But to proceed with the evidence of this pretended rebellion.  Captain Williams has told your Lordships that he once had a great number of letters and papers to prove this rebellion of the Begums.  But he declares that he has lost all these letters.  A search was ordered to be made in Mr. Hastings’s record-office, called a trunk; and accordingly in the trunk is found a paper worthy of such a place and such a cause.  This letter, which has been made use of to criminate the Begums, has not their names mentioned, nor is there any possibility of their being included in it.  By this paper which is preserved you may judge of the whole of the papers that are lost.  Such a letter, I believe, was never before brought as evidence in a court of justice.  It is a letter said to have been intercepted, and is as follows.

     “To the most noble * * * * *, whose prosperity be everlasting!

“It is represented, that the august purwannah [command], having completed his honorable arrival on the 16th of the month in the evening, highly exalted me.  It is ordered that I should charge Medeporee, and the other enrolled sepoys belonging to my district, and take bonds from them that none of them go for service to the Rajah; and that, when four or five hundred men, nudjeeves and others, are collected, I should send them to the presence.  According to the order, I have written to Brejunekar Shah Rehemet Ullah, who is in Bhooaparah, charging him to take bonds from them, and that whatever sepoys fit for service are collected he should send to the presence.  As at this time the wind is contrary, the sepoys will not * * * * without travelling charges; for I have learnt from a letter previously received from Brejunekar Shah Rehemet Ullah, that the people there also are badly inclined.  By the grace of God, the unalterable glory shall be * * * * *.  Zehan Beg and the nudjeeves who were in the fort of Aneelah have gone off to Goruckpore.”

This is a letter of somebody or other employed by somebody or other for the recruiting service,—­it should seem, by the word “presence,” somebody employed in enlisting forces for the Nabob.  The charge against the Begum was, that she had joined with the rebellious Rajahs to exterminate her son’s government and the English influence in that country.  In this very paper you see that the soldiers entering into that service, and officers who are to contract for soldiers, are expressly bound not to join the Rajahs; and this they produce as proof that the Begums had joined the Rajahs, and had joined them in a rebellion, for the purpose of exterminating their son, in the first instance, and the English afterwards.