It does happen that there are very singular circumstances in this business, to which your Lordships will advert; and you will consider what weight they ought to have upon your Lordships’ minds.  The person who is now the solicitor of the Company is a very respectable man in the profession,—­Mr. Smith; he was at that time also the Company’s solicitor, and he has since appeared in this cause as Mr. Hastings’s solicitor.  Now there is something particular in a man’s being the solicitor to a party who was prosecuting another, and continuing afterwards in his office, and becoming the solicitor to the party prosecuted.  It would be nearly as strange as if our solicitor were to be the solicitor of Mr. Hastings in this prosecution and trial before your Lordships.  It is true, that we cannot make out, nor do we attempt to prove, that Mr. Smith was at that time actually Mr. Hastings’s solicitor:  all that we shall attempt to make out is, that the case he produced was just such a case as a solicitor anxious for the preservation of his client, and not anxious for the prosecution, would have made out.

My Lords, I have next to remark, that the opinion which the counsel gave in this case, namely, a very doubtful opinion, accompanied with strong censure of the manner in which the case was stated, was drawn from them by a case in which I charge that there were misrepresentation, suppression, and falsification.

Now, my Lords, in making this charge I am in a very awkward and unpleasant situation; but it is a situation in which, with all the disagreeable circumstances attending it, I must proceed.  I am, in this business, obliged to name many men:  I do not name them wantonly, but from the absolute necessity, as your Lordships will see, of the case.  I do not mean to reflect upon this gentleman:  I believe, at the time when he made this case, and especially the article which I state as a falsification, he must have trusted to some of the servants of the Company, who were but young in their service at that time.  There was a very great error committed; but by whom, or how, your Lordships in the course of this inquiry will find.  What I charge first is, that the case was improperly stated; secondly, that it was partially stated; and that afterwards a further report was made upon reference to the same officer in the committee.  Now, my Lords, of the three charges which I have made, the two former, namely, the misrepresentation and suppression, were applicable to the case; but all the three, misrepresentation, suppression, and falsification, were applicable to the report.

This I say in vindication of the opinions given, and for the satisfaction of the public, who may be imposed upon by them.  I wish the word to be understood.  When I say imposed, I always mean by it the weight and authority carried:  a meaning which this word, perhaps, has not got yet thoroughly in the English language; but in a neighboring language imposing means, that it weighs upon men’s minds with a sovereign authority.  To say that the opinions of learned men, though even thus obtained, may not have weight with this court, or with any court, is a kind of compliment I cannot pay to them at the expense of that common nature in which I and all human beings are involved.