that his father's private creditors were daily pressing him, and there was not a foot of country which could be appropriated to their payment; that the revenue was deficient fifteen lacs, (a million and a half sterling); that the country and cultivation were abandoned; the old chieftains and useful attendants of the court were forced to leave it; that the Company's troops were not only useless, but caused great loss to the revenue and confusion in the country; and that the support of his household, on the meanest scale, was beyond his power.
This melancholy representation produced—what?—pity, and an endeavour to relieve the Nabob?—no, exasperation. Mr. Hastings declared that, both it and the crisis in which it was made were equally alarming. The only thing thought of was what was to be done if the money did not come in? But Mr. Hastings, on his visit to the Nabob at Lucknow, made a most lucky discovery. He found that the mother and widow of the late Nabob were living there, and possessed of immense wealth. His rapacious mind, bound by no human feeling or moral principle, and fertile in schemes of acquisition, immediately conceived the felicitous design of setting the Nabob to strip those ladies, well known to English readers since the famous trial of Mr. Hastings, as "the Begums." It was agreed between the Nabob and Mr. Hastings, that his Highness should be relieved of the expense which he was unable to bear, of the English troops and gentlemen; and he, on his part, engaged to strip the Begums of both their treasure and their jaghires (revenues of certain lands), delivering to the Governor-general the proceeds. As a plea for this most
