could have no object but hostility; they could have been sent with no
other design but that of bringing disgrace upon the Nabob, by making him
the instrument of his family's ruin, and of the destruction of his
nobility. Your Lordships, therefore, will not wonder that this miserable
man should have sunk into despair, and that he should have felt the
weight of his oppression doubly aggravated by its coming from such a man
as Mr. Hastings, and by its being enforced by such a man as Mr.
Middleton.

And here I must press one observation upon your Lordships: I do not know
a greater insult that can be offered to a man born to command than to
find himself made the tool of a set of obscure men, come from an unknown
country, without anything to distinguish them but an usurped power.
Never shall I, out of compliment to any persons, because they happen to
be my own countrymen, disguise my feelings, or renounce the dictates of
Nature and of humanity. If we send out obscure people, unknowing and
unknown, to exercise such acts as these, I must say it is a bitter
aggravation of the victim's suffering. Oppression and robbery are at all
times evils; but they are more bearable, when exercised by persons whom
we have been habituated to regard with awe, and to whom mankind for ages
have been accustomed to bow.

Now does the history of tyranny furnish, does the history of popular
violence deposing kings furnish, anything like the dreadful deposition
of this prince, and the cruel and abominable tyranny that has been
exercised over him? Consider, too, my Lords, for what object all this
was done. Was Mr. Hastings endeavoring, by his arbitrary interference
and the use of his superior power, to screen a people from the
usurpation and power of a tyrant,--from any strong and violent acts
against property, against dignity, against nobility, against the freedom