Now, my Lords, I am ordered by the Commons no longer to persist in that declaration; and I, who know nothing in this place, and ought to know nothing in this place, but obedience to the Commons, do mean, when Mr. Hastings makes that objection (if he shall be advised to make it) against the credit of Rajah Nundcomar, not thus to support that credit; and therefore that objection to the credit of the witness must go unrefuted by me. My Lords, I must admit, perhaps against my private judgment, (but that is of no consideration for your Lordships, when opposed to the judgment of the House of Commons,) or, at least, not contest, that a first minister of state, in a great kingdom, who had the benefit of the administration, and of the entire and absolute command of a revenue of fifteen hundred thousand pounds a year, had been guilty of a paltry forgery in Calcutta; that this man, who had been guilty of this paltry forgery, had waited for his sentence and his punishment, till a body of English judges, armed with an English statute, came to Calcutta; and that this happened at the very happy nick and moment when he was accusing Mr. Hastings of the bribery with which we now in the name of the Commons charge him; that it was owing to an entirely fortuitous concurrence of circumstances, in which Mr. Hastings had no share, or that it was owing to something beyond this, something that is rather pious than fortuitous, namely, that, as Mr. Hastings tells you himself, "all persuasions of men were impressed with a superstitious belief that a fortunate influence directed all my actions to their destined ends." I, not being at that time infected with the superstition, and considering what I thought Mr. Hastings's guilt to be, and what I must prove it to be as well as I can, did not believe that Providence did watch over Mr. Hastings, so as in the nick of time, like a god in a machine, to come down to save him in the moment of his imminent peril and distress: I did not think so, but I must not say so.