I will now refer your lordships to his opinion of the civil service, as it is declared and recorded in his remarks upon the removal of the company's civil servants by him from the service of the vizier.-"I was," says he, "actuated solely by motives of justice to him, (the nabob of Oude,) and a regard to the honor of our national character." Here, you see, he declares his opinion, that in Oude the civil servants of the company had destroyed the national character, and that therefore they ought to be recalled." By removing these people," he adds, "I diminish my patronage!' But I ask, How came they there?-Why, through this patronage. -He sent them there to suck the blood which the military had spared. He sent these civil servants to do ten times more mischief than the military ravagers could do, because they were invested with greater authority. "If," says he, "I recall them from thence, I lessen my patronage!"-But who, my lords, authorized him to become a patron? What laws of his country justified him in forcing upon the vizier the civil servants of the company?-What treaty authorized him to do it?-What system of policy, except his own wicked, arbitrary system, authorized him to act thus?

He proceeds to say, "I expose myself to obloquy and resentment, from those who are immediately affected by the arrangement, and the long train of their friends and powerful patrons.”—My lords, it is the constant burthen of his song, that he cannot do his duty; that he is fettered in every thing; that he fears a thousand mischiefs to happen to him;-not from his acting with carefulness, economy, frugality, and in obedience to the laws of his country, but from the very reverse of all this. Says he, I am afraid I shall forfeit the favor of the powerful patrons of those servants in England; namely, the Lords and Commons of England, if I do justice to the suffering people of this country.

In the House of Commons there are undoubtedly powerful people, who may be supposed to be influenced by patronage; but the higher and more powerful part of the country is

more directly represented by your lordships than by us, although we have of the first blood of England in the House of Commons. We do indeed represent, by the knights of the shires, the landed interest. By our city and borough members, we represent the trading interest; we represent the whole people of England collectively. But neither blood nor power is represented so fully in the House of Commons, as that order which composes the great body of the people; the protection of which is our peculiar duty, and to which it is our glory to adhere. But the dignities of the country, the great and powerful, are represented eminently by your lordships. As we therefore would keep the lowest of the people from the contagion and dishonor of peculation and corruption, and above all, from exercising that vice, which, among commoners, is unnatural as well as abominable, the vice of tyranny and oppression; so we trust, that your lordships will clear yourselves and the higher and more powerful ranks from giving the smallest countenance to the system, which we have done our duty in denouncing and bringing before you.

My lords, you have heard the account of the civil service. Think of their numbers, think of their influence, and the enormous amount of their salaries, pensions, and emoluments! They were, you have heard, an intolerable burthen on the revenues and authority of the vizier; and they exposed us to the envy and resentment of the whole country, by excluding the native servants and adherents of the prince from the just reward of their services and attachments. Here, my lords, is the whole civil service brought before you. They usurp the country, they destroy the revenues, they overload the prince, and they exclude all the nobility and eminent persons of the country from the just reward of their

service.

Did Mr. Francis, whom I saw here a little while ago, send these people into that country? Did General Clavering, or Colonel Monson, whom he charges with this system, send

them there? No; they were sent by himself; and if one was sent by any body else for a time, he was soon recalled; so that he is himself answerable for all the peculation which he attributes to the civil service. You see the character given of that service; you there see their accuser; you there see their defender, who, after having defamed both services, military and civil, never punished the guilty in either; and now receives the prodigal praises of both.

I defy the ingenuity of man to show that Mr. Hastings is not the defamer of the service. I defy the ingenuity of man to show that the honor of Great Britain has not been tarnished under his patronage. He engaged to remove all these blood-suckers by the treaty of Chunar; but he never executed that treaty. He proposed to take away the temporary brigade; but he again established it. He redressed no grievance; he formed no improvements in the government; he never attempted to provide a remedy without increasing the evil tenfold. He was the primary and sole cause of all the grievances, civil and military, to which the unhappy natives of that country were exposed; and he was the accuser of all the immediate authors of those grievances, without having punished any one of them. He is the accuser of them all. But the only person whom he attempted to punish was that man, who dared to assert the authority of the court of directors, and to claim an office assigned to him by them.

I will now read to your lordships the protest of General Clavering against the military brigade: "Taking the army from the nabob is an infringement of the rights of an independent prince, leaving only the name and title of it without the power. It is taking his subjects from him, against every law of nature and of nations."

I will next read to your lordships a minute of Mr. Francis's: "By the foregoing letter from Mr. Middleton, it appears that he has taken the government of the nabob's dominions directly upon himself. I was not a party to the resolutions which preceded that measure, and will not be answerable for the consequences of it."

The next paper I will read is one introduced by the managers, to prove that a representation was made by the nabob, respecting the expenses of the gentlemen resident at his court, and written after the removal before-mentioned.

Extract of a Letter from the Vizier to Mr. Macpherson ; received the 21st of April, 1785.

"With respect to the expenses of the gentlemen who are here, I have before written in a covered manner; I now write plainly, that I have no ability to give money to the gentlemen, because I am indebted many lacks of rupees to the bankers, for the payment of the company's debt. At the time of Mr. Hastings's departure, I represented to him that I had no resources for the expenses of the gentlemen. Mr. Hastings, having ascertained my distressed situation, told me that after his arrival in Calcutta he would consult with the council, and remove from hence the expenses of the gentlemen, and recall every person, except the gentlemen in office here. At this time, that all the concerns are dependent upon you, and you have in every point given ease to my mind, according to Mr. Hastings's agreement, I hope that the expenses of the gentlemen may be removed from me, and that you may recall every person residing here beyond the gentlemen in office. Although Major Palmer does not at this time demand any thing for the gentlemen, and I have no ability to give them any thing, yet the custom of the English gentlemen is, when they remain here, they will in the end ask for something; this is best, that they should be recalled."

I think so too, and your lordships will think so with me; but Mr. Hastings, who says that he himself thought thus in September, 1781, and engaged to recall these gentlemen, was so afraid of their powerful friends and patrons here, that he left India, and left all that load of obloquy upon his successors. He left a Major Palmer there, in the place of a resident; a resident of his own, as your lordships must see; for

Major Palmer was no resident of the company's. This man received a salary of about £23,000 a year, which he declared to be less than his expenses; by which we may easily judge of the enormous salaries of those who make their fortunes there. He was left by Mr. Hastings as his representative of peculation, his representative of tyranny. He was the second agent appointed to control all power ostensible and unostensible, and to head these gentlemen whose "custom," the nabob says, 66 was in the end to ask for money." Money they must have; and there, my lords, is the whole secret.

revenues.

I have this day shown your lordships the entire dependence of Oude on the British empire. I have shown you how Mr. Hastings usurped all power, reduced the prince to a cypher, and made of his minister a mere creature of his own; how he made the servants of the company dependent on his own arbitrary will, and considered independence a proof of corruption. It has been likewise proved to your lordships, that he suffered the army to become an instrument of robbery and oppression; and one of its officers to be metamorphosed into a farmer general; to waste the country and embezzle its You have seen a clandestine and fraudulent system, occasioning violence and rapine; and you have seen the prisoner at the bar acknowledging and denouncing an abandoned spirit of rapacity, without bringing its ministers to justice; and pleading, as his excuse, the fear of offending your lordships and the House of Commons. We have shown you the government, revenue, commerce, and agriculture of Oude, ruined and destroyed by Mr. Hastings and his creatures. And to wind up all, we have shown you an army so corrupted, as to pervert the fundamental principles of justice, which are the elements and basis of military discipline. this, I say, we have shown you; and I cannot believe, that your lordships will consider that we have trifled with your time, or strained our comments one jot beyond the strict measure of the text.

All

We have shown you a horrible scene, arising from an as