es had gone no further than the regulation of an Eastern household,
he ought to have kept the Nabob's mother there by the rules of that
country.

What did he do? Not satisfied with giving to this prostitute every favor
that she could desire, (and money must be the natural object of such a
person,) Mr. Hastings deposes the Nabob's own mother, turns her out of
the employment, and puts at the head of the seraglio this prostitute,
who at the best, in relation to him, could only be a step-mother. If you
heard no more, do your Lordships want anything further to convince you
that this must be a violent, atrocious, and corrupt act,--suppose it had
gone no further than the seraglio? But when I call this woman a
dancing-girl, I state something lower than Europeans have an idea of
respecting that situation. She was born a slave, bred a dancing-girl.
Her dancing was not any of those noble and majestic movements which make
part of the entertainment of the most wise, of the education of the most
virtuous, which improve the manners without corrupting the morals of all
civilized people, and of which, among uncivilized people, the professors
have their due share of admiration; but these dances were not decent to
be seen nor fit to be related. I shall pass them by. Your Lordships are
to suppose the lowest degree of infamy in occupation and situation, when
I tell you that Munny Begum was a slave and a dancing-girl.

The history of the Munny Begum is this. "At a village called Balkonda,
near Sekundra, there lived a widow, who, from her great poverty, not
being able to bring up her daughter Munny, gave her to a slave-girl
belonging to Summin Ali Khan, whose name was Bissoo. During the space of
five years she lived at Shahjehanabad, and was educated by Bissoo after
the manner of a dancing-girl. Afterwards the Nabob Shamut Jung, upon
the marriage of Ikram ul Dowlah, brother to the Nabob Surajah ul Dowlah,
sent for Bissoo Beg's set of dancing-girls from Shahjehanabad, of which
Munny Begum was one, and allowed them ten thousand rupees for their
expenses, to dance at the wedding. While the ceremony was celebrating,
they were kept by the Nabob; but some months afterwards he dismissed
them, and they took up their residence in this city. Mir Mahomed Jaffier
Khan then took them into keeping, and allowed Munny and her set five
hundred rupees per month, till at length, finding that Munny was
pregnant, he took her into his own house. She gave birth to