he had to
contend with. Here he displays all his tactics. He spreads all his
sails, and here catches every gale. He says, "I found all India
confederated against you. I found not the Mahrattas alone; I found war
through a hundred hostile states fulminated against you; I found the
Peshwa, the Nizam, Hyder Ali, the Rajah of Berar, all combined together
for your destruction. I stemmed the torrent: fortitude is my character.
I faced and overcame all these difficulties, till I landed your affairs
safe on shore, till I stood the saviour of India."

My Lords, we of the House of Commons have before heard all this; but we
cannot forget that we examined into every part of it, and that we did
not find a single fact stated by him that was not a ground of censure
and reprobation. The House of Commons, in the resolutions to which I
have alluded, have declared, that Mr. Hastings, the first author of
these proceedings, took advantage of an ambiguous letter of the Court
of Directors to break and violate the most solemn, the most
advantageous, and useful treaty that the Company had ever made in India;
and that this conduct of his produced the strange and unnatural junction
which he says he found formed against the Company, and with which he had
to combat. I should trouble your Lordships with but a brief statement of
the facts; and if I do not enter more at large in observing upon them,
it is because I cannot but feel shocked at the indecency and impropriety
of your being obliged to hear of that as merit which the House of
Commons has condemned in every part. Your Lordships received obliquely
evidence from the prisoner at your bar upon this subject; yet, when we
came and desired your full inquiry into it, your Lordships, for wise and
just reasons, I have no doubt, refused our request. I must, however,
again protest on the part of the Commons against your Lordships
receiving such evidence at all as relevant to your judgment, unless the
House of Commons is fully heard upon it.

But to proceed.--The government of Bombay had offended the Mahratta
States by a most violent and scandalous aggression. They afterwards made
a treaty of peace with them, honorable and advantageous to the Company.
This treaty was made by Colonel Upton, and is called the Treaty of
Poorunder. Mr. Hastings broke that treaty, upon his declared principle,
that you are to look in war for the resources of your government. All
India was at that time in peace. Hyder Ali did n