quitous
transactions. You will find, what is very odd, that in this trial for
forgery with which this man stood charged, forgery in a private
transaction, all the persons who were witnesses or parties to it had
been, before or since, the particular friends of Mr. Hastings,--in
short, persons from that rabble with whom Mr. Hastings was concerned,
both before and since, in various transactions and negotiations of the
most criminal kind. But the law took its course. I have nothing more to
say than that the man is gone,--hanged justly, if you please; and that
it did so happen,--luckily for Mr. Hastings,--it so happened, that the
relief of Mr. Hastings, and the justice of the court, and the resolution
never to relax its rigor, did all concur just at a happy nick of time
and moment; and Mr. Hastings, accordingly, had the full benefit of them
all.

His accuser was supposed to be what men may be, and yet very competent
for accusers, namely, one of his accomplices in guilty actions,--one of
those persons who may have a great deal to say of bribes. All that I
contend for is, that he was in the closest intimacy with Mr. Hastings,
was in a situation for giving bribes,--and that Mr. Hastings was proved
afterwards to have received a sum of money from him, which may be well
referred to bribes.

This example had its use in the way in which it was intended to operate,
and in which alone it could operate. It did not discourage forgeries:
they went on at their usual rate, neither more nor less: but it put an
end to all accusations against all persons in power for any corrupt
practice. Mr. Hastings observes, that no man in India complains of him.
It is generally true. The voice of all India is stopped. All complaint
was strangled with the same cord that strangled Nundcomar. This murdered
not only that accuser, but all future accusation; and not only defeated,
but totally vitiated and reversed all the ends for which this country,
to its eternal and indelible dishonor, had sent out a pompous embassy of
justice to the remotest parts of the globe.

But though Nundcomar was put out of the way by the means by which _he_
was removed, a part of the charge was not strangled with him. Whilst the
process against Nundcomar was carrying on before Sir Elijah Impey, the
process was continuing against Mr. Hastings in other modes; the receipt
of a part of those bribes from Munny Begum, to the amount of 15,000_l._,
was proved against him, and that a sum