that you immediately put a stop to any further intercourse or negotiation with her, and on no pretext renew it.  If she disappoints or trifles with me, after I have subjected my duan to the disgrace of returning ineffectually, and of course myself to discredit, I shall consider it as a wanton affront and indignity which I can never forgive; nor will I grant her any conditions whatever, but leave her exposed to those dangers which she has chosen to risk, rather than trust to the clemency and generosity of our government.  I think she cannot be ignorant of these consequences, and will not venture to incur them; and it is for this reason I place a dependence on her offers, and have consented to send my duan to her.”  The dreadful secret hinted at by the merciful Governor in the latter part of the letter is well understood in India, where those who suffer corporeal indignities generally expiate the offences of others with their own blood.  However, in spite of all these, the temper of the military did, some way or other, operate.  They came to terms which have never been transmitted.  It appears that a fifteenth per cent of the plunder was reserved to the captives, of which the unhappy mother of the Prince of Benares was to have a share.  This ancient matron, born to better things [A laugh from certain young gentlemen]—­I see no cause for this mirth.  A good author of antiquity reckons among the calamities of his time “nobilissimarum faeminarum exilia et fugas.”  I say, Sir, this ancient lady was compelled to quit her house, with three hundred helpless women and a multitude of children in her train.  But the lower sort in the camp, it seems, could not be restrained.  They did not forget the good lessons of the Governor-General.  They were unwilling “to be defrauded of a considerable part of their booty by suffering them to pass without examination.”—­They examined them, Sir, with a vengeance; and the sacred protection of that awful character, Mr. Hastings’s maitre d’hotel, could not secure them from insult and plunder.  Here is Popham’s narrative of the affair:—­

“The Ranny came out of the fort, with her family and dependants, the tenth, at night, owing to which such attention was not paid to her as I wished; and I am exceedingly sorry to inform you that the licentiousness of our followers was beyond the bounds of control; for, notwithstanding all I could do, her people were plundered on the road of most of the things which they brought out of the fort, by which means one of the articles of surrender has been much infringed.  The distress I have felt upon this occasion cannot be expressed, and can only be allayed by a firm performance of the other articles of the treaty, which I shall make it my business to enforce.—­The suspicions which the officers had of treachery, and the delay made to our getting possession, had enraged them, as well as the troops, so much, that the treaty was at first regarded as void; but this determination was soon succeeded by pity and compassion for the unfortunate besieged.”—­After this comes, in his due order, Mr. Hastings; who is full of sorrow and indignation, &c., &c., &c., according to the best and most authentic precedents established upon such occasions.