If he should undertake a bill of that kind, he will find
no difficulty in conducting it with a degree of skill and vigor fully
equal to all that have been exerted against him.
But the change of relation between these two gentlemen is not so
striking as the total difference of their deportment under the same
unhappy circumstances. Whatever the merits of the worthy baronet's
defence might have been, he did not shrink from the charge. He met it
with manliness of spirit and decency of behavior. What would have been
thought of him, if he had held the present language of his old accuser?
When articles were exhibited against him by that right honorable
gentleman, he did not think proper to tell the House that we ought to
institute no inquiry, to inspect no paper, to examine no witness. He did
not tell us (what at that time he might have told us with some show of
reason) that our concerns in India were matters of delicacy, that to
divulge anything relative to them would be mischievous to the state. He
did not tell us that those who would inquire into his proceedings were
disposed to dismember the empire. He had not the presumption to say,
that, for his part, having obtained, in his Indian presidency, the
ultimate object of his ambition, his honor was concerned in executing
with integrity the trust which had been legally committed to his charge:
that others, not having been so fortunate, could not be so
disinterested; and therefore their accusations could spring from no
other source than faction, and envy to his fortune.
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