my Lords, is to be unfortunate: but there are some
misfortunes that never do or ever can arrive but through crimes. He was
a deserter from the path of honor. At the turning of the two ways he
made a glorious choice,--he caught at the applause of ambition: which
though I am ready to consent is not virtue, yet surely a generous
ambition for applause for public services in life is one of the best
counterfeits of virtue, and supplies its place in some degree; and it
adds a lustre to real virtue, where it exists as the substratum of it.
Human nature, while it is made as it is, never can wholly repudiate it
for its imperfection, because there is something yet more perfect. But
what shall we say to the deserter of that cause, who, having glory and
honor before him, has chosen to plunge himself into the downward road to
sordid riches?

My Lords, I have shown the grievances that existed. I have shown the
means that existed to put Mr. Hastings beyond a temptation to those
practices of which we accuse him, even in his own opinion,--if he will
not follow his example in the House of Commons, and disavow this letter,
as he has done his defence before them, and say he never wrote it. That
situation which was to afford him a comfortable fortune in a few years
he has held for many years, and therefore he has not one excuse to make
for himself; but I shall show your Lordships much greater and stronger
proofs, that will lean heavy upon him in the day of your sentence. The
first, the peculiar, trust that was put in him, was to redress all those
grievances.

My Lords, I have stated to you the condition of India in 1765. You may
suppose that the means that were taken, the regulations that were made
by the Company at that period of time, had operated their effect, and
that by the beginning of the year 1772, when Mr. Hastings came first to
his government, these evils did not then require, perhaps, so vigorous
an example, or so much diligence in putting an end to them; but, my
Lords, I have to show you a very melancholy truth, that, notwithstanding
all these means, the Company was of opinion that all these disorders had
increased, and accordingly they say, without entering into all the
grievous circumstances of this letter, which was wrote on the 10th of
April, 1773, "We wish we could refute the observation, that almost every
attempt made by us and our administration at your Presidency for
reforming abuses has rather increased them, and added