unwillingness that appears in these witnesses.  Their testimony is drawn from them drop by drop, their answers to our questions are never more than yes or no; but when they are examined by the counsel on the other side, it flows as freely as if drawn from a perennial spring:  and such a spring we have in Indian corruption.  We have, however, proved that in these cages the renters were confined till they could be lodged in the dungeons or mud forts.  We have proved that some of them were obliged to sell their children, that others fled the country, and that these practices were carried to such an awful extent that Colonel Hannay was under the necessity of issuing orders against the unnatural sale and flight which his rapacity had occasioned.

The prisoner’s counsel have attempted to prove that this had been a common practice in that country.  And though possibly some person as wicked as Colonel Hannay might have been there before at some time or other, no man ever sold his children but under the pressure of some cruel exaction.  Nature calls out against it.  The love that God has implanted in the heart of parents towards their children is the first germ of that second conjunction which He has ordered to subsist between them and the rest of mankind.  It is the first formation and first bond of society.  It is stronger than all laws; for it is the law of Nature, which is the law of God.  Never did a man sell his children who was able to maintain them.  It is, therefore, not only a proof of his exactions, but a decisive proof that these exactions were intolerable.

Next to the love of parents for their children, the strongest instinct, both natural and moral, that exists in man, is the love of his country:  an instinct, indeed, which extends even to the brute creation.  All creatures love their offspring; next to that they love their homes:  they have a fondness for the place where they have been bred, for the habitations they have dwelt in, for the stalls in which they have been fed, the pastures they have browsed in, and the wilds in which they have roamed.  We all know that the natal soil has a sweetness in it beyond the harmony of verse.  This instinct, I say, that binds all creatures to their country, never becomes inert in us, nor ever suffers us to want a memory of it.  Those, therefore, who seek to fly their country can only wish to fly from oppression:  and what other proof can you want of this oppression, when, as a witness has told you, Colonel Hannay was obliged to put bars and guards to confine the inhabitants within the country?

We have seen, therefore, Nature violated in its strongest principles.  We have seen unlimited and arbitrary exaction avowed, on no pretence of any law, rule, or any fixed mode by which these people were to be dealt with.  All these facts have been proved before your Lordships by costive and unwilling witnesses.  In consequence of these violent and cruel oppressions, a general rebellion breaks out in the country, as was