He says, "I had an arbitrary power to exercise: I exercised it.
Slaves I found the people: slaves they are,--they are so by their constitution; and if they are, I did not make it for them.

I was unfortunately bound to exercise this arbitrary power, and accordingly I did exercise it.

It was disagreeable to me, but I did exercise it; and no other power can be exercised in that country." This, if it be true, is a plea in bar.

But I trust and hope your Lordships will not judge by laws and institutions which you do not know, against those laws and institutions which you do know, and under whose power and authority Mr.
Hastings went out to India.

Can your Lordships patiently hear what _we_ have heard with indignation enough, and what, if there were nothing else, would call these principles, as well as the actions which are justified on such principles, to your Lordships' bar, that it may be known whether the peers of England do not sympathize with the Commons in their detestation of such doctrine?
Think of an English governor tried before you as a British subject, and yet declaring that he governed on the principles of arbitrary power! His plea is, that he did govern there on arbitrary and despotic, and, as he supposes, Oriental principles.