TRIAL.

THURSDAY, 12TH JUNE, 1794.

SEVENTH DAY OF REPLY.

(MR. BURKE.)

MY LORDS, When I had last the honor of addressing your lordships from this place, my obrervations were principally directed to the unjust confiscation and seizure of the jaghires and treasures of the begums, without previous accusation, or trial, or subsequent inquiry into their conduct; in violation of a treaty made with them and guarantied by the East India Company;-to the long imprisonment and cruel treatment of their ministers, and to the false pretences and abominable principles by which the prisoner at your bar has attempted to justify his conduct.

The several acts of violence and of oppression were, as we have shown your lordships, committed with circumstances of aggravated atrocity highly disgraceful to the British name and character; and particularly by his forcing the nabob to become the means and instrument of reducing his mother and grandmother and their families to absolute want and distress.

I have now to call your attention to his treatment of another branch of this miserable family; the women and children of the late nabob Sujah ul Dowlah. These persons were dependent upon the begums; and, by the confiscation of their property, and by the ruin of various persons who

would otherwise have contributed to their maintenance, were reduced to the last extremity of indigence and want. Being left without the common necessaries of life, they were driven to the necessity of breaking through all those local principles of decorum, which constitute the character of the female sex in that part of the world; and, after fruitless supplications and shrieks of famine, they endeavored to break the inclosure of the palace, and to force their way to the marketplace in order to beg for bread. When they had thus been forced to submit to the extremity of disgrace and degradation, by exposing themselves to public view with the starving children of their late sovereign, the brothers and sisters of the reigning prince, they were, in this attempt, attacked by the sepoys armed with bludgeons, and driven back by blows into the palace.

My lords, we have first laid before you the sufferings and disgraces of women of the first distinction in Asia; protected by their rank-protected by their sex-protected by their near relation to the prince of the country-protected by two guaranties of the representative of the British government in India. We now come to another class of women, who suffered by the violent misappropriation of the revenues of the nabob, by which their regular allowance was taken from them; and your lordships will find, that this man's crimes, at every step we take, ripen into guilt; his acts of positive. injustice are always aggravated by his conduct with regard to the consequences of them, and form but a small part in the mass of oppression and tyranny, which we have brought before you.

My lords, the unjust seizure of the jaghires and treasures of the begums, out of which those women were maintained, reduced them to a state of indigence, and exposed them not only to the sufferings which belong to the physical nature of man, but also to the indignities which particularly affected their sex and condition. But before I proceed, I will beg leave to restate to your lordships, and recall to your memory

who these women were. The nabob Sujah Dowlah had but one legitimate wife; though the Mahomedan law admits of this number's being extended in certain cases even to fouryet it is for the most part held disreputable, especially when a person is married to a woman of the first distinction, to have more than one legitimate wife. Upon looking into the Hedaia your lordships will see with what extreme rigor fornication is forbidden; but we know that persons of high rank, by customs that supersede both religion and laws, add to the number of their wives, or substitute in their room wives of a subordinate description, and indulge themselves in this license to an unlimited degree; you will find in Chardin's Travels, where he treats of the subject of marriage, that such is the custom of all the princes of the East. The wives of this subordinate class, though they are in reality no better than concubines, and are subject to the power and caprices of their lords, are yet allowed, in the eye of the severest moralists, to have some excuse for their frailty and their weakness; and they accordingly always do find a degree of favor in this world, and become the object of particular protection.

We know that Sujah ul Dowlah was a man unquestionably in his manners very licentious with regard to women, that he had a great number of these women in his family; and that his women and the women attendant upon the persons of his favorites had increased to a very great number. We know, that his sons amounted to twenty; or according to Mr. Hastings's own account to nineteen. Montesquieu supposes that there are more females born in the East than in the West. But he says this upon no good ground. We know by better and more regular information concerning this matter, that the birth of males and females in that country, is in the same proportion as it is here; and therefore if you suppose that he had twenty sons, you may suppose he had about nineteen daughters. By the customs of that country all these sons and daughters were considered as persons of eminent distinction, though inferior to the legitimate children; assuming

the rank of their father, without considering the rank which their mother held. All these wives with their children, and all their female servants and attendants, amounting in the whole to about eight hundred persons, were shut up in what they call the Khourd Mhal, or lesser palace. This place is described by one of the witnesses to be about as large as St. James's Square. Your lordships have been told that in other circumstances, as well as this, these women were considered as objects of a great degree of respect, and of the greatest degree of protection. I refer your lordships to the treaty by which their maintenance was guarantied by the English government.

In order to let your lordships see that I state nothing to you but what is supported not only by general history, which is enough to support an account of general manners, but by the particular and peculiar opinions of a person best informed of the nature of the case; I will refer you to the nabob himself; for undoubtedly the nabob of Oude, the vizier of the empire, the subadar of the country, was most likely to be the best judge of what respect was due to the women of his father's family. I will therefore read to your lordships, from his own letters, what the nabob's opinion was upon this subject.

Extract of a letter from the vizier, received 23d of August, 1782-"I never found resource equal to the necessary expenses. Every year by taking from the ministers and selling the articles of my Harkhanna, I with great distress transacted the business; but I could not take care of my dependents, so that some of my brothers, from their difficulties, arose and departed; and the people of the Khourd Mhal of the late nawab, who are all my mothers, from their distresses are reduced to poverty and involved in difficulties; no man of rank is deficient in the care of his dependents, in proportion to his ability."

Another letter from the vizier, received the 31st July, 1784: My brother, dear as life, Saadit Ali Khân, has requested that I would permit his mother to go and reside. with him; my friend, all the mothers of my brothers, and the women of the late nawab, whom I respect as my own mothers, are here, and it is incumbent upon me to support them; accordingly I do it, and it is improper that they should be separated, nor do I approve it. By God's blessing and your kindness, I hope that all the women of the late nawab may remain here; it is the wish also of my grandmother and my mother that they should."

Your lordships now see in what degree of estimation the nabob held these women. He regarded the wives of his father as his honorary mothers; he considers their children as his brethren; he thinks it would be highly dishonorable to his government, if one of them was taken out of the sanctuary in which they are placed, and in which, he says, the great of the country are obliged to maintain their dependents. This is the account given by the person best acquainted with the usages of the country; best acquainted. with his own duties; best acquainted with his own wishes.

Now, my lords, you will see in what light another person, the agent of a trading company, who designates himself under the name of majesty, and assumes other great distinctions, presumes also to consider these persons; and in what contempt he is pleased to hold, what is respected, and what is held sacred in that country. What I am now going to quote, is from the prisoner's second defence. For I must remind your lordships, that Mr. Hastings has made three defences; one in the House of Commons; another in the lobby of the House of Commons; and a third at you lordships' bar. The second defence, though delivered without name, to the members in the lobby of the House of Commons, has been proved at your lordships' bar, to be written by himself. This lobby, this out-of-door defence, militates in some re