sent to reform corruptions, and, in order that he might reform corruptions, he winked at, countenanced, and patronized them, to get a majority of votes; and what was, in fact, a sacrifice to his own interest, ambition, and corruption, he calls a sacrifice to the Company.  He puts, then, this alternative:  “Either give everything into my hand, suffer me to go on, and have no control, or else I wink at every species of corruption.”  It is a remarkable and stupendous thing, that, when all the world was alarmed at the disorders of the Company, when that alarm occasioned his being sent out, and when, in consequence of that alarm, Parliament suspended the constitution of the Company, and appointed another government, Mr. Hastings should tell that Company that Parliament had done wrong, and that the person put at the head of that government was to wink at those abuses.  Nay, what is more, not only does Mr. Hastings declare, upon general principles, that it was impossible to pursue all the delinquencies of India, and that, if possible to pursue them, mischief would happen from it, but your Lordships will observe that Mr. Hastings, in this business, during the whole period of the administration of that body which was sent out to inquire into and reform the corruptions of India, did not call one person to an account; nor, except Mr. Hastings, this day, has any one been called to an account, or punished for delinquency.  Whether he will be punished or no, time will show.  I have no doubt of your Lordships’ justice, and of the goodness of our cause.

The table of the House of Commons groaned under complaints of the evils growing in India under this systematic connivance of Mr. Hastings.  The Directors had set on foot prosecutions, to be conducted God knows how; but, such as they were, they were their only remedy; and they began to consider at last that these prosecutions had taken a long oblivious nap of many years; and at last, knowing that they were likely, in the year 1782, to be called to a strict account about their own conduct, the Court of Directors began to rouse themselves, and they write thus:  “Having in several of our letters to you very attentively perused all the proceedings referred to in these paragraphs, relative to the various forgeries on the Company’s treasuries, we lament exceedingly that the parties should have been so long in confinement without being brought to trial.”

Here, my Lords, after justice had been asleep awhile, it revived.  They directed two things:  first, that those suits should be pursued; but whether pursued or not, that an account of the state of them should be given, that they might give orders concerning them.

Your Lordships see the orders of the Company.  Did they not want to pursue and to revive those dormant prosecutions?  They want to have a state of them, that they may know how to direct the future conduct of them with more effect and vigor than they had yet been pursued with.  You will naturally imagine that Mr. Hastings did not obey their orders, or obeyed them languidly.  No, he took another part.  He says, “Having attentively read and weighed the arguments ... for withdrawing them."[7]