the appointment of Munny Begum would be too gross, and would shock the Council; and Mr. Hastings therefore orders the second letter to be written from the Nabob, in which he claims the powers of government for himself.  Then follows a letter from the Governor-General, informing the Nabob that it had been agreed, that, his Excellency being now arrived at years of maturity, the control of his own household, and the courts dependent on the nizamut and foujdarry, should be placed in his hands; and Mahomed Reza Khan was directed at the same time to resign his authority to the Nabob.

Here your Lordships see Munny Begum in effect completely invested with, and you will see how she has used her power:  for I suppose your Lordships are sick of the name of Nabob, as a real actor in the government.  You now see the true parties in the transaction,—­namely, the lover, Warren Hastings, Esquire, and Munny Begum, the object of his passion and flame, to which he sacrifices as much as Antony ever did to Cleopatra.  You see the object of his love and affection placed in the administration of the viceroyalty; you see placed at her disposal the administration of the civil judicature, and of the executory justice,—­together with the salary which was intended for Mahomed Reza Khan.

Your Lordships will be pleased to remember that this distribution of the Nabob’s government was made in direct defiance of the orders of the Company.  And as a further proof of this defiance, it will not escape your Lordships, that, before this measure was carried into execution, Mr. Barwell being one day absent from the Council, Mr. Hastings fell into a minority; and it was agreed, upon that occasion, that the whole affair should be referred home to the Court of Directors, and that no arrangement should be made till the Directors had given their opinion.  Mr. Hastings, the very moment after Mr. Barwell’s return to his seat in the Council, rescinds this resolution, which subjected the orders of the Court of Directors to their own reconsideration; and he hurries headlong and precipitately into the execution of his first determination.  Your Lordships will also see in this act what sort of use Mr. Hastings made of the Council; and I have therefore insisted upon all these practices of the prisoner at your bar, because there is not one of them in which some principle of government is not wounded, if not mortally wounded.

My Lords, we have laid before you the consequences of this proceeding.  We have shown what passed within the walls of the seraglio, and what tyranny was exercised by this woman over the multitude of women there.  I shall now show your Lordships in what manner she made use of her power over the supreme judicature, to peculate, and to destroy the country; and I shall adduce, as proofs of this abuse of her authority, the facts I am about to relate, and of which there is evidence before your Lordships.