Under such circumstances, however rigid your orders may be, or however supported, I am afraid that in most instances they will produce no other fruits than either avowed disobedience or the worst extreme of falsehood and hypocrisy.  These are not the principles which should rule the conduct of men whom you have constituted the guardians of your property, and checks on the morals and fidelity of others.  The care of self-preservation will naturally suggest the necessity of seizing the opportunity of present power, when the duration of it is considered as limited to the usual term of three years, and of applying it to the provision of a future independency; therefore every renewal of this term is liable to prove a reiterated oppression.  It is perhaps owing to the causes which I have described, and a proof of their existence, that this appointment has been for some years past so eagerly solicited and so easily resigned.  There are yet other inconveniences attendant on this habit, and perhaps an investigation of them all would lead to endless discoveries.  Every man whom your choice has honored with so distinguished a trust seeks to merit approbation and acquire an eclat by innovations, for which the wild scene before him affords ample and justifiable occasion.”

You see, my Lords, he has stated, that, if a Governor is appointed to hold his office only for a short time, the consequence would be either an avowed disobedience, or, what is worse, extreme falsehood and hypocrisy.  Your Lordships know that this man has held his office for a long time, and yet his disobedience has been avowed, and his hypocrisy and his falsehood have been discovered, and have been proved to your Lordships in the course of this trial.  You see this man has declared what are the principles which should rule the conduct of men whom you have constituted the guardians of your property, and checks upon the morals and fidelity of others.  Mr. Hastings tells you himself directly what his duty was; he tells you himself, and he pronounces his own condemnation, what was expected from him, namely, that he should give a great example himself, and be a check and guardian of the fidelity of all that are under him.  He declares, at the end of this letter, that a very short continuance in their service would enable him to make a fortune up to the height of his desire.  He has since thought proper to declare to you that he is a beggar and undone, notwithstanding all his irregular resources in that very service.

I have read this letter to your Lordships, that you may contrast it with the conduct of the prisoner, as stated by us, and proved by the evidence we have adduced.  We have stated and proved that Mr. Hastings did enter upon a systematic connivance at the peculation of the Company’s servants, that he refused to institute any check whatever for the purpose of preventing corruption, and that he carried into execution no one measure of government agreeably to the positive