y being let out to the
farmers of the Company's revenues. Who was the person that sold these
revenues to the farmers? Warren Hastings. By whom were these oppressions
notified to the Court of Directors? By Lord Cornwallis. Upon what
occasion were these letters written by my Lord Cornwallis? They were
answers to inquiries made by the Court of Directors, and ordered by an
act of Parliament to be made. The existence, then, of the grievances,
and the cause of them, are expressly declared in an act of Parliament.
It orders an inquiry; and Lord Cornwallis, in consequence of that
inquiry, transmits to the Court of Directors this very information; he
gives you this identical state of the country: so that it is
consolidated, mixed, and embodied with an act of Parliament itself,
which no power on earth, I trust, but the power that made it, can shake.
I trust, I say, that neither we, the Commons, nor you, the Lords, nor
his Majesty, the sovereign of this country, can shake one word of this
act of Parliament,--can invalidate the truth of its declaration, or the
authority of the persons, men of high honor and character, that made
that inquiry and this report. Your Lordships must repeal this act in
order to acquit Mr. Hastings.

But Mr. Hastings and his counsel have produced evidence against this act
of Parliament, against the order of the Court of Directors by which an
inquiry and report were made under that act, against Lord Cornwallis's
return to that inquiry; and now, once for all, hear what the miserable
wretches are themselves made to say, to invalidate the act of
Parliament, to invalidate the authority of the Court of Directors, to
invalidate the evidence of an official return of Lord Cornwallis under
the act. Pray hear what these miserable creatures describe as an
elysium, speaking with rapture of their satisfaction, under the
government of Mr. Hastings.

"All we zemindars, chowdries, and talookdars of the district of
Akbarnagur, commonly called Rajamahal, in the kingdom of Bengal,
have heard that the gentlemen in England are displeased with Mr.
Hastings, on suspicion that he oppressed us inhabitants of this
place, took our money by deceit and force, and ruined the country;
therefore we, upon the strength of our religion and religious
tenets, which we hold as a duty upon us, and in order to act
conformable to the duties of God in delivering evidence, relate the
praiseworthy action