ier, and in every particular he made as little parade and appearance as his station would admit," his station being that of the said Warren Hastings's private agent. But if the said large salary must be considered as merely equal to the expenses, large secret emoluments must be presumed to attend it, in order to make it a place advantageous to the holder thereof. That the said Palmer did apply to the board at Calcutta for a new authority to continue the said establishments, he conceiving their continuance, "after the period of the Governor-General's departure, depended upon the pleasure of the board, and not upon the authority of the Governor-General, under the sanction of which they were established or confirmed.

XCI. That the said Warren Hastings, in order to ruin the Resident Bristow, and to justify himself for his former proceedings respecting him, did bring before the board a new charge against him, for having paid a large establishment of offices and pensions to the Company's servants from the revenues of Oude; and the said Bristow, in making his defence against the charge aforesaid, did plead, that he had found all the allowances on his list established before his last appointment to the Residency,—that they had grown to that excess in the interval between his first removal by the said Warren Hastings and his reappointment; and having adduced many reasons to make it highly probable that the said Hastings was perfectly well acquainted with it, and did approve of the expensive establishments which he, the said Bristow, simply had paid, but not imposed, he did allege, besides the official assurances of his predecessor, Middleton, certain facts, as amounting to a direct proof

that the Governor-General, Warren Hastings, was not averse to the Vizier's granting large salaries to more than one European gentleman. And the first instance was to Mr. Thomas, a surgeon, who, exclusive of his pay from the Company, which was 1,4407. a year, claimed from the Vizier, with Mr. Hastings's knowledge, the sum of 9,7637. a year, and upwards, making together 11,2037. per annum. The next was Mr. Trevor Wheler, who did receive, upon the same establishment, when he was Fourth Assistant at Oude, 6,000l. a year; and which last fact the said Hastings has admitted upon record "that the accusations of Mr. Bristow and Mr. Cowper did oblige and compel him to acknowledge," - denying, at the same time, that the allowances of the Residents Middleton and Bristow, except in this single instance, were ever authorized by him; whereas his own agent, Palmer, did, in his letter of the 27th of March, 1785, represent, that the said salaries and allowances (if not more and larger) were by him authorized or confirmed.

XCII. That the aforesaid Bristow did also produce the following letter in proof that Mr. Hastings knew and approved of large salaries to British subjects upon the revenues of Oude, and which he did declare that nothing but the necessity of self-defence could have induced him to produce.

DEAR BRISTOW,

"Sir Eyre Coote has some field-allowances to receive from the Vizier; they amount to Sicca Rupees 15,554 per month, and he has been paid up by the Vizier to the 20th of August, 1782. The Governor bas directed me to write to you, to request you to re

ceive what is due from the Vizier from the 20th August last, at the rate of Lucknow Sicca Rupees 15,554 per month, and send me a bill for the amount, the receipt of which I will acknowledge in the capacity of Sir Eyre Coote's attorney; and the Governor desires that you will continue to receive Sir Eyre Coote's field-allowances at the same rate, and remit the money to me as it comes in.

(Signed)

"CALCUTTA, January 25, 1783."

"CHARLES CROFTES.

XCIII. That Sir Eyre Coote aforesaid was at the time of the said field-allowances not serving in the country of Oude, on which the said allowances were charged, but in the Carnatic.

XCIV. That, from the declaration of the said Hastings himself, that it was the conviction of Mr. Bristow and Mr. Cowper that could alone oblige and compel him to acknowledge certain of his aforesaid practices, and that nothing but the necessity of self-defence could have induced Mr. Bristow to make public another and much stronger instance of the same, it is to be violently presumed, that, where these two, or either, or both necessities did not exist, many evil and oppressive practices of the said Hastings do remain undiscovered, that, if it had not been for the contests between him, the said Hastings, and the Resident Bristow, not only the before-mentioned particulars, but the whole of the expensive civil establishments for English servants at Oude, would have been forever concealed from the Directors and from Parliament: and yet the said Hastings has had the audacity to pretend so complete an ignorance of the facts, that, repre

senting the Vizier as objecting to the largeness of the payments made by Bristow, and stating a very reduced list, which he was willing to allow for, amounting to 30,000l. a year, the said Hastings did affect to be alarmed at the magnitude even of the list so curtailed, expressing himself as follows, in his minute of the 7th of December, 1784: "For my own part, when the Vizier's minister first informed me that the amount which his master had authorized, and was willing to admit, for the charges of the Residency, and the allowances of the gentlemen at Lucknow, was 25,000 rupees per month, I own I was startled at the magnitude of the sum, and was some days hesitating in my mind whether I could with propriety admit of it”: whereas he well knew that the three sums alone of which the necessities aforesaid had compelled the discovery did greatly exceed that sum of which at the first hearing he affects to have been so exceedingly alarmed and thrown into a state of hesitation which continued for some days, and although he, the said Hastings, was conscious that he had at the very time authorized an establishment to more than four times the amount thereof.

XCV. That, in the said deceits, prevarications, contradictions, malicious accusations, fraudulent concealments, and compelled discoveries, as well as in the said secret, corrupt, and prodigal disposition of the revenues of Oude, as well as in his breach of faith to the Nabob, in continuing expensive establishments under a private agent of his own after he had agreed to remove the Company's agent, the said Warren Hastings is guilty of an high offence and misde

meanor.

XVII. — MAHOMED REZA KHÂN.

I. THAT it was the declared policy of the Company, on the acquisition of the dewanny of Bengal, to continue the country government, under the inspection of the Resident at the Nabob's durbar in the first instance, and that of the President and Council in the last; and for that purpose they did stipulate to assign, for the support of the dignity of the Nabob, an annual allowance from the revenues, equal to four hundred thousand pounds a year.

II. That, during the country government, the principal active person in the administration of affairs, for rank, and for reputation of probity, and of knowledge in the revenues and the laws, was Mahomed Reza Khân, who, besides large landed property, was possessed of offices whose emoluments amounted nearly, it not altogether, to one hundred thousand pounds a year.

IV.* That the Company's servants, in the beginning, were not conversant in the affairs of the revenue, and stood in need of natives of integrity and experience to act in the management thereof. On that ground, as well as in regard to the rank which Mahomed Reza Khân held in the country, and the confidence of the people in him, they, the President and Council, did inform the Court of Directors, in their letter of the 30th of September, 1765, that, "as Mahomed Reza Khân's short administration was irreproachable, they determined to continue him in a share of the authority"; and this information was not given lightly, but was founded upon an inquiry

* Sic orig.