cealing and withdrawing correspondence as being directly contrary to the orders of the Court of Directors, the practice of his office, and the very nature and existence of the Council in which he was appointed to preside. We charge this as a substantive crime, and as the forerunner of the oppression, desolation, and ruin of that miserable country.

Mr. Hastings having thus rendered the Council blind and ignorant, and consequently fit for subserviency, what does he next do? I am speaking not with regard to the time of his particular acts, but with regard to the general spirit of the proceedings. He next flies in the face of the Company, upon the same principle on which he removed Mr. Fowke from Benares. "I removed "him on political grounds," says he, "against "the orders of the Court of Directors, because "I thought it necessary that the Resident should "be a man of my own nomination and confi"dence." At Oude, he proceeds on the same principle. Mr. Bristow had been nominated to the office of Resident by the Court of Directors. Mr. Hastings, by an Act of Parliament, was ordered to obey the Court of Directors. He positively refuses to receive Mr. Bristow, for no other reason that we know of, but because he was nominated by the Court of Directors; he defies the Court, and declares in effect that they shall not

govern that province, but that he will govern it by a Resident of his own.

Your Lordships will mark his progress in the establishment of that new system, which, he says, he had been obliged to adopt by the evil system of his predecessors. First, he annihilates the Council, formed by an Act of Parliament, and by order of the Court of Directors. In the second place, he defies the order of the Court, who had the undoubted nomination of all their own servants, and who ordered him, under the severest injunction, to appoint Mr. Bristow to the office of Resident in Oude. He for some time refused to nominate Mr. Bristow to that office; and even when he was forced, against his will, to permit him for a while to be there, he sent Mr. Middleton and Mr. Johnson, who annihilated Mr. Bristow's authority so completely, that no one publick act passed through his hands.

After he had ended this conflict with the Directors, and had entirely shook off their authority, he resolved that the native powers should know that they were not to look to the Court of Directors, but to look to his arbitrary will in all things; and therefore, to the astonishment of the world, and, as if it were, designedly, to expose the nakedness of the Parliament of Great Britain, to expose the nakedness of the laws of Great Britain, and the nakedness of the autho

rity of the Court of Directors to the country powers, he wrote a letter, which your Lordships will find in page 795 of the printed Minutes. In this letter, the secret of his government is discovered to the country powers. They are given to understand, that whatever exaction, whatever oppression or ruin they may suffer, they are to look no where for relief, but to him. Not to the Council, not to the Court of Directors, rot to the sovereign authority of Great Britain, but to him and him only.

Before we proceed to this letter, we will first read to you the Minute of Council, by which he dismissed Mr. Bristow, upon a former occasion, (it is in page 507, of the printed Minutes), that your Lordships may see his audacious defiance of the laws of the country. We wish, I say, before we shew you the horrible and fatal effects of this his defiance, to impress continually upon your Lordships' minds, that this man is to be tried by the laws of the country; and that it is not in his power to annihilate their authority, and the authority of his masters. We insist upon it, that every man under the authority of this country, is bound to obey its laws. This Minute relates to his first removal of Mr. Bristow; I read it in order to shew, that he dared to defy the Court of Directors, so early as the year 1776. "Resolved, "that Mr. John Bristow be re-called to the presidency

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presidency, from the Court of the Nabob of Oude, and that Mr. Nathaniel Middleton be "restored to the appointment of Resident at "that Court, subject to the orders and au"thority of the Governour General and Council, "conformably to the motion of the Governour "General." I will next read to your Lordships, the Orders of the Directors for his reinstatement, on the 4th of July 1777. Upon "the most careful perusal of your proceedings,

upon the 2d of December 1776, relative to "the re-call of Mr. Bristow from the Court of "the Nabob of Oude, and the appointment of "Mr. Nathaniel Middleton to that station; we "must declare our strongest disapprobation of "the whole of that transaction. We observe, "that the Governour General's motion for the "re-call of Mr. Bristow, includes that for the "restoration of Mr. Nathaniel Middleton; but as neither of those measures appear to us ne

cessary or even justifiable, they cannot receive our approbation.

"With respect to Mr. Bristow, we find not "shadow of charge against him; it appears that " he has executed his trust to the entire satis"faction, even of those members of the Council "who did not concur in his appointment. You "have unanimously recommended him to our "notice attention to your recommendation

"has

"has induced us to afford him marks of our "favour, and to re-annex the emoluments "affixed by you to his appointment, which had "been discontinued by our order; and as we "must be of opinion, that a person of acknow"ledged abilities, whose conduct has thus

gained him the esteem of his superiors, ought "not to be degraded without just cause, we do "not hesitate to interpose in his behalf; and "therefore direct, that Mr. Bristow do forthwith return to his station of Resident at Oude, "from which he has been so improperly re"moved."

Upon the receipt of these orders, by the Council, Mr. Francis, then a member of the Council, moves, That in obedience to the Company's orders, Mr. Bristow be forthwith appointed and directed to return to his station "of Resident at Oude; and that Mr. Purling "be ordered to deliver over charge of the office "to Mr. Bristow immediately on his arrival, and "return himself forthwith to the Presidency. "Also that the Governour General be requested "to furnish Mr. Bristow with the usual letter of "credence to the Nabob Vizier."

Upon this motion being made, Mr. Hastings entered the following Minute. "I will ask, "Who is Mr. Bristow, that a member of the "administration should at such a time hold him

"forth