has ransacked Bengal from one end to the other, and has used all the power which he derives from having every friend and every dependant of his in every office from one end of that government to the other, he has not, in all those panegyrics, those fine high-flown Eastern encomiums, got one word of refutation or one word of evidence against any charge whatever which we produce against him. Every one knows, that, in the course of criminal trials, when no evidence of _alibi_ can be brought, when all the arts of the Old Bailey are exhausted, the last thing produced is evidence to character. His cause, therefore, is gone, when, having ransacked Bengal, he has nothing to say for his conduct, and at length appeals to his character. In those little papers which are given us of our proceedings in our criminal courts, it is always an omen of what is to follow: after the evidence of a murder, a forgery, or robbery, it ends in his character: "He has an admirable character; I have known him from a boy; he is wonderfully good; he is the best of men; I would trust him with untold gold": and immediately follows, "Guilty,--Death." This is the way in which, in our courts, character is generally followed by sentence. The practice is not modern. Undoubtedly Mr. Hastings has the example of criminals of high antiquity; for Caius Verres, Antonius, and every other man who has been famous for the pillage and destruction of provinces, never failed to bring before their judges the attestations of the injured to their character. Voltaire says, "_Les bons mots sont toujours redits_." A similar occasion has here produced a similar conduct. He has got just the same character as Caius Verres got in another cause; and the _laudationes_, which your Lordships know always followed, to save trouble, we mean ourselves to give your Lordships; we mean to give them with this strong presumption of guilt, that in all this panegyric there is not one word of defence to a single article of charge; they are mere lip-honors: but we think we derive from those panegyrics, which Mr. Hastings has had sent over as evidence to supply the total want of it, an indication of the impossibility of attaining it. Mr. Hastings has brought them here, and I must say we are under some difficulty about them, and the difficulty is this. We think we can produce before your Lordships proofs of barbarity and peculation by Mr. Hastings; we have the proofs of them in specific provinces, where those proofs may be met by contrary proofs, or may lose their weight from a variety of circumstances. We thought we had got the matter sure, that everything was settled, that he could not escape us, after he had himself confessed the bribes he had taken from the specific provinces. But in what condition are we now? We have from those specific provinces the strongest attestations that there is not any credit to be paid to his own acknowledgments. In short, we have the complaints, concerning these crimes of Mr.