was appointed guardian of the two preceding Nabobs stands in the Company's records stigmatized as a transaction base, wicked, and corrupt. We will read to your Lordships an extract from a letter which has the signature of Mr. Sumner, the gentleman who sits here by the side of Mr. Hastings, and from which you will learn what the Company and the Council thought of the original nomination of Munny Begum and of her son. You will find that they considered her as a great agent and instrument of all the corruption there; and that this whole transaction, by which the bastard son of Munny Begum was brought forward to the prejudice of the legitimate son of the Nabob, was considered to be, what it upon the very face of it speaks itself to be, corrupt and scandalous. _Extract of a General Letter from the President and Council at Calcutta, Bengal, to the Select Committee of the Directors._ Paragraph 5.--"At Fort St. George we received the first advices of the demise of Mir Jaffier, and of Sujah Dowlah's defeat. It was there firmly imagined that no definitive measures would be taken, either with respect to a peace or filling the vacancy in the nizamut, before our arrival,--as the 'Lapwing' arrived in the month of January with your general letter, and the appointment of a committee with express powers to that purpose, for the successful exertion of which the happiest occasion now offered. However, a contrary resolution prevailed in the Council. The opportunity of acquiring immense fortunes was too inviting to be neglected, and the temptation too powerful to be resisted. A treaty was hastily drawn up by the board,--or rather, transcribed, with few unimportant additions, from that concluded with Mir Jaffier,--and a deputation, consisting of Messrs. Johnstone, senior, Middleton, and Leycester, appointed to raise the natural son of the deceased Nabob to the subahdarry, in prejudice of the claim of the grandson; and for this measure such reasons assigned as ought to have dictated a diametrically opposite resolution. Meeran's son was a minor, which circumstance alone would have naturally brought the whole administration into our hands at a juncture when it became indispensably necessary we should realize the shadow of power and influence, which, having no solid foundation, was exposed to the danger of being annihilated by the first stroke of adverse fortune. But this inconsistence was not regarded, nor was it material to the views for precipitating the treaty, which was pressed on the young Nabob at the first interview, in so earnest and indelicate a manner as highly disgusted him and chagrined his ministers, while not a single rupee was stipulated for the Company, whose interests were sacrificed that their servants might revel in the spoils of a treasury, before impoverished, but now totally exhausted.