It has been shown to your Lordships that Mr. Hastings employed Nundcomar to inquire into the conduct and to be the principal manager of a prosecution against Mahomed Reza Khan.  Will you suffer this man to qualify and disqualify witnesses and prosecutors agreeably to the purposes which his own vengeance and corruption may dictate in one case, and which the defence of those corruptions may dictate in another?  Was Nundcomar a person fit to be employed in the greatest and most sacred trusts in the country, and yet not fit to be a witness to the sums of money which he paid Mr. Hastings for those trusts?  Was Nundcomar a fit witness to be employed and a fit person to be used in the prosecution of Mahomed Reza Khan, and yet not fit to be employed against Mr. Hastings, who himself had employed him in the very prosecution of Mahomed Reza Khan?

If Nundcomar was an enemy to Mr. Hastings, he was an enemy to Mahomed Reza Khan; and Mr. Hastings employed him, avowedly and professedly on the records of the Company, on account of the very qualification of that enmity.  Was he a wretch, the basest of mankind, when opposed to Mr. Hastings?  Was he not as much a wretch, and as much the basest of mankind, when Mr. Hastings employed him in the prosecution of the first magistrate and Mahometan of the first descent in Asia?  Mr. Hastings shall not qualify and disqualify men at his pleasure; he must accept them such as they are; and it is a presumption of his guilt accompanying the charge, (which I never will separate from it,) that he would not suffer the man to be produced who made the accusation.  And I therefore contend, that, as the accusation was so made, so witnessed, so detailed, so specific, so entered upon record, and so entered upon record in consequence of the inquiries ordered by the Company, his refusal and rejection of inquiry into it is a presumption of his guilt.

He is full of his idea of dignity.  It is right for every man to preserve his dignity.  There is a dignity of station, which a man has in trust to preserve; there is a dignity of personal character, which every man by being made man is bound to preserve.  But you see Mr. Hastings’s idea of dignity has no connection with integrity; it has no connection with honest fame; it has no connection with the reputation which he is bound to preserve.  What, my Lords, did he owe nothing to the Company that had appointed him?  Did he owe nothing to the legislature,—­did he owe nothing to your Lordships, and to the House of Commons, who had appointed him?  Did he owe nothing to himself? to the country that bore him?  Did he owe nothing to the world, as to its opinion, to which every public man owes a reputation?  What an example was here held out to the Company’s servants!