though in a rational and judicious mind the intemperate conduct of the accuser certainly proves nothing with regard to the truth or falsehood of his accusation, yet we do know that the minds of men are so constituted that an improper mode of conducting a right thing does form some degree of prejudice against it.  Mr. Hastings, therefore, unable to defend himself upon principle, has resorted as much as he possibly could to prejudice.  And at the same time that there is not one word of denial, or the least attempt at a refutation of the charge, he has loaded the records with all manner of minutes, proceedings, and letters relative to everything but the fact itself.  The great aim of his policy, both then, before, and ever since, has been to divert the mind of the auditory, or the persons to whom he addressed himself, from the nature of his cause, to some collateral circumstance relative to it,—­a policy to which he has always had recourse; but that trick, the last resource of despairing guilt, I trust will now completely fail him.

Mr. Hastings, however, began to be pretty sensible that this way of proceeding had a very unpromising and untoward look; for which reason he next declared that he reserved his defence for fear of a legal prosecution, and that some time or other he would give a large and liberal explanation to the Court of Directors, to whom he was answerable for his conduct, of his refusing to suffer the inquiry to proceed, of his omitting to give them satisfaction at the time, of his omitting to take any one natural step that an innocent man would have taken upon such an occasion.  Under this promise he has remained from that time to the time you see him at your bar, and he has neither denied, exculpated, explained, or apologized for his conduct in any one single instance.

While he accuses the intemperance of his adversaries, he shows a degree of temperance in himself which always attends guilt in despair:  for struggling guilt may be warm, but guilt that is desperate has nothing to do but to submit to the consequences of it, to bear the infamy annexed to its situation, and to try to find some consolation in the effects of guilt with regard to private fortune for the scandal it brings them into in public reputation.  After the business had ended in India, the causes why he should have given the explanation grew stronger and stronger:  for not only the charges exhibited against him were weighty, but the manner in which he was called upon to inquire into them was such as would undoubtedly tend to stir the mind of a man of character, to rouse him to some consideration of himself, and to a sense of the necessity of his defence.  He was goaded to make this defence by the words I shall read to your Lordships from Sir John Clavering.

“In the late proceedings of the Revenue Board it will appear that there is no species of peculation from which the Honorable Governor-General has thought it reasonable to abstain.”  He further says, in answer to Mr. Hastings, “The malicious view with which this innuendo” (an innuendo of Mr. Hastings) “is thrown out is only worthy of a man who, having disgraced himself in the eyes of every man of honor both in Asia and in Europe, and having no imputation to lay to our charge, has dared to attempt in the dark what malice itself could not find grounds to aim at openly.”