who have been the abettors and instruments of their
imputed wrongs,--let us at least permit them to be the judges of their
own feelings, and prefer their complaints before we offer to redress
them: they will not need to be prompted. I hope I shall not depart from
the simplicity of official language, in saying, that the majesty of
justice ought to be approached with solicitation, not descend to provoke
or invite it, much less to debase itself by the suggestion of wrongs and
the promise of redress, with the denunciation of punishment before
trial, and even before accusation."

My Lords, if, since the beginning of the world, such a paper as this was
ever before written by a person standing in the relation of a servant to
his master, I shall allow that every word we have said to your Lordships
upon this occasion to mark his guilt ought to be expunged from your
minutes and from our charges.

Before I proceed to make any observations upon this act of open
rebellion against his superiors, I must beg your Lordships to remark the
cruelty of purpose, the hostile feeling, towards these injured women,
which were displayed in this daring defiance. Your Lordships will find
that he never is a rebel to one party without being a tyrant to some
others; that _rebel_ and _tyrant_ are correlative terms, when applied to
him, and that they constantly go together.

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 tr