protected walls, which, as Mr. Hastings and Sir Elijah Impey admit, are held sacred even by the ruffian hand of war, or by the more uncourteous hand of the law. But, in this situation, they are not confined from a mean and selfish policy of man-not from a coarse and sensual jealousy-enshrined, rather than immured, their habitation and retreat is a sanctuary, not a prison-their jealousy is their own-a jealousy of their own honour, that leads them to regard liberty as a degradation, and the gaze of even admiring eyes as inexpiable pollution to the purity of their fame and the sanctity of their honour.

"Such being the general opinion, (or prejudices, let them be called,) of this country, Your Lordships will find, that whatever treasures were given or lodged in a Zenana of this description must, upon the evidence of the thing itself, be placed beyond the reach of resumption.. To dispute with the Counsel about the original right to those treasures-to talk of a title to them by the Mahometan law!-their title to them is the title of a Saint to the relics upon an altar, placed there by Piety,* guarded by holy Superstition, and to be snatched from thence only by Sacrilege."

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In showing that the Nabob was driven to this

*This metaphor was rather roughly handled afterwards (1794) by Mr. Law, one of the adverse Counsel, who asked, how could the Begum be considered as “a Saint,” or how were the camels, which formed part of the treasure, to be placed upon the altar ?” Sheridan, in reply, said, “It was the first time in his life he had ever heard of special pleading on a metaphor, or a bill of indictment against a trope. But such was the turn of the Learned Counsel's mind, that, when he attempted to be humorous, no jest could be found, and, when serious, no fact was visible."

robbery of his relatives by other considerations than those of the pretended rebellion, which was afterwards conjured up by Mr. Hastings to justify it, "he says,

"The fact is, that through all his defences-through all his various false suggestions-through all these various rebellions and disaffections, Mr. Hastings never once lets go this plea of unextinguishable right in the Nabob. He constantly represents the seizing the treasures as a resumption of a right which he could not part with; as if there were literally something in the Koran, that made it criminal in a true Mussulman to keep his engagements with his relations, and impious in a son to abstain from plundering his mother. I do gravely assure Your Lordships that there is no such doctrine in the Koran, and no such principle makes a part in the civil or municipal jurisprudence of that country. Even after these Princesses had been endeavouring to dethrone the Nabob and to extirpate the English, the only plea the Nabob ever makes, is his right under the Mahomedan law; and the truth is, he appears never to have heard any other reason, and I pledge myself to make it appear to Your Lordships, however extraordinary it may be, that not only had the Nabob never heard of the rebellion till the moment of seizing the palace, but, still further, that he never heard of it at all; - that this extraordinary rebellion, which was as notorious as the rebellion of 1745 in London, was carefully concealed from those two parties-the Begums who plotted it, and the Nabob who was to be the victim of it.

---

"The existence of this rebellion was not the secret, but the notoriety of it was the secret; it was a rebellion which had for its object the destruction of no

human creature but those who planned it; — it was a rebellion which, according to Mr. Middleton's expression, no man, either horse or foot, ever marched to quell. The Chief Justice was the only man who took the field against it, the force against which it was raised, instantly withdrew to give it elbow-room,-and, even then, it was a rebellion which perversely showed itself in acts of hospitality to the Nabob whom it was to dethrone, and to the English whom it was to extirpate; — it was a rebellion plotted by two feeble old women, headed by two eunuchs, and suppressed by an affidavit."

The acceptance, or rather exaction, of the private present of 100,000l. is thus animadverted upon :

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My Lords, such was the distressed situation of the Nabob about a twelvemonth before Mr. Hastings met him at Chunar. It was a twelvemonth, I say, after this miserable scene-a mighty period in the progress of British rapacity-it was (if the Counsel will) after some natural calamities had aided the superior vigour of British violence and rapacity-it was after the country had felt other calamities besides the English —it was after the angry dispensations of Providence had, with a progressive severity of chastisement, visited the land with a famine one year, and with a Col. Hannay the next-it was after he, this Hannay, had returned to retrace the steps of his former ravages-it was after he and his voracious crew had come to plunder ruins which himself had made, and to glean from desolation the little that famine had spared, or rapine overlooked; then it was that this miserable, bankrupt Prince marching, through his country, besieged by the

clamours of his starving subjects, who cried to him for protection through their cages- meeting the curses of some of his subjects, and the prayers of others-with famine at his heels, and reproach following him,then it was that this Prince is represented as exercising this act of prodigal bounty to the very man whom he here reproaches to the very man whose policy had extinguished his power, and whose creatures had desolated his country. To talk of a free-will gift! it is audacious and ridiculous to name the supposition. It was not a free-will gift. What was it then? was it a bribe? or was it extortion? I shall prove it was both-it was an act of gross bribery and of rank extortion. "

Again he thus adverts to this present:

"The first thing he does is, to leave Calcutta, in order to go to the relief of the distressed Nabob. The second thing, is to take 100,000l. from that distressed Nabob on account of the distressed Company. And the third thing is to ask of the distressed company this very same sum, où account of the distresses of Mr. Hastings. There never were three distresses that seemed so little reconcileable with one another."

Anticipating the plea of state-necessity, which might possibly be set up in defence of the measures of the Governor-General, he breaks out into the following rhetorical passage:

"State necessity! no, my Lords; that imperial tyrant, State-Necessity, is yet a generous despot,-bold is his demeanour, rapid his decisions, and terrible his But what he does, my Lords, he dares avow, and,

grasp.

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avowing, scorns any other justification, than the great motives that placed the iron sceptre in his hand. But a quibbling, pilfering, prevaricating State-Necessity, that tries to skulk behind the skirts of Justice ;-a StateNecessity that tries to steal a pitiful justification from whispered accusations and fabricated rumours.—No, my Lords, that is no State-Necessity;-tear off the mask, and you see coarse, vulgar avarice,-you see peculation, lurking under the gaudy disguise, and adding the guilt of libelling the public honour to its own private fraud. My Lords, I say this, because I am sure the Managers would make every allowance that state-necessity could claim upon any great emergency. If any great man in bearing the arms of this country;-if any Admiral, bearing the vengeance and the glory of Britain to distant coasts, should be compelled to some rash acts of violence, in order, perhaps, to give food to those who are shedding their blood for Britain;-if any great General, defending some fortress, barren itself, perhaps, but a pledge of the pride, and, with the pride, of the power of Britain; if such a man were to while he himself at the top, like an eagle besieged in its imperial nest ;t-would the Commons of England come to accuse or to arraign such acts of state-necessity? No."

was

*

*

*

In describing that swarm of English pensioners and placemen, who were still, in violation of the late purchased treaty, left to prey on the finances of the Nabob, he says,

"Here we find they were left, as heavy a weight upon the Nabob as ever,-left there with as keen an

The Reporter, at many of these passages, seems to have thrown aside his pen in despair.