The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke

had stated as a reason for his former delegation,) "that the state of the country was so
disordered in its revenue and administration, and the credit and influence of the Nabob
himself so much shook by the late usurpation of his authority, and the contests which
attended it, as to require the accession of an extraneous aid to restore the powers and to
reanimate the constitution of his government,"—although he, the said Hastings, did for a
long time before attribute the weakness of his government to an extraneous interference.
And the said Council, on his engagement aforesaid, did consent thereto; and he did
accordingly receive a commission, enabling him to act in the affairs of Oude, not only as
the Resident might have done, but as largely as the Council-General might legally delegate
their own powers.

LXVII. That the said Warren Hastings, in accepting the said commission, did subject his
character and the reputation of his office to great imputations and suspicions, by taking
upon himself an inferior office, out of which another had upon his intrigues been removed
by a perpetual obstruction which rendered it impossible for him to perform his duty or to
obey his instructions; and he did increase the said grounded suspicions by exercising that
office in a government from whence it was notorious he had himself received an unlawful
gift and present from the ministers, and in which he had notoriously suffered many, and had
himself actually directed some, acts of peculation, by granting various pensions and
emoluments, to the prejudice of the revenue of a distressed country, which he was not
authorized to grant.

LXVIII. That the said Warren Hastings did proceed unto the said province of Oude under
color of providing a remedy for the disorders described to be existing in the same, and for
the recovery of the Company's pretended debt. And the said Warren Hastings, who had

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