The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke

of his station, if it had not been expressed and enforced by any positive institution, he, the
said Warren Hastings, did permit and suffer his own banian or principal black steward,
named Cantoo Baboo, to hold farms in different purgunnahs, or districts, or to be security
for farms, to the amount of thirteen lac of rupees (130,000l. or upwards) per annum; and
that, after enjoying the whole of those farms for two years, he was permitted by the said
Warren Hastings to relinquish two of them. That on the subject of the farms held by Cantoo
Baboo the said Warren Hastings has made the following declaration. "Many of his farms
were taken without my knowledge, and almost all against my advice. I had no right to use
compulsion or authority; nor could I with justice exclude him, because he was my servant,
from a liberty allowed to all other persons in the country. The farms which he quitted he
quitted by my advice, because I thought that he might engage himself beyond his abilities,
and be involved in disputes, which I did not choose to have come before me as judge of
them."[8] That the said declaration contains sundry false and contradictory assertions: that,
if almost all the said farms were taken against his advice, it cannot be true that many of
them were taken without his knowledge; that, whether Cantoo Baboo had been his servant
or not, the said Warren Hastings was bound by his own regulations to prevent his holding
any farms to a greater amount than one lac of rupees per annum, and that the said Cantoo
Baboo, being the servant of the Governor-General, was excluded by the said regulations
from holding any farms whatever; that, if (as the Directors observe) it was thought
dangerous to permit the banian of a collector to be concerned in farms, the same or stronger
objections would always lie against the Governor's banian being so concerned; that the said
Warren Hastings had a right, and was bound by his duty, to prevent his servant from
holding the same; that, in advising the said Cantoo Baboo to relinquish some of the said
farms, for which he was actually engaged, he has acknowledged an influence over his
servant, and has used that influence for a purpose inconsistent with his duty to the India

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