Nothing in Mr.
Hastings's proceedings is so curious as his several defences; and nothing in the defences is so singular as the principles upon which he proceeds.

Your Lordships will have to decide not only upon a large, connected, systematic train of misdemeanors, but an equally connected system of principles and maxims of government, invented to justify those misdemeanors.

He has brought them forward and avowed them in the face of day.

He has boldly and insultingly thrown them in the face of the representatives of a free people, and we cannot pass them by without adopting them.

I am directed to protest against those grounds and principles upon which he frames his defence; for, if those grounds are good and valid, they carry off a great deal at least, if not entirely, the foundation of our charge.
My Lords, we contend that Mr.Hastings, as a British governor, ought to govern on British principles, not by British forms,--God forbid!--for if ever there was a case in which the letter kills and the spirit gives life, it would be an attempt to introduce British forms and the substance of despotic principles together into any country.