think themselves aggrieved to such a degree as to justify them in an appeal to a foreign jurisdiction, to appeal to it against a man standing in the relation of son and grandson to them, to appeal to the justice of those who have been the abettors and instruments of their imputed wrongs, let us at least permit them to be the judges of their own feelings, and prefer their complaints before we offer to redress them.  They will not need to be prompted.  I hope I shall not depart from the simplicity of official language in saying, the majesty of justice ought to be approached with solicitation, not descend to provoke or invite it, much less to debase itself by the suggestion of wrongs and the promise of redress, with the denunciation of punishments before trial, and even before accusation.”

LXXVIII.  That the said Warren Hastings, in attempting to pass an act of indemnity for his own crimes, and of oblivion for the sufferings of others, supposing the latter almost obliterated by time, did not only mock and insult over the sufferings of the allies of the Company, but did show an indecent contempt of the understandings of the Court of Directors:  because his violent attempts on the property and liberty of the mother and grandmother of the ally aforesaid had not their first commencement much above two years before that time, and had been continued, without abatement or relaxation on his part, to the very time of his minute; the Nabob having, by the instigation of his, the said Hastings’s, instrument, Hyder Beg Khan, not two months before the date of the Consultation, been obliged a second time to break his faith with relation to the estates of his mother, in the manner hereinbefore recited.  And the said Hastings did not and could not conceive that the clearing the mother could revive any animosity between her and her son, by whom she never had been accused.  The said Hastings was also sensible that the restoration of her landed estates, recommended by the Court of Directors, could not produce any ill effect on the mind of the said son, as it was “with almost unconquerable reluctance he had been persuaded to deprive her of them,” and at the time of his submitting to become an instrument in this injustice, did “declare,” both, to the Resident and his ministers, “that it was an act of compulsion.”

LXXIX.  That the said Hastings further, by insinuating that the women in question would act amiss in appealing to a foreign jurisdiction against a son and grandson, could not forget that he himself, being that foreign jurisdiction, (if any jurisdiction there was,) did himself direct and order the injuries, did himself urge the calumnies, and did himself cause to be taken and produced the unsatisfactory evidence by which the women in question had suffered,—­and that it was against him, the said Hastings, and not against their son, that they had reason to appeal.  But the truth is, that the inquiry was moved for by