at it makes
any alteration in the nature of the charges, whether they were delivered
immediately from my ostensible accusers, or whether they came to the
board through the channel of patronage; but it is sufficient to
authorize the conviction which I feel in my own mind, that those
gentlemen are parties in the accusations of which they assert the right
of being the judges.

"From the first commencement of this administration, every means have
been tried both to deprive me of the legal authority with which I have
been trusted, and to proclaim the annihilation of it to the world; but
no instance has yet appeared of this in so extraordinary a degree as in
the question now before the board. The chief of the administration, your
superior, Gentlemen, appointed by the legislature itself, shall I sit at
this board to be arraigned in the presence of a wretch whom you all know
to be one of the basest of mankind? I believe I need not mention his
name; but it is Nundcomar. Shall I sit here to hear men collected from
the dregs of the people give evidence, at his dictating, against my
character and conduct? I will not. You may, if you please, form
yourselves into a committee for the investigation of these matters in
any manner which you may think proper; but I will repeat, that I will
not meet Nundcomar at the board, nor suffer Nundcomar to be examined at
the board; nor have you a right to it, nor can it answer any other
purpose than that of vilifying and insulting me to insist upon it.

"I am sorry to have found it necessary to deliver my sentiments on a
subject of so important a nature in an unpremeditated minute, drawn from
me at the board, which I should have wished to have had leisure and
retirement to have enabled me to express myself with that degree of
caution and exactness which the subject requires. I have said nothing
but what I believe and am morally certain I shall stand justified for in
the eyes of my superiors and the eyes of the world; but I reserve to
myself the liberty of adding my further sentiments in such a manner and
form as I shall hereafter judge necessary."

My Lords, you see here the picture of Nundcomar drawn by Mr. Hastings
himself; you see the hurry, the passion, the precipitation, the
confusion, into which Mr. Hastings is thrown by the perplexity of
detected guilt; you see, my Lords, that, instead of defending himself,
he rails at his accuser in the most indecent language, calling him a
wretch whom th