ered him to place him. Did Mr. Hastings obey that order? No, my
Lords, he appointed no man to fill that office. What, no man at all? No,
he appointed no person at all in the sense which is mentioned there,
which constantly describes a person at least of the male sex: he
appointed a woman to fill that office; he appointed a woman, in a
country where no woman can be seen, where no woman can be spoken to by
any one without a curtain between them; for all these various duties,
requiring all these qualifications described by himself, he appointed a
woman. Do you want more proof than this violent transgression of the
Company's orders upon that occasion that some corrupt motive must have
influenced him?

My Lords, it is necessary for me to state the situation of the family,
that you may judge from thence of the corrupt motives of Mr. Hastings's
proceedings. The Nabob Jaffier Ali Khan had among the women of his
seraglio a person called Munny Begum. She was a dancing-girl, whom he
had seen at some entertainment; and as he was of a licentious turn, this
dancing-girl, in the course of her profession as a prostitute, so far
inveigled the Nabob, that, having a child or pretending to have had a
child by him, he brought her into the seraglio; and the Company's
servants sold to that son the succession of that father. This woman had
been sold as a slave,--her profession a dancer, her occupation a
prostitute. And, my Lords, this woman having put her natural son, as we
state, and shall prove, in the place of the legitimate offspring of the
Nabob, having got him placed by the Company's servants on the musnud,
she came to be at the head of that part of the household which relates
to the women: which is a large and considerable trust in a country where
polygamy is admitted, and where women of great rank may possibly be
attended by two thousand of the same sex in inferior situations. As soon
as the legitimate son of the Nabob came to the musnud, there was no
ground for keeping this woman any longer in that situation; and upon an
application of the Company to Mahomed Reza Khan to know who ought to
have the right of superiority, he answered, as he ought to have done,
that, though all the women of the seraglio ought to have honor, yet the
mother of the Nabob ought to have the superiority of it. Therefore this
woman was removed, and the mother of the Nabob was placed in her
situation. In that situation Mr. Hastings found the seraglio. If his
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