siness ever was
covered with more folds of iniquitous artifice than this which is now
brought before you.

SPEECH

ON

THE SIXTH ARTICLE OF CHARGE.

SECOND DAY: SATURDAY, APRIL 25, 1789.

My Lords,--When I last had the honor of addressing your Lordships, I
endeavored to state with as much perspicuity as the nature of an
intricate affair would admit, and as largely as in so intricate an
affair was consistent with the brevity which I endeavored to preserve,
the proofs which had been adduced against Warren Hastings upon an
inquiry instituted by an order of the Court of Directors into the
corruption and peculation of persons in authority in India. My Lords, I
have endeavored to show you by anterior presumptive proofs, drawn from
the nature and circumstances of the acts themselves inferring guilt,
that such actions and such conduct could be referable only to one cause,
namely, _corruption_; I endeavored to show you afterwards, my Lords,
what the specific nature and extent of the corruption was, as far as it
could be fully proved; and lastly, the great satisfactory presumption
which attended the inquiry with regard to Mr. Hastings,--namely, that,
contrary to law, contrary to his duty, contrary to what is owed by
innocence to itself, Mr. Hastings resisted that inquiry, and employed
all the power of his office to prevent the exercise of it, either in
himself or in others. These presumptions and these proofs will be
brought before your Lordships, distinctly and in order, at the end of
this opening.

The next point on which I thought it necessary to proceed was relative
to the presumptions which his subsequent conduct gave with regard to his
guilt: because, my Lords, his uniform tenor of conduct, such as must
attend guilt, both in the act, at the time of the inquiry, and
subsequent to it, will form such a body of satisfactory evidence as I
believe the human mind is not made to resist.

My Lords, there is another reason why I choose to enter into the
presumptions drawn from his conduct and the fact, taking his conduct in
two parts, if it may be so expressed, _omission_ and _commission_, in
order that your Lordships should more fully enter into the consequences
of this system of bribery. But before I say anything upon that, I wish
your Lordships to be apprised, that the Commons, in bringing this bribe
of three lac and a half before your Lordships, do not wish by any means
to have it understood that this is the w