wealthy people, punishing them, under pretence of crimes, for their own
profit.

In a letter from Mr. Middleton to Mr. Hastings, after two other
paragraphs, he goes on thus.

"It remained only to get possession of her wealth; and to effect this,
it was then and is still my firm and unalterable opinion that it was
indispensably necessary to employ temporizing expedients, and to work
upon the hopes and fears of the Begum herself, and more especially upon
those of her principal agents, through whose means alone there appeared
any probable chance of our getting access to the hidden treasures of the
late Vizier; and when I acquaint you that by far the greatest part of
the treasure which has been delivered to the Nabob was taken from the
most secret recesses in the houses of the two eunuchs, whence, of
course, it could not have been extracted without the adoption of those
means which could induce the discovery, I shall hope for your
approbation of what I did. I must also observe, that no further rigor
than that which I exerted could have been used against females in this
country, to whom there can be no access. The Nabob and Salar Jung were
the only two that could enter the zenanah: the first was a son, who was
to address a parent, and, of course, could use no language or action but
that of earnest and reiterated solicitation; and the other was, in all
appearance, a traitor to our cause. Where force could be employed, it
was not spared: the troops of the Begum were driven away and dispersed;
their guns taken; her fort, and the outward walls of her house seized
and occupied by our troops, at the Nabob's requisition; and her chief
agents imprisoned and put in irons. No further step was left. And in
this situation they still remain, and are to continue (excepting only a
remission of the irons) until the final liquidation of the payment; and