But to proceed.  A detachment of soldiers was sent to seize the forts [fort?].  Soldiers are habitually men of some generosity; even when they are acting in a bad cause, they do not wholly lose the military spirit.  But Mr. Hastings, fearing that they might not be animated with the same lust of plunder as himself, stimulated them to demand the plunder of the place, and expresses his hopes that no composition would be made with these women, and that not one shilling of the booty would be allowed them.  He does not trust to their acting as soldiers who have their fortunes to make; but he stimulates and urges them not to give way to the generous passions and feelings of men.

He thus writes from Benares, the 22d of October, 1781, ten o’clock in the morning.  “I am this instant favored with yours of yesterday; mine to you of the same date has before this time acquainted you with my resolutions and sentiments respecting the Ranny.  I think every demand she has made to you, except that of safety and respect for her person, is unreasonable.  If the reports brought to me are true, your rejecting her offers, or any negotiation with her, would soon obtain you possession of the fort upon your own terms.  I apprehend that she will contrive to defraud the captors of a considerable part of the booty by being suffered to retire without examination; but this is your consideration, and not mine.  I should be sorry that your officers and soldiers lost any part of the reward to which they are so well entitled; but I cannot make any objection, as you must be the best judge of the expediency of the promised indulgence to the Ranny.  What you have engaged for I will certainly ratify; but as to permitting the Ranny to hold the purgunnah of Hurluk, or any other in the zemindary, without being subject to the authority of the zemindar, or any lands whatever, or indeed making any conditions with her for a provision, I will never consent to it.”

My Lords, you have seen the principles upon which this man justifies his conduct.  Here his real nature, character, and disposition break out.  These women had been guilty of no rebellion; he never charged them with any crime but that of having wealth; and yet you see with what ferocity he pursues everything that belonged to the destined object of his cruel, inhuman, and more than tragic revenge.  “If,” says he, “you have made an agreement with them, and will insist upon it, I will keep it; but if you have not, I beseech you not to make any.  Don’t give them anything; suffer no stipulations whatever of a provision for them.  The capitulation I will ratify, provided it contains no article of future provision for them.”  This he positively forbade; so that his bloodthirsty vengeance would have sent out these two hundred innocent women to starve naked in the world.

But he not only declares that the money found in the fort is the soldiers’, he adds, that he should be sorry, if they lost a shilling of it.  So that you have here a man not only declaring that the money was theirs, directly contrary to the Company’s positive orders upon other similar occasions, and after he had himself declared that prize-money was poison to soldiers, but directly inciting them to insist upon their right to it.