"indifference or inattention. I took pains to

investigate the foundation of this title, and "recommended it to the particular enquiry of "Mr. Vansittart, who was the chief of Patna, "at the time in which I received the first inti"mation. The following letter and voucher, "which I received from him, contain a complete "statement of this pretended usurpation."

These vouchers will answer our purpose, fully to establish that in his opinion, the claim of the English government upon those forts, was at that time totally unfounded, and so absurd, that he did not even dare to mention it. This fort of Bidjigur, the most considerable in the country, and of which we shall have much to say hereafter, is the place in which Cheit Sing had deposited his women and family. That fortress did Mr. Hastings himself give to this very man, deciding in his favour as a judge upon an examination, and after an inquiry and yet he now declares, that he had no right to it, and that he could not hold it but for wicked and rebellious purposes. But, my Lords, when he changed this language, he had resolved to take away these forts, to destroy them,-to root the Rajah out of every place of refugeout of every secure place in which he could hide his head, or screen himself from the rancour, revenge, avarice, and malice of his ruthless foe.

He

He was resolved to have them, although he had, upon the fullest conviction of the Rajah's right, given them to this very man, and put him into the absolute possession of them.

Again, my Lords, did he, when Cheit Sing, in 1775, was put in possession by the potta of the governour general and council which contains an enumeration of the names of all the places which were given up to him, and consequently of this among the rest,-did he, either before he put the question in council upon that potta, or afterwards tell the council they were going to put forts into the man's hands to which he had no right, and which could be held only for rebellious and suspected purposes? We refer your Lordships to the places in which all these transactions are mentioned, and you will there find Mr. Hastings took no one exception whatever against them; nor, till he was resolved upon the destruction of this unhappy man, did he ever so much as mention them. It was not till then, that he discovers the possession of these forts by the Rajah, to be a solecism in government.

After quoting the noble examples of Sujah Dowlah, and the other persons whom I have mentioned to you, he proceeds to say, that some of his predecessors, without any pretensions to sovereign authority, endeavoured to get these

forts

forts into their possession; and "I was justified,' says he, "by the intention of my predecessors.' Merciful God! if any thing can surpass what he has said before, it is this: My predecessors, without any title of sovereignty, without any right whatever, wished to get these forts into their power. I therefore have a right to do what they wished to do; and I am justified, not by the acts, but by the intentions of my predecessors. At the same time he knows that these predecessors had been reprobated by the Company for this part of their proceedings; he knew that he was sent there to introduce a better system, and to put an end to this state of rapacity. Still, whatever his predecessors wished, however unjust and violent it might be, when the sovereignty came into his hands, he maintains that he had a right to do all which they were desirous of accomplishing. Thus the enormities formerly practised, which the Company sent him to correct, became a sacred standard for his imitation.

Your Lordships will observe, that he slips in the word sovereignty and forgets compact; because it is plain, and your Lordships must perceive it, that wherever he uses the word sovereignty, he uses it to destroy the authority of all compacts; and accordingly in the passage now before us he declares, that there is an in

validity

validity in all compacts entered into in India, from the nature, state, and constitution of that empire. "From the disorderly form of its go

vernment," says he, says he, "there is an invalidity "in all compacts and treaties whatever." Persons who had no treaty with the Rajah wished, says he, to rob him: therefore I, who have a treaty with him and call myself his sovereign, have a right to realize all their wishes.

But the fact is, my Lords, that his predecessors never did propose to deprive Bulwant Sing, the father of Cheit Sing, of his zemindary. They indeed wished to have had the Dewanny transferred to them in the manner it has since been transferred to the Company. They wished to receive his rents, and to be made an intermediate party between him and the Mogul Emperour, his sovereign. These predecessors had entered into no compact with the man: they were negotiating with his sovereign for the transfer of the dewanny or stewardship of the country, which transfer was afterwards actually executed, but they were obliged to give the country itself back again to Bulwant Sing, with a guarantee against all the pretensions of Sujah Dowlah, who had tyrannically assumed an arbitrary power over it. This power the predecessors of Mr. Hastings might also have wished to assume and he may therefore say, according

to

to the mode of reasoning which he has adopted, whatever they wished to do, but never succeeded in doing, I may and ought to do of my own will. Whatever fine Sujah Dowlah would have exacted I will exact. I will penetrate into that tyger's bosom, and discover the latent seeds of rapacity and injustice which lurk there, and I will make him the subject of my imitation.

These are the principles upon which, without accuser, without judge, without inquiry, he resolved to lay a fine of 500,0007. on Cheit Sing!

In order to bind himself to a strict fulfilment of this resolution he has laid down another very extraordinary doctrine. He has laid it down as a sort of canon (in injustice and corruption) that whatever demand, whether just or unjust, a man declares his intention of making upon another, he should exact the precise sum which he has determined upon, and that if he takes any thing less, it is a proof of corruption. "I have," says he, "shewn by this testimony, that I never "intended to make any communication to Cheit

Sing, of taking less than the fifty lacks, which "in my own mind I had resolved to exact." And he adds," I shall make my last and solemn

appeal to the breast of every man who shall "read this, whether it is likely or morally pos

66

sible, that I should have tied down my own "future conduct to so decided a process and

" series