see things ten thousand times more serious, things that deserve the thunderbolt of vindictive justice upon the head of the prisoner at your bar.  For you see, that, after he had ostensibly restored Mahomed Reza Khan, the man who could and would have executed his office with fidelity and effect, the man who was fit for and disposed to do his duty, there was still neither law, order, nor justice in the country.  Why?  Because of the interposition of Europeans, and men who must have been patronized and supported by Europeans.  All this happened before Mr. Hastings’s departure:  so that the whole effect of the new arrangement of government was known to him before he left Calcutta.  The same pretended remedy was applied.  But in fact he left this woman in the full possession of her power.  His last thoughts were for her; for the justice of the country, for the peace and security of the people of Bengal, he took no kind of care; these great interests were left to the mercy of the woman and her European associates.

My Lords, I have taken some pains in giving you this history.  I have shown you his open acts and secret stratagems, in direct rebellion to the Court of Directors,—­his double government, his false pretences of restoring the Nabob’s independence, leading in effect to a most servile dependence, even to the prohibition of the approach of any one, native or European, near him, but through the intervention of Sir John D’Oyly.  I therefore again repeat it, that Sir John D’Oyly, and the English gentlemen who were patronized and countenanced by Mr. Hastings, had wrought all that havoc in the country before Mr. Hastings left it.

I have particularly dwelt upon the administration of justice, because I consider it as the source of all good, and the maladministration of it as the source of all evil in the country.  Your Lordships have heard how it was totally destroyed by Mr. Hastings through Sir John D’Oyly, who was sent there by him for the purpose of forming a clandestine government of corruption and peculation.  This part of our charge speaks for itself, and I shall dismiss it with a single observation,—­that not the least trace of an account of all these vast sums of money delivered into the hands of Sir John D’Oyly for the use of the Nabob appears in any part of the Company’s records.  The undeniable inferences to be drawn from this fact are, first, that, wherever we find concealment of money, and the ceasing of an account, there has been fraud,—­and, secondly, that, if we find this concealment accompanied with the devastation of a country, and the extinction of justice in it, that devastation of the country and that extinction of justice have been the result of that fraudulent peculation.

I am sure your Lordships will not think that a charge of the annihilation of administrative justice, in which the happiness and prosperity of a great body of nobility, of numerous ancient and respectable families, and of the inhabitants in general of extensive and populous provinces are concerned, can, if it stood single and alone, be a matter of trifling moment.  And in favor of whom do all these sacrifices appear to have been made?  In favor of an old prostitute, who, if shown to your Lordships here, like Helen to the counsellors of Troy, would not, I think, be admitted to have charms that could palliate this man’s abominable conduct; you would not cry out with them,—­