ons that led me to
it,--when I mention the long meditation that preceded my founding a
judgment upon it, the strict inquiry, the many hours and days spent in
consideration, collation, and comparison,--I trust that infirmity which
could be actuated by no malice to one party or the other may be excused;
I trust that I shall meet with this indulgence, when your Lordships
consider, that, as far as you know me, as far as my public services for
many years account for me, I am a man of a slow, laborious, inquisitive
temper, that I do seldom leave a pursuit without leaving marks, perhaps
of my weakness, but leaving marks of that labor, and that, in
consequence of that labor, I made that affirmation, and thought the
nature of the cause obliged me to support and substantiate it. It is
true that those who sent me here have sagacity to decide upon the
subject in a week; they can in one week discover the errors of my labors
for nine years.

Now that I have made this apology to you, I assure you, you shall never
hear me, either in my own name here, much less in the name of the
Commons, urge one thing to you in support of the credit of Nundcomar
grounded upon that judgment, until the House shall instruct and order me
otherwise; because I know, that, when I can discover their sentiments,
I ought to know nothing here but what is in strict and literal obedience
to them.

My Lords, another thing might make me, perhaps, a little willing to be
admitted to the proof of what I advanced, and that is, the very answer
of Mr. Hastings to this charge, which the House of Commons, however,
have adopted, and therefore in some degree purified. "To the malicious
part of this charge, which is the condemnation of Nundcomar for a
forgery, I do declare, in the most solemn and unreserved manner, that I
had no concern, either directly or indirectly, in the apprehending,
prosecuting, or executing of Nundcomar. He suffered for a crime of
forgery which he had committed in a private trust that was delegated to
him, and for which he had been prosecuted in the dewanny courts of the
country before the institution of the Supreme Court of Judicature. To
adduce this circumstance, therefore, as a confirmation of what was
before suspicious from his general depravity of character, is just as
reasonable as to assert that the accusations of Empson and Dudley were
confirmed because they suffered death for their atrocious acts."

My Lords, this was Mr. Hastings's defence