanced opinions in power amongst them. our minds weakens the force of each; for in Europe, sometimes, the laws of religion differ from the laws of the land; sometimes, the laws of the land differ from our laws of ho