By an express order of the Court of Directors, (to which, by the express words of the act of Parliament under which he held his office, he was ordered to yield obedience,) Mr. Hastings and his colleagues were directed to make an inquiry into all offences of bribery and corruption in office.  On the 11th of March a charge in writing of bribery and corruption in office was brought against himself.  On the 13th of the same month, the accuser, a man of high rank, the Rajah Nundcomar, appears personally before the Council to make good his charge against Mr. Hastings before his own face.  Mr. Hastings thereon fell into a very intemperate heat, obstinately refused to be present at the examination, attempted to dissolve the Council, and contumaciously retired from it.  Three of the other members, a majority of the Council, in execution of their duty, and in obedience to the orders received under the act of Parliament, proceeded to take the evidence, which is very minute and particular, and was entered in the records of the Council by the regular official secretary.  It was afterwards read in Mr. Hastings’s own presence, and by him transmitted, under his own signature, to the Court of Directors.  A separate letter was also written by him, about the same time, desiring, on his part, that, in any inquiry into his conduct, “not a single word should escape observation.”  This proceeding in the Council your Committee, in its natural order, and in a narrative chain of circumstantial proof, offered in evidence.  It was not permitted to be read; and on the 20th and 21st of May, 1789, we were told from the woolsack, “that, when a paper is not evidence by itself,” (such this part of the Consultation, it seems, was reputed,) “a party who wishes to introduce a paper of that kind is called upon not only to state, but to make out on proof, the whole of the grounds upon which he proceeds to make that paper proper evidence; that the evidence that is produced must be the demeanor of the party respecting that paper; and it is the connection between them, as material to the charge depending, that will enable them to be produced.”

Your Committee observes, that this was not a paper foreign to the prisoner, and sent to him as a letter, the receipt of which, and his conduct thereon, were to be brought home to him, to infer his guilt from his demeanor.  It was an office document of his own department, concerning himself, and kept by officers of his own, and by himself transmitted, as we have said, to the Court of Directors.  Its proof was in the record.  The charge made against him, and his demeanor on being acquainted with it, were not in separate evidence.  They all lay together, and composed a connected narrative of the business, authenticated by himself.

In that case it seems to your Committee extremely irregular and preposterous to demand previous and extraneous proofs of the demeanor of the party respecting the paper, and the connection between them, as material to the charge depending; for this would be to try what the effect and operation of the evidence would be on the issue of the cause, before its production.