y taxation of the jaghires, and would have given up to
absolute confiscation every man except those honorable persons I have
mentioned.

The prisoner himself has called Mr. Wombwell to prove the names of those
infamous persons with a partiality for whom Mr. Hastings has aspersed
the Nabob, in order to lay the ground for the destruction of his family.
They amount to only six in number; and when we come to examine these
six, we find that their jaghires were perfectly contemptible. The list
of the other jaghiredars, your Lordships see, fills up pages; and the
amount of their incomes I have already stated. Your Lordships now see
how inconsiderable, both in number and amount, were the culpable
jaghires, in the destruction of which he has involved the greater number
and the meritorious. You see that the Nabob never did propose any
exemption of the former at any time; that this was a slander and a
calumny on that unhappy man, in order to defend the violent acts of the
prisoner, who has recourse to slander and calumny as a proper way to
defend violence, outrage, and wrongs.

We have now gone through the first stage of Mr. Hastings's confiscation
of the estates of these unhappy people. When it came to be put in
execution, Mr. Middleton finds the Nabob reluctant in the greatest
degree to make this sacrifice of his family and of all his nobility. It
touched him in every way in which shame and sympathy can affect a man.
He falls at the feet of Mr. Middleton; he says, "I signed the treaty of
Chunar upon an assurance that it was never meant to be put in force."
Mr. Middleton nevertheless proceeds; he sends the family of the Nabob
out of the country; but he entertains fears of a general revolt as the
consequence of this tyrannical act, and refers the case back to Mr.
Hastings, who insists upon its being executed in its utmost extent. The
Nabob again remonstrates in the strongest manner; he begs, he prays, he
dissembles, he delays. One day he pretends to be willing to submit, the
next he hangs back, just as the violence of Mr. Hastings or his own
natural feelings and principles of justice dragged him one way or
dragged him another. Mr. Middleton, trembling, and under the awe of that
_dreadful responsibility_ under which your Lordships may remember Mr.
Hastings had expressly laid him upon that occasion, ventures at once to
usurp the Nabob's government. He usurped it openly and avowedly. He
declared that he himself would issue his purwa