Instead of considering himself as
a person already under the condemnation of his country, and uncertain
whether or not that condemnation shall receive the sanction of your
verdict, he ranks himself with the suffering heroes of antiquity.
Joining with them, he accuses us, the representatives of his country, of
the blackest ingratitude, of the basest motives, of the most abominable
oppression, not only of an innocent, but of a most meritorious
individual, who, in your and in our service, has sacrificed his health,
his fortune, and even suffered his fame and character to be called in
question from one end of the world to the other. This, I say, he charges
upon the Commons of Great Britain; and he charges it before the Court of
Peers of the same kingdom. Had I not heard this language from the
prisoner, and afterwards from his counsel, I must confess I could hardly
have believed that any man could so comport himself at your Lordships'
bar.
After stating in his defence the wonderful things he did for us, he
says,--"I maintained the wars which were of your formation, or that of
others, _not of mine_. I won one member of the great Indian confederacy
from it by an act of seasonable restitution; with another I maintained a
secret intercourse, and converted him into a friend; a third I drew off
by diversion and negotiation, and employed him as the instrument of
peace.
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