The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke

approved in Council; and that he should lay before the Council, at their next meeting, all
letters received by him in the course of such correspondence, for their information."

And the Governor-General and Council were therein further ordered, "that, in transacting
the business of their department, they should enter with the utmost perspicuity and
exactness all their proceedings whatsoever, and all dissents, if such should at any time be
made by any member of their board, together with all letters sent or received in the course
of their correspondence; and that broken sets of such proceedings, to the latest period
possible, be transmitted to them [the Court of Directors], a complete set at the end of every
year, and a duplicate by the next conveyance."

That, in defiance of the said orders, and in breach of the above-recited act of Parliament, the
said Warren Hastings has, in sundry instances, concealed from his Council the
correspondence carried on between him and the princes or country powers in India, and
neglected to communicate the advices and intelligence he from time to time received from
the British Residents at the different courts in India to the other members of the
government, and, without their knowledge, counsel, or participation, has dispatched orders
on matters of the utmost consequence to the interests of the Company.

That, moreover, the said Warren Hastings, for the purpose of covering his own improper
and dangerous practices from his employers, has withheld from the Court of Directors,
upon sundry occasions, copies of the proceedings had, and the correspondence carried on
by him in his official capacity as Governor-General, whereby the Court of Directors have
been kept in ignorance of matters which it highly imported them to know, and the affairs of
the Company have been exposed to much inconvenience and injury.

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