n, the chief-justice of Mr. Hastings's
own nomination, was treated. Now you shall see how justice was left to
shift for herself under Mahomed Reza Khan. In page 1280 of your
Lordships' Minutes you will see the progress of all these
enormities,--of Munny Begum's dealing in spirits, of her engrossing the
trade, of her evading duties,--and, lastly, the extinction of all order
in that country, and the funeral of justice itself. Mr. Shore's evidence
respecting this state of the country will admit of no doubt.

_Mr. Shore's Remarks accompanying the Governor-General's Minutes of
the 18th May, 1785._

"Foujdarry jurisdiction.--Of the foujdarry jurisdiction nothing has
yet been said. In this department criminal justice is administered,
and it is the only office left to the Nabob. I do not see any
particular reason for changing the system itself, and perhaps it
would on many accounts be improper; but some regulations are highly
necessary. Mahomed Reza is at the head of this department, and is
the only person I know in the country qualified for it. If he were
left to himself, I have not a doubt but he would conduct it well;
but he is so circumscribed by recommendations of particular
persons, and by the protection held out to his officers by
Europeans, that to my knowledge he has not been able to punish
them, even when they have been convicted of the greatest
enormities; and he has often on this account been blamed, where his
hands were tied up."

My Lords, you now see in this minute of Sir John Shore, now
Governor-General of Bengal, one of Mr. Hastings's own committee for
drawing up his defence, the review which he had just then taken of the
ruins of the government which had been left to him by Mr. Hastings. You
see here not the little paltry things which might deserve in their
causes the animadversion of a rough satirist like Doctor Swift, whom I
have just quoted, but you see things ten thousand times more serious,
things that deserve the thunderbolt of vindictive justice upon the head
of the prisoner at your bar. For you see, that, after he had ostensibly
restored Mahomed Reza Khan, the man who could and would have executed
his office with fidelity and effect, the man who was fit for and
disposed to do his duty, there was still neither law, order, nor justice
in the country. Why? Because of the interposition of Europeans, and men
who must have b