My Lords, you see that all these arrangements have the solemn guaranty of the Company, and that these women form a very considerable part of that guaranty; and therefore your Lordships will not treat their sufferings, inflicted in violation of the Company’s own settlement and guaranty, as a matter of no consideration for you.

But to proceed.—­We have proved to your Lordships that the Nabob was reduced to a state of the greatest possible misery and distress; that his whole revenue was sequestered into the hands of Mr. Hastings’s agents; that by the treaty of Chunar he was to be relieved from the expense of a body of troops with which he had been burdened without his own voluntary consent,—­nay, more, the temporary brigade, which Mr. Hastings proposed to take off, but kept on, which he considers not only as a great distress to his finances, but a dreadful scourge and calamity to his country,—­there was a whole pension-list upon it, with such enormous pensions as 18,000_l._ a year to Sir Eyre Coote, and other pensions, that Mr. Hastings proposed to take off, but did not; that, in proportion as the Nabob’s distress increased, Mr. Hastings’s demands increased too; he was not satisfied, with taking from him for the Company, but he took from him for himself; he demanded six hundred thousand pounds as a loan, when he knew he had neither money nor credit.

The consequence of these acts of violence was, that these people, besieged by the English troops, and deprived of every resource, even of the funds of charity, by which the protectors of the family, male and female, might have relieved them, but which the cruel rapacity of Mr. Hastings had either entirely taken away or greatly diminished, were reduced to the last extremity of distress.

After the length of time which has elapsed since we first brought these matters with their proofs, I shall beg leave, before you go to judgment, to refresh your memory with a recital of a part of that evidence, in order that your Lordships may again fully and distinctly comprehend the nature and extent of the oppression, cruelty, and injustice committed by Mr. Hastings, and by which you may estimate the punishment you will inflict upon him.

     Letter from Captain Leonard Jaques to Richard Johnson, Esq.,
     Resident at the Vizier’s Court; March 6th, 1782.

“Sir,—­The women belonging to the Khord Mohul complain of their being in want of every necessary of life, and are at last drove to that desperation, that they at night get on the top of the zenanah, make a great disturbance, and last night not only abused the sentinels posted in the gardens, but threw dirt at them; they threatened to throw themselves from the walls of the zenanah, and also to break out of it.  Humanity obliges me to acquaint you of this matter, and to request to know if you have any direction to give me concerning it.  I also beg leave to acquaint you, I sent for Letafit Ali Khan, the