Your Lordships have not heard before of Lucknaut Nundy.  He was the son of a person of whom your Lordships have heard before, called Cantoo Baboo, the banian of Mr. Hastings.  Mr. Hastings has proved in abundance of other cases that a grant to father and son is the same thing.  The fathers generally take out grants in the names of their sons:  and the Ranny Bhowanny, possessing the zemindary of Radshi, an old lady of the first rank and family in India, was stripped of part of her zemindary, and it was given to Lucknaut Nundy, the son of Mr. Hastings’s banian; and then (you see the consequence of good examples) comes Gunga Govind Sing, and says, “I am as good a man as he; there is a zemindary given; then do as much for Gunga Govind Sing as you have done for Cantoo Baboo.”  Here is an argument drawn from the practice of Mr. Hastings.  And this shows your Lordships the necessity of suppressing such iniquities by punishing the author of them.  You will punish Mr. Hastings, and no man will hereafter dare to rob minors, no man will hereafter dare to rob widows, to give to the vilest of mankind, their own base instruments for their own nefarious purposes, the lands of others, without right, title, or purchase.

My Lords, I will not after this state to you the false representation of the value of these lands which this man gave in to government.  He represented it to be much less than it was, when he desired the grant of them,—­as shall be stated, when it comes before your Lordships, at the proper time.  But at present I am only touching upon principles, and bringing examples so far as they illustrate principles, and to show how precedents spread.

I believe your Lordships will conceive better of the spirit of these transactions by my intermixing with them, as I shall endeavor to do, as much as possible of the grounds of them.  I will venture to say, that no description that I can give, no painting, if I was either able or willing to paint, could make these transactions appear to your Lordships with the strength which they have in themselves; and your Lordships will be convinced of this, when you see, what nobody could hardly believe, that a man can say, “It was given to others without right, title, or purchase,—­give it to me without right, title, or purchase; give me the estates of minors without right, title, or purchase, because Mr. Hastings gave the estates of widows without right, title, or purchase.”

Of this exemplary grant, of this pattern for future proceedings, I will show your Lordships the consequence.  I will read to your Lordships part of the examination of a witness, taken from a report of a committee of the House of Commons.