But, my Lords, why did he choose to have Mr. Middleton appointed Resident?  Your Lordships have not seen Mr. Bristow:  you have only heard of him as a humble suppliant to have the orders of the Company obeyed.  But you have seen Mr. Middleton.  You know that Mr. Middleton is a good man to keep a secret:  I describe him no further.  You know what qualifications Mr. Hastings requires in a favorite.  You also know why he was turned out of his employment, with the approbation of the Court of Directors:  that it was principally because, when Resident in Oude, he positively, audaciously, and rebelliously refused to lay before the Council the correspondence with the country powers.  He says he gave it up to Mr. Hastings.  Whether he has or has not destroyed it we know not; all we know of it is, that it is not found to this hour.  We cannot even find Mr. Middleton’s trunk, though Mr. Jonathan Scott did at last produce his.  The whole of the Persian correspondence, during Mr. Middleton’s Residence, was refused, as I have said, to the board at Calcutta and to the Court of Directors,—­was refused to the legal authorities; and Mr. Middleton, for that very refusal, was again appointed by Mr. Hastings to supersede Mr. Bristow, removed without a pretence of offence; he received, I say, this appointment from Mr. Hastings, as a reward for that servile compliance by which he dissolved every tie between himself and his legal masters.

The matter being now brought to a simple issue, whether the Governor-General is or is not bound to obey his superiors, I shall here leave it with your Lordships; and I have only to beg your Lordships will remark the course of events as they follow each other,—­keeping in mind that the prisoner at your bar declared Mr. Bristow to be a man of suspected integrity, on account of his independence, and deficient in ability, because he did not know how best to promote his own interest.

I must here state to your Lordships, that it was the duty of the Resident to transact the money concerns of the Company, as well as its political negotiations.  You will now see how Mr. Hastings divided that duty, after he became apprehensive that the Court of Directors might be inclined to assert their own authority, and to assert it in a proper manner, which they so rarely did.  When, therefore, his passion had cooled, when his resentment of those violent indignities which had been offered to him, namely, the indignity of being put in mind that he had any superior under heaven, (for I know of no other,) he adopts the expedient of dividing the Residency into two offices; he makes a fair compromise between himself and the Directors; he appoints Mr. Middleton to the management of the money concerns, and Mr. Bristow to that of the political affairs.  Your Lordships see that Mr. Bristow, upon whom he had fixed the disqualification for political affairs, was the very person appointed to that department; and to Mr. Middleton, the man of his confidence, he