from
this,--from his obedience to the orders of the Company, carried so much
beyond necessity, and prosecuted with so much rigor,--from the inquiry
being suspended for so long a time,--from every person in office being
removed from his situation,--from all these precautions being used as
prefatory to the inquiry, when he himself says, that, after he had used
all these means, he found not the least benefit and advantage from them?
The use I mean to make of this is, to let your Lordships see the great
probability and presumption that Mr. Hastings, finding himself in the
very selfsame situation that had occurred the year before, when
Nundcomar was sold to Mahomed Reza Khan, of selling Mahomed Reza Khan to
Nundcomar, made a corrupt use of it, and that, as Mahomed Reza Khan was
not treated with severity for his crimes, so neither was he acquitted
for his innocence. The Company had given Mr. Hastings severe orders, and
very severely had he executed them. The Company gave him no orders not
to institute a present inquiry; but he, under pretence of business,
neglected that inquiry, and suffered this man to languish in prison to
the utter ruin of his fortune.

We have in part shown your Lordships what Mr. Hastings's own manner of
proceeding with regard to a public delinquent is; but at present we
leave Mahomed Reza Khan where he was. Do your Lordships think that there
is no presumption of Mr. Hastings having a corrupt view in this
business, and of his having put this great man, who was supposed to be
of immense wealth, under contributions? Mr. Hastings never trusted his
colleagues in this proceeding; and what reason does he give? Why, he
supposed that they must be bribed by Mahomed Reza Khan. "For," says he,
"as I did not know their characters at that time, I did not know whether
Mahomed Reza Khan had not secured them to his interest by the known ways
in which great men in the East secure men to their interest." He never
trusted his colleagues with the secret; and the person that he employed
to prosecute Mahomed Reza Khan was his bitter enemy, Nundcomar. I will
not go the length of saying that the circumstance of enmity disables a
person from being a prosecutor; under some circumstances it renders a
man incompetent to be a witness; but this I know, that the circumstance
of having no other person to rely upon in a charge against any man but
his enemy, and of having no other principle to go upon than what is
supposed to be derived