your table, has already pointed out
to you, in one of the reports, the condition of that prince, and as it
stood in the time he alluded to. I shall only add a few circumstances
that may tend to awaken some sense of the manner in which the condition
of the people is affected by that of the prince, and involved in
it,--and to show you, that, when we talk of the sufferings of princes,
we do not lament the oppression of individuals,--and that in these cases
the high and the low suffer together.

In the year 1779, the Nabob of Oude represented, through the British
resident at his court, that the number of Company's troops stationed in
his dominions was a main cause of his distress,--and that all those
which he was not bound by treaty to maintain should be withdrawn, as
they had greatly diminished his revenue and impoverished his country. I
will read you, if you please, a few extracts from these representations.

He states, "that the country and cultivation are abandoned, and this
year in particular, from the excessive drought of the season, deductions
of many lacs having been allowed to the farmers, who are still left
unsatisfied"; and then he proceeds with a long detail of his own
distress, and that of his family and all his dependants; and adds, "that
the new-raised brigade is not only quite useless to my government, but
is, moreover, the cause of much loss both in revenues and customs. The
detached body of troops under European officers bring nothing _but
confusion to the affairs of my government, and are entirely their own
masters_." Mr. Middleton, Mr. Hastings's confidential resident, vouches
for the truth of this representation in its fullest extent. "I am
concerned to confess that there is too good ground for this plea. _The
misfortune hat been general throughout the whole of the vizier's_ [the
Nabob of Oude] _dominions_, obvious to everybody; and so _fatal_ have
been its consequences, that no person of either credit or character
would enter into engagements with government for farming the country."
He then proceeds to give strong instances of the general calamity, and
its effects.

It was now to be seen what steps the Governor-General and Council took
for the relief of this distressed country, long laboring under the
vexations of men, and now stricken by the hand of God. The case of a
general famine is known to relax the severity even of the most rigorous
government.--Mr. Hastings does not deny or show the least d