" he was amenable only to the order of his Excellency, and that whatever he ordered it was his duty to obey; and that had the ladies "thought proper to have retired quietly to "their apartments, he would not have used the means he had taken to compel them. The Begum again observed, that what had passed "was now over. She then gave the children

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400 rupees and dismissed them, and sent "word by Sunrud and the other eunuchs, that "if the ladies would peaceably retire to their

apartments, Lataffit would supply them with "three or four thousand rupees for their pre"sent expences, and recommended them not "to incur any further disgrace; and that if

they did not think proper to act agreeably to "her directions, they would do wrong. The "ladies followed her advice, and about ten at

night went back to the Zenana. The next "morning the Begum waited upon the mother "of Sujah Dowlah, and related, to her all the "circumstances of the disturbance; the mother "of Sujah Dowlah returned for answer, that "after there being no accounts kept by crores "of revenue, she was not surprised that the family of Sujah Dowlah, in their endeavours "to procure subsistence, should be obliged to

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expose themselves to the meanest of the peo"ple. After bewailing their misfortunes and

"shedding many tears, the Begum took her "leave and returned home."

As a proof of the extremity of the distress' which reigned in the Khourd Mahl, your Lordships have been told, that these women must have perished through famine, if their gaolers, Captain Jaques and Major Gilpin, had not raised money upon their own credit, and supplied them with an occasional relief; and therefore when they talk of his peculation, of his taking but a bribe here and a bribe there, see the consequences' of his system of peculation, see the consequence of a usurpation which extinguishes the natural authority of the country, see the consequences of a clandestine correspondence that does not let the injuries of the country come regularly before the authorities in Oude, to relieve it; consider the whole mass of crimes, and then consider the sufferings that have arisen in consequence of it..

My Lords, it was not corporal pain alone that these miserable women suffered. The unsatisfied cravings of hunger, and the blows of the sepoys bludgeons, could touch only the physical part of their nature. But, my Lords, men are made of two parts; the physical part and the moral. The former he has in common with the brute creation. Like theirs, our cor

poreal

poreal pains are very limited and temporary. But the sufferings which touch our moral nature, have a wider range, and are infinitely more acute, driving the sufferer sometimes to the extremities of despair and distraction. Man, in his moral nature, becomes, in his progress through life, a creature of prejudice a creature of opinions-a creature of habits, and of sentiments growing out of them. These form our second nature, as inhabitants of the country and members of the society in which Providence has placed us. This sensibility of our moral nature is far more acute in that sex, which I may say, without any compliment, forms the better and more virtuous part of mankind; and which is at the same time the least protected from the insults and outrages to which this sensibility exposes them. This is a new source of feelings that often make corporal distress doubly felt; and it has a whole class of distresses of its own. These are the things that have gone to the heart of the Commons.

We have stated first, the sufferings of the Begum, and secondly the sufferings of the two thousand women, I believe they are not fewer in number, that belong to them, and are dependent upon them, and dependent, upon their wellbeing. We have stated to you, that the Court of Directors were shocked and astonished when they

I 3

they received the account of the first, before they had heard the second. We have proved they desired him to redress the former, if, upon inquiry, he found that his original suspicions concerning their conduct were ill founded. He has declared here that he did not consider these as orders. Whether they were orders or not, could any thing have been more pressing upon all the duties and all the sentiments of man than at least to do what was just, that is, to make such an inquiry as in the result might justify his acts, or have entitled them to redress? Not one trace of inquiry or redress do we find, except we suppose, as we hear nothing after this of the famine, that Mr. Bristow, who seems to be a man of humanity, did so effectually interpose, that they should no longer depend for the safety of their honour on the bludgeons of the sepoys, by which alone it seems they were defended from the profane view of the vulgar, and which we must state as a matter of great aggravation in this case.

The Counsel on the other side say that all this intelligence comes in an anonymous paper without date, transmitted from a newspaper writer at Fyzabad. This is the contempt with which they treat this serious paper sent to Mr. Hastings himself by official authority; by Hoolas

Roi, who was the newswriter at Fyzabad; the person appointed to convey authentick intelligence concerning the state of it to the Resident at Lucknow. The Resident received it as such; he transmitted it to Mr. Hastings, and it was not till this hour, till the Counsel were instructed (God forgive them for obeying such instructions) to treat these things with ridicule, that we have heard this Hoolas Roi called a common newswriter of anonymous information, and the like. If the information had come in any way the least authentick, instead of coming in a manner the most authentick in which it was possible to come to Mr. Hastings-he was bound by every feeling of humanity, every principle of regard to his own honour and his employer's, to see whether it was true or false; if false to refute it; if true to afford redress: he has done neither. Therefore we charge him with being the cause; we charge upon him the consequences, with all the aggrava tions attending them; and we call both upon justice and humanity for redress, as far as it can be afforded to these people, and for the severest punishments which your Lordships can inflict upon the author of these evils. If instead of the mass of crimes that we have brought before you, this singly had been charged upon the Prisoner, I will say that it is a greater crime than any man has ever been impeached for I 4 before