heir
palanquins, attended by a guard of sepoys.--_Q._ Under whose
command were the sepoys?--_A._ That they were brought in by?--_Q._
Yes.--_A._ I do not recollect.--_Q._ Were those sepoys that brought
in the prisoners part of the Nabob's army, or were they any British
troops?--_A._ To the best of my recollection, they were detached
from a regiment then stationed at Fyzabad.--_Q._ In whose service
was that regiment?--_A._ In the Company's.--_Q._ Were they
imprisoned in any house near that in which you resided?--_A._ They
were imprisoned immediately under the window of the house in which
I resided, close to it.--_Q._ Did you or did you not ever see any
preparations made for any corporal punishment?--_A._ I saw
something of a scaffolding.--_Q._ For what purpose?--_A._ I heard
it was for the purpose of tying them up.--_Q._ Whose prisoners did
you consider these men to be?--_A._ I considered them as prisoners
of the Resident; they were close to his house, and under an
European officer."

Your Lordships have now seen the whole process, except one dreadful part
of it, which was the threatening to send the Begum to the castle at
Chunar. After all these cruelties, after all these menaces of further
cruelties, after erecting a scaffold for actually exercising the last
degree of criminal punishment, namely, by whipping these miserable
persons in public,--after everything has been done but execution, our
inability to prove by evidence this part of their proceedings has
secured to your Lordships a circumstance of decorum observed on the
stage where murders, executions, whippings, and cruelties are performed
behind the scenes. I know as certainly as a man can know such a thing,
from a document which I cannot produce in evidence here, but I have it
in the handwriting of the Resident, Mr. Bristow, that Behar Ali Khan was
actually scourged in the manner that we speak of. I had it in writing in
the man's hand; I put the question to him, but he refused to answer it,
because he thought it might criminate himself, and criminate us all; but
if your Lordships saw the scaffold erected for the purpose, (and of
this we have evidence,) would you not necessarily believe that the
scourging did follow? All this was done in the name of the Nabob; but if
the Nabob is the person claiming his father's effects, if the Nabob is
the person vindicating a rebellion against himsel