Encouraged by this success, Colonel Burgoyne, on the 17th of May, prepared to bring home these general propositions to the individuals concerned; and, in the first place, pointed his charges against Lord Clive. He began by making some remarks on the invidious situation in which he was placed by the conscientious discharge of his duty. "The task of a public accuser was never a pleasing, but was sometimes a necessary one. Envy and malignity were the vices of little minds, and he disclaimed them. The House, in its movements, had only followed the cry of the public. Instances of rapacity and injustice had occurred in our Eastern possessions, that were known to all the world; an inordinate desire of wealth had had full play, and had led to transactions which had stigmatised those immediately concerned in them, and affected even the British name. That it was the duty of the House, as guardians of the nation's honour, to apply a remedy; and as the vice had been general, so must the punishment. It was a case in which no partial or limited censure would suffice to remove the evil, or to wipe off the stain from the country. The whole system on which the agents in the various revolutions had been remunerated, or rather had remunerated themselves, was most exceptionable and illegal. The first principle that he would lay down was, that it was impossible that any civil or military servant, in treating with a foreign Prince or State, could lawfully bargain for, or acquire, property for himself. This principle had uniformly been departed from in all the transactions which had been laid before the House. It would be necessary to point out who the persons were who had so acquired property, and the particular circumstances under which it had been acquired. Death had removed some of these persons, and their case would therefore be a matter of future consideration. That it was proper to consider the state of India at the time when the money was received. A mighty change had just taken place in that country, and in the Company's affairs. In the year 1757, when the English ascendancy was established, the Company was raised, as by the power of magic, from the situation of merchants to that of sovereign Princes, and, in their delirium, they at once forgot their charters; while their servants, become ministers, and rulers of the Governors of provinces and Princes, looked with contempt on the slow returns of trade and merchandise, since they saw before them a shorter and surer way to opulence. What was the consequence? The power thus placed in their hands was not tenderly employed. Revolution followed revolution; and, at each successive change, the treasures of the Prince were lavished to glut the rapacity of the agents by whom it was effected. At last, when the whole treasures of the Princes were exhausted, they did not stop short, but took possession of the country itself, at the same time that they retained the name of the puppet