Now the first thing that will occur to your Lordships upon such an affair will be a desire to know what it was that induced the Nabob to make this offer.  It was but in the September preceding that Mr. Hastings had received, for his private use, as the Nabob conceived, so bountiful a present as 100,000_l._; what motive, then, could he have had in February to offer him another 100,000_l._?  This man, at the time, was piercing heaven itself with the cries of despondency, despair, beggary, and ruin.  You have seen that he was forced to rob his own family, in order to satisfy the Company’s demands upon him; and yet this is precisely the time when he thinks proper to offer 100,000_l._ to Mr. Hastings.  Does not the mind of every man revolt, whilst he exclaims, and say, “What! another 100,000_l._ to Mr. Hastings?” What reason had the Nabob to think Mr. Hastings so monstrously insatiable, that, having but the September before received 100,000_l._, he must give him another in February?  My Lords, he must, in the interval, have threatened the Nabob with some horrible catastrophe, from which he was to redeem himself by this second present.  You can assign no other motive for his giving it.  We know not what answer Mr. Hastings made to Mr. Middleton upon that occasion, but we find that in the year 1783 Mr. Hastings asserts that he sent up Major Palmer and Major Davy to persuade the Nabob to transfer this present, which the Nabob intended for him, to the Company’s service.  Remark, my Lords, the progress of this affair.  In a formal accusation preferred against Mr. Middleton, he charges him with obstructing this design of his.  In this accusation, my Lords, you find him at once in the curious character of prosecutor, witness, and judge.

Let us see how he comports himself.  I shall only state to you one of the articles of his impeachment; it is the third charge; it is in page 1267 of your Lordships’ Minutes.

“For sending repeatedly to the Vizier, and to his minister, Hyder Beg Khan, to advise them against transferring the ten lacs of rupees intended as a present to the Governor-General to the Company’s account; as it would be a precedent for further demands, which if the Vizier did not refuse in the first instance, the government would never cease to harass him for money.”

The first thing that will occur to your Lordships is an assertion of the accuser’s:—­“I am morally certain, that jaidads or assets for ten lacs, either in assignment of land or in bills, had been prepared, and were in the charge or possession of Mr. Middleton, before Major Palmer’s arrival, and left with Mr. Johnson on Mr. Middleton’s departure.”