The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke

contract for victualling the Europeans serving at the Presidency was added to and united
with that for furnishing bullocks, and fixed for the same period. That this extension of the
periods of the said contracts was not compensated by a diminution in the charge to be
incurred by the Company on that account, as it ought to have been, but, on the contrary, the
charge was immoderately increased by the new contracts, insomuch that it was proved by
statements and computations produced at the board, that the increase on the victualling
contract would in five years amount to 40,000l., and that the increase on the bullock
contract in the same period would amount to above 400,000l. That, when this and many
other weighty objections against the terms of the said contracts were urged in Council to the
said Warren Hastings, he declared that he should deliver a reply thereto; but it does not
appear that he did ever deliver such reply, or ever enter into a justification of any part of his
conduct in this transaction.—That the act of Parliament of 1773, by which the first
Governor-General and Council were appointed, did expressly limit the duration of their
office to the term of five years, which expired in October, 1779, and that the several
contracts hereinbefore mentioned were granted in September, 1779, and were made to
continue five years after the expiration of the government by which they were granted. That
by this anticipation the discretion and judgment of the succeeding government respecting
the subject-matter of such contracts was taken away, and any correction or improvement
therein rendered impracticable. That the said Warren Hastings might have been justified by
the rules and practice or by the necessity of the public service in binding the government by
engagements to endure one year after the expiration of his own office; but on no principles
could he be justified in extending such engagements beyond the term of one year, much less
on the principles he has avowed, namely, "that it was only an act of common justice in him
to secure every man connected with him, as far as he legally could, from the apprehension

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