The
unhappy persons who are wronged, robbed, and despoiled have no remedy
but in the sympathies of mankind; and when these sympathies are suffered
to be debauched, when they are perversely carried from the victim to the
oppressor, then we commit a robbery still greater than that which was
committed by the criminal accused.
My Lords, we do think this process long; we lament it in every sense in
which it ought to be lamented; but we lament still more that the Begums
have been so long without having a just punishment inflicted upon their
spoiler. We lament that Cheyt Sing has so long been a wanderer, while
the man who drove him from his dominions is still unpunished. We are
sorry that Nobkissin has been cheated of his money for fourteen years,
without obtaining redress. These are our sympathies, my Lords; and thus
we reply to this part of the charge.
My Lords, there are some matters of fact in this charge of delay which I
must beg your Lordships will look into. On the 19th of February, 1789,
the prisoner presented a petition to your Lordships, in which he states,
after many other complaints, that a great number of his witnesses were
obliged to go to India, by which he has lost the benefit of their
testimony, and that a great number of your Lordships' body were dead, by
which he has lost the benefit of their judgment.
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