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to justify our acting in it; but when the question is of redressing wrongs, when the question is of doing justice, when the question is of inquiry, when the question is of hearing complaints, then it is a foreign jurisdiction.-You are to suffer Mr. Hastings to make it foreign, or to make it domestic, just as it answers his purposes.-But they are to appeal against a man standing in the relation of son and grandson to them, and to appeal to the justice of those who have been the abettors and instruments of their imputed wrongs.—

Why, my lords, if he allows that he is the abettor of, and the instrument to which the directors impute these wrongs, why, I ask, does he, with those charges lying upon him, object to all inquiry in the manner you have seen?

But the company's governor is, it seems, all at once transformed into a great sovereign-the majesty of justice ought to be approached with solicitation. Here, my lords, he forgets at once the court of directors; he forgets the laws of England, he forgets the act of parliament, he forgets that any obedience is due to his superiors. The begums were to approach him by the orders of the court of directors; he sets at nought these orders, and asserts that he must be approached with solicitations. "Time," says he, "has obliterated their sufferings." Oh! what a balm of oblivion time spreads over the wrongs, wounds, and afflictions of others, in the mind of the person who inflicts those wrongs and oppressions. The oppressor soon forgets. This robbery took place in 17...; it was in the year 1783, when he asserted that the waters of Lethe had been poured over all their wrongs and oppressions.

Your lordships will mark this insulting language, when he says that both the order of the directors and the application of the begums for redress must be solicitations to him.

[Here Mr. Burke was interrupted by Mr. Hastings, who said, "My lords, there was no order. I find a man's patience may be exhausted. I hear so many falsehoods, that I must declare there was no order of the court of directors. Forgive

me, my lords. He again controvert it.

may say what he pleases; I will not But there is no order; if there is, read

it."]

Mr. Burke then proceeded. Judge you, my lords, what the insolence, audacity, and cruelty of this man must have been, from his want of patience in his present situation, and when he dares to hold this language here. Your lordships. will reckon with him for it, or the world will reckon with you.

Mr. Hastings here again interrupted Mr. Burke and said, "There was no order for inquiry."

Mr. Burke. Your lordships have heard the letter read; I mean the letter from the directors, which I read just now. You will judge whether it is an order or not. I did hope within these two days, to put an end to this business; but when your lordships hear us charged with direct falsehood at your bar; when you hear this wicked wretch who is before you

From a lord.-Order, order, order.

Mr. Burke.-Order, my lords, we call for in the name of the Commons. Your lordships have heard us accused, at your bar, of falsehood, after we had read the order upon which our assertion was founded. This man, whom we have described as the scourge and terror of India; this man gets up, and charges us, not with a mistake, an error, a wrong construction, but a direct falsehood; and adds, that his patience is worn out with the falsehood he hears. This is not an English court of justice if such a thing is permitted. We beg leave to retire, and take instructions from our constituents. He ought to be sent to Bridewell for going on in this

manner.

[Mr. Wyndham here read the letter again.]

Mr. Burke. With regard to the ravings of this unhappy man, I am sure, if I were only considering what passed from him to the managers in this box, and knowing what allow

ance is due to a wounded conscience, brought before an awful tribunal, and smarting under the impressions of its own guilt, I would pass them over. But, my lords, we have the honor of the Commons; we have the honor of this court to sustain. [Your lordships, the other day, for an offence committed against a constable, who was keeping the way under your orders, did very justly, and to the great satisfaction of the public, commit the party to Bridewell, for a much slighter insult against the honor and dignity of your court.] And I leave it therefore for the present, till your lordships can seriously consider what the mode of proceeding in this matter ought to be.-I now proceed.—

We have read to your lordships the orders of the court of directors; I again say we consider them as orders; your lordships are as good judges of the propriety of the term as we are. You have heard them read; you have also heard that the council at Calcutta considered them as orders, for resolutions were moved upon them; and Mr. Stables, in evidence before you here, who was one of the council, so considered them; and yet this man has the frantic audacity in this place, to assert that they were not orders; and to declare, that he cannot stand the repetition of such abominable falsehoods as are perpetually urged against him. We cannot conceive that your lordships will suffer this, and if you do, I promise you, the Commons will not suffer the justice of the country to be trifled with and insulted in this manner; because, if such conduct be suffered by your lordships, they must say that very disagreeable consequences will ensue, and very disagreeable inferences will be drawn by the public concerning it. You will forgive, and we know how to forgive, the ravings of people smarting under a conscious sense of their guilt. But when we are reading documents given in evidence, and are commenting upon them, the use of this kind of language really deserves your lordships' consideration. As for us, we regard it no more than we should

other noise and brawlings of criminals, who in irons may be led through the streets, raving at the magistrate that has committed them. We consider him as a poor, miserable man, railing at his accusers; it is natural he should fall into all these frantic ravings, but it is not fit or natural that the court should indulge him in them. Your lordships shall now hear in what sense Mr. Wheler and Mr. Stables, two other members of the council, understood this letter.

Mr. Wheler thus writes :-"It always has been, and will be, my wish to perform implicitly the orders of the court of directors, and I trust that the opinion which I shall give upon that part of the court's letter, which is now before us, will not be taken up against its meaning, as going to a breach of them; the orders at present under the board's consideration are entirely provisional.

"Nothing has passed since the conclusion of the agreement made by the governor-general with the vizier at Chunar, which induces me to allow the opinion which I before held, as well as from the governor-general's reports to this board, as the opinions which I have heard of many individuals, totally unconcerned in the subject, that the begums at Fyzabad, did take a hostile part against the company during the disturbances at Benares; and I am impressed with a conviction that this conduct of the begums did not proceed entirely from motives of self-defence; but as the court of directors. seem to be of a different opinion, and conceive that there ought to be stronger proofs of the defection of the begums than have been laid before them; I think, that before we decide on their orders, the late and present resident at the vizier's court, and the commanding officers in the vizier's country, ought to be required to collect and lay before the board all the information they can obtain, with respect to the defection of the begums during the troubles in Benares, and their present disposition to the company."

Mr. Stables, September 9th, 1783, writes thus: "The

court of directors, by their letter of the 14th February, 1783, seem not to be satisfied that the disaffection of the begums to this government is sufficiently proved by the evidence before them. I therefore think that the late and present resident, and commanding officers in the vizier's country at the time, should be called upon to collect what further information they can on the subject, in which the honor and dignity of the government is so materially concerned, and that such information may be immediately transmitted to the court of directors."

When questioned upon this subject at your lordships' bar, he gives this evidence:-" Q. What was your motive for proposing that investigation ?—A. A letter from the court of directors; I conceived it to be ordered by them. Q. Did you conceive the letter of the court of directors positively to direct that inquiry?—A. I did so certainly at the time, and I beg to refer to the minutes which expressed it. [A question was put to the same witness by a noble lord :] Q. The witness has stated, that at the time he has mentioned, he conceived the letter from the court of directors to order an inquiry, and that it was upon that opinion that he regulated his conduct, and his proposal for such inquiry; I wish to know whether the expression at the time was merely casual, or am I to understand from it that the witness has altered. his opinion of the intention of this letter since that time?— A. I certainly retain that opinion, and I wished the inquiry to go on."

My lords, you see that his colleagues so understood it. You see that we so understood it, and still you have heard the prisoner, after charging us with falsehood, insultingly tell us, we may go on as we please, we may go on in our own way. If your lordships think that it was not a positive order which Mr. Hastings was bound to obey, you will acquit him of the breach of it. But it is a most singular thing, among all the astonishing circumstances of this case, that this man, who has heard, from the beginning to the end

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