The document which I am now going to read to your Lordships contains a declaration by Mr. Hastings of another mean which he used of corrupting the whole Company’s service.

     Minute of the Governor-General.—­Extract from that Minute.

“Called upon continually by persons of high rank and station, both in national and in the Company’s councils, to protect and prefer their friends in the army, and by the merits and services which have come under my personal knowledge and observation, I suffer both pain and humiliation at the want of power to reward the meritorious, or to show a proper attention to the wishes of my superiors, without having recourse to means which must be considered as incompatible with the dignity of my station.  The slender relief which I entreat of the board from this state of mortification is the authority to augment the number of my staff, which will enable me to show a marked and particular attention in circumstances such as above stated, and will be no considerable burden to the Company.”

My Lords, you here see what he has been endeavoring to effect, for the express purpose of enabling him to secure himself a corrupt influence in England.  But there is another point much more material, which brings the matter directly home to this court, and puts it to you either to punish him or to declare yourselves to be accomplices in the corruption of the whole service.  Hear what the man himself says.  I am first to mention to your Lordships the occasion upon which the passage which I shall read to you was written.  It was when he was making his enormous and shameful establishment of a Revenue Board, in the year 1781,—­of which I shall say a few words hereafter, as being a gross abuse in itself:  he then felt that the world would be so much shocked at the enormous prodigality and corrupt profusion of what he was doing, that he at last spoke out plainly.

     A Minute of Mr. Hastings, transmitted in a Letter by Mr. Wheler.

“In this, as it must be the case in every reformation, the interest of individuals has been our principal, if not our only impediment.  We could not at once deprive so large a body of our fellow-servants of their bread, without feeling that reluctance which humanity must dictate,—­not unaccompanied, perhaps, with some concern for the consequence which our own credit might suffer by an act which involved the fortunes of many, and extended its influence to all their connections.  This, added to the justice which was due to your servants, who were removed for no fault of theirs, but for the public convenience, induced us to continue their allowances until other offices could be provided for them, and the more cheerfully to submit to the expediency of leaving others in a temporary or partial charge of the internal collections.  In effect, the civil officers [offices?] of this government might be reduced to a very scanty number, were their exigency alone to determine the