ve
endured this load of infamy, and to this time have given no explanation
of his conduct, unless for the reason which this learned counsel gives,
and which your Lordships and the world will give, namely, his conscious
guilt.

After leaving upon your minds that presumption, not to operate without
proof, but to operate along with the proof, (though, I take it, there
are some presumptions that go the full length of proof,) I shall not
press it to the length to which I think it would go, but use it only as
auxiliary, assisting, and compurgatory of all the other evidences that
go along with it.

There is another circumstance which must come before your Lordships in
this business. If you find that Mr. Hastings has received the two lac of
rupees, then you will find that he was guilty, without color or pretext
of any kind whatever, of acting in violation of his covenant, of acting
in violation of the laws, and all the rules of honor and conscience. If
you find that he has taken the lac and a half, which he admits, but
which he justifies under the pretence of an entertainment, I shall beg
to say something to your Lordships concerning that justification.

The justification set up is, that he went up from Calcutta to
Moorshedabad, and paid a visit of three months, and that there an
allowance was made to him of two hundred pounds a day in lieu of an
entertainment. Now, my Lords, I leave it to you to determine, if there
was such a custom, whether or no his covenant justifies his conformity
with it. I remember Lord Coke, talking of the Brehon law in Ireland,
says it is no law, but a lewd custom. A governor is to conform himself
to the laws of his own country, to the stipulations of those that employ
him, and not to the lewd customs of any other country: those customs are
more honored in the breach than in the observance. If Mr. Hastings was
really feasted and entertained with the magnificence of the country, if
there was an entertainment of dancing-girls brought out to amuse him in
his leisure hours, if he was feasted with the hookah and every other
luxury, there is something to be said for him, though I should not
justify a Governor-General wasting his days in that manner. But in fact
here was no entertainment that could amount to such a sum; and he has
nowhere proved the existence of such a custom.

But if such a custom did exist, which I contend is more honored in the
breach than in the observance, that custom is capable of b