The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke

treasury.

XIX. That Mr. Francis and Mr. Wheler having moved that the execution of the aforesaid
arrangement, the whole expense of which, ordinary and extraordinary, was charged upon
the Company's treasury, and therefore could not be even colorably disposed of at the
pretended will of the said Nabob, might be suspended until the pleasure of the Court of
Directors thereon should be known, and the same being resolved agreeably to law by a
majority of the Council then present, the said Hastings, urging on violently the immediate
execution of his corrupt project, and having obtained, by the return of Richard Barwell,
Esquire, a majority in Council in his own casting vote, did rescind the aforesaid resolution,
and did carry into immediate execution the aforesaid most unwarrantable, mischievous, and
scandalous design.

XX. That the consequences which might be expected from such a plan of administration did
almost instantly flow from it. For the person appointed to execute one of the offices which
had been filled by Mahomed Reza Khân did soon find that the eunuchs of Munny Begum
began to employ their power with great superiority and insolence in all the concerns of
government and the administration of justice, and did endeavor to dispose of the offices
relative to the same for their corrupt purposes, and to rob the Nabob's servants of their due
allowances; and in his letter of the 1st September, 1778, he sent a complaint to the board,
stating, "that certain bad men had gained an ascendency over the Nabob's temper, by whose
instigation he acts"; and after complaining of the slights he received from the Nabob, he
adds: "Thus they cause the Nabob to treat me, sometimes with indignity, at others with
kindness, just as they think proper to advise him; their view is, that, by compelling me to
displeasure at most unworthy treatment, they may force me either to relinquish my station,

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