No More Learning

But to proceed. The next thing to be asked is,
Were the promised pensions given to the jaghiredars?
I suppose your Lordships are not idle enough to put
that question to us. No compensation, no consideration, was given or stipulated for them. If there had
been any such thing, the prisoner could have proved
it, -he would have proved it. The means were easy
to him. But we have saved him the trouble of the
attempt. We have proved the contrary, and, if called
upon, we will show you the place where this is proved.
I have now shown your Lordships how Mr. Hastings, having with such violent and atrocious circumstances usurped the government of Oude, (I hope I need not use any farther proof that the Nabob- was
in effect non-existent in the country,) treated all the
landed property. The next question will be, How
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - FIFTH DAY. 31
has he treated whatever moneyed property was left
in the country? My Lords, he looked over that immense waste of his own creating, not as Satan viewed the kingdoms of the world and saw the power and
glory of them, --but he looked over the waste of
Oude with a diabolical malice which one could hardly suppose existed in the prototype himself. He saw nowhere above-ground one single shilling that he
could attach, -- no, not one; every place had been
ravaged; no money remained in sight. But possibly some might be buried in vaults, hid from the gripe of tyranny and rapacity. "It must be so," says
he. "Where can I find it? how can I get at it?
There is one illustrious family that is thought to
have accumulated a vast body of treasures, through
a course of three or four successive reigns. It does
not appear openly; but we have good information
that very great sums of money are bricked up and
kept in vaults under ground, and secured under the
guard and within the walls of a fortress": the residence of the females of the family, a guard, as your Lordships know, rendered doubly and trebly secure
by the manners of the country, which make everything that is in the hands of women sacred. It is
said that nothing is proof against gold, --that the
strongest tower will not be impregnable, if Jupiter
makes love in a golden shower. This Jupiter commences making love; but lie does not come to the ladies with gold for their persons, he comes to their
persons for their gold. This impetuous lover, Mr.
Hastings, who is not to be stayed from the objects of
his passion, would annihilate space and time between
him and his beloved object, the jaghires of these ladies, had now, first, their treasure's affection.
? ? ? ? 32 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
Your Lordships have already had a peep behind
the curtain, in the first orders sent to Mr. Middleton.
In the treaty of Chunar you see a desire, obliquely
expressed, to get the landed estates of all these great
families. But even while he was meeting with such
reluctance in the Nabob upon this point, and though
he also met with some resistance upon the part even
of Mr. Middleton, Mr. Hastings appears to have given
him in charge some other still more obnoxious and
dreadful acts. " While I was meditating," says Mr.
Middleton, in one of his letters, "upon this [the
resumption of the jaghires], your orders came to me
through Sir Elijah Impey. " What these orders were
is left obscure in the letter: it is yet but as in a
mist or cloud. But it is evident that Sir Elijah Impey did convey to him some project for getting at
more wealth by some other service, which was not
to supersede the first, but to be concurrent with that
upon which Mr. Hastings had before given him such
dreadful charges and had loaded him with such horrible responsibility. It could not have been anything but the seizure of the Begum's treasures. He thus goaded on two reluctant victims,-first the reluctant Nabob, then the reluctant Mr. Middleton,
forcing them with the bayonet behind them, and
urging on the former, as at last appears, to violate
the sanctity of his mother's house.
Your Lordships have been already told by one
of my able fellow Managers, that Sir Elijah Impey
is the person who carried up the message alluded
to in Mr. Middleton's letter. We have charged it,
as an aggravation of the offences of the prisoner at
your bar, that the Chief-Justice, who, by the sacred
nature of his office, and by the express provisions
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - FIFTH DAY. 33
of the act of Parliament under which he was sent
out to India to redress the wrongs of the natives,
should be made an instrument for destroying the
property, real and personal, of this people. When
it first came to our knowledge that all this private
intrigue for the destruction of these high women
was carried on through the intrigue of a ChiefJustice, we felt such shame and such horror, both
for the instrument and the principal, as I think it
impossible to describe, or for anything but complete
and perfect silence to express.
But by Sir Elijah Impey was that order carried
up to seize and confiscate the treasures of the Begums. We know that neither the Company nor the Nabob had any claim whatever upon these treasures.
On the contrary, we know that two treaties had been
made for the protection of them. We know that
the Nabob, while he was contesting about some elephants and carriages, and some other things that he said were in the hands of their steward, did allow
that the treasures in the custody of his grandmother
and of his mother's principal servants were their
property. This is the Nabob who is now represented by Mr. Hastings and his counsel to have become the instrument of destroying his mother and grandmother, and everything else that ought to be dear to mankind, throughout the whole train of his family.
Mr. Hastings, having resolved to seize upon the
treasures of the Begums, is at a loss for some pretence of justifying the act. His first justification
of it is on grounds which all tyrants have ready at
their hands. He begins to discover a legal title to
that of which he wished to be the possessor, and on
this title sets up a claim to these treasures. I say
VOL. XII. 3
? ? ? ? 34 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
Mr. Hastings set up this claim, because by this time
I suppose your Lordships will not bear to hear the
Nabob's name on such an occasion. The prisoner
pretended, that, by the Mahometan law, these goods
did belong to the Nabob; but whether they did or
did not, he had himself been an active instrument
in the treaty for securing their possession to the Begums, -a security which he attempts to unlock by his constructions of the Mahometan law. Having set
up this title, the guaranty still remained; and how
is he to get rid of that? In his usual way. " You
have rebelled, you have taken up arms against your
own son," (for that is the pretext,) " and therefore
my guaranty is gone, and your goods, whether you
have a title to them or not, are to be confiscated
for your rebellion. " This is his second expedient
by way of justification.
Your Lordships will observe the strange situation
in which we are here placed. If the fact of the
rebellion can be proved, the discussion of the title
to the property in question will be totally useless;
for, if the ladies had actually taken up arms to cut
the Nabob's throat, it would require no person to
come fiom the dead to prove to us that the Nabob,
but not Mr. Hastings, had a right, for his own security and for his own indemnification, to take those treasures, which, whether they belonged to him or
not, were employed in hostilities against him. The
law of self-defence is above every other law; and if
ally persons draw the sword against you, violence on
your part is justified, and you may use your sword
to take from them that property by which they have
been enabled to draw their sword against you.
But the prisoner's counsel do not trust to this
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. -FIFTH DAY. 35
justification; they set up a title of right to these
treasures: but how entirely they have failed in their
attempts to substantiate either the one or the other
of these his alleged justifications your Lordships will
now judge. And first with regard to the title. The
treasure, they say, belonged to the state. The grandmother and mother have robbe(d the son, and kept him out of his rightful inheritance. They then produce the Hedaya to show you what proportion of
the goods of a Mussulman, when he dies, goes to his
family; and here, certainly, there is a question of
law to *be tried. But Mr. Hastings is a great eccentric genius, and has a course of proceeding of
his own: he first seizes upon the property, and then
produces some Mahometan writers to prove that it
did not belong to the persons who were in possession
of it. You would naturally expect, that, when he
was going to seize upon those goods, he would have
consulted his Chief-Justice, (for, as Sir Elijah Impey
went with him, he might have consulted him,) and
have thus learnt what was the Mahometan law: for,
though Sir Elijah had not taken his degree at a
Mahometan college, though he was not a mufti or a
moulavy, yet he had always muftis and moulavies
near him, and he might have consulted them. But
Mr. Hastings does not even pretend that such consultations or conferences were ever had. If he ever consulted Sir Elijah Impey, where is the report of the
case? Whell were the parties before him? Where
are the opinionis of the moulavies? Where is the
judgment of the Chief-Justice? Was he fit for nothing but to be employed as a messenger, as a common tipstaff? Was he not fit to try these rights, or to
decide upon them? He hbis told you here, indeed,
? ? ? ? 36 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
negatively, that he did not know any title Mr. Hastings had to seize upon the property of the Begumls,
except upon his hypothesis of the rebellion. He was
asked if he knew any other. He answered, No. It
consequently appears that Mr. Hastings, though he
had before him his doctors of all laws, who could
unravel for him all the enigmas of all the laws in the
world, and who had himself shone upon questions of
Mahometan law, in the case of the Nuddea Begunim,
did not dare to put this case to Sir Elijah Impey,
and ask what was his opinion concerning the rights
of these people. He was tender, I suppose, of the
reputation of the Chief-Justice. For Sir Elijah Impey, though a very good man to write a letter, or
take an'affidavit in a corner, or run on a message, to
do the business of an under-sheriff, tipstaff, or bumbailiff, was not fit to give an opinion on a question of
Mahometan law.
You have heard Ali Ibrahim Khan referred to.
This Mahometan lawyer was carried by Mr. Hastings
up to Benares, to be a witness of the vast good he had
done in that province, and was made Chief-Justice
there. All, indeed, that we know of him, except the
high character given of him by Mr. Hastings, is, I
believe, that he is the Ali Ibrahim Kha:n whom in
the Company's records I find mentioned as a person
giving bribes upon some former occasion to Mr. Hastings; but whatever he was besides, he was a doctor
of the Mahometan law, he was a mufti, and was
made by Mr. Hastings the principal judge in a criminal court, exercising, as I believe, likewise a considerable civil jurisdiction, and therefore lie was quali. . fled as a lawyer; and Mr. Hastings cannot object
to his qualifications either of integrity or of knowl
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - FIFTH DAY. 37
edge. This man was with him. Why did not he
consult him upon this law? Why did he not make
him out a case of John Doe and Richard Roe, of
John Stokes and John a Nokes? Why not say,," Sinub possesses such things, under such and such circumstances: give me your opinion upon the legality of the possession"? No, he did no such thing. Your Lordships, I am sure, will think it a little
extraordinary, that neither this chief-justice made
by himself, nor that other chief-justice whom he led
about with him in a string, -- the one an English
chief-justice, with a Mahometan suit in his court,
the other a Mahometan chief-justice of the country,
-that neither of them was consulted as lawyers by
the prisoner. Both of them were, indeed, otherwise
employed by him. For we find Ali Ibrahim Khan
employed in the same subservient capacity in which
Sir Elijah Impey was, --in order, I suppose, to keep
the law of England and the law of Mahomet upon a
just par: for upon this equality Mr. Hastings always
values himself. Neither of these two chief-justices,
I say, was ever consulted, nor one opinion taken; but
they were both employed in the correspondence and
private execution of this abominable project, when
the prisoner himself had not either leisure or perhaps
courage to give his public order in it till things got
to greater ripeness.
To Sir Elijah Impey, indeed, he did put a question;
and, upon my word, it did not require an (Edipus or
a Sphinx to answer it. Says he, " I asked Sir Elijah
Impey. " What? a question on the title between the
Nabob and his mother? No such thing. He puts
an hypothetical question. ' Supposing," says he, " a
rebellion to exist in that country; will the Nabob be
? ? ? ? Z8 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
justified in seizing the goods of the rebels? " That
is a question decided in a moment; and I must have
a malice to Sir Elijah Impey of which I am incapable,
to deny the propriety of his answer. But observe, I
pray you, my Lords, there is something peculiarly
good and correct in it. He does not take upon him
to say one word of the actual existence of a rebellion,
though he was at the time in the country, and, if
there had been any, he must have been a witness to
it; but, so chaste was his character as a judge, that
he would not touch upon the juries' office. "I am
chief-justice here," says he, " though a little wandering out of my orbit; yet still the sacred office of
justice is in me. Do you take upon you the fact; I
find the law. " Were it not for this sacred attention
to separate jurisdictions, he might have been a tolerable judge of the fact, -just as good a judge as Mr. Hastings: for neither of them knew it any other way,
as it appears afterwards, but by rumor and reports,
- reports, I believe, of Mr. Hastings's own raising;
for I do not know that Sir Elijah Impey had anything
to do with them.
But to proceed. With regard to the title of these
ladies, according to the Mahometan law, you have
nothing laid before you by the prisoner's counsel but
a quotation cut out with the scissors from a Mahometan law-book, (which I suspect very much the learned gentlemen have never read through,) declaring how
a Mahometan's effects are to be distributed. But
Mr. Hastings could not at the time have consulted
that learned counsel who now defends him upon the
principles of the Hedaya, the Hedaya not having
been then published in English; and I will venture
to say, that neither Sir Elijah Impey nor Ali Ibrahim
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - FIFTH DAY. 39
Kha'n, nor any other person, high or low, in India,
ever suggested this defence, and that it was never
thought of till lately found by the learned counsel in
the English translation of the Hedaya. " God bless
me! " now says Mr. Hastings, " what ignorance have
I been in all this time! I thought I was seizing this
unjustly, and that the pretence of rebellion was necessary; but my counsel have found out a book, since published, and from it they produce the law upon
that subject, and show that the Nabob had a right
to seize upon the treasures of his mother. " But are
your Lordships so ignorant- (your Lordships are not
ignorant of anything) - are any men so ignorant
as not to know that in every country the common
law of distribution of the estate of an intestate
amongst private individuals is no rule with regard
to the family arrangements of great princes? Is
any one ignorant, that, from the days of the first origin of the Persian monarchy, the laws of which have become rules ever since for almost all the monarchs
of the East, the wives of great men have had, independent of the common distribution of their goods, great sums of money and great estates in land, one
for their girdle, one for their veil, and so on, going
through the rest of their ornaments and attire, --
and that they held great estates and other effects
over which the reigning monarch or his successor
had no control whatever? Indeed, my Lords, a more
curious and extraordinary species of trial than this
of a question of right never was heard of since the
world began. Mr. Hastings begins with seizing the
goods of the Begums at Fyzabad, nine thousand
miles from you, and fourteen years after tries the
title in an English court, without having one person
? ? ? ? 40 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
to appear for these miserable ladies. I trust you
will not suffer this mockery; I hope this last and
ultimate shame will be spared us: for I declare to
God, that the defence, and the principles of it, appear to me ten thousand times worse than the act
itself.
Now, my Lords, this criminal, through his counsel, chooses, with their usual flippancy, to say that
the Commons have been cautious in stating this part
of the charge, knowing that they were on tender
ground, and therefore did not venture to say entitled,
but possessed of only. A notable discovery indeed!
We are as far from being taken in by such miserable distinctions as we are incapable of making them.
We certainly have not said that the Begums were
entitled to, but only that they were possessed of,
certain property. And we have so said because
we were not competent to decide upon their title,
because your Lordships are not competent to decide
upon their title, because no part of this tribunal is
competent to decide upon their title. You have
not the parties before you; you have not the cause
before you, - but are getting it by oblique, improper,
and indecent means. You are not a court of justice to try that question. The parties are at a distance from you; they are neither present themselves, nor represented by any counsel, advocate, or attorney: and I hope no House of Lords will ever judge
and decide upon the title of any human being, much
less upon the title, of the first women in Asia, sequestered, shut up from you, at nine thousand miles'
distance.
I believe, my Lords, that the Emperor of Hindostan little thought, while Delhi stood, that an Eng
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - FIFTH DAY. 41
lish subject of Mr. Hastings's description should
domineer over the Vizier of his empire, aild give the
law to the first persons in his dominions. He as
little dreamed of it as any of your Lordships noW
dream that you shall have your property seized by
a delegate from Lucknow, and have it tried by what
tenure a peer or peeress of Great Britain hold, the
one his estate, and the other her jointure, dower,
or her share of goods, her paraphernalia, in any
court of Adawlut in Hindostan. If any such thing
should happen, (for we know not what may happen;
we live in an age of strange revolutions, and I doubt
whether any more strange than this,) the Commons
of Great Britain would shed their best blood sooner
than suffer that a tribunal at Lucknow should decide
upon any of your titles, for the purpbse of justifying
a robber that has taken your property. We should
do the best we could, if such a strange circumstance
occurred.
The House of Commons, who are virtually the
representatives of Lucknow, and who lately took
500,0001. of their money, will not suffer the natives
first to be robbed of their property, and then the
titles, which by the laws of their own country they
have to the goods they possess, to be tried by any
tribunal in Great Britain. Why was it not tried in
India before Mr. Hastings? One would suppose that
an English governor, if called to decide upon such a
claim of the Nabob's, would doubtless be attended
by judges, muftis, lawyers, and all the apparatus of
legal justice. No such thing. This man marches
into the country, not with mloulavies, not with muftis, not with the solemn apparatus of Oriental justice,- no: he goes with colonels, and captains, and
? ? ? ? 42 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
majors, -these are his lawyers: and when he gets
there, he demands from the parties, not their title, -
no: "Give me your money! " is his cry. It is a
shame (and I will venture to say, that these gentlemen, upon recollection, will feel ashamed) to see the
bar justify what the sword is ashamed of. In reading this correspondence, I have found these great
muftis and lawyers, these great chief-justices, attorneys-general, and solicitors-general, called colonels
and captains, ashamed of these proceedings, and endeavoring to mitigate their cruelty; yet we see British lawyers in a British tribunal supporting and justifying these acts, on the plea of defective titles. The learned counsel asks, with an air of triumph,
whether these ladies possessed these treasures by jointure, dower, will; or settlement. What was the title?
Was it a deed of gift? - was it a devise? --was it
donatio causa mortis. - was it dower? - was it jointure? -what was it? To all which senseless and
absurd questions we answer, You asked none of
these questions of the parties, when you guarantied
to them, by a solemn treaty, the possession of their
goods. Then was the time to have asked these questions: but you asked none of them. You supposed
their right, and you guarantied it, though you might
then have asked what was their right. But besides
the force and virtue of the guaranty, these unhappy
princesses had ransomed themselves from any claim
upon their property. They paid a sum of money,
applied to your use, for that guaranty. They had
a treble title, - by possession, by guaranty, by purchase.
Again, did you ask these questions, when you went
to rob them of their landed estates, their money,
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. -FIFTH DAY. 43
their ornaments, and even their wearing-apparel?
When you sent those great lawyers, Major -_,
Major, and the other majors, and colonels,
and captains, did you call on them to exhibit their
title-deeds? No: with a pistol at their breast, you
demanded their money. Instead of forging a charge
of rebellion against these unhappy persons, why did
you not then call on them for their vouchers?
No rebellion was necessary to give validity to a civil
claim. What you could get by an ordinary judgment did not want confiscation called to its aid. When you had their eunuchs, their ministers, their
treasurers, their agents and attorneys in irons, did
you then ask any of these questions? No. "Discover the money you have in trust, or you go to corporal punishment, -you go to the castle of Chunar, -here is another pair of irons! " this was
the only language used.
When the Court of Directors, alarmed at the proceedings against these ancient ladies, ordered their Indian government to make an inquiry into their
conduct, the prisoner had then an opportunity and a
duty imposed upon him of entering into a complete
justification of his conduct: he might have justified
it by every civil, and by every criminal mode of process. Did he do this? No. Your Lordships have
in evidence the manner, equally despotic, rebellious,
insolent, fraudulent, tricking, and evasive, by which
he positively refused all inquiry into the matter.
How stands it now, more than twelve years after
the seizure of their goods, at ten thousand miles'
distance? You ask of these women, buried in the
depths of Asia, secluded from human commerce,
what is their title to their estate. Have you the
? ? ? ? 44 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
parties before you? Have you summoned them?
Where is their attorney? Where is their agent?
Where is their counsel? Is this law? Is this a legal process? Is this a tribunal, - the highest tribunal of all, - that which is to furnish the example for, and to be a control on all the rest? But what is
worse, you do not come directly to the trial of this
right to property. You are desired to surround and
circumvent it; you are desired obliquely to steal an
iniquitous judgment, which you dare not boldly ravish. At this judgment you can only arrive by a side wind. You have before you a: criminal process
against an offender. One of the charges against him is, that he has robbed matrons of high and reverend place. His defence is, that they had not the apt deeds to entitle them in law to this property. In
this cause, with only the delinquent party before you,
you are called upon to try their title on his allegations of its invalidity, and by acquitting him to divest
them not only of their goods, but of their honor,to call them disseizors, wrong-doers, cheats, defrauders of their own son. No hearing for them, -- no pleading, -- all appeal cut off. Was ever a man indicted for a robbery, that is, for the forcible taking of
the goods possessed by another, suffered to desire the
prosecutor to show the deeds or other instruments
by which he acquired those goods? The idea is contemptible and ridiculous. Do these men dream?
Do they conceive, in their confused imaginations,
that you can be here trying such a question, and
venturing to decide upon it? Your Lordships will
never do that, which if you did do, you would be
unfit to subsist as a tribunal for a single hour; and
if we, on our part, did not bring before you this at
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - FIFTH DAY. 45
tempt, as the heaviest aggravation of the prisoner's
crimes, we should betray our. trust as representatives
of the Commons of Great Britain. Having made
this protest in favor of law, of justice, and good policy, permit me to take a single step more.
I will now show your Lordships that it is very
possible, nay, very probable, and almost certain, that
a great part of what these ladies possessed was a
saving of their own, and independent of any grant.
It appears in the papers before you, that these unfortunate ladies had about 70,0001. a year, landed property. Mr. Bristow states in evidence before your Lordships, that their annual expenses did not exceed
a lac and a half, and that their income was about
seven lacs; that they had possessed this for twenty
years before the death of Sujah Dowlah, and from
the death of that prince to the day of the robbery.
Now, if your Lordships will calculate what the savings from an income of 70,0001. a year will amount
to, when the party spends about 15,0001. a year, you
will see that by a regular and strict economy these
people may have saved considerable property of their
own, independent of their titles to any other property: and this is a rational way of accounting for their
being extremely rich. It may be supposed, likewise,
that they had all those advantages which ladies of
high rank usually have in that country, - gifts at
marriage, &c. We know that there are deeds of
gift by husbands to their wives during their lifetime,
and many other legal means, by which women in
Asia become possessed of very great property. But
Mr. Hastings has taught them the danger of much
wealth, and the danger of economy. He has shown
them that they are saving, not for their families, for
? ? ? ? 46 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
those who may possibly stand in the utmost need of
it. but for tyrants, robbers, and oppressors.
My Lords, I am really ashamed to have said so
much upon the subject of their titles. And yet there
is one observation more to be made, and then I shall
have done with this part of the prisoner's defence.
It is, that the Nabob himself never has made a claim
on this ground; even Mr. Hastings, his despotic
master, could never get him regularly and systematically to make such a claim; the very reverse of this is the truth. When urged on to the commission of
these acts of violence by Mr. Middleton, you have
seen with what horror and how reluctantly he lends
his name; and when he does so, he is dragged like a
victim to the stake. At the beginning of this affair,
where do we find that he entered this claim, as the
foundation of it? Upon one occasion only, when
dragged to join in this wicked act, something dropped
from his lips which seemed rather to have been
forced into his mouth, and which he was obliged to
spit out again, about the possibility that he might
have had some right to the effects of the Begums.
We next come to consider the manner in which
these acts of violence were executed. They forced
the Nabob himself to accompany their troops, and
their Resident, Mr. Middleton, to attack the city and
to storm the fort in which these ladies lived, and
consequently to outrage their persons, to insult their
character, and to degrade their dignity, as well as to
rob them of all they had.
That your Lordships may learn something of one
of these ladies, called the Munny Begum, I will refer you to Major Browne's evidence, - a man who
was at Delhi, the fountain-head of all the nobility
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - FIFTH DAY. 47
of India, and must have known who this lady was
that has been treated with such indignity by the
prisoner at your bar. Major Browne was asked,
" What was the opinion at Delhi respecting the rank,
quality, and character of the Princesses of Oude, or
of either of them? " -- "The elder, or Munny Begum, was," says lie, "a woman of high rank: she
was, I believe, the daughter of Saadut Ali Khan, a
person of high rank in the time of Mahommed Shah. "
" Do you know whether any woman in all Hindostan was considered of superior rank or birth? " --
He answers, " I believe not, except those of the royal
family. She was a near relation to Mirza Shaffee
Khal, who was a noble of nobles, the first person at
that day in the empire. " In answer to another question put by a noble Lord, in the same examination, respecting the conversation which he had with Mirza
Shaffee Khaln, and of which he had given an account,
he says, "He [Mirza Shaffee Khan] spoke of the
attempt to seize the treasures of the Begums, which
was then suspected, in terms of resentment, and as
a disgrace in which he participated, as being related
by blood to the house of Sufdar Jung, who was the
husband of the old Begum. " Ile says afterwards,
in the same examination, that he, the Beguin's husband, was the second man, and that her father was the first man, in the Mogul empire. Now the Mogul
empire, when this woman came into the world, was
an empire of that dignity that kings were its subjects; and this very Mirza Shaffee Khan, that we
speak of, her near relation, was then a prince with a
million a year revenue, and a man of the first rank,
after the Great Mogul, in the whole empire.
My Lords, these were people that ought to have
? ? ? ? 48 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
been treated with a little decorum. When we coisider the high rank of their husbands, their fathers,
and their children, a rank so high that we have nothing in Great Britain to compare with theirs, we cannot be surprised that they were left in possession of great revenues, great landed estates, and great moneyed property. All the female parts of these families, whose alliance was, doubtless, much courted, could not be proffered in marriage, and endowed in
a maniner agreeably to the dignity of such persons,
but with great sums of money; and your Lordships
must also consider the multitude of children of which
these families frequently consisted. The consequences of this robbery were such as might naturally be
expected. It is said that not one of the females of
this family has since been given in marriage.
But all this has nothing to do with the rebellion.
If they had, indeed, rebelled to cut their own son's
throat, there is an end of the business. But what
evidence have you of this fact? and if none can be
produced, does not the prisoner's defence aggravate
infinitely his crime and that of his agents? Did
they ever once state to these unfortunate women that
any such rebellion existed? Did they ever charge
them with it? Did they ever set the charge down in
writing, or make it verbally, that they had conspired
to destroy their son, a son whom Mr. Hastings had
brought there to rob them? No, this was what neither Mr. Hastings nor his agent ever did: for as they
never made a civil demand upon them, so they never
made a criminal charge against them, or against any
person belonging to them.
I save your Lordships the trouble of listening to
the manner in which they seized upon these people,
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - FIFTH DAY. 49
and dispersed their guard. Mr. Middleton states,
that they found great difficulties in getting at their
treasures, - that they stormed their forts successively, but found great reluctance in the sepoys to make
their way into the inner inclosures of the women's
apartments. Being at a loss what to do, their only
resource, he says, was to threaten that they would
seize their eunuchs. These are generally persons
who have been bought slaves, and who, not having
any connections in the country where they are settled,
are supposed to guard both the honor of the women,
and their treasures, with more fidelity than other persons would do. We know that in Constantinople,
and in many other places, these persons enjoy offices
of the highest trust, and are of great rank and dignity; and this dignity and rank they possess for the
purpose of enabling them to fulfil their great trusts
more effectually. The two principal eunuchs of the
Begums were Jewar and Behar Ali Khan, persons
of as high rank and estimation as any people in the
country. These persons, however, were seized, not,
says Mr. Hastings, for the purpose of extorting money, as assumed in the charge, but as agents and principal instruments of exciting the insurrection before alluded to, &c. Mr. Hastings declares that they were
not seized for the purpose of extorting money, but
that they were seized in order to be punished for
their crimes, and, eo nomine, for this crime of rebellionl. Now this crime could not have been committed immediately by [the? ] women themselves; for no woman can come forward and head her own troops.
We have not heard that any woman has done so
since the time of Zenobia, in another part of the
East; and we know that in Persia no person can beVOL. XII. 4
? ? ? ? 50 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
hold the face of a woman of rank, or speak to females
of condition, but through a curtain: therefore they
could not go out themselves, and be active in a rebellion. But, I own, it would be some sort of presumption against them, if Jewar Ali Khan and Behar Ali Khan had headed troops, and been concerned in
acts of rebellion; and the prisoner's counsel have
taken abundance of pains to show that such persons
do sometimes head armies and command legions in
the East. This we acknowledge that they sometimes
do. If these eunuchs had behaved in this way, if
they had headed armies and commanded legions for
the purposes of rebellion, it would have been a fair
presumption that their mistresses were concerned in it.
But instead of any proof of such facts, Mr. Hastings
simply says, " We do not arrest theni for the purpose
of extorting money, but as a punishment for their
crimes. " By Mr. Middleton's account you will see
the utter falsity of this assertion. God knows what
he has said that is true. It would, indeed, be singular not to detect him in a falsity, but in a truth. I
will now show your Lordships the utter falsity of this
wicked allegation.
There is a letter from Mr. Middleton to Sir Elijah
Impey, dated Fyzabad, the 25th of January, 1782, to
which I will call your Lordships' attention.
"DEAR SIR ELIJAH, -- I have the satisfaction to
inform you that we have at length so far obtained
the great object of our expedition to this place as to
commence on the receipt of money, of which, in the
course of this day, we have got about six lacs.