s it is here stated, is still more defective, if the appendix is
adopted by the Directors and meant to make a part of the case; for that
throws discredit upon all the information so collected." Certainly it
does; for, if the delinquent party, who is to be prosecuted, be heard
with his own representation of the case, and that of his prosecutors be
suppressed, he is master both of the lawyers and of the mind of mankind.

My Lords, I have here attempted to point out the extreme inconsistencies
and defects of this proceeding; and I wish your Lordships to consider,
with respect to these proceedings of the India House in their
prosecutions, that it is in the power of some of their officers to make
statements in the manner that I have described, then to obtain the names
of great lawyers, and under their sanction to carry the accused through
the world as acquitted.

These are the material circumstances which will be submitted to your
Lordships' sober consideration in the course of this inquiry. I have now
stated them on these two accounts: first, to rebut the reason which Mr.
Hastings has assigned for not giving any satisfaction to the Court of
Directors, namely, because they did not want it, having dropped a
prosecution upon great authorities and opinions; and next, to show your
Lordships how a business begun in bribery is to be supported only by
fraud, deceit, and collusion, and how the receiving of bribes by a
Governor-General of Bengal tends to taint the whole service from
beginning to end, both at home and abroad.

But though upon the partial case that was presented to them these great
lawyers did not advise a prosecution, and though even upon a full
representation of a case a lawyer might think that a man ought not to be
prosecuted, yet he may consider him to be the vilest man upon earth. We
know men are acquitted in the great tribunals in which several Lords of
this country have presided, and who perhaps ought not to have been
brought there and prosecuted before them, and yet about whose
delinquency there could be no doubt. But though we have here sufficient
reason to justify the great lawyers whose names and authorities are
produced, yet Mr. Hastings has extended that authority beyond the length
of their opinions. For, being no longer under the terror of the law,
which, he said, restrained him from making his defence, he was then
bound to give that satisfaction to his masters and the world which every
man in honor is