ions shall come to you, to
put these prisoners in irons and keep them without food, &c." The Begums
say, without food and water. _Et cetera_ are words of large import; but
he was "to keep them without food, &c., agreeable to my instructions of
yesterday." This was a pretty general warrant for sufferings. This
Hoolas Roy, this mere news-writer, was not only intrusted with this
warrant, but Mr. Middleton declares him to be a person who was to be
received there, and to represent the Nabob, and very justly too; for he,
Mr. Middleton, was undoubtedly the real nabob of the country. The man,
therefore, whom they talk of in this contemptuous manner in order to
make slight of an observation we made, and which I shall make again, and
whom they affect to consider as a mere paragraph-monger in some
scandalous newspaper, was a man vested by Mr. Middleton with authority
equal to that of the Nabob himself.

Mr. Hastings not only thought him of consequence enough to be a witness
to the severities used on the ministers of the Begums, but he considered
that he would afterwards be a fit witness to the rebellion. I pray your
Lordships to mark this: he sent for this Hoolas Roy, (who is now nothing
but a mere paragraph-monger,)--he sent for him from Fyzabad to
Benares,--a pretty long journey; and at last caused him to be examined
before Sir Elijah Impey. He has, however, sunk his evidence: a
suppression which is strongly in favor of the Begums, and equally strong
against their accuser. Here we have a man who was intrusted with all
their orders,--who represented the English government,--who represented
the Nabob's government: this man is sent for by Mr. Hastings; he gives
his deposition before Sir Elijah Impey; and the deposition so given is
not to be found either upon the Company's record, in Sir Elijah Impey's
trunk, in Jonathan Scott's trunk, nor in any other place whatever. The
evidence of a witness who could speak most clearly, as probably he did,
and most decisively, upon this subject, is sunk. They suppress, and dare
not produce, the affidavit of the man who was at the bottom of every
secret of both governments. They had the folly to let you know,
obliquely, that he had been sent for by Mr. Hastings, but they conceal
the information obtained from him: a silence more damning than any
positive evidence could be. You have here a proof of their practice of
producing such evidence only as they thought most favorable to their
wicked purposes