reply, that does not relate to those articles that were pressed in the original charge; and therefore, in this. position of the business of reply, you cannot go into new matter arising out of other articles that were not originally insisted upon.

Mr. Burke. We were aware of the objection that might be made to admitting our observations, if considered as observations upon the seventeenth Article, but not when considered with reference to facts on the record before you, for the purpose of disproving the principles upon which the defendant and his counsel had relied, that was the purpose for which we proposed chiefly to make them; but your Lordship's [the Lord Chancellor's] own personal authority will have great weight with us, and unless we perceive some other Peer differ from you, we will take it in the course we have constantly done; we never have sent your Lordships out of the Hall to consent upon a matter upon which that noble Lord appeared to have formed a decision in his own mind; we take for granted that what is delivered from the woolsack, to which no Peer expresses a dissent, is the sense of the House, as such we take it, and as such we submit to it in this instance.

Therefore leaving this upon the record as it stands, without observing upon it, and submit

ting to your Lordships' decision, that we cannot, according to order, observe in reply upon what was not declared by us to be a part of the charges we meant to insist upon; we proceed to another business.

We have already stated to your Lordships, and we beg to remind you of it-the state and condition of the country of Oude, when Mr. Hastings first came to it; his subsequent and immediate usurpation of all the powers of government, and the use he made of them; the tyranny he exercised over the Nabob himself, the tyranny he exercised upon his mother and grandmother, and all the other females of his family and their dependants of every description to the number of about 800 persons; the tyranny exercised (though we are not at liberty to press it now) upon his brethren.. We have shewn you how he confiscated the property of all the jaghirdars, the nobility of the country; we have proved to your Lordships, that he was well acquainted with all the misery and distress occasioned by these proceedings, and that he afforded the sufferers no relief. We now proceed to review the effect of this general mass of usurpation, tyranny, and oppression, upon the revenues and the prosperity of the country.

Your Lordships will first be pleased to advert to the state in which Mr. Hastings found the country ;

country;-in what state he found its revenues→→→ who were the executive ministers of the go. vernment; what their conduct was, and by whom they were recommended and supported. For the evidence of these facts, we refer your Lordships to your printed minutes-there, my Lords, they stand recorded; they never can be expunged out of your record, and the memory of mankind; whether we be permitted to press them at this time upon your Lordships, or not. Your Lordships will there find, in what manner the government was carried on in Oude in 1775, before the period of Mr. Hastings's usurpation; Mr. Hastings you will find has himself there stated, that the minister was recommended by the Begums; and you will remark this, because Mr. Hastings afterwards makes her interference in the government of her son, a part of his crimination of the Begums.

The Resident at the Court of Oude, thus writes on the 2d of March 1775:-" Notwith"standing the confidence the Nabob reposes in "Murteza Khan, the Begums are much dissa"tisfied with his elevation. They recommend"ed to his Excellency to encourage the old "servants of the government, whose influence "in the country, and experience, might have "strengthened his own authority, and seated

"him firmly on the Musnud; in some measure, "this too may appear consistent with the inte"rests of the Company, for as Elija Khan and "the old ministers have, by frequent instances "within their own knowledge, experienced the

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power of our government, such men I should " conceive are much more likely to pay defe"rence to the Company, than a person who at S6 present can have but a very imperfect idea of "the degree of attention which ought to be paid " to our connexion with the Nabob." Your Lordships see that the Begums recommended the old servants, contrary to the maxims of Rehoboam,-those who had served his father and had served the country; and who were strongly inclined to support the English interest there. Your Lordships will remark the effects of the Begum's influence upon the state of things in 1775, that the Nabob had been advised by his mother to employ the confidential servants of his father; persons conversant in the affairs of the country, persons interested in it, and persons who were well disposed to support the English connexion. Your Lordships will now attend to a letter from Mr. Bristow, at Lucknow, to the Board, dated 28th November 1775: -“I also neglected no part of my duty on the spot; but advised the minister, even at Lucknow, according to my letter of the third in

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"stant,

"stant, to recommend it to the Nabob, to dis"miss his useless and mutinous troops, which "measure seems, by present appearances, to "have succeeded beyond expectation; as the "rest of the army do now pay the greatest "attention to his Excellency's orders; already "the complaints of the violences the troops "used to commit, are greatly decreased; they

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profess obedience, and by the best intelligence "I can obtain of their disposition, there seems "to be little doubt that the examples made by "disbanding Bussunt's corps has every good "effect we could wish, which had crossed the "river and voluntarily surrendered their arms "the day before yesterday to the Nabob."

His next letter is dated 13th June 1776:"Honourable Sir and Sirs,-It is Elija Khan's "first object to regulate the Vizier's revenue, " and I must do him the justice to say, that the "short time he has been in office he has been "indefatigable, and already settled the greater

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part of the province of Oude, and fixed on the "districts for the assignments of the army sub

sidy; Corah and Allahabad he has disposed "of, and called for the Dooab and Rohilehund "accounts, in order to adjust them as soon as "possible. This activity will, I hope, produce "the most salutary effects, as the present junc

ture