uld be found in it,--and the consequence of it, in
preventing the detection and the punishment of the grossest abuses that
ever were known to be committed in India, or any other part of the
world.

My Lords, I stated to you that Mr. Commissioner Paterson was sent into
that country. I stated that he was sent into it with all the authority
of government, with power to hear, and not only to hear and to report,
but to redress, the grievances which he should find in the country. In
short, there was nothing wanting to his power but an honest support.
Your Lordships will be convinced that the road to fortune was easy to
him. Debi Sing for a favorable report would have given a large sum of
money. Your Lordships will be convinced that the Committee would not
have received such a report as a proof of bribery. They would rather
consider him as a man whose conduct tended to conciliate, and to soften
troublesome and difficult matters, and to settle the order of government
as soon as possible.

Some of the things contained in his reports I have taken the liberty of
laying before your Lordships, but very faintly, very imperfectly, and
far short of my materials. I have stated, that the criminal, against
whom the commissioner had made his report, instead of being punished by
that strong hand of power which Mr. Hastings has thought proper to use
upon other occasions, when he has endeavored to make princes, or persons
in the rank and with the attributes of sovereign princes, feel whenever
they have incurred his private resentments,--that this man was put into
every situation of offence or defence which the most litigious and
prevaricating laws that ever were invented in the very bosom of
arbitrary power could afford him, or by which peculation and power were
to be screened from the cries of an oppressed people.

Mr. Paterson, I stated, from being a commissioner directed to report,
under the authority of government, to that government, was considered as
a voluntary accuser, obliged to make good the articles of his charge.
But I believe I stated that he did not long remain in that condition.

I shall now proceed to state to your Lordships, that this Debi Sing,
fortified by this protection, which was extended even to the lowest of
his instruments, thought it high time to assume the superiority that
belonged to a personage who had the Governor-General for his
_pensioner_. No longer the sneaking tone of apology; no longer the
modest allega