The Council of the year 1775, (whom I can never mention nor shall mention without honor,) who complied faithfully with the act of Parliament, who never disobeyed the orders of the Company, and to whom no man has imputed even the shadow of corruption, found that this Munny Begum had acted in the manner which my honorable fellow Manager has stated:  that she had dissipated the revenue, that she had neglected the education of the Nabob, and had thrown the whole judicature of the country into confusion.  They ordered that she should be removed from her situation; that the Nabob’s own mother should be placed at the head of the seraglio, a situation to which she was entitled; and with regard to the rest of the offices, that Mahomed Reza Khan should be employed to fill them.

Mr. Hastings resisted these propositions with all his might; but they were by that happy momentary majority carried against him, and Mahomed Reza Khan was placed in his former situation.  But Mr. Hastings, though thus defeated, was only waiting for what he considered to be the fortunate moment for returning again to his corrupt, vicious, tyrannical, and disobedient habits.  The reappointment of Mahomed Reza Khan had met with the fullest approbation of the Company; and they directed, that, as long as his good behavior entitled him to it, he should continue in the office.  Mr. Hastings, however, without alleging any ill behavior, and for no reason that can be assigned, but his corrupt engagement with Munny Begum, overturned (upon the pretence of restoring the Nabob to his rights) the whole of the Company’s arrangement, as settled by the late majority, and approved by the Court of Directors.

I have now to show you what sort of a man the Nabob was, who was thus set up in defiance of the Company’s authority; what Mr. Hastings himself thought of him; what the judges thought of him; and what all the world thought of him.

I must first make your Lordships acquainted with a little preliminary matter.  A man named Roy Rada Churn had been appointed vakeel, or agent, to manage the Nabob’s affairs at Calcutta.  One of this man’s creditors attached him there.  Roy Rada Churn pleaded his privilege as the vakeel or representative of a sovereign prince.  The question came to be tried in the Supreme Court, and the issue was, Whether the Nabob was a sovereign prince or not.  I think the court did exceedingly wrong in entertaining such a question; because, in my opinion, whether he was or was not a sovereign prince, any person representing him ought to be left free, and to have a proper and secure means of concerting his affairs with the Council.  It was, however, taken otherwise; the question was brought to trial, whether the Nabob was a sovereign prince sufficient to appoint and protect a person to manage his affairs, under the name of an ambassador.  In that cause did Mr. Hastings come forward to prove, by a voluntary affidavit, that he had no pretensions, no power, no authority at all,—­that he was a mere pageant, a thing of straw,—­and that the Company exercised every species of authority over him, in every particular, and in every respect; and that, therefore, to talk of him as an efficient person was an affront to the common sense of mankind:  and this you will find the judges afterwards declared to be their opinion.