When these women were to be robbed, we were not foreigners to them; on the contrary, we adjudged them guilty of rebellion.  We sent an English chief-justice to collect materials of accusation against them.  We sent English officers to take their money.  The whole was an English transaction.  When wrong is to be done, we have then an interest in the country to justify our acting in it; but when the question is of redressing wrongs, when the question is of doing justice, when the question is of inquiry, when the question is of hearing complaints, then it is a foreign jurisdiction.  You are to suffer Mr. Hastings—­to make it foreign, or to make it domestic, just as it answers his purposes.—­But they are “to appeal against a man standing in the relation of son and grandson to them, and to appeal to the justice of those who have been the abettors and instruments of their imputed wrongs.”  Why, my Lords, if he allows that he is the abettor of, and the instrument to which the Directors impute these wrongs, why, I ask, does he, with those charges lying upon him, object to all inquiry in the manner you have seen?

But the Company’s Governor is, it seems, all at once transformed into a great sovereign;—­“the majesty of justice ought to be approached with solicitation.”  Here, my Lords, he forgets at once the Court of Directors, he forgets the laws of England, he forgets the act of Parliament, he forgets that any obedience is due to his superiors.  The Begums were to approach him by the orders of the Court of Directors; he sets at nought these orders, and asserts that he must be approached with solicitations.

“Time,” says he, “has obliterated their sufferings.” Oh, what a balm of oblivion time spreads over the wrongs, wounds, and afflictions of others, in the mind of the person who inflicts those wrongs and oppressions!  The oppressor soon forgets.  This robbery took place in 17[81]; it was in the year 1783 when he asserted that the waters of Lethe had been poured over all their wrongs and oppressions.  Your Lordships will mark this insulting language, when he says that both the order of the Directors and the application of the Begums for redress must be solicitations to him.

[Here Mr. Burke was interrupted by Mr. Hastings, who said, “My Lords, there was no order.  I find a man’s patience may be exhausted.  I hear so many falsehoods, that I must declare there was no order of the Court of Directors.  Forgive me, my Lords.  He may say what he pleases; I will not again controvert it.  But there is no order; if there is, read it.”  Mr. Burke then proceeded.]

Judge you, my Lords, what the insolence, audacity, and cruelty of this man must have been, from his want of patience in his present situation, and when he dares to hold this language here.  Your Lordships will reckon with him for it, or the world will reckon with you.

     [Mr. Hastings here again interrupted Mr. Burke, and said, “There
     was no order for inquiry.”]