“Sir,—­Hoolas Roy, the person appointed by the Nabob for transacting the business for which the troops are required here, will hold constant communication and intercourse with you; and as he is instructed and acquainted with the best method to accomplish this business, Mr. Middleton requests implicit attention to be paid to what he may from time to time represent respecting the prisoners or the business on which he is employed; in short, as he is the person nominated by the Nabob, he wishes Hoolas Roy to be considered in the same light as if he himself was present.”

Mr. Middleton, in a letter to Lieutenant Francis Rutledge, writes thus of him:—­

“Sir,—­When, this note is delivered to you by Hoolas Roy, I have to desire that you order the two prisoners to be put in irons, keeping them from all food, &c., agreeable to my instructions of yesterday.”

You will first see in how confidential a manner Hoolas Roy was employed, and in what light he was held:  that he was employed to carry some instructions which do not indeed appear, but were accompanied by an order from Mr. Middleton.  “When these instructions shall come to you, to put these prisoners in irons and keep them without food, &c.”  The Begums say, without food and water. Et cetera are words of large import; but he was “to keep them without food, &c., agreeable to my instructions of yesterday.”  This was a pretty general warrant for sufferings.  This Hoolas Roy, this mere news-writer, was not only intrusted with this warrant, but Mr. Middleton declares him to be a person who was to be received there, and to represent the Nabob, and very justly too; for he, Mr. Middleton, was undoubtedly the real nabob of the country.  The man, therefore, whom they talk of in this contemptuous manner in order to make slight of an observation we made, and which I shall make again, and whom they affect to consider as a mere paragraph-monger in some scandalous newspaper, was a man vested by Mr. Middleton with authority equal to that of the Nabob himself.

Mr. Hastings not only thought him of consequence enough to be a witness to the severities used on the ministers of the Begums, but he considered that he would afterwards be a fit witness to the rebellion.  I pray your Lordships to mark this:  he sent for this Hoolas Roy, (who is now nothing but a mere paragraph-monger,)—­he sent for him from Fyzabad to Benares,—­a pretty long journey; and at last caused him to be examined before Sir Elijah Impey.  He has, however, sunk his evidence:  a suppression which is strongly in favor of the Begums, and equally strong against their accuser.  Here we have a man who was intrusted with all their orders,—­who represented the English government,—­who represented the Nabob’s government:  this man is sent for by Mr. Hastings; he gives his deposition before Sir Elijah Impey; and the deposition so given is not to be found either upon the Company’s record,