ready done in this cause, and in what condition it now stands for your judgment.

An immense mass of criminality was digested by a committee of the House of Commons; but although this mass had been taken from another mass still greater, the House found it expedient to select twenty specific charges, which they afterwards directed us their managers to bring to your lordships' bar. Whether that which has been brought forward on these occasions, or that which was left behind, be more highly criminal, I for one, as a person most concerned in this inquiry, do assure your lordships that it is impossible for me to determine.

After we had brought forward this cause, (the greatest in extent that ever was tried before any human tribunal, to say nothing of the magnitude of its consequences,) we soon found, whatever the reasons might be, without at present blaming the prisoner, without blaming your lordships, and far are we from imputing blame to ourselves, we soon found that this trial was likely to be protracted to an unusual length. The managers of the Commons, feeling this, went up to their constituents to procure from them the means of reducing it within a compass fitter for their management and for your lordships' judgment. Being furnished with this power, a second selection was made upon the principles of the first; not upon the idea, that what we left could be less clearly sustained, but because we thought a selection should be made upon some juridical principle. With this impression on our minds, we reduced the whole cause to four great heads of guilt and criminality. Two of them, namely, Benares and the Begums, show the effects of his open violence. and injustice; the other two expose the principles of pecuniary corruption, upon which the prisoner proceeded; one of these displays his passive corruption in receiving bribes, and the other his active corruption, in which he has endeavored to defend his passive corruption, by forming a most formidable faction both abroad and at home. There is hardly any

one act of the prisoner's corruption, in which there is not presumptive violence; nor any acts of his violence, in which there are not presumptive proofs of corruption. These practices are so intimately blended with each other, that we thought the distribution which we have adopted would best bring before you the spirit and genius of his government; and we were convinced, that, if upon these four great heads of charge your lordships should not find him guilty, nothing could be added to them which would persuade you so to do.

In this way and in this state, the matter now comes before your lordships. I need not tread over the ground, which has been trod with such extraordinary abilities by my brother managers; of whom I shall say nothing more, than that the cause has been supported by abilities equal to it; and, my lords, no abilities are beyond it. As to the part which I have sustained in this procedure, a sense of my own abilities, weighed with the importance of the cause, would have made me desirous of being left out of it; but I had a duty to perform which superseded every personal consideration, and that duty was obedience to the House, of which I have the honor of being a member. This is all the apology I shall make. We are the Commons of Great Britain, and therefore cannot make apologies. I can make none for my obedience; they want none for their commands. They gave me this office, not from any confidence in my ability, but from a confidence in the abilities of those who were to assist me, and from a confidence in my zeal,-a quality, my lords, which oftentimes supplies the want of great abilities.

In considering what relates to the prisoner and to his defence, I find the whole resolves itself into four heads. First, his demeanor and his defence in general: secondly, the principles of his defence: thirdly, the means of that defence; and, fourthly, the testimonies which he brings forward to fortify those means, to support those principles, and to justify that demeanor.

As to his demeanor, my lords, I will venture to say, that,

if we fully examine the conduct of all prisoners brought before this high tribunal, from the time that the Duke of Suffolk appeared before it, down to the time of the appearance of my Lord Macclesfield; if we fully examine the conduct of prisoners in every station of life, from my Lord Bacon down to the smugglers who were impeached in the reign of King William, I say, my lords, that we shall not, in the whole history of parliamentary trials, find any thing similar to the demeanor of the prisoner at your bar. What could have encouraged that demeanor, your lordships will, when you reflect seriously upon this matter, consider. God forbid that the authority either of the prosecutor or of the judge should dishearten the prisoner, so as to circumscribe the means. or enervate the vigor of his defence. God forbid that such a thing should even appear to be desired by any body in any British tribunal. But, my lords, there is a behavior which broadly displays a want of sense, a, want of feeling, a want of decorum; a behavior which indicates an habitual depravity of mind, that has no sentiments of propriety, no feeling for the relations of life, no conformity to the circumstances of human affairs. This behavior does not indicate the spirit of injured innocence, but the audacity of hardened, habitual, shameless guilt; affording legitimate grounds for inferring a very defective education, very evil society, or very vicious habits of life. There is, my lords, a nobleness in modesty; while insolence is always base and servile. man who is under the accusation of his country is under a very great misfortune. His innocence indeed may at length shine out like the sun, yet for a moment it is under a cloud; his honor is in abeyance; his estimation is suspended; and he stands, as it were, a doubtful person in the eyes of all human society. In that situation, not a timid, not an abject, but undoubtedly a modest behavior would become a person, even of the most exalted dignity, and of the firmest fortitude.

A

The Romans (who were a people that understood the de

corum of life as well as we do) considered a person accused to stand in such a doubtful situation, that from the moment of accusation he assumed either a mourning, or some squalid garb; although, by the nature of their constitution, accusations were brought forward by one of their lowest magistrates. The spirit of that decent usage has continued from the time of the Romans till this very day. No man was ever brought before your lordships, that did not carry the outward as well as inward demeanor of modesty, of fear, of apprehension, of a sense of his situation, of a sense of our accusation, and a sense of your lordships' dignity.

These, however, are but outward things; they are, as Hamlet says, "things which a man may play." But, my lords, this prisoner has gone a great deal further than being merely deficient in decent humility. Instead of defending himself, he has, with a degree of insolence unparalleled in the history of pride and guilt, cast out a recriminatory accusation upon the House of Commons. Instead of considering himself as a person already under the condemnation of his country, and uncertain whether or not that condemnation shall receive the sanction of your verdict, he ranks himself with the suffering heroes of antiquity. Joining with them, he accuses us, the representatives of his country, of the blackest ingratitude, of the basest motives, of the most abominable oppression, not only of an innocent, but of a most meritorious individual, who, in your and in our service, has sacrificed his health, his fortune, and even suffered his fame and character to be called in question, from one end of the world to the other. This, I say, he charges upon the Commons of Great Britain; and he charges it before the Court of Peers of the same kingdom. Had I not heard this language from the prisoner, and afterwards from his counsel, I must confess I could hardly have believed that any man could so comport himself at your lordships' bar.

After stating in his defence the wonderful things he did for us, he says, "I maintained the wars which were of your

formation, or that of others, not of mine. I won one member of the great Indian confederacy from it, by an act of seasonable restitution; with another, I maintained a secret intercourse, and converted him into a friend; a third, I drew off by diversion and negotiation, and employed him as the instrument of peace. When you cried out for peace, and your cries were heard by those who were the objects of it, I resisted this and every other species of counteraction, by rising in my demands, and accomplished a peace, and I hope an everlasting one, with one great state; and I at least afforded the efficient means by which a peace, if not so durable, more seasonable at least, was accomplished with another. I gave you all; and you have rewarded me with confiscation, disgrace, and a life of impeachment.”

Comparing our conduct with that of the people of India, he says, "They manifested a generosity, of which we have no example in the European world. Their conduct was the effect of their sense of gratitude for the benefits they had received from my administration. I wish I could say as much of my own countrymen."

My lords, here then we have the prisoner at your bar in his demeanor not defending himself, but recriminating upon his country; charging it with perfidy, ingratitude, and oppression, and making a comparison of it with the banyans of India, whom he prefers to the Commons of Great Britain.

My lords, what shall we say to this demeanor? With regard to the charge of using him with ingratitude, there are two points to be considered. First, the charge implies that he had rendered great services; and secondly, that he has been falsely accused.

My lords, as to the great services, they have not, they cannot come in evidence before you. If you have received such evidence, you have received it obliquely; for there is no other direct proof before your lordships of such services, than that of there having been great distresses and great calamities in India, during his government. Upon these distresses and