consulted on the occasion, can attest the truth of this story." Mr. Middleton is dead, my Lords. This is not the Mr. Middleton whom your Lordships have heard and know well in this House, but a brother of that Mr. Middleton, who is since dead. Your Lordships find, when we refer to the records of the Company for the proof of this forgery, that there is no other than the unsupported assertion of Mr. Hastings himself that he was guilty of it. Now that was bad enough; but then hear the rest. Mr. Hastings has charged this unhappy man, whom we must not defend, with another forgery; he has charged him with a forgery of a letter from Yeteram ul Dowlah to Mr. Hastings. Now you would imagine that he would have given his own authority at least for that assertion, which he says was proved. He goes on and says, "I have not yet had the curiosity to inquire of the Nabob Yeteram ul Dowlah whether his letter was of the same stamp; but I cannot doubt it." Now here he begins, in this very defence which is before your Lordships, to charge a forgery upon the credit of Munny Begum, without supporting it even by his own testimony,--and another forgery in the name of Yeteram ul Dowlah, which he said he had not even the curiosity to inquire into, and yet desires you, at the same time, to believe it to be proved. Good God! in what condition do men of the first character and situation in that country stand, when we have here delivered to us, as a record of the Company, Mr. Hastings's own assertions, saying that these forgeries were proved, though you have for the first nothing but his own unsupported assertion, and for the second his declaration only that he had not the curiosity to inquire into it! I am not forbidden by the Commons to state how and on what slight grounds Warren Hastings charges the natives of the country with forgery; neither am I forbidden to bring forward the accusation which Mr. Hastings made against Nundcomar for a conspiracy, nor the event of it, nor any circumstance relative to it. I shall therefore proceed in the best manner I can. There was a period, among the revolutions of philosophy, when there was an opinion, that, if a man lost one limb or organ, the strength of that which was lost retired into what was left. My Lords, if we are straitened in this, then our vigor will be redoubled in the rest, and we shall use it with double force. If the top and point of the sword is broken off, we shall take the hilt in our hand, and fight with whatever remains of the weapon against bribery, corruption, and peculation; and we shall use double diligence under any restraint which the wisdom of the Commons may lay upon us, or your Lordships' wisdom may oblige us to submit to.