Your Lordships are now enabled to sum up the amount and estimate the result of all this iniquity. The Rajah himself is punished, he is ruined and undone; but the 500,000_l._ is not gained. He has fled his country; but he carried his treasures with him. His forts are taken possession of; but there was nothing found in them. It is the report of the country, and is so stated by Mr. Hastings, that he carried away with him in gold and silver to the value of about 400,000_l._; and thus that sum was totally lost, even as an object of plunder, to the Company. The author of the mischief lost his favorite object by his cruelty and violence. If Mr. Hastings had listened to Cheyt Sing at first,--if he had answered his letters, and dealt civilly with him,--if he had endeavored afterwards to compromise matters,--if he had _told_ him what his demands were,--if, even after the rebellion had broken out, he had demanded and exacted a fine,--the Company would have gained 220,000_l._ at least, and perhaps a much larger sum, without difficulty. They would not then have had 400,000_l._ carried out of the country by a tributary chief, to become, as we know that sum has become, the plunder of the Mahrattas and our other enemies. I state to you the account of the profit and loss of tyranny: take it as an account of profit and loss; forget the morality, forget the law, forget the policy; take it, I say, as a matter of profit and loss. Mr. Hastings lost the subsidy; Mr. Hastings lost the 220,000_l._ which was offered him, and more that he might have got. Mr. Hastings lost it all; and the Company lost the 400,000_l._ which he meant to exact. It was carried from the British dominions to enrich its enemies forever.
This man, my Lords, has not only acted thus vindictively himself, but he has avowed the principle of revenge as a general rule of policy, connected with the security of the British government in India. He has dared to declare, that, if a native once draws his sword, he is not to be pardoned; that you never are to forgive any man who has killed an English soldier. You are to be implacable and resentful; and there is no maxim of tyrants, which, upon account of the supposed weakness of your government, you are not to pursue. Was this the conduct of the Mogul conquerors of India? and must this _necessarily_ be the policy of their Christian successors? I pledge myself, if called upon, to prove the contrary. I pledge myself to produce, in the history of the Mogul empire, a series of pardons and amnesties for rebellions, from its earliest establishments, and in its most distant provinces.