one. My Lords, there never was a man who thought he had no law but his
own will, who did not soon find that he had no end but his own profit.
Corruption and arbitrary power are of natural unequivocal generation,
necessarily producing one another. Mr. Hastings foresees the abusive and
corrupt consequences, and then he justifies his conduct upon the
necessities of that system. These are things which are new in the world;
for there never was a man, I believe, who contended for arbitrary power,
(and there have been persons wicked and foolish enough to contend for
it,) that did not pretend, either that the system was good in itself, or
that by their conduct they had mitigated or had purified it, and that
the poison, by passing through their constitution, had acquired salutary
properties. But if you look at his defence before the House of Commons,
you will see that that very system upon which he governed, and under
which he now justifies his actions, did appear to himself a system
pregnant with a thousand evils and a thousand mischiefs.

The next thing that is remarkable and singular in the principles upon
which the Governor-General acted is, that, when he is engaged in a
vicious system which clearly leads to evil consequences, he thinks
himself bound to realize all the evil consequences involved in that
system. All other men have taken a directly contrary course: they have
said, "I have been engaged in an evil system, that led, indeed, to
mischievous consequences, but I have taken care, by my own virtues, to
prevent the evils of the system under which I acted."

We say, then, not only that he governed arbitrarily, but
corruptly,--that is to say, that he was a giver and receiver of bribes,
and formed a system for the purpose of giving and receiving them. We
wish your Lordships distinctly to consider that he did not only give and
receive bribes accidentally, as it happened, without any system and