The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke

the influence of the said Hastings, and that, however the said Hastings may have publicly
discouraged the corrupt transactions of the said court, yet he did secretly uphold the
authority and influence of Munny Begum, who did entirely direct, with his knowledge and
countenance, all the proceedings therein. For

XXIII. That on the 13th of the same month of September he did receive a further complaint
of the corrupt and fraudulent practices of the chief eunuch of the said Munny Begum; and
these corrupt practices did so continue and increase, that on the 10th of October, 1778, he
was obliged to confess, in the strongest terms, the pernicious consequences of his before-
created unwarrantable and illegal arrangements; for, in a letter of that date to the Nabob, he
expresses himself as follows. "At your Excellency's request, I sent Sudder ul Hock Khân to
take on him the administration of the affairs of the Adawlut and Phousdary, and hoped by
that means not only to have given satisfaction to your Excellency, but that, through his
abilities and experience, these affairs would have been conducted in such manner as to have
secured the peace of the country and the happiness of the people; and it is with the greatest
concern I learn that this measure is so far from being attended with the expected
advantages, that the affairs both of the Phousdary and Adawlut are in the greatest confusion
imaginable, and daily robberies and murders are perpetrated throughout the country. This is
evidently owing to the want of a proper authority in the person appointed to superintend
them. I therefore addressed your Excellency on the importance and delicacy of the affairs in
question, and of the necessity of lodging full power in the hands of the person chosen to
administer them; in reply to which your Excellency expressed sentiments coincident with
mine; notwithstanding which, your dependants and people, actuated by selfish, and
avaricious views, have by their interference so impeded the business as to throw the whole
country into a state of confusion, from which nothing can retrieve it but an unlimited power

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