s the first of these, by
submitting to you, that part of those sums which are specified in the
charge were taken by him with his own hand and in his own person, but
that much the greater part have been taken from the natives by the
instrumentality of his black agents, banians, and other
dependants,--whose confidential connection with him, and whose agency on
his part in corrupt transactions, if his counsel should be bold enough
to challenge us to the proof, we shall fully prove before you. The next
part, and the second branch of his corruption, namely, what is commonly
called his active corruption, distinguishing the personal under the name
of passive, will appear from his having given, under color of contracts,
a number of corrupt and lucrative advantages from a number of
unauthorized and unreasonable grants, pensions, and allowances, by which
he corrupted actively the whole service of the Company. And, lastly, we
shall show, that, by establishing a universal connivance from one end of
the service to the other, he has not only corrupted and contaminated it
in all its parts, but bound it in a common league of iniquity to support
mutually each other against the inquiry that should detect and the
justice that should punish their offences. These two charges, namely, of
his active and passive corruption, we shall bring one after the other,
as strongly and clearly illustrating and as powerfully confirming each
other.

The first which we shall bring before you is his own passive
corruption,--so we commonly call it. Bribes are so little known in this
country that we can hardly get clear and specific technical names to
distinguish them; but in future, I am afraid, the conduct of Mr.
Hastings will improve our law vocabulary. The first, then, of these
offences with which Mr. Hastings stands charged here is receiving bribes
himself, or through his banians. Every one of these are overt acts of
the general charge of bribery, and they are every one of them,
separately taken, substantive crimes. But whatever the criminal nature
of these acts was, (and the nature was very criminal, and the
consequences to the country very dreadful,) yet we mean to prove to your
Lordships that they were not single acts, that they were not acts
committed as opportunity offered, or as necessity tempted or urged upon
the occasion, but that they are parts of a general systematic plan of
corruption, for advancing his fortune at the expense of his integrity;