Major Calliaud should set his seal to the agreement. This proposition was made to an English commander; what discourse happened upon it is uncertain. Mr. Hastings is stated by some evidence to have acted as interpreter in this memorable congress. But Major Calliaud agreed to it without any difficulty. Accordingly an instrument was drawn, an indenture tripartite prepared by the Persian secretary, securing to the party the reward of this infamous, perfidious, murderous act. First, the nabob put his own seal to the murder. The nabob's son, Meeran, affixed his seal. A third seal, the most important of all, was yet wanting. pause ensued: Major Calliaud's seal was not at hand; Mr. Lushington was sent near half a mile to bring it. It was brought at length; and the instrument of blood and treachery was completely executed. Three seals were set

to it.

A but

This business of the three seals, by some means not quite fully explained, but (as suspected by the parties) by means of the information of Mr. Holwell, who soon after came home, was conveyed to the ears of the court of directors. The court of directors wrote out, under date of the 7th of October 1761, within a little more than a year after this extraordinary transaction, to this effect :-that, in conjunction with the nabob, Major Calliaud had signed a paper, offering a reward of a lack of rupees, or some such sum, to several black persons for the assassination of the shâh zadda, or prince heir apparent; which paper was offered to the then chief of Patna, to sign; but which he refused on account of the infamy of the measure. As it appeared in the same light to them, the directors, they ordered a strict inquiry into it. The India company, who here did their duty with apparent manliness and vigour, were resolved, however, to do it with gentleness, and to proceed in a manner, that could not produce any serious mischief to the parties charged; for they directed the commission of inquiry to the very clan and set of people, who, from a participation in their common offences, stood in awe of one another; in effect, to the parties in the transaction. Without a prosecutor, without an impartial director of the inquiry, they left it substan

tially to those persons to try one another for their common acts. Here I come upon the principle, which I wish most strongly to mark to your lordships; I mean collusive trials, and collusive acquittals. When this matter came to be examined, according to the orders of the court, which was on the 4th of October 1762, the council consisted of Peter Maguire, Warren Hastings, and Hugh Watts. Mr. Hastings had by this time accomplished the business of resident with the nabob, and had taken his seat, to which his seniority entitled him, in council. Here a difficulty arose in limine. Mr. Hastings was represented to have acted as interpreter in this business; he was therefore himself an object of the inquisition; he was doubtful as evidence; he was disqualified as a judge. It likewise appeared, that there might be some objection to others, whose evidence was wanting, but who were themselves concerned in the guilt. Mr. Lushington's evidence would be useful, but there were two circumstances rather unlucky. First, he had put the seal to the instrument of murder; and secondly, and what was most material, he had made an affidavit at Patna, whilst the affair was green and recent, that he had done so; and in the same affidavit had deposed, that Warren Hastings was interpreter in that transaction. Here were difficulties both on him and Mr. Hastings. The question was, how to get Mr. Hastings, the interpreter, out of his interpretation, and to put him upon the seat of judgment. It was effected, however, and the manner, in which it was effected, was something curious. Mr. Lushington, who by this time was got completely over, himself tells you, that in conferences with Major Calliaud, and by arguments and reasons by him delivered, he was persuaded to unsay his swearing, and to declare, that he believed, that the affidavit, which he made at Patna, and while the transaction was recent, or nearly recent, must be a mistake; that he believed (what is amazing indeed for any belief) that not Mr. Hastings, but he himself, interpreted. Mr. Lushington completely loses his own memory, and he accepts an offered, a given memory, a memory supplied to him by a party in the transaction. By this operation all difficulties are removed; Mr. Hastings is at once put into

the capacity of a judge. He is declared by Mr. Lushington not to have been an interpreter in the transaction. After this, Mr. Hastings is himself examined. Your lordships will look at the transaction at your leisure, and I think you will consider it as a pattern for inquiries of this kind. Mr. Hastings is examined: he does not recollect. His memory also fails on a business, in which it is not easy to suppose a man could be doubtful whether he was present or not: he thinks he was not there; for that, if he had been there and acted as interpreter, he could not have forgot it.

I think it is pretty nearly as I state it; if I have fallen into any errour or inaccuracy it is easily rectified; for here is the state of the transaction given by the parties themselves. On this inaccurate memory of Mr. Hastings, not venturing, however, to say positively, that he was not the interpreter, or that he was not present, he is discharged from being an accomplice; he is removed from the bar, and leaps upon the seat of justice. The court thus completed, Major Calliaud comes manfully forward to make his defence. Mr.. Lushington is taken off his back in the manner we have seen, and no one person remains but Captain Knox. Now, if Captain Knox was there and assenting, he is an accomplice too. Captain Knox asserts, that, at the consultation about the murder, he said, it was a pity to cut off so fine a young fellow in such a manner, meaning that fine young fellow the prince, the descendant of Tamerlane, the present reigning Mogul, from whom the company derive their present charter. The purpose to be served by this declaration, if it had any purpose, was, that Captain Knox did not assent to the murder, and that therefore his evidence might be valid.

The defence set up by Major Calliaud was to this effect. He was apprehensive, he said, that the nabob was alarmed at the violent designs, that were formed against him by Mr. Holwell; and that therefore to quiet his mind (to quiet it by a proposition compounded of murder and treason, an odd kind of mind he had, that was to be quieted by such means!) but to quiet his mind, and to show, that the English were willing to go all lengths with him, to sell body and soul to

him, he did put his seal to this extraordinary agreement, he put his seal to this wonderful paper. He likewise stated, that he was of opinion at the time, that nothing at all sinister could happen from it, that no such murder was likely to take place, whatever might be the intention of the parties. In fact, he had very luckily said, in a letter of his written a day after the setting the seal, "I think nothing will come of this matter, but it is no harm to try." This experimental treachery, and these essays of conditional murder, appeared to him good enough to make a trial of; but at the same time he was afraid nothing would come of it. In general, the whole gest of his defence comes to one point, in which he persists, that, whatever the act might be, his mind is clear my hands are guilty, but my heart is free." He conceived, that it would be very improper, undoubtedly, to do such an act, if he suspected any thing could happen from it; he, however, let the thing out of his own hands; he put it into the hands of others; he put the commission into the hands of a murderer. The fact was not denied-it was fully before these severe judges. The extenuation was the purity of his heart, and the bad situation of the company's affairs, (the perpetual plea, which your lordships will hear of for ever, and which if it will justify evil actions, they will take good care, that the most nefarious of their deeds shall never want a sufficient justification.) But then he calls upon his life and his character to oppose to his seal; and though he has declared, that Mr. Holwell had intended ill to the nabob, and that he approved of those measures, and only postponed them, yet he thought it necessary, he says, to quiet the fears of the nabob; and from this motive he did an act abhorrent to his nature, and which, he says, he expressed his abhorrence of the morning after he signed it: not that he did so; but if he had, I believe it would only have made the thing so many degrees worse. Your lordships will observe, that in this conference, as stated by himself, these reasons and apologies for it did not appear, nor did they appear in the letter, nor any where else, till next year when he came upon his trial. Then it was immediately recollected, that Mr. Holwell's designs were so wick

He cer

ed, they certainly must be known to the nabob, though he never mentioned them in the conference of the morning or the evening of the 15th; yet such was now the weight and prevalence of them upon the Major's mind, that he calls upon Mr. Hastings to know whether the nabob was not informed of these designs of Mr. Holwell against him. Mr. Hastings's memory was not quite correct upon the occasion. He does not recollect any thing of the matter. tainly seems not to think, that he ever mentioned it to the nabob, or the nabob to him; but he does recollect, he thinks, speaking something to some of the nabob's attendants upon it, and further this deponent sayeth not. On this state of things, namely, the purity of intention, the necessities of the company, the propriety of keeping the nabob in perfect good humour and removing suspicions from his mind, which suspicions he had never expressed, they came to the resolution, I shall have the honour to read to you: "that the representation, given in the said defence, of the state of the affairs of the country at that time (that is, about the month of April 1760) is true and just, [that is, the bad state of the country, which we shall consider hereafter;] that, in such circumstances, the nabob's urgent account of his own distresses, the colonel's desire of making him easy, [for here is a recapitulation of the whole defence] as the first thing necessary for the good of the service, and the suddenness of the thing proposed, might deprive him for a moment of his recollection, and surprise him into a measure, which, as to the measure itself, he could not approve. That such only were the motives, which did or could influence Colonel Calliaud to assent to the proposal, is fully evinced by the deposition of Captain Knox and Mr. Lushington, that his (Calliaud's) conscience, at the time, never reproached him with a bad design."

Your lordships have heard of the testimony of a person to his own conscience; but the testimony of another man to any one's conscience-this is the first time, I believe, it ever appeared in a judicial proceeding. It is natural to say, "my conscience acquits me of it;" but they declare, that "his conscience never reproached him with a bad design,