No More Learning

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. I
know not yet what amount we shall actually realize,
but I think I may safely venture to pronounce it will
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - FIFTH DAY. 51
be equal to the liquidation of the Company's balance.
It has been at once. the most important and the most
difficult point of duty which has ever occurred in my
office; and the anxiety, the hopes and fears, which
have alternately agitated my mind, cannot be described or conceived but by those who have been witness to what has passed in the course of this long contest. The [Nabob's] ministers have supported
me nobly, and deserve much commendation. Without the shrewd discernment and knowledge of the
finesse and tricks of the country which Hyder Beg
Khan possesses, I believe we should have succeeded
but indifferently; for I soon found that no real advantage was to be obtained by proceeding at once to
violent extremities with the Begum, and that she was
only to be attacked through the medium of her confidential servants, who it required considerable address
to get hold of. However, we at last effected it; and
by using some few severities with them, we at length
came at the secret hoards of this old lady. I will
write you more particulars hereafter.
" I am sorry to inform you my little boy still continues in a very precarious way, though somewhat
better than when I had last the honor to address you.
MIy respects to Lady Impey. And believe me, with
great regard, my dear Sir Elijah, your faithful,
obliged, and most affectionate humble servant,
" NATHANIEL MIDDLETON. "
My Lords, we produce this letter to your Lordships,
because it is a letter which begins with "D)ear Sir
Elijah," and alludes to some family matters, and is
therefore more likely to discover the real truth, the
true genius of a proceeding, than all the formal and
? ? ? ? 52 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
Official stuff that ever was produced. You see the
tenderness and affection in which they proceed. You
see it is his dear Sir Eli'ah. You see that he does
not tell the dear Sir Elijah, the Chief-Justice of India,
the pillar of the law, the great conservator of personal
liberty and private property, -- he does not tell him
that he has been dble to convict these eunuchs of any
crime; he does not tell him he has the pleasure of
informing him what matter he has got upon which a
decision at law may be grounded; he does not tell
him that he has got the least proof of the want of title
in those ladies: not a word of the kind. You cannot
help observing the soft language used in this tender
billet-doux between Mr. Middleton and Sir Elijah
Impey. You would imagine that they were making love, and that you heard the voice of the turtle
in the land. You hear the soft cooing, the gentle
addresses, -" Oh, my hopes! " to-day, " My fears! "
to-morrow, - all the language of friendship, almost
heightened into love; and it comes at last to " I have
got at the secret hoards of these ladies. -- Let us rejoice, my dear Sir Elijah; this is a day of rejoicing, a day of triumph; and this triumph we have obtained
by seizing upon the old lady's eunuchs, -- in doing
which, however, we found a great deal of difficulty. "
You would imagine, from this last expression, that it
was not two eunuchs, with a few miserable women
clinging about them, that they had to seize, but that
they had to break through all the guards which we
see lovers sometimes breaking through, when they
want to get *at their ladies. Hardly ever did the
beauty of a young lady excite such rapture; I defy
all the charms this country can furnish to produce
a more wonderful effect than was produced by the
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - FIFTH DAY. 53
hoards of these two old women, in the bosoms of Sir
Elijah Impey and Mr. Middleton. "We have got,"
he exultingly says,"' we have got to the secret hoards
of this old lady! " And I verily believe there never
was a passion less dissembled; there Nature spoke;
there was truth triumphant, honest truth. Others
may feign a passion; but nobody can doubt the raptures of Mr. Hastings, Sir Elijah Impey, and Mr. Middleton.
My Lords, one would have expected to have found
here something of their crimes, something of their
rebellion, for he talks of a few " necessary severities. "
But no: you find the real criminal, the real object,
was the secret hoards of the old ladies. It. is true,
a few severities were necessary to obtain that object:
however, they did obtain it. How then did they
proceed? First, they themselves took and received,
in weight and tale, all the money that was in the
place. I say all; for whether there was any more
they never have discovered, with all their search,
from that day to this. Therefore we fairly presume
that they had discovered all that there was to discover
with regard to money. They next took from these
unfortunate people an engagement for the amount of
treasure at a definite sum, without knowing whether
they had it or not, whether they could procure it or
not. The Bhow Begum has told us, as your Lordships have it in evidence, that they demanded from her a million of money; that she, of course, denied
having any such sums; but Mr. Middleton forced her
unfortunate eunuchs or treasurers, by somefew severities, to give their bond for 600,0001.
You would imagine, that, when these eunuchs had
given up all that was in their power, when they had
? ? ? ? 54 3IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
given a bond for what they had not, (for they were
only the treasurers of other people,) that the bond
would not have been rigidly exacted. But what do
Mr. Hastings and Mr. Middleton, as soon as they get
their plunder? They went to their own assay-table,
by which they measured the rate of exchange between
the coins in currency at Oude and those at Calcutta,
and add the difference to the sum for which the bond
was given. Thus they seize the secret hoards, they
examine it as if they were receiving a debt, and they
determine what this money would and ought to
produce at Calcutta: not considering it as coming
from people who gave all they had to give, but as
what it. would produce at the mint at Calcutta,
according to a custom made for the profit of the
Residents; even though Mr. Hastings, upon another
occasion, charged upon Mr. Bristow as a crime that
he had made that profit. This money, my Lords,
was taken to that assay-table, which they had invented for their own profit, and they made their victims pay a rupee and a half batta, or exchange of money,
upon each gold mohur; by which and other charges
they brought them 60,0001. more in debt, and forced
them to give a bond for that 60,0001.
Your Lordships have seen in what manner these
debts were contracted, - and that they were contracted by persons engaging, not for themselves, for they had nothing; all their property was apparently their
mistresses'. You will now see in what manner the
payment of them was exacted; and we shall beg
leave to read to you their own accounts of their own
proceedings. Your Lordships will then judge whether they were proceeding against rebels as rebels,
or against wealthy people as wealthy people, punish
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. -FIFTH DAY. 55
ing them, under pretence of crimes, for their own
profit.
In a letter from Mr. Middleton to Mr. Hastings,
after two other paragraphs, he goes on thus.
"It remained only to get possession of her wealth;
and to effect this, it was then and is still my firm and
unalterable opinion that it was indispensably neces;
sary to employ temporizing expedients, and to work
upon the hopes and fears of the Begum herself, and
more especially upon those of her principal agents,
through whose means alone there appeared any probable chance of our getting access to the hidden treasures of the late Vizier; and when I acquaint you that by far the greatest part of the treasure which has been
delivered to the Nabob was taken from the most secret
recesses in the houses of the two eunuchs, whence, of
course, it could not have been extracted without the
adoption of those means which could induce the discovery, I shall hope for your approbation of what I did.
I must also observe, that no further rigor than that
which I exerted could have been used against females
in this country, to whom there can be no access. The
Nabob and Salar Jung were the only two that could
enter the zenanah: the first was a son, who was to
address a parent, and, of course, could use no language or action but that of earnest and reiterated
solicitation; and the other was, in all appearance, a
traitor to our cause. Where force could be employed, it was not spared: the troops of the Begum
were driven away and dispersed; their guns taken;
her fort, and the outward walls of her house seized
and occupied by our troops, at the Nabob's requisition; and her chief agents imprisoned and put in
irons. No further step was left. And in this situa.
? ? ? ? 56 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
tion they still remain, and are to continue (excepting
only a remission of the irons) until the final liquida
tion of the payment; and if then you deem it proper,
no possible means of offence being left in her hands
or those of her agents, all her lands and property
having been taken, I mean, with your sanction, to restore her house and servants to her, and hope to be favored with your early reply, as I expect that a few
days will complete the final surrender of all that is
further expected from the Begum. "
There are some things in this letter which I shall
beg your Lordships to remark. There is mention
made of a few preliminary severities used by Mr.
Middleton, in order to get at their money. Well,
he did get at the money, and he got a bond for the
payment of an additional sum, which they thought
proper to fix at about six hundred thousand pounds,
to which was added another usurious bond for sixty
thousand; and in order to extort these forced bonds,
and to make up their aggravated crimes of usury,
violence, and oppression, they put these eunuchs into prison, without food and water, and loaded their limbs with fetters. This was their second imprisonment; and what followed these few severities your Lordships will remark, - still more severities. They
continued to persecute, to oppress, to work upon
these men by torture and by the fear of torture, till
at last, having found that all their proceedings were
totally ineffectual, they desire the women to surrender their house; though it is in evidence before you, that to remove a woman from her own house to another house without her consent is an outrage of the greatest atrocity, on account of which many women
have not only threatened, but have actually put them
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. -FIFTH DAY. 57
selves to death. Mr. Hastings himself, in the case of
Munny Begum, had considered such a proposition as
the last degree of outrage that could be offered. These
women offered to go from house to house while their
residence was searched; but "No," say their tormentors, " the treasure may be bricked up, in so large
a house, in such a manner that we cannot find it. "
But to proceed with the treatment of these unfortunate men. I will read to your Lordships a letter of
Mr. Middleton to Captain Leonard Jaques, commanding at Fyzabad, 18th March, 1782.
SIR, -I have received your letter of the 13th
instant. The two prisoners, Behar and Jewar Ali
Khan, having violated their written solemn engagement with me for the payment of the balance due to
the Honorable Company on the Nabob's assignments
accepted by them, and declining giving me any satisfactory assurances on that head, I am under the disagreeable necessity of recurring to severities to enforce the said payment. This is, therefore, to desire that you immediately cause them to be put in irons,
and kept so until I shall arrive at Fyzabad, to take
further measures, as may be necessary. "
Here is the answer of Captain Jaques to Mr. Middleton.
"April 23d, 1782.
" SIR,-Allow me the honor of informing you that
the place the prisoners Behar Ali Khan and Jewar
Ali Khlln are confined in is become so very unhealthy, by the number obliged to be on duty in so
confined a place at this hot season of the year, and
so situated, that no reduction can with propriety be
? ? ? ? 1h8 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
made from their guard, it being at such a distance
from the battalion. "
You see, my Lords, what a condition these unfortunate persons were in at that period; you see they were put in irons, in a place highly unhealthy; and
from this you will judge of the treatment which
followed the few severities. The first yielded a bond
for 600,0001. ; the second, a bond for 60,0001. ; the
third was intended to extort the payment of these
bonds, and completed their series.
I will now read a letter from Captain Jaques to Mr.
Middleton, from the printed Minutes, dated Palace,
Fyzabad, May 18th, 1782, consequently written nearly a month after the former.
" SIR, -- The prisoners Behar and Jewar Ali Khan,
who seem to be very sickly, have requested their
irons might be taken off for a few days, that they
might take medicine, and walk about the garden of
the place where they are confined, to assist the medicine in its operation. Now, as I am sure they would be equally as secure without their irons as
with them, I think it my duty to inform you of this
request, and desire to know your pleasure concerning it.
(Signed) "LEONARD JAQUES. "
On the 22d May, 1782, Captain Jaques's humane
proposal is thus replied to by Mr. Middleton.
"I am sorry it is not in my power to comply with
your proposal of easing the prisoners for a few days
of their fetters. Much as my humanity may be
touched by their sufferings, I should think it inex
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. -FIFTH DAY.
59
pedient to afford them any alleviation while they persist in a breach of their contract with me; and, indeed, no indulgence could be shown them without the authority of the Nabob, who, instead of consenting to moderate the rigors of their situation, would
be most willing to multiply them.
(Signed) "NATTHANIEL MIDDLETON. "
I will now call your Lordships' attention to other
letters connected with this transaction.
Letter from Major Gilpin to Mr. Middleton, June 5th,
1782.
" SIR, - Agreeably to your instructions, I went to
the prisoners, Behar and Jewar Ali Khan, accompanied by Hoolas Roy, who read the papers respecting
the balance now due, &c. , &c.
" In general terms they expressed concern at not
being able to discharge the same without the assistance of the Begum, and requested indulgence to send
a message to her on that subject, and in the evening
they would give an answer.
" I went at the time appointed for the answer, but
did not receive a satisfactory one; in consequence of
which I desired them to be ready, at the shortest notice, to proceed to Lucknow, and explained to them
every particular contained in your letter of the 1st
instant respecting them.
"Yesterday morning I sent for Letafit Ali Khan,
and desired him to go to the Bhow Begum, and deliver the substance of my instructions to her, which
he did, and returned with the inclosed letter from
her. From some circumstances which I have heard
to-day, I am hopeful the prisoners will soon think
? ? ? ? 60 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
seriously of their removal, and pay the balance rather than submit themselves to an inconvenient journey to Lucknow. "
To Major Gilpin, commanding at Fyzabad, from Mr.
Middleton.
"SIR,- -I have been favored with your letter of
the 5th instant, informing me of the steps you had
taken in consequence of my instructions of the 1st,
and covering a letter from the Bhow Begum, which
is so unsatisfactory that I cannot think of returning
an answer to it. Indeed, as all correspondence between the Begum and me has long been stopped, I request you will be pleased to inform her that I by
no means wish to resume it, or maintain any friendly
intercourse with her, until she has made good my
claim upon her for the balance due.
"I have now, in conformity to my former instructions, to desire that the two prisoners, Behar
and Jewar Ali Khan, may be immediately sent,
under a sufficient guard, to Lucknow, unless, upon
your imparting to them this intimation, either they
or the Begum should actually pay the balance, or
give you such assurances or security for the assets to
be immediately forthcoming as you think can be relied upon; in which case you will of course suspend
the execution of this order. "
Mr. Richard Johnson to Major Gilpin. Luclcnow,
24th June, 1782.
"SIR, - I have received the honor of your letter of
the 20th. The prisoners arrived here this morning.
Lieutenant Crow has delivered them over to Captain
Waugh, and returns to you in a day or two.
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - FIFTH DAY. 61
"1 think their hint to you a very good one, and
worth improving upon. Was the Bhow Begum to
think that she must go to Allahabad, or any other
place, while her palace is searched for the hidden
treasure of the late Vizier, it might go further than
any other step that can be immediately taken towards
procuring payment of the balance outstanding.
" Tile prisoners are to be threatened with severities to-morrow, to make them discover where the balance may be procurable, the fear of which may possibly have a good effect; and the apprehensions ol the Begum. lest they should discover the hidden
treasure may induce her to make you tenders of
payment, which you may give any reasonable encouragement to promote that may occur to you.
"The jaghire cannot be released to her on any
other terms, nor even to the Nabob, until the five
lacs for which it was granted be paid up; and the
prisoners must also be detained until the full fifty
lacs be liquidated: consequently nothing but the
fear of an increase of demand, upon breach of the
first engagement on her part, will induce her to
prompt payment. "
Letter front Mr. Richard Johnson to the Commanding
Officer of the Guard. Lucknow, 23d July, 1782.
" SIR,-Some violent demands having been made
for the release of the prisoners, it is necessary that
every possible precaution be taken for their security.
You will therefore be pleased to be very strict in
guarding them; and I herewith send another pair
of fetters, to be added to those now upon the prisoners. "
? ? ? ? 62 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
Letter from Robert Steere Allen to Richard Johnson,
Esq. , Acting Resident. Lucknow, 23d July, 1782.
"SIR, --I have received your instructions, and
ordered the fetters to be added; but they are by
much too small for their feet. The utmost regard
shall be paid to the security of the prisoners. I have
sent back the fetters, that you may have them altered, if you think proper. "
Letter from Mr. Johnson to the Officer commanding the
Guard. Lucknow, 28th June, 1782.
" SI, -The Nabob having determined to inflict
corporal punishment. upon the prisoners under your
guard, this is to desire that his officers, when they
shall come, may have free access to the prisoners,
and be permitted to do with them as they shall see
proper, only taking care that they leave them always
under your charge. "
I will now trouble your Lordships with the following passages from Mr. IIolt's evidence.
" Q. Did you ever see the two ministers of the Begum? - A. I saw them brought into Lucknow. -- Q. In what situation were they, when you saw them
brought into Lucknow? -A. They were brought in
their palanquins, attended by a guard of sepoys. Q. Under whose command were the sepoys? -- A. That they were brought in by? - Q. Yes. A. I do not recollect. - Q. Were those sepoys that brought in the prisoners part of the Nabob's army,
or were they any British troops? -- A. To the
best of my recollection, they were detached from
a regiment then stationed at Fyzabad. --Q. In
whose service was that regiment? -A. In the
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. -FIFTH DAY. 63
Company's. Q. Were they imprisoned in any house
near that in which you resided? --A. They were
imprisoned immediately under the window of the
house in which I resided, close to it. --Q. Did
you or did you not ever see any preparations made
for any corporal punishment? - A. I saw something of a scaffolding. - Q. For what purpose? -
A. I heard it was for the purpose of tying them
up. --Q. Whose prisoners did you consider these
men to be? -A. I considered them as prisoners of
the Resident; they were close to his house, and under an European officer. "
Your Lordships have now seen the whole process,
except one dreadful part of it, which was the threatening to send the Begum to the castle at Chunar.
After all these cruelties, after all these menaces of
further cruelties, after erecting a scaffold for actually exercising the last degree of criminal punishment,
namely, by whipping these miserable persons in public, -after everything has been done but execution,
our inability to prove by evidence this part of their
proceedings has secured to your Lordships a circumstance of decorum observed on the stage where murders, executions, whippings, and cruelties are performed behind the scenes. I know as certainly as a man can know such a thing, from a document which
I cannot produce in evidence here, but I have it
in the handwriting of the Resident, Mr. Bristow, that
Behar Ali Khan was actually scourged in the manner that we speak. of. I had it in writing in the
man's hand; I put the question to him, but he
refused to answer it, because he thouglht it might
criminate himself, and criminate us all; but if your
? ? ? ? 64 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
Lordships saw the scaffold erected for the purpose,
(and of this we have evidence,) would you not necessarily believe that the scourging did follow? All this was done in the name of the Nabob; but if
the Nabob is the person claiming his father's effects,
if the Nabob is the person vindicating a rebellion
against himself upon his nearest relations, why did
he not in person take a single step in this matter?
why do we see nothing but his abused name in it?
We see no order under his own hand. We see all
the orders given by the cool Mr. Middleton, by the
outrageous Mr. Johnson, by all that gang of persons
that the prisoner used to disgrace the British name.
Who are the officers that stormed their fort? who
put on the irons? who sent them? who supplied
them? They ar9 all, all, English officers. There is
not an appearance, even, of a minister of the Nabob's
in the whole transaction. The actors are all Englishmen; and we, as Englishmen, call for punishment upon those who have thus degraded and dishonored
the English name.
We do not use torture or cruelties, even for the
greatest crimes, but have banished them from our
courts of justice; we never suffer them in any case.
Yet those men, in order to force others to break their
most sacred trust, inflict tortures upon them. They
drag their poor victims from dungeon to dungeon,
from one place of punishment to another, and wholly
on account of an extorted bond, -for they owed no
money, they could not owe any, -- but to get this
miserable balance of 60,0001. , founded upon their
tables of exchange: after they had plundered these
ladies of 500,0001. in money, and 70,0001. a year
in land, they could not be satisfied without putting
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - FIFTH DAY. 65
usury and extortion upon tyranny and oppression.
To enforce this unjust demand, the miserable victims
were imprisoned, ironed, scourged, and at last threatened to be sent prisoners to Chunar. This menace succeeded. The persons who had resisted irons, who
had been, as the Begums say, refused food and water,
stowed in an unwholesome, stinking, pestilential prison, these persons withstood everything till the fort of Chunar was mentioned to them; and then their fortitude gave way: and why? The fort of Chunar was
not in the dominions of the Nabob, whose rights they
pretended to be vindicating: to name a British fort,
in their circumstances, was to name everything that
is most horrible in tyranny; so, at least, it appeared
to them. They gave way; and thus were committed
acts of oppression and cruelty unknown, I will venture to say, in the history of India. The women,
indeed, could not be brought forward and scourged,
but their ministers were tortured, till, for their redemption, these princesses gave up all their clothes,
all the ornaments of their persons, all their jewels,
all the memorials of their husbands and fathers, -
all were delivered up, and valued by merchants at
50,0001. ; and they also gave up 5,0001. in money, or
thereabouts: so that, in reality, only about 5,0001. ,
a mere nothing, a sum not worth mentioning, even
in the calculations of extortion and usury, remained
unpaid.
But, my Lords, what became of all this money?
When you examine these witnesses here, they tell
you it was paid to Hyder Beg Khan. Now they had
themselves received the money in tale at their own
assay-table. And when an account is demanded of
the produce of the goods, they shrink from it, and say
VOL. XII. 5
? ? ? ? 66 IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.
it was Hyder Beg Khan who received the things and
sold them. Where is Hyder Beg Khan's receipt?
The Begums say (and the thing speaks for itself) that
even gold and jewels coming from them lost their
value; that part of the goods were. spoilt, being kept
long unsold in damp and bad warehouses; and that
the rest of the goods were sold, as thieves sell their
spoil, for little or nothing. In all this business Mr.
Hastings and Mr. Middleton were themselves the
actors, chief actors; but now, when they are called
to account, they substitute Hyder Beg Khan in their
place, a man that is dead and gone, and you hear
nothing more of this part of the business.
But the sufferings of these eunuchs did not end
here; they were, on account of this odd 5,0001. ,
confined for twelve months, - not prisoners at large,
like this prisoner who thrusts his sore leg into your
Lordships' faces every day, but in harsh and cruel
confinement. These are the persons that I feel for.
It is their dungeon, it is their unrevenged wrongs
that move me. It is for these innocent, miserable,
unhappy men, who were guilty of no offence but
fidelity to their mistresses, in order to vex and torture whom (the first women in Asia) in the persons of their ministers these cruelties were exercised,
these are they for whom I feel, and not for the miserable sore leg or whining cant of this prisoner. He has been the author of all these wrongs; and
if you transfer to him any of the sympathy you
owe to these sufferers, you do wrong, you violate
compassion. Think of their irons. Has not this
criminal, who put on these irons, been without one
iron? Has he been threatened with torture? Has
he been locked up without food and water? Have his
? ? ? ? SPEECH IN REPLY. - FIFTH DAY. 67
sufferings been aggravated as the sufferings of these
poor men were aggravated? What punishment has
been inflicted, and what can be inflicted upon him, in
any manner commensurate with the atrocity of his
crimes?
At last, my Lords, these unhappy men were
released. Mr. Bristow, who had been sent to Lucknow, writes to Mr. Hastings, and informs him that severities could do no more, that imprisonments and
menaces could get no more money. I believe not, for
I doubt much whether any more was to be got. But
whether there was or not, all the arts of extortion,
fortified by all the arts of tyranny, of every name and
species, had failed, and therefore Mr. Bristow released the prisoners, - but without any warrant for
so doing from Mr. Hastings, who, after having received this letter from Mr. Bristow, gets the Supreme Council to order these very severities to be continued
till the last farthing was paid. In order to induce the
Council to sanction this measure, he suppressed Mr.
Bristow's declaration, that severities could do nothing
more in exacting further payments; and the Resident, I find, was afterwards obliquely punished for his humanity by Mr. Hastings.
Mr. Bristow's letter is dated the 12th of December,
and he thus writes.