Thus Durbege Sing is gone; this tragedy is finished; a second Rajah of Benares has been destroyed.  I do not speak of that miserable puppet who was said by Mr. Hastings to be in a state of childhood when arrived at manhood, but of the person who represented the dignity of the family.  He is gone; he is swept away; and in his name, in the name of this devoted Durbege Sing, in the name of his afflicted family, in the name of the people of the country thus oppressed by an usurped authority, in the name of all these, respecting whom justice has been thus outraged, we call upon your Lordships for justice.

We are now at the commencement of a new order of things.  Mr. Markham had been authorized to appoint whoever he pleased as Naib, with the exception of Ussaun Sing.  He accordingly exercises this power, and chooses a person called Jagher Deo Seo.  From the time of the confinement of Durbege Sing to the time of this man’s being put into the government, in whose hands were the revenues of the country?  Mr. Markham himself has told you, at your bar, that they were in his hands,—­that he was the person who not only named this man, but that he had the sole management of the revenues; and he was, of course, answerable for them all that time.  The nominal title of Zemindar was still left to the miserable pageant who held it; but even the very name soon fell entirely out of use.  It is in evidence before your Lordships that his name is not even so much as mentioned in the proceedings of the government; and that the person who really governed was not the ostensible Jagher Deo Seo, but Mr. Markham.  The government, therefore, was taken completely and entirely out of the hands of the person who had a legal right to administer it,—­out of the hands of his guardians,—­out of the hands of his mother,—­out of the hands of his nearest relations,—­and, in short, of all those who, in the common course of things, ought to have been intrusted with it.  From all such persons, I say, it was taken:  and where, my Lords, was it deposited?  Why, in the hands of a man of whom we know nothing, and of whom we never heard anything, before we heard that Mr. Markham, of his own usurped authority, authorized by the usurped authority of Mr. Hastings, without the least communication with the Council, had put him in possession of that country.

Mr. Markham himself, as I have just said, administered the revenues alone, without the smallest authority for so doing, without the least knowledge of the Council, till Jagher Deo Seo was appointed Naib.  Did he then give up his authority?  No such thing.  All the measures of Jagher Deo Seo’s government were taken with the concurrence and joint management of Mr. Markham.  He conducted the whole; the settlements were made, the leases and agreements with farmers all regulated by him.  I need not tell you, I believe, that Jagher Deo Seo was not a person of very much authority in the case:  your Lordships would laugh at me, if I said he was.  The revenue arrangements