The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke

natives, as well as by the common decorum to be observed in all the transactions of
government, that the said Hastings ought to have yielded a cheerful obedience thereto, even
if he had not been by a positive statute, and his relation of servant to the Company, bound
to that just submission. Yet the said Hastings did, without denying or evading any one of
the reasons assigned by the Court of Directors, or controverting the scandalous motives
assigned by them for his conduct, contumaciously refuse obedience to the above positive
order, on pretence that the Nabob, who, he had declared it on record "to be as visible as the
light of the sun, is a mere pageant, and without even the shadow of authority," did dissent
from the same; and he did encourage the said Nabob, or rather the eunuchs, the corrupt
ministers of Munny Begum, to oppose himself and themselves to the authority of the said
Court of Directors: by which means the arrangement, three times either ratified or expressly
ordered by them, was wholly defeated; the aforesaid corrupt system was continued;
Mahomed Reza Khân was not restored to his office; and a lesson was taught to the natives
of all ranks, that the declared approbation, the avowed sanction, and the decided authority
of the Court of Directors were wholly nugatory to their protection against the corrupt
influence of their servants.

XXVIII. That the said Warren Hastings, on a reconciliation with Mr. Francis, one of the
Council-General, who made it a condition thereof that certain of the Company's orders
should be obeyed, and that Mahomed Reza Khân should be restored to his offices, did, a
considerable time after, notwithstanding the pretended reluctance of the Nabob, and his
pretended freedom, make, for his convenience in the said accommodation, the arrangement
which he had unwarrantably and illegally refused to the orders of the Court of Directors,
and did of his own authority and that of the board restore Mahomed Reza Khân to his
offices.

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