gainst you.

But the prisoner's counsel do not trust to this justification; they set
up a title of right to these treasures: but how entirely they have
failed in their attempts to substantiate either the one or the other of
these his alleged justifications your Lordships will now judge. And
first with regard to the title. The treasure, they say, belonged to the
state. The grandmother and mother have robbed the son, and kept him out
of his rightful inheritance. They then produce the Hedaya to show you
what proportion of the goods of a Mussulman, when he dies, goes to his
family; and here, certainly, there is a question of law to be tried. But
Mr. Hastings is a great eccentric genius, and has a course of proceeding
of his own: he first seizes upon the property, and then produces some
Mahometan writers to prove that it did not belong to the persons who
were in possession of it. You would naturally expect, that, when he was
going to seize upon those goods, he would have consulted his
Chief-Justice, (for, as Sir Elijah Impey went with him, he might have
consulted him,) and have thus learnt what was the Mahometan law: for,
though Sir Elijah had not taken his degree at a Mahometan college,
though he was not a mufti or a moulavy, yet he had always muftis and
moulavies near him, and he might have consulted them. But Mr. Hastings
does not even pretend that such consultations or conferences were ever
had. If he ever consulted Sir Elijah Impey, where is the report of the
case? When were the parties before him? Where are the opinions of the
moulavies? Where is the judgment of the Chief-Justice? Was he fit for
nothing but to be employed as a messenger, as a common tipstaff? Was he
not fit to try these rights, or to decide upon them? He has told you
here, indeed, negatively, that he did not know any title Mr. Hastings
had to seize upon the property of the Begums, except upon his hypothesis
of the rebellion. He was asked if he knew any other. He answered, No. It
consequently appears that Mr. Hastings, though he had before him his
doctors of all laws, who could unravel for him all the enigmas of all
the laws in the world, and who had himself shone upon questions of
Mahometan law, in the case of the Nuddea Begum, did not dare to put this
case to Sir Elijah Impey, and ask what was his opinion concerning the
rights of these people. He was tender, I suppose, of the reputation of
the Chief-Justice. For Sir Elijah Impey, though a very good man