orders on account of the letter of them, and endeavored to disobey the spirit of them.  However, the majority overbore him; they put Mahomed Reza Khan into his former situation; and as a proof and seal to the honor and virtue of their character, there was not a breath of suspicion that they had any corrupt motive for this conduct.  They were odious to many of the India House here; they were odious to that corrupt influence which had begun and was going on to ruin India; but in the face of all this odium, they gave the appointment to Mahomed Reza Khan, because the act contained in itself its own justification.  Mr. Hastings made a violent protest against it, and resisted it to the best of his power, always in favor of Munny Begum, as your Lordships will see.  Mr. Hastings sent this protest to the Directors; but the Directors, as soon as the case came before them, acknowledged their error, and praised the majority of the Council, Sir John Clavering, Colonel Monson, and Mr. Francis, for the wise and honorable part they had taken upon the occasion, by obeying the spirit and not the letter,—­commended the act they had done,—­confirmed Mahomed Reza Khan in his place,—­and to prevent that great man from being any longer the sport of fortune, any longer the play of avarice between corrupt governors and dancing-girls, they gave him the pledged faith of the Company that he should remain in that office as long as his conduct deserved their protection:  it was a good and an honorable tenure.  My Lords, soon afterwards there happened two lamentable deaths,—­first of Colonel Monson, afterwards of General Clavering.  Thus Mr. Hastings was set loose:  there was an inspection and a watch upon his conduct, and no more.  He was then just in the same situation in which he had stood in 1772.  What does he do?  Even just what he did in 1772.  He deposes Mahomed Reza Khan, notwithstanding the Company’s orders, notwithstanding their pledged faith; he turns him out, and makes a distribution of two lacs and a half of rupees, the salary of that great magistrate, in the manner I will now show your Lordships.  He made an arrangement consisting of three main parts:  the first was with regard to the women, the next with regard to the magistracy, the last with regard to the officers of state of the household.

The first person that occurred to Mr. Hastings was Munny Begum; and he gave her, not out of that part of the Nabob’s allowance which was to support the seraglio, but out of the allowance of this very magistrate, just as if such a thing had been done here out of the salary of a Lord Chancellor or a Lord Chief-Justice,—­out of these two lacs and a half of rupees, that is, about twenty-four or twenty-five thousand pounds a year, he ordered an allowance to be made to Munny Begum of 72,000 rupees per annum, or 7,200_l._ a year; for the Nabob’s own mother, whom he thrust, as usual, into a subordinate situation, he made an allowance of 3,000_l._; to the Sudder ul Huk Khan, which is, translated into English, the Lord