and unlimited a disposal of a large revenue might at first encourage a spirit of dissipation in the Nabob; and reserves to himself a power of establishing, with the Nabob's consent, such a plan for the regulation and equal distribution of the Nabob's expenses, as should be adapted to the dissimilar appearances of preserving his interests and his independence at the same time. On the same complicated principles the subsequent resolution of the board professes to allow the Nabob the management of his stipend and expenses; with a hope, however, (which, considering the relative situation of the parties, could be nothing less than an injunction,) that he would submit to such a plan as should be agreed on between him and the governor-general.

The drift of these contradictions is sufficiently apparent. Mahomed Reza Khân was to be divested of his office at all events, and the management of the Nabob's stipend committed to other hands. To accomplish the first, the Nabob is said to be "now arrived at that time of life when a man may be supposed capable, if ever, of managing his own concerns." When this principle has answered the momentary purpose for which it was produced, we find it immediately discarded, and an opposite resolution formed on an opposite principle, viz. that he shall not have the management of his own concerns in consideration of his want of experience.

Mr. Hastings, on his arrival at Moorshedabad, gives Mr. Wheler an account of his interview with the Nabob, and of the Nabob's implicit submission to his advice. The principal, if not the sole, object of the whole operation appears from the result of it. Sir John D'Oyly, a gentleman in whom Mr. Hastings places particular confidence, succeeds to the office of Mahomed Reza Khân, and to the same control over the Nabob's expenses. Into the hands of this gentleman the Nabob's stipend was to be immediately paid, as every intermediate channel would be an unavoidable cause of delay; and to his advice the Nabob was required to give the same attention as if it were given by Mr. Hastings himself. One of the conditions prescribed to the Nabob was, that he should admit no Englishman to his presence without previously consulting Sir John D'Oyly; and he must forbid any person of that nation to be intruded without his introduction. On these arrangements it need only be observed, that a

measure which sets out with professing to relieve the Nabob from a state of perpetual pupilage, concludes with delivering not only his fortune but his person to the custody of a particular friend of Mr. Hastings.

The instructions given to the Nabob contain other passages that merit attention. In one place Mr. Hastings tells him, "you have offered to give up the sum of four lacks of rupees to be allowed the free use of the remainder; but this we have refused." In another he says, that as many matters will occur, which cannot be so easily explained by letter as by conversation, I desire, that you will, on such occasions, give your orders to Sir John D'Oyly respecting such points as you may desire to have imparted to me." The offer alluded to in the first passage does not appear in the Nabob's letters, therefore must have been in conversation, and declined by Mr. Hastings without consulting his colleague. A refusal of it might have been proper; but it supposes a degree of incapacity in the Nabob not to be reconciled to the principles, on which Mahomed Reza Khân was removed from the management of his affairs.

Of the matters alluded to in the second, and which, it is said, could not be so easily explained by letters as in conversation, no explanation is given. Your committee will therefore leave them, as Mr. Hastings has done, to the opinion of the House.

As soon as the Nabob's requisition was communicated to the board, it was moved, and resolved, that Mahomed Reza Khân should be divested of his office; and the House have seen in what manner it was disposed of. The Nabob had stated various complaints against him:-that he had dismissed the old established servants of the Nizamut, and filled their places with his own dependents: that he had regularly received the stipend of the Nizamut from the Company, yet had kept the Nabob involved in debt and distress, and exposed to the clamours of his creditors; and sometimes even in want of a dinner. All these complaints were recorded at large in the proceedings of the council; but it does not appear, that they were ever communicated to Mahomed Reza Khân, or that he was ever called upon, in any shape, to answer them. This circumstance inclines your committee to believe, that all of these charges were groundless; especially

as it appears on the face of the proceedings, that the chief of them were not well founded. Mr. Hastings, in his letter to Mr. Wheler, urges the necessity of the monthly payment of the Nabob's stipend being regularly made; and says, that to relieve the Nabob's present wants, he had directed the resident to raise an immediate supply on the credit of the Company, to be repaid from the first receipts. From hence your committee conclude, that the monthly payments had not been regularly made; and that whatever distresses the Nabob might have suffered must have been owing to the governor-general and council, not to Mahomed Reza Khân; who, for aught that appears to the contrary, paid away the stipend as fast as he received it. Had it been otherwise, that is, if Mahomed Reza Khân had reserved a balance of the Nabob's money in his hands, he should, and undoubtedly he would, have been called upon to pay it in; and then there would have been no necessity for raising an immediate supply by other means.

The transaction, on the whole, speaks very sufficiently for itself. It is a gross instance of repeated disobedience to repeated orders; and it is rendered particularly offensive to the authority of the court of directors by the frivolous and contradictory reasons assigned for it. But, whether the Nabob's requisition was reasonable or not, the governorgeneral and council were precluded by a special instruction from complying with it. The directors, in their letter of the 14th of February, 1779, declare that a resolution of council, (taken by Mr. Francis and Mr Wheler, in the absence of Mr. Barwell,) viz. "that the Nabob's letter should be referred to them for their decision; and that no resolution should be taken in Bengal on his requisitions, without their special orders and instructions," was very proper. They prudently reserved to themselves the right of deciding on such questions; but they reserved it to no purpose. In England the authority is purely formal. In Bengal the power is positive and real. When they clash, their opposition serves only to degrade the authority that ought to predominate, and to exalt the power that ought to be dependent.

Since the closing of the above report many material papers have arrived from India, and have been laid before your committee: that, which they think it most immediately necessary to annex to the Appendix to this report, is the resolu

156 REPORT OF A COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS.

tion of the council-general to allow to the members of the board of trade, resident in Calcutta, a charge of 5 per cent. on the sale in England of the investment formed upon their second plan, namely, that plan which had been communicated to Lord Macartney. The investment on this plan is stated to be raised from £800,000 to £1,000,000 sterling.

It is on all accounts a very memorable transaction, and tends to bring on a heavy burthen, operating in the nature of a tax, laid by their own authority on the goods of their masters in England. If such a compensation to the board of trade was necessary on account of their engagement to take no further (that is to say, no unlawful) emolument, it implies, that the practice of making such unlawful emolument had formerly existed; and your committee think it very extraordinary, that the first notice the Company had received of such a practice should be, in taxing them for a compensation for a partial abolition of it, secured on the parole of honour of those very persons, who are supposed to have been guilty of this unjustifiable conduct. Your committee consider this engagement, if kept, as only a partial abolition of the implied corrupt practice, because no part of the compensation is given to the members of the board of trade, who reside at the several factories, though their means of abuse are without all comparison greater; and if the corruption was supposed so extensive as to be bought off at that price where the means were fewer, the House will judge how far the tax has purchased off the evil.

ELEVENTH REPORT,

From the SELECT COMMITTEE appointed to take into consideration the state of the Administration of Justice in the provinces of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa, and to report the same, as it shall appear to them, to the House; with their observations thereupon; and who were instructed to consider how the British Possessions in the East Indies may be held and governed with the greatest security and advantage to this Country; and by what means the happiness of the Native Inhabitants may be best promoted.(1783.)

YOUR Committee, in the course of their inquiry into the obedience yielded by the Company's servants to the orders of the court of directors, (the authority of which orders had been strengthened by the regulating act of 1773,) could not overlook one of the most essential objects of that act, and of those orders, namely, the taking of gifts and presents. These pretended free gifts from the natives to the Company's servants in power had never been authorized by law; they are contrary to the covenants formerly entered into by the president and council; they are strictly forbidden by the act of parliament; and forbidden upon grounds of the most substantial policy.

Before the regulating act of 1773, the allowances made by the Company to the presidents of Bengal were abundantly sufficient to guarantee them against anything like a necessity for giving in to that pernicious practice. The act of parliament, which appointed a governor-general in the place of a president, as it was extremely particular in enforcing the prohibition of those presents, so it was equally careful in making an ample provision for supporting the dignity of the office, in order to remove all excuse for a corrupt increase of its emoluments.