the two lacs just mentioned, and challenges inquiry; but no inquiries appear to have been made, and to this hour Mr. Markham has produced no proof of the fact.  With respect to the arrear of the tribute money which appeared on the balance of the whole account, the Naib defended himself by alleging the distresses of the country, the diminution of his authority, and the want of support from the supreme government in the collection of the revenues; and he asserts that he has assets sufficient, if time and power be allowed him for collecting them, to discharge the whole balance due to the Company.  The immediate payment of the whole balance was demanded, and Durbege Sing, unable to comply with the demand, was sent to prison.  Thus stood the business, when Mr. Markham, soon after he had sent the Naib to prison, quitted the Residency.  He was succeeded by Mr. Benn, who acted exactly upon the same principle.  He declares that the six lacs demanded were not demanded upon the principle of its having been actually collected by him, but upon the principle of his having agreed to pay it.  “We have,” say Mr. Hastings’s agents to the Naib, “we have a Jew’s bond.  If it is in your bond, we will have it, or we will have a pound of your flesh:  whether you have received it or not is no business of ours.”  About this time some hopes were entertained by the Resident that the Naib’s personal exertions in collecting the arrears of the tribute might be useful.  These hopes procured him a short liberation from his confinement.  He was let out of prison, and appears to have made another payment of half a lac of rupees.  Still the terms of the bond were insisted on, although Mr. Hastings had allowed that these terms were extravagant, and only one lac and a half of the money which had been actually received remained unpaid.  One would think that common charity, that common decency, that common regard to the decorum of life would, under such circumstances, have hindered Mr. Hastings from imprisoning him again.  But, my Lords, he was imprisoned again; he continued in prison till Mr. Hastings quitted the country; and there he soon after died,—­a victim to the enormous oppression which has been detailed to your Lordships.

It appears that in the mean time the Residents had been using other means for recovering the balance due to the Company.  The family of the Rajah had not been paid one shilling of the 60,000_l._, allowed for their maintenance.  They were obliged to mortgage their own hereditary estates for their support, while the Residents confiscated all the property of Durbege Sing.  Of the money thus obtained what account has been given?  None, my Lords, none.  It must therefore have been disposed of in some abominably corrupt way or other, while this miserable victim of Mr. Hastings was left to perish in a prison, after he had been elevated to the highest rank in the country.

But, without doubt, they found abundance of effects after his death?  No, my Lords, they did not find anything.  They ransacked his house; they examined all his accounts, every paper that he had, in and out of prison.  They searched and scrutinized everything.  They had every penny of his fortune, and I believe, though I cannot with certainty know, that the man died insolvent; and it was not pretended that he had ever applied to his own use any part of the Company’s money.