declared on an affidavit, and in a narrative to the truth of which he has deposed upon oath)—­“if I ever threatened,” says he, “to dispossess the Rajah of his territories, it is no more than what my predecessors, without rebuke from their superiors, or notice taken of the expression, had wished and intended to have done to his father, even when the Company had no pretensions to the sovereignty of the country.  It is no more than such a legal act of sovereignty as his behavior justified, and as I was justified in by the intentions of my predecessors.  If I pretended to seize upon his forts, it was in full conviction that a dependant on the Company, guarantied, maintained, and protected in his country by the Company’s arms, had no occasion for forts, had no right to them, and could hold them for no other than suspected and rebellious purposes.  None of the Company’s other zemindars are permitted to maintain them; and even our ally, the Nabob of the Carnatic, has the Company’s troops in all his garrisons.  Policy and public safety absolutely require it.  What state could exist that allowed its inferior members to hold forts and garrisons independent of the superior administration?  It is a solecism in government to suppose it.”

Here, then, my Lords, he first declares that this was merely done in terrorem; that he never intended to execute the abominable act.  And will your Lordships patiently endure that such terrific threats as these shall be hung by your Governor in India over the unhappy people that are subject to him and protected by British faith?  Will you permit, that, for the purpose of extorting money, a Governor shall hold out the terrible threat of delivering a tributary prince and his people, bound hand and foot, into the power of their perfidious enemies?

The terror occasioned by threatening to take from him his forts can only be estimated by considering, that, agreeably to the religion and prejudices of Hindoos, the forts are the places in which their women are lodged, in which, according to their notions, their honor is deposited, and in which is lodged all the wealth that they can save against an evil day to purchase off the vengeance of an enemy.  These forts Mr. Hastings says he intended to take, because the Rajah could hold them for no other than rebellious and suspected purposes.  Now I will show your Lordships that the man who has the horrible audacity to make this declaration did himself assign to the Rajah these very forts.  He put him in possession of them, and, when there was a dispute about the Nabob’s rights to them on the one side and the Company’s on the other, did confirm them to this man.  The paper shall be produced, that you may have before your eyes the gross contradictions into which his rapacity and acts of arbitrary power have betrayed him.  Thank God, my Lords, men that are greatly guilty are never wise.  I repeat it, men that are greatly guilty are never wise.  In their defence of one