to conduct the current business of the revenue department, without reference to the supreme council, and only report to the board such extraordinary occurrences, claims, and proposals, as may require the special orders of the board that even the instruction to report to the board, in extraordinary cases, is nugatory and fallacious, being accompanied with limitations, which make it impossible for the said board to decide on any questions whatsoever since it is expressly provided by the said Warren Hastings, that, if the members of the committee differ in opinion, it is not expected that every dissentient opinion should be recorded; consequently, the supreme council, on any reference to their board, can see nothing but the resolutions or reasons of the majority of the committee, without the arguments on which the dissentient opinions might be founded: and since it is also expressly provided by the said Warren Hastings, that the determination of the majority of the committee should not therefore be stayed, unless it should be so agreed by the majority; that is, that notwithstanding the reference to the supreme council, the measure shall be executed without waiting for their decision. That the said Warren Hastings has delivered his opinion, with many arguments to support the same, in favour of long leases of the lands in preference to annual settlements; that he has particularly declared, "that the farmer, who holds his farm for one year only, having no interest in the next, takes what he can with the hand of rigour, which, even in the execution of legal claims, is often equivalent to violence. He is under the necessity of being rigid, and even cruel; for what is left in arrear, after the expiration of his power, is at best a doubtful debt, if ever recoverable. He will be tempted to exceed the bounds of right, and to augment his income by irregular exactions, and by racking the tenants, for which pretences will not be wanting, where the farms pass annually from one hand to another. That the discouragements which the tenants feel from being transferred every year to new landlords, are a great objection to such short leases; that they contribute to injure the cultivation, and dispeople the lands. That on the contrary, from long farms, the farmer acquires a permanent interest in his lands: he will, for his own sake, lay out money in assisting his tenants, in improving lands already cultivated, and in clearing [55]

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That nevertheless the and cultivating waste lands." said Warren Hastings, having left it to the discretion of the committee of revenue, appointed by him in 1781, to fix the time for which the ensuing settlement should be made; and the said committee having declared, that, with respect to the period of the leases in general, it appeared to the committee that to limit them to one year would be the best period; he, the said Warren Hastings, approved of that limitation, in manifest contradiction to all his own arguments, professions, and declarations, concerning the fatal consequences of annual leases of the lands: that, in so doing, the said Warren Hastings did not hold himself bound or restrained by the orders of the court of directors, but acted upon his own discretion; and that he has, for partial and interested purposes, exercised that discretion, in particular instances, against his own general settlement for one year, by granting perpetual leases of farms and zemindaries to persons specially favoured by him; and particularly by granting a perpetual lease of the zemindary of Baharbund to his servant Canto Baboo on very low terms: that, in all the preceding transactions, the said Warren Hastings did act contrary to his duty, as governor of Fort William, contrary to the orders of his employers, and contrary to his own declared sense of expediency, consistency, and justice; and thereby did harass and afflict the inhabitants of the provinces with perpetual changes in the system and execution of the government placed over them, and with continued innovations and exactions against the rights of the said inhabitants; thereby destroying all security to private property, and all confidence in the good faith, principles, and justice of the British government: and that the said Warren Hastings, having substituted his own instruments to be the managers and collectors of the public revenue, in the manner herein before mentioned, did act in manifest breach and defiance of an act of the 13th of his present majesty, by which the ordering and manage ment and government of all the territorial revenues in the kingdoms of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa, were vested in the governor general and council, without any power of delegating the said trust and duty to any other persons; and that by such unlawful delegation of the powers of the council to a subordinate board appointed by himself, he, the said Warren Hastings, did in effect unite and vest in his own person the ordering, government, and

management of all the said territorial revenues: and that, for the said illegal act, he, the said Warren Hastings, is solely answerable, the same having been proposed and resolved in council, when the governor general and council consisted but of two persons present; namely, the said Warren Hastings, and the late Edward Wheler, Esquire; and when consequently the governor general, by virtue of the casting voice, possessed the whole power of the government. That, in all the changes and innovations herein before described, the pretence used by the said Warren Hastings, to recommend and justify the same to the court of directors, has been, that such changes and innovations would be attended with increase of revenue, or diminution of expense to the East India company that such pretence, if true, would not have been a justification of such acts; but that such pretence is false and groundless. That, during the administration of the said Warren Hastings, the territorial revenues have declined; that the charges of collecting the same have greatly increased; and that the said Warren Hastings, by his neglect, mismanagement, and by a direct and intended waste of the company's property, is chargeable with and answerable for all the said decline of reve nue, and all the said increase of expense.

XVI. MISDEMEANORS IN OUDE.

10400

I.

THAT the province of Oude and its dependencies were, before their connexion with and subordination to the company, in a flourishing condition with regard to culture, commerce, and population, and their rulers and principal nobility maintained themselves in a state of affluence and splendour; but very shortly after the period aforesaid the prosperity both of the country and its chiefs began sensibly and rapidly to decline; insomuch that the revenue of the said province, which on the lowest estimation had been found, in the commencement of the British influence, at upwards of three millions sterling annually (and that ample revenue raised without detriment to the country) did not, in the year 1779, exceed the sum of 1,500,000l. and in the subsequent years did fall much short of that sum, although the rents were generally advanced, and the country grievously oppress

ed in order to raise it.

II.

That in the aforesaid year, 1779, the demands of the East India company on the nabob of Oude are stated by Mr. Purling, their resident at the court of Oude, to amount to the sum of 1,360,000l. sterling and upwards, leaving (upon the supposition that the whole revenue should amount to the sum of 1,500,000l. sterling, to which it did not amount) no more than 140,000l. sterling for the support of the dignity of the household and family of the nabob, and for the maintenance of his government, as well as for the payment of the public debts due within the province.

III.

That by the treaty of Fyzabad a regular brigade of the company's troops to be stationed in the dominions of the nabob of Oude, was kept up at the expense of the

said nabob; in addition to which a temporary brigade of the same troops was added to his establishment, together with several detached corps in the company's service, and a great part of his own native troops were put under the command of British officers.

IV.

That the expense of the company's temporary brigade increased in the same year (the year of 1779) upwards of 80,000l. sterling above the estimate; and the expense of the country troops under British officers, in the same period, increased upwards of 40,000l. sterling; and in addition to the aforesaid ruinous expenses, a large civil establishment was gradually, secretly, and without any authority from the court of directors, or record in the books of the council general concerning the same, formed for the resident, and another under Mr. Wombwell, an agent for the company; as also several pensions and allowances, in the same secret and clandestine manner, were charged on the revenues of the said nabob for the benefit of British subjects, besides large occasional gifts to persons in the company's service.

V.

That in the month of November, 1779, the said nabob did represent to Mr. Purling, the company's resident aforesaid, the distressed state of his revenues in the following terms: "During three years past, the expense occasioned by the troops in brigade, and others commanded by European officers, has much distressed the support of my household, insomuch that the allowances made to the seraglio and children of the deceased nabob have been reduced to one-fourth of what it had been, upon which they have subsisted in a very distressed manner for two years past. The attendants, writers, and servants, &c. of my court have received no pay for two years past; and there is, at present, no part of the country, that can be allotted to the payment of my father's private creditors, whose applications are daily pressing upon me. All these difficulties I have for these three years past struggled through, and found this consolation therein, that it was complying with the pleasure of the honourable company, and in the hope that the