But the sufferings of these eunuchs did not end here; they were, on account of this odd 5,000_l._, confined for twelve months,—­not prisoners at large, like this prisoner who thrusts his sore leg into your Lordships’ faces every day, but in harsh and cruel confinement.  These are the persons that I feel for.  It is their dungeon, it is their unrevenged wrongs that move me.  It is for these innocent, miserable, unhappy men, who were guilty of no offence but fidelity to their mistresses, in order to vex and torture whom (the first women in Asia) in the persons of their ministers these cruelties were exercised,—­these are they for whom I feel, and not for the miserable sore leg or whining cant of this prisoner.  He has been the author of all these wrongs; and if you transfer to him any of the sympathy you owe to these sufferers, you do wrong, you violate compassion.  Think of their irons.  Has not this criminal, who put on these irons, been without one iron?  Has he been threatened with torture?  Has he been locked up without food and water?  Have his sufferings been aggravated as the sufferings of these poor men were aggravated?  What punishment has been inflicted, and what can be inflicted upon him, in any manner commensurate with the atrocity of his crimes?

At last, my Lords, these unhappy men were released.  Mr. Bristow, who had been sent to Lucknow, writes to Mr. Hastings, and informs him that severities could do no more, that imprisonments and menaces could get no more money.  I believe not, for I doubt much whether any more was to be got.  But whether there was or not, all the arts of extortion, fortified by all the arts of tyranny, of every name and species, had failed, and therefore Mr. Bristow released the prisoners,—­but without any warrant for so doing from Mr. Hastings, who, after having received this letter from Mr. Bristow, gets the Supreme Council to order these very severities to be continued till the last farthing was paid.  In order to induce the Council to sanction this measure, he suppressed Mr. Bristow’s declaration, that severities could do nothing more in exacting further payments; and the Resident, I find, was afterwards obliquely punished for his humanity by Mr. Hastings.

Mr. Bristow’s letter is dated the 12th of December, and he thus writes.

“The battalion at Fyzabad” (where the Begums and their ministers had been confined) “is recalled, and my letter to the board of the 1st instant has explained my conduct to the Begum.  The letter I addressed her, a translation of which I beg leave to inclose, (No. 2,) was with a view of convincing her that you readily assented to her being freed from the restraints which had been imposed upon her, and that your acquiescence in her sufferings was a measure of necessity, to which you were forced by her extraordinary conduct.  I wished to make it appear this was a matter on which you directed me to consult the Vizier’s pleasure, that it might be known you were the spring from whence she was restored to her dignity and consequence.”