"
My Lords, you have seen the principles upon which this man justifies his
conduct. Here his real nature, character, and disposition break out.
These women had been guilty of no rebellion; he never charged them with
any crime but that of having wealth; and yet you see with what ferocity
he pursues everything that belonged to the destined object of his cruel,
inhuman, and more than tragic revenge. "If," says he, "you have made an
agreement with them, and will insist upon it, I will keep it; but if you
have not, I beseech you not to make any. Don't give them anything;
suffer no stipulations whatever of a provision for them. The
capitulation I will ratify, provided it contains no article of future
provision for them." This he positively forbade; so that his
bloodthirsty vengeance would have sent out these two hundred innocent
women to starve naked in the world.
But he not only declares that the money found in the fort is the
soldiers', he adds, that he should be sorry, if they lost a shilling of
it. So that you have here a man not only declaring that the money was
theirs, directly contrary to the Company's positive orders upon other
similar occasions, and after he had himself declared that prize-money
was poison to soldiers, but directly inciting them to insist upon their
right to it.
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