But the sufferings of these eunuchs did not end here; they were, on
account of this odd 5,000_l._, confined for twelve months,--not
prisoners at large, like this prisoner who thrusts his sore leg into
your Lordships' faces every day, but in harsh and cruel confinement.
These are the persons that I feel for. It is their dungeon, it is their
unrevenged wrongs that move me. It is for these innocent, miserable,
unhappy men, who were guilty of no offence but fidelity to their
mistresses, in order to vex and torture whom (the first women in Asia)
in the persons of their ministers these cruelties were exercised,--these
are they for whom I feel, and not for the miserable sore leg or whining
cant of this prisoner. He has been the author of all these wrongs; and
if you transfer to him any of the sympathy you owe to these sufferers,
you do wrong, you violate compassion. Think of their irons. Has not this
criminal, who put on these irons, been without one iron? Has he been
threatened with torture? Has he been locked up without food and water?
Have his sufferings been aggravated as the sufferings of these poor men
were aggravated? What punishment has been inflicted, and what can be
inflicted upon him, in any manner commensurate with the atrocity of his
crimes?

At last, my Lords, these unhappy men were released. Mr. Bristow, who had
been sent to Lucknow, writes to Mr. Hastings, and informs him that
severities could do no more, that imprisonments and menaces could get no
more money. I believe not, for I doubt much whether any more was to be
got. But whether there was or not, all the arts of extortion, fortified
by all the arts of tyranny, of every name and species, had failed, and
therefore Mr. Bristow released the prisoners,--but without any warrant
for so doing from Mr. Hastings, who, after having received this letter
from Mr. Bristow, gets the Supreme Council to order these very