They were those very persons who were guilty of robbing and ruining
the whole country: yes, my Lords, the very persons who had been accused
of this in the mass by Mr. Hastings himself. They were nothing less than
the whole body of those English officers who were usurping the office of
farmers-general, and other lucrative offices in the Nabob's government,
and whose pillage and peculations had raised a revolt of the whole
kingdom against themselves. These persons are here brought in a mass to
clear themselves of this charge by criminating other persons, and
clandestinely imputing to them the effect of their own iniquity.

But supposing these witnesses to be good for anything, supposing it fit
that the least attention should be paid them, the matter of their
testimony may very possibly be true without criminating the Begum. It
criminates Saadut Ali Khan, the brother of the Nabob; the word Begum is
never mentioned in the crimination but in conjunction with his; and much
the greater part of it criminates the Nabob himself. Now, my Lords, I
will say, that the matter of these affidavits, forgetting who the
deponents were, may possibly be true, as far as respects Saadut Ali
Khan, but that it is utterly as improbable, which is the main point and
the stress of the thing, with respect to the Begums, as it is impossible
with respect to the Nabob. That Saadut Ali, being a military man, a man
ambitious and aspiring to greatness, should take advantage of the abuses
of the English government and of the discontent of the country, that he
should, I say, raise a revolt against his brother is very possible; but
it is scarcely within possibility that the mother of the Nabob should
have joined with the illegitimate son against her legitimate son. I can
only say that in human affairs there is the possibility of truth in
this. It is possible she might wish to depose her legitimate son, her
only legitimate son, and to depose him for the sake of a bastard son of
her husband's,--to exalt him at the expense of the former, and to exalt,
of course, the mother of that bastard at her own expense, and to her own
wrong. But I say, that this, though possible, is grossly improbable. The
reason why the Begum is implicated in this charge with Saadut Ali by the
affidavits cannot escape your notice. Their own acquittal might be the
only object of the deponents in their crimination of the latter; but the
treasures of the former were the objects of their employ