the former might be suspected of exaggeration; you might think that which was really fact to be nothing but the coloring of the person that explained it; and therefore I think that it will be much better to give to your Lordships here a direct state of the Presidency at the time when the Company enacted those covenants which Mr. Hastings entered into, and when they took those measures to prevent the very evils from persons placed in those very stations and in those very circumstances in which we charge Mr. Hastings with having committed the offences we now bring before you.

I wish your Lordships to know that we are going to read a consultation of Lord Clive’s, who was sent out for the express purpose of reforming the state of the Company, in order to show the magnitude of the pecuniary corruptions that prevailed in it.

“It is from a due sense of the regard we owe and profess to your interests and to our own honor, that we think it indispensably necessary to lay open to your view a series of transactions too notoriously known to be suppressed, and too affecting to your interest, to the national character, and to the existence of the Company in Bengal, to escape unnoticed and uncensured,—­transactions which seem to demonstrate that every spring of this government was smeared with corruption, that principles of rapacity and oppression universally prevailed, and that every spark of sentiment and public spirit was lost and extinguished in the unbounded lust of unmerited wealth.

“To illustrate these positions, we must exhibit to your view a most unpleasing variety of complaints, inquiries, accusations, and vindications, the particulars of which are entered in our Proceedings and the Appendix,—­assuring you that we undertake this task with peculiar reluctance, from the personal regard we entertain for some of the gentlemen whose characters will appear to be deeply affected.

“At Fort St. George we received the first advices of the demise of Mir Jaffier and of Sujah Dowlah’s defeat.  It was there firmly imagined that no definite measures would be taken, either in respect to a peace or filling the vacancy in the nizamut, before our arrival,—­as the ‘Lapwing’ arrived in the month of January with your general letter, and the appointment of a committee with express powers to that purpose, for the successful exertion of which the happiest occasion now offered.  However, a contrary resolution prevailed in the Council.  The opportunity of acquiring immense fortunes was too inviting to be neglected, and the temptation too powerful to be resisted.  A treaty was hastily drawn up by the board, or rather transcribed, with few unimportant additions, from that concluded with Mir Jaffier,—­and a deputation, consisting of Messrs. Johnstone, senior, Middleton, and Leycester, appointed to raise the natural son of the deceased Nabob to the subahdarry, in prejudice of the claim of the grandson; and for this measure such reasons