been violated; and now I will ask your Lordships, whether you would have suffered such a procedure in the case of the Prisoner at your bar? It was asked by a person of great authority in this House, when we were going to produce certain evidence against Mr. Hastings, (we do not say whether we offered to produce it properly or improperly, that is another matter) we were asked, I say, whether our intentions of producing that evidence had been communicated to Mr. Hastings? Had he had an opportunity of crossexamining the witnesses who had given that evidence? No; he added, that evidence must be rejected. Now I say to your Lordships, upon the same ground, deal with the Begums as you dealt with Mr. Hastings. Do not keep two weights and measures for different persons in the same cause. You would not suffer such evidence to be produced against him; you will not assuredly suffer such evidence to be produced to you in his favour and against them.

My Lords, the cause between this man and these unfortunate women is at last come into Westminster Hall. The cause is come to a solemn trial and we demand other witnesses and other kinds of proof than what these affidavits furnish. My Lords, the persons who have been examined here are almost all of them the same persons who made these affidavits; but there is

this material difference in their evidence. At your Lordships bar they sunk all those parts of their former evidence which criminated the Nabob and Saadit Ali, and confined their testimony wholly to what related to the Begums. We were obliged, by a cross examination, to squeeze out of them the disavowal of what they had deposed on the former occasion. The whole of their evidence we leave to the judgment of your Lordships, with these summary remarks,-first, that they are the persons who were to profit by their own wrong: they are the persons who had seven months arrears paid to them out of the money of these unfortunate ladies: they are the persons who, to justify the revolt which they had caused in the country by their robbery, charge their own guilt upon others. The credibility of their evidence is therefore gone; but, if it were not affected by these circumstances, Mr. Hastings has put an end to it by telling you, that there is not one of them who is to be credited upon his oath; no, not in a court martial; and can it therefore be expected, that in a case of peculation, they will do otherwise than acquit the party accused? He has himself laid before you the horrible state of the whole service; your Lordships have it fresh in your memories, and ringing in your You have also heard from witnesses

ears.

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brought by Mr. Hastings himself, that these soldiers committed misdemeanours of the very same kind with those which we have stated. They ought not therefore to be listened to for a moment; and we aver that it is an aggravation of the Prisoner's crimes, that he has brought the instruments of his guilt, the persons of whom he has complained as having ruined and destroyed that country, and whom he had engaged at the Nabob's desire, in the treaty of Chunar, to send out of the country, as being a nuisance in it; to bring, I say, these people here, to criminate, at a distance of nine thousand miles, these unfortunate women, where they have neither attorney or agent who can from local knowledge cross-examine them. He has the audacity to bring these people here; and in what manner they comport themselves when they come here, your Lordships have seen.

There is one of them whom we cannot pass by; that is Captain Gordon. The other witnesses, who appeared here as evidences to criminate the Begums, did it by rumours and hearsays. They had heard some person say that the Begums had encouraged rebellion, always coupling them with Saadit Ali Khan, and sometimes with the Nabob, because there might have been some probability for their charge in the transactions with Saadit Ali Khan, which, though

though impossible with regard to the Begums, they thought would implicate him in his designs. But Captain Gordon is to give a different account of the proceedings.

Captain Gordon was one of Colonel Hannay's under-farmers he was hunted out of the country, and, as one of the Begums says, pursued by a thousand of the Zemindars, for robbing the whole country. This woman, through respect to the British name, that name which guaranteed her possessions to her, receives this Captain Gordon and Captain Williams with every mark of kindness, hospitality, and protection, that could be given them. She conveys them from the borders to the city of Fyzabad, and from Fyzabad, her capital, supposed to be the nest of her rebellion, on to their place of destination. They both write her letters full of expressions of gratitude and kindness for the services that they had received. They then pass on to Lucknow to Sir Elijah Impey, and there they sink every word of kindness-of any service or protection that they had received;-or of any acknowledgment that they had ever made of it. They sink all this, not one word of it appears in their affidavits.

How then did we come to the knowledge of it? We got it from Major Gilpin, who was examined in the course of these proceedings, C 4

and

and we used it in our Charge, from the papers that we hold in our hands. Mr. Hastings has confessed the fact, and Mr. Middleton has endeavoured to slur it over, but could not completely conceal it. We have established the fact, and it is in evidence before your Lordships.

You have now then, in this manner, got these testimonials given by English officers in favour of these women; and by the same means the letters of the latter accusing the former are come to your hands; and now these same English Officers come here with their recriminatory accusation. Now, why did they not make it at Lucknow? Why did not Mr. Hastings, when Mr. Middleton had such papers for him in his hands, why, I ask, did not Mr. Hastings procure some explanation of the circumstances whilst he was in India? I will read your Lordships the letter, that you may not only know, but feel the iniquity of this business.

Letter from the Mother of the Vizier to

Mr. Hastings, received the 6th of January 1782.

"Our situation is pretty well, and your good "health is constantly prayed for. I had sent "Behar Ali Khan to you. Accordingly people "invented a falsehood, that Behar Ali Khan was gone to get the deputyship of the Soubah; and