I have briefly taken notice of the claim which Mr. Hastings thought proper to make, on the part of the Company, to the treasure found in the fort of Bidjegur, after he had instigated the army to claim it as the right of the captors.  Your Lordships will not be at a loss to account for this strange and barefaced inconsistency.  This excellent Governor foresaw that he would have a bad account of this business to give to the contractors in Leadenhall Street, who consider laws, religion, morality, and the principles of state policy of empires as mere questions of profit and loss.  Finding that he had dismal accounts to give of great sums expended without any returns, he had recourse to the only expedient that was left him.  He had broken his faith with the ladies in the fort, by not suffering his officers to grant them that indemnity which his proclamation offered.  Then, finding that the soldiers had taken him at his word, and appropriated the treasure to their own use, he next broke his faith with them.  A constant breach of faith is a maxim with him.  He claims the treasure for the Company, and institutes a suit before Sir Elijah Impey, who gives the money to the Company, and not to the soldiers.  The soldiers appeal; and since the beginning of this trial, I believe even very lately, it has been decided by the Council that the letter of Mr. Hastings was not, as Sir Elijah Impey pretended, a mere private letter, because it had “Dear Sir,” in it, but a public order, authorizing the soldiers to divide the money among themselves.

Thus 200,000_l._ was distributed among the soldiers; 400,000_l._ was taken away by Cheyt Sing, to be pillaged by all the Company’s enemies through whose countries he passed; and so ended one of the great sources from which this great financier intended to supply the exigencies of the Company, and recruit their exhausted finances.

By this proceeding, my Lords, the national honor is disgraced, all the rules of justice are violated, and every sanction, human and divine, trampled upon.  We have, on one side, a country ruined, a noble family destroyed, a rebellion raised by outrage and quelled by bloodshed, the national faith pledged to indemnity, and that indemnity faithlessly withheld from helpless, defenceless women; while the other side of the picture is equally unfavorable.  The East India Company have had their treasure wasted, their credit weakened, their honor polluted, and their troops employed against their own subjects, when their services were required against foreign enemies.

My Lords, it only remains for me, at this time, to make a few observations upon some proceedings of the prisoner respecting the revenue of Benares.  I must first state to your Lordships that in the year 1780 he made a demand upon that country, which, by his own account, if it had been complied with, would only have left 23,000_l._ a year for the maintenance of the Rajah and his family.  I wish to have this account read, for the purpose of verifying the observations which I shall have to make to your Lordships.