other. The Company, after contracting to maintain the army out of it, got the whole revenue into their power. The army being thus within 'their power, the Subadar by degrees vanished into an empty name.

When we thus undertook the government of the country, conscious that we had undertaken a task which by any personal exertion of our own we were unable to perform in any proper or rational way, the Company appointed a native of the country, Mahomed Reza Khan, who stands upon the records of the Company, I venture to say, with such a character, as no man perhaps ever did stand, to execute the duties of both offices. Upon the expulsion of Cossim Ali Khan, the Nabob of Bengal, all his children were left in a young, feeble, and unprotected state; and in that state of things, Lord Clive, Mr. Sumner, who sits near Mr. Hastings, and the rest of the Council, wisely appointed Mahomed Reza Khan, to fulfil the two offices of deputy Viceroy and deputy Dewan, for which he had immense allowances, and great jaghires and revenues, I allow. He was a man of that dignity, rank, and consideration, added to his knowledge of law and experience in business, that Lord Clive and Mr. Sumner, who examined strictly his conduct at that time, did not think that 112,000l. a year, the amount of the emoluments which had

been allowed him, was a great deal too much: but at his own desire, and in order that these emoluments might be brought to stated and fixed sums, they reduced it to 90,000l.; an allowance which they thought was not more than sufficient to preserve the state of so great a magistrate, and a man of such rank, exercising such great employments. The whole revenue of the Company depended upon his talents and fidelity; and you will find, that on the day in which he surrendered the revenues into our hands, the Dewanny, under his management, was a million more than it produced on the day Mr. Hastings left it. For the truth of this, I refer your Lordships to a letter of the Company sent to the Board of Controul. This letter is not in evidence before your Lordships, and what I am stating is merely historical. But I state the fact, and with the power of referring for their proof, to documents as authentick as if they were absolutely in evidence before you. Assuming, therefore, that all these facts may be verified by the records of the Company, I have now to state that this man, by some rumours true or false, was supposed to have misconducted himself in a time of great calamity in that country. A great famine had about this time grievously afflicted the whole province of Bengal. I must remark by the way, that these countries

are

are liable to this calamity, but it is greatly blessed by nature with resources which afford the means of speedy recovery, if their government does not counteract them. Nature, that inflicts the calamity, soon heals the wound; it is in ordinary seasons the most fertile country, inhabited by the most industrious people, and the most disposed to marriage and settlement, probably that exists in the whole world; so that population and fertility are soon restored, and the inhabitants quickly resume their former industrious occupations.

During the agitation excited in the country by the calamity I have just mentioned, Mahamed Reza Khan, through the intrigues of Rajah Nundcomar, one of his political rivals, and of some English faction that supported him, was accused of being one of the causes of the famine. In answer to this charge, he alleged what was certainly a sufficient justification-that he had acted under the direction of the English Board, to which his conduct throughout this business was fully known. The Company however sent an order from England to have him tried; but though he frequently supplicated the government at Calcutta, that his trial should be proceeded in, in order that he might be either acquitted and discharged, or condemned, Mr. Hastings kept him in prison two years, under pretence, (as he

wrote

wrote word to the Directors,) that Mahomed Reza Khan himself was not very desirous to hasten the matter. In the mean time the Court of Directors having removed him from his great offices, authorized and commanded Mr. Hastings (and here we come within the sphere of your Minutes) to appoint a successor to Mahomed Reza Khan, fit to fulfil the duties of his station. Now I shall first shew your Lordships what sort of person the Court of Directors described to him as most fit to fill the office of Mahomed Reza Khan; what sort of person he did appoint; and then we will trace out to you the consequences of that appointment.

Letter from the Court of Directors to the President and Council at Fort William, dated 28th August 1771:-" Though we have not "a doubt but that by the exertion of your abili"ties and the care and assiduity of our servants

in the superintendancy of the revenues, the "collections will be conducted with more ad"advantage to the Company and ease to the "natives, than by means of a Naib Dewan; we

are fully sensible of the expediency of sup"porting some ostensible minister in the Com66 pany's interest at the Nabob's court, to tran"sact the political affairs of the Sircar, and "interpose between the Company and the sub

jects