h it is not
easy to suppose a man could be doubtful,--whether he was present or not:
he thinks he was not there,--for that, if he had been there, and acted
as interpreter, he could not have forgot it.

I think it is pretty nearly as I state it: if I have fallen into any
error or inaccuracy, it is easily rectified; for here is the state of
the transaction given by the parties themselves. On this inaccurate
memory of Mr. Hastings, not venturing, however, to say positively that
he was not the interpreter, or that he was not present, he is discharged
from being an accomplice,--he is removed from the bar, and leaps upon
the seat of justice. The court thus completed, Major Calliaud comes
manfully forward to make his defence. Mr. Lushington is taken off his
back in the manner we have seen, and no one person remains but Captain
Knox. Now, if Captain Knox was there and assenting, he is an accomplice
too. Captain Knox asserts, that, at the consultation about the murder,
he said it was a pity to cut off so fine a young fellow in such a
manner,--meaning that fine young fellow the Prince, the descendant of
Tamerlane, the present reigning Mogul, from whom the Company derive
their present charter. The purpose to be served by this declaration, if
it had any purpose, was, that Captain Knox did not assent to the murder,
and that therefore his evidence might be valid.

The defence set up by Major Calliaud was to this effect. He was
apprehensive, he said, that the Nabob was alarmed at the violent designs
that were formed against him by Mr. Holwell, and that therefore, to
quiet his mind, (to quiet it by a proposition compounded of murder and
treason,--an odd kind of mind he had that was to be quieted by such
means!)--but to quiet his mind, and to show that the English were
willing to go all lengths with him, to sell body and soul to him, he did
put his seal to this extraordinary agreement, he put his seal to this
wonderful paper. He likewise stated, that he was of opinion at the time
that nothing at all sinister could happen from it, that no such murder
was likely to take place, whatever might be the intention of the
parties. In fact, he had very luckily said in a letter of his, written a
day after the setting the seal, "I think nothing will come of this
matter, but it is no harm to try." This experimental treachery, and
these essays of conditional murder, appeared to him good enough to make
a trial of; but at the same time he was afraid n