As to himself, he despises the imputations of
those who suppose that anything corrupt could influence him in this his
unexampled liberality of the public treasure. I do not know that I am
obliged to speak to the motives of ministry, in the arrangements they
have made of the pretended debts of Arcot and Tanjore. If I prove fraud
and collusion with regard to public money on those right honorable
gentlemen, I am not obliged to assign their motives; because no good
motives can be pleaded in favor of their conduct. Upon that case I
stand; we are at issue; and I desire to go to trial. This, I am sure, is
not loose railing, or mean insinuation, according to their low and
degenerate fashion, when they make attacks on the measures of their
adversaries. It is a regular and juridical course; and unless I choose
it, nothing can compel me to go further.
But since these unhappy gentlemen have dared to hold a lofty tone about
their motives, and affect to despise suspicion, instead of being careful
not to give cause for it, I shall beg leave to lay before you some
general observations on what I conceive was their duty in so delicate a
business.
If I were worthy to suggest any line of prudence to that right honorable
gentleman, I would tell him that the way to avoid suspicion in the
settlement of pecuniary transactions, in which great frauds have been
very strongly presumed, is, to attend to these few plain
principles:--First, to hear all parties equally, and not the managers
for the suspected claimants only; not to proceed in the dark, but to act
with as much publicity as possible; not to precipitate decision; to be
religious in following the rules prescribed in the commission under
which we act; and, lastly, and above all, not to be fond of straining
constructions, to force a jurisdiction, and to draw to ourselves the
management of a trust in its nature invidious and obnoxious to
suspicion, where the plainest letter of the law does not compel it.
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