When a Governor-General sees the traces of corruption in the conduct of his predecessors, the traces of injustice following that corruption, the traces of notorious irregularity in setting aside the just claimants in favor of those that have no claim at all, he has that before his eyes which ought to have made him the more scrupulously avoid, and to keep at the farthest distance possible from, the contagion and even the suspicion of being corrupted by it. Moreover, my Lords, it was in consequence of these very transactions that the new covenants were made, which bind the servants of the Company never to take a present of above two hundred pounds, or some such sum of money, from any native in circumstances there described. This covenant I shall reserve for consideration in another part of this business. It was in pursuance of this idea, and to prevent the abuse of the prevailing custom of visiting the governing powers of that country with a view of receiving presents from them, that the House of Commons afterwards, in its inquiries, took up this matter and passed the Regulating Act in 1773. But to return to Munny Begum.--This very person, that had got into power by the means already mentioned, did Mr. Hastings resort to, knowing her to be well skilled in the trade of bribery,--knowing her skilful practice in business of this sort,--knowing the fitness of her eunuchs, instruments, and agents, to be dealers in this kind of traffic. This very woman did Mr. Hastings select, stigmatized as she was in the Company's record, stigmatized by the very gentleman who sits next to him, and whose name you have heard read to you as one of those members of the Council that reprobated the horrible iniquity of the transaction in which this woman was a principal agent. For though neither the young Nabob nor his mother ought to have been raised to the stations in which they were placed, and were placed there for the purpose of facilitating the receipt of bribes, yet the order of Nature was preserved, and the mother was made the guardian of her own son: for though she was a prostitute and he a bastard, yet still she was a mother and he a son; and both Nature and legitimate disposition with regard to the guardianship of a son went together. But what did Mr. Hastings do? Improving upon the preceding transaction, improving on it by a kind of refinement in corruption, he drives away the lawful mother from her lawful guardianship; the mother of nature he turns out, and he delivers her son to the stepmother to be the guardian of his person. That your Lordships may see who this woman was, we shall read to you a paper from your Lordships' minutes, produced before Mr. Hastings's face, and never contradicted by him from that day to this.