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That David Anderson, Esq., first member of the said board, did not execute the duties, though he received the emoluments, of the said office; having acted, for the greatest part of the time, as ambassador to Madajee Scindia, with a further salary of £4280 a year, making in all £15,230 a year.

That the said Warren Hastings did create an office of agent victualler to the garrison of Fort William, whose profits, on an average of three years, were £15,970 per annum : -that this agency was held by the postmuster-general, who, in that capacity, received £2200 a year from the Company, and who was actually no higher than a writer in the service: -that the person, who held these lucrative offices, viz. John Belli, was private secretary to the said Warren Hastings.

That the said Warren Hastings created a nominal office of resident at Goa, where the Company never had a resident, nor business of any kind to transact, and gave the said nominal office to a person, who was not a covenanted servant of the Company, with an allowance of £4280 a year.

That these instances are proofs of a criminal profusion, and high breach of trust to the India Company, in the said Warren Hastings, under whose government, and by means of whose special power, derived from the effect of his casting voice, all the said waste and profusion did take place.

That at the end of the year 1780, when, as the court of directors affirm, the Company were in the utmost distress for money, and almost every departmeut in arrear, and when it appears, that there was a great scarcity and urgent want of grain at Fort St. George, the said Warren Hastings did accept of a proposal made to him by James Peter Auriol, then secretary to the council, to supply the presidency of Fort St. George with rice and other articles, and did appoint the said Auriol to be the agent for supplying all the other presidencies with those articles :-that the said Warren Hastings declared, that the intention of the appointment "was most likely to be fulfilled by a liberal consideration of it," and therefore allowed the said Auriol a commission of 15 per cent. on the whole of his disbursements; thereby rendering it the direct interest of the said Auriol to make his disbursements as great as possible;-that the chance of capture by the enemy, or danger of the sea, was to be at the risk of the India Company, and not of the said Auriol:—that

the said Warren Hastings declared personally to the said Auriol, "that this post was intended as a reward for his long and faithful services."-That the president and council of Bombay did remonstrate against what they called the enormous amount of the charges of the rice, with which they were supplied, which they state to be nine rupees a bag at Calcutta, when they themselves could have contracted for its delivery at Bombay, free of all risk and charges, at five rupees and three-sixteenths per bag; and that even at Madras, where the distress and demand was greatest, the supplies of grain by private traders, charged to the Company, were nineteen per cent. cheaper than that supplied by the said Auriol, exclusive of the risk of the sea, and of capture by the enemy.-That it is stated by the court of directors, that the agent's commission on a supply of a single year (the said commission being not only charged on the prime cost of the rice, but also on the freight, and on all other charges) would amount to pounds sterling twenty-six thousand eight hundred and seventy-three, and by the said Auriol himself is admitted to amount to £18,292:-that William Larkins, the accomptant-general at Fort William, having been ordered to examine the accounts of the said agent, did report to the governor-general and council, that he found them to be correct in the additions and calculations; and that then the said Larkins adds the following declaration: "the agent being upon honour with respect to the sums charged in his accounts for the cost of the articles supplied, I did not think myself authorized to require any voucher of the sums charged for the demurrage of sloops, either as to the time of detention, or the rate of the charge, or of those for the articles lost in going down the river; and on that ground I thought myself equally bound to admit the sums acknowledged as received for the sales of goods returned, without requiring vouchers of the rates at which. they were sold."-That, in this transaction, the said Warren Hastings has been guilty of a high breach of trust and duty in the unnecessary expenditure of the Company's money, and in subjecting the Company to a profusion of expense, at all times wholly unjustifiable, but particularly at the time when that expense was incurred. That the said Warren Hastings was guilty of breach of orders, as well as

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breach of trust, in not advertising generally for proposals: in not contracting indifferently for the supplies with such merchants as might offer to furnish them on the lowest terms; in giving an enormous commission to an agent, and that commission not confined to the prime cost of the articles, but to be computed on the whole of his charges; in accept ing of the honour of the said agent as a sufficient voucher for the cost of the articles supplied, and for all charges what ever, on which his commission was to be computed; and finally, in giving a lucrative agency for the supply of a dis tressed and starving province, as a reward to a secretary of state, whose labours in that capacity ought to have been rewarded by an avowed public salary, and not otherwise.That, after the first year of the said agency was expired, the said Warren Hastings did agree, that for the future the commission to be drawn by the said agent should be reduced to 5 per cent., which the governor-general and council then declared to be the customary amount drawn by merchants; but that, even in this reduction of the commission, the said Warren Hastings was guilty of a deception, and did not in fact reduce the commission from 15 to 5 per cent., having immediately after resolved, that he, the agent, should be allowed the current interest of Calcutta upon all his draughts on the treasury from the day of their dates, until they should be completely liquidated: that the legal interest of money in Bengal is 12 per cent. per annum, and the current interest from 8 to 10 per cent.

VIII. PRESENTS.

THAT, before the appointment of the governor-general and council of Fort William by act of parliament, the allowances made by the East-India Company to the presidents of ths: government were abundantly sufficient; and that the said presidents in general, and the said Warren Hastings particu larly, was restrained by a specific covenant and indenture, which he entered into with the Company, from accepting any gifts, rewards, or gratuities whatsoever, on any account

or pretence whatsoever.-That, in the regulating act passed in the year 1773, which appointed the said Warren Hastings, Esquire, governor-general of Fort William in Bengal, a salary of £25,000 a year was established for him, to which the court of directors added, "that he should enjoy their principal houses, with the plate and furniture, both in town and country, rent free." That the same law, which created the office, and provided the salary, of the said Warren Hastings, did expressly, and in the clearest and most comprehensive terms that could be devised, prohibit him from receiving any present, gift, or donation, in any manner, or on any account whatsoever; and that the said Warren Hastings perfectly understood the meaning, and acknowledged the binding force, of this prohibition, before he accepted of the office, to which it was annexed. He knew, and had declared, that the prohibition was positive and decisive; that it admitted neither of refinement or misconstruction; and that in his opinion an opposition would be to incur the penalty.

That, notwithstanding the covenants and engagements above mentioned, it appears in the recorded proceedings of the governor-general and council of Fort William, that sundry charges have been brought against the said Warren Hastings for gifts or presents corruptly taken by him before the promulgation of the act of 1773 in India, and that these charges were produced at the council-board in the presence of the said Warren Hastings: that, in March, 1775, the late Rajah Nundcomar, a native Hindoo, of the highest cast in his religion, and of the highest rank in society by the offices which he had held under the country government, did lay before the council an account of various sums of money paid by him to the said Warren Hastings, amounting to £40,000 and upwards, for offices and employments corruptly disposed of by the said Warren Hastings, and did offer and engage to prove and establish the same by sufficient evidence.-That this account is stated with a minute particularity and precision; the date of each payment down to that of small sums is specified; the various coins, in which such payments were severally made, are distinguished; and the different persons, through whose hands the money passed into those of the said Warren Hastings, are named;-that such particularity on the face of such a charge, supposing it false, is favourable to

the party wrongfully accused, and exposes the accuser to an instant and easy detection; for though, as the said Warren Hastings himself has observed on another occasion, "papers may be forged, and evidences may appear in numbers to attest them, yet it must always be an easy matter to detect the falsity of any forged paper produced by examining the wit nesses separately, and subjecting them to a subsequent cross examination, in which case, if false, they will not be able to persevere in one regular consistent story."

Whereas, if no advantage be taken of such particularity in the charge to detect the falsehood thereof, and if no attempt to disprove it, and no defence whatever be made, & presumption justly and reasonably arises in favour of the truth of such charge. That the said Warren Hastings, instead of offering anything in his defence, declared, that he would not suffer Nundcomar to appear before the board as his accuser. That he attempted to indict his said accuser for a conspiracy, in which he failed; and that the said Raja Nundeomar was soon after, and while his charge against the said Warren Hastings was depending before the council, itdicted upon an English penal statute, which does not extend even to Scotland, before the supreme court of judicature, for an offence said to have been committed several years before, and not capital by the laws of India, and was condemned and executed. That the evidence of this man, not having bee encountered at the time, when it might and ought to have been, by the said Warren Hastings, remains justly in force against him, and is not abated by the capital punishment the said Nundcomar, but rather confirmed by the time and circumstances, in which the accuser of the said Warren Hastings suffered death.-That one of the offices, for which s part of the money above mentioned is stated to have been paid to the said Warren Hastings, was given by him to Munny Begum, the widow of the late Myr Jaffier, Nabob of Bengal, whose son, by another woman, holds that title at present. That the said Warren Hastings had been instructed by the court of directors of the East-India Company to sp point "a minister to transact the political affairs of the government, and to select for that purpose some person well qualified for the affairs of government, to be the minister and guardian of the Nabob's minority."-That, for these offices,

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