My Lords, you see here the picture of Nundcomar drawn by Mr. Hastings himself; you see the hurry, the passion, the precipitation, the confusion, into which Mr. Hastings is thrown by the perplexity of detected guilt; you see, my Lords, that, instead of defending himself, he rails at his accuser in the most indecent language, calling him a wretch whom they all knew to be the basest of mankind,—­that he rails at the Council, by attributing their conduct to the worst of motives,—­that he rails at everybody, and declares the accusation to be a libel:  in short, you see plainly that the man’s head is turned.  You see there is not a word he says upon this occasion which has common sense in it; you see one great leading principle in it,—­that he does not once attempt to deny the charge.  He attempts to vilify the witness, he attempts to vilify those he supposes to be his accusers, he attempts to vilify the Council; he lags upon the accusation, he mixes it with other accusations, which had nothing to do with it, and out of the whole he collects a resolution—­to do what?  To meet his adversary and defy him?  No,—­that he will not suffer him to appear before him:  he says, “I will not sit at this board in the character of a criminal, nor do I acknowledge the board to be my judges.”

He was not called upon to acknowledge them to be his judges.  Both he and they were called upon to inquire into all corruptions without exception.  It was his duty not merely [not?] to traverse and oppose them while inquiring into acts of corruption, but he was bound to take an active part in it,—­that if they had a mind to let such a thing sleep upon their records, it was his duty to have brought forward the inquiry.  They were not his judges, they were not his accusers; they were his fellow-laborers in the inquiry ordered by the Court of Directors, their masters, and by which inquiry he might be purged of that corruption with which he stood charged.

He says, “Nundcomar is a wretch whom you all know to be the basest of mankind.”  I believe they did not know the man to be a wretch, or the basest of mankind; but if he was a wretch, and if he was the basest of mankind, if he was guilty of all the crimes with which we charge Mr. Hastings, (not one of which was ever proved against him,)—­if any of your Lordships were to have the misfortune to be before this tribunal, before any inquest of the House of Commons, or any other inquest of this nation, would you not say that it was the greatest possible advantage to you that the man who accused you was a miscreant, the vilest and basest of mankind, by the confession of all the world?  Do mankind really, then, think that to be accused by men of honor, of weight, of character, upon probable charges, is an advantage to them, and that to be accused by the basest of mankind is a disadvantage?  No:  give me, if ever I am to have accusers, miscreants, as he calls him,—­wretches, the basest and vilest of mankind.  “The board,” says