Could they have done this, if
they had not been actuated by some strong, some vehement, some perennial
passion, which, burning like the Vestal fire, chaste and eternal, never
suffers generous sympathy to grow cold in maintaining the rights of the
injured or in denouncing the crimes of the oppressor?
My Lords, the Managers for the Commons have been actuated by this
passion; my Lords, they feel its influence at this moment; and so far
from softening either their measures or their tone, they do here, in the
presence of their Creator, of this House, and of the world, make this
solemn declaration, and nuncupate this deliberate vow: that they will
ever glow with the most determined and unextinguishable animosity
against tyranny, oppression, and peculation in all, but more
particularly as practised by this man in India; that they never will
relent, but will pursue and prosecute him and it, till they see corrupt
pride prostrate under the feet of justice. We call upon your Lordships
to join us; and we have no doubt that you will feel the same sympathy
that we feel, or (what I cannot persuade my soul to think or my mouth to
utter) you will be identified with the criminal whose crimes you excuse,
and rolled with him in all the pollution of Indian guilt, from
generation to generation.
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