of both the civil and military branches of the service were greatly in
arrear; the credit of the Company was extremely depressed; and, added to
all, the whole system had fallen into such irregularity and confusion,
that the real state of affairs could not be _ascertained_ till the
conclusion of the year 1785-6."--_Third Report_.] Too often in the
moral logic of this world, it matters but little what the premises of
conduct may be, so the conclusion but turns out showy and prosperous.
There is also, it must be owned, among the English, (as perhaps, among
all free people,) a strong taste for the arbitrary, when they themselves
are not to be the victims of it, which invariably secures to such
accomplished despotisms, as that of Lord Strafford in Ireland, and
Hastings in India, even a larger share of their admiration than they are,
themselves, always willing to allow.

The rhetorical exaggerations, in which the Managers of the prosecution
indulged,--Mr. Sheridan, from imagination, luxuriating in its own
display, and Burke from the same cause, added to his overpowering
autocracy of temper--were but too much calculated to throw suspicion on
the cause in which they were employed, and to produce a reaction in favor
of the person whom they were meant to overwhelm. "_Rogo vos,
Judices_,"--Mr. Hastings might well have said,--"_si iste disertus
est, ideo me damnari oportet?_" [Footnote: Seneca, Controvers. lib.
iii. c. 19.]

There are also, without doubt, considerable allowances to be made, for
the difficult situations in which Mr. Hastings was placed, and those
impulses to wrong which acted upon him from all sides--allowances which
will have more or less weight with the judgment, according as it may be
more or less fastidiously disposed, in letting excuses for rapine and
oppression pass muster. The incessant and urgent demands of the Directors