The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke

Minutes of Consultation, and particularly in his letter of ——, immediately on the
accession of the Nabob, he did inform the said Court, "that the Nabob had not, by all
accounts, the qualities of the head or heart which fitted him for that office, though there was
no dispute concerning his right to succeed"; and some years afterwards, when his accounts
must have been rendered more certain, he did, in his Minute of Consultation of the 15th of
December, 1779, (regularly transmitted to the Court of Directors,) upon a discussion for
withdrawing certain troops kept up in the Nabob's country without his consent, by him, the
said Warren Hastings, strongly urge as follows,—"the necessity of maintaining the
influence and force which we possess in the country; that the disorders of his state [the
Nabob of Oude's state] and dissipation of his revenues are the effects of his own conduct,
which has failed, not so much from the usual effects of incapacity as from the detestable
choice he has made of the ministers of his power and the participation of his confidence. I
forbear to expatiate further on his character; it is sufficient that I am understood by the
members of this board, who must know the truth of my allusions. Mr. Francis" (a member
of the board) "surely was not aware of the injury he did me [Warren Hastings] by
attributing to the spirit of party the character I gave Asoph ul Dowlah [the Nabob of Oude];
he himself knows it to be true; and it is one of those notorieties which supersede the
necessity of any evidence. I was forced to the allusion I made by the imputation cast on this
government, as having caused the evils which prevail in the government of the Nabob of
Oude, which I could only answer by ascribing them to their true cause, the character and
conduct of the Nabob of Oude." And the Resident (appointed by the said Hastings, against
the orders of the Court of Directors, as his particular confidential representative, one whom
the said Nabob did himself request might be continued with him by an engagement in
writing forever) did some time before, that is, on the 3d of January, 1779, assure the said
Hastings and the Council-General, that "such is his Excellency's [the Nabob of Oude's]

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