afflicting dispensations of Providence.  With regard to his witnesses, I must beg to remind your Lordships of one extraordinary fact.  This prisoner has sent to India, and obtained, not testimonies, but testimonials to his general good behavior.  He has never once applied, by commission or otherwise, to falsify any one fact that is charged upon, him,—­no, my Lords, not one.  Therefore that part of his petition which states the injury he has received from the Commons of Great Britain is totally false and groundless.  For if he had any witnesses to examine, he would not have failed to examine them; if he had asked for a commission to receive their depositions, a commission would have been granted; if, without a commission, he had brought affidavits to facts, or regular recorded testimony, the Commons of Great Britain would never have rejected such evidence, even though they could not have cross-examined it.

Another complaint is, that many of his witnesses were obliged to leave England before he could make use of their evidence.  My Lords, no delay in the trial has prevented him from producing any evidence; for we were willing that any of his witnesses should be examined at any time most convenient to himself.  If many persons connected with his measures are gone to India, during the course of his trial, many others have returned to England.  Mr. Larkins returned.  Was the prisoner willing to examine him?  No:  and it was nothing but downright shame, and the presumptions which he knew would be drawn against him, if he did not call this witness, which finally induced him to make use of his evidence.  We examined Mr. Larkins, my Lords; we examined all the prisoner’s witnesses; your Lordships have their testimony; and down to this very hour he has not put his hand upon any one whom he thought a proper and essential witness to the facts, or to any part of the cause, whose examination has been denied him; nor has he even stated that any man, if brought here, would prove such and such points.  No, not one word to this effect has ever been stated by the prisoner.

There is, my Lords, another case, which was noticed by my honorable fellow Manager yesterday.  Mr. Belli, the confidential secretary of the prisoner, was agent and contractor for stores; and this raised a suspicion that the contracts were held by him for the prisoner’s advantage.  Mr. Belli was here during the whole time of the trial, and six weeks after we had closed our evidence.  We had then no longer the arrangement of the order of witnesses, and he might have called whom he pleased.  With the full knowledge of these circumstances, that witness did he suffer to depart for India, if he did not even encourage his departure.  This, my Lords, is the kind of damage which he has suffered by the want of witnesses, through the protraction of this trial.