My Lords,—­Your Lordships heard, upon the last day of the meeting of this high court, the distribution of the several matters which I should have occasion to lay before you, and by which I resolved to guide myself in the examination of the conduct of Mr. Hastings with regard to Bengal.  I stated that I should first show the manner in which he comported himself with regard to the people who were found in possession of the government when we first entered into Bengal.  We have shown to your Lordships the progressive steps by which the native government was brought into a state of annihilation.  We have stated the manner in which that government was solemnly declared by a court of justice to be depraved, and incompetent to act, and dead in law.  We have shown to your Lordships (and we have referred you to the document) that its death was declared upon a certificate of the principal attending physician of the state, namely, Mr. Warren Hastings himself.  This was declared in an affidavit made by him, wherein he has gone through all the powers of government, of which he had regularly despoiled the Nabob Mobarek ul Dowlah, part by part, exactly according to the ancient formula by which a degraded knight was despoiled of his knighthood:  they took, I say, from him all the powers of government, article by article,—­his helmet, his shield, his cuirass; at last they hacked off his spurs, and left him nothing.  Mr. Hastings laid down all the premises, and left the judges to draw the conclusion.

Your Lordships will remark (for you will find it on your minutes) that the judges have declared this affidavit of Mr. Hastings to be a delicate affidavit.  We have heard of affidavits that were true; we have heard of affidavits that were perjured; but this is the first instance that has come to our knowledge (and we receive it as a proof of Indian refinement) of a delicate affidavit.  This affidavit of Mr. Hastings we shall show to your Lordships is not entitled to the description of a good affidavit, however it might be entitled, in the opinion of those judges, to the description of a delicate affidavit,—­a phrase by which they appear to have meant that he had furnished all the proofs of the Nabob’s deposition, but had delicately avoided to declare him expressly deposed.  The judges drew, however, this indelicate conclusion; the conclusion they drew was founded upon the premises; it was very just and logical; for they declared that he was a mere cipher.  They commended Mr. Hastings’s delicacy, though they did not imitate it; but they pronounced sentence of deposition upon the said Nabob, and they declared that any letter or paper that was produced from him could not be considered as an act of government.  So effectually was he removed by the judges out of the way, that no minority, no insanity, no physical circumstances, not even death itself, could put a man more completely out of sight.  They declare that they would consider his letters in no other light than as the letters of the Company, represented by the Governor-General and Council.  Thus, then, we find the Nabob legally dead.