Having now cleared the way with regard to the local and temporary circumstances of this case,--having shown your Lordships that too much time has not been spent in it,--having no reason to think, from the time which has hitherto been spent, that time will be unnecessarily spent in future,--I trust your Lordships will think that time ought neither to be spared nor squandered in this business: we will therefore proceed, article by article, as far as the discretion of the House of Commons shall think fit, for the justice of the case, to limit the inquiry, or to extend it. We are now going to bring before your Lordships the sixth article. It is an article of charge of bribery and corruption against Mr. Hastings; but yet we must confess that we feel some little difficulty _in limine_. We here appear in the name and character not only of representatives of the Commons of Great Britain, but representatives of the inhabitants of Bengal: and yet we have had lately come into our hands such ample certificates, such full testimonials, from every person in whose cause we complain, that we shall appear to be in the strangest situation in the world,--the situation of persons complaining, who are disavowed by the persons in whose name and character they complain. This would have been a very great difficulty in the beginning, especially as it is come before us in a flood-tide of panegyric. No encomium can be more exalted or more beautifully expressed. No language can more strongly paint the perfect satisfaction, the entire acquiescence, of all the nations of Bengal, and their wonderful admiration of the character of the person whom we have brought as a criminal to your bar upon their part. I do admit that it is a very awkward circumstance; but yet, at the same time, the same candor which has induced the House of Commons to bring before you the bosom friends and confidants of Mr. Hastings as their evidence will not suffer them to suppress or withhold for a moment from your Lordships this universal voice of Bengal, as an attestation in Mr. Hastings's favor, and we shall produce it as a part of our evidence. Oh, my Lords, consider the situation of a people who are forced to mix their praises with their groans, who are forced to sign, with hands which have been in torture, and with the thumb-screws but just taken from them, an attestation in favor of the person from whom all their sufferings have been derived! When we prove to you the things that we shall prove, this will, I hope, give your Lordships a full, conclusive, and satisfactory proof of the misery to which these people have been reduced. You will see before you, what is so well expressed by one of our poets as the homage of tyrants, "that homage with the mouth which the heart would fain deny, but dares not." Mr. Hastings has received that homage, and that homage we mean to present to your Lordships: we mean to present it, because it will show your Lordships clearly, that, after Mr. Hastings