My Lords, in the year 1772 the Company had received alarming advices of many disorders throughout the country:  there were likewise, at the same time, circumstances in the state of the government upon which they thought it necessary to make new regulations.  The famine which prevailed in and devastated Bengal, and the ill use that was made of that calamity to aggravate the distress for the advantage of individuals, produced a great many complaints, some true, some exaggerated, but universally spread, as I believe is in the memory of those who are not very young among us.  This obliged the Company to a very serious consideration of an affair which dishonored and disgraced their government, not only at home, but through all the countries in Europe, much more than perhaps even more grievous and real oppressions that were exercised under them.  It had alarmed their feelings, it had been marked, and had called the attention of the public upon them in an eminent manner.

Your Lordships remember the death of Jaffier Ali Khan, the first of those subahs who introduced the English power into Bengal.  He died about four or five years before this period.  He was succeeded by two of his sons, who succeeded to one another in a very rapid succession.  The first was the person of whom we have read an account to you.  He was the natural son of the Nabob by a person called Munny Begum, who, for the corrupt gifts the circumstances of which we have recited, had, in prejudice of the lawful issue of the Nabob, been raised to the musnud; but as bastard slips, it is said in King Richard, (an abuse of a Scripture phrase,) do not take deep root, this bastard slip, Nujim ul Dowlah, shortly died, and the legitimate son, Syef ul Dowlah, succeeded him.  After him another legitimate son, Mobarek ul Dowlah, succeeded in a minority.  When I say succeeded, I wish your Lordships to understand that there is no regular succession in the office of subah or viceroy of the kingdom; but, in general, succession has been considered, and persons have been put in that place upon some principles resembling a regular succession.  That regular succession had been broken in favor of a natural son, and the mother of that natural son did obtain the superiority in the female part of the family for a time.

In consequence of these two circumstances, namely, the famine, and the abuses that were supposed to arise from it, and from the circumstance of the minority of Mobarek ul Dowlah, who now reigns or appears to reign,—­in consequence of these two circumstances, the Company gave two sets of orders.

The first order related to Mahomed Reza Khan, who was (as your Lordships remember I took, in the beginning of this affair, means of explaining) lord-deputy of the province under the native government, the English holding the dewanny,—­and deputy dewan, or high-steward, under the name of the English, and had the command of the whole revenue; and who was accused before the Company (the channel of which accusation we now learn) of having aggravated that famine by a monopoly for his own benefit.  The Company, upon these loose and general charges, ordered that he should be divested of his office, that he should be brought down to Calcutta, and there be obliged to render an account of his conduct.