more than a maintenance;
and you must depend upon me whether you are to have anything more or
not." Thus at one stroke a large division of the Company's servants, and
one of the highest orders of them, were reduced, for their next bread,
to an absolute, submissive dependence upon his will; and the Company was
loaded with the pensions of all these discarded servants. Thus were
persons in an honorable, independent situation, earned by long service
in that country, and who were subject to punishment for their crimes, if
proved against them, all deprived, unheard, of their employments. You
would imagine that Mr. Hastings had at least charged them with
corruption. No, you will see upon your minutes, that, when he abolished
the Provincial Councils, he declared at the same time that he found no
fault with the persons concerned in them.

Thus, then, he has got rid, as your Lordships see, of one whole body of
the Company's servants; he has systematically corrupted the rest, and
provided, as far as lay in his power, for the perpetuation of their
corruption; he has connived at all their delinquencies, and has
destroyed the independence of all the superior orders of them.

Now hear what he does with regard to the Council-General itself. They
had, by the act that made Mr. Hastings Governor, the management of the
revenues vested in them. You have been shown by an honorable and able
fellow Manager of mine, that he took the business of this department
wholly out of the hand of the Council; that he named a committee for
the management of it, at an enormous expense,--committee made up of his
own creatures and dependants; and that, after destroying the Provincial
Councils, he brought down the whole management of the revenue to
Calcutta. This committee took this important business entirely out of
the hands of the Council, in which the act had vested it, and this
committee he formed without the orders of the Court of Directors, and
directly contrary to the act, which put the superintendence in the hands
of the Council.

Oh, but he reserved a superintendence over them.--You shall hear what
the superintendence was; you shall see, feel, smell, touch; it shall
enter into every avenue and pore of your soul. It will show you what was
the real principle of Mr. Hastings's government. We will read to you
what Sir John Shore says of that institution, and of the only ends and
purposes which it could answer; your Lordships will then see how far he