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tion in the country; effected indeed without bloodshed, but with infinite treachery, with infinite mischief, consequent to the dismemberment of the country, and which had nearly become fatal to our concerns there, like every thing else in which Mr. Hastings had any share.

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This prince, Cossim Ally Cawn, the friend of Mr. Hastings, knew, that those, who could give, could take away, dominion. He had scarcely got upon the throne, procured for him by our publick spirit and his own iniquities, than he began directly and instantly to fortify himself and to bend all his politicks against those, who were or could be the donors of such fatal gifts. He began with the natives, who were in their interest, and cruelly put to death, under the eye of Mr. Hastings and his clan, all those, who by their monied wealth, or landed consideration, could give any effect to their dispositions in favour of those ambitious strangers. He removed from Moorshedabad higher up into the country, to Monghir, in order to be more out of our view. He kept his word pretty well, but not altogether faithfully, with the gentlemen; and though he had no money, for his treasury was empty, he gave obligations, which are known by the name of Jeeps-(the Indian vocabulary will by degrees become familiar to your lordships, as we develope the modes and customs of the country.) As soon as he had done this, he began to rack and tear the provinces, that were left to him, to get as much from them as should compensate him for the revenues of those great provinces he had lost; and accordingly he began a scene of extortion, horrible, nefarious, without precedent or example, upon almost all the landed interest of that country. I mention this, because he is one of those persons, whose governments Mr. Hastings, in a paper, called his defence, delivered in to the House of Commons, has produced as precedents and examples, which he has thought fit to follow, and which he thought would justify him in the conduct he has pursued. This Cossim Ally Cawn, after he had acted the tyrant on the landed interest, fell upon the monied interest. In that country there was a person called Juggut Seit. There were several of the family, who were bankers to such a magnitude as was never heard of in

the world. Receivers of the publick revenue, their correspondence extended all over Asia; and there are those, who are of opinion, that the house of Juggut Seit, including all its branches, was not worth less than six or seven millions sterling. This house became the prey of Cossim Ally Cawn; but Mr. Holwell had predicted, that it should be delivered over to Satan to be buffeted (his own pious expression.) He predicted the misfortunes, that should befal them; and we chose a Satan to buffet them, and who did so buffet them by the murder of the principal persons of the house, and by robbing them of great sums of their wealth, that I believe such a scene of nefarious tyranny, destroying and cutting up the root of publick credit in that country, was scarce ever known. In the mean time Cossim was extending his tyranny over all, who were obnoxious to him; and the persons he first sought were those traitors, who had been friends to the English. Several of the principal of these be murdered. There was in the province of Bahar a man named Ramarain; he had got the most positive assurances of English faith; but Mr. Macguire, a member of the council, on the receipt of 5,000 gold mohors, or something more than 8,000l. sterling, delivered him up to be first imprisoned, then tortured, then robbed in consequence of the torture, and finally murdered by Cossim Ally Cawn. In this way Cossim Ally Cawn acted, while our government looked on. I hardly choose to mention to you the fate of a certain native in consequence of a dispute with Mr. Mott, a friend of Mr. Hastings, which is in the company's records-records, which are almost buried by their own magnitude from the knowledge of this country. In a contest with this native for his house and property, some scuffle having happened between the parties, the one attempting to seize and the other to defend, the latter made a complaint to the nabob, who was in an entire subjection at that time to the English; and who ordered this unfortunate man, on account of this very scuffle arising from defending his property, to be blown off from the mouth of a cannon. In short, I am not able to tell your lordships of all the nefarious transactions of this man, whom the intrigues of Mr. Holwell and Mr. Hastings

had set upon the throne of Bengal. But there is a circumstance in this business, that comes across here, and will tend to show another grievance, that vexed that country, which vexed it long, and is one of the causes of its chief disasters, and which, I fear, is not so perfectly extirpated but that some part of its roots may remain in the ground at this

moment.

Commerce, which enriches every other country in the world, was bringing Bengal to total ruin. The company, in former times, when it had no, sovereignty or power in the country, had large privileges under their dustuck or permit ; their goods passed without paying duties through the country. The servants of the company made use of this dustuck for their own private trade, which, while it was used with moderation, the native government winked at in some degree; but, when it got wholly into private hands, it was more like robbery than trade. These traders appeared every where; they sold at their own prices, and forced the people to sell to them at their own prices also. It appeared more like an army going to pillage the people, under pretence of commerce, than any thing else. In vain the people claimed the protection of their own country courts. This English army of traders, in their march, ravaged worse than a Tartarian conquerour. The trade they carried on, and which more resembled robbery than commerce, anticipated the resources of the tyrant, and threatened to leave him no materials for imposition or confiscation. Thus this miserable country was torn to pieces by the horrible rapaciousness of a double tyranny. This appeared to be so strong a case, that a deputation was sent to him at his new capital Monghir, to form a treaty for the purpose of giving some relief against this cruel, cursed, and oppressive trade, which was worse even than the tyranny of the sovereign. This trade Mr. Vansittart, the president about this time, that is in 1763, who succeeded to Mr. Holwell, and was in close union of interests with the tyrant Cossim Ally Cawn, by a treaty known by the name of the treaty of Monghir, agreed very much to suppress and to confine within something like reasonable bounds. There never was a doubt on the face

of that treaty, that it was a just, proper, fair transaction. But as nobody in Bengal did then believe, that rapine was ever foreborn, but in favour of bribery, the persons, who lost every advantage by the treaty of Monghir, when they thought they saw corrupt negotiation carrying away the prizes of unlawful commerce, and were likely to see their trade crippled by Cossim Ally Cawn, fell into a most violent fury at this treaty; and as the treaty was made without the concurrence of the rest of the council, the company's servants grew divided, one part were the advocates of the treaty, the other of the trade. The latter were universally of opinion, that the treaty was bought for a great sum of money. The evidence we have on our records of the sums of money, that are stated to have been paid on this occasion, has never been investigated to the bottom. But we have it on record, that a great sum (70,000l.) was paid to persons concerned in that negotiation. The rest were exceedingly wroth to see themselves not profiting by the negotiation, and losing the trade, or likely to be excluded from it; and they were the more so, because, as we have it upon our journals, during all that time the trade of the negotiators was not proscribed, but a perwannah was issued by Cossim Ally Cawn, that the trade of his friends, Mr. Vansittart and Mr. Hastings, should not be subject to the general regulations. This filled the whole settlement with ill blood; but in the regulation itself (I put the motive and the secret history out of the case) undoubtedly Mr. Hastings and Mr. Vansittart were on the right side. They had shown to a demonstration the mischief of this trade. However, as the other party were strong, and did not readily let go their hold of this great advantage, first, dissentions, murmurs, various kinds of complaints and ill blood arose. Cossim Ally was driven to the wall; and, having at the same time made what he thought good preparations, a war broke out at last. And how did it break out? This Cossim Ally Cawn signalized his first acts of hostility by an atrocity committed against the faith of treaties, against the rules of war, against every principle of honour. This intended murderer of his father-in-law, whom Mr. Hastings had assisted to raise

to the throne of Bengal, well knowing his character and his disposition, and well knowing what such a man was capable of doing, this man massacred the English wherever he met them. There were two hundred or thereabouts of the company's servants, or their dependants, slaughtered at Patna with every circumstance of the most abominable cruelty. Their limbs were cut to pieces. The tyrant, whom Mr. Hastings set up, cut and hacked the limbs of British subjects in the most cruel and perfidious manner; threw them into wells, and polluted the waters of the country with British blood. Immediately war is declared against him in form. That war sets the whole country in a blaze; and then other parties begin to appear upon the scene, whose transactions you will find yourselves deeply concerned in hereafter.

As soon as war was declared against Cossim, it was necessary to resolve to put up another nabob, and to have another revolution; and where do they resort but to the man, whom, for his alleged tyranny, for his incapacity, for the numberless iniquities he was said to have committed, and for his total unfitness and disinclination to all the duties of government, they had dethroned. This very man they take up again to place on the throne, from which they had about two years before removed him, and for the effecting of which they had committed so many iniquities. Even this revolution was not made without being paid for. According to the usual order of procession, in which the youngest walk first-First comes the company; and the company had secured to it in perpetuity those provinces which Cossim Ally Cawn had ceded, as it was thought, rather in the way of mortgage than any thing else. Then, under the name of compensation for sufferings to the people concerned in the trade, and in the name of donation to an army and a navy, which had little to do in this affair, they tax him, what sum do you think? They tax that empty and undone treasury of that miserable and undone country, 500,000l. for a private emolument to themselves; for the compensation for this iniquitous trade; for the compensation for abuses, of which he was neither the author nor the abettor; they tax this miserable prince, 500,000l. That sum was given to

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