SPEECH

IN

OPENING THE IMPEACHMENT.

FOURTH DAY:  TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1788.

My Lords,—­In any great undertaking, a failure in the midst of it, even from infirmity, though to be regarded principally as a misfortune, is attended with some slight shadow of disgrace; but your Lordships’ humanity, and your love of justice, have remedied everything, and I therefore proceed with confidence this day.

My Lords, I think (to the best of my remembrance) the House adjourned at the period of time in which I was endeavoring to illustrate the mischiefs that happened from Mr. Hastings’s throwing off his responsibility, by delegating his power to a nominal Council, and in reality to a black bad man, a native of the country, of the worst character that could be found in it,—­and the consequence of it, in preventing the detection and the punishment of the grossest abuses that ever were known to be committed in India, or any other part of the world.

My Lords, I stated to you that Mr. Commissioner Paterson was sent into that country.  I stated that he was sent into it with all the authority of government, with power to hear, and not only to hear and to report, but to redress, the grievances which he should find in the country.  In short, there was nothing wanting to his power but an honest support.  Your Lordships will be convinced that the road to fortune was easy to him.  Debi Sing for a favorable report would have given a large sum of money.  Your Lordships will be convinced that the Committee would not have received such a report as a proof of bribery.  They would rather consider him as a man whose conduct tended to conciliate, and to soften troublesome and difficult matters, and to settle the order of government as soon as possible.

Some of the things contained in his reports I have taken the liberty of laying before your Lordships, but very faintly, very imperfectly, and far short of my materials.  I have stated, that the criminal, against whom the commissioner had made his report, instead of being punished by that strong hand of power which Mr. Hastings has thought proper to use upon other occasions, when he has endeavored to make princes, or persons in the rank and with the attributes of sovereign princes, feel whenever they have incurred his private resentments,—­that this man was put into every situation of offence or defence which the most litigious and prevaricating laws that ever were invented in the very bosom of arbitrary power could afford him, or by which peculation and power were to be screened from the cries of an oppressed people.

Mr. Paterson, I stated, from being a commissioner directed to report, under the authority of government, to that government, was considered as a voluntary accuser, obliged to make good the articles of his charge.  But I believe I stated that he did not long remain in that condition.