avowal has been
followed by a censure. And yet, my Lords, so censured and so disavowed,
and by such an authority, I am sent here again, to this the place of my
offence, under the same commission, by the same authority, to make good
the same charge, against the same delinquent.

My Lords, the situation is new and awful: the situation is such as, I
believe, and I am sure, has nothing like it on the records of
Parliament, nor, probably, in the history of mankind. My Lords, it is
not only new and singular, but, I believe, to many persons, who do not
look into the true interior nature of affairs, it may appear that it
would be to me as mortifying as it is unprecedented. But, my Lords, I
have in this situation, and upon the consideration of all the
circumstances, something more to feed my mind with than mere
consolation; because, my Lords, I look upon the whole of these
circumstances, considered together, as the strongest, the most decisive,
and the least equivocal proof which the Commons of Great Britain can
give of their sincerity and their zeal in this prosecution. My Lords, is
it from a mistaken tenderness or a blind partiality to me, that, thus
censured, they have sent me to this place? No, my Lords, it is because
they feel, and recognize in their own breasts, that active principle of
justice, that zeal for the relief of the people of India, that zeal for
the honor of Great Britain, which characterizes me and my excellent
associates, that, in spite of any defects, in consequence of that zeal
which they applaud, and while they censure its mistakes, and, because
they censure its mistakes, do but more applaud, they have sent me to
this place, instructed, but not dismayed, to pursue this prosecution
against Warren Hastings, Esquire. Your Lordships will therefore be
pleased to consider this, as I consider it, not as a thing honorable to
me, in the first place, but as honorable to the Commons of Great
Britain, in whose honor the national glory is deeply concerned; and I
shall suffer myself with pleasure to be sacrificed, perhaps, in what is
dearer to me than my life, my reputation, rather than let it be supposed
that the Commons should for one moment have faltered in their duty. I,
my Lords, on the one hand, feeling myself supported and encouraged,
feeling protection and countenance from this admonition and warning
which has been given to me, will show myself, on the other hand, not
unworthy so great and distinguished a mark o