* * * * *

My Lords, I have now gone through the whole of what I have in charge. I
have laid before you the covenants by which the Company have thought fit
to guard against the avarice and rapacity of their Governors. I have
shown that they positively forbid the taking of all sorts of bribes and
presents; and I have stated the means adopted by them for preventing the
evasion of their orders, by directing, in all money transactions, the
publicity of them. I have farther shown, that, in order to remove every
temptation to a breach of their orders, the next step was the framing a
legal fiction, by which presents and money, under whatever pretence
taken, were made the legal property of the Company, in order to enable
them to recover them out of any rapacious hands that might violate the
new act of Parliament. I have also stated this act of Parliament. I have
stated Mr. Hastings's sense of it. I have stated the violation of it by
his taking bribes from all quarters. I have stated the fraudulent bonds
by which he claimed a security for money as his own which belonged to
the Company. I have stated the series of frauds, prevarications,
concealments, and all that mystery of iniquity, which I waded through
with pain to myself, I am sure, and with infinite pain, I fear, to your
Lordships. I have shown your Lordships that his evasions of the clear
words of his covenant and the clear words of an act of Parliament were
such as did not arise from an erroneous judgment, but from a corrupt
intention; and I believe you will find that his attempt to evade the law
aggravates infinitely his guilt in breaking it. In all this I have only
_opened_ to you the package of this business; I have opened it to
ventilate it, and give air to it; I have opened it, that a quarantine
might be performed,--that the sweet air of heaven, which is polluted by
the poison it contains, might be let loose upon it, and that it may be
aired and ventilated before your Lordships touch it. Those who follow me
will endeavor to explain to your Lordships what Mr. Hastings has
endeavored to involve in mystery, by bringing proof after proof that
every bribe that was here concealed was taken with corrupt purposes and
followed with the most pernicious consequences. These are things which
will be brought to you in proof. I have only regarded the system of
bribery; I have endeavored to show that it is a system of mystery and
concealment, and conseq