connected with Mr. Hastings’s going up to Benares which might not as well have been attained in Calcutta.  The only difference would have been, that in the latter case he must have entered some part of his proceedings upon the Consultations, whether he wished it or not.  If he had a mind to negotiate with the Vizier, he had a resident at his court, and the Vizier had a resident in Calcutta.  The most solemn treaties had often been made without any Governor-General carrying up a delegation of civil and military power.  If it had been his object to break treaties, he might have broken them at Calcutta, as he broke the treaty of Chunar.  Is there an article in that treaty that he might not as well have made at Calcutta?  Is there an article that he broke (for he broke them all) that he could not have broken at Calcutta?  So that, whether pledging or breaking the faith of the Company, he might have done both or either without ever stirring from the Presidency.

I can conceive a necessity so urgent as to supersede all laws; but I have no conception of a necessity that can require two governors-general, each forming separately a supreme council.  Nay, to bring the point home to him,—­if he had a mind to make Cheyt Sing to pay a fine, as he called it, he could have made him do that at Calcutta as well as at Benares.  He had before contrived to make him pay all the extra demands that were imposed upon him; and he well knew that he could send Colonel Camac, or somebody else, to Benares, with a body of troops to enforce the payment.  Why, then, did he go to try experiments there in his own person?  For this plain reason:  that he might be enabled to put such sums in his own pocket as he thought fit.  It was not and could not be for any other purpose; and I defy the wit of man to find out any other.

He says, my Lords, that Cheyt Sing might have resisted, and that, if he had not been there, the Rajah might have fled with his money, or raised a rebellion for the purpose of avoiding payment.  Why, then, we ask, did he not send an army?  We ask, whether Mr. Markham, with an army under the command of Colonel Popham, or Mr. Fowke, or any other Resident, was not much more likely to exact a great sum of money than Mr. Hastings without an army?  My Lords, the answer must be in the affirmative; it is therefore evident that no necessity could exist for his presence, and that his presence and conduct occasioned his being defeated in this matter.

We find this man, armed with an illegal commission, undertaking an enterprise which he has since said was perilous, which proved to be perilous, and in which, as he has told us himself, the existence of the British empire in India was involved.  The talisman, (your Lordships will remember his use of the word,) that charm which kept all India in order, which kept mighty and warlike nations under the government of a few Englishmen, would, I verily believe, have been broken forever, if he, or any other Governor-General,