of soldiers.  Mr. Hastings kept this great man for several months without even attempting the trial upon him.  How he tried him afterwards your Lordships may probably in the course of this business inquire; and you will then judge, from the circumstances of that trial, that, as he was not tried for his crime, so neither was he acquitted for his innocence;—­but at present I leave him in that situation.  Mr. Hastings, unknown to the Council, having executed the orders of the Company in the last degree of rigor to this unhappy man, keeps him in that situation, without a trial, under a guard, separated from his country, disgraced and dishonored, and by Mr. Hastings’s express order not suffered either to make a visit or receive a visitor.

There was another commission for Mr. Hastings contained in these orders.  The Company, because they were of opinion that justice could not be easily obtained while the first situations of the country were filled with this man’s adherents, desired Mr. Hastings to displace them:  leaving him a very large power, and confiding in his justice, prudence, and impartiality not to abuse a trust of such delicacy.  But we shall prove to your Lordships that Mr. Hastings thought it necessary to turn out, from the highest to the lowest, several hundreds of people, for no other reason than that they had been put in their employments by that very man whom the English government had formerly placed there.  If we were to insist that we could not possibly try Mr. Hastings, or come at his wickedness, until we had eradicated his influence in Bengal, and left not one man in it who was during his government in any place or office whatever, yet, though we should readily admit that we could not do the whole without it, at the same time, rather than make a general massacre of every person presumed to be under his influence, we would leave some of his crimes unproved.  He did avow and declare, that, unless he turned all these persons out of their offices, he could never hope to come at the truth of any charges against Mahomed Reza Khan, against whom no specific charge had been made.  Yet, upon loose and general charges, did he seize upon this man, confine him in this manner, and every person who derived any place or authority from him, high or low, was turned out.  Mr. Hastings had in the Company’s orders something to justify him in rigor, but he had likewise a prudential power over that rigor; and he not only treated this man in the manner described, but every human creature connected with him, as if they had been all guilty, without any charge whatever against them.  These are his reasons for taking this extraordinary step.