Happy had it been for them, happy for India and for England, if his conduct had been such as to spare your Lordships and the Commons the exhibition of this day!

I have stated them, I trust, with perspicuity,--stated the grounds and principles upon which they were made,--stated the abuses that grew upon them,--and that every revolution produced its abuse.

The first thing, in considering the merits or demerits of any governor, is to have some test by which they are to be tried.

And here, my Lords, we conceive, that, when a British governor is sent abroad, he is sent to pursue the good of the people as much as possible in the spirit of the laws of this country, which in all respects intend their conservation…

His rule was, what a British governor, intrusted with the power of this country, was bound to do or to forbear.

If he has performed and if he has abstained as he ought, dismiss him honorably acquitted from your bar; otherwise condemn him.

He may resort to other principles and to other maxims; but this country will force him to be tried by its laws.

I am directed to protest against those grounds and principles upon which he frames his defence; for, if those grounds are good and valid, they carry off a great deal at least, if not entirely, the foundation of our charge.

Hastings, as a British governor, ought to govern on British principles, not by British forms,--God forbid!--for if ever there was a case in which the letter kills and the spirit gives life, it would be an attempt to introduce British forms…

We call for that spirit of equity, that spirit of justice, that spirit of protection, that spirit of lenity, which ought to characterize every British subject in power; and on these, and these principles only, he will be tried.

This I contend for not in the technical forms of it, but I contend for it in the substance.

Slaves I found the people: slaves they are,--they are so by their constitution; and if they are, I did not make it for them.

But I trust and hope your Lordships will not judge by laws and institutions which you do not know, against those laws and institutions which you do know, and under whose power and authority Mr.

Think of an English governor tried before you as a British subject, and yet declaring that he governed on the principles of arbitrary power!

And as this plea is boldly avowed and maintained, and as, no doubt, all his conduct was perfectly correspondent to these principles, the principles and the conduct must be tried together.

Now, if your Lordships will suffer the laws to be broken by those who are not of the long robe, I am afraid those of the long robe will have none to punish but those of their own profession.

Those rights, and none other, I have been the involuntary instrument of enforcing.

The Hindoos, who never incorporated with their conquerors, were kept in order only by the strong hand of power.

The constant necessity of similar exertions would increase at once their energy and extent; so that rebellion itself is the parent and promoter of despotism.

The whole history of Asia is nothing more than precedents to prove the invariable exercise of arbitrary power.

I knew, that, from the history of Asia, and from the very nature of mankind, the subjects of a despotic empire are always vigilant for the moment to rebel, and the sovereign is ever jealous of rebellious intentions.

When manners were corrupted, the laws were relaxed; as the latter always follow the former, when they are not able to regulate them or to vanquish them.

They knew the contrary to be true; and they had taken good care that the laws should be well seconded by the manners.

And then, when in this speculative way he has established, or thinks he has, the vices of the government, he conceives he has found a sufficient apology for his own crimes.

And if he violates the most solemn engagements, if he oppresses, extorts, and robs, if he imprisons, confiscates, banishes at his sole will and pleasure, when we accuse him for his ill-treatment of the people committed to him as a sacred…