t upon, connected, or allied with this
country.

We shall afterwards show what infinite mischief has followed in the case
of Benares, upon which he first laid his hands; next, in the case of the
Begums of Oude.

We shall then lay before you the profligate system by which he
endeavored to oppress that country: first by Residents; next by spies
under the name of British Agents; and lastly, that, pursuing his way up
to the mountains, he has found out one miserable chief, whose crimes
were the prosperity of his country,--that him he endeavored to torture
and destroy,--I do not mean in his body, but by exhausting the treasures
which he kept for the benefit of his people.

In short, having shown your Lordships that no man who is in his power is
safe from his arbitrary will,--that no man, within or without, friend,
ally, rival, has been safe from him,--having brought it to this point,
if I am not able in my own person immediately to go up into the country
and show the ramifications of the system, (I hope and trust I shall be
spared to take my part in pursuing him through both,) if I am not, I
shall go at least to the root of it, and some other gentleman, with a
thousand times more ability than I possess, will take up each separate
part in its proper order. And I believe it is proposed by the managers
that one of them shall as soon as possible begin with the affair of
Benares.

The point I now mean first to bring before your Lordships is the
corruption of Mr. Hastings, his system of peculation and bribery, and to
show your Lordships the horrible consequences which resulted from it:
for, at first sight, bribery and peculation do not seem to be so horrid
a matter; they may seem to be only the transferring a little money out
of one pocket into another; but I shall show that by such a system of
bribery the country is undone.

I shall inform your Lordships in the best manner I can, and afterwards
submit the whole, as I do with a cheerful heart and with an easy and
assured security, to that justice which is the security for all the
other justice in the kingdom.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] 2d year of George II.

[2] See his letter of the 11th of July, 1785, at the end of the Charges.

[3] 13 Geo. III. c. 63, Sec. 10.

[4] 29 February, 1784.

[5] Dated, Benares, 4th of November, 1781.

[6] Revenue Consultation, 28th January, 1775.

[7] Revenue Board, 14th May, 1772.

[8] Address to the Court of Directors, 25th March, 17