gs of the Begum, and, secondly, the
sufferings of the two thousand women (I believe they are not fewer in
number) that belong to them, and are dependent upon them, and dependent
upon their well-being. We have stated to you that the Court of Directors
were shocked and astonished, when they received the account of the
first, before they had heard the second. We have proved they desired him
to redress the former, if, upon inquiry, he found that his original
suspicions concerning their conduct were ill-founded. He has declared
here that he did not consider these as orders. Whether they were orders
or not, could anything have been more pressing upon all the duties and
all the sentiments of man than at least to do what was just,--that is,
to make such an inquiry as in the result might justify his acts, or have
entitled them to redress? Not one trace of inquiry or redress do we
find, except we suppose, as we hear nothing after this of the famine,
that Mr. Bristow, who seems to be a man of humanity, did so effectually
interpose, that they should no longer depend for the safety of their
honor on the bludgeons of the sepoys, by which alone it seems they were
defended from the profane view of the vulgar, and which we must state as
a matter of great aggravation in this case.

The counsel on the other side say that all this intelligence comes in an
anonymous paper without date, transmitted from a newspaper-writer at
Fyzabad. This is the contempt with which they treat this serious paper,
sent to Mr. Hastings himself by official authority,--by Hoolas Roy, who
was the news-writer at Fyzabad,--the person appointed to convey
authentic intelligence concerning the state of it to the Resident at
Lucknow. The Resident received it as such; he transmitted it to Mr.
Hastings; and it was not till this hour, till the counsel were
instructed (God forgive them for obeying such instructions!) to treat
these things with ridicule, that we have heard this Hoolas Roy called a
common news-writer of anonymous information, and the like. If the
information had come in any way the least authentic, instead of coming
in a manner the most authentic in which it was possible to come to Mr.
Hastings, he was bound by every feeling of humanity, every principle of
regard to his own honor and his employers', to see whether it was true
or false; if false, to refute it; if true, to afford redress: he has
done neither. Therefore we charge him with being the cause; we char