d against
him in India, Mr. Hastings neither affirmed nor denied the fact.
Confession could not be there extorted from him. He next appeared before
the House of Commons, and he still evaded a denial or a confession of
it. He lastly appeared before your Lordships, and in his answer to our
charge he in the same manner evaded either a confession or a denial. He
forced us to employ a great part of a session in endeavoring to
establish what we have at last established, the receipt of the sums
first charged, and of seven lacs more, by him. At length the proof could
not be evaded; and after we had fought through all the difficulties
which the law could interpose in his defence, and of which he availed
himself with a degree of effrontery that has, I believe, no example in
the world, he confesses, avows, and justifies his conduct. If the custom
alleged be well founded, and be an honorable and a proper and just
practice, why did he not avow it in every part and progress of our
proceedings here? Why should he have put us to the necessity of wasting
so many months in the proof of the fact? And why, after we have proved
it, and not before, did he confess it, avow it, and even glory in it?

I must remind your Lordships that the sum charged to be so taken by way
of entertainment made only a part, a single article, of the bribes
charged by Nundcomar to have been received by Mr. Hastings; and when we
find him confessing, what he could not deny, that single article, and
evading all explanation respecting the others, and not giving any reason
whatever why one was received and the others rejected, your Lordships
will judge of the strong presumption of his having taken them all, even
if we had given no other proofs of it. We think, however, that we have
proved the whole very satisfactorily. But whether we have or not, the
proof of a single present received is sufficient; because the principle
to be established respecting these bribes is this,--whether or not a
Governor-General, paying a visit to any of the poor, miserable,
dependent creatures called sovereign princes in that country, (men whom
Mr. Hastings has himself declared to be nothing but phantoms, and that
they had no one attribute of sovereignty about them,) whether, I say, he
can consider them to be such sovereign princes as to justify his taking
from them great sums of money by way of a present. The Nabob, in fact,
was not a sovereign prince, nor a country power, in any sense but t