eneral from personal insult, where there is no
judicial power lodged, that of inquisition can never answer any good
purpose." This is doctrine of a most extraordinary nature and tendency,
and, as your Committee conceive, contrary to every sound principle to be
observed in the constitution of judicatures and inquisitions. The power
of inquisition ought rather to be wholly separated from the judicial,
the former being a previous step to the latter, which requires other
rules and methods, and ought not, if possible, to be lodged in the same
hands. The rest of his minute (contained in the Appendix) is filled with
a censure on the native inhabitants, with reflections on the ill
consequences which would arise from an attention to their complaints,
and with an assertion of the authority of the Supreme Court, as
superseding the necessity and propriety of such inquiries in Council.
With regard to his principles relative to the natives and their
complaints, if they are admitted, they are of a tendency to cut off the
very principle of redress. The existence of the Supreme Court, as a
means of relief to the natives under all oppressions, is held out to
qualify a refusal to hear in the Council. On the same pretence, Mr.
Hastings holds up the authority of the same tribunal. But this and other
proceedings show abundantly of what efficacy that court has been for the
relief of the unhappy people of Bengal. A person in delegated authority
refuses a satisfaction to his superiors, throwing himself on a court of
justice, and supposes that nothing but what judicially appears against
him is a fit subject of inquiry. But even in this Mr. Hastings fails in
his application of his principle; for the majority of the Council were
undoubtedly competent to order a prosecution against him in the Supreme
Court, which they had no ground for without a previous inquiry. But
their inquiry had other objects. No private accuser might choose to
appear. The party who was the subject of the peculation might be (as
here is stated) the accomplice in it. No popular action or popular suit
was provided by the charter under whose authority the court was
instituted. In any event, a suit might fail in the court for the
punishment of an actor in an abuse for want of the strictest legal
proof, which might yet furnish matter for the correction of the abuse,
and even reasons strong enough not only to justify, but to require, the
Directors instantly to address for the removal