hat he should remain in that office as long as his conduct
deserved their protection: it was a good and an honorable tenure. My
Lords, soon afterwards there happened two lamentable deaths,--first of
Colonel Monson, afterwards of General Clavering. Thus Mr. Hastings was
set loose: there was an inspection and a watch upon his conduct, and no
more. He was then just in the same situation in which he had stood in
1772. What does he do? Even just what he did in 1772. He deposes Mahomed
Reza Khan, notwithstanding the Company's orders, notwithstanding their
pledged faith; he turns him out, and makes a distribution of two lacs
and a half of rupees, the salary of that great magistrate, in the manner
I will now show your Lordships. He made an arrangement consisting of
three main parts: the first was with regard to the women, the next with
regard to the magistracy, the last with regard to the officers of state
of the household.

The first person that occurred to Mr. Hastings was Munny Begum; and he
gave her, not out of that part of the Nabob's allowance which was to
support the seraglio, but out of the allowance of this very magistrate,
just as if such a thing had been done here out of the salary of a Lord
Chancellor or a Lord Chief-Justice,--out of these two lacs and a half of
rupees, that is, about twenty-four or twenty-five thousand pounds a
year, he ordered an allowance to be made to Munny Begum of 72,000 rupees
per annum, or 7,200_l._ a year; for the Nabob's own mother, whom he
thrust, as usual, into a subordinate situation, he made an allowance of
3,000_l._; to the Sudder ul Huk Khan, which is, translated into English,
the Lord Chief-Justice, he allowed the same sum that he did to the
dancing-girl, (which was very liberal in him, and I am rather astonished
to find it,) namely, 7,200_l._ a year. And who do you think was the next
public officer he appointed? It was the Rajah Gourdas, the son of
Nundcomar, and whose testimony he has attempted both before and since
this occasion to weaken. To him, however, he gave an employment of
6,000_l._ a year, as if to make through the son some compensation to the
manes of the father. And in this manner he distributes, with a wild and
liberal profusion, between magistrates and dancing-girls, the whole
spoil of Mahomed Reza Khan, notwithstanding the Company's direct and
positive assurance given to him. Everything was done, at the same time,
to put, as it was before, into the hands of this danc