Mr. Belli was here during the whole time of the trial, and
six weeks after we had closed our evidence. We had then no longer the
arrangement of the order of witnesses, and he might have called whom he
pleased. With the full knowledge of these circumstances, that witness
did he suffer to depart for India, if he did not even encourage his
departure. This, my Lords, is the kind of damage which he has suffered
by the want of witnesses, through the protraction of this trial.
But the great and serious evil which he complains of, as being
occasioned by our delay, is of so extraordinary a nature that I must
request your Lordships to examine it with extraordinary strictness and
attention. In the petition before your Lordships, the prisoner asserts
that he was under the necessity, through his counsel and solicitors, "of
collecting and collating from the voluminous records of the Company the
whole history of his public life, in order to form a complete defence to
every allegation which the Honorable House of Commons had preferred
against him, and that he has expended upwards of thirty thousand pounds
in preparing the materials of his defence."
It is evident, my Lords, that the expenditure of this thirty thousand
pounds is not properly connected with the delay of which he complains;
for he states that he had incurred this loss merely in collecting and
collating materials, previous to his defence before your Lordships.
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