affairs: whereas I, poor man, was sent almost a school-boy from England, or at least little
better,—sent to find my way in that new world as well as I could. I had no men of the law,
no legal assistance, to supply my deficiencies." At Sphingem habebas domi. Had he not the
chief-justice, the tamed and domesticated chief-justice, who waited on him like a familiar
spirit, whom he takes from province to province, his amanuensis at home, his postilion and
riding express abroad?
Such a declaration would in some measure suit persons who had acted much otherwise than
Mr. Hastings. When a man pleads ignorance in justification of his conduct, it ought to be an
humble, modest, unpresuming ignorance, an ignorance which may have made him lax and
timid in the exercise of his duty; but an assuming, rash, presumptuous, confident, daring,
desperate, and disobedient ignorance heightens every crime that it accompanies. Mr.
Hastings, if through ignorance he left some of the Company's orders unexecuted, because
he did not understand them, might well say, "I was an ignorant man, and these things were
above my capacity." But when he understands them, and when he declares he will not obey
them, positively and dogmatically,—when he says, as he has said, and we shall prove it,
that he never succeeds better than when he acts in an utter defiance of those orders, and
sets at nought the laws of his country,—I believe this will not be thought the language of an
ignorant man. But I beg your Lordships' pardon: it is the language of an ignorant man; for
no man who was not full of a bold, determined, profligate ignorance could ever think of
such a system of defence. He quitted Westminster School almost a boy. We have reason to
regret that he did not finish his education in that noble seminary, which has given so many
luminaries to the Church and ornaments to the State. Greatly it is to be lamented that he did
not go to those Universities where arbitrary power will I hope never be heard of, but the
true principles of religion, of liberty, and law will ever be inculcated, instead of studying in