It is known, my Lords, that Mr. Hastings, besides having received proposals for delivering up the beautiful country of Benares, that garden of God, as it is styled in India, to that monster, that rapacious tyrant, Asoph ul Dowlah, who with his gang of mercenary troops had desolated his own country like a swarm of locusts, had purposed likewise to seize Cheyt Sing’s own patrimonial forts, which was nothing less than to take from him the residence of his women and his children, the seat of his honor, the place in which the remaining treasures and last hopes of his family were centred.  By the Gentoo law, every lord or supreme magistrate is bound to construct and to live in such a fort.  It is the usage of India, and is a matter of state and dignity, as well as of propriety, reason, and defence.  It was probably an apprehension of being injured in this tender point, as well as a knowledge of the proposal made by the Nabob, which induced Cheyt Sing to offer to buy himself off; although it does not appear from any part of the evidence that he assigned any other reason than that of Mr. Hastings intending to exact from him six lacs of rupees over and above his other exactions.

Mr. Hastings, indeed, almost acknowledges the existence of this plot against the Rajah, and his being the author of it.  He says, without any denial of the fact, that the Rajah suspected some strong acts to be intended against him, and therefore asked Mr. Markham whether he could not buy them off and obtain Mr. Hastings’s favor by the payment of 200,000_l._ Mr. Markham gave as his opinion, that 200,000_l._ was not sufficient; and the next day the Rajah offered 20,000_l._ more, in all 220,000_l._ The negotiation, however, broke off; and why?  Not, as Mr. Markham says he conjectured, because the Rajah had learned that Mr. Hastings had no longer an intention of imposing these six lacs, or something to that effect, and therefore retracted his offer, but because that offer had been rejected by Mr. Hastings.

Let us hear what reason the man who was in the true secret gives for not accepting the Rajah’s offer.  “I rejected,” says Mr. Hastings, “the offer of twenty lacs, with which the Rajah would have compromised for his guilt when it was too late.”  My Lords, he best knows what the motives of his own actions were.  He says, the offer was made “when it was too late.”  Had he previously told the Rajah what sum of money he would be required to pay in order to buy himself off, or had he required him to name any sum which he was willing to pay?  Did he, after having refused the offer made by the Rajah, say, “Come and make me a better offer, or upon such a day I shall declare that your offers are inadmissible”?  No such thing appears.  Your Lordships will further remark, that Mr. Hastings refused the 200,000_l._ at a time when the exigencies of the Company were so pressing that he was obliged to rob, pilfer, and steal upon every side,—­at a time when he was borrowing 40,000_l._ from Mr. Sulivan