oney, from any native in
circumstances there described. This covenant I shall reserve for
consideration in another part of this business. It was in pursuance of
this idea, and to prevent the abuse of the prevailing custom of visiting
the governing powers of that country with a view of receiving presents
from them, that the House of Commons afterwards, in its inquiries, took
up this matter and passed the Regulating Act in 1773.

But to return to Munny Begum.--This very person, that had got into power
by the means already mentioned, did Mr. Hastings resort to, knowing her
to be well skilled in the trade of bribery,--knowing her skilful
practice in business of this sort,--knowing the fitness of her eunuchs,
instruments, and agents, to be dealers in this kind of traffic. This
very woman did Mr. Hastings select, stigmatized as she was in the
Company's record, stigmatized by the very gentleman who sits next to
him, and whose name you have heard read to you as one of those members
of the Council that reprobated the horrible iniquity of the transaction
in which this woman was a principal agent. For though neither the young
Nabob nor his mother ought to have been raised to the stations in which
they were placed, and were placed there for the purpose of facilitating
the receipt of bribes, yet the order of Nature was preserved, and the
mother was made the guardian of her own son: for though she was a
prostitute and he a bastard, yet still she was a mother and he a son;
and both Nature and legitimate disposition with regard to the
guardianship of a son went together.

But what did Mr. Hastings do? Improving upon the preceding transaction,
improving on it by a kind of refinement in corruption, he drives away
the lawful mother from her lawful guardianship; the mother of nature he
turns out, and he delivers her son to the stepmother to be the guardian
of his person. That your Lordships may see who this woman was, we shall
read to you a paper from your Lordships' minutes, produced before Mr.
Hastings's face, and never contradicted by him from that day to this.

At a Consultation, 24th July, 1775.--"Shah Chanim, deceased, was
sister to the Nabob Mahub ul Jung by the same father, but different
mothers; she married Mir Mahomed Jaffier Khan, by whom she had a
son and a daughter; the name of the former was Mir Mahomed Sadduc
Ali Khan, and the latter was married to Mir Mahomed Cossim Khan
Sadduc. Ali Khan had