Now hear what he does with regard to the Council-General itself. They had, by the act that made Mr. Hastings Governor, the management of the revenues vested in them. You have been shown by an honorable and able fellow Manager of mine, that he took the business of this department wholly out of the hand of the Council; that he named a committee for the management of it, at an enormous expense,--committee made up of his own creatures and dependants; and that, after destroying the Provincial Councils, he brought down the whole management of the revenue to Calcutta. This committee took this important business entirely out of the hands of the Council, in which the act had vested it, and this committee he formed without the orders of the Court of Directors, and directly contrary to the act, which put the superintendence in the hands of the Council. Oh, but he reserved a superintendence over them.--You shall hear what the superintendence was; you shall see, feel, smell, touch; it shall enter into every avenue and pore of your soul. It will show you what was the real principle of Mr. Hastings's government. We will read to you what Sir John Shore says of that institution, and of the only ends and purposes which it could answer; your Lordships will then see how far he was justifiable in violating an act of Parliament, and giving out of the Council's hands the great trust which the laws of his country had vested in them. It is part of a paper written in 1785 by Mr. Shore, who was sole acting president of this committee to which all Bengal was delivered. He was an old servant of the Company, and he is now at the head of the government of that country. He was Mr. Hastings's particular friend, and therefore you cannot doubt either of his being a competent evidence, or that he is a favorable evidence for Mr. Hastings, and that he would not say one word against the establishment of which he himself was at the head, that was not perfectly true, and forced out of him by the truth of the case. There is not a single part of it that does not point out some abuse.