My Lords, in forming your judgment upon this nefarious proceeding, your Lordships will not fail to advert to the fundamental principles, the acknowledged maxims and established rules, of all judgment and justice,—that conviction ought to precede execution, that trial ought to precede conviction, and that a prosecutor’s information and evidence ought to be the preliminary step and substance of the trial. Here everything was reversed: Sir Elijah Impey goes up with the order for execution; the party accused is neither arraigned nor tried; this same Sir Elijah then proceeds to seek for witnesses and to take affidavits; and in the mean time neither the Nabob, the ostensible prosecutor, nor his mother and grandmother, the parties accused, knew one word of the matter.
But possibly some peculiarity in the circumstances of the case rendered such a proceeding necessary, and may justify it. No such peculiarity has been proved or even alleged; nay, it is in the highest degree improbable that it could have existed. Mr. Hastings had another opportunity of doing himself justice. When an account of this business was transmitted to the Court of Directors, they ordered him to inquire into it: and your Lordships will see what he did in consequence of this order. Your Lordships will then judge of the extreme audacity of the defence which he has made of this act at your bar, after having refused to institute any inquiry into it, although, he had the positive order of the Court of Directors, and was in the place where that inquiry could be made effectually, and in the place where the unfortunate women could have an opportunity of clearing themselves.
I will first read to your Lordships an extract from the letter of the Court of Directors to the board at Calcutta, dated the 14th of February, 1783.
“4. By the second article of the treaty [of Chunar] the Nabob is permitted to resume such jaghires as he shall think proper, with a reserve, that all such jaghiredars, for the amount of whose jaghires the Company are guaranties, shall, in case of a resumption of their lands, be paid the amount of the net collections through the Resident.
“5. We do not see how the Governor-General could consent to the resumption of such lands as the Company had engaged should remain in the hands of those who possessed them previous to the execution of the late treaty, without stronger proofs of the Begums’ defection than have been laid before us; neither can we allow it to be good policy to reduce the several jaghiredars, and thus uniting the territory, and the troops maintained for the protection of that territory, under one head, who, by that means, at some future period, may become a very powerful enemy to the Company.
“6. With respect to the resumption of the jaghires possessed by the Begums in particular, and the subsequent seizure of the treasure deposited with the Vizier’s mother, which