My Lords, you have had an account of the person who represented the Nabob’s dignity, Mahomed Reza Khan; you have heard of the rank he bore, the sufferings that he went through, his trial and honorable acquittal, and the Company’s order that the first opportunity should be taken to appoint him Naib Subah, or deputy of the Nabob, and more especially to represent him in the administering of justice.  Your Lordships are also acquainted with what was done in consequence of those orders by the Council-General, in the restoration and reestablishment of the executive power in this person,—­not in the poor Nabob, a poor, helpless, ill-bred, ill-educated boy, but in the first Mussulman of the country, who had before exercised the office of Naib Subah, or deputy viceroy,—­in order to give some degree of support to the expiring honor and justice of that country.  The majority, namely, General Clavering, Colonel Monson, and Mr. Francis, whose names, as I have before said, will, for obedience to the Company, fidelity to the laws, honor to themselves, and a purity untouched and unimpeached, stand distinguished and honored, in spite of all the corrupt and barking virulence of India against them,—­these men, I say, obeyed the Company:  they had no secret or fraudulent connection with Mahomed Reza Khan; but they reinstated him in his office.

The moment that real death had carried away two of the most virtuous of this community, and that Mr. Hastings was thereby reestablished in his power, he returned to his former state of rebellion to the Company, and of fraud and oppression upon the people.  And here we come to the revivificating medicine.  I forgot to tell your Lordships, that this Nabob, whose letters were declared by a court of law, with his own approbation, to be in effect letters of the Governor-General and Council, concludes a formal application transmitted to them, and dated 17th November, 1777, with a demand of the restoration of his rights.  Mr. Hastings upon this enters the following minute:—­

“The Nabob’s demands are grounded upon positive rights, which will not admit of a discussion; he has an incontestable right to the management of his own household; he has an incontestable right to the nizamut.”

My Lords, you have heard his affidavit, you have heard his avowed and recorded opinion.  In direct defiance of both, because he wishes to make doubtful the orders of the Company and to evade his duty, he here makes without any delicacy a declaration, which if it be true, the affidavit is a gross perjury, let it be managed with what delicacy he pleases.  The word nizamut, which he uses, may be unfamiliar to your Lordships.  In India it signifies the whole executive government, though the word strictly means viceroyalty:  all the princes of that country holding their dominions as representatives of the Mogul, the great nominal sovereign of the empire.  To convince you that it does so, take his own explanation of it.