It is suggested by the Directors, that the Nabob is the persecutor, the oppressor, and that Mr. Hastings is the person who is to redress the wrong. But here they have mistaken the matter totally. For we have proved to your Lordships that Mr. Hastings was the principal in the persecution, and that the Nabob was only an instrument. "If I am rightly informed," he says, "the Nabob and the Begums are on terms of mutual good-will. It would ill become this government to interpose its influence by any act which might tend to revive their animosities: and a very slight occasion would be sufficient to effect it." What animosities had they towards each other? None that we know of. Mr. Hastings gets the Nabob to rob his mother; and then he supposes, contrary to truth, contrary to fact, contrary to everything your Lordships have heard, that the Nabob would fall into a fury, if his mother was to obtain any redress,--and that, if the least inquiry into this business was made, it would create a flame in the Nabob's mind, on account of the active, energetic, spirited part he had taken in these transactions. "Therefore," says he, "oh, for God's sake, soothe the matter! It is a green wound; don't uncover it; do nothing to irritate. It will be to little purpose to tell them that their conduct has in our estimation of it been very wrong, and at the same time announce to them the orders of our superiors, which more than indicate the reverse." Now, my Lords, to what does all this amount? "First," says he, "I will not do them justice,--I will not enter upon an inquiry into their wrongs." Why? "Because they charge us with having inflicted them." Then, surely, for that reason, you ought to commence an inquiry. "No," says he, "that would be telling them that our superiors suspect we are in the wrong." But when his superiors more than indicated suspicions, was he not bound tenfold to make that inquiry, for his honor and for their satisfaction, which they direct him to make? No, he will not do it, "because," says he, "the Begums would either accept the offer of an asylum in the Company's territories, to the proclaimed scandal of the Vizier, which would not add to the credit of our government, or they would remain in his dominions, but not under his authority, to add to his vexations, and the disorders of the country, by continual intrigues and seditions."