Your Lordships will observe something here worthy of your notice. You will first perceive, that the very treaty in which Mr. Hastings, by his representative, Mr. Middleton, was a party concerned, supposes that the Nabob Sujah ul Dowlah had other children besides the reigning prince by his sole legitimate wife; and yet Mr. Hastings, in his defence, has thought proper, with a full knowledge of that circumstance, to doubt whether there were any other children. You next see that these women have Mr. Middleton's (that is, Mr. Hastings's) guaranty for the allowances which are made and settled upon them, and for the maintenance of their attendants, for the security and enjoyment of their own possessions, for their having a law officer of high rank, a moulavy, of their own. In short, there is a regular establishment formed for all these women: they are not separated as a part distinct from the Begums, but they are put by this very guaranty entirely under their management; the maintenance of the children is secured; the whole order and economy of their establishment is delivered entirely to the Begum, the grandmother, and the Begum, the mother, of the Nabob. My Lords, you see that all these arrangements have the solemn guaranty of the Company, and that these women form a very considerable part of that guaranty; and therefore your Lordships will not treat their sufferings, inflicted in violation of the Company's own settlement and guaranty, as a matter of no consideration for you. But to proceed.--We have proved to your Lordships that the Nabob was reduced to a state of the greatest possible misery and distress; that his whole revenue was sequestered into the hands of Mr. Hastings's agents; that by the treaty of Chunar he was to be relieved from the expense of a body of troops with which he had been burdened without his own voluntary consent,--nay, more, the temporary brigade, which Mr. Hastings proposed to take off, but kept on, which he considers not only as a great distress to his finances, but a dreadful scourge and calamity to his country,--there was a whole pension-list upon it, with such enormous pensions as 18,000_l._ a year to Sir Eyre Coote, and other pensions, that Mr. Hastings proposed to take off, but did not; that, in proportion as the Nabob's distress increased, Mr. Hastings's demands increased too; he was not satisfied, with taking from him for the Company, but he took from him for himself; he demanded six hundred thousand pounds as a loan, when he knew he had neither money nor credit. The consequence of these acts of violence was, that these people, besieged by the English troops, and deprived of every resource, even of the funds of charity, by which the protectors of the family, male and female, might have relieved them, but which the cruel rapacity of Mr. Hastings had either entirely taken away or greatly diminished, were reduced to the last extremity of distress.