These vouchers will answer our purpose, fully to establish that in his opinion the claim of the English government upon those forts was at that time totally unfounded, and so absurd that he did not even dare to mention it.  This fort of Bidjegur, the most considerable in the country, and of which we shall have much to say hereafter, is the place in which Cheyt Sing had deposited his women and family.  That fortress did Mr. Hastings himself give to this very man, deciding in his favor as a judge, upon an examination and after an inquiry:  and yet he now declares that he had no right to it, and that he could not hold it but for wicked and rebellious purposes.  But, my Lords, when he changed this language, he had resolved to take away these forts,—­to destroy them,—­to root the Rajah out of every place of refuge, out of every secure place in which he could hide his head, or screen himself from the rancor, revenge, avarice, and malice of his ruthless foe.  He was resolved to have them, although he had, upon the fullest conviction of the Rajah’s right, given them to this very man, and put him into the absolute possession of them.

Again, my Lords, did he, when Cheyt Sing, in 1775, was put in possession by the pottah of the Governor-General and Council, which contains an enumeration of the names of all the places which were given up to him, and consequently of this among the rest,—­did he, either before he put the question in Council upon that pottah, or afterwards, tell the Council they were going to put forts into the man’s hands to which he had no right, and which could be held only for rebellious and suspected purposes?  We refer your Lordships to the places in which all these transactions are mentioned, and you will there find Mr. Hastings took no one exception whatever against them; nor, till he was resolved upon the destruction of this unhappy man, did he ever so much as mention them.  It was not till then that he discovers the possession of these forts by the Rajah to be a solecism in government.

After quoting the noble examples of Sujah Dowlah, and the other persons whom I have mentioned to you, he proceeds to say, that some of his predecessors, without any pretensions to sovereign authority, endeavored to get these forts into their possession; and “I was justified,” says he, “by the intention of my predecessors.”  Merciful God! if anything can surpass what he has said before, it is this:  “My predecessors, without any title of sovereignty, without any right whatever, wished to get these forts into their power; I therefore have a right to do what they wished to do; and I am justified, not by the acts, but by the intentions of my predecessors.”  At the same time he knows that these predecessors had been reprobated by the Company for this part of their proceedings; he knew that he was sent there to introduce a better system, and to put an end to this state of rapacity.  Still, whatever his predecessors wished, however unjust and violent it might be, when the sovereignty came into his hands, he maintains that he had a right to do all which they were desirous of accomplishing.  Thus the enormities formerly practised, which the Company sent him to correct, became a sacred standard for his imitation.