The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke

going down the river; and on that ground I thought myself equally bound to admit the sums
acknowledged as received for the sales of goods returned, without requiring vouchers of the
rates at which they were sold." That in this transaction the said Warren Hastings has been
guilty of a high breach of trust and duty, in the unnecessary expenditure of the Company's
money, and in subjecting the Company to a profusion of expense, at all times wholly
unjustifiable, but particularly at the time when that expense was incurred. That the said
Warren Hastings was guilty of breach of orders, as well as breach of trust, in not advertising
generally for proposals; in not contracting indifferently for the supplies with such
merchants as might offer to furnish them on the lowest terms; in giving an enormous
commission to an agent, and that commission not confined to the prime cost of the articles,
but to be computed on the whole of his charges; in accepting of the honor of the said agent
as a sufficient voucher for the cost of the articles supplied, and for all charges whatever on
which his commission was to be computed; and finally, in giving a lucrative agency for the
supply of a distressed and starving province as a reward to a Secretary of State, whose
labors in that capacity ought to have been rewarded by an avowed public salary, and not
otherwise. That, after the first year of the said agency was expired, the said Warren
Hastings did agree, that, for the future, the commission to be drawn by the said agent
should be reduced to five per cent, which the Governor-General and Council then declared
to be the customary, amount drawn by merchants; but that even in this reduction of the
commission the said Warren Hastings was guilty of a deception, and did not in fact reduce
the commission from fifteen to five per cent, having immediately after resolved that he, the
agent, should be allowed the current interest of Calcutta upon all his drafts on the Treasury
from the day of their dates, until they should be completely liquidated; that the legal interest
of money in Bengal is twelve per cent per annum, and the current interest from eight to ten
per cent.

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