from my heart, that even for his enormous offences there neither is nor can be anything like
such punishments. God forbid that we should not as much detest out-of-the-way, mad,
furious, and unequal punishments as we detest enormous and abominable crimes! because a
severe and cruel penalty for a crime of a light nature is as bad and iniquitous as the crime
which it pretends to punish. As the instances I allude to are curious, and as they go to the
principles of Mr. Hastings's defence, I shall beg to quote them.
The first is upon a governor who did what Mr. Hastings says he has a power delegated to
him to do: he levied a tax without the consent of his master. "Some years after my departure
from Com," says Tavernier, "the governor had, of his own accord, and without any
communication with the king, laid a small impost upon every pannier of fruit brought into
the city, for the purpose of making some necessary reparations in the walls and bridges of
the town. It was towards the end of the year 1632 that the event I am going to relate
happened. The king, being informed of the impost which the governor had laid upon the
fruit, ordered him to be brought in chains to court. The king ordered him to be exposed to
the people at one of the gates of the palace; then he commanded the son to pluck off the
mustachios of his father, to cut off his nose and ears, to put out his eyes, and then cut off his
head. The king then told the son to go and take possession of the government of his father,
saying, See that you govern better than this deceased dog, or thy doom shall be a death
more exquisitely tormenting."
My Lords, you are struck with horror, I am struck with horror, at this punishment. I do not
relate it to approve of such a barbarous act, but to prove to your Lordships, that, whatever
power the princes of that country have, they are jealous of it to such a degree, that, if any of
their governors should levy a tax, even the most insignificant, and for the best purposes, he