My Lords, another thing might make me, perhaps, a little willing to be admitted to the proof of what I advanced, and that is, the very answer of Mr. Hastings to this charge, which the House of Commons, however, have adopted, and therefore in some degree purified.  “To the malicious part of this charge, which is the condemnation of Nundcomar for a forgery, I do declare, in the most solemn and unreserved manner, that I had no concern, either directly or indirectly, in the apprehending, prosecuting, or executing of Nundcomar.  He suffered for a crime of forgery which he had committed in a private trust that was delegated to him, and for which he had been prosecuted in the dewanny courts of the country before the institution of the Supreme Court of Judicature.  To adduce this circumstance, therefore, as a confirmation of what was before suspicious from his general depravity of character, is just as reasonable as to assert that the accusations of Empson and Dudley were confirmed because they suffered death for their atrocious acts.”

My Lords, this was Mr. Hastings’s defence before the House of Commons, and it is now in evidence before your Lordships.  In this defence, he supposes the charge which was made originally before the Commons, and which the Commons voted, (though afterwards, for the convenience of shortening it, the affair was brought before your Lordships in the way in which it is,)—­he supposes, I say, the whole to proceed from a malicious intention; and I hope your Lordships will not think, and I hope the Commons, reconsidering this matter, will not think, that, when such an imputation of malice was made for the purpose of repelling this corroborating argument which was used in the House of Commons to prove his guilt, I was wrong in attempting to support the House of Commons against his imputation of malice.

I must observe where I am limited and where I am not.  I am limited, strictly, fully, (and your Lordships and my country, who hear me, will judge how faithfully I shall adhere to that limitation,) not to support the credit of Nundcomar by any allegation against Mr. Hastings respecting his condemnation or execution; but I am not at all limited from endeavoring to support his credit against Mr. Hastings’s charges of other forgeries, and from showing you, what I hope to show you clearly in a few words, that Nundcomar cannot be presumed guilty of forgery with more probability than Mr. Hastings is guilty of bringing forward a light and dangerous (for I use no other words than a light and dangerous) charge of forgery, when it serves his purpose.  Mr. Hastings charges Nundcomar with two other forgeries.  “These two forgeries,” he says, “are facts recorded in the very Proceedings which my accuser partially quotes, proving this man to have been guilty of a most flagrant forgery of a letter from Munny Begum, and of a letter from the Nabob Yeteram ul Dowlah”; and therefore he infers malice in those who impute anything improper to him,