delay.  But he gave such powerful, solid, and satisfactory reasons, not against the delay, but the very merits of the design itself, exposing the injustice and the danger of it, and the impossibility of mending by it their condition in any respect, as must have damned it in the minds of all rational men:  at least it ought to have damned it forever in his own.  But you will see that Holwell persevered in his plan, and that Major Calliaud thought two things necessary:  first, not wholly to destroy the scheme, which he tells us he always approved, but to postpone the execution,—­and in the mean time to delude the Nabob by the most strong, direct, and sanguine assurances of friendship and protection that it was possible to give to man.

Whilst the projected revolution stood suspended,—­whilst Mr. Holwell urged it forward, and Mr. Vansittart was expected every day to give it effect,—­whilst Major Calliaud, with this design of ruining the Nabob lodged in his breast, suspended in execution, and condemned in principle, kept the fairest face and the most confidential interviews with that unfortunate prince and his son,—­as the operations of the campaign relaxed, the army drew near to Moorshedabad, the capital, when a truly extraordinary scene happened, such I am sure the English annals before that time had furnished no example of, nor will, I trust, in future.  I shall state it as one piece from beginning to end, reserving the events which intervened; because, as I do not produce any part of this series for the gratification of historical curiosity, the con-texture is necessary to demonstrate to your Lordships the spirit of our Bengal politics, and the necessity of some other sort of judicial inquiries than those which that government institute for themselves.  The transaction so manifestly marks the character of the whole proceeding that I hope I shall not be blamed for suspending for a moment the narrative of the steps taken towards the revolution, that you may see the whole of this episode together,—­that by it you may judge of the causes which led progressively to the state in which the Company’s affairs stood, when Mr. Hastings was sent for the express purpose of reforming it.

The business I am going to enter into is commonly known by the name of the Story of the Three Seals.  It is to be found in the Appendix, No. 10, to the First Report of the state and condition of the East India Company, made in 1773.  The word Report, my Lords, is sometimes a little equivocal, and may signify sometimes, not what is made known, but what remains in obscurity:  the detail and evidence of many facts referred to in the Report being usually thrown into the Appendix.  Many people, and I among the rest, (I take shame to myself for it,) may not have fully examined that Appendix.  I was not a member of either of the India committees of 1773.  It is not, indeed, till within this year that I have been thoroughly acquainted with that memorable history of the Three Seals.