The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke

D'Oyly. And whereas the Governor-General and Council did, on the appointment of
Mahomed Reza Khân, according to their duty, instruct him, that "he do conform to the
orders of the Company, which direct that an annual account of the Nabob's expenses be
transmitted through the Resident at the Durbar, for the inspection of this board" the said
Hastings, in making his new establishment in favor of his Resident, did wholly omit the
said instruction, and did confine the said communication to himself, privately. And in fact it
does not appear that any account whatsoever of the disposition of the said large sum,
exceeding 160,000l. sterling a year, has been laid before the board, or at least that any such
account has been transmitted to the Court of Directors; and it is not fitting that any British
servant of the Company should have the management of any public money, much less of so
great a sum, without a public well-vouched account of the specific expenditure thereof.

XXXII. That the Court of Directors did, on the 17th of May, 1766, propose certain rules for
regulating the correspondence of the Resident with the Nabob of Bengal, in which they did
direct, as a principle for the said regulations, as follows (paragraph 16th). "We would have
his correspondence to be carried on with the Select Committee through the channel of the
President: he should keep a diary of all his transactions. His correspondence with the
natives must be publicly conducted: copies of all his letters, sent and received, be
transmitted monthly to the Presidency, with duplicates and triplicates to be transmitted
home in our general packet by every ship."

XXXIII. That the President and Select Committee (Lord Clive being then President) did
approve of the whole substantial part of the said regulation (the diary excepted); and the
principle, in all matters of account, ought to have been strictly adhered to, whatever
limitations may have been given to the office of Resident. Yet he, the said Warren Hastings,

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