error, or madness, rather than believe that fact.  Why?  Because it is totally alien to the character of the persons, the situation, the circumstances, and to all the rules of probability.  But if, on the contrary, the crime charged has a perfect relation with the person, with his known conduct, with his known habits, with the situation and circumstances of the place that he is in, and with the very corrupt inherent nature of the act that he does, then much less proof than we are able to produce will serve; and according to the nature and strength of the presumptions arising from the inherent nature of a vicious principle and vicious motives in the act, will be strengthened the weakest evidence, or, if it comes to a sufficient height, the whole burden of proof will be turned upon the party accused.  And thus we shall think ourselves bound to show your Lordships, in every step of this proceeding, that there is an inherent presumption of corruption in every act.  We shall show the presumptions which preceded, we shall show the presumptions which accompanied the proof; and these, with the subsequent presumptions, will make it impossible to disbelieve them.  Such a body of proof was never given upon any such occasion:  and it is such proof as will prevail against the whole voice of corruption, that amazing, active, diligent, spreading voice, which has been made, by buzzing in every part of this country, sometimes to sound like the public voice; it will put it to silence, by showing that your Lordships have proceeded upon the strongest evidence, active and passive.

First, Mr. Hastings received a positive order to seize upon Mahomed Reza Khan.  That order he executed with a military promptitude of obedience, which will show your Lordships what are the services which are congenial to his own mind, and which find in him always a ready acquiescence, a faithful agent, and a spirited instrument in the execution.  The very day after he received the order, he sent up, privately, without communicating with the Council, from whom he was not ordered to keep this proceeding a secret,—­he sent up, and found that great and respectable man and respectable magistrate, who was in all those high offices which I have stated:  and if I was to compare them to circumstances and situations in this country, I should say he had united in himself the character of First Lord of the Treasury, the character of Chief-Justice, the character of Lord High-Chancellor, and the character of Archbishop of Canterbury:  a man of great gravity, dignity, and authority, and advanced in years; had once 100,000_l._ a year for the support of his dignity, and had at that time 50,000_l._ This man, sitting in his garden, reposing himself after the toils of his situation, (for he was one of the most laborious men in the world,) was suddenly arrested, and, without a moment’s respite, dragged down to Calcutta, and there by Mr. Hastings (exceeding the orders of the Company) confined near two years under a guard