It cannot justly be
charged on us; for we have never offered any matter here which we did
not declare our readiness upon the spot to prove. Your Lordships did not
think fit to receive that proof. We do not now censure your Lordships
for your determination: that is not the business of this day. We refer
to your determination for the purpose of showing the falsehood of the
imputation which the prisoner has cast upon us, of having oppressed him
by delay and irrelevant matter. We refer to it in order to show that the
oppression rests with himself, that it is all his own.
Well, but Mr. Hastings complained also to the House of Commons. Has he
pursued the complaint? No, he has not; and yet this prisoner, and these
gentlemen, his learned counsel, have dared to reiterate their complaints
of us at your Lordships' bar, while we have always been, and still are,
ready to prove both the atrocious nature of the facts, and that they are
_referable_ to the prisoner at your bar. To this, as I have said before,
the prisoner has objected; this we are not permitted to do by your
Lordships: and therefore, without presuming to blame your
determination, I repeat, that we throw the blame directly upon himself,
when he complains that his private character suffers without the means
of defence, since he objects to the use of means of defence which are at
his disposal.
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