LXXXVI.  “It could not, I flatter myself, be termed a long or unwarrantable delay [two days], when the importance of the business, and the peculiar embarrassments attending the prosecution of it to its desired end, are considered.  The Nabob was son to the Begum whom we were to proceed against:  a son against a mother must at least save appearances in his mode of proceeding.  The produce of his negotiation was to be received by the Company.  Receiving a benefit, accompanying the Nabob, withdrawing their protection, were circumstances sufficient to mark the English as the principal movers in this business.  At a court where no opportunity is lost to throw odium on us, so favorable an occasion was not missed to persuade the Nabob that we instigated him to dishonor his family for our benefit.  The impressions made by these suggestions constantly retarded the progress, and more than once actually broke off the business:  which rendered the utmost caution on my part necessary, especially as I had no assistance to expect from the ministers, who could not openly move in the business.  In the East, it is well known that no man either by himself or his troops, can enter the walls of a zenanah, scarcely in the case of acting against an open enemy, much less of an ally,—­an ally acting against his own mother.  The outer walls, and the Begum’s agents, were all that were liable to immediate attack:  they were dealt with, and successfully, as the event proved.”—­He had before observed to Mr. Hastings, in his correspondence, what Mr. Hastings well knew to be true, “that no farther rigor than that he had exerted could be used against females in that country; where force could be employed, it was not spared;—­that the place of concealment was only known to the chief eunuchs, who could not be drawn out of the women’s apartments, where they had taken refuge, and from which, if an attempt had been made to storm them, they might escape; and the secret of the money being known only to them, it was necessary to get their persons into his hands, which could be obtained by negotiation only.”—­The Resident concluded his defence by declaring his “hope, that, if the main object of his orders was fulfilled, he should be no longer held criminal for a deviation from the precise letter of them.”

LXXXVII.  That the said Warren Hastings did enter a reply to this answer, in support of his criminal charge, continuing to insist “that his orders ought to have been literally obeyed,” although he did not deny that the above difficulties occurred, and the above consequences must have been the result,—­and though the reports of the military officers charged with the execution of his commission confirmed the moral impossibility, as well as inutility in point of profit, of forcing a son to greater violence and rigor against his mother.