s the people are represented to be crowding to make
these testimonials, there should be such an unison in the heart to
produce a language that is so uniform as not to vary so much as in a
single tittle,--that every part of the country, every province, every
district, men of every caste and of every religion, should all unite in
expressing their sentiments in the very same words and in the very same
phrases. I must fairly say it is a kind of miraculous concurrence, a
miraculous gratitude. Mr. Hastings says that gratitude is lost in this
part of the world. There it blooms and flourishes in a way not to be
described. In proportion as you hear of the miseries and distresses of
these very people, in the same proportion do they express their comfort
and satisfaction, and that they never knew what a grievance was of any
sort. Lord Cornwallis finds them aggrieved, the Court of Directors find
them aggrieved, the Parliament of Great Britain find them aggrieved, and
the court here find them aggrieved; but they never found themselves
aggrieved. Their being turned out of house and home, and having all
their land given to farmers of revenue for five years to riot in and
despoil them of all they had, is what fills them with rapture. They are
the only people, I believe, upon the face of the earth, that have no
complaints to make of their government, in any instance whatever. Theirs
must be something superior to the government of angels; for I verily
believe, that, if one out of the choir of the heavenly angels were sent
to govern the earth, such is the nature of man, that many would be found
discontented with it. But these people have no complaint, they feel no
hardships, no sorrow; Mr. Hastings has realized more than the golden
age. I am ashamed for human nature, I am ashamed for our government, I
am ashamed for this court of justice, that these things are brought
before us; but here they are, and we must observe upon them.

* * * * *

My Lords, we have done, on our part; we have made out our case; and it
only remains for me to make a few observations upon what Mr. Hastings
has thought proper to put forward in his defence. Does he meet our case
with anything but these general attestations, upon which I must first
remark, that there is not one single matter of fact touched upon in
them? Your Lordships will observe, and you may hunt them out through the
whole body of your minutes, that you do not find a si