but the value of the adventure, which measures the degree of our concern in every undertaking.  I solemnly assure your Lordships that no standard is sufficient to estimate the value which the Commons set upon the event of the cause they now bring before you.  My Lords, the business of this day is not the business of this man, it is not solely whether the prisoner at the bar be found innocent or guilty, but whether millions of mankind shall be made miserable or happy.

Your Lordships will see, in the progress of this cause, that there is not only a long, connected, systematic series of misdemeanors, but an equally connected system of maxims and principles invented to justify them.  Upon both of these you must judge.  According to the judgment that you shall give upon the past transactions in India, inseparably connected as they are with the principles which support them, the whole character of your future government in that distant empire is to be unalterably decided.  It will take its perpetual tenor, it will receive its final impression, from the stamp of this very hour.

It is not only the interest of India, now the most considerable part of the British empire, which is concerned, but the credit and honor of the British nation itself will be decided by this decision.  We are to decide by this judgment, whether the crimes of individuals are to be turned into public guilt and national ignominy, or whether this nation will convert the very offences which have thrown a transient shade upon its government into something that will reflect a permanent lustre upon the honor, justice, and humanity of this kingdom.

My Lords, there is another consideration, which augments the solicitude of the Commons, equal to those other two great interests I have stated, those of our empire and our national character,—­something that, if possible, comes more home to the hearts and feelings of every Englishman:  I mean, the interests of our Constitution itself, which is deeply involved in the event of this cause.  The future use and the whole effect, if not the very existence, of the process of an impeachment of high crimes and misdemeanors before the peers of this kingdom upon the charge of the Commons will very much be decided by your judgment in this cause.  This tribunal will be found (I hope it will always be found) too great for petty causes:  if it should at the same time be found incompetent to one of the greatest,—­that is, if little offences, from their minuteness, escape you, and the greatest, from their magnitude, oppress you,—­it is impossible that this form of trial should not in the end vanish out of the Constitution.  For we must not deceive ourselves:  whatever does not stand with credit cannot stand long.  And if the Constitution should be deprived, I do not mean in form, but virtually, of this resource, it is virtually deprived of everything else that is valuable in it.  For this process is the cement which binds the whole