et apart for his use, either in bills or assets, I have before stated;
and I now wish to call your Lordships' minute recollection to the manner
in which the fraudulent impeachment of Mr. Middleton, for the purpose of
stifling an inquiry into that business, was carried on. Your Lordships
will remember that I proved to you, upon the face of that proceeding,
the collusive nature of the accusation, and that the real state of the
case was not charged,--and that Mr. Hastings acquitted the party accused
of one article of the charge, not upon the evidence of the case,
contrary to his own avowed, declared, moral certainty of his guilt, but
upon a pretended appeal to the conscience of the man accused. He did
not, however, give him a complete, formal, official acquittal, but
referred the matter to the Court of Directors, who could not possibly
know anything of the matter, without one article of evidence whatever
produced at the time or transmitted. We lastly proved to you, that,
after finding him guilty of five charges, and leaving the other to the
Court of Directors, Mr. Hastings, without any reason assigned, appointed
him to a great office in the Company's service.

These proceedings were brought before you for two purposes: first, to
show the corrupt principle of the whole proceeding; next, to show the
manner in which the Company's servants are treated. They are accused and
persecuted, until they are brought to submit to whatever terms it may be
thought proper to impose upon them; they are then formally, indeed,
acquitted of the most atrocious crimes charged against them, but
virtually condemned upon some articles, with the scourge hung over
them,--and in some instances rewarded by the greatest, most honorable,
and most lucrative situations in the Company's service. My Lords, it is
on the same ground of the wicked, pernicious, and ruinous principles of
Mr. Hastings's government, that I have charged this with everything that
is chargeable against him, namely, that, if your Lordships should ratify
those principles by your acquittal of him, they become principles of
government,--rejected, indeed, by the Commons, but adopted by the
Peerage of Great Britain.

There is another article which I have just touched, but which I must do
more than barely notice, upon account of the evil example of it: I mean
the taking great sums of money, under pretence of an entertainment. Your
Lordships will recollect, that, when this business was charge