, Mr. Hastings, directly contrary to the duty of his
office, directly contrary to the express and positive law of the Court
of Directors, which law Parliament had bound upon him as his rule of
action, not satisfied with his long tacit connivance, ventured, before
he left his government, and among his last acts, to pass a general act
of pardon and indemnity, and at once ordered the whole body of the
prosecutions directed by his masters, the Company, to be discharged.

Having had fourteen years' lease of connivance to bestow, and giving at
the end a general release of all suits and actions, he now puts himself
at the head of a vast body enriched by his bounties, connivances, and
indemnities, and expects the support of those whom he had thus fully
rewarded and discharged from the pursuit of the laws. You will find, in
the course of this business, that, when charges have been brought
against him of any bribery, corruption, or other malversation, his
course has been to answer little or nothing to that specific bribery,
corruption, or malversation: his way has been to call on the Court of
Directors to inquire of every servant who comes to Europe, and to say
whether there was any one man in it that will give him an ill word. He
has put himself into a situation in which he may always safely call to
his character, and will always find himself utterly incapable of
justifying his conduct.

So far I have troubled your Lordships with the system of confederacy and
connivance, which, under his auspices, was the vital principle of almost
the whole service. There is one member of the service which I have
omitted: but whether I ought to have put it first, or, as I do now,
last, I must confess I am at some loss; because, though it appears to be
the lowest (if any regular) part of the service, it is by far the most
considerable and the most efficient, without a full consideration and
explanation of which hardly any part of the conduct of Mr. Hastings,
and of many others that may be in his situation, can be fully
understood.

I have given your Lordships an account of writers, factors, merchants,
who exercise the office of judges, lord chancellors, chancellors of the
exchequer, ministers of state, and managers of great revenues. But there
is another description of men, of more importance than them all, a
description you have often heard of, but which has not been sufficiently
explained: I mean the _banian_. When the Company's service was n