subjects, who cried to him for protection through their cages--meeting
the curses of some of his subjects, and the prayers of others--with
famine at his heels, and reproach following him,--then it was that this
Prince is represented as exercising this act of prodigal bounty to the
very man whom he here reproaches--to the very man whose policy had
extinguished his power, and whose creatures had desolated his country. To
talk of a free-will gift! it is audacious and ridiculous to name the
supposition. It was _not_ a free-will gift. What was it then? was it
a bribe? or was it extortion? I shall prove it was both--it was an act of
gross bribery and of rank extortion."

Again he thus adverts to this present:--

"The first thing he does is, to leave Calcutta, in order to go to the
relief of the distressed Nabob. The second thing, is to take 100,000_l_
from that distressed Nabob on account of the distressed Company. And the
third thing is to ask of the distressed Company this very same sum on
account of the distresses of Mr. Hastings. There never were three
distresses that seemed so little reconcilable with one another."

Anticipating the plea of state-necessity, which might possibly be set up
in defence of the measures of the Governor-General, he breaks out into
the following rhetorical passage:--

"State necessity! no, my Lords; that imperial tyrant, _State
Necessity_, is yet a generous despot,--bold is his demeanor, rapid his
decisions, and terrible his grasp. But what he does, my Lords, he dares
avow, and avowing, scorns any other justification, than the great motives
that placed the iron sceptre in his hand. But a quibbling, pilfering,
prevaricating State-Necessity, that tries to skulk behind the skirts of