not even the curiosity to
inquire into, and yet desires you, at the same time, to believe it to be
proved. Good God! in what condition do men of the first character and
situation in that country stand, when we have here delivered to us, as a
record of the Company, Mr. Hastings's own assertions, saying that these
forgeries were proved, though you have for the first nothing but his own
unsupported assertion, and for the second his declaration only that he
had not the curiosity to inquire into it! I am not forbidden by the
Commons to state how and on what slight grounds Warren Hastings charges
the natives of the country with forgery; neither am I forbidden to bring
forward the accusation which Mr. Hastings made against Nundcomar for a
conspiracy, nor the event of it, nor any circumstance relative to it. I
shall therefore proceed in the best manner I can. There was a period,
among the revolutions of philosophy, when there was an opinion, that, if
a man lost one limb or organ, the strength of that which was lost
retired into what was left. My Lords, if we are straitened in this, then
our vigor will be redoubled in the rest, and we shall use it with double
force. If the top and point of the sword is broken off, we shall take
the hilt in our hand, and fight with whatever remains of the weapon
against bribery, corruption, and peculation; and we shall use double
diligence under any restraint which the wisdom of the Commons may lay
upon us, or your Lordships' wisdom may oblige us to submit to.

Having gone through this business, and shown in what manner I am
restrained, where I am not to repel Mr. Hastings's defence, and where I
am left at large to do it, I shall submit to the strict injunction with
the utmost possible humility, and enjoy the liberty which is left to me
with vigor, with propriety, and with discretion, I trust.

* * * * *

My Lords, when the circumstance happened which has given occasion to the
long parenthesis by which my discourse has been interrupted, I remember
I was beginning to open to your Lordships the second period of Mr.
Hastings's scheme and system of bribery. My Lords, his bribery is so
extensive, and has had such a variety in it, that it must be
distinguished not only with regard to its kind, but must be likewise
distinguished according to the periods of bribery and the epochas of
peculation committed by him. In the first of those periods we shall
prove to your Lordshi