It is not to the gang of plunderers and robbers of which I say
this man is at the head, that we are only, or indeed principally, to
look. Every man in Great Britain will be contaminated and must be
corrupted, if you let loose among us whole legions of men, generation
after generation, tainted with these abominable vices, and avowing these
detestable principles. It is, therefore, to preserve the integrity and
honor of the Commons of Great Britain, that we have brought this man to
your Lordships' bar.
When these matters were first explained to your Lordships, and strongly
enforced by abilities greater than I can exert, there was something like
compunction shown by the prisoner: but he took the most strange mode to
cover his guilt. Upon the cross-examination of Major Scott, he
discovered all the engines of this Indian corruption. Mr. Hastings got
that witness to swear that this defence of his, from which the passages
I have read to your Lordships are extracted, was not his, but that it
was the work of his whole Council, composed of Mr. Middleton, Mr. Shore,
Mr. Halhed, Mr. Baber,--the whole body of his Indian Cabinet Council;
that this was their work, and not his; and that he disclaimed it, and
therefore that it would be wrong to press it upon him.
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