tablished an avowed system of connivance, in
order to gain over everything that was corrupt in the country; and that,
lastly, to secure it, he gave up all the prosecutions, and enervated and
took away the sole arm left to the Company for the assertion of
authority and the preservation of good morals and purity in their
service.

My Lords, here is a letter, in the year 1773, in which the Court of
Directors had, upon his own representation, approved some part of his
conduct. He is charmed with their approbation; he promises the greatest
things; but I believe your Lordships will see, from the manner in which
he proceeds at that very instant, that a more deliberate system, for not
only being corrupt himself, but supporting corruption in others, never
was exhibited in any public paper.

"While I indulge the pleasure which I receive from the past successes of
my endeavors, I own I cannot refrain from looking back with a mixture of
anxiety on the omissions by which I am sensible I may since have
hazarded the diminution of your esteem. All my letters addressed to your
Honorable Court, and to the Secret Committee, repeat the strongest
promises of prosecuting the inquiries into the conduct of your servants
which you had been pleased to commit particularly to my charge. You will
readily perceive that I must have been sincere in those declarations;
since it would have argued great indiscretion to have made them, had I
foreseen my inability to perform them. I find myself now under the
disagreeable necessity of avowing that inability; at the same time I
will boldly take upon me to affirm, that, on whomsoever you might have
delegated that charge, and by whatever powers it might have been
accompanied, it would have been sufficient to occupy the entire
attention of those who were intrusted with it, and, even with all the
aids of leisure and authority, would have proved ineffectual. I dare
appeal to the public records, to the testimony of those who have
opportunities of knowing me, and even to the detail which the public
voice can report of the past acts of this government, that my time has
been neither idly nor uselessly employed: yet such are the cares and
embarrassments of this various state, that, although much may be done,
much more, even in matters of moment, must necessarily remain neglected.
To select from the miscellaneous heap which each day's exigencies
present to our choice those points on which the general welfare of your