ernment. It marks
and specifies the origin and true principle of all the abuses which Mr.
Hastings was afterwards appointed to correct, and which the Commons
charge that he continued and aggravated: namely, the venal depositions
and venal exaltations of the country powers; the taking of bribes and
corrupt presents from all parties in those changes; the vitiating and
maiming the Company's records; the suppression of public correspondence;
corrupt combinations and conspiracies; perfidy in negotiation
established into principle; acts of the most atrocious wickedness
justified upon purity of intention; mock-trials and collusive acquittals
among the parties in common guilt; and in the end, the Court of
Directors supporting the scandalous breach of their own orders. I shall
state the particulars of this second revolution more at large.

Soon after the revolution which had seated Mir Jaffier on the viceroyal
throne, the spirit of the Mogul empire began, as it were, to make one
faint struggle before it finally expired. The then heir to that throne,
escaping from the hands of those who had held his father prisoner, had
put himself at the head of several chiefs collected under the standard
of his house, and appeared in force on the frontiers of the provinces of
Bengal and Bahar, upon both which he made some impression. This alarmed
the new powers, the Nabob Mir Jaffier, and the Presidency of Calcutta;
and as in a common cause, and by the terms of their mutual alliance,
they took the field against him. The Nabob's eldest son and
heir-apparent commanded in chief. Major Calliaud commanded the English
forces under the government of Calcutta. Mr. Holwell was in the
temporary possession of the Presidency. Mr. Vansittart was hourly
expected to supersede him. Mr. Warren Hastings, a young gentleman about
twenty-seven years of age, was Resident for the Company at the durbar,
or court, of Mir Jaffier, our new-created Nabob of Bengal, allied to
this country by the most solemn treaties that can bind men; for which
treaties he had paid, and was then paying, immense sums of money. Mr.
Warren Hastings was the pledge in his hands for the honor of the British
nation, and their fidelity to their engagements.

In this situation, Mr. Holwell, whom the terrible example of the Black
Hole at Calcutta had not cured of ambition, thought an hour was not to
be lost in accomplishing a revolution and selling the reigning Nabob.

My Lords, there was in the h