all their search, from that day to this.  Therefore we fairly presume that they had discovered all that there was to discover with regard to money.  They next took from these unfortunate people an engagement for the amount of treasure at a definite sum, without knowing whether they had it or not, whether they could procure it or not.  The Bhow Begum has told us, as your Lordships have it in evidence, that they demanded from her a million of money; that she, of course, denied having any such sums; but Mr. Middleton forced her unfortunate eunuchs or treasurers, by some few severities, to give their bond for 600,000_l._

You would imagine, that, when these eunuchs had given up all that was in their power, when they had given a bond for what they had not, (for they were only the treasurers of other people,) that the bond would not have been rigidly exacted.  But what do Mr. Hastings and Mr. Middleton, as soon as they get their plunder?  They went to their own assay-table, by which they measured the rate of exchange between the coins in currency at Oude and those at Calcutta, and add the difference to the sum for which the bond was given.  Thus they seize the secret hoards, they examine it as if they were receiving a debt, and they determine what this money would and ought to produce at Calcutta:  not considering it as coming from people who gave all they had to give, but as what it would produce at the mint at Calcutta, according to a custom made for the profit of the Residents; even though Mr. Hastings, upon another occasion, charged upon Mr. Bristow as a crime that he had made that profit.  This money, my Lords, was taken to that assay-table, which they had invented for their own profit, and they made their victims pay a rupee and a half batta, or exchange of money, upon each gold mohur; by which and other charges they brought them 60,000_l._ more in debt, and forced them to give a bond for that 60,000_l._

Your Lordships have seen in what manner these debts were contracted,—­and that they were contracted by persons engaging, not for themselves, for they had nothing; all their property was apparently their mistresses’.  You will now see in what manner the payment of them was exacted; and we shall beg leave to read to you their own accounts of their own proceedings.  Your Lordships will then judge whether they were proceeding against rebels as rebels, or against wealthy people as wealthy people, punishing them, under pretence of crimes, for their own profit.

In a letter from Mr. Middleton to Mr. Hastings, after two other paragraphs, he goes on thus.