Here is a direct avowal of his refusing to examine into the conduct of persons in the Council, even in the highest departments of government, and the best paid, for fear he should dissatisfy them, and should lose their votes, by discovering those peculations and corruptions, though he perfectly knew them. Was there ever, since the world began, any man who would dare to avow such sentiments, until driven to the wall? If he could show that he himself abhorred bribes, and kept at a distance from them, then he might say, "I connive at the bribes of others"; but when he acknowledges that he takes bribes, how can you doubt that he buys a corrupt confederacy, and puts an end to any hope through him of reformation of the abuses at Bengal? But your Lordships will see that he not only connived at abuse, but patronized it and supported it for his own political purposes; since he here confesses, that, if inquiry into it created him ill-humor, and produced him an opposition in Council, he sacrificed it to the power of the Company, and the constitution of their government. Did he so? The Company ordered him to prosecute those people, and their constitution required that they should be prosecuted. "No," says Mr. Hastings, "the conniving at it procures a majority of votes." The very thing that he bought was not worth half the price he paid for it. He was sent to reform corruptions, and, in order that he might reform corruptions, he winked at, countenanced, and patronized them, to get a majority of votes; and what was, in fact, a sacrifice to his own interest, ambition, and corruption, he calls a sacrifice to the Company. He puts, then, this alternative: "Either give everything into my hand, suffer me to go on, and have no control, or else I wink at every species of corruption." It is a remarkable and stupendous thing, that, when all the world was alarmed at the disorders of the Company, when that alarm occasioned his being sent out, and when, in consequence of that alarm, Parliament suspended the constitution of the Company, and appointed another government, Mr. Hastings should tell that Company that Parliament had done wrong, and that the person put at the head of that government was to wink at those abuses. Nay, what is more, not only does Mr. Hastings declare, upon general principles, that it was impossible to pursue all the delinquencies of India, and that, if possible to pursue them, mischief would happen from it, but your Lordships will observe that Mr. Hastings, in this business, during the whole period of the administration of that body which was sent out to inquire into and reform the corruptions of India, did not call one person to an account; nor, except Mr. Hastings, this day, has any one been called to an account, or punished for delinquency. Whether he will be punished or no, time will show. I have no doubt of your Lordships' justice, and of the goodness of our cause.