Mr. Hastings has now at length taken a ground, as you will see from all his writings, which makes all explanation of his conduct in this business absolutely impossible. For, in the first place, he says, "As a prosecution is meditated against me, I will say nothing in explanation of my conduct, because I might disclose my defence, and by that means do myself a prejudice." On the other hand, when the prosecution is dropped, as we all know it was dropped in this case, then he has a direct contrary reason, but it serves him just as well: "Why, as no prosecution is intended, no defence need be made." So that, whether a prosecution is intended or a prosecution dropped, there is always cause why Mr. Hastings should not give the Court of Directors the least satisfaction concerning his conduct, notwithstanding, as we shall prove, he has reiteratedly promised, and promised it in the most ample and liberal manner. But let us see if there be any presumption in his favor to rebut the presumption which he knew was irresistible, and which, by making no defence for his conduct, and stopping the inquiry, must necessarily lie upon him. He reserves his defence, but he promises both defence and explanation.
Your Lordships will remark that there is nowhere a clear and positive denial of the fact. Promising a defence, I will admit, does not directly and ex vi termini suppose that a man may not deny the fact, because it is just compatible with the defence; but it does by no means exclude the admission of the fact, because the admission of the fact may be attended with a justification: but when a man says that he will explain his conduct with regard to a fact, then he admits that fact, because there can be no explanation of a fact which has no existence. Therefore Mr. Hastings admits the fact by promising an explanation, and he shows he has no explanation nor justification to give by never having given it. Goaded, provoked, and called upon for it, in the manner I have mentioned, he chooses to have a feast of disgrace, (if I may say so,) to have a riot of infamy, served up to him day by day for a course of years, in every species of reproach that could be given by his colleagues, and by the Court of Directors, "from whom," he says, "I received nothing but opprobrious and disgraceful epithets," and he says "that his predecessors possessed more of their confidence than he had." Yet for years he lay down in that sty of disgrace, fattening in it, feeding upon that offal of disgrace and excrement, upon everything that could be disgustful to the human mind, rather than deny the fact and put himself upon a civil justification. Infamy was never incurred for nothing. We know very well what was said formerly:—
"Populus me sibilat; at mihi plaudo
Ipse domi, simul ac nummos contemplor in arca."
And never did a man submit to infamy for anything but its true reward, money. Money he received; the infamy he received along with it: he was glad to take his wife with all her goods; he took her with her full portion, with every species of infamy that belonged to her; and your Lordships cannot resist the opinion that he would not have suffered himself to be disgraced with the Court of Directors, disgraced with his colleagues, disgraced with the world, disgraced upon an eternal record, unless he was absolutely guilty of the fact that was charged upon him.
He frequently expresses that he reserves himself for a court of justice. Does he, my Lords? I am sorry that Mr. Hastings should show that he always mistakes his situation; he has totally mistaken it: he was a servant, bound to give a satisfactory account of his conduct to his masters, and, instead of that, he considers himself and the Court of Directors as litigant parties,—them as the accusers, and himself as the culprit. What would your Lordships, in private life, conceive of a steward who was accused of embezzling the rents, robbing and oppressing the tenants, and committing a thousand misdeeds in his stewardship, and who, upon your wishing to make inquiry into his conduct, and asking an explanation of it, should answer, "I will give no reply: you may intend to prosecute me and convict me as a cheat, and therefore I will not give you any satisfaction": what would you think of that steward? You could have no doubt that such a steward was a person not fit to be a steward, nor fit to live.
Mr. Hastings reserves himself for a court of justice: that single circumstance, my Lords, proves that he was guilty. It may appear very odd that his guilt should be inferred from his desire of trial in a court in which he could be acquitted or condemned. But I shall prove to you from that circumstance that Mr. Hastings, in desiring to be tried in a court of justice, convicts himself of presumptive guilt.
When Mr. Hastings went to Bengal in the year 1772, he had a direction exactly similar to this which he has resisted in his own case: it was to inquire into grievances and abuses. In consequence of this direction, he proposes a plan for the regulation of the Company's service, and one part of that plan was just what you would expect from him,—that is, the power of destroying every Company's servant without the least possibility of his being heard in his own defence or taking any one step to justify himself, and of dismissing him at his own discretion: and the reason he gives for it is this. "I shall forbear to comment upon the above propositions: if just and proper, their utility will be self-apparent. One clause only in the last article may require some explanation, namely, the power proposed for the Governor of recalling any person from his station without assigning a reason for it. In the charge of oppression," (now here you will find the reason why Mr. Hastings wishes to appeal to a court of justice, rather than to give satisfaction to his employers,) "though supported by the cries of the people and the most authentic representations, it is yet impossible in most cases to obtain legal proofs of it; and unless the discretionary power which I have recommended be somewhere lodged, the assurance of impunity from any formal inquiry will baffle every order of the board, as, on the other hand, the fear of the consequence will restrain every man within the bounds of his duty, if he knows himself liable to suffer by the effects of a single control." You see Mr. Hastings himself is of opinion that the cries of oppression, though extorted from a whole people by the iron hand of severity,—that these cries of a whole people, attended even with authentic documents sufficient to satisfy the mind of any man, may be totally insufficient to convict the oppressor in a court; and yet to that court, whose competence he denies, to that very court, he appeals, in that he puts his trust, and upon that ground he refuses to perform the just promise he had given of any explanation to those who had employed him.
Now I put this to your Lordships: if a man is of opinion that no public court can truly and properly bring him to any account for his conduct, that the forms observable in courts are totally adverse to it, that there is a general incompetency with regard to such a court, and yet shuns a tribunal capable and competent, and applies to that which he thinks is incapable and incompetent, does not that man plainly show that he has rejected what he thinks will prove his guilt, and that he has chosen what he thinks will be utterly insufficient to prove it? And if this be the case, as he asserts it to be, with an under servant, think what must be the case of the upper servant of all: for, if an inferior servant is not to be brought to justice, what must be the situation of a Governor-General? It is impossible not to see, that, as he had conceived that a court of justice had not sufficient means to bring his crimes to light and detection, nor sufficient to bring him to proper and adequate punishment, therefore he flew to a court of justice, not as a place to decide upon him, but as a sanctuary to secure his guilt. Most of your Lordships have travelled abroad, and have seen in the unreformed countries of Europe churches filled with persons who take sanctuary in them. You do not presume that a man is innocent because he is in a sanctuary: you know, that, so far from demonstrating his innocence, it demonstrates his guilt. And in this case, Mr. Hastings flies not to a court for trial, but as a sanctuary to secure him from it.
Let us just review the whole of his conduct; let us hear how Mr. Hastings has proceeded with regard to this whole affair. The court of justice dropped; the prosecution in Bengal ended. With Sir Elijah Impey as chief-justice, who, as your Lordships have seen, had a most close and honorable connection with the Governor-General, (all the circumstances of which I need not detail to you, as it must be fresh in your Lordships' memory,) he had not much to fear from the impartiality of the court. He might be sure the forms of law would not be strained to do him mischief; therefore there was no great terror in it. But whatever terror there might be in it was overblown, because his colleagues refused to carry him into it, and therefore that opportunity of defence is gone. In Europe he was afraid of making any defence, but the prosecution here was also soon over; and in the House of Commons he takes this ground of justification for not giving any explanation, that the Court of Directors had received perfect satisfaction of his innocence; and he named persons of great and eminent character in the profession, whose names certainly cannot be mentioned without highly imposing upon the prejudices and weighing down almost the reason of mankind. He quotes their opinions in his favor, and argues that the exculpation which they give, or are supposed to give him, should excuse him from any further explanation.
My Lords, I believe I need not say to great men of the profession, many of the first ornaments of which I see before me, that they are very little influenced in the seat of judgment by the opinions which they have given in the chamber, and they are perfectly in the right: because while in the chamber they hear but one part of the cause; it is generally brought before them in a very partial manner, and they have not the lights which they possess when they sit deliberately down upon the tribunal to examine into it; and for this reason they discharge their minds from every prejudice that may have arisen from a foregone partial opinion, and come uninfluenced by it as to a new cause. This, we know, is the glory of the great lawyers who have presided and do preside in the tribunals of this country; but we know, at the same time, that those opinions (which they in their own mind reject, unless supported afterwards by clear and authentic testimony) do weigh upon the rest of mankind at least: for it is impossible to separate the opinion of a great and learned man from some consideration of the person who has delivered that opinion.