Triginta capitum foetus enixa jacebat,
    Alba, solo recubans, albi circum ubera nati.

Whilst discovery of the misgovernment of others led to his own power, it was wise to inquire, it was safe to publish:  there was then no delicacy; there was then no danger.  But when his object is obtained, and in his imitation he has outdone the crimes that he had reprobated in volumes of reports and in sheets of bills of pains and penalties, then concealment becomes prudence, and it concerns the safety of the state that we should not know, in a mode of Parliamentary cognizance, what all the world knows but too well, that is, in what manner he chooses to dispose of the public revenues to the creatures of his politics.

The debate has been long, and as much so on my part, at least, as on the part of those who have spoken before me.  But long as it is, the more material half of the subject has hardly been touched on:  that is, the corrupt and destructive system to which this debt has been rendered subservient, and which seems to be pursued with at least as much vigor and regularity as ever.  If I considered your ease or my own, rather than the weight and importance of this question, I ought to make some apology to you, perhaps some apology to myself, for having detained your attention so long.  I know on what ground I tread.  This subject, at one time taken up with so much fervor and zeal, is no longer a favorite in this House.  The House itself has undergone a great and signal revolution.  To some the subject is strange and uncouth; to several, harsh and distasteful; to the relics of the last Parliament it is a matter of fear and apprehension.  It is natural for those who have seen their friends sink in the tornado which raged during the late shift of the monsoon, and have hardly escaped on the planks of the general wreck, it is but too natural for them, as soon as they make the rocks and quicksands of their former disasters, to put about their new-built barks, and, as much as possible, to keep aloof from this perilous lee shore.

But let us do what we please to put India from our thoughts, we can do nothing to separate it from our public interest and our national reputation.  Our attempts to banish this importunate duty will only make it return upon us again and again, and every time in a shape more unpleasant than the former.  A government has been fabricated for that great province; the right honorable gentleman says that therefore you ought not to examine into its conduct.  Heavens! what an argument is this!  We are not to examine into the conduct of the Direction, because it is an old government; we are not to examine into this Board of Control, because it is a new one.  Then we are only to examine into the conduct of those who have no conduct to account for.  Unfortunately, the basis of this new government has been laid on old, condemned delinquents, and its superstructure is raised out of prosecutors turned into protectors.