his guilt, and that he has chosen what he thinks will be utterly insufficient to prove it?  And if this be the case, as he asserts it to be, with an under servant, think what must be the case of the upper servant of all:  for, if an inferior servant is not to be brought to justice, what must be the situation of a Governor-General?  It is impossible not to see, that, as he had conceived that a court of justice had not sufficient means to bring his crimes to light and detection, nor sufficient to bring him to proper and adequate punishment, therefore he flew to a court of justice, not as a place to decide upon him, but as a sanctuary to secure his guilt.  Most of your Lordships have travelled abroad, and have seen in the unreformed countries of Europe churches filled with persons who take sanctuary in them.  You do not presume that a man is innocent because he is in a sanctuary:  you know, that, so far from demonstrating his innocence, it demonstrates his guilt.  And in this case, Mr. Hastings flies not to a court for trial, but as a sanctuary to secure him from it.

Let us just review the whole of his conduct; let us hear how Mr. Hastings has proceeded with regard to this whole affair.  The court of justice dropped; the prosecution in Bengal ended.  With Sir Elijah Impey as chief-justice, who, as your Lordships have seen, had a most close and honorable connection with the Governor-General, (all the circumstances of which I need not detail to you, as it must be fresh in your Lordships’ memory,) he had not much to fear from the impartiality of the court.  He might be sure the forms of law would not be strained to do him mischief; therefore there was no great terror in it.  But whatever terror there might be in it was overblown, because his colleagues refused to carry him into it, and therefore that opportunity of defence is gone.  In Europe he was afraid of making any defence, but the prosecution here was also soon over; and in the House of Commons he takes this ground of justification for not giving any explanation, that the Court of Directors had received perfect satisfaction of his innocence; and he named persons of great and eminent character in the profession, whose names certainly cannot be mentioned without highly imposing upon the prejudices and weighing down almost the reason of mankind.  He quotes their opinions in his favor, and argues that the exculpation which they give, or are supposed to give him, should excuse him from any further explanation.

My Lords, I believe I need not say to great men of the profession, many of the first ornaments of which I see before me, that they are very little influenced in the seat of judgment by the opinions which they have given in the chamber, and they are perfectly in the right:  because while in the chamber they hear but one part of the cause; it is generally brought before them in a very partial manner, and they have not the lights which they possess when they sit deliberately