"send them to the presence, according to the "order I have written to Brejunekar Shah "Rehemet Ulla, who is in Bhooaparah, charging "him to take bonds from them, and that what

ever sepoys fit for service are collected, he "should send to the presence. As at this time "the wind is contrary the sepoys will not «**** without travelling charges; for I "have learnt from a letter previously received "from Brejunekar Shah Rehemet Ullah, that "the people there also are badly inclined, by "the grace of God, the unalterable glory shall “ be * Zehan Beg and the nudjeeves "who were in the fort of Aneelah have gone "off to Gooruckpore."

This is a letter of somebody or other, employed by somebody or other for the recruiting service; it should seem by the word "presence" somebody employed in enlisting forces for the Nabob. The charge against the Begum was, that she had joined with the rebellious Rajahs, to exterminate her son's government and the English influence in that country. In this very paper you see that the soldiers entering into that service, and officers who are to contract for soldiers, are expressly bound not to join the Rajahs', and this they produce as proof that the Begums had joined the Rajahs, and had joined

them

them in a rebellion, for the purpose of exterminating their son, in the first instance, and the English afterwards.

There is another circumstance, which makes their own acts the refutation of their false pretences. This letter says that the country is disaffected, and it mentions the ill-disposed parts of the country. Now, we all know that the country was ill disposed; and we may therefore conclude this paper was written by, and addressed to, some person who was employed against the persons so ill disposed; namely, the very Rajahs so mentioned before. The Prisoner's counsel, after producing this paper, had the candour to declare that they did not see what use could be made of it. No, to be sure, they do not see what use can be made of it for their cause; but I see the use that can be made of it against their cause. I say that the lost papers, upon which they do so much insist, deserve no consideration, when the only paper that they have preserved operates directly against them; and that therefore we may safely infer, that, if we had the rest of the contents of this trunk, we should probably find them make as strongly against them, as this paper does. You have no reason to judge of them otherwise than by the specimen: for how

can

can you judge of what is lost but from what remains?

The man who hid these papers in his trunk never understood one word of the Persian language, and consequently was liable to every kind of mistake, even though he meant well. But who is this man? Why it is Captain Williams; the man who in his affidavits never mentioned the Begums without mentioning Saadit Ali. It is Captain Williams; whom we charge to have murdered a principal man of the country by his own hand, without law or legal process. It is Captain Williams; one of those British officers whom Mr. Hastings states to be the pests of the country. This is the man who comes here as evidence against these women, and produces this monstrous paper. All the evidence they had produced to you amounts to no more than that such a man believes such a man heard of something: and to close the whole of this hearsay account, Sir Elijah Impey, who always comes in as a supplement, declares that no man doubted of the existence of this rebellion and of the guilt of the Begums, any more than of the rebellion of 1745; a comparison which, I must say, is, by way of evidence, a little indecorous in a Chief Justice of India.

Your Lordships are sufficiently acquainted

with the history of that rebellion to know, that when Lord Lovat was tried at this bar, the proceedings against him were not founded on second hand hearsay. The existence of the rebellion of 1745 was proved, notwithstanding its notoriety; but neither notoriety nor proof would have signified any thing, if Lord Lovat's participation in it had not been brought home to him directly, personally, and particularly. Yet a Chief Justice, sent to India to represent the sacred Majesty of the crown of England, has gone so far as to say at your bar, that no more doubt could be entertained of the existence either of the rebellion or the guilt of the Begums, than of the rebellion in 1745. Besides, he forgets that he himself carried the order to confiscate these people's property without any trial whatever. But this is the way of proceeding by an English Chief Justice in India-a Chief Justice who had rendered himself the instrument, the letter carrier, the messenger-I had almost said, the executioner of Mr. Hastings.

From this view of the whole matter, your Lordships will form an estimate of the spirit of Indian government and Indian justice. But to blow away and to put an end to all their false pretences, their hearsays, and talk of nudjeeves and wounds and the like, I ask who is the first witness that we have produced upon this occasion? It is

the

the Nabob himself, negativing all these pretences. Did he believe them? Not a word from him of any rebellion actual or suspected. Sir Elijah Impey indeed said that he was obliged to wheel round and to avoid that dangerous place Fyzabad. His friends urged him to this.-For God's sake, say they, have a reverend care of your sacred person! What will become of the justice of India? What will become of the natives, if you their legitimate protector should fall into the hands of these wicked rebellious women at Fyzabad? But although the Chief Justice does this, the Nabob, whose deposition is said to be the first object of this rebellion, takes leave of Mr. Hastings at the very moment when it is raging in the highest possible degree, and gallops into its very focus.

And under what circumstances does he do this? He had brought some considerable forces with him. No man of his rank in that country ever goes without them. He left a part of these forces with Mr. Hastings, notwithstanding he was going into the centre of the rebellion. He then went on with a corps of about a thousand horse. He even left a part of these with Mr. Middleton, and galloped attended by a few horse into the very capital, where the Begums, we are told, had ten thousand armed men. put himself into their power, and not satisfied

He