memory.

It is to no purpose for Mr. Hastings to spend time in idle objections to
the character of Nundcomar. Let him be as bad as Mr. Hastings represents
him. I suppose he was a caballing, bribing, intriguing politician, like
others in that country, both black and white. We know associates in dark
and evil actions are not generally the best of men; but be that as it
will, it generally happens that they are the best of all discoverers. If
Mr. Hastings were the accuser of Nundcomar, I should think the
presumptions equally strong against Nundcomar, if he had acted as Mr.
Hastings has acted.--He was not only competent, but the most competent
of all men to be Mr. Hastings's accuser. But Mr. Hastings has himself
established both his character and his competency by employing him
against Mahomed Reza Khân. He shall not blow hot and cold. In what
respect was Mr. Hastings better than Mahomed Reza Khân, that the whole
rule, principle, and system of accusation and inquiry should be totally
reversed in general, nay, reversed in the particular instance, the
moment he became accuser against Mr. Hastings?--Such was the accuser. He
was the man that gave the bribes, and, in addition to his own evidence,
offers proof by other witnesses.

What was the accusation? Was the accusation improbable, either on
account of the subject-matter or the actor in it? Does such an
appointment as that of Munny Begum, in the most barefaced evasion of his
orders, appear to your Lordships a matter that contains no just
presumptions of guilt, so that, when a charge of bribery comes upon it,
you are prepared to reject it, as if the action were so clear and proper
that no man could attribute it to an improper motive? And as to the
man,--is Mr. Hastings a man against whom a charge of bribery is
improbable? Why, he owns it. He is a professor of it. He reduces it into