occasion he thus speaks of Munny
Begum.

"She, too, became the victim of your policy, and of the resentments
which succeeded. Something, too, she owed of the source of her
misfortunes to the belief of the personal gratitude which she
might entertain for the public attention which I had shown to her.
Yet, exposed as she was to a treatment which a ruffian would have
shuddered at committing, and which no recollection of past enmities
shall compel me to believe, even for a moment, proceeded from any
commission of authority, she still maintained the decorum of her
character; nor even then, nor before, nor since that period, has
the malice of calumny ever dared to breathe on her
reputation."--Delicate! sentimental!--"Pardon, honorable Sirs, this
freedom of expostulation. I must in honest truth repeat, that your
commands laid the first foundation of her misfortunes; to your
equity she has now recourse through me for their alleviation, that
she may pass the remainder of her life in a state which may at
least efface the remembrance of the years of her affliction; and to
your humanity she and an unseen multitude of the most helpless of
her sex cry for subsistence."

Moving and pathetic!--I wish to recommend every word of this letter to
your Lordships' consideration, as a model and pattern of perfection.
Observe his pity for a woman who had suffered such treatment from the
servants of the Company (a parcel of ruffians!)--treatment that a
ruffian would be ashamed of! Your Lordships have seen, in the evidence,
what this ruffianism was. It was neither more nor less than what was
necessary in order to get at the accounts, which she concealed, as his
own corrupt transactions. She was told, indeed, that she must privately
remove to another house whilst her papers were examining. Mr. Hastings
can never forget this. He cannot believe that anybody dare send such an
order; and he calls upon you to consider the helplessness of their sex,
and the affronts offered to women.

For Heaven's sake, my Lords, recollect the manner in which Mr. Hastings
and his creatures treated the Begums of Oude, and consider that this
woman was only threatened (for the threat was never attempted to be
executed) that she must, if she did not deliver up the accounts,
probably be removed to another house, and leave the accounts behind her.
This blot can never be effaced; and f