rt of Directors; I conceived
it to be ordered by them.--_Q._ Did you conceive the letter of the Court
of Directors positively to direct that inquiry?--_A._ I did so certainly
at the time, and I beg to refer to the minutes which expressed it."--A
question was put to the same witness by a noble lord. "_Q._ The witness
has stated, that at the time he has mentioned he conceived the letter
from the Court of Directors to order an inquiry, and that it was upon
that opinion that he regulated his conduct, and his proposal for such
inquiry. I wish to know whether the expression, '_at the time_,' was
merely casual, or am I to understand from it that the witness has
altered his opinion of the intention of this letter since that
time?--_A._ I certainly retain that opinion, and I wished the inquiry to
go on."

My Lords, you see that his colleagues so understood it; you see that we
so understood it; and still you have heard the prisoner, after charging
us with falsehood, insultingly tell us we may go on as we please, we may
go on in our own way. If your Lordships think that it was not a positive
order, which Mr. Hastings was bound to obey, you will acquit him of the
breach of it. But it is a most singular thing, among all the astonishing
circumstances of this case, that this man, who has heard from the
beginning to the end of his trial breaches of the Company's orders
constantly charged upon him,--(nay, I will venture to say, that there is
not a single step that we have taken in this prosecution, or in
observations upon evidence, in which we have not charged him with an
avowed direct breach of the Company's order,--you have heard it ten
times this day,--in his defence before the Commons he declares he did
intentionally, in naming Mr. Markham, break the Company's orders,)--it
is singular, I say, that this man should now pretend to be so sore upon
this point. What is it now that makes him break through all the rules of
common decency and common propriety, and show all the burnings of guilt,
upon being accused of the breach of one of the innumerable orders which
he has broken, of which he has avowed the breaking, and attempted to
justify himself a thousand times in the Company's books for having
broken?

My Lords, one of his own body, one of the Council, has sworn at your bar
what he repeatedly declared to be his sense of it. We consider it as one
of the strongest orders that can be given, because the reason of the
order is added to it