"
Now, my Lords, was there ever such a discovery made of the arcana of any
public theatre? You see here, behind the ostensible scenery, all the
crooked working of the machinery developed and laid open to the world.
You now see by what secret movement the master of the mechanism has
conducted the great Indian opera,--an opera of fraud, deceptions, and
harlequin tricks. You have it all laid open before you. The ostensible
scene is drawn aside; it has vanished from your sight. All the strutting
signors, and all the soft signoras are gone; and instead of a brilliant
spectacle of descending chariots, gods, goddesses, sun, moon, and stars,
you have nothing to gaze on but sticks, wire, ropes, and machinery. You
find the appearance all false and fraudulent; and you see the whole
trick at once. All this, my Lords, we owe to Major Scott's trunk, which,
by admitting us behind the scene, has enabled us to discover the real
state of Mr. Hastings's government in India. And can your Lordships
believe that all this mechanism of fraud, prevarication, and falsehood
could have been intended for any purpose but to forward that robbery,
corruption, and peculation by which Mr. Hastings has destroyed one of
the finest countries upon earth? Is it necessary, after this, for me to
tell you that you are not to believe one word of the correspondence
stated by him to have been received from India? This discovery goes to
the whole matter of the whole government of the country.
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