the friend of Mr. Hastings, declares that he could not sit in it even for a few minutes. His words are, "The wretched, squalid figures that from every part ran out upon me appeared to be more like anything else than students." În fact a universal outcry was raised by the whole city against it, not only as a receptacle of every kind of abuse; not only of filth and excrements, which made it stink in the natural nostrils, but of worse filth, which made it insufferably offensive to the moral nostrils of every inhabitant. Such is the account given of a college supported at an expense of £3,000 a year (a handsome foundation for a college), and for building which the Company was charged £5,000; though no vouchers of its expenditure were ever given by Mr. Hastings. But this is not all. When Lord Cornwallis came to inquire into it, he found that Muged O'den had sunk the income of the estate's from £3,000 to £2,000 a year. In short, that it had been a scene of peculation, both by the masters and scholars, as well as of abandonment to every kind of vicious and licentious courses; and all this without the shadow of any benefit having been derived from it. The visitors expressly inquired whether there was any good mixed with all this evil; and they found it was all bad and mischievous from one end to the other. Your lordships will remark, that the greatest part of this disgusting business must have been known to Mr. Hastings when he gave to Muged O'den the disposal of £3,000 a year. And now, my lords, can you vote this money, expended in the manner which I have stated to you, to be a set-off in his favour, in an account for money which was itself swindled from a private individual?

But there still remains behind another more serious matter belonging to this affair, and I hope you will not think that I am laying too much stress upon it, when I declare, that if I were to select from the whole of his conduct one thing more dishonourable than another to the British nation, it would be that which I am now about to mention. I will leave your lordships to judge of the sincerity of this declaration, when you shall have heard read a paper produced by the prisoner in justification of conduct such as I have stated his to have been. It is the razynama, or attestation of Munny Begum (the woman whom Mr. Hastings placed in the seat of justice in that country), concerning this college, made precisely at

the time of this inquisition by Lord Cornwallis into the management of it. Your lordships will see what sort of things attestations are from that country; that they are attestations procured in diametrical contradiction to the certain knowledge of the party attesting. It is in page 2350 of your minutes. Indeed, my lords, these are pages which, unless they are effaced by your judgment, will rise up in judgment against us, some day or other.

"He [Mr. Hastings] respected the learned and wise men, and, in order for the propagation of learning, he built a college, and endowed it with a provision for the maintenance of the students, insomuch that thousands reaping the benefits thereof offer up their prayers for the prosperity of the king of England, and for the success of the Company."

I must here remind your lordships of another attestation of the same character, and to the same effect. It comes from Mahomed Reza Khân, who, as your lordships will remember, had been reduced by Mr. Hastings from a situation of the highest rank and authority, with an income of suitable magnitude, to one of comparative insignificance, with a small salary annexed. This man is made to disgrace himself, and to abet the disgrace and injury done to his country, by bearing his testimony to the merits of this very college.

I hope your lordships will never lose sight of this aggravating circumstance of the prisoner's criminality, namely, that you never find any wicked, fraudulent, and criminal act, in which you do not find the persons who suffered by it, and must have been well acquainted with it, to be the very persons who are brought to attest in its favour. O Heaven! but let shame for one moment veil its face, let indignation suppress its feelings, whilst I again call upon you to view all this as a mere swindling transaction, in which the prisoner was attempting to defraud the Company. Mr. Hastings has declared, and you will find it upon the Company's records, that this institution (which cost the Company not less than £40,000 in one way or other) did not commence before October, in the year 1780; and he brings it before the board in April, 1781, that is, about six months after its foundation. Now look at his other account, in which he makes it to be

gin in the year 1779, and in which he has therefore overcharged the expenses of it a whole year; but Mr. Larkins, who kept this latter account for him, may have been inaccurate. Good Heavens! where are we? Mr. Hastings, who was bred an accountant, who was bred in all sorts of trade and business, declares that he keeps no accounts. Then comes Mr. Larkins, who keeps an account for him; but he keeps a false account. Indeed, all the accounts from India, from one end to another, are nothing but a series of fraud, while Mr. Hastings was concerned in them. Mr. Larkins, who keeps his private account just as his master kept the public accounts, has swindled from the Company a whole year's expenses of this college. I should not thus repeatedly dwell upon this transaction, but because I wish your lordships to be cautious how you admit such accounts at all to be given in evidence, into the truth of which you cannot penetrate in any regular way. Upon the face of the two accounts there is a gross fraud. It is no matter which is true or false; as it is an account which you are in no situation to decide upon. I lay down this as a fixed judicial rule, that no judge ought to receive an account (which is as serious a part of a judicial proceeding as can be) the correctness of which he has no means of ascertaining, but must depend upon the sole word of the accountant.

Having stated therefore the nature of the offence, which differs nothing from a common dog-trot fraud, such as we see amongst the meanest of mankind, your lordships will be cautious how you admit these, or any other of his pretended services, to be set off against his crimes. These stand on record confessed before you; the former, of which you can form no just estimate, and into which you cannot enter, rest for their truth upon his own assertions; and they all are found, upon the very face of them, to carry marks of fraud as well as of wickedness.

I have only further to observe to your lordships, that this Muged O'den, who, under the patronage of Mr. Hastings, was to do all these wonders, Lord Cornwallis turned out of his office with every mark of disgrace, when he attempted to put into some more respectable state that establishment which Mr. Hastings had made a sink of abuse.

I here conclude all that I have to say upon this business,

trusting that your lordships will feel yourselves more offended, and justice more insulted, by the defence than by the criminal acts of the prisoner at your bar; and that your lordships will concur with us in thinking, that to make this unhappy people make these attestations, knowing the direct contrary of every word which they say to be the truth, is a shocking aggravation of his guilt. I say they must know it. For Lord Cornwallis tells you it is notorious; and if you think fit to inquire into it, you will find that it was unusually

notorious.

My lords, we have now brought to a conclusion our observation upon the effects produced by that mass of oppressions which we have stated and proved before your lordships; namely, its effects upon the revenues and upon the public servants of the Company. We have shown you how greatly the former were diminished, and in what manner the latter were reduced to the worst of all bad states, a state of subserviency to the will of the Governor-General. I have shown your lordships that in this state they were not only rendered incapable of performing their own duty, but were fitted for the worst of all purposes, coöperation with him in the perpetration of his criminal acts, and collusion with him in the concealment of them. I have lastly to speak of these effects, as they regard the general state and welfare of the country. And here your lordships will permit me to read the evidence given by Lord Cornwallis, a witness called by the prisoner at your bar, Mr. Hastings himself.

The evidence of Lord Cornwallis, page 2721: "Q. Whether your lordship recollects an account that you have given to the court of directors, in your letter of the 2nd of August, 1789, concerning the state of those provinces ? A. I really could not venture to be particular as to any letter I may have written so long since, as I have brought no copies of my letters with me from India, having left them at Bengal when I went to the coast.-Q. Whether your lordship recollects in any letter that you wrote about the 2nd of August, 1789, paragraph 18, any expressions to this effect, namely, 'I am sorry to be obliged to say, that agriculture and internal commerce have, for many years, been gradually declining, and that at present, excepting the class of shroff's

and banyans, who reside almost entirely in great towns, the inhabitants of these provinces were advancing hastily to a general state of poverty and wretchedness;' whether your lordship recollects that you have written a letter to that effect? A. I cannot take upon me to recollect the words of a letter that I have written five years ago, but I conclude I must have written to that effect.-Q. Whether your lordship recollects, that in the immediately following paragraph, the 19th, you wrote to this effect: In this description, namely the foregone description, I must even include almost every zemindar in the Company's territories, which, though it may have been partly occasioned by their own indolence and extravagance, I am afraid must also be in a great measure attributed to the defects of our former system of management, paragraph 20. The settlement, in conformity to your orders, will only be made for ten years certain, with the notification of its being your intention to declare it a perpetual, an unalterable assessment of these provinces, if the amount and the principles upon which it has been made should meet with your approbation; ' whether your lordship recollects to have written something to the effect of these two last paragraphs, as well as of the first? A. I do recollect that I did write it; but in that letter I alluded to the former system of annual assessments.-Q. Whether your lordship recollects, that you wrote, on or about the 18th of September, 1789, in one of your minutes, thus, 'I may safely assert, that one third of the Company's territory in Indostan is now a jungle, inhabited only by wild beasts; will a ten years' lease induce any proprietor to clear away that jungle, and encourage the rajot to come and cultivate his lands, when at the end of that lease he must either submit to be taxed ad libitum for the newly cultivated lands, or lose all hopes of deriving any benefit from his labour, for which, perhaps, by that time he will hardly be repaid?' whether your lordship recollects a minute to that effect? A. I perfectly recollect to have written that minute.-Q. Now with respect to a letter, dated November the 3rd, 1788, paragraph 38 containing the following sentiments: 'I shall therefore only remark in general, that, from frequent changes of system or other reasons, much is wanting to establish good order and regulations in the internal business of the