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should be paid them; the matter of their testimony may very possibly be true without criminating the Begum; it criminates Saadit Ali Khan, the brother of the Nabob; the word Begum is never mentioned in the crimination but in conjunction with his, and much the greater part of it criminates the Nabob himself. Now, my Lords, I will say, that the matter of these affidavits, forgetting who the deponents were, may possibly be true, as far as respects Saadit Ali Khan; but that it is utterly as improbable, which is the main point and the stress of the thing, with respect to the Begums, as it is impossible with respect to the Nabob. That Saadit Ali, being a military man, a man ambitious and aspiring to greatness, should take advantage of the abuses of the English government and of the discontent of the country, that he should I say raise a revolt against his brother, is very possible; but it is scarcely within possibility, that the mother of the Nabob should have joined with the illegitimate son against her legitimate son. I can only say that in human affairs, there is the possibility of truth in this. It is possible she might wish to depose her legitimate son, her only legitimate son, and to depose him for the sake of a bastard son of her husband's, to exalt him at the expence of the former, and to exalt of course the mother of that bastard

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at her own expence, and to her own wrong. But I say, that this, though possible, is grossly improbable. The reason why the Begum is implicated in this charge with Saadit Ali, by the affidavits, cannot escape your notice. Their own acquittal might be the only object of the deponents, in their crimination of the latter: but the treasures of the former were the objects of their employers, and these treasures could not be come at but by the destruction of the Begums.

But, my Lords, there are other affidavits, or whatever your Lordships may call them, that go much further. In order to give a colour to the accusation, and make it less improbable, they say, that the Nabob himself was at the bottom of it; and that he joined with his brother and his mother to extirpate out of his dominions that horrible grievance, the English brigade officers;-those English officers who were the farmers general, and who, as we have proved by Mr. Hastings's own evidence, had ruined the country. Nothing is more natural, than that a man, sensible of his duty to himself and his subjects, should form a scheme to get rid of a band of robbers, that were destroying his country, and degrading and ruining his family. Thus, you see, a family compact naturally accounted for. The Nabob at the head of it;

his mother joining her own son, and a natural brother joining in the general interests of the family. This is a possible case. But is this the case pressed by them? No, they pass slightly over the legitimate son. They scarcely touch upon Saadit Ali Khan; they sink the only two persons that could give probability or possibility to this business, and endeavour to throw the whole design upon these two unfortunate

women.

Your Lordships see the wickedness and baseness of the contrivance. They first, in order to keep the whole family in terrour, accuse the whole family; then having possessed themselves of the treasures of the Begums upon another pretence, they endeavour to fix upon them that improbable guilt which they had with some degree of probability charged upon the whole family, as a farther justification of that spoliation. Your Lordships will see what an insult is offered to the Peers of Great Britain, in producing before you, by way of defence, such gross, scandalous, and fraudulent proceedings.

Who the first set of witnesses were, which they produced before their knight errant Chief Justice Sir Elijah Impey, who wandered in search of a law adventure, I have laid open to your Lordships. You have now had an account of the scandalous manufacture of that batch of VOL. XVI. affidavits

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affidavits which was in the budget of Sir Elijah Impey; that Pandora's box which I have opened, and out of which has issued every kind of evil. This Chief Justice went up there with the death warrant of the Begums' treasures, and, for aught he knew, the death warrant of their persons. At the same time that he took these affidavits, he became himself a witness in this business; he appears as a witness; How? Did he know any one circumstance of the rebellion? No, he does not even pretend to do so. But, says he, in my travels I was obliged to avoid Fyzabad, upon account of the suspected rebellion there. Another Chief Justice would have gone fifty miles about to avoid Lucknow, for every body knows that Lucknow was the focus and centre of extortion, corruption, and peculation; and that a worse air for the lungs of a Chief Justice could not be found in the world. If his lungs wanted the benefit of pure air, he would even have put himself in the focus of a rebellion, to have kept at a distance from the smell of carrion and putrid corruption of every kind that was at Lucknow.

A Chief Justice may go to a place where a rebellion is raging, he may die a martyr to his honour. But a Chief Justice who puts himself into the focus of peculation, into the focus of bribery, into the focus of every thing that is

base

base and corrupt; what can we expect from him but that he will be engaged in clandestine jobs there! The former might kill Sir Elijah Impey, the knight errant, but the Chief Justice would remain pure and entire; whereas Sir Elijah Impey has escaped from Lucknow, and the Chief Justice is left by Mr. Hastings to shift for himself.

After mentioning this violation of the laws of hospitality by Sir Elijah Impey, I would ask, was any notice given by him, or by any of Mr. Hastings's agents, to the Nabob, who was so immediately interested in this matter? Was any notice given to the Begums, that any such charge was entertained against them? Not a word. Was it notified to the eunuchs? Was it to Saadit Ali Khan? Not a word; they were all within their power. The eunuchs were a year in irons, and they were subjected to the want of food and water, for a part of that year. They were dragged from Fyzabad to Lucknow, and from Lucknow to Fyzabad. During all that time, was there a word mentioned to them by any one person on the part of Mr. Hastings, that they were accused of this matter? Not a word.

We now submit to your Lordships vindictive justice and condemnation this recriminatory defence, in which every principle of justice has

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