ctum ore_"--who, by his flaming zeal and the prolific
ardor and energy of his mind, has boldly dashed out of the common path,
and served his country by new and untrodden ways; and now he generously
communicates, for the benefit of all future governors and all future
governments, the grand arcanum of his long and toilsome researches. He
is the first, but, if we do not take good care, he will not be the last,
that has established the corruption of the supreme magistrate among the
settled resources of the state; and he leaves this principle as a
bountiful donation, as the richest deposit that ever was made in the
treasury of Bengal. He claims glory and renown from that by which every
other person since the beginning of time has been dishonored and
disgraced. It has been said of an ambassador, that he is a person
employed to tell lies for the advantage of the court that sends him. His
is patriotic bribery, and public-spirited corruption. He is a peculator
for the good of his country. It has been said that private vices are
public benefits. He goes the full length of that position, and turns his
private peculation into a public good. This is what you are to thank him
for. You are to consider him as a great inventor upon this occasion. Mr.
Hastings improves on this principle. He is a robber in gross, and a
thief in detail,--he steals, he filches, he plunders, he oppresses, he
extorts,--all for the good of the dear East India Company,--all for the
advantage of his honored masters, the Proprietors,--all in gratitude to
the dear perfidious Court of Directors, who have been in a practice to
heap "insults on his person, slanders on his character, and indignities
on his station,--who never had the confidence in him that they had in
the meanest of his predecessors."

If you sanction this practice, if, after all you have exacted from the
people by your taxes and public imposts, you are to let loose your
servants upon them, to extort by bribery and peculation what they can
from them, for the purpose of applying it to the public service only
whenever they please, this shocking consequence will follow from it. If
your Governor is discovered in taking a bribe, he will say, "What is
that to you? mind your business; I intend it for the public service."
The man who dares to accuse him loses the favor of the Governor-General
and the India Company. They will say, "The Governor has been doing a
meritorious action, extorting bribes for our benef