You will see, my Lords, how this poor man
was crippled in the execution of his duty, and dishonored by the
corruption of this woman and her eunuchs, to whom Mr. Hastings had given
the supreme government, and with it an uncontrolled influence over all
the dependent parts. After thus complaining of the slights he receives
from the Nabob, he adds,--"Thus they cause the Nabob to treat me,
sometimes with indignity, at others with kindness, just as they think
proper to advise him: their view is, that, by compelling me to
displeasure at such unworthy treatment, they may force me either to
relinquish my station, or to join with them and act with their advice,
and appoint creatures of their recommendation to the different offices,
from which they might draw profit to themselves." In a subsequent letter
to the Governor, Sudder ul Huk Khan says,--"The Begum's ministers,
before my arrival, with the advice of their counsellors, caused the
Nabob to sign a receipt, in consequence of which they received, at two
different times, near fifty thousand rupees, in the name of the officers
of the adawlut, foujdarry, &c., from the Company's sircar; and having
drawn up an account current in the manner they wished, they got the
Nabob to sign it, and then sent it to me." In the same letter he asserts
that these people have the Nabob entirely in their power.

Now I have only to remark to your Lordships, that the first and
immediate operation of Mr. Hastings's regulation, which put everything
into the hands of this wicked woman for her corrupt purposes, was, that
the office of chief-justice was trampled upon and depraved, and made use
of to plunder the Company of money, which was appropriated to their own
uses,--and that the person ostensibly holding this office was forced to
become the instrument in the hands of this wicked woman and her two
wicked eunuchs. This, then, was the representation which the
chief-justice made to Mr. Hastings, as one of the very first fruits of
his new arrangement. I am now to tell you what his next step was. This
same Mr. Hastings, who had made the Nabob master of everything and
placed everything at his disposal, who had maintained that the Nabob was
not to act a secondary part and to be a mere instrument in the hands of
the Company, who had, as you have seen, revived the Nabob, now puts him
to death again. He pretends to be shocked at these proceedings of the
Nabob, and, not being able to prevent their coming before the