ey all knew to be the basest of mankind,--that he rails at
the Council, by attributing their conduct to the worst of motives,--that
he rails at everybody, and declares the accusation to be a libel: in
short, you see plainly that the man's head is turned. You see there is
not a word he says upon this occasion which has common sense in it; you
see one great leading principle in it,--that he does not once attempt to
deny the charge. He attempts to vilify the witness, he attempts to
vilify those he supposes to be his accusers, he attempts to vilify the
Council; he lags upon the accusation, he mixes it with other
accusations, which had nothing to do with it, and out of the whole he
collects a resolution--to do what? To meet his adversary and defy him?
No,--that he will not suffer him to appear before him: he says, "I will
not sit at this board in the character of a criminal, nor do I
acknowledge the board to be my judges."

He was not called upon to acknowledge them to be his judges. Both he and
they were called upon to inquire into all corruptions without exception.
It was his duty not merely [not?] to traverse and oppose them while
inquiring into acts of corruption, but he was bound to take an active
part in it,--that if they had a mind to let such a thing sleep upon
their records, it was his duty to have brought forward the inquiry. They
were not his judges, they were not his accusers; they were his
fellow-laborers in the inquiry ordered by the Court of Directors, their
masters, and by which inquiry he might be purged of that corruption with
which he stood charged.

He says, "Nundcomar is a wretch whom you all know to be the basest of
mankind." I believe they did not know the man to be a wretch, or the
basest of mankind; but if he was a wretch, and if he was the basest of
mankind, if he was guilty of all the crimes with which we charge Mr.
Hastings, (not one of which was ever proved against him,)--if any of
your Lordships were to have the misfortune to be before this tribunal,
before any inquest of the House of Commons, or any other inquest of this
nation, would you not say that it was the greatest possible advantage to
you that the man who accused you was a miscreant, the vilest and basest
of mankind, by the confession of all the world? Do mankind really, then,
think that to be accused by men of honor, of weight, of character, upon
probable charges, is an advantage to them, and that to be accused by the
basest of mankin