My Lords, Oude, (together with the additions made to it by Sujah Dowlah,) in point of geographical extent, is about the size of England.  Sujah Dowlah, who possessed this country as Nabob, was a prince of a haughty character,—­ferocious in a high degree towards his enemies, and towards all those who resisted his will.  He was magnificent in his expenses, yet economical with regard to his resources,—­maintaining his court in a pomp and splendor which is perhaps unknown to the sovereigns of Europe.  At the same time he was such an economist, that from an inconsiderable revenue, at the beginning of his reign, he was annually enabled to make great savings.  He thus preserved, towards the end of it, his people in peace, tranquillity, and order; and though he was an arbitrary prince, he never strained his revenue to such a degree as to lose their affections while he filled his exchequer.  Such appears to have been the true character of Sujah Dowlah:  your Lordships have heard what is the character which the prisoner at your bar and his counsel have thought proper to give you of him.

Surely, my Lords, the situation of the great, as well as of the lower ranks in that country, must be a subject of melancholy reflection to every man.  Your Lordships’ compassion will, I presume, lead you to feel for the lowest; and I hope that your sympathetic dignity will make you consider in what manner the princes of this country are treated.  They have not only been treated at your Lordships’ bar with indignity by the prisoner, but his counsel do not leave their ancestors to rest quietly in their graves.  They have slandered their families, and have gone into scandalous history that has no foundation in facts whatever.

Your Lordships have seen how he attempted to slander the ancestors of Cheyt Sing, to deny that they were zemindars; and yet he must have known from printed books, taken from the Company’s records, the utter falsity of his declaration.  You need only look into Mr. Verelst’s Appendix, and there you will see that that country has always been called the Zemindary of Bulwant Sing.  You will find him always called the Zemindar; it was the known, acknowledged name, till this gentleman thought proper at the bar of the House of Commons to deny that he was a zemindar, and to assert that he was only an aumil.  He slanders the pedigree of this man as mean and base, yet he was not ashamed to take from him twenty-three thousand pounds.  In like manner he takes from Asoph ul Dowlah a hundred thousand pounds, which he would have appropriated to himself, and then directs his counsel to rake up the slander of Dow’s History, a book of no authority, a book that no man values in any respect or degree.  In this book they find that romantic, absurd, and ridiculous story upon which an honorable fellow Manager of mine, who is much more capable than I am of doing justice to the subject, has commented with his usual ability:  I allude to that story of spitting on the beard,—­the