oubt of the
fact. The representation is humble, and almost abject. On this
representation from a great prince of the distress of his subjects, Mr.
Hastings falls into a violent passion,--such as (it seems) would be
unjustifiable in any one who speaks of any part of _his_ conduct. He
declares "that the _demands_, the _tone_ in which they were asserted,
and the _season_ in which they were made, are all equally alarming, and
appear to him to require an adequate degree of firmness in this board in
_opposition_ to them." He proceeds to deal out very unreserved language
on the person and character of the Nabob and his ministers. He declares,
that, in a division between him and the Nabob, "_the strongest must
decide_." With regard to the urgent and instant necessity from the
failure of the crops, he says, "that _perhaps_ expedients _may be found_
for affording a _gradual_ relief from the burden of which he so heavily
complains, and it shall be my endeavor to seek them out": and lest he
should be suspected of too much haste to alleviate sufferings and to
remove violence, he says, "that these must be _gradually_ applied, and
their complete _effect_ may be _distant_; and this, I conceive, _is all_
he can claim of right."

This complete effect of his lenity is distant indeed. Rejecting this
demand, (as he calls the Nabob's abject supplication,) he attributes it,
as he usually does all things of the kind, to the division in their
government, and says, "This is a powerful motive with _me_ (however
inclined I might be, _upon any other occasion_, to yield to some _part_
of his demand) to give them an _absolute and unconditional refusal_ upon
the present,--and even _to bring to punishment, if my influence can
produce that effect, those incendiaries who have endeavored to make
themselves the instruments of division between us_."

Here, Sir, is much heat and passion,--but no more consideration of the
distress of the country, from a failure of the means of subsistence, and
(if possible) the worse evil of an useless and licentious soldiery, than
if they were the most contemptible of all trifles. A letter is written,
in consequence, in such a style of lofty despotism as I believe has
hitherto been unexampled and unheard of in the records of the East. The
troops were continued. The _gradual_ relief, whose effect was to be so
_distant_, has _never_ been substantially and beneficially applied,--and
the country is ruined.

Mr. Hastings, two