Lord North said that he was determined to attend to every part of the evidence, and to judge of its effect; that any abuse of public authority was of pernicious example; and that the glory which surrounded such presents, did not, if they were illegal, render them less culpable. The high example would in its effects be only the more pernicious;--"Jupiter hoc faxit; ego homuncio non faciam." Lord Clive, in the course of the debate, made a long defence of his conduct[197]: "Sir, after rendering my country the service which I think I may, without any degree of vanity, claim the merit of; and after having nearly exhausted a life full of employment, for the public welfare and the particular benefit of the East India Company, I little thought that such transactions would have agitated the minds of my countrymen in proceedings like the present, tending to deprive me not only of my property and the fortune which I have fairly acquired, but of that which I hold more dear to me--my honour and reputation." He in the first place solicited the patient indulgence of the House, while he corrected some facts which had been erroneously stated. He then went through the reports of the Committees, on which the charges were founded, and examined the different passages that concerned him. He justified himself in regard to all his acts, civil and political; and maintained that his whole conduct had been not only open and undisguised, but perfectly legal, and above all blame. On the principal charges, he read extracts of the Nabob's letter to him as President of the Select Committee, of the Committee's letter to the Directors, and finally of the Directors' letter containing their full approbation of his proceedings. He entered minutely into the circumstances of each charge, and observed that, trained in the school of war and politics as he had been for twenty years, he was now improving in the school of philosophy, and, if patience was a virtue, he had no doubt of soon being very virtuous indeed. He said that the present charges arose out of the wretched state of the Company's affairs; the Directors and Government would willingly shift the blame from themselves. He enlarged on the misconduct of the Directors; and arraigned the unpardonable remissness of former administrations, in neglecting the affairs of India; that mismanagement abroad was founded on mismanagement at home. He pointed out the malevolence and artifice of his enemies, and the low and insidious means by which he had been assailed; that when he went out to India the last time, he had promised not to add a shilling to his fortune, directly or indirectly, and this engagement, he declared to God, he had religiously observed.