The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke

improving lands already cultivated, and in clearing and cultivating waste lands."___That,

nevertheless, the said Warren Hastings, having left it to the discretion of the Committee of
Revenue, appointed by him in 1781, to fix the time for which the ensuing settlement should
be made, and the said Committee having declared, that, with respect to the period of the
lease, in general, it appeared to the Committee that to limit them to one year would be the
best period, he, the said Warren Hastings, approved of that limitation, in manifest
contradiction to all his own arguments, professions, and declarations concerning the fatal
consequences of annual leases of the lands; that in so doing the said Warren Hastings did
not hold himself bound or restrained by the orders of the Court of Directors, but acted upon
his own discretion; and that he has, for partial and interested purposes, exercised that
discretion in particular instances against his own general settlement for one year, by
granting perpetual leases of farms and zemindaries to persons specially favored by him, and
particularly by granting a perpetual lease of the zemindary of Baharbund to his servant
Cantoo Baboo on very low terms.

That in all the preceding transactions the said Warren Hastings did act contrary to his duty
as Governor of Fort William, contrary to the orders of his employers, and contrary to his
own declared sense of expediency, consistency, and justice, and thereby did harass and
afflict the inhabitants of the provinces with perpetual changes in the system and execution
of the government placed over them, and with continued innovations and exactions, against
the rights of the said inhabitants,—thereby destroying all security to private property, and
all confidence in the good faith, principles, and justice of the British government. And that
the said Warren Hastings, having substituted his own instruments to be the managers and
collectors of the public revenue, in the manner hereinbefore mentioned, did act in manifest
breach and defiance of an act of the 13th of his present Majesty, by which the ordering and

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