"
Here, my Lords, the secret comes out. He declares it was not for a
rebellion or a suspicion of rebellion that he resolved, over and above
all his exorbitant demands, to take from the Rajah 500,000_l._, (a good
stout sum to be taken from a tributary power!)--that it was not for
misconduct of this kind that he took this sum, but for personal ill
behavior towards himself. I must again beg your Lordships to note that
he then considered the Rajah's contumacy as having for its object, not
the Company, but Warren Hastings, and that he afterwards declared
publicly to the House of Commons, and now before your Lordships he
declares finally and conclusively, that he did believe Cheyt Sing to
have had the criminal intention imputed to him.
"So long," says he, "as I conceived Cheyt Sing's misconduct and
contumacy to have _me_" (in Italics, as he ordered it to be printed,)
"rather than the Company, for its object, so long I was satisfied with a
fine: I therefore entertained no serious thoughts of expelling him, or
proceeding otherwise to violence. But when he and his people broke out
into the most atrocious acts of rebellion and murder, when the _jus
fortioris et lex ultima regum_ were appealed to on his part, and without
any sufficient plea afforded him on mine, I from that moment considered
him as the traitor and criminal described in the charge, and no
concessions, no humiliations, could ever after induce me to settle on
him the zemindary of Benares, or any other territory, upon any footing
whatever.
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