The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke

appointment the Court of Directors did approve. But the party opposite to Mahomed Reza
Khân having continued to cabal against him, sundry accusations were framed relative to
oppression at the time of the famine, and for a balance due during his employment of
collector of the revenues; upon which the Directors did order him to be deprived of his
office, and a strict inquiry to be made into his conduct.

XI. That the said Warren Hastings, then lately appointed to the Presidency, did, on the 1st
of April, and on the 24th of September, 1772, write letters to the Court of Directors,
informing them that on the very next day after he had received (as he asserts) their private
orders, "addressed to himself alone," and not to the board, he did dispatch, by express
messengers, his orders to Mr. Middleton, the Resident at the Nabob's court at
Moorshedabad, in a public character and trust with the Nabob, to arrest, in his capital, and
at his court, and without any previous notice given of any charge, his principal minister, the
aforesaid Mahomed Reza Khân, and to bring him down to Calcutta; and he did carefully
conceal his said proceedings from the knowledge of the board, on pretext of his not being
acquainted with their dispositions, and the influence which he thought that the said
Mahomed Reza Khân had amongst them.

XII. That the said Warren Hastings, at the time he gave his orders as aforesaid for arresting
the said Mahomed Reza Khân, did not take any measures to compel the appearance of any
other persons as witnesses,—declaring it as his opinion, "that there would be little need of
violence to obtain such intelligence as they could give against their former master, when his
authority is taken from him"; but he did afterwards, in excuse for the long detention and
imprisonment of the said Mahomed Reza Khân, without any proofs having been obtained of
his guilt, or measures taken to bring him to a trial, assure the Directors, in direct

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