The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke

Directors, to whom, in his said letter of the 1st of October, 1784, he assigns "vengeance and
corruption" as the only motives that can produce such appointments. Thirdly, that he, the
said Warren Hastings, did instruct one of the said agents, and did charge him upon pain of
"a dreadful responsibility," to perform sundry acts of violence against persons of the
highest distinction and nearest relation to the prince; which acts were justly liable to the
imputation of "vengeance" in the execution, and which he, in his reply to the defence of
Middleton to one of his charges, did declare to be liable to the suspicion of "corruption in
the relaxation." Fourthly, that he did raise new demands on the Vizier, "and overcharge
accounts on one side and take a wide latitude on the other," by sending up a new and before
unheard-of overcharge of four hundred thousand pounds and upwards, not made by the
Resident or admitted by the Vizier, and, by adding the same, did swell his debt "beyond the
means of payment"; and did even insert, as the ninth article of his charge against Middleton,
"his omitting to take any notice of the additional balance of Rupees 26,48,571, stated by the
Accountant-General to be due from the Vizier on the 30th of April, 1780," to which he did
add fourteen lac more, making together the above sum. Fifthly, that he, the said Warren
Hastings, did assign "political dangers," in his minute of the 13th December, 1779, for
burdening the said Nabob of Oude "with unnecessary defences and enormous subsidies,"
with regard to which he then declared, that "it was our part, not his [the Nabob's], to judge
and to determine." And, sixthly, that he did not only show the design, but the fact, of
personal kindness to the partisans of what he here calls, as well as in another letter, and in
one Minute of Consultation, a "late usurpation,"—he having rewarded the principal and
most obnoxious of the instruments of the said late usurpation, (if such it was,) Richard
Johnson, Esquire, with an honorable and profitable embassy to the court of the Nizam.

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