Good God! my Lords, if you are not appalled with the violent injustice of arbitrary proceedings, you must feel something humiliating at the gross ignorance of men who are in this manner playing with the rights of mankind.  This man confounds a fine upon succession with a fine of penalty.  He takes advantage of a defect in the technical language of our law, which, I am sorry to say, is not, in many parts, as correct in its distinctions and as wise in its provisions as the Mahometan law.  We use the word fine in three senses:  first, as a punishment and penalty; secondly, as a formal means of cutting off by one form the ties of another form, which we call levying a fine; and, thirdly, we use the word to signify a sum of money payable upon renewal of a lease or copyhold.  The word has in each case a totally different sense; but such is the stupidity and barbarism of the prisoner, that he confounds these senses, and tells you Sujah Dowlah took twenty-five lacs as a fine from Cheyt Sing for the renewal of his zemindary, and therefore, as a punishment for his offences, he shall take fifty.  Suppose any one of your Lordships, or of us, were to be fined for assault and battery, or for anything else, and it should be said, “You paid such a fine for a bishop’s lease, you paid such a fine on the purchase of an estate, and therefore, now that you are going to be fined for a punishment, we will take the measure of the fine, not from the nature and quality of your offence, not from the law upon the subject, or from your ability to pay, but the amount of a fine you paid some years ago for an estate shall be the measure of your punishment.”  My Lords, what should we say of such brutish ignorance, and such shocking confusion of ideas?

When this man had elevated his mind according to the rules of art, and stimulated himself to great things by great examples, he goes on to tell you that he rejected the offer of twenty lacs with which the Rajah would have compounded for his guilt when it was too late.

Permit me, my Lords, to say a few words here, by way of referring back all this monstrous heap of violence and absurdity to some degree of principle.  Mr. Hastings having completely acquitted the Rajah of any other fault than contumacy, and having supposed even that to be only personal to himself, he thought a fine of 500,000_l._ would be a proper punishment.  Now, when any man goes to exact a fine, it presupposes inquiry, charge, defence, and judgment.  It does so in the Mahometan law; it does so in the Gentoo law; it does so in the law of England, in the Roman law, and in the law, I believe, of every nation under heaven, except in that law which resides in the arbitrary breast of Mr. Hastings, poisoned by the principles and stimulated by the examples of those wicked traitors and rebels whom I have before described.  He mentions his intention of levying a fine; but does he make any mention of having charged the Rajah with his offences?