The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke

by which the Company were very considerable losers: on all which the Court of Directors
declared, "that this waste of their property could not be permitted; that he, the said Warren
Hastings, had disregarded their authority, and disobeyed their orders, in not taking the
lowest offers"; and they ordered that the contract for elephants should be annulled: and the
said Directors further declared, that, "if the contractor should recover damages of the
Company for breach of engagement, they were determined, in such case, to institute a suit
at law against those members of the board who had presumed, in direct breach of their
orders, to prefer the interest of an individual to that of the Company."—That the said
Warren Hastings did, in the year 1777, conclude with —— Forde a contract for an armed
vessel for the pilotage of the Chittagong river, and for the defence of the coast and river
against the incursions of robbers, for the term of five years, in further disobedience of the
Company's orders respecting the mode and duration of contracts, and with a considerable
increase of expense to the Company. That the farming out the defence of a country to a
contractor, being wholly unprecedented, and evidently absurd, could have no real object but
to enrich the contractor at the Company's expense: since either the service was not
dangerous, and then the establishment was totally unnecessary, or, if it was a dangerous
service, it was evidently the interest of the contractor to avoid such danger, and not to
hazard the loss of his ship or men, which must be replaced at his own expense, and
therefore that an active and faithful discharge of the contractor's duty was incompatible
with his interest.—That the said Warren Hastings, in further defiance of the Company's
orders, and in breach of the established rule of their service, did, in the year 1777, conclude
a contract with the master and deputy master attendant of the Company's marine or pilot
service, for supplying the said marine with naval stores, and executing the said service for
the term of two years, and without advertising for proposals. That the use and expenditure
of such stores and the direction of the pilot vessels are under the management and at the

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