ional and equal assessment upon his subjects, in order
to furnish the amount of the demand which he was about to make upon him.
I need not tell your Lordships, trained and formed as your minds are to
the rules and orders of good government, that there is no way by which a
prince can justly assess his subjects but by assessing them all in
proportion to their respective abilities, and that, if a prince should
make such a body as the House of Lords in this kingdom (which comes
near the case I am going to state) separately the subject of assessment,
such a thing would be contrary to all the principles of regular and just
taxation in any country in the universe. Some men may possibly, by
locality or privileges, be excepted from certain taxes, but no taxation
ever can be just that is thrown upon some particular class only; and if
that class happen to be small and the demand great, the injustice done
is directly proportionable to the greatness of the exaction, and
inversely to the number of the persons who are the objects of it: these
are clear, irrefragable, and eternal principles. But if, instead of
exacting a part by a proportionable rate, the prince should go further
and attempt to shake the whole mass of property itself, a mass perhaps
not much less than that which is possessed by the whole peers of Great
Britain, by confiscating the whole of the estates at once, as a
government resource, without the charge or pretence of any crime, I say
that such an act would be oppressive, cruel, and wicked in the highest
degree. Yet this is what Mr. Hastings projected, and actually did
accomplish.

My Lords, at the treaty of Chunar, as it is called, Mr. Hastings (for he
always artfully feels his way as he proceeds) first says, that the Nabob
shall be permitted to do this act, if he pleases. He does not assume the
government. He does not compel the Nabob to do anything. He does not
force upon him this abandoned and wicked confiscation of the property of
the whole nobility of a great country. All that he says is this,--"The
Nabob _may be permitted_ to resume these jaghires." Why permitted? If
the act had been legal, proper, and justifiable, he did not want our
permission; he was a sovereign in his own dominions. But Mr. Hastings
recollected that some of these jaghires (as they are called, and on
which I shall say a very few words to your Lordships) were guarantied by
the Company. The jaghires of his own house, of his mother and
grandmot