The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke

disposition, and so entirely has he lost the confidence and affections of his subjects, that,
unless some restraint is imposed on him which would effectually secure those who live
under the protection of his government from violence and oppression, I am but too well
convinced that no man of reputation or property will long continue in these provinces"; and
that the said Resident proceeds to an instance of oppression and rapine, "out of many of the
Nabob's, which has caused a total disaffection and want of confidence among his subjects:
he hoped the board would take it into their humane consideration, and interpose their
influence, and prevent an act which would inevitably bring disgrace upon himself, and a
proportionable degree of discredit on the national character of the English, which I consider
to be more or less concerned in every act of his administration."

LXXXVII. That no exception was ever taken by the said Warren Hastings to the truth of the
facts, or to the justness of the observation of the said Resident, which he did transmit to the
Court of Directors. And the said Warren Hastings, in his letter from Chunar, dated the 29th
of November, 1781, speaking of the restraints which had been put by him, the said
Hastings, on the Nabob, relative to his own mootiana, or forces for collection and police,
and the necessity of giving the Resident a control in the nomination of the officers of his
army, has asserted, "that the necessity of the reservation arose from a too well known defect
in the Nabob's character: if this check be withdrawn, and the choice left absolutely to the
Nabob, the first commands in his army will be filled with the most worthless and
abandoned of his subjects: his late commander-in-chief is a signal and scandalous instance
of this."

LXXXVIII. And the said Warren Hastings, in his letter to the Court of Directors, dated

Benares, the 15th of October, 1784, even after he had made the aforesaid renunciation of

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