I have now nothing further to state than what the consequences are of Mr. Hastings taking bribes,—­that Mr. Hastings’s taking of bribes is not only his own corruption, but the incurable corruption of the whole service.  I will show, first, that he was named in 1773 to put an end to that corruption.  I will show that he did not,—­that he knowingly and willingly connived at it,—­and that that connivance was the principal cause of all the disorders that have hitherto prevailed in that country.  I will show you that he positively refused to obey the Company’s order to inquire into and to correct the corruptions that prevailed in that country; next, that he established an avowed system of connivance, in order to gain over everything that was corrupt in the country; and that, lastly, to secure it, he gave up all the prosecutions, and enervated and took away the sole arm left to the Company for the assertion of authority and the preservation of good morals and purity in their service.

My Lords, here is a letter, in the year 1773, in which the Court of Directors had, upon his own representation, approved some part of his conduct.  He is charmed with their approbation; he promises the greatest things; but I believe your Lordships will see, from the manner in which he proceeds at that very instant, that a more deliberate system, for not only being corrupt himself, but supporting corruption in others, never was exhibited in any public paper.

“While I indulge the pleasure which I receive from the past successes of my endeavors, I own I cannot refrain from looking back with a mixture of anxiety on the omissions by which I am sensible I may since have hazarded the diminution of your esteem.  All my letters addressed to your Honorable Court, and to the Secret Committee, repeat the strongest promises of prosecuting the inquiries into the conduct of your servants which you had been pleased to commit particularly to my charge.  You will readily perceive that I must have been sincere in those declarations; since it would have argued great indiscretion to have made them, had I foreseen my inability to perform them.  I find myself now under the disagreeable necessity of avowing that inability; at the same time I will boldly take upon me to affirm, that, on whomsoever you might have delegated that charge, and by whatever powers it might have been accompanied, it would have been sufficient to occupy the entire attention of those who were intrusted with it, and, even with all the aids of leisure and authority, would have proved ineffectual.  I dare appeal to the public records, to the testimony of those who have opportunities of knowing me, and even to the detail which the public voice can report of the past acts of this government, that my time has been neither idly nor uselessly employed:  yet such are the cares and embarrassments of this various state, that, although much may be done, much more, even in matters of moment, must necessarily remain