or the House of Peers, or in the lobby, or anywhere else, to
verify any one word he has said. He slanders these women in order to
lessen that compassion which your Lordships might have for the
sufferings he inflicted upon them. But admitting that some of these
women were of a meaner condition, and that they derived nothing from
their connection with the dignity of the person by whom they had
children, (and we know that in the whole they amounted to about
fourscore children, the Nabob having a race like the patriarchs of old,
as many great persons in that part of the world still have,)--supposing,
I say, all this to be true, yet, when persons are reduced from ease and
affluence to misery and distress, they naturally excite in the mind a
greater degree of compassion by comparing the circumstances in which
they once stood with those into which they are fallen: for famine,
degradation, and oppression were famine, degradation, and oppression to
those persons, even though they were as mean as Mr. Hastings chooses to
represent them. But I hope, as you will sympathize with the great on
account of their condition, that you will sympathize with all mankind on
the ground of the common condition of humanity which belongs to us all;
therefore I hope your Lordships will not consider the calumny of Mr.
Hastings against those women as any other than as an aggravation of his
offence against them. That is the light in which the House of Commons
considered it; for they had heard both his in-door and out-door defence,
and they still persevered in making the charge, and do persevere in
making it still.

We have first stated what these women were,--in what light they stood
with the Nabob,--in what light they stood with the country at large. I
have now to state in what light they stood with the British government,
previous to this invasion of their rights; and we will prove they were
the actual subjects of a guaranty by the Company.

_Extract from an Agreement made by Mr. Middleton, to all the
Particulars of which he engages to procure a Treaty from the Nabob
Asoph ul Dowlah, after his Arrival, and that he will also sign it,
as follows._

"First, That, whenever the Begum shall choose to go to Mecca, she
shall be permitted to go.

"Second, That, when the Nabob shall arrive, I [Mr. Middleton] will
procure suitable allowances to be made to the ladies of the zenanah
and the children of the late