ccuser to an instant and easy detection: for, though, as the said
Warren Hastings himself has observed on another occasion, "papers may be
forged, and evidences may appear in numbers to attest them, yet it must
always be an _easy_ matter to detect the falsity of any forged paper
produced by examining the witnesses separately, and subjecting them to a
subsequent cross-examination, in which case, if false, they will not be
able to persevere in one regular, consistent story "; whereas, if no
advantage be taken of such particularity in the charge to detect the
falsehood thereof, and if no attempt to disprove it, and no defence
whatever be made, a presumption justly and reasonably arises in favor of
the truth of such charge. That the said Warren Hastings, instead of
offering anything in his defence, declared that _he would not suffer
Nundcomar to appear before the board at his accuser_; that he attempted
to indict his said accuser for a conspiracy, in which he failed; and
that the said Rajah Nundcomar was soon after, and while his charge
against the said Warren Hastings was depending before the Council,
indicted upon an English penal statute, which does not extend even to
Scotland,[1] before the Supreme Court of Judicature, for an offence said
to have been committed several years before, and not capital by the laws
of India, and was condemned and executed. That the evidence of this man,
not having been encountered at the time when it might and ought to have
been by the said Warren Hastings, remains justly in force against him,
and is not abated by the capital punishment of the said Nundcomar, but
rather confirmed by the time and circumstances in which the accuser of
the said Warren Hastings suffered death. That one of the offices for
which a part of the money above mentioned is stated to have been paid to
the said Warren Hastings was given by him to Munny Begum, the widow of
the late Mir Jaffier, Nabob of Bengal, whose son, by another woman,
holds that title at present. That the said Warren Hastings had been
instructed by the Court of Directors of the East India Company to
appoint "_a minister_ to transact the political affairs of the
government, and to select for that purpose some person well qualified
for the affairs of government, to be the minister and guardian of the
Nabob's minority." That for these offices, and for the execution of the
several duties belonging to them, the said Warren Hastings selected and
appointed the