any money, or even to provide for the subsistence of themselves and their numerous dependants.  And in order to put some end to these differences, the Vizier did himself, about the beginning of August, 1783, go to Fyzabad, and did hold divers conferences with his parents, and did consent and engage to restore to them their landed estates aforesaid, and did issue an order that they should be restored accordingly; but his minister aforesaid, having before his eyes the peremptory orders of him, the said Warren Hastings, did persuade his master to dishonor himself in breaking his faith and engagement with his mother and the mother of his father, by first evading the execution, and afterwards totally revoking his said public and solemn act, on pretence that he had agreed to the grant “from shame, being in their presence [the presence of his mother and grandmother], and that it was unavoidable at the time";[77]—­the said minister declaring to him, that it would be sufficient, if he allowed them “money for their necessary expenses, and that would be doing enough.”

LXXI.  That the faith given for the restoration of their landed estates being thus violated, and the money for necessary expenses being as ill supplied as before, the women and children of the late sovereign, father of the reigning prince, continued exposed to frequent want of the common necessaries of life;[78] and being sorely pressed by famine, they were compelled to break through all the principles of local decorum and reserve which constitute the dignity of the female sex in that part of the world, and, after great clamor and violent attempts for one whole day to break the inclosure of the palace, and to force their way into the public market, in order to move the compassion of the people, and to beg their bread, they did, on the next day, actually proceed to the extremity of exposing themselves to public view,—­an extremity implying the lowest state of disgrace and degradation, to avoid which many women in India have laid violent hands upon themselves,—­and they did proceed to the public market-place with the starving children of the late sovereign, and the brothers and sisters of the reigning prince!  A minute account of the transaction aforesaid was written to the British Resident at Lucknow by the person appointed to convey intelligence to him from Fyzabad, in the following particulars, highly disgraceful to the honor, justice, and humanity of this nation.

LXXII.  “The ladies, their attendants and servants, were still as clamorous as last night.  Letafit, the darogah, went to them and remonstrated with them on the impropriety of their conduct, at the same time assuring them that in a few days all their allowances would be paid, and should not that be the case, he would advance them ten days’ subsistence, upon condition that they returned to their habitation.  None of them, however, consented to his proposals, but were still intent upon making their escape through the bazar [market-place], and in consequence formed themselves into a line, arranging themselves in the following order:  the children in the front; behind them the ladies of the seraglio; and behind them again their attendants:  but their intentions were frustrated by the opposition which they met from Letafit’s sepoys.