My Lords, Mr. Hastings pleads one constant merit to justify those acts,--namely, that they produce an increase of the public revenue; and accordingly he never sells to any of those wicked agents any trusts whatever in the country, that you do not hear that it will considerably tend to the increase of the revenue. Your Lordships will see, when he sold to wicked men the province of Bahar in the same way in which Debi Sing had this province of Dinagepore, that consequences of a horrid and atrocious nature, though not to so great an extent, followed from it. I will just beg leave to state to your Lordships, that the kingdom of Bahar is annexed to the kingdom of Bengal; that this kingdom was governed by another Provincial Council; that he turned out that Provincial Council, and sold that government to two wicked men: one of no fortune at all, and the other of a very suspicious fortune; one a total bankrupt, the other justly excommunicated for his wickedness in his country, and then in prison for misdemeanors in a subordinate situation of government. Mr. Hastings destroyed the Council that imprisoned him; and, instead of putting one of the best and most reputable of the natives to govern it, he takes out of prison this excommunicated wretch, hated by God and man,--this bankrupt, this man of evil and desperate character, this mismanager of the public revenue in an inferior station; and, as he had given Bengal to Gunga Govind Sing, he gave this province to Rajahs Kelleram and Cullian Sing. It was done upon this principle, that they would increase and very much better the revenue. These men seemed to be as strange instruments for improving a revenue as ever were chosen, I suppose, since the world began. Perhaps their merit was giving a bribe of 40,000_l._ to Mr. Hastings. How he disposed of it I don't know. He says, "I disposed of it to the public, and it was in a case of emergency." You will see in the course of this business the falsehood of that pretence; for you will see, though the obligation is given for it as a round sum of money, that the payment was not accomplished till a year after; that therefore it could not answer any immediate exigence of the Company. Did it answer in an increase of the revenue? The very reverse. Those persons who had given this bribe of 40,000_l._ at the end of that year were found 80,000_l._ in debt to the Company. The Company always loses, when Mr. Hastings takes a bribe; and when he proposes an increase of the revenue, the Company loses often double. But I hope and trust your Lordships will consider this idea of a monstrous rise of rent, given by men of desperate fortunes and characters, to be one of the grievances instead of one of the advantages of this system.