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Having gone through what I have been instructed might be necessary to state to your Lordships concerning the Company’s constitution, (I mean the real inside, and not the shell of its constitution,)—­having stated the abuses that existed in it,—­having stated how Mr. Hastings endeavored to perpetuate and to increase and to profit of the abuse, and how he has systematically endeavored to destroy, and has in some instances in fact destroyed, many things truly excellent in that constitution,—­if I have not wasted your time in explanation of matters that you are already well acquainted with, I shall next beg leave to state to you the abuse in some particulars of the other part of the public authority which the Company acquired over the natives of India, in virtue of the royal charter of the present Mogul emperor, in the year 1766 [1765?].

My Lords, that you may the better judge of the abuse Mr. Hastings has made of the powers vested in him, it will be expedient to consider a little who the people are to whose prejudice he has abused these powers.  I shall explain this point with as much brevity as is consistent with the distinctness with which I mean to bring the whole before your Lordships; and I beg to observe to you that this previous discourse, rather explanatory than accusatorial, (if I may use the expression,) is meant rather to elucidate the nature of the matter to come before you in regular charges than as proof of the charges themselves.

I know that a good deal of latitude is allowed to advocates, when opening a cause in a private court, to indulge themselves in their narratives leading to the charges they intend to bring.  They are not always called to the strictest account for such prefatory matter, because the court, when it comes to judge, sifts and distinguishes it from the points to be strictly proved, and on whose merits the cause relies.  But I wish your Lordships to know, that, with the high opinion I have of your gravity, (and it is impossible for a man to conceive a higher,) and sensible of the weight of those I represent at this place, namely, the Commons of Great Britain, I should be sorry that any one substantial fact, even in this explanatory opening, or even the color of the fact, should be alleged, which, when called upon, I should not be ready to make good to you by proof,—­I mean, by proof adapted to its nature:  public opinion, by evidence of public opinion; by record, that to which record is applicable; by oral testimony, things to which oral testimony alone can be produced; and, last of all, that which is matter of historic proof, by historic evidence.  This I hope to do with the usual allowance to errors and mistakes, which is the claim of human infirmity.