passed, have been respectively
ruled to be sufficient. If, on the other hand, no circumstance of
connection has been proved, the judge, in summing up, has directed the
jury to pay no regard to a letter or conversation the proof of which has
so failed: a course much less liable to inconvenience, where the same
persons decide both the law and the fact.[70]

To illustrate the difficulties to which your Committee was subjected on
this head, we think it sufficient to submit to the House (reserving a
more full discussion of this important point to another occasion) the
following short statement of an incident which occurred in this trial.

By an express order of the Court of Directors, (to which, by the express
words of the act of Parliament under which he held his office, he was
ordered to yield obedience,) Mr. Hastings and his colleagues were
directed to make an inquiry into all offences of bribery and corruption
in office. On the 11th of March a charge in writing of bribery and
corruption in office was brought against himself. On the 13th of the
same month, the accuser, a man of high rank, the Rajah Nundcomar,
appears personally before the Council to make good his charge against
Mr. Hastings before his own face. Mr. Hastings thereon fell into a very
intemperate heat, obstinately refused to be present at the examination,
attempted to dissolve the Council, and contumaciously retired from it.
Three of the other members, a majority of the Council, in execution of
their duty, and in obedience to the orders received under the act of
Parliament, proceeded to take the evidence, which is very minute and
particular, and was entered in the records of the Council by the regular
official secretary. It was afterwards read in Mr. Hastings's own
presence, and by him transmitted, under his own signature, to the Court
of Directors. A separate letter was also written by him, about the same
time, desiring, on his part, that, in any inquiry into his conduct, "not
a single word should escape observation." This proceeding in the Council
your Committee, in its natural order, and in a narrative chain of
circumstantial proof, offered in evidence. It was not permitted to be
read; and on the 20th and 21st of May, 1789, we were told from the
woolsack, "that, when a paper is not evidence by itself," (such this
part of the Consultation, it seems, was reputed,) "a party who wishes to
introduce a paper of that kind is called upon not only to state, but t