Page images
PDF
EPUB

My Lords, the unjust seizure of the jaghires and treasures of the Begums, out of which those women were maintained, reduced them to a state of indigence, and exposed them not only to the sufferings which belong to the physical nature of man, but also to the indignities which particularly affected their sex and condition. But before I proceed, I will beg leave to restate to your Lordships and recall to your memory who these women were.

The Nabob Sujah Dowlah had but one legitimate wife. Though the Mahometan law admits of this number's being extended in certain cases even to four, yet it is for the most part held disreputable, especially when a person is married to a woman of the first distinction, to have more than one legitimate wife. Upon looking into the Hedaya, your Lordships will see with what extreme rigor fornication is forbidden; but we know that persons of high rank, by customs that supersede both religion and laws, add to the number of their wives, or substitute in their room wives of a subordinate description, and indulge themselves in this license to an unlimited degree. You will find in Chardin's Travels, where he treats of the subject of marriage, that such is the custom of all the princes of the East. The wives of this subordinate class, though they are in reality no better than concubines, and are subject to the power and caprices of their lords, are yet allowed, in the eye of the severest moralists, to have some excuse for their frailty and their weakness; and they accordingly always do find a degree of favor in this world, and become the object of particular protection.

We know that Sujah ul Dowlah was a man unquestionably in his manners very licentious with re

[blocks in formation]

gard to women, that he had a great number of these women in his family, and that his women and the women attendant upon the persons of his favorites had increased to a very great number. We know that his sons amounted to twenty, or, according to Mr. Hastings's own account, to nineteen. Montesquieu supposes that there are more females born in the East than in the West. But he says this upon no good ground. We know by better and more regular information concerning this matter, that the birth of males and females in that country is in the same proportion as it is here; and therefore, if you suppose that he had twenty sons, you may suppose he had about nineteen daughters. By the customs of that country, all these sons and daughters were considered as persons of eminent distinction, though inferior to the legitimate children, assuming the rank of their father, without considering the rank which their mother held. All these wives with their children, and all their female servants and attendants, amounting in the whole to about eight hundred persons, were shut up in what they call the Khord Mohul, or Lesser Palace. This place is described by one of the witnesses to be about as large as St. James's Square. Your Lordships have been told, that, in other circumstances as well as this, these women were considered as objects of a great degree of respect, and of the greatest degree of protection. I refer your Lordships to the treaty by which their maintenance was guarantied by the English govern

ment.

In order to let your Lordships see that I state nothing to you but what is supported not only by general history, which is enough to support an ao

count of general manners, but by the particular and peculiar opinions of a person best informed of the nature of the case, I will refer you to the Nabob himself: for, undoubtedly, the Nabob of Oude, the Vizier of the Empire, the Subahdar of the country, was most likely to be the best judge of what respect was due to the women of his father's family. I will therefore read to your Lordships, from his own letters, what the Nabob's opinion was upon this subject.

Extract of a Letter from the Vizier, received 23d of August, 1782.

"I never found resource equal to the necessary expenses. Every year, by taking from the ministers, and selling the articles of my harkhanna, I with great distress transacted the business. But I could not take care of my dependants: so that some of my brothers, from their difficulties, arose and departed; and the people of the Khord Mohul of the late Nabob, who are all my mothers, from their distresses are reduced to poverty and involved in difficulties. No man of rank is deficient in the care of his dependants, in proportion to his ability."

Another Letter from the Vizier, received the 31st July, 1784.

"My brother, dear as life, Saadut Ali Khân, has requested that I would permit his mother to go and reside with him. My friend, all the mothers of my brothers, and the women of the late Nabob, whom I respect as my own mothers, are here, and it is incumbent upon me to support them: accordingly I do it; and it is improper that they should be separated, nor do I approve it. By God's blessing and

your kindness, I hope that all the women of the late Nabob may remain here; it is the wish also of my grandmother and my mother that they should.”

Your Lordships now see in what degree of estima tion the Nabob held these women. He regarded the wives of his father as his honorary mothers; he considers their children as his brethren; he thinks it would be highly dishonorable to his government, if one of them was taken out of the sanctuary in which they are placed, and in which, he says, the great of the country are obliged to maintain their dependants. This is the account given by the person best acquainted with the usages of the country, best acquainted with his own duties, best acquainted with his own wishes.

Now, my Lords, you will see in what light another person, the agent of a trading company, who desig nates himself under the name of Majesty, and assumes other great distinctions, presumes also to consider these persons, — and in what contempt he is pleased to hold what is respected and what is held sacred in that country. What I am now going to quote is from the prisoner's second defence. For I must remind your Lordships that Mr. Hastings has made three defences, one in the House of Commons, another in the lobby of the House of Commons, and a third at your Lordships' bar. The second defence, though delivered without name, to the members in the lobby of the House of Commons, has been proved at your Lordships' bar to be written by himself. This lobby, this out-of-door defence, militates in some respects, as your Lordships will find, with the in-door defence; but it probably con

tains the real sentiments of Mr. Hastings himself, delivered with a little more freeness when he gets into the open air, like the man who was so vain of some silly plot he had hatched, that he told it to the hackney-coachman, and every man he met in the streets.

[ocr errors]

He says, "Begums are the ladies of an Eastern prince; but these women are also styled the ladies of the late Vizier, and their sufferings are painted in such strong colors that the unsuspecting reader is led to mix the subjects together, and to suppose that these latter, too, were princesses of Oude, that all their sufferings proceeded from some act of mine, or had the sanction of my authority or permission. The fact is, that the persons of the Khord Mohul (or Little Seraglio) were young creatures picked up wherever youth and beauty could be found, and mostly purchased from amongst the most necessitous and meanest ranks of the people, for the Nabob's pleasures." In the in-door defence, he says, "The said women, who were mostly persons of low condition, and the said children, if any such there were, lived in the Khord Mohul, on an establishment entirely distinct from the said Begums'."

My Lords, you have seen what was the opinion of the Nabob, who ought to know the nature and circumstances of his father's palace, respecting these women; you hear what Mr. Hastings's opinion is: and now the question is, whether your Lordships will consider these women in the same light in which the person does who is most nearly connected with them and most likely to know them, or in the way in which Mr. Hastings has thought proper, within doors and without doors, to describe them. Your Lordships will

« PreviousContinue »