Mr. Hastings took no step to refute the charges, he took many
steps to punish the authors of them; and those miserable people who had
the folly to make complaints against Mr. Hastings, to make them under
the authority of an act of Parliament, under every sanction of public
faith, yet, in consequence of those charges, every person concerned in
them has been, as your Lordships will see, since his restoration to
power, absolutely undone, brought from the highest situation to the
lowest misery, so that they may have good reason to repent they ever
trusted an English Council, that they ever trusted a Court of Directors,
that they ever trusted an English act of Parliament, that they ever
dared to make their complaints.

And here I charge upon Mr. Hastings, that, by never taking a single step
to defeat or detect the falsehood of any of those charges against him,
and by punishing the authors of them, he has been guilty of such a
subversion of all the principles of British government as will deserve,
and will I dare say meet, your Lordships' most severe animadversion.

In the course of this inquiry we find a sort of pause in his
peculations, a sort of gap in the history, as if pages were torn out.
No longer we meet with the same activity in taking money that was before
found; not even a trace of complimentary presents is to be found in the
records during the time whilst General Clavering, Colonel Monson, and
Mr. Francis formed the majority of the Council. There seems to have been
a kind of truce with that sort of conduct for a while, and Mr. Hastings
rested upon his arms. However, the very moment Mr. Hastings returned to
power, peculation began again just at the same instant; the moment we
find him free from the compulsion and terror of a majority of persons
otherwise disposed than himself, we find him at his peculation again.

My Lords, at this time very serious inquiries had begun in the House of
Commons concerning peculation. They did not go directly to Bengal, but
they began upon the coast of Coromandel, and with the principal
governors there. There was, however, an universal opinion (and justly
founded) that these inquiries would go to far greater lengths. Mr.
Hastings was resolved, then, to change the whole course and order of his
proceeding. Nothing could persuade him, upon any account, to lay aside
his system of bribery: that he was resolved to persevere in. The point
was now to reconcile it with his safety. The first