These papers were not only produced on the part of the
prosecution, as is the case before grand juries, but the friends of the
prisoner produced every document which they could produce for his
justification. We called all the witnesses which could enlighten us in
the cause, and the friends of the prisoner likewise called every witness
that could possibly throw any light in his favor. After all these long
deliberations, we referred the whole to a committee. When it had gone
through that committee, and we thought it in a fit state to be digested
into these charges, we referred the matter to another committee; and the
result of that long examination and the labor of these committees is the
impeachment now at your bar.
If, therefore, we are defeated here, we cannot plead for ourselves that
we have done this from a sudden gust of passion, which sometimes
agitates and sometimes misleads the most grave popular assemblies. No:
it is either the fair result of twenty-two years' deliberation that we
bring before you, or what the prisoner says is just and true,--that
nothing but malice in the Commons of Great Britain could possibly
produce such an accusation as the fruit of such an inquiry. My Lords,
we admit this statement, we are at issue upon this point; and we are now
before your Lordships, who are to determine whether this man has abused
his power in India for fourteen years, or whether the Commons has abused
their power of inquiry, made a mock of their inquisitorial authority,
and turned it to purposes of private malice and revenge.
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