briefly the substance of what has now been urged respecting his conduct towards these miserable women.  We accuse him of reiterated breaches of the orders of the Court of Directors, both in the letter and spirit of them, and of his contempt of the opinions which his colleagues in office had formed of them.  We charge him with the aggravation of these delinquencies, by the oppression and ruin which they brought upon the family of the Nabob, by the infraction of treaties, and by the disrepute which in his person was sustained by the government he represented, and by the stain left upon the justice, honor, and good faith of the English nation.  We charge him with their farther aggravation by sundry false pretences alleged by him in justification of this conduct, the pretended reluctance of the Nabob, the fear of offending him, the suggestion of the Begums having forgotten and forgiven the wrongs they had suffered, and of the danger of reviving their discontent by any attempt to redress them, and by his insolent language, that the majesty of justice with which he impudently invests himself was only to be approached with solicitation.  We have farther stated, that the pretence that he was only concerned in this business as an accessary is equally false; it being, on the contrary, notorious, that the Nabob was the accessary, forced into the service, and a mere instrument in his hands, and that he and Sir Elijah Impey (whose employment in this business we stated as a farther aggravation) were the authors and principal agents.  And we farther contend, that each of these aggravations and pretences is itself, in fact and in its principle, a substantive crime.

Your Lordships witnessed the insolence with which this man, stung to the quick by the recital of his crime, interrupted me; and you heard his recrimination of falsehood against us.  We again avouch the truth of all and every word we have uttered, and the validity of every proof with which we have supported them.  Let his impatience, I say, now again burst forth,—­he who feels so sensibly everything that touches him, and yet seeks for an act of indemnity for his own atrocities, by endeavoring to make you believe that the wrongs of a desolated family are within one year forgotten by them, and buried in oblivion.

I trust, my Lords, that both his prosecutors and his judges will evince that patience which the criminal wants.  Justice is not to wait to have its majesty approached with solicitation.  We see that throne in which resides invisibly, but virtually, the majesty of England; we see your Lordships representing, in succession, the juridical authority in the highest court in this kingdom:  but we do not approach you with solicitation; we make it a petition of right; we claim it; we demand it.  The right of seeking redress is not suppliant, even before the majesty of England; it comes boldly forward, and never thinks it offends its sovereign by claiming what is the right of all his people.