received any intimation.

My Lords, in forming your judgment upon this nefarious proceeding, your
Lordships will not fail to advert to the fundamental principles, the
acknowledged maxims and established rules, of all judgment and
justice,--that conviction ought to precede execution, that trial ought
to precede conviction, and that a prosecutor's information and evidence
ought to be the preliminary step and substance of the trial. Here
everything was reversed: Sir Elijah Impey goes up with the order for
execution; the party accused is neither arraigned nor tried; this same
Sir Elijah then proceeds to seek for witnesses and to take affidavits;
and in the mean time neither the Nabob, the ostensible prosecutor, nor
his mother and grandmother, the parties accused, knew one word of the
matter.

But possibly some peculiarity in the circumstances of the case rendered
such a proceeding necessary, and may justify it. No such peculiarity has
been proved or even alleged; nay, it is in the highest degree improbable
that it could have existed. Mr. Hastings had another opportunity of
doing himself justice. When an account of this business was transmitted
to the Court of Directors, they ordered him to inquire into it: and your
Lordships will see what he did in consequence of this order. Your
Lordships will then judge of the extreme audacity of the defence which
he has made of this act at your bar, after having refused to institute
any inquiry into it, although, he had the positive order of the Court of
Directors, and was in the place where that inquiry could be made
effectually, and in the place where the unfortunate women could have an
opportunity of clearing themselves.

I will first read to your Lordships an extract from the letter of the
Court of Directors to the board at Calcutta, dated the 14th of February,
1783.

"4. By the second article of the treaty [of Chunar] the Nabob is
permitted to resume such jaghires as he shall think proper, with a
reserve, that all such jaghiredars, for the amount of whose
jaghires the Company are guaranties, shall, in case of a resumption
of their lands, be paid the amount of the net collections through
the Resident.

"5. We do not see how the Governor-General could consent to the
resumption of such lands as the Company had engaged should remain
in the hands of those who possessed them previous to the execution
of the late treaty, without stron