I must beg your Lordships to keep in mind that the greater part of the observations with which I shall trouble you have a reference to the _principles_ upon which this man acts; and I beseech you to remember always that you have before you a question and an issue of law; I beseech you to consider what it is that you are disposing of,--that you are not merely disposing of this man and his cause, but that you are disposing of the laws of your country. You, my Lords, have made, and we have made, an act of Parliament in which the Council at Calcutta is vested with a special power, distinctly limited and defined. He says, "My authority is absolute. I defy the orders of the Court of Directors, because it is necessary for me to show that I can disregard them, as a signal of my own authority." He supposes his authority gone while he obeys the laws; but, says he, "the moment I got rid of the bonds and barriers of the laws," (as if there had been some act of violence and usurpation that had deprived him of his rightful powers,) "I was restored to my own authority." What is this authority to which he is restored? Not an authority vested in him by the East India Company; not an authority sanctioned by the laws of this kingdom. It is neither of these, but the authority of Warren Hastings; an inherent divine right, I suppose, which he has thought proper to claim as belonging to himself; something independent of the laws, something independent of the Court of Directors, something independent of his brethren of the Council. It is "my own authority." And what is the signal by which you are to know when this authority is restored? By his obedience to the Court of Directors?--by his attention to the laws of his country?--by his regard to the rights of the people? No, my Lords, no: the notification of the restoration of this authority is a formal disobedience of the orders of the Court of Directors. When you find the laws of the land trampled upon, and their appointed authority despised, then you may be sure that the authority of the prisoner is reestablished.